# data[].attributes.headline
Rigorous Language Games in Multiple Modalities

# data[].attributes.subject
Rigorous Language Games in Multiple Modalities

# data[].attributes.body
Fun classroom games for language learning!

# data[].attributes.headline
Guided Language Acquisition Design Resource Book

# data[].attributes.subject
Guided Language Acquisition Design Resource Book

# data[].attributes.body
Multiple activities, routines and instructional practices that structures and develops language.

# data[].attributes.body
Writing, listening, speaking, reading, oh MY!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All students are capable of acquiring language. Discover training and curriculum that empower teachers and learners to unlock potential.

# data[].attributes.headline
10 Multimodal Classroom Activities for Content Teachers

# data[].attributes.subject
10 Multimodal Classroom Activities for Content Teachers

# data[].attributes.body
Jump to slides 7-12 for the strategies.

# data[].attributes.body
Mr. Nemenz models how to complete a graphic organizer. In this task, students are identifying a literary device used in a poem and justifying how it effects the central idea of the poem. This class includes Level 1-3 EL newcomers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nemenz - Modeling Tasks for Newcomer ELs.mp4

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
CTL - Collaborative for Teaching and Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Circle the Sage - CTL - Collaborative for Teaching and Learning

# data[].attributes.body
Use a gallery walk or collaborative annotation to introduce new texts, concepts or themes. Use visuals instead of text to gauge student understanding.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A gallery walk activity gets students moving as they explore a range of documents, images, or student work displayed around the classroom.

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A gallery walk activity gets students moving as they explore a range of documents, images, or student work displayed around the classroom.

# data[].attributes.headline
Making Content Connections with Everyday Objects/Concepts

# data[].attributes.subject
Making Content Connections with Everyday Objects/Concepts

# data[].attributes.body
Instead of a visual, consider 3-D objects that show students a concept brought to life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Making the connection: Vascular plants and straws

# data[].attributes.body
Using real objects and artifacts to elicit prior knowledge and build student's background knowledge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using realia to build background knowledge

# data[].attributes.body
The power of semantic mapping - allowing students to visualize words and connections to concepts, ideas, and meanings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Use K-W-L charts to help students assess what they already know about a topic and what they want to learn.

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Use K-W-L charts to help students assess what they already know about a topic and what they want to learn.

# data[].attributes.body
Extend this activity by adding "Connect" or "Predict" and asking students to make connections or predictions based on the image or prompt.

# data[].attributes.body
Graphic organizer to use when doing the S-T-W-C activity.

# data[].attributes.body
Structured semantic maps around topics, ideas or concepts.

# data[].attributes.body
A six-step process based on Marzano's vocabulary learning.

# data[].attributes.body
A graphic organizer for academic language vocabulary words.

# data[].attributes.body
Add some social-emotional spice to the old See-Think-Wonder activity.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/text-text-text-self-text-world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Structure an active class discussion in which students express their opinions by standing along a continuum.

Advisory

Civics & Citizenship

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

- Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Barometer: Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Structure an active class discussion in which students express their opinions by standing along a continuum.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Kagan Cooperative Learning - Dr. Spencer Kagan and Miguel Kagan

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Kagan Cooperative Learning - Dr. Spencer Kagan and Miguel Kagan

# data[].attributes.body
Help students track a classroom discussion or take notes about a text. Students use their notes to guide their dialogue in class.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Use this teaching strategy to help students learn how to take notes by identifying "key ideas" in one column and their "responses" in another column.

Advisory

Civics & Citizenship

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

- Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Use this teaching strategy to help students learn how to take notes by identifying "key ideas" in one column and their "responses" in another column. Advisory Civics & Citizenship English & Language Arts History Social Studies Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

# data[].attributes.body
Debates require robust scaffolding, but enormous wins for students. Allow students to script their debates, statements and rebuttals and use the activity as an opportunity to practice speaking publicly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A class debate can be a fun and challenging way to encourage class interaction, review vocabulary, and develop speaking fluency. With a solid lesson plan and good moderating skills, your debate will be a success and well-appreciated by your students.

Here are some tips to get you started!

