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Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs (Part 1)

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Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs (Part 1)

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In this week's post, I'll circle back to another theme from Tim Shanahan's fascinating article called " Letting the Text Take Center Stage" ( American Educator, Fall 2013). As you may recall from my previous posts, Shanahan's article explores the issues of background knowledge and text-dependent questions (TDQs) as they relate to the Common Core.

Back in December, the article inspired me to write a post about the intersection between background knowledge, the Common Core, and ELLs. This time, I want to examine some ideas for using text-dependent questions with ELLs. Since I'm a big fan of writing two-part blog posts, first I'll outline some big picture issues in terms of what TDQs are and some considerations in writing TDQs for ELLs.

In Part 2, I'll share some sample TDQs for ELLs in 2nd grade based on authentic text, and in Part 3, I'll share examples of TDQs for 8th grade. (If you have any TDQs you'd like to share, please send them to me at [email protected]!)

What TDQs Are

The CCSS call for students to use texts to cite evidence in their claims and analyses. In order for them to do so, teachers will need to ask their students text-dependent questions, or questions that cannot be answered without having read the text on which the questions are based. Text-dependent questions do not rely on students' background knowledge or information that is extraneous to the text. This idea can be evaluated by giving students test questions without the text in order to see if they can correctly answer the questions (Tuinman, 1973). Text-dependent questions help ensure students' comprehension of the text as well as help students focus on the text's academic vocabulary and sentence structures.

However, the CCSS also emphasize the need for text-dependent questions to be relevant to the meaning of the text and not merely random questions based on the text. Shanahan (2013) explains that a quick glance at the types of text-dependent questions found on the Internet reveals that, although educators understand how to develop questions based on a specific text, they do not necessarily understand how to develop text-dependent questions that matter in terms of leading students to comprehend the layers of a text.

Criteria for Creating TDQs

Shanahan shares two overarching criteria for creating TDQs in his article, which I've reframed into - what else - questions that you can ask yourself and colleagues.
Q: Does the answer to the question depend on the text?
A: Students must have to refer to the text, not their own background knowledge, to answer the TDQ. However, not all questions that depend on the text for their answer are important within each text. The CCSS emphasizes the text above everything else in discussions. Shanahan warns that discussions around TDQs should not turn into "quiz show trivia." For example, the question "What thing did the godmother turn into a coach?" from the Cinderella story certainly does refer to the text. However, the answer isn't that important for students to gain a deeper understanding of the text.
Q: Is the question worth asking?
A: This criterion is a bit more complicated. Shanahan uses the framework of the CCSS to help outline three types of TDQs that align to each of three close readings of a text. To him, well-drafted text-dependent questions require students not only to demonstrate their understanding of key ideas and details, but also to speak to the craft and structure of the text and demonstrate the ability to integrate knowledge and ideas.

1. In the first reading of the text, teachers should craft questions that focus on the key ideas and details from the text. They should focus on the important information that can only be determined through reading the text.

2. In the second reading of the text, teachers should write questions that hone in on the craft and structure of the text so students can further interpret the text. That is, they should develop questions that have students focus on such issues as how the text said what it said and how the author organized the information.

3. In the third reading of the text, TDQs should focus on the integration of knowledge and ideas. TDQs should serve to guide students to critically evaluate a text and can focus on such themes as the meaning of the text, the author's point, and how this text's ideas and approach compare with those of other texts.

Criteria for creating TDQs for ELLs

In doing a little research for this post, I came across some resources from Achieve the Core on creating TDQs. However, I quickly noticed that these resources appear to be intended for native speakers of English. So, I adapted these guidelines to add some considerations for using them with emergent bilinguals and ELLs.

Achieve the Core Guideline

ELL Interpretation/Suggestion

Think about what you think is the most important learning to be drawn from the text. Note this as raw material for the culminating assignment and the focus point for other activities to build toward.

Depending on their level of English language proficiency, ELLs will need different amounts of scaffolding to comprehend the text on a deep level. ELLs may require some additional steps to get to this level of learning.

Determine the key ideas of the text. Create a series of questions structured to bring the reader to an understanding of these.

ELLs might need to be provided some concise background knowledge to access the key ideas of the text. TDQs will need to be scaffolded so that ELLs at different levels of English language proficiency can understand them. ELLs might need sentence frames or sentence starters to support their answers to the questions.

Locate the most powerful academic words in the text and integrate questions and discussions that explore their role into the set of questions above.

Teachers of ELLs will need to decide which academic words to teach ELLs. Some resources include Colorin Colorado's " Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach ELLs "and the University of Nottingham, New Zealand's Academic Word List Highlighter.

Take stock of what standards are being addressed in the series of questions above. Then decide if any other standards are suited to being a focus for this text. If so, form questions that exercise those standards.

In addition to Common Core standards, English language proficiency/development standards will also need to guide the creation of TDQs. ESL teachers will need to collaborate with content teachers to help them integrate English language proficiency/development standards into their TDQs.

Consider if there are any other academic words that students would profit from focusing on. Build discussion planning or additional questions to focus attention on them.

Teachers of ELLs will need to decide which other academic words to teach ELLs. They must be careful not to teach too many words in the text or ELLs could become overwhelmed.

Find the sections of the text that will present the greatest difficulty and craft questions that support students in mastering these sections. These could be sections with difficult syntax, particularly dense information, and tricky transitions or places that offer a variety of possible inferences.

The sections of text that will present the greatest difficulty to ELLs may differ from those which will present the greatest difficulty for non-ELLs. Teachers should analyze the academic language found in each text and teach the academic language to the ELLs - as well as the non-ELLs.

Develop a culminating activity around the idea or learning identified in #1. A good task should reflect mastery of one or more of the standards, involve writing, and be structured to be done by students independently.

The culminating activity should incorporate CCSS as well as English language proficiency/development standards for ELLs. Classroom-based assessments should be scaffolded so that ELLs can demonstrate what they know and can do. In order for ELLs to take part in the task, they will need scaffolding in order to do so. The amount and type of scaffolding needed will depend on their level of English proficiency.

I hope you've found this initial post on what TDQs are and some criteria for creating them for ELLs to be helpful. I look forward to sharing some examples of TDQs for ELLs next week. Please do take a look at any TDQs you've written or have seen that you think meet the criteria above, and send me samples for next week's post!

TDQ Resources

Achieve the Core: Text-Dependent Question Resources

Shanahan, T. (2013). Letting the text take center stage: How the Common Core State Standards will transform English language arts instruction. American Educator, 37.

Tuinman, J. (1973). Determining the passage dependency of comprehension questions in 5 major tests. Reading Research Quarterly, 9(2), 206-223.

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Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs (Part 1)

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I want to examine some ideas for using text-dependent questions with ELLs. Since I'm a big fan of writing two-part blog posts, first I'll outline some big picture issues in terms of what TDQs are and some considerations in writing TDQs for ELLs.

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Determining How Much Background Knowledge to Provide to ELs

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Determining How Much Background Knowledge to Provide to ELs

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This week, I'd like to focus on a topic that is getting a lot of attention in Common Core conversations: the role of background knowledge in reading instruction for ELLs. You may recall that close reading is one of the major shifts of the CCSS. I've been interested in the role that background knowledge plays in the close reading of text and wrote a post about it a few months ago. It's an issue that teachers, district leaders, policymakers, and curriculum writers seem to continue to struggle with when considering how best to teach ELLs within a CCSS-based framework.

I've heard opinions that span both ends of the continuum when it comes to deciding how much background knowledge is appropriate for ELLs - from no background knowledge whatsoever (and exclusive attention on the text) all the way to extensive preparation about the subject of the text, the author, or other topics that relate to the text.

"Letting the Text Take Center Stage"

There is a new article that can help shed more light on the role of background knowledge within the Common Core. It's titled " Letting the Text Take Center Stage" and was written by Tim Shanahan for the American Federation of Teachers' Fall 2013 American Educator magazine. Some state-level educators referred to the article a number of times at a meeting I recently attended, so I decided to give it a read. The article clearly describes some of the major relevant themes with reading in the CCSS and presents guidance that will be helpful to teachers.

In this post, I'll highlight some information from Shanahan's article about background knowledge. I'll then share a table and flow chart adapted from the article that will help you decide how much background knowledge to teach to ELLs. You can use these tools to make the process of figuring out how much background knowledge to teach a little less subjective.

A Little Background on Tim Shanahan

What better way to start than with some background knowledge on our featured author? In case you're not familiar with him, Tim Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Urban Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is an expert on ELL literacy. (He has also served as an adviser to Colorín Colorado.) His stance on background knowledge for all students falls along the continuum I referenced earlier.

In this particular blog post, he says that readers use what they know to interpret text, which supports teaching background knowledge where necessary. However, even though students use what they know when they read, he tempers his position on background knowledge by stating that any pre-reading activities should "give students as little preparation as required to engage with the text." In other words, providing students with background knowledge can't take the place of them making meaning from the text itself. This is especially true if the teacher is going to work with a text over time to help students understand it deeply.

Matching Kids to Texts and the Role of the ESL Teacher

In his article, Shanahan observes that, before the CCSS, English Language Arts content standards usually ignored the fact that some texts are harder to read than others. Until now, he writes, teachers have been taught to give students books at their instructional level. The CCSS constitute a reversal of that practice. Shanahan says there is not a firm base of research to support matching kids to texts. He says that while the student and text level do matter, the amount a teacher can support or scaffold a text is also important. (This should come as no surprise for ESL teachers!)

He says, "Under the CCSS, students will be more frustrated by challenging texts, and this means other instructional supports will be needed to help and encourage them along this path. Teachers must learn to anticipate text challenges and how to support students to allow them to negotiate texts successfully, but without doing the work for them." The needed expertise he outlines is exactly the kind of skill set many ESL teachers bring to the classroom. For example, Lily Wong Fillmore supports analyzing texts and spending time unpacking what she calls " juicy sentences."

If ESL teachers help content teachers in the ways Shanahan outlines, they'd be one step closer to fulfilling TESOL International Association's vision for the new role of the ESL teacher in the CCSS as expert, consultant, and advocate. However, ESL teachers may still need support in not doing all the work for their students so ELLs can gain more responsibility in negotiating texts.

Areas of Background Knowledge

Shanahan outlines two essential areas of background knowledge that teachers can effectively utilize with students. One area is providing background knowledge. Readers need to integrate prior knowledge with text information in order to form a mental representation or memory. This area has gotten more buzz with the CCSS in the context of close reading, as some have incorrectly interpreted this to mean that teachers may not provide any background knowledge at all.

A second area is activating existing prior knowledge. Existing prior knowledge is also a form of background knowledge, and teachers can draw upon what students already know when teaching in a CCSS framework. For example, teachers can use the title of a text as a springboard to help the students make a connection between the title and their existing knowledge of a topic without giving away the text. (See more in this related Colorín Colorado article.)

Deciding How Much Background Knowledge to Provide

When trying to decide how much background knowledge to teach ELLs in particular, it's important to figure out how critical the background knowledge is to ELLs understanding the text, even though that's not always easy to do. When you're considering pre-teaching some background about a text your ELLs will be reading, use the following table and flow chart to help you decide whether to teach this background knowledge. When conceptualizing how much background knowledge ELLs need within the CCSS framework, consider these four elements.

Checklist for Providing Background Knowledge to ELLs in CCSS-Based Instruction

Note: These tools build upon a rubric that Diane August created as part of her ongoing Common Core work in New York State.

Background Knowledge Considerations

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Do non-ELLs have background knowledge on the topic?

Teachers must ensure that ELLs approach the text with comparable levels of background knowledge that non-ELLs already have. If non-ELLs already approach the text with certain background knowledge, teachers should make sure ELLs have the same information. However, non-ELLs (as well as ELLs) will also need background knowledge to comprehend some texts.

Does the background provide information in place of what the author is going to provide in the text?

The background information provided can't give away the text. (No spoilers!) Students must gather information from the text itself instead of learning it from background knowledge the teacher provides. ELLs will still need support and scaffolding to gather information from the text itself. The next two considerations can help both groups of students.

Is the background knowledge about big issues that will help students make sense of the text?

Teachers must focus instruction only on the background knowledge that is critical to ELLs comprehending the text. ELLs don't need to know everything possible related to the topic. For example, ELLs don't need to be pre-taught all the vocabulary they will encounter in a text but will need to know key vocabulary that will help them unlock the meaning of the text.

Is the background knowledge you'd like to provide concise?

The more concise the background information is, the better (e.g., you may wish to reconsider taking an entire class period to build ELLs' background knowledge).For example, you could provide some background knowledge via homework that students complete prior to class time and briefly discuss the background the next day of class.

Another way to work through how much background information to teach to ELLs prior to reading a text is to use the flow chart below.

What are your thoughts and experiences on providing background knowledge to ELLs in CCSS-based instruction? Are you hearing this topic debated or discussed in your local settings? We'd love to hear from you!

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Determining How Much Background Knowledge to Provide for ELLs

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In this post, I'll highlight some information from Tim Shanahan's article about background knowledge in American Educator. I'll then share a table and flow chart adapted from the article that will help you decide how much background knowledge to teach to ELLs.

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This article helps educators understand the role that academic language plays in their classrooms and in ELL student success.

The article also includes information on social vs. academic language, as well as numerous examples of the different kinds of academic language needed for all students to fully participate in classroom activities and assignments. Additional articles, books, and videos can be found in our Academic Language and ELLs Resource Section.

Academic Language: An Overview

Why is academic language important?

Perhaps you or your colleagues have taught a student, who, like Carlos, gave every sign of being fully "fluent" in English, only to find that the student struggled on more academic kinds of assignments.

Many students, including English language learners (ELLs), have difficulty mastering the kinds of academic language needed to succeed in school, especially if they have never been explicitly taught how to use it. These students include long-term ELLs, students who have attended U.S. schools for much or all of their education but have not yet mastered the language of school.

At the same time, many educators have never learned how to teach academic language since language has traditionally been considered the domain of English as a Second Language (ESL) or English language arts teachers. Yet the use of academic language is more important than ever in preparing students for academic and professional success, particularly in the era of rigorous college- and career-ready standards (such as the Common Core State Standards) that require an increased use of academic language in and across all disciplines.

What is your role?

It may seem daunting at first, but you have an important role to play in supporting your students' academic language development. You do not need an in-depth background in linguistics or ESL methods to do so; rather, you need some guidance and practice in learning how to recognize the role academic language plays in your subject area and classroom, as well as support from colleagues who can guide you in your efforts. Many ESL and bilingual colleagues have extensive experience in identifying students' academic language needs and collaborating with colleagues and will be more than happy to do so if asked!

In this article

To get you started, this article shares three things you need to know about academic language:

The difference between social and academic language

The importance of looking beyond vocabulary

How academic language will be used in your classroom

The article will also share recommended resources for further review. For specific instructional strategies on increasing the use of academic language in your classroom, see these ideas from ELL expert Kristina Robertson, as well as the resources at the end of the article, and check in with your ESL/bilingual colleagues for additional suggestions!

The difference between social and academic language

As the example of Carlos above suggests, teachers may be most familiar with the level of students' social language - the language they hear students using with their friends in the hallways or on the playground. Students typically achieve proficiency in social language long before they have mastered a grade-appropriate level of academic language. As a result, a student's ability to use language in social settings is not necessarily an accurate indicator of their mastery of academic language.

What is academic language?

Academic language is the language of school and it is used in textbooks, essays, assignments, class presentations, and assessments. Academic language is used at all grade levels, although its frequency increases as students get older.

It is also the language of the workplace - for example, the language used to write a business letter as opposed to a casual e-mail to a co-worker.

Examples

One strategy that academic language expert Dr. Robin Scarcella uses to help her college students understand the difference between social and academic language is to provide them with similar sentences or passages that convey the same meaning but that are written in different styles, such as the following:

I like this book more.

This story is more exciting than the first one we read.

Because they were brave.

The soldiers received the medal because of their courage.

If you were to compare other kinds of passages or documents, some examples might include:

A business letter vs. a personal e-mail (noted above)

A newspaper's summary of a research report vs. the actual abstract of the report

A customer review of a book vs. the publisher's description of the book

As your students become more familiar with the differences between social and academic language, it will be easier to identify which is which and what is most appropriate for a certain setting. Kristina Roberston notes in her video clip on our academic language playlist that her students call this "sounding smart" - and they know it when they hear it. When they hear themselves "sounding smart," it is a source of excitement and motivation in the classroom.

Additional resources

To learn more about the distinctions between social and academic language, take a look at the following resources from Colorín Colorado:
Discussion questions:

Have you had any students who were proficient in social language but struggled with academic language?

If so, how did their social and academic language use differ?

Did anything in their language abilities surprise you?

What are some examples that could be used to compare social and academic language in your classroom?

Beyond vocabulary

Many people think of vocabulary first when it comes to academic language. While content-area vocabulary words and terms are certainly an important component, academic language also refers to the words and phrases used to connect these key words and to communicate concepts. Here are two different ways to understand a broader interpretation of academic language.

"Bricks and mortar"

Dr. Cindy Lundgren explains the idea of " bricks and mortar" in our academic language video playlist, where "bricks" are the key vocabulary words and concepts in a sentence, and "mortar" is the language (such as signal words and phrases) holding the bricks together. Here is the example she explains in the video:

Even though bats have wings, they are not birds.

In this sentence, the bricks are the key vocabulary words in bold:

Yet to fully understand the sentence, students must understand the meaning of "even though." Here is a sample definition:

"Even though" means that two items are similar, but they are not the same. In this case, bats and birds both share a similar feature (having wings), but they are not the same animal.

Understanding signal words and phrases is a key step in a student's ability to "unlock" the academic language they encounter, as well as to start using it correctly themselves.

Video: Bricks and mortar in language instruction

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the concept of "bricks and mortar" when thinking about effective vocabulary instruction for ELLs.

TWIPs

Debbie Zacarian and Judie Haynes (2010) also look beyond discrete vocabulary words in their academic language definition, including a range of structures they call TWIPs ( Terms, Words, Idioms, and P hrases). Here are some examples:

Note that, in the second example, the "Declaration" is a single word standing in for the official name of a specific document (the Declaration of Independence). Many textbooks used abbreviated terms in the interest of space, which requires students not only to track the references back to the original term but to build on existing background knowledge about the subject being discussesd. ELLs may need some extra preparation to draw upon or build background knowledge in order to fully understand the academic language being used.

Same Word, Different Meaning

Keep in mind that some key words or terms may have different meanings across disciplines and may be used as different parts of speech in different contexts (i.e., noun vs. verbs):

Lunch table (Social language)
Periodic Table of Elements (Science)
Table of Contents (ELA)
Multiplication tables (Math)
To table (delay) the discussion (Social Studies)

Plot of a story (ELA)
Plot of land (Geography)
Plot ordered pairs on a graph (Math)
To plot a government coup (History)

Branch of government (Social Studies)
Branch of a river (Geography)
To branch out (Idiom)

Your foot (Health)
One foot in length (Math)
Foot in your mouth (Idiom)
Foot of the mountain (Geography)
To foot the bill (Idiom)

As you identify the academic language you will be focusing on in a particular lesson, take a moment to think about whether any of the words or phrases may have another definition so that you can anticipate any possible confusion. You may wish to share your list with your ESL colleagues for input as well.

Cognates

Finally, there is a great tool you can use to bolster academic language for students who speak a language related to English. This is the use of cognates - words that have a similar spelling and meaning in both languages. More than a one third of words in English have a Spanish-language cognate! These often include technical or content-specific words that can help students make a connection between both languages, such as the following:

You can see many more in our list of Spanish-English cognates, and your ESL or bilingual colleagues may be able to think of other related examples as well. Once students know how that a connection exists, they will start noticing more words that are related and they will be able to apply their own existing background knowledge about those words to the vocabulary they encounter. They may need some guidance initially, and we provide some tips on how to use cognates in this Colorín Colorado article to help you get started.

Note: There is such a thing as a false cognate, the most famous one being that embarazada in Spanish is not "embarrassed" - it means "pregnant"! It is not a 100% foolproof strategy - but it is generally a very useful tool.
Discussion questions:

What are examples of key vocabulary words, terms, idioms, and phrases that are useful to know in your subject area?

Can you think of some phrases or signal words that are not content specific but are commonly used in your area (such as "In comparison...")?

Looking at the list of cognates from Colorín Colorado, find 10 words related to your subject area.

Planning for purpose and products

Now that you have some more background on what academic language is, it's time to think about how it is used in your subject area. Academic language is used for a variety of purposes across disciplines:

Students may write a lab report in science class.

Students may orally explain their reasoning in math class.

Students may listen to and compare two famous speeches in history class.

Students may compare a scene from a novel and a movie in an English language arts class.

Domains of language

As you can see in these examples, academic language is used in all four domains of language (reading, writing, speaking, and listening), and all four domains are needed to achieve the above tasks. While the uses of academic language may be more obvious for reading and writing, academic language is also necessary for listening to class discussion, lectures, and debates, as well as delivering speeches, presentations, and oral arguments. Students may need just as much help using academic language in their speaking as in their writing, and they may be at different levels across different domains. Carlos, for example, has strong academic listening and speaking skills, but weaker writing skills.

Students may also need help moving from the word level to the sentence, paragraph, or essay/project level in these sophisticated assignments. The most important thing you can do is to provide examples and model the kinds of language you expect students to use on a regular basis. By doing so, you will help familiarize students with the kinds of academic language needed to succeed in your classroom, as well as the purpose of the language they are using. Our Academic Language booklist and webcast include a number of subject-specific strategies for helping students master the kinds of language needed in different content areas.

This is also another area where ESL/bilingual colleagues can help you; they may have tried and true strategies, graphic organizers, and suggestions for modeling academic language and for helping students transition into more sophisticated assignments. One great example is the process that high school ESL teacher Michelle Lawrence uses to help her students transition from sentences and paragraphs to essays. (See Playlist: Writing Process 2.)

Note: Another helpful tool for communicating expectations about academic language is the use of language objectives , which you can learn more about from Colorín Colorado.
Discussion Questions:

As you consider how academic language is used in your discipline, what kinds of assignments are students expected to produce in your classroom and in higher grades?

What are some examples of academic language that are needed for each of these activities?

How are different language domains used at different steps of the process? (For example, a lab may require spoken language to be used in discussions between partners, and then writing to be used for the final written lab report.)

Based on what you now know about academic language, what kinds of support do you think Carlos needs in his chemistry class?

Do you have any ideas on how Mrs. Wilson can support his written academic language?

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Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know

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This article helps educators understand the role that academic language plays in their classrooms and in ELL student success. The article also includes information on social vs. academic language, as well as numerous examples of the different kinds of academic language needed for all students to fully participate in classroom activities and assignments.

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Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to ELs in Elementary and Middle School

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Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to ELs in Elementary and Middle School

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Baker, et. al, 2014

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Oral Language Activity Planning Template

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Oral Language Activity Planning Template

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Corwin

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Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction Chapter 1: Why You Need This Book to Support ELs What Is the Framework for Equitable and Excellent EL Education? What Is the Sense of Urgency Around ELs' Equitable and Excellent Learning? How Are ELs' Demographics Changing? What Are ELs' Opportunity and Achievement Gaps? What Shifts Have Occurred in Content Standards, and How Do These Affect ELs? What Are the Guiding Principles That We Use to Frame Our Work With ELs and This Book? How Do I Get Started Using All Five Guiding Principles? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Chapter 2: Using a Culturally Responsive Framework to Meet the Needs of ELs What Is Culture? Why Does Culture Matter for ELs' Teaching and Learning? How Can I Begin to Understand How My Cultural Expectations May Differ From Those of My ELs and the Impact This Will Have in the Classroom? What Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy? What Are the Guidelines of Culturally Responsive Teaching? What Is the Role of Collaboration in Developing a Culturally Responsive Classroom? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Developing a Culturally Responsive Classroom? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Additional Resources Chapter 3: Scaffolding Instruction for ELs What Is a Scaffold? What Are Different Types of Scaffolds? What Types of Materials and Resources Can I Use to Scaffold Instruction? What Instructional Practices Can I Use as Scaffolding? How Can I Use Student Grouping to Scaffold Instruction? What Steps Should I Take to Scaffold a Lesson? Steps for Developing Scaffolded Lessons Plans How Do I Select the Most Appropriate Scaffold for a Task for Each Modality of Language? What Is the Role of Collaboration in Scaffolding Instruction for ELs? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Developing Scaffolded Materials? Conclusion Application Activity Responses Reflection Questions References Additional Resources Chapter 4: Academic Conversations: A Tool for Fostering ELs' Oral Language Development Why Is It Important to Focus on ELs' Oral Language Development? How Do I Develop Effective Oral Language Activities for ELs? What Practices Can ELs Engage in to Support Their Participation and Engagement in Oral Language Activities? What Are Some Activities for Supporting ELs' Oral Language Development? How Can I Collaborate Around ELs' Academic Conversations? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Supporting ELs' Oral Language Development? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Chapter 5: Teaching Academic Language to ELs What Is Academic Language? How Is Academic Language Different From Social Language? How Is Academic Language Structured? What Is the Interplay Between Scaffolds, Errors, and Academic Language? What Is the Word Level? What Is the Sentence Level? What Is the Discourse Level? Why Is Academic Language Important? Why Don't ELs Just Need Assistance With Vocabulary? What Does It Mean That Acquisition of Academic Language Takes Place Within a Sociocultural Context? How Do I Increase My Awareness of the Academic Language ELs Need to Access Challenging Content? How Can I Figure Out What Academic Language Might Be Challenging for My ELs? How Do I Teach Sentence-Level Academic Language to ELs? How Do I Teach Discourse-Level Academic Language to ELs? What Steps Should I Follow When Planning Instruction That Integrates Instruction of Academic Language Simultaneously With Content? How Can I Coplan Instruction of Academic Language When My Time Is Limited? How Can I Infuse Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership to Promote Academic Language? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Chapter 6: Vocabulary Instruction and ELs What Is Academic Vocabulary? Why Teach Academic Vocabulary to ELs? How Should I Select Vocabulary for In-Depth Instruction? How Can I Assess Students' Initial Understanding of These New Words? What Strategies Should I Use for Teaching Academic Vocabulary? What Activities Can I Use to Help My ELs Practice New Vocabulary? How Can I Help My ELs Become Independent Learners of New Vocabulary? How Do I Put All of the EL Vocabulary Strategies Together? What Is the Role of Collaboration in Teaching Academic Vocabulary to ELs? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Teaching Academic Vocabulary to ELs? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Additional Tools and Resources Chapter 7: Teaching ELs Background Knowledge Reflection: How Do I Feel About Teaching Background Knowledge to ELs? How Can I Raise My Awareness About the Importance of ELs' Background Knowledge? What Does the Research Say About Background Knowledge? What Is the Close Reading of Texts? What Is the Role of Background Knowledge in ELs' Close Reading of Texts? How Do I Match ELs to Texts? What Is a Framework I Can Use for Building ELs' Background Knowledge? Step 1: How Do I Find out My ELs' Prior Knowledge on a Particular Topic or Text? Step 2: How Do I Decide How Much Background Knowledge to Provide to ELs? Step 3: How Do I Activate ELs' Background Knowledge That They Already Possess? Step 4: What Are Some Strategies for Concisely Teaching ELs Background Knowledge? What Are Some Examples of Teaching Background Knowledge? How Can I Apply the Four-Step Framework When Teaching Background Knowledge to ELs? How Do I Build or Activate ELs' Background Knowledge in Mathematics? How Do I Construct Less Biased Mathematics Problems for ELs? What Is the Role of Collaboration in Teaching Background Knowledge? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Teaching Background Knowledge? Conclusion Reflection Questions Application Activity Responses References Chapter 8: Supporting ELs' Reading for Multiple Purposes Through Using Scaffolded Text-Dependent Questions What Does It Mean to Read for Multiple Purposes? How Can I Specifically Scaffold My Instruction of ELs to Support Their Reading for Multiple Purposes? What Are TDQs? What Type of Questions Should I Ask to Create TDQs for ELs? How Do I Scaffold My ELs' Responses to TDQs? What Steps Should I Take to Create TDQs for ELs? How Do I Apply What I Have Learned About Creating TDQs for ELs? How Do I Collaborate to Create Effective Scaffolded TDQs for ELs? What is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Creating TDQs? Conclusion Reflection Questions Application Activity Responses References Chapter 9: Formative Assessment for ELs What Is Assessment as, of, and for Learning? What Is Formative Assessment? What Does the Research Say on Assessment for ELs in General? What Is the Role of Formative Assessment With ELs? How Do I Structure the Formative-Assessment Process for ELs? How Can I Interpret Formative-Assessment Evidence to Inform Instruction of ELs? What Is Assessment Validity for ELs, and How Can I Ensure My Formative Assessments Are Valid? How Can I Ensure That Formative Assessments Are Valid for ELs of Varying Proficiency Levels? How Do I Scaffold Formative Assessments for ELs? How Does the Formative-Assessment Process for ELs Unfold in a Classroom? How Can I Support My ELs on Computer-Based Formative Assessments? What Is the Role of Collaboration in Creating and Using Formative Assessments for ELs? What Is the Role of Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership in Creating and Using Formative Assessments for ELs? What Are the Next Steps to Design Formative Assessments Specific to My Context? Conclusion Reflection Questions References Index

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If you’re looking for a single resource to help your ELs meet the same challenging content standards as their English-proficient peers, then dip...

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Guideline #1: Is assets-based.

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GP#1: ELs bring many strengths to the classroom.

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When I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, I remember being fascinated by the "babel fish." These were fish, who when dropped in a person's ear, would provide immediate translation of any language, thriving on sound waves and converting them into comprehensible language.

Wouldn't it be just great if learning a new language were that easy (despite the "yuck" factor)? While we do have some technology that provides translation into a variety of languages, it often fails to translate accurately due to the complexity of language. Effective communication requires so much more than just being able to translate vocabulary words - it requires knowledge of intonation, dialect, and intent, and a nuanced understanding of word use, expression, and a language's cultural context. For example, one online translation application I tried translated "Fall Events" as "fall down events" in Spanish because it didn't know that I was referring to events in autumn.

So, without a babel fish or perfect technology, we are left with the old-fashioned way of learning a new language, which requires time, effort, and patience. How much time, effort, and patience depends a lot on the individual who is learning, as well as the learning environment and situation, but language researchers have developed a general outline of language acquisition that helps explain the process that language learners go through to develop skills in a foreign language. In this article, I will provide an overview to the stages of language acquisition, and offer strategies designed to support ELL instruction at different stages of language acquisition.

Stages of Language Acquisition

Researchers define language acquisition into two categories: first-language acquisition and second-language acquisition. First-language acquisition is a universal process regardless of home language. Babies listen to the sounds around them, begin to imitate them, and eventually start producing words. Second-language acquisition assumes knowledge in a first language and encompasses the process an individual goes through as he or she learns the elements of a new language, such as vocabulary, phonological components, grammatical structures, and writing systems.

The Six Stages of Second-Language Acquisition

Pre-production

This is also called "the silent period," when the student takes in the new language but does not speak it. This period often lasts six weeks or longer, depending on the individual.

Early production

The individual begins to speak using short words and sentences, but the emphasis is still on listening and absorbing the new language. There will be many errors in the early production stage.

Speech Emergent

Speech becomes more frequent, words and sentences are longer, but the individual still relies heavily on context clues and familiar topics. Vocabulary continues to increase and errors begin to decrease, especially in common or repeated interactions.

Beginning Fluency

Speech is fairly fluent in social situations with minimal errors. New contexts and academic language are challenging and the individual will struggle to express themselves due to gaps in vocabulary and appropriate phrases.

Intermediate Fluency

Communicating in the second language is fluent, especially in social language situations. The individual is able to speak almost fluently in new situations or in academic areas, but there will be gaps in vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. There are very few errors, and the individual is able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem.

Advanced Fluency

The individual communicates fluently in all contexts and can maneuver successfully in new contexts and when exposed to new academic information. At this stage, the individual may still have an accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but the individual is essentially fluent and comfortable communicating in the second language.

How long does it take for a language learner to go through these stages? Just as in any other learning situation, it depends on the individual. One of the major contributors to accelerated second language learning is the strength of first language skills. Language researchers such as Jim Cummins, Catherine Snow, Lily Wong Filmore and Stephen Krashen have studied this topic in a variety of ways for many years. The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency. This generally applies to individuals who have strong first language and literacy skills. If an individual has not fully developed first language and literacy skills, it may take between seven to ten years to reach advanced fluency. It is very important to note that every ELL student comes with his or her own unique language and education background, and this will have an impact on their English learning process.

It is also important to keep in mind that the understood goal for American ELL students is Advanced Fluency, which includes fluency in academic contexts as well as social contexts. Teachers often get frustrated when ELL students appear to be fluent because they have strong social English skills, but then they do not participate well in academic projects and discussions. Teachers who are aware of ELL students' need to develop academic language fluency in English will be much better prepared to assist those students in becoming academically successful. (Learn more about academic language in Colorín Colorado's academic language resource section.)

Instructional Strategies

If you have ELL students in your classroom, it is more than likely there will be students at a variety of stages in the language acquisition process. What can teachers do to differentiate instruction according to language level? Here are some suggestions for appropriate instructional strategies according to stages of language acquisition.

Emphasize listening comprehension by using read-alouds and music.

Use visuals and have students point to pictures or act out vocabulary.

Speak slowly and use shorter words, but use correct English phrasing.

Model "survival" language by saying and showing the meaning. For example, say, "Open your book," and then open a book while the student observes.

Gesture, point and show as much as possible.

More advanced classmates who speak the same language can support new learning through interpretation.

Avoid excessive error correction. Reinforce learning by modeling correct language usage when students make mistakes.

Continue the strategies listed above, but add opportunities for students to produce simple language.

Ask students to point to pictures and say the new word.

Ask yes/no and either/or questions.

Have students work in pairs or small groups to discuss a problem. Have literate students write short sentences or words in graphic organizers.

Model a phrase and have the student repeat it and add modifications. Teacher says, "This book is very interesting." The student repeats it and says, "This book is very boring." Continue with as many modifications as possible.

Avoid excessive error correction. Reinforce learning by modeling correct usage.

Introduce more academic language and skills by using the same techniques listed above, but beginning to use more academic vocabulary.

Introduce new academic vocabulary and model how to use it in a sentence.

Provide visuals and make connections with student's background knowledge as much as possible.

Ask questions that require a short answer and are fairly literal.

Introduce charts and graphs by using easily understood information such as a class survey of food preferences.

Have students re-tell stories or experiences and have another student write them down. The ELL student can bring these narratives home to read and reinforce learning.

In writing activities, provide the student with a fill-in-the blank version of the assignment with the necessary vocabulary listed on the page.

Provide minimal error correction. Focus only on correction that directly interferes with meaning. Reinforce learning by modeling the correct usage.

Have students work in pairs and groups to discuss content.

During instruction, have students do a "Think, pair, share" to give the student an opportunity to process the new language and concept.

Ask questions that require a full response with explanation. If you do not understand the student's explanation, ask for clarification by paraphrasing and asking the student if you heard them correctly.

Ask questions that require inference and justification of the answer.

Ask students if they agree or disagree with a statement and why.

Model more advanced academic language structures such as, "I think," "In my opinion," and "When you compare." Have students repeat the phrases in context.

Re-phrase incorrect statements in correct English, or ask the student if they know another way to say it.

Introduce nuances of language such as when to use more formal English and how to interact in conversations.

Have students make short presentations, providing them with the phrases and language used in presentations ("Today I will be talking about") and giving them opportunities to practice the presentation with partners before getting in front of the class.

Continue to provide visual support and vocabulary development.

Correct errors that interfere with meaning, and pre-identify errors that will be corrected in student writing, such as verb-tense agreement. Only correct the errors agreed upon.

You may want to assist in improving pronunciation by asking a student to repeat key vocabulary and discussing how different languages have different sounds.

Identify key academic vocabulary and phrases and model them. Ask students to produce the language in class activities.

Use graphic organizers and thinking maps and check to make sure the student is filling them in with details. Challenge the student to add more.

Help the student make connections with new vocabulary by instructing him or her in the etymology of words or word families such as, "important, importance, importantly."

Create assessments that give students an opportunity to present in English after they have an opportunity to practice in pairs or small groups.

Introduce more academic skills, such as brainstorming, prioritizing, categorization, summarizing and compare and contrast.

Ask students to identify vocabulary by symbols that show whether the student "knows it really well, kind of knows it, or doesn't know it at all." Help students focus on strategies to get the meaning of new words.

Have a "guessing time" during silent reading where they circle words they don't know and write down their guess of the meaning. Check the results as a class.

Introduce idioms and give examples of how to use them appropriately. For example, "Let's wind up our work." What's another way you could use the phrase "wind up?"

Starting at this level, students need more correction/feedback, even on errors that do not directly affect meaning. They should be developing a more advanced command of syntax, pragmatics, pronunciation, and other elements that do not necessarily affect meaning but do contribute to oral fluency.

It may also be helpful to discuss language goals with the student so you can assist in providing modeling and correction in specified areas.

Students at this level are close to native language fluency and can interact well in a variety of situations. Continue to develop language skills as gaps arise by using the strategies listed above. Although the student may seem completely fluent, he or she still benefit from visual support, building on background knowledge, pre-teaching vocabulary and making connections between content areas.

Offer challenge activities to expand the student's vocabulary knowledge such as identifying antonyms, synonyms and the use of a thesaurus and dictionary.

Demonstrate effective note-taking and provide a template.

Offer error correction on academic work and on oral language. Because students at this stage have achieved near-native fluency, they benefit from support in fine-tuning their oral and written language skills.

Recommendations

Scaffold instruction so students receive comprehensible input and are able to successfully complete tasks at their level. Instructional scaffolding works just like the scaffolding used in building. It holds you at the level needed until you are ready to take it down. Scaffolding includes asking students questions in formats that give them support in answering, such as yes/no questions, one-word identifications, or short answers. It also means providing the context for learning by having visuals or other hands-on items available to support content learning. Also, when practicing a new academic skill such as skimming, scaffolding involves using well-known material so the students aren't struggling with the information while they are trying to learn a new skill. Scaffolding includes whatever it takes to make the instruction meaningful for the student in order to provide a successful learning experience.

Use cognates to help Spanish speakers learn English and derive meaning from content. The Colorín Colorado website has a helpful list of common cognates in Spanish for teachers to reference. Teachers can explicitly point out cognates for Spanish speaking students so they begin to realize that this is a useful way for them to increase their English vocabulary.

Explicit vocabulary instruction is very important in accelerating ELL students' English language development. Textbooks include lists of new vocabulary words based on grade-level content, but ELL students need further vocabulary instruction. There are many words in a text that may affect the ELL student's comprehension of the text that a teacher may assume he or she knows. It is important for teachers to develop ways to help students identify the words they don't know, as well as strategies for getting their meaning. Of course it is also beneficial if teachers reinforce the language structures or common associations of vocabulary. For example, "squeak" is a sound that often goes with "mouse" or "door" and it may be stated as, "squeak, squeaky, squeaks, or squeaked."

Error correction should be done very intentionally and appropriately according to student language ability, as noted earlier in the article. Students who are just beginning to speak English are already nervous about using their new language skills and constant correction will not improve their ability; it will just make them want to withdraw. I inform students in advance of the type of errors I will correct, such as "missing articles" and "third person agreement," and then those are the only errors I check. In my class, I do not correct the errors; I circle the mistakes and return the paper to the student. They are responsible for correcting the errors and returning the paper to receive more points. Most of the time the students can make the corrections themselves when they see the area I've circled, but if they have difficulty, I guide them as they make the correction. In this way, I feel there is a manageable amount of correction information to work with and the student will actually learn from doing the correction.

Learning another language. If you learn the language(s) your students speak, they will be thrilled to hear you try it with them. I learned how to say "good morning" in Somali and had to practice for an hour before I felt comfortable saying it. When I did I was rewarded with the big grins of students as they entered the room. They were excited to teach me other phrases as well, and we discussed how much English they had learned since they arrived in the country. They were very proud to think of how much progress they'd made.

Seek the experts in your building or district who can offer you guidance on effective instructional strategies for your ELL students. There are many teachers who have taught ELL students in your content area, have taught a certain population of students, or are trained ESL or bilingual teachers who have a lot of advice and support to offer. Don't hesitate to look for support when you are challenged to reach students who are learning English. This can be especially true when you have a "pre-production" or "beginning level" student and you are responsible for grade level content instruction.

Visit the hotlinks section for this article for more information on specific research regarding language acquisition and recommended instructional strategies. You can also search the Colorín Colorado educator information for useful information and resources to assist you in meeting ELL student needs.

ELL teachers encounter students with a variety of backgrounds and abilities, and until the babel fish comes into existence, they will need to have flexibility, creativity and skill in order to help ELL students make meaning from the new language and content they are learning. An understanding of the language acquisition process and levels will help teachers tailor instruction to meet the needs of a diverse group of learners. Students will benefit from everything teachers do to support the development of their language skills while teaching them grade level content. Together teachers and students develop their understanding of each other, the world around them, and the language that connects us all.
The Stages of Second Language Acquisition
This chapter from Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners Facilitator's Guide, by Jane D. Hill and Cynthia L. Björk, offers information on the second language acquisition process and effective ELL instruction. It includes a a simplified chart of language acquisition levels and the kinds of language teachers can use to help students at each level.

Simple description of the stages of language acquisition and recommendations for instructional strategies according to level.
Overview of Second Language Acquisition and Strategies
Downloadable booklet from the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, "Strategies and Resources for Mainstream Teachers of English Language Learners." Includes useful information on language levels, acquisition and 10 things teachers can do today to help ELL students.
Understanding the "Silent Period" with English Language Learners
This article describes some strategies used by two kindergarten teachers to communicate verbally and nonverbally.

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“One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.”— Chinese ProverbWhen I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, I remember being fascinated by the “babel fish.” These were fish, who when dropped in a person’s ear, would provide immediate translation of any language, thriving on sound waves and converting them into comprehensible language.Wouldn’t it be just great if learning a new language were that easy (despite the “yuck” factor)? While we do have some technology that provides translation into a variety of languages, it often fails to translate accurately due to the complexity of language. Effective communication requires so much more than just being able to translate vocabulary words — it requires knowledge of intonation, dialect, and intent, and a nuanced understanding of word use, expression, and a language’s cultural context. For example, one online translation application I tried translated “Fall Events” as “fall down events” in Spanish because it didn’t know that I was referring to events in autumn.So, without a babel fish or perfect technology, we are left with the old-fashioned way of learning a new language, which requires time, effort, and patience. How much time, effort, and patience depends a lot on the individual who is learning, as well as the learning environment and situation, but language researchers have developed a general outline of language acquisition that helps explain the process that language learners go through to develop skills in a foreign language. In this article, I will provide an overview to the stages of language acquisition, and offer strategies designed to support ELL instruction at different stages of language acquisition.Stages of Language AcquisitionResearchers define language acquisition into two categories: first-language acquisition and second-language acquisition. First-language acquisition is a universal process regardless of home language. Babies listen to the sounds around them, begin to imitate them, and eventually start producing words. Second-language acquisition assumes knowledge in a first language and encompasses the process an individual goes through as he or she learns the elements of a new language, such as vocabulary, phonological components, grammatical structures, and writing systems.The Six Stages of Second-Language AcquisitionPre-productionThis is also called “the silent period,” when the student takes in the new language but does not speak it. This period often lasts six weeks or longer, depending on the individual.Early productionThe individual begins to speak using short words and sentences, but the emphasis is still on listening and absorbing the new language. There will be many errors in the early production stage.Speech EmergentSpeech becomes more frequent, words and sentences are longer, but the individual still relies heavily on context clues and familiar topics. Vocabulary continues to increase and errors begin to decrease, especially in common or repeated interactions.Beginning FluencySpeech is fairly fluent in social situations with minimal errors. New contexts and academic language are challenging and the individual will struggle to express themselves due to gaps in vocabulary and appropriate phrases.Intermediate FluencyCommunicating in the second language is fluent, especially in social language situations. The individual is able to speak almost fluently in new situations or in academic areas, but there will be gaps in vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. There are very few errors, and the individual is able to demonstrate higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem.Advanced FluencyThe individual communicates fluently in all contexts and can maneuver successfully in new contexts and when exposed to new academic information. At this stage, the individual may still have an accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but the individual is essentially fluent and comfortable communicating in the second language.How long does it take for a language learner to go through these stages? Just as in any other learning situation, it depends on the individual. One of the major contributors to accelerated second language learning is the strength of first language skills. Language researchers such as Jim Cummins, Catherine Snow, Lily Wong Filmore and Stephen Krashen have studied this topic in a variety of ways for many years. The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency. This generally applies to individuals who have strong first language and literacy skills. If an individual has not fully developed first language and literacy skills, it may take between seven to ten years to reach advanced fluency. It is very important to note that every ELL student comes with his or her own unique language and education background, and this will have an impact on their English learning process.It is also important to keep in mind that the understood goal for American ELL students is Advanced Fluency, which includes fluency in academic contexts as well as social contexts. Teachers often get frustrated when ELL students appear to be fluent because they have strong social English skills, but then they do not participate well in academic projects and discussions. Teachers who are aware of ELL students’ need to develop academic language fluency in English will be much better prepared to assist those students in becoming academically successful. (Learn more about academic language in Colorín Colorado’s academic language resource section.) Instructional StrategiesIf you have ELL students in your classroom, it is more than likely there will be students at a variety of stages in the language acquisition process. What can teachers do to differentiate instruction according to language level? Here are some suggestions for appropriate instructional strategies according to stages of language acquisition.Language StageStrategiesPre-productionEmphasize listening comprehension by using read-alouds and music.Use visuals and have students point to pictures or act out vocabulary.Speak slowly and use shorter words, but use correct English phrasing.Model “survival” language by saying and showing the meaning. For example, say, “Open your book,” and then open a book while the student observes.Gesture, point and show as much as possible.More advanced classmates who speak the same language can support new learning through interpretation.Avoid excessive error correction. Reinforce learning by modeling correct language usage when students make mistakes.Early ProductionContinue the strategies listed above, but add opportunities for students to produce simple language.Ask students to point to pictures and say the new word.Ask yes/no and either/or questions.Have students work in pairs or small groups to discuss a problem. Have literate students write short sentences or words in graphic organizers.Model a phrase and have the student repeat it and add modifications. Teacher says, “This book is very interesting.” The student repeats it and says, “This book is very boring.” Continue with as many modifications as possible.Avoid excessive error correction. Reinforce learning by modeling correct usage.Speech EmergentIntroduce more academic language and skills by using the same techniques listed above, but beginning to use more academic vocabulary.Introduce new academic vocabulary and model how to use it in a sentence.Provide visuals and make connections with student’s background knowledge as much as possible.Ask questions that require a short answer and are fairly literal.Introduce charts and graphs by using easily understood information such as a class survey of food preferences.Have students re-tell stories or experiences and have another student write them down. The ELL student can bring these narratives home to read and reinforce learning.In writing activities, provide the student with a fill-in-the blank version of the assignment with the necessary vocabulary listed on the page.Provide minimal error correction. Focus only on correction that directly interferes with meaning. Reinforce learning by modeling the correct usage.Beginning FluencyHave students work in pairs and groups to discuss content.During instruction, have students do a “Think, pair, share” to give the student an opportunity to process the new language and concept.Ask questions that require a full response with explanation. If you do not understand the student’s explanation, ask for clarification by paraphrasing and asking the student if you heard them correctly.Ask questions that require inference and justification of the answer.Ask students if they agree or disagree with a statement and why.Model more advanced academic language structures such as, “I think,” “In my opinion,” and “When you compare.” Have students repeat the phrases in context.Re-phrase incorrect statements in correct English, or ask the student if they know another way to say it.Introduce nuances of language such as when to use more formal English and how to interact in conversations.Have students make short presentations, providing them with the phrases and language used in presentations (“Today I will be talking about”) and giving them opportunities to practice the presentation with partners before getting in front of the class.Continue to provide visual support and vocabulary development.Correct errors that interfere with meaning, and pre-identify errors that will be corrected in student writing, such as verb-tense agreement. Only correct the errors agreed upon.You may want to assist in improving pronunciation by asking a student to repeat key vocabulary and discussing how different languages have different sounds.Intermediate FluencyIdentify key academic vocabulary and phrases and model them. Ask students to produce the language in class activities.Use graphic organizers and thinking maps and check to make sure the student is filling them in with details. Challenge the student to add more.Help the student make connections with new vocabulary by instructing him or her in the etymology of words or word families such as, “important, importance, importantly.“Create assessments that give students an opportunity to present in English after they have an opportunity to practice in pairs or small groups.Introduce more academic skills, such as brainstorming, prioritizing, categorization, summarizing and compare and contrast.Ask students to identify vocabulary by symbols that show whether the student “knows it really well, kind of knows it, or doesn’t know it at all.” Help students focus on strategies to get the meaning of new words.Have a “guessing time” during silent reading where they circle words they don’t know and write down their guess of the meaning. Check the results as a class.Introduce idioms and give examples of how to use them appropriately. For example, “Let’s wind up our work.” What’s another way you could use the phrase “wind up?“Starting at this level, students need more correction/feedback, even on errors that do not directly affect meaning. They should be developing a more advanced command of syntax, pragmatics, pronunciation, and other elements that do not necessarily affect meaning but do contribute to oral fluency.It may also be helpful to discuss language goals with the student so you can assist in providing modeling and correction in specified areas.Advanced FluencyStudents at this level are close to native language fluency and can interact well in a variety of situations. Continue to develop language skills as gaps arise by using the strategies listed above. Although the student may seem completely fluent, he or she still benefit from visual support, building on background knowledge, pre-teaching vocabulary and making connections between content areas.Offer challenge activities to expand the student’s vocabulary knowledge such as identifying antonyms, synonyms and the use of a thesaurus and dictionary.Demonstrate effective note-taking and provide a template.Offer error correction on academic work and on oral language. Because students at this stage have achieved near-native fluency, they benefit from support in fine-tuning their oral and written language skills. RecommendationsScaffold instruction so students receive comprehensible input and are able to successfully complete tasks at their level. Instructional scaffolding works just like the scaffolding used in building. It holds you at the level needed until you are ready to take it down. Scaffolding includes asking students questions in formats that give them support in answering, such as yes/no questions, one-word identifications, or short answers. It also means providing the context for learning by having visuals or other hands-on items available to support content learning. Also, when practicing a new academic skill such as skimming, scaffolding involves using well-known material so the students aren’t struggling with the information while they are trying to learn a new skill. Scaffolding includes whatever it takes to make the instruction meaningful for the student in order to provide a successful learning experience.Use cognates to help Spanish speakers learn English and derive meaning from content. The Colorín Colorado website has a helpful list of common cognates in Spanish for teachers to reference. Teachers can explicitly point out cognates for Spanish speaking students so they begin to realize that this is a useful way for them to increase their English vocabulary.Explicit vocabulary instruction is very important in accelerating ELL students’ English language development. Textbooks include lists of new vocabulary words based on grade-level content, but ELL students need further vocabulary instruction. There are many words in a text that may affect the ELL student’s comprehension of the text that a teacher may assume he or she knows. It is important for teachers to develop ways to help students identify the words they don’t know, as well as strategies for getting their meaning. Of course it is also beneficial if teachers reinforce the language structures or common associations of vocabulary. For example, “squeak” is a sound that often goes with “mouse” or “door” and it may be stated as, “squeak, squeaky, squeaks, or squeaked.“Error correction should be done very intentionally and appropriately according to student language ability, as noted earlier in the article. Students who are just beginning to speak English are already nervous about using their new language skills and constant correction will not improve their ability; it will just make them want to withdraw. I inform students in advance of the type of errors I will correct, such as “missing articles” and “third person agreement,” and then those are the only errors I check. In my class, I do not correct the errors; I circle the mistakes and return the paper to the student. They are responsible for correcting the errors and returning the paper to receive more points. Most of the time the students can make the corrections themselves when they see the area I’ve circled, but if they have difficulty, I guide them as they make the correction. In this way, I feel there is a manageable amount of correction information to work with and the student will actually learn from doing the correction.Learning another language. If you learn the language(s) your students speak, they will be thrilled to hear you try it with them. I learned how to say “good morning” in Somali and had to practice for an hour before I felt comfortable saying it. When I did I was rewarded with the big grins of students as they entered the room. They were excited to teach me other phrases as well, and we discussed how much English they had learned since they arrived in the country. They were very proud to think of how much progress they’d made.Seek the experts in your building or district who can offer you guidance on effective instructional strategies for your ELL students. There are many teachers who have taught ELL students in your content area, have taught a certain population of students, or are trained ESL or bilingual teachers who have a lot of advice and support to offer. Don’t hesitate to look for support when you are challenged to reach students who are learning English. This can be especially true when you have a “pre-production” or “beginning level” student and you are responsible for grade level content instruction.Visit the hotlinks section for this article for more information on specific research regarding language acquisition and recommended instructional strategies. You can also search the Colorín Colorado educator information for useful information and resources to assist you in meeting ELL student needs.ELL teachers encounter students with a variety of backgrounds and abilities, and until the babel fish comes into existence, they will need to have flexibility, creativity and skill in order to help ELL students make meaning from the new language and content they are learning. An understanding of the language acquisition process and levels will help teachers tailor instruction to meet the needs of a diverse group of learners. Students will benefit from everything teachers do to support the development of their language skills while teaching them grade level content. Together teachers and students develop their understanding of each other, the world around them, and the language that connects us all.Hot linksThe Stages of Second Language AcquisitionThis chapter from Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners Facilitator’s Guide, by Jane D. Hill and Cynthia L. Björk, offers information on the second language acquisition process and effective ELL instruction. It includes a a simplified chart of language acquisition levels and the kinds of language teachers can use to help students at each level.Simple description of the stages of language acquisition and recommendations for instructional strategies according to level.Overview of Second Language Acquisition and StrategiesDownloadable booklet from the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, “Strategies and Resources for Mainstream Teachers of English Language Learners.” Includes useful information on language levels, acquisition and 10 things teachers can do today to help ELL students.Understanding the “Silent Period” with English Language LearnersThis article describes some strategies used by two kindergarten teachers to communicate verbally and nonverbally.