-Get the best training with the 250-hour TESOL Diploma!-

Topic: Make it Interesting

Choose a topic that your students will likely be interested in (Something that affects their lives directly). Draw upon their common experiences: school, work, family, technology, language-learning, etc. Don't choose a dull topic just because your students have a lower level; one can form an opinion on a variety of issues without sophisticated vocabulary. A little controversy is a good thing here, but mind the potential cultural differences of your class and don't risk deeply offending anyone. Choose a topic that easily generates a lot of ideas, and think about your topic yourself before the class!

Dividing the Class

The class should be divided evenly. You may start by surveying the actual opinion of students on the topic, and divide students according to their real preferences, but an arbitrary assignment of students to opposing sides will force all students to see both sides of the question, which is important. Choose one or two group leaders for each group. This leader will take notes when the opposing team speaks, and organize the main ideas of their own team's turns during the preparation rounds.

Structure: Keep it Simple

There are some possibilities for how structure your debate into stages depending on how much classroom time you have to work with. Whatever stages you choose, make sure your students have enough time to meet the expectations of the debate; a little time pressure is a good motivator, but cutting off your students mid-sentence will not aid their fluency.

A basic plan for a 1-hour debate might look like this:

Preparation (7-10 min) - Introductory Remarks Team A / Team B (3-5 min each)

- first arguments; in turns

Preparation (7-10 min) - Rebuttal Team A / Team B (3-5 min each)

- response to first arguments; in turns

Preparation (5 min) - Open discussion (simultaneous) (7-10 min)

- interactive discussion of the introduction and rebuttal points

Preparation (5 min) - Conclusion (3 min)

- restatement of the strongest arguments from all previous stages; in turns

Moderator's Comments

As you can see, there is a preparation stage before each performance stage. The preparatory stages can get shorter as the debate concludes, as the opinions at later stages are being repeated and refined rather than invented.

All students should have to speak. The group leader should make sure that everyone has a point to deliver during the speaking stages. If the groups are large, the speaking duties can be divided among the number of rounds.

Moderating: Moderate, Don't Dominate!

The teacher in the class moderates the debate. Here are some do's and don'ts of debate moderating.

DO's

Regularly inform students of time limitations

Take an opportunity to summarize the main points after the introduction and rebuttal rounds if it seems necessary

Help struggling students to formulate their opinions by feeding them key words or eliciting their intended meaning

Be available to the students during the preparation stages to offer vocab, etc.

Push students to be on task if their conversation strays during the preparation rounds

DON'TS

Rush students when they are speaking, or interfere with your own ideas

Become the centre of attention during debate rounds; students are to pay full attention to the opposing team only

Make your personal opinions obvious during the debate; be impartial.

Final Tips - Teaching Speaking Skills with Debates

Stand behind the listening team to focus the speaking team on their audience

Use an online or physical timer to help you keep track, but allow extra minutes as needed

Offer some key phrases to help students argue for or against ideas during the debate; provide a handout or use the whiteboard for reference

Remind your students to be natural in speaking, as if they were debating these ideas over a drink with a friend

Review the main ideas and major speaking difficulties at the end of the debate

Ask your students who they thought won the debate and why

OnTESOL - Professional TESOL certification courses recognized by TESL Canada and Related Articles: Large ESL Classes: Tips and Tricks for Teaching Speaking Skills How to Encourage a Great Discussion in an English Conversation Class Taboo Topics in an English Conversation Class
Related Posts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Use Debates in the ESL Classroom to Teach Speaking Skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A class debate can be a fun and challenging way to encourage class interaction, review vocabulary, and develop speaking fluency. With a solid lesson plan and good moderating skills, your debate will be a success and well-appreciated by your students. Here are some tips to get you started!

# data[].attributes.headline
Structuring Academic Output (Writing and Speaking) for Experienced Multilinguals

# data[].attributes.subject
Structuring Academic Output (Writing and Speaking) for Experienced Multilinguals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
John Steinbeck, US novelist (1902 - 1968)

Background

When I mentored student teachers I told them, "If I could offer one piece of advice for every teacher - it would be to do think-pair-shares in the class every day." The think-pair-share is a very simple, yet effective technique that allows ELL students time to process their thoughts - often in two languages - which takes more time.