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for Second Grade (Part 2)

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for Second Grade (Part 2)

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In Part 1 of my series on text-dependent questions (TDQs) and English language learners, I provided an overview about what these questions are and some guidelines in writing TDQs for ELLs. This week, as promised, I'll provide examples of TDQs based on a second-grade text, and we will follow up with more examples for middle and high school in the future!

Note: I wrote this week's post in collaboration with Dr. Sydney Snyder, my colleague and a former ESOL teacher. We also received helpful feedback and guidance from David Pook, a New Hampshire teacher who helped shape the Common Core ELA standards.

Text: So You Want to Be President?

Our TDQs focus on three paragraphs of Judith St. George's text So You Want to Be President?(2000). The text is suggested for the second grade in the CCSS' Appendix B and is also timely with Presidents' Day coming up (and President Obama's recent State of the Union Address, covered on the blog last week).

We'll first provide you with the text, and then we'll use the TDQ guidelines that we adapted from Achieve the Core to walk you through our considerations in creating TDQs for ELLs.

Next, we'll provide some scaffolds and supports that ELLs at different levels of English language proficiency could use to help them answer the TDQs and unlock the meaning of the text. (These are an important step - as we worked through the guidelines, we quickly realized we couldn't create TDQs for ELLs in a vacuum!)

Finally, we'll share some suggested TDQs for this text as well as a culminating activity for students and leave you with some takeaways from our process.

Featured Text Excerpt: So You Want to Be President?

Every single President has taken this oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Only thirty-five words! But it's a big order if you're President of this country. Abraham Lincoln was tops at filling that order. "I know very well that many others might in this matter or as in others, do better than I can," he said. "But...I am here. I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take."

That's the bottom line. Tall, short, fat, thin, talkative, quiet, vain, humble, lawyer, teacher, or soldier-this is what most of our Presidents have tried to do, each in his own way. Some succeeded. Some failed. If you want to be President-a good President-pattern yourself after the best. Our best have asked more of themselves than they thought they could give. They have had the courage, spirit, and will to do what they knew was right. Most of all, their first priority has always been the people and the country they served.

Writing TDQs for ELLs: Step by Step

The following guidelines and examples are based on Student Achievement Partner's Achieve the Core Guidelines for using text-dependent questions (TDQs). These guidelines, along with the questions that follow, are also available in a PDF Format.

Step 1: Consider These Guidelines

Achieve the Core Guideline

ELL Interpretation/Suggestion

Guideline: Think about what you think is the most important learning to be drawn from the text. Note this as raw material for the culminating assignment and the focus point for other activities to build toward.

Ideas for ELLs: Depending on their level of English language proficiency, ELLs will need different amounts of scaffolding to comprehend the text on a deep level. ELLs may require some additional steps to get to this level of learning.

Examples:

The President takes an oath of office to faithfully serve and do his best.

President Lincoln is an example of a President who took his responsibility seriously. Although he thought others might do a better job, he worked very hard and is now considered one of the greatest presidents in our history.

The most successful Presidents give a great deal of themselves and put the people and their country first.

Background Knowledge

Constitution

Abraham Lincoln

Guideline: Locate the most powerful academic words in the text and integrate questions and discussions that explore their role into the set of questions above.

Ideas for ELLs: Teachers of ELLs will need to decide which academic words to teach ELLs. Some resources include Colorin Colorado's "Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach ELLs" and the University of Nottingham, New Zealand's Academic Word List Highlighter.

Examples:
The Academic Word List Highlighter identifies the words Constitution and priority as the most powerful academic words in the text.

Examples:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.2 Identify the main topic of a multiparagraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.5 Know and use various text features to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.6 Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.8 Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text.

WIDA ELD Standard 5: ELLs communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Social Studies.

Grade 2 Cognitive Function: Students at all levels of English language proficiency ANALYZE the connections between different historical times and people.

Grade 2 Topic-Related Language: Students at all levels of English language proficiency interact with grade-level words and expressions, such as: historical times, communication

Guideline: Consider if there are any other academic words that students would profit from focusing on. Build discussion planning or additional questions to focus attention on them.

Ideas for ELLs: Teachers of ELLs will need to decide which other academic words to teach ELLs. They must be careful not to teach too many words in the text or ELLs could become overwhelmed.

Step 2: Provide Additional Support for ELLs

Here we include a glossary of vocabulary ELLs might need to know. Depending on how abstract the word is, the teacher could embed the meaning of the word into instruction or pre-teach the words. Also, the teacher would need to address the colloquial expression "it's a big order" in instruction for ELLs who don't know its meaning. For ELLs at lower levels of proficiency who are literate in their first language, the definitions of the words could be given in their first language.

Glossary

1. Affirm - to state or declare as true

2. Oath - a promise

3. Execute - carry out; put into action

4. Preserve - to keep safe

5. Defend - protect from harm; guard

6. Constitution - the written record of the basic laws of a country

7. Order - a job; a responsibility

8. Responsibility -something that a person is responsible for; duty

9. Succeeded - to have good result; do well

10. Failed - to not success in trying to do something

11. Pattern - to copy or follow a model

12. Priority - something that is more important than something else

Background Knowledge

We make sure that the two pieces of background knowledge teachers would pre-teach ELLs are concise and don't give away the text. For ELLs at lower levels of proficiency who are literate in their first language, the background knowledge could be provided in writing in their first language.

U.S. Constitution: The law is the set of rules that we live by. The Constitution is the highest law. The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787. It says how the government works. It creates the Presidency. The Constitutions lists some rights, or things that all people have just because they are alive. (from http://www.usconstitution.net/constkidsK.html)

Abraham Lincoln: He was the 16th President of the United States. He is one of the most famous Presidents.

Step 3: Provide a Guiding Question to Frame Instruction

Guiding Question: What must a President do to be considered a good President?

Step 4: Outline the TDQs and Provide Sentence Starters for ELLs

We provide TDQs that map to each close read of the text. In the first close read, we created one TDQ per paragraph of the text. We make sure that the TDQs address the CCSS and WIDA standards students will be working toward. (We chose to work with WIDA standards here but hope to develop TDQs that integrate different ELD standards in the future.) We also scaffold TDQs for ELLs at different levels of English language proficiency by embedding some vocabulary definitions into the question itself and by providing sentence starters. If the ELLs were at a lower level of proficiency, we'd give a sentence frame and leave some words blank.

TDQs: First Read (Key Ideas and Details)
What is the oath or promise that U.S. Presidents make?
The President promises to __________________________________.
What example does the text give about a U.S. President who worked hard to keep his promise?
______________________ is an example of a U.S. President who worked to keep his promise.
What does the third paragraph say that good U.S. Presidents do?
The third paragraph says that good U.S. Presidents __________________________________.

Second Read (Craft and Structure)
Why did the author include Lincoln's quote in paragraph 2?
The author included Lincoln's quote to show __________________________________.
When the text says, "That's the bottom line," what point does the author make?
The author uses "That's the bottom line" to mean __________________________________.
What does "pattern yourself after the best" mean in this text?
In this text, "pattern yourself after the best" means that __________________________________.
What does the author of this text explain about what a President must do to be considered a good President?
The author explains that a President must __________________________________ to be considered a good President.

Third Read (Integration of Knowledge and Ideas)
How does the President's oath guide him to do his best?
The President's oath guides him to do his best by __________________________________.
What is the author's main point in this text?
The author's main point in this text is that Presidents __________________________________.

Step 5: Have Students Take Part in a Culminating Activity

Answer the guiding question.
What must a President do to be considered a good President?
A President must __________________________________ to be considered a good President.

I know this because (give an example from the text)__________________________________.

We'd like to leave you with a few takeaways from creating these TDQs.

First of all, we recognize this is very demanding, challenging work - both for the teacher and the students! We are sure there are ways to improve our TDQs, and we found it very helpful to work together to create them. We suggest that ESL and content teachers use the development of TDQs as a way to collaborate.

We want to underscore that the TDQs ELLs will use can't be used in isolation. While the questions themselves might not be too different for ELLs than for non-ELLs using this text, we needed to provide multiple supports for ELLs so that they could actually make meaning from the text and be able to answer the TDQs. Our supports included concise background knowledge, a glossary, and sentence starters to support ELLs' answers. We suspect these supports would also benefit some non-ELLs as well.

One final takeaway is that we might not work through all of these TDQs in one lesson; it might take a couple of lessons for students to work with this text to gain a deeper understanding of its meaning.

We'd love to hear what you think about these TDQs and to see some examples you've created. Please let us know!

References

Achieve the Core: Text-Dependent Question Resources

So You Want to Be President? Philomel: 2000. Written by Judith St. George and Illustrated by David Small.

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for Second Grade (Part 2)

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In Part 1 of my series on text-dependent questions (TDQs) and English language learners, I provided an overview about what these questions are and some guidelines in writing TDQs for ELLs. This week, as promised, I'll provide examples of TDQs based on a second-grade text, and we will follow up with more examples for middle and high school in the future!

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How to Connect ELs' Background Knowledge to Content

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How to Connect ELs' Background Knowledge to Content

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What are some other ways you can tap into background knowledge if it's very different from your own? You can start by choosing a single topic to research that you think might be relevant to your students. These might include learning about:

your students' native countries, cultures, or educational systems

historical figures, musical and artistic traditions, geography, or biodiversity from your students' countries so that you can connect your lessons to something that the students already know.

Family liaisons are an excellent source of information here and can also guide you to choose examples that are likely to be appropriate and meaningful to students.

Helping students make connections

You can also find ways for your students to contribute their own cultural experience, funds of knowledge, talents, and interests in the classroom. You can do this by asking students to:

show how a topic connects to their lives

give an example of a particular idea as they would experience it in their native country

bring music or art from their culture and describe its significance and meaning to their classmates.

Another activity is to ask students to interview their family members in order to learn more about their memories and experience. ELLs may find interviews valuable because even if they speak their native language at home and are surrounded by their culture, they may not have had an opportunity to learn about their family members' life experiences and values.

Note: These strategies will work in mainstream classes as well as students may engage more deeply with content when they can relate it to historical and cultural information shared by family members.

Proceeding with care and sensitivity

If you plan to ask students to contribute their experiences to the class, it is important to keep a few things in mind. First, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren and Giselle Lundy-Ponce remind teachers to consult with multiple sources and not to expect students to be the sole 'ambassador' for a culture. They write, "Do not put a particular student on the spot without asking them beforehand if they are comfortable sharing information with the whole class. Each student is an individual and their experiences may or may not be similar to that of the group they represent."

It is tempting to view your students as the experts, and it is certainly important to draw on what they have to offer to the class, but it is also important to discuss whether they feel comfortable doing so beforehand, and to avoid putting them on the spot - particularly about cultural, political, or religious subjects that might be particularly sensitive.

This is also important because students may not feel comfortable sharing their culture or prior experiences for a wide range of reasons, including trauma or stigma. For example, some Indigenous students from Latin America "hide" their culture and identity because of the persecution (sometimes violent) that they have faced in their home countries. Be patient with your students, and look for ways to increase their confidence in the classroom as you get to know each other. They may share information with you privately that they do not wish to share with the class. Honor their confidence and look for other ways for them to contribute.

Related resources

Video: Getting to know your students

Teacher Omar Salem talks about the importance of getting to know your ELLs, their interests, and their concerns.

Go beyond the textbook

Look for resources that go beyond the textbook that will engage students and involve them in the learning process so that they find elements they can connect to and learn from. These may include:

Artwork

There are many ways to bring educational content to life through art, and to use art as a starting point for discussing different cultural traditions. For example, in a history class, you may offer students a couple of different artistic representations of historical events from different perspectives, and ask whether a particular perspective resonates with their experiences.

Or you might want to compare artwork depicting similar kinds of events as they occurred in different countries, such as revolutions, battles, the signing of a famous document, inaugurations, elections, protests, and major milestones. Perhaps students can share depictions of those kinds of events in their country as a way to open up the discussion and connect their experience to the content as well. Students can examine artistic style, theme, the artist's intent, and the materials used while comparing artistic works from different cultures as a way of applying what they learning about the content.

Finally, be sure to invite students to share artwork and traditions from their own cultures and look for ways to connect what they share with the curriculum.

Using artwork that depicts day-to-day events and celebrations can also be a provocative starting point for a discussion about the similarities and differences between other cultures, and a way of affirming the students' daily lives, traditions, and lifestyles in the classroom. You may find that these connections are even more powerful than you expected, as seen in the student story below.

Video: Why an indigenous student hid his identity

ESOL resource teacher Manuel Portillo Gomez shares the story of an Indigenous student who kept his cultural identity hidden for much of the year until Manuel planned a lesson plan about Guatemalan basket weaving.

Music & dance

Students are a great resource for sharing music, and older students especially like to share music, discuss the meaning, and connect it to content. If the song is in a language some students do not understand, ask the student to translate it and discuss the meaning. Songs from other countries often describe political events or re-tell folk stories in poetic form.

When it comes to dance, students may enjoy sharing videos of traditional dances from their own cultures and talking about when certain dances are performed. You never know - you may just have a performer in your midst who would like to share some talent with the class, as teacher Omar Salem discovered below!

Video: My students' many talents

Teacher Omar Salem describes a student who sings, dances, manages her own YouTube channel, and edits all of the video.

Culture kits

I got this idea from the Dakota County library system in Minnesota. They have a learning resource called "Bifolkal Kits" that patrons can check out. The kits have themes such as the "The Fifties," "Work Life," or "African American Lives." Each kit contains items relevant to the topic, reading materials, and questions that can be asked of a person who has experience in that area. It would be a wonderful addition to a curriculum if students created their own Culture Kits with special items that would bring culture alive as a way of sharing their cultures and discussing what can be learned from different multicultural traditions.

Special traditions, celebrations, and recipes

Invite students to share special traditions, holidays, and foods from their cultures throughout the year and across the curriculum. For example, students could describe a favorite recipe in writing or in a presentation (with plenty of practice beforehand). Ask students early on in the year what holidays they celebrate and what those celebrations look like, and invite families to share their own experiences with the class.

Video: Thirty kinds of "mole"

Juan Felipe recalls a conversation with a student who comes from the town of Hidalgo, which is famous for having many different kinds of mole, a Mexican sauce.

Realia

Using concrete objects, often called "realia," is a great way to build background knowledge and tap into students' existing background knowledge. Some objects may be very familiar, while others may be to new students. Other objects may have particular significance for students. Students can share what they know about particular objects through drawing, writing, or native language discussion groups before sharing a summary with the class.

Video: Using "realia" to build background knowledge

Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava describes the "realia" activity she used to introduce Burro's Tortillas and some of the items she brought into the classroom for the lesson.

Note: You can also see materials related to this lesson plan in our classroom module created in collaboration with Dr. Diane August.

Use things that are familiar

In addition to making important cultural connections, look for ways to tie learning to everyday objects that students are likely to have seen and used (without making assumptions, as discussed below). For example, ESOL specialist Katy Padilla prepared her ELLs for a lesson about vascular plants by pre-teaching the concept with straws - an even more relevant example since they were previewing the content in their special Secret Science Lunch Club!

Video: Making the connection between vascular plants and straws

Katy describes the challenge of the week, which is designed to increase ELLs' use of the target vocabulary.

Look for "mirror books" for your students

Using books, stories, and poems where students can see themselves, also called " mirror books," is a powerful way to tap into their experiences. Culturally relevant books are a great place to start. However, finding books about broader experiences, family traditions, or familiar situations that students recognize and relate to can be powerful as well.

Middle school teacher Anna Centi, who teaches newcomers in Dearborn, Michigan, also notes that her students dig in more deeply when they feel that connection and that she has been able to push them with more rigorous texts. You can see Miss Centi's students, most of whom come from Yemen, reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park in an excerpt from our award-winning film, You Are Welcome Here below.

Note: It is critical for teachers to be sensitive to what students have been through and not to ask a lot of direct questions about personal stories, especially in front of others; training in trauma-informed instruction is essential in order to lead conversations about students' experiences safely. Yet figuring out how to do this with care is worthwhile as it gives students a chance to connect more deeply with content and share their own stories if they wish. You may wish to request that training be offered to staff since it can benefit all adults in the school community.

Use literature, stories, and folktales from across cultures

By reading texts from different cultures, you can encourage students to connect what they are reading to their own experiences. While this seems like a simple and logical place to start, it will take some research to find just the right additions for an educational unit, as well as to find literature that is authentic and culturally relevant. If you are working with bilingual colleagues or cultural liaisons, ask them if they have recommendations or can help you make the best selections for your students.

Libraries across the nation have increased the amount of multicultural literature available from a wide variety of countries and cultures. Some of the material is written in other languages, and some of it is translated into English. There are also many publishers who have focused on increasing multicultural literature in the classroom, and Language Arts series often will have a multicultural connection with suggestions of books to read with the class. To read about one high school teacher's use of multicultural literature in the classroom, read Time is Not on Our Side: Literacy and Literature for High School Language Learners, on our sister site, AdLit.org.

In addition, you can also look for connections across stories. For example, many cultures have a story version of "Cinderella", as seen in the video below.

Video: Introducing different versions of Cinderella

In this classroom video, Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza introduces a character study of Cinderella by sharing a number of diverse versions of the Cinderella story, chosen to reflect the cultures of her students.

Note: You can also see materials related to this lesson plan in our classroom module created in collaboration with Dr. Diane August.

Use storytelling in the classroom

Many cultures have a rich tradition of storytelling that often gets lost in the U.S. with the focus on developing literacy skills. Many of the common stories in cultures have been translated and written in story form, but children also enjoy telling and acting out stories. There are many resources to help build storytelling skills, and some students may also have a relative who is a great storyteller and would be willing to visit the class and tell a story. The class can have great discussions about what made the story interesting, what the story was trying to tell them, and if they know other stories that are similar.

Asking students to share folk tales

In addition, you can ask students to share popular folk tales or legends from their own culture or bring them to life through writing, artwork, or a digital storytelling activity. You may find that many cultures have similar stories based on a certain theme, or that students have heard different versions of the same story. This is also an excellent way to engage families - who also will have strong opinions about the "right" way to tell a certain story!

Video: "How many of you have heard that story?" Teaching folklore through students' cultural experiences

Juan Felipe describes a project he oversaw for a Chicano folklore class in which students interviewed their families and compiled stories, jokes, and legends they had grown up hearing.

Video: My favorite section in the library

Storyteller Lucía González describes how family stories led to an important discovery in the library.

Avoid assumptions

Just as it's important not to put students on the spot, it's important not to make assumptions about the experiences they may (or may not) have had. For example, Dr. Ayanna Cooper shares a story in the video below about U.S. history teachers who mistakenly thought their Haitian students were African American students who had a deep knowledge base about U.S. history. As mentioned above, the better you know your students, the better you can plan lessons that will give all students access to grade-level content.

Finding resources for culturally responsive instruction

Teachers spend a lot of their own money to add to the school curriculum in order to meet the needs of their students. Adding culturally relevant curriculum and materials shouldn't be an additional financial burden on the teacher. Many schools are willing to fund the purchase of culturally relevant items if the teacher has researched the purchase and can explain how it will enhance student learning. If the school does not have resources, there may be funding at the district level or diversity grant funding available to teachers. You can find additional researched-based information in our resource collection about culturally responsive instruction.

Closing thoughts

Accessing students' background knowledge is a powerful way to make your instruction more culturally responsive and meaningful for all students. In the end, the efforts that teachers make to add a rich, cultural dimension to the curriculum will enhance student learning and comprehension, and create excitement in the classroom. The most wonderful thing about adding diverse cultural perspectives to the lesson is that it is a way of letting your students know - particularly ELL students - that their diverse experiences and backgrounds are valued in your classroom. Students may also be motivated to explore content and deepen their understanding of material.

As students share insights with you and with each other, they will develop appreciation for other cultural perspectives and they may find that there are more similarities than differences among them - and that might prove to be the greatest lesson of all.

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How to Connect ELLs' Background Knowledge to Content

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What are some other ways you can tap into background knowledge if it's very different from your own? You can start by choosing a single topic to research that you think might be relevant to your students.

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Checklist for Increasing Academic Language Awareness

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Checklist for Increasing Academic Language Awareness

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Colorín Colorado: Language & Vocabulary Development for ELs

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Colorín Colorado: Language & Vocabulary Development for ELs

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EL Formative Assessment Planning Template

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EL Formative Assessment Planning Template

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Jeff Zwiers Constructive Conversations Tools

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Jeff Zwiers Constructive Conversations Tools

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Jeff Zwiers

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SupportEd has developed some free tools to help educators and administrators better serve English learners.

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Sharing Success Stories Example - BCPS Multilingual Milestones

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Sharing Success Stories Example - BCPS Multilingual Milestones

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Guideline #1: Is assets-based.

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Hitos multilingües: Yury Guardado Iglesias, Franklin High School

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Learn more about Team BCPS and Baltimore County Public Schools

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GP#1: ELs bring many strengths to the classroom.

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Text-Dependent Questions: So You Want to be President?

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Text-Dependent Questions: So You Want to be President?

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Designing Learning That Incorporates EL's Background 

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Designing Learning That Incorporates EL's Background 

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Part 1 of WIDA's Essential Action Series

Action 1: Incorporating ELs' Experiences

This is the first of 15 articles devoted to sharing practices that WIDA (World-Class in Design and Assessment) (Gottlieb, 2013) has identified as essential to helping ELs develop social and academic language. This set of articles can be found in Essential Actions: A Handbook for Implementing WIDA's Framework for English Language Development Standards .

The practices range from describing the types of scaffolding that support ELs to explaining how collaborating with content teachers can further ELs academic language and access content. Gottlieb is also the author of Assessment for English language learners: Bridges to equity (2016), another work that you might be interested in reading.

ColorínColorado.org wrote an extensive article on how schools can use the Essential Actions Handbook as a book study in professional learning communities.

WIDA's Action 1 encourages us to see that our ELs come with lots of life experiences that can be tapped to cultivate their academic language. Action 1 wants us to shift from a deficit-based model of language instruction to an asset-based approach. The purpose of this article is to encourage educators to find ways to welcome ELs' background knowledge, incorporate their cultural experiences, and use students' native languages to help ELs connect to class.

Research for Incorporating ELs' Experiences

Educators can honor students lives and cultural experiences by setting them as the context for teaching and learning (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Moll, 1992).

Although academic language includes multiple literacies, engaging in one academic language enriches and develops the others. Research suggests that ELLs who have diverse and meaningful experiences in their native language develop literacy faster in a second language (Gottlieb, 2013; Gee, 2008).

Teachers of ELs can encourage bilingualism by supporting students' inquiries into their own cultural experiences and their use of multiple languages (Escamilla & Hopewell, 2010, Garcia & Kleifgen, 2010; Hornberger, 2003).

In this article, I'll show you how I honor this body of research and attempt to include students' cultures and experiences as a context for learning language. In addition, I recommend reading Laura Lenz's guest post entitled " A Strength-Based Approach to Teaching ESL" on Jennifer Gonzales' highly useful Cult of Pedagogy blog . Laura and I both write about adopting an asset-based approach to instruction instead of a deficit model. She provides six reminders to educators on how to validate what ELs can contribute to their communities.

Current Practices: How to Incorporate ELs' Experiences

There are three areas of EL knowledge that educators can use as context for learning language: cultural traditions, hobbies/Interests, life experiences, national practices. Each of these areas can be integrated in 4 simple ways: reading, writing, researching and collaborating. Students in Garrett's class were exploring the concept of human rights. They had to report on the different ways that human rights are being denied and describe their impact.

Instead of making students report on a human rights issue selected by Garrett and I, we decided to tap into ELs' own experiences and cultures. We encouraged students to choose topics they are familiar with that are happening in their own countries. We knew that if they did, their engagement would increase and their focus would more likely be sustained. After all, students' experiences form a foundation where new learning can be built ( Ausubel,1968; Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978) . Here are some examples of how the students chose to incorporate their worlds into this assignment.

Student Examples

Yinuo, a student from China, wanted to inquire into the right to move both within and out of one's country. She decided to focus on internal migration in China. Because she was at the Emerging phase of her English language development, I encouraged her to find relevant sources in Chinese to help her access information.

Yinou used this article from Human Rights Watch, which was already translated into Mandarin by the organization, to support her research. We allowed Yinou to use resources in Chinese because we wanted her to first and foremost understand the topic. After all, she could not communicate what she did not understand.

We wanted to use Yinou's experience and her native language to empower her to communicate ideas, even if she had to do it in broken English. This belief that comprehensible input is required to produce comprehensible output comes from Stephen Krashen (1981). The priority was on her understanding the concept Mr. Garrett wanted Yinou to learn, not on her mastery of English grammar and vocabulary.

By allowing Yinou to use Chinese sources to aid her comprehension of the topic, Garrett and I honored Yinou's language development. When as her English was more established, we gradually let her use more and more English resources.

We use the same philosophy of incorporating ELs' experiences to support that academic engagement with Nurul, a Malaysian student. She was interested in the right to marry the partner of one's choosing. She wanted to explore the perspectives on why Malaysians are only allowed to marry if both partners practice the same religion. Nurul was also encouraged to use sources in Malay to help her research. She found several Youtube videos and two articles in her native language related to the topic.

The Result

Both of these girls were highly engaged in the assignment because they were allowed to explore topics connected to their cultural experiences. Learning had a context, and the concept of human rights became more accessible and meaningful to them when they were encouraged to use their home languages and a research a topic they could identify with.

Just because they used non-English resources does not mean that they were not developing English skills. On the contrary, the assignment required them to organize and communicate their understanding of the topic in English . This made learning academic English even more meaningful precisely because Yinuo and Nurul had to use it to express their ideas.

If there is space and freedom within your curriculum, I encourage you to try to find ways to allow ELs to incorporate their cultural backgrounds and interests as the context for learning content and developing skills. It makes learning more relevant and thereby increases student engagement. The more students are engaged, the more their critical thinking and communication skills flourish.

Can Do Philosophy

Incorporating ELs' experiences is one of the key elements of WIDA's Can Do Philosophy. This is a framework that has transformed the way I think about my ELs and the way I talk about them. I has shifted my thinking from a deficit model to one where I describe actions ELs can do instead of negatively focusing on things they can't. All they can do right now is everything they can do. WIDA's Can Do Philosophy honors that.

To empower ELs to live up to their full potential, we have to explicitly teaching academic language. In the next chapter, I'll be sharing diagrams that make learning academic language more accessible and visible.

References

Krashen, S.D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

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#19. Designing Learning that Incorporates MLs' Experiences - TanKHuynh

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Part 1 of WIDA's Essential Action Series Action 1: Incorporating ELs' Experiences This is the first of 15 articles devoted to sharing practices that WIDA (World-Class in Design and Assessment) (Gottlieb, 2013) has identified as essential to helping ELs develop social and academic language.

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Sentence Level Strategy: Juicy Sentence Protocol

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Sentence Level Strategy: Juicy Sentence Protocol

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Listen to the interview with Angela Peery:
Sponsored by Google for Education's Applied Digital Skills and fastIEP

I've been an educator for 36 years, and if there's one thing I think every educator can agree on, it's that increasing the number of words our students know is a good thing. Period.

This is supported by decades of research:

A rich vocabulary supports content knowledge in all disciplines. Conceptual understanding, along with both general and specific word knowledge, impacts learning at every age level, starting with oral language development in preschool. When older students know the meaning of specific words and are able to put related words together during a unit of study, they can connect to new content more readily and remember more (Marzano & Simms, 2013).

Word knowledge is key for reading comprehension. Kindergarten students' word knowledge predicts reading comprehension in second grade (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999; Roth, Speece, & Cooper, 2002), and this persists through fourth grade (Wagner, Muse, & Tannenbaum, 2007). Even more surprisingly, Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) find that first-grade students' vocabulary knowledge predicts their reading comprehension level much later, in the eleventh grade.

Students who are deficient in vocabulary face numerous obstacles, including having much lower reading comprehension. Their reading range is thus limited, their writing lacks specificity and voice, and their spoken language lacks range of word choice. They risk reading less (both in volume and frequency), not understanding content-area texts or concepts well, writing lackluster essays and reports, and not being able to express themselves as well verbally.

This is why all teachers should address vocabulary instruction head-on.

But what words should be taught? In English language arts/reading classrooms, explicit vocabulary instruction should focus on general academic words (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2013). These words cut across disciplines and help students speak, read, and write well in all the academic settings in which they'll find themselves. In every discipline, there are also domain-specific terms students need to understand and learn.

8 Vocabulary-Building Strategies

Good vocabulary instruction can and should happen throughout the school day. This can happen through incidental learning, when students talk with and listen to others, watch videos, play games, and read independently, through explicit instruction, which are more structured activities, or with the help of digital tools.

The strategies that follow, most of which require very little preparation time, come from three of my books, shown below:

Strategy 1: Informal Conversations

One of the most powerful things teachers (and adults in the home) can do is to have rich conversations with children. Recent research on conversational turns (LENA, 2017) indicates that the more turns a young child takes in conversation with an adult, the more they grow their vocabulary and verbal acuity in general.

So asking questions of a student, receiving their responses, adding information, and asking them to reflect or add more information-in other words, keeping the conversation going-is important in vocabulary development. This idea has great potential for non-instructional segments of the preschool elementary day like snack time, lining up to go to lunch, and restroom breaks. It also has potential for older students.

Strategy 2: Anchored Word Learning

Anchored Word Learning (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) is ideal to use with elementary students where read-alouds are typically part of the daily routine. It can also be used in the upper grades, especially with complex text that is being read aloud and discussed together as a whole class.

For young children, picture books provide excellent sources of higher-level, sophisticated words that are important for expanding vocabulary. They expose students to words they would not typically read within leveled books or on their own. For older children, excerpts from novels, nonfiction texts of various types, and content-area texts can all be used for anchored word learning.

Isabel Beck suggests selecting three general academic words each time the teacher reads aloud a picture book or trade book; these should not be esoteric or archaic terms, but words likely to come up in other academic texts. Older students may be able to handle more words during a read-aloud and class discussion, but teachers are cautioned not to select too many words for one lesson. Three to five words is usually sufficient.

Prior to reading, teachers need to complete three simple preparation steps:

1. Select a read-aloud. Choose from books by favorite authors, recommended books, new books, old favorites, picture books, trade books, and content-area texts that impart critical information.

2. Identify three to five words for direct instruction. Select words which will expand students' vocabulary and will likely appear in varied contexts-or focus on words critically important to the content being taught. "Nice to know" words don't have a place here. The idea is to teach important words that are likely to appear in various contexts or words you really want students to know.

3. Mark the words in the text with a sticky note or with a highlighter and annotations if the text is on paper.

Once this preparation is complete, follow these steps with students:

1. Read the entire text aloud. Don't stop in the first reading to discuss the words at length. Students need to hear complex texts being read aloud fluently-especially a first reading-so they can start to process the story itself or the complicated ideas present in many nonfiction and content-specific texts.

2. After reading the text through once, go back and bring attention to each targeted word. You may want to reread the sentences and/or paragraphs in which each word appears.

3. Have students say each word aloud.

4. Write each word so it's visible to students. You may want to have students write the words down as well (or use their fingers and "write" the words in the air or in the palms of their hands). With younger students, spell the word as you write it. Call attention to any interesting spelling feature, such as double letters, silent E, prefixes, etc.

5. Provide a student-friendly definition of each word. You may want to repeat this several times.

6. Provide examples for each word beyond the context of the text. Encourage children to provide examples of their own so they personalize the word, relating it to their own context. This is a great time to use think-pair-share or turn-and-talk.

7. If desired, post these words on your academic word wall. If you're an ELA/reading teacher, you may want to have a section of the word wall dedicated to words from read-alouds.

Strategy 3: TIP Chart

This adaptation of a word wall features a visual in addition to a brief definition. TIP stands for term, information, and picture. Basically, a TIP Chart (Rollins, 2014) is a three-column poster displayed so students can quickly use it to remind them of the meaning of an important content-area ( tier three) word. In essence, it's a vocabulary anchor chart.

Unlike the well-known Frayer Model, the TIP Chart is useful for words that are fairly straightforward in meaning-not ones with heavy conceptual weight. Once completed, the TIP Chart serves as an "at a glance" reference for important disciplinary terms; this purpose must be kept in mind if the strategy is to be most beneficial.

TIP charts are displayed prominently for the whole class to see, but students can also keep personal TIP charts in their notebooks or digital files as well. The teacher can first model how to create the chart, and later, students can be involved in deciding what information to record and what picture to draw to go with each word.

The best time to use the strategy is when beginning a new chunk of instruction, like a chapter or unit. With the chart ready, announce the first word and call students' attention to the importance of this word in the current segment of instruction. Write the word in column one. Then share the formal and full definition, which ideally would also be printed in the text or on a screen or board in the classroom. Along with students, from this full definition, develop a short, student-friendly definition or a brief list that you write in the middle column. Do not write the full, formal definition in column two. Lastly, provide or co-create a simple visual in column three.

So, for the term soliloquy in my 9 th grade English class, I would first give the formal definition: A long, usually serious speech that a character in a play makes to an audience and that reveals the character's thoughts. We might talk for a minute about the fact that playwrights use soliloquies so the audience understands what a character is thinking. So, in the middle column, we might write the student-friendly, casual definition: When someone in the play thinks out loud. And, to emphasize the fact that this kind of speech is usually given with the character standing alone on the stage, I might then draw a single stick figure with lines or a speech bubble emanating from its face to indicate that he or she is speaking.

The TIP Chart in my class might look something like this:

Here's a social studies example. For the term "monopoly," the full definition might be "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service." It is assumed that the teacher is also teaching the term "commodity" along with "monopoly." In column two for "monopoly," the teacher may write "control of a product or service." In the third column, he or she might draw a large square that surrounds smaller squares, thus showing the dominance of the one provider. Students might also suggest something that symbolizes a monopoly to them, like an iPhone surrounded by other types of cell phones, but the iPhone appears much larger or more prominent, or the other phones are crossed out.

Teachers can gradually do less in whole-class fashion with TIP charts and encourage students to create their own in hard-copy notebooks or digital notebooks using Google Docs, LiveBinders, or OneNote. Students might preview the first part of each chapter or unit (in any class) and try to complete a personal TIP chart to be kept in their organizational system. They could also collaborate with other students to create TIP charts, so that if any individual is confused about a word, they can get ideas from others. This is a portable strategy students can use with any content area and any textbook from elementary school well into college.

Strategy 4: Save the Last Word for Me

Save the Last Word for Me (Beers, 2003) is an ideal strategy to promote peer conversation, increase engagement, and promote deeper processing about vocabulary and content. Although it's usually applied to conversations about literature, its clearly defined structure is perfect for reviewing vocabulary and gaining deeper understanding of specific terms.

It is fairly typical for teachers to provide guided review activities before a unit test, midterm, or final exam. Let's say the instructional unit includes about 25 terms which students must recognize and understand how to use correctly within context. Save the Last Word for Me serves as an engaging vehicle for students to practice doing so in preparation for an assessment.

The steps for employing this strategy are as follows; the first three need to be completed ahead of time:

1. Print multiple sets of cards with a target word on one side and the definition on the reverse side (one set for each group of students).

2. Print the directions for the activity (see below).

3. Place the printed directions and terms in a plastic bag or manila envelope for each group of students.

4. Divide students into groups of three to five. It's important that groups are small so each student has an opportunity to discuss. The goal is for students to review and deepen understanding about concepts and specific terms, so making sure they clarify their thinking aloud is important.

To begin, one student draws a card from the deck and another student defines the term. Moving around the circle, each student adds to the definition, refining and adding examples along the way. The person who draws the cards gets the "last word" and can add to the definition or revise it before students agree upon a definition. You may want to model the process in whole-class fashion first or by having a small group model the process as the rest of the class watches.

Sometimes, if the bank of terms is large, I suggest simply printing one master deck of cards and place five or six cards in each bag. After a few minutes, signal the groups to trade bags of terms and, in so doing, each group gets new terms to review.

While Save the Last Word for Me is low-tech, sometimes simpler is better. It delivers by supporting interaction and engagement, deeper conversations, and higher-level processing.
Student Directions for Save the Last Word for Me

One student selects a card from the deck and says the term aloud with the other group members.

On a piece of paper, each student jots down what they know about the term. (This can also be "in your head" and each person takes about 30 seconds to think about what they know about the meaning.)

When everyone is finished, each person takes a turn sharing their reflections/responses. As each participant shares their thoughts, other students can share thoughts and responses.

The student who drew the card gets the last word by sharing their reflections/reactions or by stating a fresh view if the responses of others have altered their original thinking.

If students are unsure or need clarification, they refer to the text, notes, and/or handouts for clarification.

Another student draws a new card, and the process is repeated.

Strategy 5: SNAP Minilessons

Setting aside specific time daily, weekly, or periodically to explicitly teach general academic vocabulary through minilessons (of 5 to 15 minutes each) is another way you can provide explicit instruction.

Each minilesson in my books contains four core components or steps, which the acronym SNAP in the title represents:

S: Seeing and saying each word

N: Naming a category or group each word belongs to or noticing connections to related words or word families

A: Acting on the words (engaging in a brief task or conversation about the words)

P: Producing an individual, original application of the words

The example below is intended for secondary students.

Click here to see this lesson in a Google Doc.

Strategy 6: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy

The primary purpose of the Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) (Haggard, 1986) is to help students generate a list of words to be learned based on their prior knowledge and experience with reading and texts. This strategy can stimulate word growth and independence as students read texts and select vocabulary which they deem important to understanding the content.

VSS includes the following steps:

Selecting words

Defining words

Finalizing word lists

Extending word knowledge

The strategy can be used to support general word learning from one's environment or to support vocabulary learning from assigned and self-selected texts.

A colleague of mine routinely used this strategy to support general word learning with college freshmen. Every week, students "collected" three words from their environment (watching, listening, and reading) that they thought important to learn. For each word, students included the following information

An accurate definition

Where they heard or read the word including a bit of the context

A justification for why they thought the word was important to learn

Words were shared and discussed in class at an established time each week. Students also recorded their words in personal vocabulary notebooks. VSS engaged students in lively discussions and specifically raised word consciousness, a critical goal of word learning.

Another way VSS can be implemented is to specifically support word acquisition from content-area text. To support content learning, students can work in cooperative groups and read a chapter from a textbook (or any text). As they read, they identify words they think should be studied and mastered. During class discussion, groups then share their words and why they think the terms are important to mastering content. Additional steps can include developing a class list that contains one word from each group, creating TIP charts with the words, and having students teach minilessons focused on the words to each other.

Strategy 7: Word Talks

Word talks were derived from a similar strategy called book talks, in which students give a brief (less than five minutes) presentation about a book they recommend to their peers for independent reading. Word talks are similar in that they require a student to give a brief presentation on one or several words that they feel are important for their peers to know. This strategy is, like some others in this chapter, excellent for general academic words, not highly specialized, domain-specific words. Also, it can be easily combined with the Vocabulary Self-Collection strategy discussed earlier.

Some teachers who use word talks schedule a certain day a week or a certain day per month on which several students get up and do their word talks. Other teachers schedule a rotation so that a few times a week, one student is doing a word talk that day. Because the word talks consist of a student teaching their peers, it's important to make time for this, because students tend to find the periods in which their classmates are leading discussion much more memorable than when the teacher is; students often have a way of saying something that "clicks" with their peers just because it's said in a kid-friendly way.

What kind of words should students share in word talks? Many students share from their independent reading and their media and technology use. Teachers can ask students to provide a rationale for each word chosen if they like, but they can also allow students to share any word that might be interesting. I find myself thinking of the character Sam in the Netflix series Atypical as a high school student. He would have certainly loved to share words related to penguins and Antarctica in word talks.

In a word talk in one of my high school classes, a student selected the following words to share: ascent, descent, decompression, and recompression. Can you tell what the student was learning to do outside of school? Scuba diving. This student was studying for her initial scuba certification and thought these words would be good to share because although they have scuba-specific meanings, they also have application to non-scuba situations.

Word talks are great opportunities for some students to showcase their interests and expertise, but most importantly, they make clear that continual word learning is important.

Strategy 8: Digital Tools for Independent Practice

The following websites/programs offer support for you as a teacher as well as independent practice activities for students:

Flocabulary
This robust program includes hip-hop type videos to help students learn new terminology.

Freerice
This site has an addictive vocabulary game with five difficulty levels, with levels one and two being appropriate for students in grades three and up.

Vocabador
This game allows students to study SAT vocabulary words, choose an avatar, and "get into the ring" to play against other virtual wrestlers.

There's nothing negative that comes about when anyone grows their vocabulary-and for students, there are many, many positives. By adding even a few of these strategies to your repertoire, you'll help students build vocabularies that will support them no matter what path they choose to pursue.
References
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

Beers, K. (2003). When kids can't read, what teachers can do: A guide for teachers 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Catts, H. W., Fey, M. E., Zhang, X., & Tomblin, J. B. (1999). Language basis of reading and reading disabilities: Evidence from a longitudinal investigation. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3(4), 331-361.

Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 934-945.

Haggard, M. R. (1986). The vocabulary self-collection strategy: Using student interest and world knowledge to enhance vocabulary growth. Journal of Reading, 29(7), 634-642.

LENA. 2017. Proving the Power of Talk: 10 Years of Research on the Impact of Language on Young Children. Available at https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3975639/Research_Summary.pdf?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lena.org%2F.

Marzano, R. J., & Simms, J. A. (2013). Vocabulary for the Common Core. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Rollins, S. P. (2014). Learning in the fast lane: 8 ways to put all students on the road to academic success. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wagner, R. K., Muse, A. E., & Tannenbaum, K. R. (Eds.). (2007). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: Guilford Press.

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By adding even a few of these strategies to your repertoire, you'll help students build vocabularies that will support them no matter what path they choose to pursue.

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Colorín Colorado

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In this video, Ms. Samantha Kirch demonstrates the ways she uses informal assessment to gauge student understanding, as well as the kinds of support offered to ELLs who need some extra practice with the concept of drawing conclusions.

School Name: Claremont Immersion Elementary School, Arlington, Virginia

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Assessment for English Language Learners

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In this video, Ms. Samantha Kirch demonstrates the ways she uses informal assessment to gauge student understanding, as well as the kinds of support offered to ELLs who need some extra practice with the concept of drawing conclusions. School Name: Claremont Immersion Elementary School, Arlington, Virginia

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Meaningful Classroom Talk: Supporting English Learners Oral Language Development

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Meaningful Classroom Talk: Supporting English Learners Oral Language Development

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A. Walqui & M. Heritage (2018, Fall)

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Consider this interaction between a teacher and his students, most of them English language learners, in a ninth-grade English language arts class:

Teacher: Who wrote The Pearl, Carmen?

Carmen: Steinbeck wrote The Pearl.

Teacher: Very good. And Rosa, who is the main character in this novella?

Rosa: I guess the main character is Kino, although his wife, Juana, is also important.

Teacher: That's right. And why do we say The Pearl is a novella? Jim?

Now contrast it with the interaction other ninth-graders had in their English language arts/English language development class:

Teacher: As we begin to explore this short story, "The Necklace," written by a French author from the 19th century, Guy de Maupassant, I am inviting you to read the first four paragraphs with your partner using types of "Question-Answer Relationships."* We have practiced this process several times, so unless we require some explanation-[students signal they do not]-then, please get started. As you engage in reading and discussing, I would like you to focus on the character Mathilde and think about what kind of person she is. We will then focus on the problem she faces.

Rodrigo (after reading the first paragraph of "The Necklace" aloud to his partner, Martha): OK, I am going to ask you a "think and search" question. Did Mathilde grow up in a rich family?

Martha: I am not sure. I think no, because the paragraph says she could not marry a "rich and distinguished man" and had to marry a little clerk. Is that an employee? [Rodrigo nods his assent.] I guess it is because she is not rich. But she was very pretty and charming, right?

So now I am going to read the second paragraph. [She proceeds to read aloud to Rodrigo, then pauses and thinks.] I am confused, so I guess I will ask you a think and search question. The text says "with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth." Is the author saying that for women, money does not matter? Why did she marry a clerk then?

Rodrigo: Yeah, I agree. I don't fully understand. You said she was pretty but not rich. Now the second paragraph says that's in place of family and birth, so does that mean richness? Does it not matter if women are pretty? Does it matter or doesn't it matter? [Both students decide to raise these questions later during the whole-class discussion. Then Rodrigo proceeds to read the third paragraph to Martha.]

We have all observed classes resembling the first example, where the teacher already knows the answers to the questions being asked, as do most students. The exchange is just an exercise in reiterating the known using complete sentences. In contrast, students in the second example must actively consider the possibilities related to the text, by asking and responding to questions that reveal their understanding.

How do we ensure that all English language learners have opportunities to productively use oral language in academic settings? And how do we ensure that teachers leverage the power of classroom interactions to simultaneously foster language development, content knowledge, and analytical practices? In this article, we offer answers to these questions-and clarify common misconceptions-by presenting guidelines supported by both research and classroom practice.

A Framework for Oral Language

If English language learners (ELLs) are going to productively engage in classroom discourse and express their thinking related to content learning goals, teachers must create a trusting classroom culture in which students feel that whatever level of language they can produce, their contributions will be valued by their teacher and peers and will never be subject to ridicule, sanctions, or negative comparisons. ² Establishing classroom norms such as close listening to understand the ideas ELLs are conveying and showing respect to each other during their interactions (learning, of course, from the models their teachers provide) is essential for successful oral language use. Students need to know that interrupting their peers as they are formulating ideas and finishing their sentences for them are not desirable classroom norms.

As teachers plan to engage students in oral interactions, the framework shown in Figure 1 below can help guide their support for their students' work and language development. The framework comprises six interconnected levels.
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First, teachers need to ensure that students clearly understand the purpose of the interaction they are being asked to undertake. For example, are they supposed to read a text and elaborate their thinking, highlighting what they understand and what they don't? Are they engaged in describing a scene to somebody who has not seen it? Are they being asked to make a prediction after observing phenomena they will later investigate?

Second, teachers need to make sure students have ideas upon which they will elaborate. For example, have they noticed the most important aspects of the scene (the background, main character(s) presented, what they are doing, other relevant details) on which they will center their description?

Third, teachers need to help students organize their thoughts and ensure their language follows specific patterns. For example, descriptions of a scene from a text cannot begin with sentences such as, "He kicks it, it breaks." Students need to first indicate the setting of the scene, then introduce the characters, describe them, and explain what they are doing. This sequence is essential to help participants engaged in a conversation paint pictures in their minds. Organization is marked by phrases that can be provided to students as formulaic expressions (which we discuss later in this article) to use: ³ "The picture we have shows a..." "We can see a..." "Our scene takes place in a..." "Based on my observation..." "The two historical contexts are..."

Fourth, teachers need to consider the types of sentences students produce and judiciously highlight how they may be combined and expanded to produce more complex language. Increasing complexity can be accomplished with the use of connectors and conjunctions, such as "besides," "furthermore," "additionally," "however," etc.

Fifth, teachers must pay attention to the words students use. Is one word repeated several times in an interaction? If so, teachers can take the opportunity to introduce a synonym. Do students incorrectly or imprecisely use a term? Teachers can take a moment to clarify usage and meaning.

Finally, when students are ready to present their work to others, teachers can focus on the pronunciation of carefully selected elements-only those that interrupt understanding.
Traditionally, many educators have been taught to focus on correcting student utterances by zeroing in on form and not on meaning. As a result, our framework may initially feel counterintuitive, but the more educators rely on it, the more it will assist them in supporting students' language growth.

Productive Talk

As a general pattern, we educators often talk too much, no doubt influenced by our "apprenticeship of observation" that began when we were students ourselves. ⁴ However, given the centrality of talk in learning, this pattern needs to change. By some estimates, ELLs spend less than 2 percent of their school day in oral interaction. ⁵ Teachers must find ways to provide students learning opportunities that engage them in productive talk and then listen carefully to the language they use in order to support their continued growth.

By productive talk, we mean speech that has the following characteristics:

Has depth: the specific idea being discussed is central to the theme of the lesson, is presented in interconnected ways, and engages students' analytical thinking.

Is sustained: one student's statement is followed by another student's response, which extends, refutes, or questions what was first said.

Is student controlled: students control what they say, not the teacher. But teachers set up parameters for the interactions, sometimes framing questions that start the conversation. These questions are intended to communicate new related ideas, propose counter ideas or examples, and in general enhance the theme at work.⁶

Now consider these characteristics in an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class, which comprises students with varied levels of English competence. ⁷ "Language" is the theme of the students' exploration, and this was the third class on the topic. Table 1 below shows the deliberate moves of the teacher, Mr. DeFazio, during the lesson and the students' interactions. The text in the table indicates the multiple instances of productive talk that he promotes with his directions and actions.
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Let us look more closely at a specific interaction that occurred in the lesson after a student, Lavinia, reads the beginning of a letter she wrote about animal communication, and another student, Julio, reacts to one of her statements that animals do not have language.

Julio: Animal communication is not a language? It is a language-that's what I think-because they are communicating with each other.

Lavinia: But they don't speak.

Class: [Many students agree with Julio, saying "Yes, they do," or nodding.]

Julio: You said a language can have words, sounds, gestures, and everything.

Class: [Many students are in agreement with Julio's ideas once again.]

Lavinia: But they don't have words. They don't say "mama."

Julio: They don't need to. They have other characteristics. In animal language, some of the characteristics that you said are present-sound, pitch, gestures-so it is a language.

Mr. DeFazio: Julio is arguing very strongly that animal communication is language. Lavinia is saying that it's not. What do you think would be a way to help them resolve that argument in their writing?

Class: [The discussion continues and a resolution emerges. Then Julio reads a section of his letter.]

Mr. DeFazio: A lot is going to depend on how you define language, OK? You can define it in such a way as to exclude what animals do; you can define it in a very broad way, as a system of communication that includes everything. You are going to find linguists and zoologists who disagree, and if you are interested, I can give you some readings that were in the journal Science last year, people arguing back and forth.

Julio (reading his letter): First of all, I think that language is a way to inform others around you, your feelings, or just a simple thing that you want to let people know what is the deal. And it can be expressed by saying it, looking at a picture, or hearing it, you know what I'm saying? I don't know if you have heard about the kangaroo rat that stamps its feet to communicate with other rats. It's really funny 'cause we humans have more characteristics to communicate to each other, but we still have problems to understand other people. Characteristics like sound, grammar, pictures, and body language are some of them, while the rat only uses the foot. [Julio stamps the ground.]

Mr. DeFazio: Excellent! [The class applauds.] I never even heard about the kangaroo rat. Nice job, nice job. [Mr. DeFazio shakes Julio's hand.]

Applying the framework illustrated in Figure 1 to this interaction, we notice that students are clearly aware that the purpose of this exercise is to compare diverse positions on communication and to debate whether animals have language or not, providing evidence for their positions. They have ideas, and they choose which ones to debate based on a diversity of opinions. Mr. DeFazio's opportunity to correct student work, suggest changes, ask for elaboration, and so forth comes in the letters he is asking his students to construct. This written product is intimately tied to oral production. Oral activity feeds into writing, and writing produces oral activity.

In terms of productive talk, in Mr. DeFazio's class, students' analytic thinking is engaged, their interaction is sustained, and they control what they say. Mr. DeFazio has chosen a theme for the lesson that appeals to the students, and he has deliberately planned their active engagement throughout. As a result, the interaction engages students in deep thinking as they compare views on language.

Now that we have seen the characteristics of quality interactions for ELLs in practice, in the next section, we provide guidelines for promoting quality interactions during content lessons.

Six Guidelines for Promoting Quality Interactions

1. Design lessons that involve ELLs' participation in subject-specific and substantive oral practice to accomplish clearly defined lesson goals: Planning a lesson always begins with establishing the destination: Where do teachers need to lead students? Teachers should ask: Are my goals closely related to content standards? What is the knowledge that will be constructed? Which analytic practice will be promoted? What is the language (beyond isolated words or sentences) that will need to be developed? Unless teachers themselves are clear about the goals of a lesson, they will not be able to plan the tasks and activities that support students' language and conceptual development.

2. Construct tasks that appropriately scaffold student participation and growth: Tasks need to be deliberately constructed to engage students in working beyond their current competence. Such tasks should promote worthwhile interactions for students to acquire new conceptual understandings and analytical skills and language. They should also have appropriate scaffolds, which entail teachers closely observing students to ascertain whether the support is working, whether it is still needed, or whether it needs to be modified or replaced.

3. Make sure the task is designed to meet its purposes and the materials used are appropriate to support students working at the edge of their competence successfully: Learning is most effective when tasks are designed to match students' current competencies and also challenge them to move forward, with support.

4. Make sure that activities or tasks follow and precede others logically to build coherent lessons: Leading students to increasingly more complex demands is essential if teachers want their lessons to flow smoothly and to incrementally build ELLs' understanding.

5. Integrate reading and writing into oral development activities: Oral interaction while reading texts not only allows ELLs to understand the text more deeply but also helps them develop awareness of what they understand as they read and what they can do to solve problems in reading.

6. Be selective in addressing errors and intentional in providing feedback: When ELLs use English to develop their understanding of content and their use of analytical practices, often their language will be neither accurate nor fully formed, although the intent of their communication will be apparent. Imagine, for a moment, the impact on ELLs' motivation and self-esteem if teacher responses to inaccuracies constituted a constant flow of error correction. Instead, consider formative feedback to students as invitations to understand how they are progressing in language development and to provide a resource for how they can advance. When feedback is given to students about language while they are learning discipline-specific content, the feedback should focus on language so that students can make sense of the academic content, rather than on correcting errors of language production. As such, feedback can increase the students' awareness and help them troubleshoot their own performance and eventually correct their own language.⁸

There is no hard and fast rule about how much feedback students should receive or how often it should be provided; this is a decision teachers will need to make for themselves, given their knowledge of their students, their language and content goals, and the students' current language use. However, because of the powerful impact that feedback can have on learning, ⁹ we advise teachers to make providing feedback a regular and routine part of their classroom practice.