To understand how this works, imagine you are an ELL student and the teacher has just asked the class a question such as, "Why did the ancient Egyptians create pyramids?" Immediately students around the room shoot up their hands and offer answers. As an ELL student, you are still searching your memory banks to translate the words "ancient" and "pyramids." You've finally got the meaning, now you are thinking about the possible answers - again searching your memory for what you've learned in class and read in the textbook. You think you have a viable answer, but you're not sure if it's right or exactly how to say it, and if you make a mistake others might laugh at you.

At this point you may decide to offer an answer, but the teacher has already moved on and asked two new questions. The average wait time for teacher questions is one second! For an ELL student it may become a habit to sit back and listen while others engage in class discussion. While listening to the discussion, the ELL student may or may not understand what is said, and the teacher may be hesitant to call on the student in order to avoid embarrassment.

Steps of a Think-Pair-Share

This kind of situation, where both the student and teacher are hesitating to increase interaction, is the reason why think-pair-share is so effective!

In a think-pair-share, students are given think time to reflect on a question silently, so that they have more time to process the question, the language, or think of the language needed to convey the answer. By then discussing their answer with a partner and the class, students have the opportunity for increased interaction, and teachers can monitor comprehension. In order to use this activity, follow these steps:

Ask a thought-provoking question of your class.

Give students some time to think about the question on their own, as well as the language they will need to respond.

Have students share their thoughts with a partner; this gives the students the opportunity to 'check out' their answer with another student or hear another possible answer. If confused, the students can ask their peers for help.

Finally, ask students to share thoughts with the whole group, which serves as a form of accountability for the students. In this discussion/explanation, the teacher gets feedback on what the students do or don't know though informal assessment.

In the example given above, the teacher asks the class,
"Why did the ancient Egyptians create pyramids? Let's do a "think-pair-share." Everyone take a moment and think about the question."
The room is silent for a minute while everyone reflects. At this time the ELL students may be putting together language and content concepts. Next the teacher instructs the students,
"Now turn to the person next to you and tell them what you are thinking."
The ELL student has an opportunity to offer his/her idea in a relatively comfortable setting - perhaps with grammatical errors - or to get more information from his/her partner. This can reinforce the student's confidence in his/her thinking and provide modeling for how to say the idea correctly in English. The teacher lets students share for a couple of minutes and then brings their attention back.
"Okay, I heard lots of good ideas. Who would like to share what you talked about?"
At this point, when students offer an answer, they have had some time to work with the concepts and also may feel that they are not offering the idea "on their own" but as part of a pair, which may not seem so intimidating.

Benefits

A benefit of the think-pair-share is that the teacher has an opportunity to hear from many students - including the "quiet" ones. I have seen some of my shyest students offer wonderful answers after they had an opportunity to do a think-pair-share. It also gives the teacher the opportunity to observe all the students as they interact in pairs and get an idea of whether all students understand the content or if there are areas that need to be reviewed.

Circle Chat

A "circle chat" is another activity for student-to-student interaction that is a little more involved, but always fun and informative. In this activity every student speaks with a variety of partners, which allows for greater exposure to other thoughts and students. I have often used this as a pre-writing exercise to really get my students' imaginations going. Here is a step-by-step guide to the activity. It may be a bit confusing the first time you try it, but once the students get the hang of it, you'll be able to start it easily. For younger students the teacher may want to ask simple questions and make the discussion time much shorter.

Clear a space in the room large enough for all the students to stand together in two concentric circles.

Take the total number of students in the room and divide it by half. This is the number of students you will call forward. Let's say in this example it is 10 students.

The 10 students stand in a circle.

Call the next 10 students to come forward and form a circle around the first circle of students.

Tell the students in the inside circle to turn around and face their new partner in the outside circle. Everyone should have a partner. (If there is an odd number of students the teacher may form one group with three students).

The students will have two minutes to talk to their partners about the question they are asked. The teacher will want to use a bell or another sign to get the students' attention when the two minutes are up.

At the two minute signal, the teacher asks student in the outside circle (make sure students understand that only the "outside" circle moves) to take one step to the left. Now each student has a new partner to talk to.

Continue this process - asking a new question each time new pairs are formed - until the students have worked their way around the circle.