Common Misconceptions

Designing and facilitating meaningful classroom talk is essential for ELLs-indeed for all students-to develop more extended and sophisticated language use while simultaneously learning subject matter. Yet in too many U.S. classrooms, we find ELLs sitting silently, watching their teachers do all the work, and waiting for opportunities to fully engage cognitively and linguistically.

By way of concluding thoughts, we outline five pitfalls to avoid in thinking about language learning, and we provide suggestions for how teachers can engage students in sustained, high-quality classroom talk.

Misconception 1: Sentence frames that provide students with a way of expressing their ideas about specific situations are helpful to them.

A sentence frame is basically a fill-in-the-blank type of activity that invites only one correct answer. Sometimes it can be open and provide starters for students (also called sentence starters for this reason) to be filled in any way. However, these starters may not provide students with phrases they can use time and time again in academic situations. ¹⁰ For example: "The main character in The Pearl is a modest and loving man, furthermore..." "His wife, Juana, loves Kino and Coyotito, their baby, and because of that..."

In addition to using sentence frames, we suggest teachers use formulaic expressions, which are phrases that help start or link ideas and can be used in many situations. Initially, students learn them as unanalyzed chunks, almost as if they were one word. Later on, as students learn more English, they begin to realize the formulaic expressions are formed by several words. Formulaic expressions are extremely useful in students' development of English and in making their interaction with peers possible and more effective. Examples of formulaic expressions are: "I agree with you, and I can add that..." "May I suggest a couple of other ideas? One example I can offer..."

Misconception 2: Correct mistakes students make as they talk or they will "fossilize."

Historically, correctness has been regarded as paramount in second language learners' use of English. More recently, however, researchers' attention has shifted to the larger components of communication, as discussed before: purpose, ideas, organization, types of sentences, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Fossilization, a concept popular in the 1980s, refers to the inability of second language learners to learn the correct forms of language if they continually misuse them. Our perspective, consistent with that of multiple applied linguists, is that language keeps evolving as a result of continuous practice. It may fossilize if it is no longer used productively or receptively. However, in their schooling, students will be invited to engage in uses of language continuously, and thus, they will have ample opportunities to correct themselves or be corrected by others.

Misconception 3: Rather than correcting students' ungrammatical oral language, it is better to provide them with recasts, which model correct English in response to students' mistakes.

It is common for teachers to believe that rather than correcting a student's mistakes-and putting him or her on the spot-it is better to repeat what a student has said, this time changing the student's utterance into grammatical English. They think that recasting saves a student's face and that it is a less authoritarian approach.

Research, however, shows that these implicit corrections may not be productive. ¹¹ Students do not take teachers' recasts as corrections, but rather as reiterations of the idea and as acceptance of students' comments as being right. When the time is appropriate to focus on selected language forms to study and correct, the correction and expansion activity needs to be made explicit.

Misconception 4: Sustained, focused interactions are possible starting in fourth or fifth grade, but lower elementary students are not mature enough to carry them out because they get too impatient with the task and with each other.

Recently, during an open house at an elementary school in Portland, Oregon, one of us (Aída) had the opportunity to visit three classes. The first one was a kindergarten class. The teacher, Mr. Andanen, was preparing students to read and discuss Julius, the Baby of the World, a book by Kevin Henkes, an author the students were already familiar with because they had enjoyed reading three of his other books in class.

To introduce the book, Mr. Andanen set up nine stations around the room and invited students to walk through them. At each station, a picture illustrating a scene from the book was prominently displayed. Students were asked to rotate around the stations every three minutes. At each station, students needed to stop, look at the picture, and explain what they noticed. The teacher had asked students to use a "talking stick" so that the turns to speak were democratically divided within the group at each station. Peers had to listen attentively to the speaker and agree with, disagree with, or expand on what the student said. Formulaic expressions such as "In this picture, I notice..." and "I noticed that, too, and I want to add..." were familiar to the group. At one station, Aída heard the following exchange:

Student 1: I notice a woman holding a big baby. Her mouth is open. I think she is crying.

Student 2: I also noticed she had her mouth open, but I don't think she is crying. I think she is singing.

Student 3: I also noticed the woman with the big baby, and I want to add that he is very heavy. Perhaps that is why she is screaming.

The exchange shows that Mr. Andanen has created an environment that enables young children to notice and use language in purposeful ways. Although the students were only in kindergarten, they clearly articulated their ideas and listened to others. They showed they will soon be ready to start exploring the book more deeply so that they can eventually write an opinion piece based on evidence from the text about which Henkes book was their favorite.

Misconception 5: All students in a class need to master the same levels of oral development as a result of participating in lessons.

Because not all students in a class will be at the same starting point, a robust activity provides multiple entry points for all students to engage as they learn. The important idea is that they should all be gaining-not that all of them will arrive at the same point, in exactly the same way, developing at exactly the same level. This would only be possible if what is learned is limited, and if the learning demands recall. This is not necessarily what we want in education. Rather, we want to produce individuals who are thoughtful, engaged, and conscious of their own development.

English language learners bring valuable assets and immense potential to school. The role of educators is to realize that potential in deep and accelerated ways. Each classroom teacher must ensure the path to that development is paved with meaningful interactions to help students develop language skills, gain conceptual understanding, and learn academic content. Our students deserve no less.
Aída Walqui is the director of the teacher professional development program at WestEd. Previously, she taught in the Division of Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Margaret Heritage is a senior advisor at WestEd and was previously an assistant director at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles.
*Taffy Raphael's Question-Answer Relationships framework ¹ is intended to call students' attention to the kinds of questions that may be asked about a text. In this class, students work in pairs, announcing first the type of question he or she will ask to increase the other student's awareness of the types of meaningful connections the question seeks. ( back to the article)

Endnotes

1. Taffy E. Raphael, "Teaching Question Answer Relationships, Revisited," The Reading Teacher 39 (1986): 516-522.

2. Alison L. Bailey and Margaret Heritage, Progressing Students' Language Day by Day (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2018).

3. See Rod Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review (Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education, 2005).

4. Dan C. Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

5. Diane August, referenced in Ivannia Soto-Hinman, "Increasing Academic Oral Language Development: Using English Language Learner Shadowing in Classrooms," Multicultural Education 18, no. 2 (Winter 2011): 21-23.

6. Aída Walqui and Leo van Lier, Scaffolding the Academic Success of Adolescent English Language Learners: A Pedagogy of Promise (San Francisco: WestEd, 2010).

7. Anthony DeFazio and Aída Walqui, Where Do You Want to Go Next? (San Francisco: WestEd, 2001), DVD.

8. David J. Nicol and Debra Macfarlane‐Dick, "Formative Assessment and Self‐Regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice," Studies in Higher Education 31 (2006): 199-218.

9. See, for example, John Hattie and Helen Timperley, "The Power of Feedback," Review of Educational Research 77 (2007): 81-112.

10. For more on sentence frames, see Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition.

11. Ahlem Ammar and Nina Spada, "One Size Fits All? Recasts, Prompts, and L2 Learning," Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28 (2006): 543-574; Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition; and Roy Lyster, "Differential Effects of Prompts and Recasts in Form-Focused Instruction," Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26 (2004): 399-432.

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Consider this interaction between a teacher and his students, most of them English language learners, in a ninth-grade English language arts class: Teacher: Who wrote The Pearl, Carmen? Carmen: Steinbeck wrote The Pearl. Teacher: Very good. And Rosa, who is the main character in this novella?

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Culturally Responsive Teaching For Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity

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Culturally Responsive Teaching For Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity

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Snyder & Staehr Fenner, 2021

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Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners

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What will you do to promote multilingual learners’ equity? Our nation’s moment of reckoning with the deficit view of multilingual learner…

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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

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This articles provides 6 strategies for scaffolding along with multiple examples of activities you can use in the classroom to achieve it.

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6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

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Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.

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Self-Assessment Example: Word Learning Strategies 

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Self-Assessment Example: Word Learning Strategies 

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Guideline #2: Places students at the center of learning.

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Virtual "What I Know About My EL" Template

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Virtual "What I Know About My EL" Template

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GP#1: ELs bring many strengths to the classroom.

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for 6th-8th Grade (Part 3)

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for 6th-8th Grade (Part 3)

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Creating Text-Dependent Questions for ELLs: Examples for 6th-8th Grade (Part 3)

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We’d like to start off the new year by sharing an example for developing text dependent questions for ELLs in the middle grades. We have selected a 6th-8th grade exemplar text in the category of Informational Texts: Science, Mathematics and Technology titled “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag” by Hen…

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Are You Tapping Into Background Knowledge Often Enough?

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Are You Tapping Into Background Knowledge Often Enough?

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Are You Tapping into Prior Knowledge Often Enough in Your Classroom?

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Blogger Rebecca Alber explains why using students’ prior knowledge to guide instruction is key to learning.

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Sentence Level Strategy: Patterns of Power - Mentor Sentence Instructional Videos

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Sentence Level Strategy: Patterns of Power - Mentor Sentence Instructional Videos

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Anderson & La Rocca

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Teacher Resource Books for Multi-Grade Lessons
Multi-grade lesson planning resources ideal for differentiating instruction

Grade-level Specific Grammar Resources
Classroom-ready resources for 10-minute, grade-level specific lessons for grades 1-5

Free Resources
Additional resources that offer a deeper dive into the Patterns of Power approach

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Patterns of Power Family of Resources A flexible collection of resources that supports an authentic, inquiry-based approach to grammar instruction by inviting students to uncover and appreciate writing's beauty and meaning. Teacher Resource Books for Multi-Grade LessonsMulti-grade lesson planning resources ideal for di

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Using Informal Assessment in the Classroom

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Using Informal Assessment in the Classroom

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Assessment plays a variety of roles in the instruction of English language learners (ELLs). One of the most important uses of assessment is informal, ongoing assessment throughout the school year (also called formative assessment) to monitor student learning and target areas of instruction. This can be as simple as asking students to show "thumbs up or thumbs down" to show their understanding or asking students to share one thing they learned on an exit slip at the end of class.

These articles, videos, and other resources offer ideas for using informal assessment with ELLs of varying proficiency levels, as well as tips on how to use what you learn through informal assessment to plan instruction.

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Using Informal Assessment in the Classroom

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Assessment plays a variety of roles in the instruction of English language learners (ELLs). One of the most important uses of assessment is informal, ongoing assessment throughout the school year (also called formative assessment) to monitor student learning and target areas of instruction.

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Larry Ferlazzo, Education Week, 2019

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The new question-of-the-week is:
How do you promote speaking with English-language learners?
Obviously, when learning a new language, it's important to be able to speak it.

This extensive series will consider effective strategies to teach and encourage English-language learners to communicate through speaking their new language.

Today's contributors are Valentina Gonzalez, Sarah Said, Mary Ann Zehr, Dr. Jeff Zwiers, and Dr. Maneka Deanna Brooks. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Valentina, Sarah, and Mary Ann on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You can find many categorized and updated resources related to this topic at Speaking & Listening on my resource-sharing blog.
Response From Valentina Gonzalez
Valentina Gonzalez is currently a professional-development specialist for ELLs in Texas. She works with teachers of English-learners to support language and literacy instruction. In addition to presenting, she writes a monthly blog for MiddleWeb focused on supporting ELLs. She can be reached through her website elementaryenglishlanguagelearners.weebly.com or on Twitter @ValentinaESL:
English-learners (ELs) benefit from time to discuss in the classroom using the target language and domain-specific vocabulary. Unfortunately, even today, our students are still not talking enough about academic content in the classrooms. Studies show that most of the talk happening in classrooms comes from the teacher, and when students talk, their answers are at a low level, usually one word or simple phrases. On top of that information, ELs are called on to speak less frequently in classrooms across our country. So the question becomes, how do we promote speaking especially for our ELs in order to advance their language development and see academic growth? When I was a young language learner, I, myself, spent most of my day listening quietly in the classroom. It was ingrained in me from my parents that my job as the student was to go to school and listen to the teacher. He/she held the knowledge, and it was not my role to speak. This was a learned cultural difference that I brought from home to my academic setting. Unless my teacher spoke directly to me, I could go all day without saying a single word except for at lunch and recess with my closest friend. Then when I got home, I told my mom everything I learned that day in school ... only I shared with her in Serbian (our native language). I had very little practice speaking English and using academic vocabulary with my peers. Though speaking at my home using my native language was truly a wonderful bridge for me and helped me to internalize what I learned at school, I wasn't practicing enough academic English vocabulary. That very well could have been a different story. We may not be able to control the language or vocabulary our students use at home, but we have a great deal of control over how they use it in our classrooms. We have to get them speaking regularly using domain-specific vocabulary on a daily basis. As they listen to their peers, they are building more vocabulary. And as they speak, they are growing their own writing vocabulary. And this listening, speaking, and writing vocabulary will also help them build their reading vocabulary. Here are four steps that promote speaking with English-learners: Creating a safe classroom for all students to talk is most important. If an EL is nervous about speaking or making a mistake, chances are they won't try. A classroom that embraces mistakes as opportunities for growth helps to lower the affective filter of ELs. This means we allow for mistakes in speaking. We encourage open questioning and curiosity. We embrace thoughtful communication. We leave space for student to student talk. As teachers, we step aside from the center of the classroom "stage" and allow our students to speak with partners and in groups frequently. Clearly and explicitly model the expectations of talk. Show students what the conversation will look like. What will each participant do? What will they say? What will they look like? Model so there is no ambiguity. Making the communication structure visible is critical for language learners. If everyone knows the expectations, then the target is clear and more easily achieved. We set students up for success this way. I remember before I learned to model conversations how my students would drift away from the conversation. I felt like they were being ornery or off task. I thought it was their fault. But really it was mine. I didn't outline for them what the talk should look and sound like so they just tried and mostly didn't live up to my expectations until I showed them explicitly what the academic conversation should look and sound like. And then guess what? They could do it! And they felt so proud of themselves! Our goal is that our students become independent at everything in life, be it walking, riding a bike, reading, paying bills, and even holding a conversation. But no matter what, they need a scaffold to begin the JOURNEY to independence. For ELs and many other students, structuring conversations alleviates the stress of how to hold the conversation, so they can focus on what's important ... the content. Though turn and talk is oOK every now and then, it is loose and less supportive for students who need a bit more support. I have a few favorite scaffolds for talk in the classroom: think-pair-share, talking heads, and QSSSA. Most of these offer students sentence starters to propel their thought. One problem often seen with partner talk in the classroom is that one partner dominates the conversation. These three methods offer all students an equitable chance to participate in discourse. For ELs who are more shy or resistant to speak, this encourages active participation. As teachers, we've probably all been guilty of playing the question game with our class. We ask a question and immediately call on a student to answer. The students are well aware of this game, and many don't even try to answer unless called upon. Most know who the teacher usually calls on, too. In order to get ELs and all students really thinking and talking, we can employ some wait time, otherwise known as think time. It's quite simple yet completely effective.

We pose a question.

WAIT about 5-10 seconds.

Here I like to provide my ELs with a sentence starter to help propel their thought.

And then let them all share with a partner or group. This step ensures that EVERYONE talks and not just one individual.

Now I can call on a student at random to share what he/she said or what their partner said.

Wait time is important for ELs because it allows for processing, translating, and building bravery to answer. If we want to promote more talk with English-learners in our classrooms, we, as teachers, have to talk less. Give our students the room to talk more. Amplify their voices and empower them with the confidence to speak up. Their voices are important and hold value. We have to trust that by allowing them to talk, we are unlocking the potential for them to uncover the curriculum rather than us working so hard to try to "cover" it daily by telling them everything. Giving them the power to negotiate for meaning, grapple with ideas, question their thinking and their classmates' thinking will create a space that fosters curiosity and breeds thought. After all, our job is not to teach them facts. They can simply Google anything these days. But rather ,we are here to teach them how to learn and think, communicate, and question and grow as learners each day. Response From Sarah Said
Sarah Said is currently a district-level administrator who oversees English learning and bilingual programs in two elementary school districts in suburbs south of Chicago. Sarah spent over a decade teaching and advocating for English-learners spanning from the early grades to high school age. She has a graduate degree in instructional leadership: literacy, language, and culture from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is married and a mother of three who enjoys traveling with her family:
They'll "Drop the Mic One" Day Soon ... Us cool kids "drop the mic" when we give a triumphant speech. The English-learners in our classroom will one day "drop mic" as well in a way that will inspire us and shock us all at the same time. We need to have hope in our students as we support them in developing their speaking skills. There are some people that want to explicitly teach conversation skills to English-learners to a point where the students may find it so amusing that they don't take seriously ... aka bad TPR (Total Physical Response) implementation. And, there are other teachers who think the students will learn speaking skills through sitting there, listening to the teacher drone on and on because their brain will magically acquire a language. Buehler ... Buehler ... Neither way helps. Let's be real, students need to learn oral language in a nonthreatening, nonbelittling, and organic way. If we roll up our sleeves and really try to support our students' oral development as much as we do reading and writing, they will soon enough be able to "drop the mic" and amaze all one day soon! How do we do that? How do we really try to develop the speaking skills of English-learners. We need to do this step by step to really home in on developing skills. Give Them Time and Let Them Listen First, we want to give them time and let them listen. As we go through structure speaking-yes your kids can speak in class-let your newcomer take their time to listen. Sometimes, newcomers go through a silent period; we need to honor it. By honoring it, we can then take baby steps to rich academic conversations. We can then work with that student one on one to develop speaking skills. Later, we can partner them up with a student who will support them. Then we can move them to groups of four students until we get them into full-class discussions. Yes, they can get there. But it all starts with allowing them to listen and be comfortable in that environment first. Building a relationship with you and their classmates will give them the confidence they need to participate in class and begin developing their speaking skills. Use Tech Tools Like Seesaw to Scaffold Speaking in Front of Others For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you would know that I am a huge fan of Seesaw. This application does a world of good for English-learners. Many people know about it's benefits to connect students to families. But it has strong benefits with supporting student voice. I am a proud Seesaw ambassador and very pleased with what the app offers for helping English-learners develop speaking skills. You can learn more by going on Twitter and following the #ELLchat_bkclub discussion on hashtag called #Seesaw4ELs. Seesaw also has great communities on Facebook where people can learn more ideas of others using the application. Based on the assignments you offer, students can record their opinions, they can read and listen to themselves, or they can practice simple greetings on there. They can really go through the application and have tons of practice learning. It is accessible for primary- but can be used in secondary-level classrooms as well. The only people who see what the students have done are the teacher and parents who are added by a family app. Once they are confident speaking on technology, they can then move on to speaking in front of more people. Plan Structured Speaking Activities That Have Appropriate Supports In order to explain this, I will tell you about my own failure. Many years ago, I had moved into a high school English-learner classroom. I wanted to conduct a Socratic seminar in English with newcomers. I gave them a text and an overarching question. I did not model the structure nor give them appropriate roles for the activity. It then became a discussion free for all that became difficult to control. I had to go back to the drawing board later and realize my mistake. I didn't give them enough explanation of the Socratic seminar beforehand. I also didn't model the activity appropriately. I went back at it a week later, I showed them a video of how Socratic seminar should be done. I also gave them a text that was more meaningful to them. And there was an appropriate pre- and post- activity related to the seminar. More wait time was given. I also gave them sentence and question starters to support them. Bingo! We as a class were successful! Building speaking skills in English-learners takes the ability to build relationships with them, a classroom environment that allows freedom to fail, creativity, and well-structured lesson planning. You also have to understand that your students need modeling and the ability to practice their skills. You have to find ways to really give them an equitable chance to develop those skills. Give it time, and one day they will "drop the mic" and have you in awe with their speaking skills. Response From Mary Ann Zehr
Mary Ann Zehr taught core English and history classes to English-language learners for seven years in the District of Columbia public schools. Currently, she is teaching 9 th grade English at Harrisonburg High School in Virginia. She still has some ELLs in her classroom:
To be successful in promoting speaking with English-language learners, I must carefully plan and structure speaking activities. I'm not one of those teachers who can wing it in leading a discussion and get everyone in the classroom participating. Challenging, higher-order questions don't pop into my head spontaneously. I think of these kinds of questions and write them down as part of my lesson planning. I've developed several protocols that support students to speak. One protocol is for student debates. For this protocol, I provide one or two texts about a debate topic. For example, I used the April 30, 2018, New York Times article, As part of my debate protocol, I divide a class into two teams. With The New York Times article, I assigned one team to make the argument that making school more rigorous helps to reduce risky behavior in teens. I assigned the other team to argue that making school harder does not affect teens' risky behavior. In their teams, students read the article and highlight any evidence to support the position, or "claim," that they have been assigned. Then, still in their teams, each person in the group practices speaking the claim and giving evidence and reasoning to support the claim. After the teams have prepared their arguments, I match up students in twos, with a student from each of the teams in each pair, to argue their opposing claims. The class comes alive as each student expresses the arguments he or she has prepared in a one-on-one debate. Lastly, we have a group discussion during which students are free to express their true opinions. Again, students use the format of making a claim and providing evidence and reasoning to support it. I also coach students to use posted sentence stems, such as "I agree because ..." or "I disagree because ..." or "I'd like to add ..." I've used this same protocol successfully for students to debate whether military recruiters should be permitted in schools, whether the United States should celebrate Columbus Day, and whether schools should permit students to have cellphones in class. Another protocol I've used to promote speaking is reciprocal teaching. With this protocol, I divide a class into teams of four or five students. I assign each team the task of preparing to teach and then teaching a chapter of a book or scene of a play. For example, in 12 We read the first scene of the play together. Then I assigned other scenes of the play to different teams of students. As part of the protocol, I give them an activity packet with specific instructions for the structure of their planning and execution of a lesson. For example, each student chooses a role, such as to be the wordsmith-whose job is to lead the selection of vocabulary words that need to be taught-or connector-who ensures that each student has created a discussion question, or summarizer, or discussion leader. With "Blood Wedding," teams of students read aloud their assigned scene and then picked an excerpt of two pages to teach. After teams had prepared their lessons, they carried out reciprocal teaching by exchanging lessons with another team. When the planning and reciprocal teaching are going on, the students are talking. And because the students have roles, everyone speaks. I provide some guiding questions. In the activity guide for "Blood Wedding," I prompted analysis with questions: What does the character do and say about gender roles? (I asked them to write quotes). Does the quote reinforce or challenge traditional gender roles? But students also are required to create open-ended questions of their own, which they use to lead discussions. After reciprocal teaching, we also typically hold a Socratic seminar to discuss the text that we have read. I give grades for speaking, just as I do for reading and writing. During debates and reciprocal teaching, I circulate to make sure I hear each student speaking and give a grade for it. I often host guest speakers to my classroom. Before the speaker arrives, students have a chance to prepare a question. Then, to receive a grade, they must ask at least one question or make one comment during the class period. Nevertheless, I still have a couple of English-language learners who are reluctant to speak and will do just about everything in their power to avoid it. Sometimes a student will take a zero, rather than speak aloud. Recently, I've experimented with having students make voice recordings and send them to me electronically. I've created assignments for students to reflect on a particular teaching unit. Usually, I give them five questions and ask them to choose to answer three in a voice recording that lasts for at least one minute. I grade the reflection with a checklist based on the speaking rubric from the WIDA Consortium. Students earn points, for instance, for using several content words from the unit and elaborating on their ideas with examples. They use the online program, vocaroo.com, to record their reflections and send them to me. The first time I required students to make a voice recording, they were reluctant to do it in class. Some came and made their recordings in my classroom at lunch to avoid having other students hear them. But the second time I required them to make recordings, most students seemed to have overcome their reluctance. (I want to see them do the recordings so I can ensure they are not reading from notes. I want them to speak without using notes). Recordings help me get a good sense of how each student needs to improve his or her speaking. Because I can replay recordings, I get information about how students speak that I often miss by hearing them speak only in class. Some need to use more transition words. Some need to speak in complete sentences. Others need to provide more examples. I evaluate and reflect on my students' speaking skills in the same way that I do for other domains of English and I use that knowledge to inform my teaching. Response From Dr. Jeff Zwiers grade English, we read and analyzed the play, "Blood Wedding," by Federico Garcia Lorca. We analyzed the play particularly for what it said about traditional gender roles. Give students authentic and engaging ideas to talk about. This seems obvious, but we have seen way too many lesson activities in which students speak to show some knowledge of grammar or word meanings-mdash;not to communicate engaging ideas in authentic ways. And some folks think that students at beginning and intermediate levels of proficiency need the boring basics and shouldn't be asked to communicate yet. Hogwash! All students deserve tasks in which they use language to communicate with others to get interesting things done and made. One of the advantages of paired conversations is that students are more likely to be engaged with one other person who is either listening or talking to them at any given time. There is less opportunity to "check out." Think about when you are sitting in a conference session, not paying excellent attention, and the speaker asks you to turn to a partner and answer a question. Suddenly, you are more engaged. Most of you. And if the topic or question is interesting or useful to you, then the engagement goes up even more. But remember that English-learners can be shy and reticent to talk, especially in large groups. Many English-learners need to develop stamina in creating complex ideas and concepts with peers by engaging in sustained conversations. They need the motivation to communicate (talk and listen) and to push themselves to talk and listen beyond their usual "bare minimum just get by" levels of participation. As teachers, we want them to get so engaged that they forget they are learning. We want to immerse them in meaningful language use. Recently, our work has focused on student conversations in elementary settings. There are many activities that attempt to promote meaningful uses of language. For example, a common one is the think-pair-share, or turn-and-talk. However, by teaching and modeling core communication skills, teachers can take these strategies to the next level. English-learners, even primary-grade students, will be more engaged and learn both content and language from each other. During academic conversations, students practice active listening as they create and negotiate ideas. How powerful can your student dialogues become? Response From Dr. Maneka Deanna Brooks "Worried About Risky Teenage Behavior? Make School Tougher," by Austin Frakt, as a text for one debate .The article caught my eye because the Learning Network of The New York Times developed activities for its use in the classroom. "I don't speak English fluently, but I understand it and I know how to speak and write it ... not the best. But they [teachers] think that just because we look like Mexicans that they need to keep repeating, repeating, repeating ... like the ones who learn Spanish first they don't think we are going to understand it and they keep us like away from the other ones that know English." -Francisco, a high school student After Francisco (a pseudonym) shared these thoughts, I was surprised. His comment surprised me because over the three months that I had observed him in his high school English/language arts class, he rarely said a word. He spoke so little that because of his English-language learner (ELL) classification, I was unclear as to how much he could communicate in English. Toward the end of our interview, I shared my initial assumptions about his English abilities with Francisco. He responded by recounting experiences of teachers assuming that he could not speak English because he sat near students who (unlike him) were recent immigrants from Latin America. He shared his frustration with being spoken to by white English-speaking teachers in broken Spanish because they assumed that he did not know English. Moreover, he understood white teachers' disrespect toward those they perceived as Latino immigrant students as emblematic of racial dynamics that he witnessed outside of school. His decision to remain silent during class was a way to ensure that his intellectual and linguistic dignity would be protected. My conversation with Francisco situates my response to this week's question within the importance of perceptions about race in English-language teaching. I highlight two areas of learning that are fundamental to educators setting the groundwork for students, like Francisco, to believe that their contributions are important in the classroom.

1. Learn about the linguistic and educational experiences of ELLs in your classroom.

Francisco shared how educators' assumptions about his English proficiency contributed to his silence within the classroom. Create opportunities for students to share their educational and linguistic experiences to allow educators to avoid these types of mistakes. Importantly, this does not mean asking students to respond to direct questions about these topics in front of the entire class. This type of information can be integrated into "getting-to-know-you" projects like linguistic autobiographies, linguistic surveys, identity collages, and other such classroom activities.

1. Learn about the racial histories of the United States and the countries with which your students have connections.

As Francisco's comments illustrate, students come into the classroom with histories of being treated certain ways because of their racial identities. Educating ELLs, most of whom also belong to minoritized racial groups, requires recognizing the impact of racism inside and outside of the classroom. Educators who understand how race and racism operate can make informed decisions about how to best incorporate students' identities into instruction, avoid racist practices within their classroom, and can advocate on behalf of their students. While learning about these topics through reputable external resources (e.g., documentaries, articles, etc.) is necessary, students can also teach educators through sharing their own experiences. For example, teachers can design activities in which students talk about resilience within their communities. Students who are identified as ELLs (like all other students) are multifaceted individuals. As a result, the racial dynamics that impact the rest of society also impact their learning. If educators want to create spaces for ELLs to use their voice, it is necessary to create classroom environments where students understand that all of their identities are valued.
Dr. Jeff Zwiers is the co-author of The K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations (Corwin, 2017) and Academic Language Mastery: Conversational Discourse in Context (Corwin, 2016). He is a senior researcher at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. He supports the Understanding Language Initiative, a research and professional-development project focused on literacy, cognition, discourse, and academic language. His current research focuses on communication-based teaching and classroom practices that foster high-quality academic interactions and literacy:

Dr. Maneka Deanna Brooks is an assistant professor of reading education at Texas State University. Dr. Brooks' research agenda centers on everyday educational practices that impact the educational trajectories of bilingual adolescents. Dr. Brooks' work has been published in "Research in the Teaching of English," "Journal of Literacy Research," "TESOL Quarterly," and other venues:

Thanks to Valentina, Sarah, Mary Ann, Jeff, and Maneka for their contributions.
Just a reminder;you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. Look for Part Two in a few days.
Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Response: Ways to Build Speaking Skills With ELLs (Opinion)

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Valentina Gonzalez, Sarah Said, Mary Ann Zehr, Dr. Jeff Zwiers and Dr. Maneka Deanna Brooks share strategies for encouraging English Language Learners to practice speaking their new language.

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Staehr Fenner, 2014

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Available Formats

ISBN: 9781452257693

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Suggested Retail Price: $34.95

Bookstore Price: $27.96

ISBN: 9781452278407

Electronic Version

Suggested Retail Price: $30.95

Bookstore Price: $24.76

Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email sageheoa@sagepub.com. Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html.

1. Need for Advocacy for English Learners

2. Creating a Shared Sense of Responsibility for Teaching English Learners

3. How ESL Teachers Can Collaborate to Expand Advocacy Efforts for ELs

4. Advocacy Overview for School and District Administrators

5. Increasing EL Families' Involvement Through Building Their Advocacy Capacity

6. Advocacy Through Effective Instruction of ELs

7. Advocating for ELs in Assessment

8. Advocacy for ELs' Success Beyond Grade 12

(1) A comprehensive resource which raises educators' awareness of the areas in which ELs need advocacy and offers practical suggestions for EL advocacy
(2) Provides an overview of research that informs EL advocacy in each chapter and tools to apply the research on the ground (3) Focuses on hands-on professional development activities to build a sense of responsibility for ELs' achievement in school and beyond
(4) Includes checklists for schools and districts to use to provide a framework to guide their discussion of ELs' advocacy needs in a number of areas
(5) Contains an abundance of practical examples of EL advocacy in action, taken from a variety of schools and geographical regions
(6) Weaves in voices of EL advocates at the school, district, state, and national levels (including Tim Boals, Catherine Collier, and Margarita Pinkos)

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Available Formats ISBN: 9781452257693 Paperback Suggested Retail Price: $34.95 Bookstore Price: $27.96 ISBN: 9781452278407 Electronic Version Suggested Retail Price: $30.95 Bookstore Price: $24.76 Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email sageheoa@sagepub.com.

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Edutopia

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On-the-spot scaffolding is an essential skill for teachers. Check out these three strategies for assisting students when they struggle.

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Guideline #2: Places students at the center of learning.

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Overcoming Barriers to EL Family Engagement

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Overcoming Barriers to EL Family Engagement

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GP#2: ELs learn best when they are taught in a welcoming and supportive school climate.

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Some people like surprises, like when someone throws you a surprise birthday party. But in education, surprises tend to leave ELs confused, not energized. There's no context for learning the new information and nothing for them to tether current learning to past experiences. Before surprising your ELs with new information, building on their background knowledge helps provide solid ground for them to build on new knowledge.

In this third article in the Sheltered Instruction Series, I share the key points of building background knowledge.

Building background knowledge is so important that it is considered a key component of sheltered instruction. In Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (5th Edition) (SIOP Series) , Echevarria, Vogt, and Short recommend three things when trying to establish background knowledge :

Make clear links between past learning and new concepts

Emphasize key vocabulary terms (2017).

(Side note: If you happen to purchase this book, it supports the blog).

Explicitly link concepts to students' background experiences

I'm currently teaching a 10th grade English unit around the concept of Because this was the first unit of the year and because I didn't know my students in this class, it was difficult for me to connect to their background experiences.

Instead, I had students connect to the universal concepts in the texts we viewed.

For example, we read The Hunger Games to start exploring this concept of heros. As we read, we identified other concepts such as:

By looking at this list of universal concepts , students could easily find personal experiences that connected to these concepts. For example, Vina connected to the concept of control by explaining how her parents control her in different ways and to different degrees. She then analyzed how the Capitol controls the districts in different ways, the cruelest of which is by creating the Hunger Games.

Allowing ELs to connect to concepts in this way:

1. Values what ELs bring to class as assets,

2. Fosters greater comprehension of content and

3. Develops ELs' critical thinking skills

Make clear links between past learning and new concepts

Because this was the first unit of the year, I didn't have any prior units to connect new concepts to past learning. Instead, I decided to connect concepts between the resources used in our , which included:

We started by watching and reading articles related to Thistle Thorns a social enterprise that supports women escaping from prostitution, trafficking and drug use. Students identified several concepts from these resources (ie: service, compassion, abuse, escapism, seeking belonging).

The next class, we went to visit a Lao-based social enterprise called Xao Ban . Students toured the facilities and interviewed Ms. Nongnut, the founder, to learn how one might consider her a hero. Once back in class, they had a Harkness ( student-led discussion ) to compare the concepts from Thistle Farm and Xao Ban.

Though these two social enterprises were different in many ways, students were able to identify concepts that were similar to both. We didn't just move from video to article to field trip. Instead, we purposefully returned to the previous resources to make sense of the current resource.

Emphasize key vocabulary terms

Lacking proficiency in academic vocabulary is one of the main reasons why many ELs experience the fossilization of their English skills . It also significantly impacts their achievement because ELs are not able to access academic text or communicate using academic language.

In my unit on heroes, I emphasize key academic command terms , such as:

Then, I make sure the assignments we have circle back to and reinforce those vocabulary terms. One way to do this is by brainstorming writing topics for homework based on the resource we reviewed in class. The topics themselves need to use one of these key academic words. For example, after reading the New York Times article about N.F.L. players' responses to Trump's tweets, students identified three writing prompts they might explore further in writing:

Describe the conflict between President Trump and some NFL players.

Compare NFL players with the characters in The Hunger Games.

Argue your opinion about how the NFL players are protesting Trump.

I know what you're thinking: These aren't words related to the Heroes Unit! But our priority should be helping ELs develop academic language proficiency , not just learn content for one unit. By integrating these terms in the lesson, ELs understand them when they're expected to:

describe a phenomenon,

sequence events,

compare ideas,

describe the cause-effect relationship,

identify a problem,

suggest a plausible solution or

argue a claim in there other classes.

Takeaways

Surprises can be unpleasant, but we can make learning experiences less surprising by building background knowledge between new content and students' experiences. These three ways to build background knowledge bridge this divide. Without them, it's certain that some students will be left behind by the divide in experiences, while others forge on ahead.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, ME, & Short, D. (2017). Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model. Fifth Edition. New York: Pearson.

Nora, Julie, and Jana Echevarria. No More Low Expectations for English Learners . Heinemann, 2016.

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#83. Start with What They Know: Building Background Knowledge - ELL Strategies | TanKHuynh

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Building background knowledge is one component of sheltered instruction. When this happens, it provides an avenue to access content for ELs.

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Discourse Level Strategy: Text Deconstruction 

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Discourse Level Strategy: Text Deconstruction 

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#11. Teaching MLs to Deconstruct Writing - ELL Strategies | TanKHuynh

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ELL writing deconstruction with mentor texts. Why collaborative construction and metacognitive reflection are better than a “Write by Number” approach.

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Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity

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Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity

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3. Figure 2.5 Abbreviated Performance Definitions for Receptive and Expressive Language (Page 49)
Figure 2.5 Abbreviated Performance Definitions for Receptive and Expressive
Description: This 5-point holistic scale provides overall descriptors of ELLs' progression of language development for listening and reading (receptive language) along with speaking and writing (productive language).

Audiences: Content and language teachers, school leaders (e.g., coaches, principals)
Purposes:

To become familiar with criteria that serve as an umbrella for English language proficiency/development standards

To help interpret student performance on language proficiency assessment

Uses:

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Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity: Connecting Academic Language Proficiency to Student Achievement

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Welcome to the Companion websiteWelcome to the companion website for Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity! It offers a representative sampling of graphics, rubrics, and worksheets from the 2nd Edition of the book. We hope you enjoy these highlights and make use of them individually, in teacher teams, or in professional learning communities.

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Elementary School: Engaging in Mathematical Discourse

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Elementary School: Engaging in Mathematical Discourse

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Inside Mathematics, University of Texas at Austin

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In Mia Buljan's 2nd grade classroom, students and teacher enter into active and productive mathematical discourse. Here, you will find examples from throughout the school year on:

Modeling and Encouraging Active Listening

Using Precise Language

Structured Talk

Paraphrasing and Extending Discourse

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Elementary School: Engaging in Mathematical Discourse | Inside Mathematics

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In Mia Buljan's 2nd grade classroom, students and teacher enter into active and productive mathematical discourse. Here, you will find examples from throughout the school year on: Modeling and Encouraging Active Listening Using Precise Language Structured Talk Paraphrasing and Extending Discourse

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These glossaries are to provide permitted testing accommodations of ELL/MLL students. They should also be used for instruction during the school year.

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Guideline #2: Places students at the center of learning.

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Possible Barriers and Solutions to EL Family Engagement

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Possible Barriers and Solutions to EL Family Engagement

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GP#2: ELs learn best when they are taught in a welcoming and supportive school climate.

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Background Knowledge: A Key to Close Reading with ELs

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Background Knowledge: A Key to Close Reading with ELs

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D. Staehr Fenner

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This post is my second of two about how the shifts of the English Language Arts CCSS are playing out in classrooms with ELLs. My first post was about teaching informational text to ELLs, and this post will focus on close reading for ELLs. The concept of close reading has not been without debate, and so I will first provide an overview of what close reading is and could mean for ELLs, including some definitions of close reading. Then I'll present the role of background knowledge, which is a major consideration with teaching ELLs close reading, and share some recommended resources.

Definitions of Close Reading

There are several prominent voices that have emerged when it comes to defining the concept of close reading as it pertains to the Common Core. One is Tim Shanahan, Professor of Urban Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and expert on ELL literacy. He describes close reading on his website as "an old, widely known and specific concept that indicates where meaning resides (in the text) and what readers must to do gain access to this meaning (read the text closely, weighing the author's words and ideas, and relying heavily on the evidence in the text)." Shanahan stresses that close reading is not a teaching technique per se, but rather a way to place emphasis on readers figuring out a high quality text and grapple with it.

He states that close reading plays out in the classroom by shifting instruction off of strategies and skills and onto the texts themselves and ideas presented in texts. Instead of having students focus on their own personal connection to a text (e.g., How did the story remind you of a similar time from your childhood?), instruction instead focuses students' attention on reading, interpreting, and evaluating text. So, close reading becomes an intensive analysis of a text in order to comprehend what it says, how it says it, and what it means. By engaging in close reading throughout their education, Shanahan says students are poised to develop a rich body of knowledge about the world, and their reading practices will become ingrained "habits of mind."

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) offers their own definition of close reading:
Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately. Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details. It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. (PARCC, 2011, p. 7)
A third view comes from a recent brief authored by the Aspen Institute titled " A Primer on 'Close Reading' of Text" (whose authors are featured in this webinar hosted by the Alliance for Excellent Education) which points out that the ten anchor standards for reading in the English Language Arts CCSS are bookended by a focus on the close reading of complex text:

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text

Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently

While Shanahan disputes some claims made by the Aspen institute in his blog (e.g., all texts read must be brief), both Shanahan and the Aspen Institute agree that students need to read complex texts multiple times to unlock their multilayered meaning. Shanahan suggests a particular close reading sequence in which:

(1) The first reading allows the reader to determine what a text says,

(2) The second reading allows the reader to determine how a text works, and

(3) The third reading allows the reader to evaluate the quality and value of the text (and to connect the text to other texts).

One Consideration in ELLs' Close Reading of Texts: The Role of Background Knowledge

Although there are multiple challenges for ELLs at all levels of English proficiency in effectively partaking in the close reading of complex texts (e.g., academic language needed, unlocking the meaning of complex texts), I will focus here on the role of background knowledge. There has been some debate about whether to pre-teach elements of a text before students read it using a close reading framework. For ELLs, however, the role of background knowledge cannot be ignored. As part of doing a close reading of text, teachers of ELLs need to find out how much background their students have about a text's given topic and build background where necessary.

One of the many hats we wear as educators of ELLs is to set up our students so they can achieve academic success. While more attention is now being paid to the question of ELL rigor and finding the right balance between scaffolding and independent learning, the CCSS now call for us to be more cognizant of how we approach building ELLs' background knowledge as part of close reading. So, while building ELLs' background knowledge definitely has its place in the Common Core, it is only one piece of the close reading puzzle. After we build ELLs' background knowledge as necessary, we must then focus the majority of our instruction on having students working with the text itself so that they can unlock its meaning.
An Example
To better illustrate how ELLs' background knowledge comes into play during close reading, let's take a look at a sample text. An Appendix to the CCSS provides text exemplars with sample texts of different genres suggested - but not prescribed - for each grade level. For example, Erinn Banting's England the Land (2004) is listed as a suggested informational text for close reading in grades 4-5. Take a look at two paragraphs of this text, and think about what kinds of background knowledge students would need to fully access this text:
As they gained control of sections of land, they protected their property with walls made from wooden stakes and spiny plants. Dead hedgerows, as these fences were called, were eventually replaced by fences made from live bushes and trees. Recently, people building large farms and homes in the countryside have destroyed many live hedgerows. Other people are working to save the hedgerows, which are home to a variety of wildlife, including birds, butterflies, hedgehogs, and hares. Low fences, some of which are thousands of years old, divide much of England's countryside. These fences, called hedgerows, were fist built by the Anglo-Saxons, a group of warriors from Germany and Scandinavia who arrived in England around 410 A.D.
For more information on planting hedgerows, see this related blog post.

My Think Aloud in Building ELLs' Background to Access This Text

The history of the Anglo-Saxons

What was happening during the time period described in the text (410 A.D.)

Low fences or hedgerows

The importance of protecting one's property in the time period described and today

How large farms and homes in the English countryside look today

The wildlife described in the text

If I were using Banting's text to teach fourth grade ELLs at varying levels of English proficiency, I would want to first find out their knowledge of:

As a teacher preparing to do a close read of this text with my ELLs, I would not spend the majority of my instruction on building my ELLs' background knowledge, like I might have done before the CCSS. However, I would recognize that my ELLs would likely have very little background knowledge on the many topics contained in this text, let alone be familiar with all the terms and language structures used in the text.

I would therefore want to carve out some - but not a majority of - my instructional time to provide my ELLs images, videos, and resources in both English and their first languages that would help position them to be better prepared to work with this text. I would also prioritize which topics from the list above would warrant my time and attention during instruction. Some students might only need the image I included here of a hedgerow (which also helped my comprehension of the text.) In essence, I would want to help provide them a comparable frame of reference that their native English speaking peers might already have developed in terms of background knowledge.

I can also use this brief text as an example to note how background knowledge might differ from a personal connection to a text. For example, a student may have some knowledge about what the English countryside looks like from a documentary he or she has seen about England. On the other hand, a student's personal connection to this text might be in the form of an event in the student's life that took place in the countryside. Where background knowledge will most likely support the student's understanding of the text, the student's personal connection might not accomplish the same goal. For ideas on ways to determine what kinds of background knowledge students have or need, take a look at these strategies from Colorín Colorado.

Final Thoughts on Close Reading

Using close reading of texts with ELLs presents more challenges beyond balancing building background knowledge with working with the actual text. Such challenges for educators of ELLs include choosing appropriate grade level texts, supplying supplementary texts at different reading levels, scaffolding instruction, and creating text depending questions that ELLs can access - topics I intend to write about in future posts. Successful close reading with ELLs requires a more defined skill set and targeted training for all educators of ELLs.

Additional Resources

The American Federation of Teachers' free resource Sharemylesson.com has several teacher-created lessons that incorporate the close reading of texts.

Tim Shanahan has a presentation on planning for close reading here.

The Teaching Channel has a video about using Thinking Notes to encourage close reading and also houses many other videos such as these of real classrooms doing close readings of text and targeted pre-reading activities.

Literacy Professors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey also have housed multiple resources on close reading on their website.

Nancy Boyle has a blog entry about close reading that provides some suggestions for classroom instruction.

Four myths about the ELA CCSS touches on aspects of the ELA CCSS (including close reading) that have been debated.

Here are some resources on close reading for all students to help you build your arsenal of materials:

As always, please post your comments or share some authentic examples of your experiences with close reading with your ELLs.

Image Source: http://restoringmayberry.blogspot.com/2011/04/laying-hedgerows.html

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Background Knowledge: A Key to Close Reading with ELLs

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Part II of the series on informational text will first provide an overview of what close reading is and could mean for ELLs, including some definitions of close reading. Then I'll present the role of background knowledge, which is a major consideration with teaching ELLs close reading, and share some recommended resources.

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Discourse Level Strategy: Writing a Cooperative Paragraph

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Discourse Level Strategy: Writing a Cooperative Paragraph

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Colorín Colorado

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Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava walks her students through a cooperative paragraph summarizing the beginning, middle, and end of Burro's Tortillas and uses the exercise as an opportunity to practice their writing skills.

School Name: Lew Wallace Elementary School, Albuquerque, NM

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Ali Nava is an elementary teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico and a member of the first-grade cadre in our Common Core in Albuquerque project.In this video, Ali walks her students through a cooperative paragraph summarizing Burro's Tortillas, a southwestern adaptation of the classic folk tale "The Little Red Hen."

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Barshay, 2020

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One of the hallmarks of so-called "progressive" schools is freedom for students to talk to each other in class. Students aren't required to sit quietly all day, obediently listening to a teacher lecture or silently completing an assignment on their own. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, whose theories of child development inspire many teachers today, thought peer interaction was important both for a child's social development and for learning itself. Piaget believed that children were passive recipients of knowledge when instructed by adults. But he noticed that when a child was asking questions and arguing with a fellow student, the child became an active, engaged learner. It's that active engagement that leads to learning, Piaget theorized.

Yet when teachers open the classroom to group work and children's chatter, peer learning can seem like a waste of time. Students often veer off-task, talking about Fortnite or Lizzo. Noise levels rise. Conflicts erupt. Are they really learning? Whether it's productive to allot precious classroom minutes for children to talk with each other remains a debate with practical consequences.

A team of U.K. researchers collected all the studies they could find on peer interaction, in which children are either discussing or collaborating on an assignment together in small groups of two, three or four students. They found 71 studies, covering more than 7,000 children and teens. Most of the studies took place in the United States and the United Kingdom. The results: Piaget was partly right ... and wrong. Students tend to learn better by interacting with each other rather than wrestling with an assignment or a new topic on their own. But interacting with an adult one-to-one is even better than peer-to-peer interaction.

"That's great, but how many times can a teacher work one on one with a child?" said Harriet Tenenbaum, an expert in learning at the University of Surrey and one of the study's authors. "Group work should not be seen as a waste of time. There's something about conversation that helps people learn. Doing problems on your own isn't as beneficial. "

Tenenbaum and her co-authors found that peer interaction helped children at all ages, from the youngest four-year-olds to the oldest 18-year-olds in the studies. Groups of three or four students were as productive as pairs of two, though most of the studies had children working in pairs. For studies that noted gender, boys and girls equally benefited from working in pairs or groups regardless if they worked together or apart. The study, " How effective is peer interaction in facilitating learning? A meta-analysis," was published online December 2019 in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

Students didn't always learn more from interacting with each other than working alone in the 71 underlying studies. The ones that produced the strongest learning gains for peer interaction were those where adults gave children clear instructions for what do during their conversations. Explicit instructions to "arrive at a consensus" or "make sure you understand your partner's perspective" helped children learn more. Simply telling students to "work together" or "discuss" often didn't generate learning improvements for students in the studies. That's because students often repeat what they already believe in an unstructured conversation. The instructions force children to debate and negotiate, during which they can clear up misunderstandings and deepen their knowledge.
Related: A study finds promise in project-based learning for young low-income children
"Instructions are really important," said Tenenbaum. In other words, the trendy direction to "turn and talk to your neighbor" isn't sufficient.

Unfortunately, this meta-analysis didn't shed light on so many questions I have about peer dynamics and learning. Do kids still learn well from peers when one student is dominating the conversation or when a partner is slacking off and forcing you to do all the work? These studies didn't document behaviors during a conversation. Can you learn as much from a bright peer as a struggling learner? Too few of the studies noted students' prior achievement levels to compare that with how much they learned during the exercise.

I was especially disappointed that there wasn't much insight into when a peer-to-peer discussion is most productive during a lesson. These underlying studies didn't take place in real classrooms but in controlled laboratory conditions. Generally students came to a room and were tested to see what they already knew about a topic. Then some students were randomly assigned to work in pairs or group on that same topic. Students assigned to comparison control groups did different things depending on the study: toiling on their own, working with an adult or even doing nothing. Then everyone was tested at the end of the exercise to see how much they learned. Learning gains were measured by comparing before and after tests.

Tenenbaum's advice isn't to get rid of traditional instruction but to use peer discussions to reinforce a lecture. She recommends that teachers continue to teach a lesson to the whole class, as usual, and then break the students up and have them work with a peer for five to 10 minutes to reinforce the concept. "I wouldn't say to five-year-olds, 'work with peers all day long,'" she said. Keeping the peer-to-peer sessions short might also help keep children and adolescents on topic.

But the science doesn't yet prove this advice is sound. "The next step is to test this in real classrooms," said Tenenbaum, suggesting that a teacher could give a half-hour lesson and then researchers could split the kids up into working in groups or alone and see who does better. "But it's really hard for researchers to get into classrooms," said Tenenbaum. "For schools, it's disruptive." Much like talking in class.

This story about peer interaction was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox One of the hallmarks of so-called "progressive" schools is freedom for students to talk to each other in class. Students aren't required to sit quietly all day, obediently listening to a teacher lecture or silently completing an assignment on their own.

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Guideline #3: Leverages students' languages, cultures, and backgrounds.

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Creating a Welcoming Environment Checklist

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Creating a Welcoming Environment Checklist

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GP#2: ELs learn best when they are taught in a welcoming and supportive school climate.

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K. Robertson

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What are some other ways you can tap into background knowledge if it's very different from your own? You can start by choosing a single topic to research that you think might be relevant to your students. These might include learning about:

your students' native countries, cultures, or educational systems

historical figures, musical and artistic traditions, geography, or biodiversity from your students' countries so that you can connect your lessons to something that the students already know.

Family liaisons are an excellent source of information here and can also guide you to choose examples that are likely to be appropriate and meaningful to students.

Helping students make connections

You can also find ways for your students to contribute their own cultural experience, funds of knowledge, talents, and interests in the classroom. You can do this by asking students to:

show how a topic connects to their lives

give an example of a particular idea as they would experience it in their native country

bring music or art from their culture and describe its significance and meaning to their classmates.

Another activity is to ask students to interview their family members in order to learn more about their memories and experience. ELLs may find interviews valuable because even if they speak their native language at home and are surrounded by their culture, they may not have had an opportunity to learn about their family members' life experiences and values.

Note: These strategies will work in mainstream classes as well as students may engage more deeply with content when they can relate it to historical and cultural information shared by family members.

Proceeding with care and sensitivity

If you plan to ask students to contribute their experiences to the class, it is important to keep a few things in mind. First, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren and Giselle Lundy-Ponce remind teachers to consult with multiple sources and not to expect students to be the sole 'ambassador' for a culture. They write, "Do not put a particular student on the spot without asking them beforehand if they are comfortable sharing information with the whole class. Each student is an individual and their experiences may or may not be similar to that of the group they represent."

It is tempting to view your students as the experts, and it is certainly important to draw on what they have to offer to the class, but it is also important to discuss whether they feel comfortable doing so beforehand, and to avoid putting them on the spot - particularly about cultural, political, or religious subjects that might be particularly sensitive.

This is also important because students may not feel comfortable sharing their culture or prior experiences for a wide range of reasons, including trauma or stigma. For example, some Indigenous students from Latin America "hide" their culture and identity because of the persecution (sometimes violent) that they have faced in their home countries. Be patient with your students, and look for ways to increase their confidence in the classroom as you get to know each other. They may share information with you privately that they do not wish to share with the class. Honor their confidence and look for other ways for them to contribute.

Related resources

Video: Getting to know your students

Teacher Omar Salem talks about the importance of getting to know your ELLs, their interests, and their concerns.

Go beyond the textbook

Look for resources that go beyond the textbook that will engage students and involve them in the learning process so that they find elements they can connect to and learn from. These may include:

Artwork

There are many ways to bring educational content to life through art, and to use art as a starting point for discussing different cultural traditions. For example, in a history class, you may offer students a couple of different artistic representations of historical events from different perspectives, and ask whether a particular perspective resonates with their experiences.

Or you might want to compare artwork depicting similar kinds of events as they occurred in different countries, such as revolutions, battles, the signing of a famous document, inaugurations, elections, protests, and major milestones. Perhaps students can share depictions of those kinds of events in their country as a way to open up the discussion and connect their experience to the content as well. Students can examine artistic style, theme, the artist's intent, and the materials used while comparing artistic works from different cultures as a way of applying what they learning about the content.

Finally, be sure to invite students to share artwork and traditions from their own cultures and look for ways to connect what they share with the curriculum.

Using artwork that depicts day-to-day events and celebrations can also be a provocative starting point for a discussion about the similarities and differences between other cultures, and a way of affirming the students' daily lives, traditions, and lifestyles in the classroom. You may find that these connections are even more powerful than you expected, as seen in the student story below.