This activity is quite noisy and usually generates energy and laughter. For some pairs - quieter students, emerging English speakers, or those without much to share on the question - the conversation may be short and teachers may observe them standing quietly waiting for the bell to signal a change to a new partner. This is okay, because new partners and new questions bring new opportunities to interact. Teachers may also enjoy circulating among pairs as they talk in order to hear what great ideas students are sharing.

Conclusion

Creating an interactive classroom environment is very important to the success of ELL students. Just as it would be difficult to become a good piano player by listening to someone play, with no opportunity of your own to practice, ELL students need more opportunities to practice language skills in an academic environment in order to become more successful students. When teachers create a variety of opportunities for students to interact and use English, language and content learning is accelerated.
Icebreakers for Students
On About.com's Secondary Education website, you can find many icebreaker ideas for starting the school year and new classes. Many activities can be used for the elementary level, as well.
National Geographic Photography
This site offers many intriguing photos, including a photo of the day, news photos, photo gallery, and short video clips. These can be useful for supporting content instruction, fostering dialogue with emerging English speakers, and creating writing prompts.
Interactive Classroom Activities
Provides ideas for a variety of interactive student activities, such as information gap, ordering and sorting, problem-solving, and conversation grids.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Increase Student Interaction with "Think-Pair-Shares" and "Circle Chats"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." John Steinbeck, US novelist (1902 - 1968) When I mentored student teachers I told them, "If I could offer one piece of advice for every teacher - it would be to do think-pair-shares in the class every day."

# data[].attributes.body
Amazing structures and routines for routine academic discussions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.body
Have students use translanguaging and translation to discuss/summarize a text.

# data[].attributes.body
This routine provides structure for a conversation. It can be used as both a discourse and as a thinking/writing routine.

# data[].attributes.body
A structured discussion about a text by students analyzing their connections, challenges, concepts and changes.

# data[].attributes.body
If the 4 C's aren't your thing, you will love the 4 A's! Students discuss a text based on 4 A prompts.

# data[].attributes.body
This higher level discussion activity asks students to consider audience and multiple ways of describing concepts.

# data[].attributes.body
Print and post in your classroom!

# data[].attributes.body
Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11NttOvG58TwBzR1GtORUvb9BI8U2YPq67DoTuuP7LrI/edit?usp=sharing

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Kagan Cooperative Learning - Dr. Spencer Kagan and Miguel Kagan

# data[].attributes.body
1 minute of writing, followed by 4 minutes of turn and talk.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Strategy OverviewHow This Strategy Supports Language DevelopmentSentence frames and sentence starters are a helpful way to support students’ academic language development both in their writing and speaking by prompting students to discuss content with more complex structures and thinking. Using these structures allows students to focus on the content concepts or skill without providing the answers. They also indirectly teach how content-specific language appears in context.Sentence frames can be used for writing and in discussions.

# data[].attributes.body
Topic, Introduction of Quote, Quote, Analysis of Quote.

# data[].attributes.body
Several writing strategies for ELs from Colorin Colorado.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine."

- Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii

"Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom. I was a student teacher in a Massachusetts elementary school, and it took me awhile to figure out the correlation between the pencil and hallway behavior. If I replied, "Yes, you should bring a pencil," the walk to my classroom took 15 minutes and involved a lot of disruptions, student squabbles, drifting students and other various misbehaviors. As a student teacher, I was very focused on keeping order and creating a challenging learning environment. If I replied, "No, you don't need a pencil today," the walk to my classroom took about five minutes, even with a stop at the drinking fountain.

So, what was the correlation? Writing. The students knew that if they had to bring a pencil they would have to do writing in the class, and they dreaded it. If they didn't need a pencil, we would be working on projects or doing more verbal work, and they liked that. What they weren't expecting was that half-way through my student teaching, I bought 10 boxes of pencils and kept them in my classroom, so they never had to bring a pencil to class - I had plenty to go around. This improved the hallway behavior, but still left me with the question of how to improve ESL student writing when they were frustrated by the practice and went to great lengths to avoid it.

I have been teaching ESL for many years and there is no perfect solution to this problem; however, I do believe I have added quite a few writing activities to my bag of tricks and improved my ability to differentiate writing tasks based on student ability. As I improved my ability to ensure that each student would be successful in the writing activity, their confidence increased, and they were less likely to engage in disruptive behavior. You know what I'm talking about - the long, dramatic search for a pencilâ€¦ and then paperâ€¦ or the meandering walk about the room to get yesterday's writing draft, or the ever popular, "15 minute pencil sharpening" session. I hope some of the writing activities I share with you will help you to reduce anxiety in your ESL students and increase their language and writing skills.