Video: Why an indigenous student hid his identity

ESOL resource teacher Manuel Portillo Gomez shares the story of an Indigenous student who kept his cultural identity hidden for much of the year until Manuel planned a lesson plan about Guatemalan basket weaving.

Music & dance

Students are a great resource for sharing music, and older students especially like to share music, discuss the meaning, and connect it to content. If the song is in a language some students do not understand, ask the student to translate it and discuss the meaning. Songs from other countries often describe political events or re-tell folk stories in poetic form.

When it comes to dance, students may enjoy sharing videos of traditional dances from their own cultures and talking about when certain dances are performed. You never know - you may just have a performer in your midst who would like to share some talent with the class, as teacher Omar Salem discovered below!

Video: My students' many talents

Teacher Omar Salem describes a student who sings, dances, manages her own YouTube channel, and edits all of the video.

Culture kits

I got this idea from the Dakota County library system in Minnesota. They have a learning resource called "Bifolkal Kits" that patrons can check out. The kits have themes such as the "The Fifties," "Work Life," or "African American Lives." Each kit contains items relevant to the topic, reading materials, and questions that can be asked of a person who has experience in that area. It would be a wonderful addition to a curriculum if students created their own Culture Kits with special items that would bring culture alive as a way of sharing their cultures and discussing what can be learned from different multicultural traditions.

Special traditions, celebrations, and recipes

Invite students to share special traditions, holidays, and foods from their cultures throughout the year and across the curriculum. For example, students could describe a favorite recipe in writing or in a presentation (with plenty of practice beforehand). Ask students early on in the year what holidays they celebrate and what those celebrations look like, and invite families to share their own experiences with the class.

Video: Thirty kinds of "mole"

Juan Felipe recalls a conversation with a student who comes from the town of Hidalgo, which is famous for having many different kinds of mole, a Mexican sauce.

Realia

Using concrete objects, often called "realia," is a great way to build background knowledge and tap into students' existing background knowledge. Some objects may be very familiar, while others may be to new students. Other objects may have particular significance for students. Students can share what they know about particular objects through drawing, writing, or native language discussion groups before sharing a summary with the class.

Video: Using "realia" to build background knowledge

Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava describes the "realia" activity she used to introduce Burro's Tortillas and some of the items she brought into the classroom for the lesson.

Note: You can also see materials related to this lesson plan in our classroom module created in collaboration with Dr. Diane August.

Use things that are familiar

In addition to making important cultural connections, look for ways to tie learning to everyday objects that students are likely to have seen and used (without making assumptions, as discussed below). For example, ESOL specialist Katy Padilla prepared her ELLs for a lesson about vascular plants by pre-teaching the concept with straws - an even more relevant example since they were previewing the content in their special Secret Science Lunch Club!

Video: Making the connection between vascular plants and straws

Katy describes the challenge of the week, which is designed to increase ELLs' use of the target vocabulary.

Look for "mirror books" for your students

Using books, stories, and poems where students can see themselves, also called " mirror books," is a powerful way to tap into their experiences. Culturally relevant books are a great place to start. However, finding books about broader experiences, family traditions, or familiar situations that students recognize and relate to can be powerful as well.

Middle school teacher Anna Centi, who teaches newcomers in Dearborn, Michigan, also notes that her students dig in more deeply when they feel that connection and that she has been able to push them with more rigorous texts. You can see Miss Centi's students, most of whom come from Yemen, reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park in an excerpt from our award-winning film, You Are Welcome Here below.

Note: It is critical for teachers to be sensitive to what students have been through and not to ask a lot of direct questions about personal stories, especially in front of others; training in trauma-informed instruction is essential in order to lead conversations about students' experiences safely. Yet figuring out how to do this with care is worthwhile as it gives students a chance to connect more deeply with content and share their own stories if they wish. You may wish to request that training be offered to staff since it can benefit all adults in the school community.

Use literature, stories, and folktales from across cultures

By reading texts from different cultures, you can encourage students to connect what they are reading to their own experiences. While this seems like a simple and logical place to start, it will take some research to find just the right additions for an educational unit, as well as to find literature that is authentic and culturally relevant. If you are working with bilingual colleagues or cultural liaisons, ask them if they have recommendations or can help you make the best selections for your students.

Libraries across the nation have increased the amount of multicultural literature available from a wide variety of countries and cultures. Some of the material is written in other languages, and some of it is translated into English. There are also many publishers who have focused on increasing multicultural literature in the classroom, and Language Arts series often will have a multicultural connection with suggestions of books to read with the class. To read about one high school teacher's use of multicultural literature in the classroom, read Time is Not on Our Side: Literacy and Literature for High School Language Learners, on our sister site, AdLit.org.

In addition, you can also look for connections across stories. For example, many cultures have a story version of "Cinderella", as seen in the video below.

Video: Introducing different versions of Cinderella

In this classroom video, Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza introduces a character study of Cinderella by sharing a number of diverse versions of the Cinderella story, chosen to reflect the cultures of her students.

Note: You can also see materials related to this lesson plan in our classroom module created in collaboration with Dr. Diane August.

Use storytelling in the classroom

Many cultures have a rich tradition of storytelling that often gets lost in the U.S. with the focus on developing literacy skills. Many of the common stories in cultures have been translated and written in story form, but children also enjoy telling and acting out stories. There are many resources to help build storytelling skills, and some students may also have a relative who is a great storyteller and would be willing to visit the class and tell a story. The class can have great discussions about what made the story interesting, what the story was trying to tell them, and if they know other stories that are similar.

Asking students to share folk tales

In addition, you can ask students to share popular folk tales or legends from their own culture or bring them to life through writing, artwork, or a digital storytelling activity. You may find that many cultures have similar stories based on a certain theme, or that students have heard different versions of the same story. This is also an excellent way to engage families - who also will have strong opinions about the "right" way to tell a certain story!

Video: "How many of you have heard that story?" Teaching folklore through students' cultural experiences

Juan Felipe describes a project he oversaw for a Chicano folklore class in which students interviewed their families and compiled stories, jokes, and legends they had grown up hearing.

Video: My favorite section in the library

Storyteller Lucía González describes how family stories led to an important discovery in the library.

Avoid assumptions

Just as it's important not to put students on the spot, it's important not to make assumptions about the experiences they may (or may not) have had. For example, Dr. Ayanna Cooper shares a story in the video below about U.S. history teachers who mistakenly thought their Haitian students were African American students who had a deep knowledge base about U.S. history. As mentioned above, the better you know your students, the better you can plan lessons that will give all students access to grade-level content.

Finding resources for culturally responsive instruction

Teachers spend a lot of their own money to add to the school curriculum in order to meet the needs of their students. Adding culturally relevant curriculum and materials shouldn't be an additional financial burden on the teacher. Many schools are willing to fund the purchase of culturally relevant items if the teacher has researched the purchase and can explain how it will enhance student learning. If the school does not have resources, there may be funding at the district level or diversity grant funding available to teachers. You can find additional researched-based information in our resource collection about culturally responsive instruction.

Closing thoughts

Accessing students' background knowledge is a powerful way to make your instruction more culturally responsive and meaningful for all students. In the end, the efforts that teachers make to add a rich, cultural dimension to the curriculum will enhance student learning and comprehension, and create excitement in the classroom. The most wonderful thing about adding diverse cultural perspectives to the lesson is that it is a way of letting your students know - particularly ELL students - that their diverse experiences and backgrounds are valued in your classroom. Students may also be motivated to explore content and deepen their understanding of material.

As students share insights with you and with each other, they will develop appreciation for other cultural perspectives and they may find that there are more similarities than differences among them - and that might prove to be the greatest lesson of all.

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How to Connect ELLs' Background Knowledge to Content

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What are some other ways you can tap into background knowledge if it's very different from your own? You can start by choosing a single topic to research that you think might be relevant to your students.

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rewprdify.com

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Focusing Formative Assessment on the Needs of English Language Learners

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Focusing Formative Assessment on the Needs of English Language Learners

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Alvarez, et al, 2014

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Video: Using a Jigsaw Activity with Multilingual Learners

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Video: Using a Jigsaw Activity with Multilingual Learners

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Secondary Video Example

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Guideline #3: Leverages students' languages, cultures, and backgrounds.

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GP#2: ELs learn best when they are taught in a welcoming and supportive school climate.

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I know of one teacher who called all families of her students just to say 'I wanted to thank you for entrusting your child to our school. We're happy you're here. I love working with your student.' I heard about the phone call from an older sibling, and it was the first time I'd seen this girl smile in two weeks. Small gestures make a difference.

Overview

Schools can use a variety of strategies to get to know immigrant families and let them know they are welcome in the school community. Sharing these messages of support during times of uncertainty can strengthen relationships, make communication and problem-solving more effective, and impact student attendance and family engagement.

Take a look at our ideas below to get started in your setting. For more great ideas, see related strategies on:

Let all families know that they are welcome

Serving Afghan refugee families

If your school is welcoming new refugee families from Afghanistan, please see the following:

Why this matters

The best way to let families know that they are welcome is to tell them. This kind of outreach has always been important for ELL and immigrant families; however, it is even more critical for immigrant families who may:

feel unwelcome in the school, early childhood program, or community

not know if immigration status impacts the right to attend school or early childhood program, or even enter the building

be more likely to keep their children home and avoid educational settings themselves

keep their children home due to local immigration enforcement activity

come from countries where school records are available to all government agencies.

Expressing support signals that you value their place in your community and take those concerns seriously. It is also an important message to communicate to staff who are serving immigrant students and who may be immigrants themselves or have ties to immigrant relatives/communities.

Tips for getting started

Educators and school/program leaders can communicate this message by:

regularly expressing that families are welcome

posting welcome signs and messages of support on doors in multiple languages

making statements of support available online.

Other kinds of outreach

Schools, districts, and early childhood programs can also share welcoming messages through:

parent information meetings

phone calls

public remarks in the community or local press

collaboration with community organizations that have a relationship with families (i.e. houses of worship, community centers, and immigrant rights groups)

Public Service Announcements and interviews with local media outlets in families' native languages, especially for communities with low levels of native language literacy.

Related resources

Create a welcoming school environment

Why this matters

The environment of a school or early childhood program has a significant impact on students and families. There are a number of things that educators can do to create a welcoming environment for immigrant students and families.

Tips for getting started

Make families and students feel welcome by:

Removing barriers to engagement

ensuring that families are greeted warmly at the front office in their language

introducing them to parent liaisons, Family Resource Centers, or other resources

helping families understand the U.S. school system

providing transportation, meals, and child care for family events

identifying specific stressors, such as stimuli that trigger post-traumatic stress

Communicating in families' languages

having access to someone who speaks their language

making information available in their language and format they prefer

teaching staff how to use a language phone line or other services with an interpreter

learning how to pronounce student and family names correctly

learning a few phrases in families' languages

welcoming and using students' home languages in the classroom

connecting students with peers, staff, or volunteers who speak their language

Celebrate students' countries and cultures

hanging flags of students' home countries

displaying artwork, photos, and mementos from students' countries

including culturally responsive books in families' home languages in the library and in classrooms (including books by diverse authors who share students' heritage)

providing opportunities for students and/or families to share songs and stories from their country or culture if they feel comfortable doing so

being mindful that some students may not wish to share information about their home country, immigration story, or place of birth and others may not remember or know much about it (see more on this topic in our related section on immigrant students' silence)

Engaging the school-wide/district-wide community

encouraging students to brainstorm ideas on how to make peers feel welcome

encouraging activities that foster students' empathy

reminding the community, including all students and adults in the building, of existing policies on bullying, bias, and discrimination

taking steps to prevent bullying and addressing bullying incidents when they occur

sharing these strategies and ideas with colleagues.

In addition, consider adding immigration status as a form of difference that merits equitable treatment in your classroom. Any time you engage in conversations with students about why it is important not to discriminate against others due to their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or other form of social difference, include immigration status (as is developmentally appropriate). If you have signs in your classroom that name different kinds of bullying or hate speech, include immigration status as well (Gallo, 2018).

Addressing bias

For recommendations on how to discuss and address bias, see the comprehensive resource list we put together following the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.

Recommended resources

Resources from Colorín Colorado

Toolkits

News headlines

Recommended videos

Video playlist: Creating a welcoming environment for ELL and immigrant students

Get to know your students and families

Why this matters

One of the most important steps educators can take is to get to know students and families, developing a personal relationship that establishes trust and rapport. It is much easier to address a difficult situation, such as changes in a student's behavior, when you already have a solid relationship.

Tips for getting started

Learn more about family backgrounds and strengths by talking with families, cultural liaisons, and ELL/bilingual colleagues.

Invite members of the community or local organizations to share their insights.

Look for ways to increase the amount of interaction between staff and families.

Get into families' neighborhoods by planning events in local venues and home visits.

Give students the chance to tell their stories with tips in this Colorín Colorado article.

Recommended resources

Strategies and background information

Books and guides

Student populations

Recommended videos

Video Playlist: Home visits with immigrant students

Video Playlist: Getting to know your ELL and immigrant students

More recommended videos: Documentaries

Learn more about special populations of students

Why this matters

It is critical to learn as much as possible about your students' backgrounds and educational experiences, as well as their talents and gifts, as you look for ways to help them succeed. You may also meet students who have unique experiences, strengths, and needs.

Here are some examples of those experiences:

Refugee students may have experienced trauma, difficult journeys, and lengthy stays in refugee camps or temporary accommodations with little access to schooling.

Students with interrupted education may have little or no schooling, or a patchwork of experiences.

Children of migrant farmworkers may have moved frequently around the country following different harvest seasons. They may not have school records from prior schools. They may be living in poverty and particularly vulnerable to events such as natural disasters.

Unaccompanied children and youth may have endured long, traumatic, and violent journeys and may be reuniting with family they haven't met or seen for a long time.

Students displaced by natural disasters may have gone through traumatic experiences, upheaval, and long separations from immediate family members.

Indigenous students from Latin America may mask their Indigenous identity and language; while schools may provide support in Spanish to these students based on their country of origin, Spanish may actually be a second or third language.

Tips for getting started

Look for clues about your students' experiences without asking direct questions.

Build relationships with students and families.

Find out if colleagues such as ESOL teachers, parent liaisons, or community partners have information about students' prior experiences. If so, invite these colleagues to share their insights with staff.

Learn more about the context for your students' experiences, such as a civil war that caused them to flee or the conditions that migrants face along particular routes.

Keep in mind that some students may be reluctant to share their experiences. See ideas for supportive ways to engage students that don't put them on the spot in our related section and our article on student stories.

Keep in mind that refugees and asylees have different kinds of rights in the U.S.; not everyone that used to live in a refugee camp has resettled through the State Department and has access to the rights and privileges that such a process entails.

You may also wish to look at students' schedules and look for ways to reduce the number disruptions and transitions where possible, particularly for newcomers. See our related section on this topic.

Recommended resources

Identify student and family strengths

Why this matters

All students and families have strengths and assets. Recognizing those strengths can create a foundation on which to build an effective partnership. It is an important shift from a "deficit" approach, in which families and students are defined by their needs and challenges.

Tips for getting started

Be sure to highlight student and family strengths and celebrate them publicly and regularly within the entire school/program community.

Look for families' strengths and successes in overcoming and managing their challenges and caring for their children.

Ask students and families to describe their skills, interests, and talents, and ask for additional input from colleagues and community partners.

Look for ways to do this in the classroom. Encourage teachers to look for students' strengths (using this chart of asset-based language as a starting point), as well as contributions that members of the students' communities have made locally and to American society.

Recommended resources

Recommended Videos

Video: Building upon students' strengths

Video: Getting to know students through parent letters

References

See our complete reference list for works cited in this article.

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Making Students and Families Feel Welcome

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I know of one teacher who called all families of her students just to say 'I wanted to thank you for entrusting your child to our school. We're happy you're here. I love working with your student.' I heard about the phone call from an older sibling, and it was the first time I'd seen this girl smile in two weeks.

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The Whys and Hows of Activating Students' Background Knowledge

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The Whys and Hows of Activating Students' Background Knowledge

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are the best ways to activate and build students' background knowledge, and why is it important?
Our students have a great deal of background knowledge that teachers need to activate so that they can learn new content. And students need to be provided with additional background knowledge so that they can access even more content!

This two-part series will look at what we mean by the term "background knowledge," why it's important, and how we teachers can best identify and develop it both in the physical classroom and during remote teaching.

Today, Adam Fachler, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Rachel Bear, Cheryl Abla, Elizabeth Villanueva, Jenny Vo, and Sarah Said share their commentaries. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jeffrey, Rachel, Cheryl, and Elizabeth on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.
"Priming" students for success
Jeffery D. Wilhelm, Adam Fachler, and Rachel Bear are the authors of the book Planning Powerful Instruction: 7 Must-Make Moves to Transform How We Teach--and How Students Learn":

In our book, Planning Powerful Instruction (Corwin), we argue that a central move of teaching is priming to prepare students for success. (This is much more efficient and fun than remediating learners once they have begun to struggle.) The only resources that learners have for approaching a new challenge is what they already know and are already interested in. The only way to build new interests and capacities is by activating and building on students' prior interests and background knowledge before instruction. This process honors what students bring to the classroom and provides them with necessary context and connection to the purpose and payoff of what is to be learned. It is essential to culturally relevant pedagogy.

But the biggest reason we begin new learning experiences with activities that "prime" students for the learning ahead is this:

There is no alternative! All new learning builds on prior learning.

When we activate and build students' background knowledge:

Students see the connection between previous and current learning.

We establish a set of conceptual "hooks" on which students can "hang" new learning.

Students get on the same page with us.

We receive formative-assessment data we can use throughout the learning experience.

Not only does this practice provide myriad benefits and accord with how the brain functions, it also describes how experts in every field develop expertise. Everyone from engineers to entrepreneurs ask themselves, " What is already known and how do we know it-and how might we extend and build on it?" before undertaking a new project.

If the best instruction mirrors or approximates how individuals in the real world learn, then it stands to reason that we should do what they do.

So, what are the best ways to get it done? Here is a short list of our favorite techniques:

Solving a "junior," mini, or scaled-back version of the problem you will teach students to solve.

Unpacking images or art related to the targeted learning (e.g., see-think-wonder protocols that mirror the process of inquiry: establishing the facts, interpreting facts and inference chains, asking questions to drive further learning).

Providing autobiographical prompts related to the learning ahead (e.g., make students face a moral dilemma the character will face, putting them in the thematic driver's seat).

Asking questions that address problematic or controversial aspects of the content.

Facilitating a simulation.

Ranking products or concepts (which requires making value judgments and applying reasoning).

Conducting surveys or opinionaires.

Remember: The best priming activities are accessible, focused, relevant, and revealing of students' knowledge and abilities. If your priming activity leaves a good taste in your students' mouths and creates energy and interest in future learning, then that positive spillover can affect the vibe of the whole unit. So, while we know time is of the essence in every classroom, it's a necessary investment to make priming student learning a mainstay of yours.

Background knowledge and curiosity
Cheryl Abla is a former teacher who now, with McREL International, leads professional learning and coaching for K-12 educators on research-based strategies for effective instruction, use of classroom technology, English-language acquisition, and classroom culture and climate. She's a co-author of Tools for Classroom Instruction That Works, which provides easy-to-use tools and learning activities to help teachers get CITW strategies into the classroom on a daily basis:

At McREL, we're huge believers in the power of curiosity to propel lifelong learning, but we're not naïve about its limitations. Without background knowledge, what would students have to be curious about? You've got to start somewhere. Learning is about filling in the gaps between what is known and what isn't yet known.

The best way to leverage background knowledge is to give students cues, questions, and advance organizers about what they're about to learn. Sound familiar? Together, these tools form one of the nine classic research-based strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works. What cues, questions, and advance organizers have in common is that they're about beginnings. They all precede the delivery of new content and they all rely on the understanding that knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum but builds upon prior knowledge and in turn gets built upon.

Vocabulary Knowledge Rating, which we adapted from Camille Blachowicz, introduces students to critical vocabulary terms before instruction begins. Students rate their understanding of each term before and after the lesson, to see if their knowledge has grown.

Anticipation Guide reverses the traditional model of learning enough about a subject to then be able to form an opinion about it. First, students are asked their opinion of a subject. Then the lesson is delivered. Was their background knowledge adequate to support their original position, or do they need to re-evaluate? Now they're not only learning new content, they're learning how additional evidence can influence their understanding.

Power Previewing teaches students to skim a text strategically. The teacher guides the previewing process by pointing out useful things to look for, such as recurring themes. There are many questions a teacher can include in an advance organizer, and one of them is, "Does anything look familiar or relate to something you've seen, read, learned about, or experienced?" Students become more proficient readers when memory is activated as part of the process of acquiring new knowledge.

While none of us wants schools to be curiosity-free drill-and-kill zones ever again, we have to acknowledge the importance of background knowledge and develop skill in helping students acquire it. Background knowledge plus curiosity is the most powerful formula of all.

"Funds of knowledge" Elizabeth Villanueva is a Spanish teacher and world-language department chair at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. She has been recognized as the 2018 National Education Association Social Justice Activist Award Finalist; 2018 California Teachers Association, César Chávez "Sí Se Puede Human Rights Award"; and Sacramento City Unified school district, Teacher of the Year 2015-16. Elizabeth is an Ed.D. candidate at the University of San Francisco in the Learning and Instruction Doctoral Program with an emphasis in heritage-language maintenance:
Academic learning success must be founded at the personal level of each learner and teacher. Its relevance brings meaningfulness and connectedness to each individual creating a learning atmosphere of interconnectedness that stimulates curiosity for the known and unknown. That bridges to a deeper level of understanding to explore and discover the purpose for academic access and success. Therefore, the power of disseminating the funds of knowledge of each learner to develop self-determination for personal growth and academic success is correlated with the teacher's willingness to share their own personal funds of knowledge that may trigger students' interest and motivation to thrive.

I come from a family that can be labeled as "dysfunctional," since there was domestic violence, lack of love, low economic status, and then at an early age, my parents separated. It was then my mother left my father and migrated illegally to Salinas, Callif., looking for better life opportunities. It was she who, after crossing the border, began telling me and my siblings to get an education to have more and better life opportunities because being uneducated, she was only able to work in the fields and then at a packing company. So five years after her arrival to Salinas, I came to Salinas knowing her expectations. Those were to finish high school, learn English, get some educational degree, and find a better job than she had. It was her insistence to apply myself to study that made me realize how important it is to go to school and most importantly the role that teachers play in a child's education.

As a language teacher and an English-language learner, I believe there is no language more powerful than the language of empathy, sensitivity, and kindness for one another. I know that if I take care of my students' educational well-being by valuing and integrating their funds of knowledge, it is transformed into meaningful and relevant instructional material that becomes students' academic success. Building that relatedness can enhance students' competence to develop their autonomy to continue thriving. Thus, learning from the funds of knowledge of my students is my motivation to strive and enhance meaningful relationships that empower a bigger community.

ELLs & prior knowledge Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 23 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas:
Our English-learners come to us from many countries and bring with them different backgrounds and experiences. In order to successfully support their learning in the content areas, we need to make sure we find out what they already know and what gaps need to be filled. We can do this by activating the students' prior knowledge and then building their background knowledge.

What is prior knowledge and why do we need to activate it? Prior knowledge is what the students bring with them that they have gained from previous schooling and their life experiences. It is important for teachers to activate their students' prior knowledge so they know what students already know about a certain topic and what gaps in learning they will need to fill in order for students to be successful. It helps them to understand the reason why the students are struggling. Is the poor comprehension or struggle with assignments due to lack of language, lack of experience, or lack of skills? Having a firm grasp on the reason or reasons will enable the teacher to know how to support the students.

I like using anticipation guides at the beginning of a unit to see what students know. Anticipation guides have statements that students answer at the beginning of a unit and then at the end. The responses can be in an Agree/Disagree or True/False format. KWL (Know-Want to Know-Learn) charts are also great for activating prior knowledge. Charts can be filled out as a class or by individual students. Another great strategy is the observation chart. This GLAD strategy has students walking around the room looking at pictures and writing observations, comments, and questions on them. I either give each student a different colored pen or have them write their name after their observation so I can track which student wrote what.

Once you have a grasp of your students' prior knowledge, your next step is to build their background knowledge to fill in the gaps. Building background knowledge allows you as the teacher to link the students' past learning and experiences to new learning. There are many ways to build background knowledge. Videos are great for this. Choose ones that are not too technical and easy to understand. Stop periodically to check for understanding. Virtual field trips are a great alternative to live field trips when you are unable to schedule them. I like virtual field trips because you can keep going back to them if needed. The most important way teachers can build background knowledge is to explicitly teach key academic vocabulary. Give students multiple opportunities to use and practice the vocabulary so that the words are internalized and permanently connected to the topic of study.

As you can see, it is essential for you to plan activities to activate your students' prior knowledge and to build background knowledge so that your students, especially your English-learners, can make that critical connection between their past learning and their new learning. With the info gained from the activities, you can better plan how to support your students so they are successful in their learning.

"Language dives" Sarah Said is the director of language and equity programs at an EL (Expeditionary Learning) Education School in the Chicago suburbs. In her role, she oversees support programs for multilingual learners, works with others to create a community that fosters success for students from the diverse communities her school serves, and helps strengthen school to community outreach. In the past, she has been a director of ELL, dean, and curriculum coordinator. In addition to her role in her building, she is a contributor for ELL Confianza and has written a variety of blog posts online. She is a member of the #ELLChat and #ELLchat_bkClub where she helps advocate for multilingual learners. Follow her on Twitter at @MrsSaid:
As I always say, "We don't eat something in a restaurant when we don't understand what it is on the menu"-at least I don't. Our minds are "picky eaters" when it comes to what we engage in and connect with. Be able to front-load information and support students with connecting to past knowledge is something we need to do to support them as educators. How do we do this? We engage students in activities that help us learn about them. This helps support us in being culturally responsive teachers in the classroom.

One strategy that I like to use at the beginning of the year is a project that I call the "cultural bag." I explain to students that their cultural bag is something that they always carry around with them that holds their values, norms, and experiences. What I like about this activity is that it can be done with any age level from K-12 and be effective. Simply, you give students a paper bag, explain what a "cultural bag " is with an age-appropriate explanation, then they can collage or draw the bag with effective images to emulate the "cultural bag." Depending on the age level of the students, you can have them then either write or explain what the images on the bag mean.

As you continue to get to know your students during the year, you can use ideas from what you know about them to scaffold conversations about new content. This helps students learn, and it makes the classroom more engaging for all.

When you are considering multilingual learners, you need to think about other ways to build background knowledge. You may need to utilize cognates in the native language to support students' understanding vocabulary in English. This can be supported in an interactive word wall. These word walls are not just word walls that sit on a wall; students actually create the word wall and utilize the word wall to actively support it.

Building background for students helps support them in really engaging with and grasping content and language. This is an essential part of teaching and learning. It is critical in supporting a culturally responsive classroom.

Thanks to Adam, Jeffrey, Rachel, Cheryl, Elizabeth, Jenny, and Sarah for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

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The Whys & Hows of Activating Students' Background Knowledge (Opinion)

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Seven educators explain the importance of tapping students' background knowledge in order to learn new content, and they describe ways to do just that, including through the use of surveys and anticipation guides.