There is a very important correlation between writing and language development. As students develop language skills, they often develop listening skills first (lots of input they can understand), then speaking (they begin to formulate their ideas in the second language), then reading (they can understand the sound/symbol correspondence of the new language and make sense of the words) and finally writing (they have enough language to express their own ideas in writing). This is not true for 100% of language learners, but it is true for the majority of them. Why is writing often the last skill to emerge? It almost seems that reading would be more difficult because the student needs to sound out words and understand the author's message. It would seem writing might be easier because students are sharing their own ideas already in their heads and simply putting them on paper. However, writing requires a lot more processing of language in order to produce a message.

First the student must have an idea, then think of the appropriate way to say it, then start to write it and spell it correctly, and then create another sentence to continue to communicate the idea. If we add the students' worry that they are making huge, embarrassing errors or that their ideas aren't very good in the first place, then we begin to understand the complexity involved in writing in a second language. In fact, the way we communicate, or the way students put their ideas on paper, is largely influenced by their culture. In some of my classes, my Asian students were very confused when I told them to revise their writing because this was a "first draft." In their experience they had always written an item once and submitted it as "the final," and then the teacher would correct it. The idea that they had to write it over again didn't make sense to them. Students from other cultures may have developed a storytelling style that involves laying out a lot of background information and detail and takes quite a while to get to the point. In most western writing, we expect a topic sentence or a lead paragraph that will tell us what the point is, and then everything written after that leads to a direct conclusion. Many of my students had great difficulty connecting their ideas this way.

With that said, teachers have a big task in improving ESL student writing skills, but the payoff for instructional dedication can be great. A researcher on adolescent literacy at the University of Minnesota, David O'Brien, did a study on improving the reading skills of adolescent students. All of the students were involved in a six week study and during that time they were responsible for creating brochures and other types of communication on computers. They had criteria to input a certain amount of text and graphics to create a final project. This required lots of thought and revisions to achieve the final result. At the end of the six weeks the students took a reading test and the majority of them had improved their reading skills significantly. This was a very interesting result, considering that the teachers had not focused on teaching reading skills. The conclusion was that students used meta-cognition to process language and work with it in a more meaningful way, so that consequently their reading skills improved even though they were mostly working on writing.

Additional positive academic results have been seen in the "90 90 90 Schools." These are schools that researchers have identified as 90% poverty, 90% students of color and 90% achieving standards. This is a most remarkable combination in the educational world. The researchers examined these schools and found one common denominator among them - they all focused on developing writing skills. Each school had an agreed upon writing curriculum and methodology that was used at all grade levels, and student writing was prominently displayed throughout the building and in classrooms. Students used writing in all content areas to demonstrate academic concepts learned. In the end, 90% of the students in these schools were able to pass state grade-level tests based on the academic standards.

Now that I have hopefully convinced you that all your hard work will pay off, I would like to introduce some effective writing activities. I would like to acknowledge that there are many types of effective writing instruction used in classrooms today, including process writing, graphic organizers as writing planning tools, vocabulary stretchers, etcâ€¦ and all of those are beneficial to ELL students. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on a few writing activities that I think are particularly useful when working with students with a wide-range of English language skills.

How to differentiate writing activities:

With some pre-planning, a teacher can create a writing assignment that will allow every student to be successful. For example, the teacher may give a writing assignment that has A, B and C levels (or they can be number or color-coded).

ELL students at Level A copy a sentence or short passage exactly as it is written. This helps beginning-level students who are not very familiar with the language, but may be able to interpret some of the information as they copy it.

Level B students receive a paragraph or two that has blank spaces in the text. The students write the word or phrase that completes the sentence. This allows the student to write an amount that is not overwhelming and helps them comprehend the information.

Level C students write on their own, but perhaps they receive paragraph prompts or are allowed to look in a book, but must put the idea in their own words. After some practice with this system and getting to know your students' English language skills, you will be able to create a system that works best for your class.

Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach draws on instructional techniques used with younger children who have not yet developed literacy skills. In this approach, the teacher presents information to the students, or they have an "experience" of some sort - for example, a field trip, or acting out a scene in a book. Then the students tell the teacher what to write on the board to explain the experience. This may be useful as an activity for a volunteer or teacher's aide to use with a small group of ESL students during literacy time. Here are the steps.

Experience something - for example, the students have listened to the story, "The Little Red Hen" and then acted it out.

The teacher stands by the board or a large sheet of paper and says to the students, "Tell me the story of the Little Red Hen."

As each student tells a part of the story, the teacher writes it down on the board, just as it was stated. For example, a student might say, "The Little Red Hen work so hard and nobody want help her." This continues until each student has spoken or the story is finished.

Then the teacher tells the students, "Let's read the story together and listen to see if the story makes sense and if there is anything we want to change."

After reading the story, the teacher asks students if they want to change anything. For example, one student may raise her hand and say, "I think it should say, "worked" not "work." The teacher may ask other students if they agree or disagree.

If the suggested change is correct, the teacher offers praise and moves on to the next suggestion. If the suggested change is not correct, the teacher should help the student analyze the suggested change. For example, if the student says, "I think it should say, â€˜The Little Red Hen she worked so hardâ€¦." The teacher would ask if others agree and see if there is discussion, then the teacher could point out that the Little Red Hen is the pronoun or "name," so in English we don't need to put it in twice. We can say "She worked so hard." Or "The Little Red Hen worked so hard."

When students have analyzed and corrected the whole text, the teacher may either circle a few more spots where students missed corrections and they can be challenged to figure out what the change should be, or the students can be instructed to copy the text with the corrections included.

As a final activity, students are instructed to take the story home and read it to three people and bring it back with signatures.

After this activity, usually even beginning-level ELL students are able to read the story to others because it was their experience, it is in their own words, and they have worked with the text in a meaningful way.

Sentence Auction

This activity helps students analyze common writing errors through a personalized activity since they are trying to buy their own sentences. Once a week or once a month, a teacher can hold a "Sentence Auction." The teacher takes sentence examples from student writing - some of which have errors and some that don't, and writes them on a handout or overhead projector. The identity of the student who wrote each sentence is not revealed. To begin the sentence auction, each student is given an "account" of perhaps $300. The students are told to "bid" on the good sentences. The winner is the student with the highest number of "good" sentences.

The teacher takes on the persona of an "Auctioneer" and opens the bidding at $10.

The teacher reads out the sentence confidently exactly as it is written. "Him want to go to school very bad." Who will give me $10?"

The students take turns bidding until the teacher decides who has "won" the bid.

Some sentences will not sell because students will know they are "bad." Just leave those sentences and move to the next one.

After all the sentences have been sold, the teacher goes through the list and the students say whether the sentence was good or bad. If they agree that it was a bad sentence, then the teacher asks them to explain how they can make it a "good" sentence.

Finally the students can count how many "good" sentences they have (since they may have bought some bad ones) and a winner is declared.

The teacher may want to give a little prize or certificate to the student. In a variation of this activity students can work in pairs or groups to buy the sentences.

Error correction

I have never "corrected" my students' writing mistakes, at least not in the traditional way. I have always told my students, "If I correct your English, I improve my English; if you correct your English, you improve yours." I handled corrections in one of two ways: either I identified what errors I would be looking for in the writing submission or I told them I would only circle five errors in the whole paper. If I pre-set the errors I would look for, for example correct use of past tense, I would only correct past tense errors, even if I saw other glaring errors in the paper. Sometimes this was hard to do, but I wanted to maintain the students' focus on the writing improvement we were working on. If I set a number of errors I would circle, for example, five, then I carefully chose those five and ignored the rest. When I returned the papers, the students were responsible for correcting their own mistakes. If they weren't sure how to do it, they could check with a classmate, and if no one knew, then I would assist. Invariably the students would ask, "Are these the only errors in the paper?" and I would tell them no. They might be disappointed, but they came to understand the value of correcting their own errors when they submitted a piece of writing.

Quick Write

One of the challenges for ELL students when they approach writing is their anxiety about writing their ideas correctly and writing a lot of information in English. This may feel overwhelming when a student is assigned an essay. In order to get students comfortable with the idea of just putting ideas on paper and not worrying about mistakes, we do regular "quick writes." For "quick writes" I give the students a topic and then tell them to write as much as they can for five minutes. They need to keep their pencils on the paper and even if they can't think of anything to write or they are worried about how to spell things, they are supposed to keep writing. At the end of five minutes, the students count how many words they were able to write and they keep track in a log. The objective is that they will see progress in the amount of writing they are able to do in five minutes' time and hopefully apply this fluency to their essay writing.

Cinquain poems

Cinquain poems offer great flexibility in working with ELL students of a variety of language levels. The basic Cinquain formula is as follows, but teachers can modify it as needed according to the student language level.

One noun
Two adjectives
Three gerunds (words + ing)
A short sentence.
A one-word summary
An example of a Cinquain a student might write:
Home
Warm, happy
Loving, welcoming, helping
People you love.
Family

There really is no wrong way to do a Cinquain, students can put key vocabulary words together any way they like to create the message they desire. Teachers may want to use Cinquains to reinforce new content vocabulary and concepts as well.

With these writing activities to try in your classroom, the only thing left is to buy a few boxes of pencils, hand them out to your ELL students and help them discover the possibility of joy in writing. Teachers who use a variety of activities and strategies to help ELL students become comfortable with expressing their ideas in a new language and finding success with small writing tasks, will give their students' confidence for a lifetime of self-expression. I offer this Cinquain poem to sum it up.

Writing
Fun, creative
Thinking, sharing, revising
Lots of ideas.
Proud
The TESL Reading and Writing Forum
A forum to share teaching tips, handouts, syllabi, lesson plans and more!
Make Beliefs Comix
Make Beliefs Comix, created by acclaimed "Make Beliefs" author Bill Zimmerman, allows kids to create their own comics in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin.
LD OnLine: What is Dysgraphia?
This article from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, featured on LD OnLine, discusses dysgraphia and its warning signs, as well as strategies for addressing it for different age groups.
Reading Rockets: Writing Webcast
Reading Rockets webcast featuring Dr. Steven Graham, Dr. Louisa Moats, and Dr. Susan Neuman. These three renowned reading and writing experts address why writing is important, what the latest research tells us, and what educators and parents can do to support our children's development as writers.
Reading Rockets: Teaching Plot Structure with Picture Books
Use picture books to teach young writers how to organize plot logically. This article includes examples of basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures.
Reading Rockets: An Introduction to Letter Writing
This article from My Child Magazine, featured on Reading Rockets, offers samples of different styles of letters (from thank-you notes to letters to Santa) and style guidelines that children can follow.
ESL Writing Wizard: Handwriting Practice
This site lets you create your own handouts of words that students can practice writing. The paper is lined and the word is outlined in small dot print. Good for ELL students developing initial literacy skills.
ReadWriteThink: Comic Creator
ReadWriteThink offers a variety of fun, interactive writing activities, including the Comic Creator. Students can fill in comics with their own words and storylines.
PIZZAZ: Cinquain poems
A poetry site designed to assist instruction of ESL students in poetry and other creative writing forms. The site has links and detailed information on poetry such as Cinquain, Diamante, Haiku and Limericks. It also has further information on other types of creative writing and tips for instruction.
TeacherVision: Language Arts Graphic Organizers
These graphic organizers can be used to prepare for a five-paragraph essay, organize sentences in a paragraph, map concepts and events, compare topics with a Venn Diagram, organize notes for a presentation, create a double-entry journal, and much more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine." - Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii "Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
High leverage sentence expansion activity for students of all levels.

# data[].attributes.body
A writing activity that incorporates listening, speaking, and reading through collaboration

# data[].attributes.headline
Structuring Academic Output (Writing and Speaking) for Experienced Multilinguals

# data[].attributes.subject
Structuring Academic Output (Writing and Speaking) for Experienced Multilinguals

# data[].attributes.body
Presentation by Tan Huynh with instructional strategies and activities to structure academic output.

# data[].attributes.body
The routine provides learners with a structure for identifying key ideas and committing them to memory, after reading a text.

# data[].attributes.body
This can be used as a writing or discussion strategy. After reading a text, students can reflect on their expanded learning.