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In this classroom clip, Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza walks her students through an in-depth discussion of the rich language used in a picture-book version of Cinderella.

Teacher: Clara Gonzales-Espinoza

School Name: Emerson Elementary School, Albuquerque, NM

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Focusing on language with the Common Core

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In this classroom clip, Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza walks her students through an in-depth discussion of the rich language used in a picture-book version of Cinderella.

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Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice

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Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice

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Guideline #4: Simultaneously challenges and supports students.

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Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school.

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OELA English Learner Toolkit - Chapter 10 

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Tools & Resources for Ensuring Meaning Communication with EL Parents

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Tools & Resources for Ensuring Meaning Communication with EL Parents

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GP#2: ELs learn best when they are taught in a welcoming and supportive school climate.

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Colorin Colorado: The Role of Background Knowledge

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Colorin Colorado: The Role of Background Knowledge

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One of the most critical components of helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed academically is the role of background knowledge. Lessons, reading passages, and test questions that assume prior knowledge or familiarity with a certain experience, person, or object may not be an appropriate tool for ELLs who lack the required background knowledge to understand the content.

To learn more about the role background knowledge plays and some ideas for identifying particular pieces of background knowledge that may be useful to review before a lesson, see the following articles, videos, and blog posts below.

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One of the most critical components of helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed academically is the role of background knowledge. Lessons, reading passages, and test questions that assume prior knowledge or familiarity with a certain experience, person, or object may not be an appropriate tool for ELLs who lack the required background knowledge to understand the content.

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Guideline #4: Simultaneously challenges and supports students.

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Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects.

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Educating English Learners: A Review of the Latest Research - D. August

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Educating English Learners: A Review of the Latest Research - D. August

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GP#3: ELs should be taught language and content simultaneously.
GP#4: ELs benefit when their teachers collaborate to share their expertise.

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It's October in the Rio Grande Valley; the summer heat has receded and the school year is in full swing. Rolando Diaz teaches sixth-grade science at Del Valle Middle School. His class is a mix of English language learners (ELLs) with varying levels of English proficiency. He also has a few newcomer students, mostly from Mexico and Central America. Although all the students are Latino, they have varying degrees of Spanish proficiency.

Today, Mr. Diaz is teaching a lesson on ecology. To prepare for it, he has added several scaffolds to the district-mandated science curriculum. He presents slides to guide the lesson, providing students with visual support for what they hear him say.

Students also have a workbook that corresponds to the slides. For each slide, students engage in an activity that helps them process information. In this case, it is "partner talk" requiring them to describe a variety of habitats in terms of food, shelter, and temperature. They also use a bilingual glossary with pictures and English and Spanish definitions for the lesson's target vocabulary words. The glossary asks students to answer a question about each word and draw a picture or provide an example. For instance, for "ecosystem," they describe one near their house.

Mr. Diaz begins the lesson by introducing the content and language objectives for the day. Next, he explains several general and domain-specific words using the slides.

He quickly gives each definition in English, asks a student to read the definition in Spanish, presents an example for each definition, and asks students to discuss each word's meaning. A few weeks ago, he taught a mini-lesson on recognizing English-Spanish cognates, so they discuss whether "habitat" and "ecosystem" are also cognates.

Students then form groups to explore the schoolyard habitat. In each group, students are assigned various roles-mapmaker, bug collector, vegetation inspector, soil sampler, or data collector-and they complete a corresponding chart. For example, the vegetation inspector measures and records the height of the tallest vegetation and works with the mapmaker to record the location.

At the end of the lesson, students listen and follow along as Mr. Diaz reads the section of the grade-level text that discusses features of the ecosystem in Yellowstone National Park. After each section of text, students answer questions orally about the text, illustrations, and other visual displays. Mr. Diaz provides sentence starters and sentence frames to scaffold responses for his students with lower levels of English proficiency.* He intentionally pairs newcomers with bilingual peers so they can converse in Spanish before writing in English.

A longtime teacher, Mr. Diaz has effectively planned and carried out instruction on a specific science topic. He has ensured that students with varying degrees of English proficiency can access the academic content, strengthen their literacy skills, and engage with and learn from their peers.

I've worked with Mr. Diaz and many others like him to incorporate these best practices into their teaching. His teaching reflects the latest research on educating ELLs. In this article, I discuss this research, which includes seven principles from a recent consensus report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. ¹ The report, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures, examines what the research tells us about learning English from early childhood through high school, identifies effective practices for educators, and recommends steps policymakers can take to support high-quality educational outcomes for children and youth who are learning English.

These principles and practices build on findings from previous reviews on the same topic, ² as well as U.S. Department of Education best-evidence syntheses. ³ While dual language programming for ELLs is effective for developing English proficiency and content-area knowledge in English-with the extra benefit of maintaining and developing students' first language, validating their culture, and providing opportunities to enhance cross-cultural understanding4-this article focuses on instruction delivered in English, an important component of dual language programs. (For more on dual language programs and early childhood education, see " Encouraging the Development and Achievement of Dual Language Learners in Early Childhood.")

1. Provide Access to Grade-Level Course Content

For ELLs, exposure to grade-level course content provides crucial access to the language required for academic achievement and for becoming fully proficient in English. ⁵ This exposure helps students develop the concepts and skills needed to master grade-level coursework as they move up through the grades. Grade-level coursework, in turn, helps ensure students perceive the materials as worth working on, engaging, and meaningful. ⁶

In the reviewed studies that focus on the elementary grade levels, a variety of authentic materials were used to support learning. For example, in an English language arts intervention, newspaper articles, diaries, and historical and fictional accounts were used to teach students about immigration across different time periods. ⁷ In an intervention for young children, the read-aloud books and videos focused on habitats. ⁸ A middle-grades science intervention used the same texts and experiments used with gifted and talented students. ⁹

It is important to keep in mind that many skills and types of knowledge transfer from students' first language to their second, and that ELLs may have already acquired core content in their first language. ¹⁰ For example, students who have learned math concepts and skills in their first language do not need to relearn the concepts and skills, but do need to learn the English academic language associated with them. ELLs whose first language shares cognates with English do not need to learn meanings for cognates whose meanings they know in their first language-only English labels for these cognates.

Because grade-level materials in English are challenging for ELLs, instruction using these materials must be coupled with methods that support ELLs. The following principles elaborate on this theme.

2. Build on Effective Practices Used with English-Proficient Students

Many of the practices that have proved effective for ELLs are adapted from practices that have proved effective for English-proficient students. For example, in the area of literacy interventions, it is helpful to teach ELLs the same skills as their English-proficient peers-the skills of hearing the individual English sounds or phonemes within words (i.e., phonemic awareness); using the letters and spelling patterns within words to decode the pronunciation (i.e., phonics); reading text aloud with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression (i.e., oral reading fluency); using strategies to learn new words; thinking about what they are reading (i.e., reading comprehension); and writing with the organization, development, substance, and style appropriate to the task and audience. ¹¹

Effective practices for middle-grades students similarly build on practices that have been effective with English-proficient students. For example, in science, the 5-E approach-Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate-has been used to guide successful interventions for ELLs. ¹² Approaches deemed effective for building vocabulary in English-proficient students have also been used in successful interventions for ELLs. ¹³ Examples include teaching vocabulary in the context of rich and varied language experiences, teaching individual words, teaching word-learning strategies, promoting word consciousness, and using words in writing. ¹⁴ In social studies, approaches include reading and writing about informational passages that provide multiple perspectives on historical events. ¹⁵

That said, not all practices deemed effective for English-proficient learners are effective for ELLs. For example, one study16 found that the use of literacy practices that included only higher-level questioning and discussion about the meaning of text had a strong relationship to improved reading comprehension for English-proficient students, but had little discernible benefit for ELLs. The study also found differences with respect to teacher-student interactions. "Telling"-defined as the teacher providing students with information, rather than engaging them in the creation of information through coaching, recitation, or other forms of interaction-had a statistically significant positive effect on ELLs' reading comprehension, but a negative effect on the comprehension of English-proficient students. The researcher posits that in the first case, the literacy practices (e.g., higher-level questioning and discussion) may have been at too high a level for ELLs to benefit without the appropriate supports. In the case of "telling," the researcher suggests that ELLs benefited because they were provided with more support for engaging with core content in English-a level of support that was not necessary for English-proficient students.

3. Provide Supports to Help ELLs Master Core Content and Skills

ELLs also benefit from visual and verbal supports. ¹⁷ For students in the elementary grades, visual supports include the strategic use of pictures, short videos, and graphic organizers to represent complex vocabulary and concepts. ¹⁸ Verbal supports include student glossaries; words glossed in context by the teacher; and whole-class, small-group, and partner discussions that focus in part on clarifying key ideas. ¹⁹ In the middle grades, visual supports include graphic organizers such as diagrams, tables, and concept maps for science, and illustrations and multimedia for language arts. Verbal supports include bilingual glossaries, as well as sentence and paragraph frames. In several studies, students were taught strategies to support learning; ²⁰ in one such study, students learned strategies to help them write. ²¹

For ELLs who are newcomers, especially those in the upper grades, core content provided in their home language will support them in developing their knowledge and skills while they are acquiring proficiency in English.

4. Develop ELLs' Academic Language

Academic language is defined as language used in school, in written communications, in public presentations, and in formal settings. ²² Academic proficiency is "knowing and being able to use general and academic vocabulary, specialized or complex grammatical structures, and multifarious language functions and discourse structures-all for the purpose of acquiring new knowledge and skills, interacting about a topic, and imparting information to others." ²³

It is important to note that academic language differs across content areas. In science, for example, the challenges of mastering academic language apply to vocabulary (e.g., learning everyday words with science meanings, general academic vocabulary, and discipline-specific vocabulary); syntax (e.g., passive voice, compound and complex sentences, and the nominalization of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives); and discourse (e.g., learning to attend to precise meanings in science text and talk). Students must also learn to master the nonlinguistic forms of language prevalent in content areas like science and math (e.g., diagrams, graphs, charts, maps, and equations). ²⁴

One series of experimental studies developed academic language in the context of teaching mainly science content. ²⁵ The studies used the types of visual and verbal supports previously described to help students make sense of content, develop general academic and domain-specific vocabulary, engage in opportunities to talk in pairs and small groups, and practice writing to extend their learning. These studies are well reviewed in two U.S. Department of Education practice guides for educators. ²⁶

With regard to vocabulary instruction, recent research indicates embedded instruction is a promising technique for developing ELLs' vocabulary when that vocabulary is not conceptually complex. ²⁷ In embedded instruction, students are given access to word meanings through on-the-spot child-friendly definitions of the target words (and, in some cases, examples and gestures). The research also indicates that instructional condition interacts with word type, with conceptually complex words much harder for students to acquire and thus needing more instructional support. ²⁸ (For more on helping students with their oral language development, see " Meaningful Classroom Talk.")

5. Encourage Peer-to-Peer Learning Opportunities

One of the key principles of instruction in a second language is enabling students to interact via speaking, listening, reading, and writing with peers in their second language. ²⁹ Speaking is important to generate feedback, encourage syntactic processing, and challenge students to engage at higher proficiency levels. As a result, it is no surprise that in many of the studies cited thus far, peer-to-peer learning was an important component of the intervention. In fact, in some studies, it was the focus.

For example, in one study implemented in the elementary grades, peer-to-peer learning was used to develop first-graders' literacy skills in a dual language program. ³⁰ Using the Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) program, the peer-to-peer learning classrooms provided a structured routine in which the teacher modeled the language activities of the day; students practiced the activities in pairs for 15 minutes while the teacher supervised; and students then turned to story sharing, a partner reading activity that lasted for another 15 minutes. Teachers paired high-performing readers with low-performing readers and then taught the students to use the PALS procedures. During each segment of the session, the high-performing students performed the role of coach first, and the low-performing students followed. On average, PALS students demonstrated significantly greater growth than control students in phoneme segmentation, nonsense word fluency, and oral reading fluency.

In the middle grades, many of the interventions that had positive outcomes for ELLs also provided opportunities for collaborative peer learning. ³¹ An important feature of these studies is that peer talk, in pairs or small groups, focused on course content.

In planning for peer-to-peer interactions for adolescents, teachers need to consider students' growing awareness of their social status in peer groups in school and their community. ³² For ELLs, this includes how they are perceived by peers proficient in English. ³³

6. Capitalize on Students' Home Language, Knowledge, and Cultural Assets

Studies on cross-language transfer ³⁴ indicate significant relationships between performance in ELLs' first and second languages in word reading, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, and reading strategies. Findings from evaluation studies comparing bilingual programs with mostly English-only programs indicate that, over time, ELLs instructed bilingually either perform on par with or outperform ELLs instructed only in English, ³⁵ providing indirect evidence of positive transfer.

Experimental studies ³⁶ conducted with elementary school children suggest that instructional routines that draw on students' home language, knowledge, and cultural assets support literacy development in English. Examples of the instructional routines include previewing and reviewing material in children's first language, storybook reading in students' first language, ³⁷ providing opportunities for students to engage in conversational exchanges during instruction that permits some interpretation to take place in their first language, ³⁸ providing first-language definitions for the targeted vocabulary, ³⁹ providing instruction in word-learning strategies that help ELLs uncover the meanings of cognates when encountered in English texts, ⁴⁰ and introducing key concepts by connecting them with children's prior knowledge or experiences at home and in their community. ⁴¹

As was the case for studies conducted with children in grades K-5, middle-grades studies that showed positive effects capitalized on ELLs' assets. While none of the studies were implemented in bilingual settings, the interventions included bilingual glossaries, background materials in students' home languages, teacher explanations in students' home languages, partner work in students' home languages, and instruction to help ELLs take advantage of their home-language knowledge and skills. ⁴²

7. Screen for Language and Literacy Challenges, Monitor Progress, and Support ELLs Who Are Struggling

Historically, ELLs have been both overidentified and underidentified as having a disability. ⁴³ Both cases-identifying students as having a disability when they do not in fact have one (i.e., overidentification) and failing to identify students for special education services that they need (i.e., underidentification)-are problematic. Measures used to assess ELLs for reading and language challenges must distinguish language development from disability.

Most intervention research has focused on ELLs with reading difficulties. Findings from numerous studies cited in previous reviews of promising and effective instructional practices for ELLs ⁴⁴ suggest that districts should establish procedures and provide training for schools to screen ELLs for reading challenges, consider collecting progress monitoring data more than three times a year for ELLs at risk, and use data from screening and progress monitoring assessments to make decisions about necessary instructional supports.

The studies also suggest the types of reading skills that should be assessed at different grade spans to determine whether ELLs are in need of additional instructional support. For kindergarten and first grade, skills include phonological awareness, familiarity with the alphabet and alphabetic principle, the ability to read single words, and knowledge of basic phonics rules. For children at the end of first grade and in the next few grades, skills include the ability to read connected texts accurately and fluently. For students in grades 2-5, oral reading fluency should also be assessed. However, these grade spans are predicated on ELLs beginning their schooling in kindergarten and must be adjusted for students entering U.S. schools in later grades and who may have already acquired these skills in their first language.

The studies provide two other recommendations: first, districts with performance benchmarks should use the same standards for ELLs and English-proficient students in the early grades, but should make adjustments in instruction when ELL progress is not sufficient; and second, teachers should be trained to use formative data to guide instruction. ⁴⁵ With regard to formative data, one study suggests that students' writing samples should be used on an ongoing basis to determine areas for improvement. ⁴⁶ Students' writing samples are excellent sources for formative assessment because they shed light on language challenges common to all children, as well as challenges and opportunities related to primary language influence on English. ⁴⁷

Almost all studies related to screening, monitoring, and intervening are studies of ELLs in elementary grades. ⁴⁸ Recommendations based on these studies include implementing intensive small-group interventions for at least 30 minutes in small homogeneous groups, and providing training and ongoing support for teachers, interventionists, and other school personnel on how to deliver small-group instruction effectively, as well as how to implement effective teaching techniques that can be used outside small-group instruction (e.g., instructional pacing, error corrections, and modeling). ⁴⁹ Another important recommendation is that additional supports should be provided to ELLs struggling in English literacy that address the other skills crucial for success in school, such as vocabulary, listening, reading comprehension, and writing. ⁵⁰

Where Additional Research Would Help

While there are some studies on effective practices for ELLs in science, studies focused on math and social studies are still very limited, compared with studies of English-proficient students. More research is also needed on promising and effective teaching methods for developing ELLs' home language, knowledge, and skills, and equalizing the social status of students from different ethnic/language backgrounds with the social status of white and native English-speaking students in schools.

For bilingual programs in particular, research is needed on the features that influence the successful acquisition of language and content. These features should include student ratios of English speakers to partner-language speakers in two-way programs, the number of instructional hours allotted to each language, the proportion of school staff and leadership who are bilingual, and the use of target languages within and across content areas. ⁵¹ And since most of the intervention research focuses on ELLs in grades K-2, and on pre-reading and reading skills, additional research is needed to understand how to intervene with older ELLs struggling in reading and with ELLs at all grade levels struggling in math, science, and social studies.

Finally, the social and emotional factors that influence student dispositions toward learning and academic performance (e.g., student motivation and engagement) must also be studied. More effective instruction, positive teacher attitudes toward teaching ELLs and high expectations that they can succeed, and engaging school climates can foster ELLs' motivation to learn and commitment to their educational success in the elementary school years and beyond. ⁵²

Experienced teachers knowledgeable about supporting ELLs, such as Mr. Diaz, already incorporate many of these principles in their instruction. But more needs to be done to make sure this research gets into the hands of all classroom teachers, and to ensure additional research is conducted that can strengthen teaching and learning.

Diane August is a managing researcher and the director of the Center for English Language Learners at the American Institutes for Research. Previously, she was a senior research scientist at the Center for Applied Linguistics and a senior program officer at the National Academy of Sciences. This article is drawn from chapters 7 and 8 of the report Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures, published in February 2017 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which is available online.

*For more on scaffolding, see " One Sentence at a Time" in the Summer 2017 issue of American Educator. ( back to the article)

†A useful resource for finding reading and math programs deemed effective for all students is this website created by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University. ( back to the article)

‡Nominalization refers to using a word that is not a noun (e.g., a verb, adjective, or adverb) as a noun or as the head of a noun phrase (e.g., using the adjective "rich" as a noun, as in "the rich"). ( back to the article)

§For more on ways English language learners bring cultural assets to schools, see " The Potential and Promise of Latino Students" in the Spring 2017 issue of American Educator. ( back to the article)

Endnotes

1. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2017).

2. Diane August and Timothy Shanahan, eds., Developing Reading and Writing in Second-Language Learners: Lessons from the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (New York: Routledge, 2008); Fred Genesee et al., eds., Educating English Language Learners: A Synthesis of Research Evidence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 245; and Claude Goldenberg, "Unlocking the Research on English Learners: What We Know-and Don't Yet Know-about Effective Instruction," American Educator 37, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 4-11, 38.

3. What Works Clearinghouse, which has particularly high standards for evidence of effectiveness, has two publications related to English language learners: Scott Baker et al., Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School, NCEE 2014-4012 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2014); and Russell Gersten et al., Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades: A Practice Guide, NCEE 2007-4011 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2007).

4. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth.

5. Lily Wong-Fillmore and Charles J. Fillmore, "What Does Text Complexity Mean for English Learners and Language Minority Students?" (Stanford, CA: Understanding Language, Stanford University, 2014), http://ell.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/academic-papers/06-LWF%....

6. Ellen A. Skinner and Jennifer R. Pitzer, "Developmental Dynamics of Student Engagement, Coping, and Everyday Resilience," in Handbook of Research on Student Engagement, ed. Sandra L. Christenson, Amy L. Reschly, and Cathy Wylie (New York: Springer, 2012), 21-44.

7. Maria S. Carlo, Diane August, and Catherine E. Snow, "Sustained Vocabulary-Learning Strategy Instruction for English-Language Learners," in Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: Bringing Research to Practice, ed. Elfrieda H. Hiebert and Michael L. Kamil (Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2005).

8. Rebecca Silverman and Sara Hines, "The Effects of Multimedia-Enhanced Instruction on the Vocabulary of English-Language Learners and Non-English-Language Learners in Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade," Journal of Educational Psychology 101 (2009): 305-314.

9. Diane August et al., "The Impact of an Instructional Intervention on the Science and Language Learning of Middle Grade English Language Learners," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 2 (2009): 345-376; and Diane August et al., "Helping ELLs Meet the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in Science: The Impact of an Instructional Intervention Focused on Academic Language," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 7 (2014): 54-82.

10. Cheryl Dressler and Michael L. Kamil, "First- and Second-Language Literacy," in Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth, ed. Diane August and Timothy Shanahan (Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2006), 197-238.

11. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth.

12. August et al., "Impact of an Instructional Intervention"; and August et al., "Helping ELLs."

13. Michael F. Graves, The Vocabulary Book: Learning and Instruction, 2nd ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2016).

14. Nonie K. Lesaux et al., "Effects of Academic Vocabulary Instruction for Linguistically Diverse Adolescents: Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial," American Educational Research Journal 51 (2014): 1159-1194.

15. Sharon Vaughn et al., "Enhancing Social Studies Vocabulary and Comprehension for Seventh-Grade English Language Learners: Findings from Two Experimental Studies," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 2 (2009): 297-324.

16. Jennifer O'Day, "Good Instruction Is Good for Everyone-or Is It? English Language Learners in a Balanced Literacy Approach," Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk 14 (2009): 97-119.

17. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth.

18. Bryan A. Brown, Kihyun Ryoo, and Jamie Rodriguez, "Pathway towards Fluency: Using 'Disaggregate Instruction' to Promote Science Literacy," International Journal of Science Education 32 (2010): 1465-1493; Silverman and Hines, "Effects of Multimedia-Enhanced Instruction"; and Lorena Llosa et al., "Impact of a Large-Scale Science Intervention Focused on English Language Learners," American Educational Research Journal 53 (2016): 395-424.

19. See, for example, Maria S. Carlo et al., "Closing the Gap: Addressing the Vocabulary Needs of English Language Learners in Bilingual and Mainstream Classrooms," Reading Research Quarterly 39 (2004): 188-215; and Fuhui Tong et al., "Integrating Literacy and Science for English Language Learners: From Learning-to-Read to Reading-to-Learn," Journal of Educational Research 107 (2014): 410-426.

20. August et al., "Impact of an Instructional Intervention"; August et al., "Helping ELLs"; Vaughn et al., "Enhancing Social Studies Vocabulary and Comprehension"; and Lesaux et al., "Effects of Academic Vocabulary Instruction."

21. Jung-In Kim and Kara M. Viesca, "Three Reading-Intervention Teachers' Identity Positioning and Practices to Motivate and Engage Emergent Bilinguals in an Urban Middle School," Teaching and Teacher Education 55 (2016): 122-132.

22. Catherine E. Snow and Paola Uccelli, "The Challenge of Academic Language," in The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy, ed. David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 112-133.

23. Alison L. Bailey, The Language Demands of School: Putting Academic English to the Test (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 10-11.

24. Helen Quinn, Okhee Lee, and Guadalupe Valdés, "Language Demands and Opportunities in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards for English Language Learners: What Teachers Need to Know" (Stanford, CA: Understanding Language, Stanford University, 2014), http://ell.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/academic-papers/03-Quin....

25. See, for example, Brown, Ryoo, and Rodriguez, "Pathway towards Fluency"; Carlo et al., "Closing the Gap"; Llosa et al., "Impact of a Large-Scale Science Intervention"; Kihyun Ryoo, "Learning Science, Talking Science: The Impact of a Technology-Enhanced Curriculum on Students' Science Learning in Linguistically Diverse Mainstream Classrooms" (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2009); Silverman and Hines, "Effects of Multimedia-Enhanced Instruction"; Tong et al., "Integrating Literacy and Science"; and Vaughn et al., "Enhancing Social Studies Vocabulary and Comprehension."

26. Baker et al., Teaching Academic Content and Literacy; and Gersten et al., Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction.

27. Michael D. Coyne, D. Betsy McCoach, and Sharon Kapp, "Vocabulary Intervention for Kindergarten Students: Comparing Extended Instruction to Embedded Instruction and Incidental Exposure," Learning Disabilities Quarterly 30 (2007): 74-88.

28. Diane August et al., "The Moderating Influence of Instructional Intensity and Word Type on the Acquisition of Academic Vocabulary in Young English Language Learners," Reading and Writing 31 (2018): 965-989.

29. See Rod Ellis, Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review (Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education, 2005). The purpose of this literature review is to examine theory and research that has addressed what constitutes effective pedagogy for the acquisition of a second language in a classroom context. In other words, the review seeks to answer the question: How can instruction best ensure successful language learning?

30. Mary Beth Calhoun et al., "Effects of a Peer-Mediated Program on Reading Skill Acquisition for Two-Way Bilingual First-Grade Classrooms," Learning Disability Quarterly 30 (2007): 169-184.

31. August et al., "Impact of an Instructional Intervention"; August et al., "Helping ELLs"; Nonie K. Lesaux et al., "The Effectiveness and Ease of Implementation of an Academic Vocabulary Intervention for Linguistically Diverse Students in Urban Middle Schools," Reading Research Quarterly 45 (2010): 196-228; Lesaux et al., "Effects of Academic Vocabulary Instruction"; and Vaughn et al., "Enhancing Social Studies Vocabulary and Comprehension."

32. Brooke K. Cisco and Yolanda Padrón, "Investigating Vocabulary and Reading Strategies with Middle Grades English Language Learners: A Research Synthesis," RMLE Online 36, no. 4 (2012): 1-23; and Kim and Viesca, "Three Reading-Intervention Teachers' Identity Positioning."

33. Guadalupe Valdés, Learning and Not Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001).

34. Dressler and Kamil, "First- and Second-Language Literacy."

35. Ilana M. Umansky and Sean F. Reardon, "Reclassification Patterns among Latino English Learner Students in Bilingual, Dual Immersion, and English Immersion Classrooms," American Educational Research Journal 51 (2014): 879-912; and Rachel A. Valentino and Sean F. Reardon, "Effectiveness of Four Instructional Programs Designed to Serve English Learners: Variation by Ethnicity and Initial English Proficiency," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 37 (2015): 612-637.

36. Carlo et al., "Closing the Gap"; Lauren Aimonette Liang, Cheryl A. Peterson, and Michael F. Graves, "Investigating Two Approaches to Fostering Children's Comprehension of Literature," Reading Psychology 26 (2005): 387-400; Llosa et al., "Impact of a Large-Scale Science Intervention"; and William M. Saunders and Claude Goldenberg, "Effects of Instructional Conversations and Literature Logs on Limited- and Fluent-English-Proficient Students' Story Comprehension and Thematic Understanding," Elementary School Journal 99 (1999): 277-301.

37. Liang, Peterson, and Graves, "Investigating Two Approaches."

38. Saunders and Goldenberg, "Effects of Instructional Conversations."

39. Llosa et al., "Impact of a Large-Scale Science Intervention"; Diane August, Lauren Artzi, and Christopher Barr, "Helping ELLs Meet Standards in English Language Arts and Science: An Intervention Focused on Academic Vocabulary," Reading and Writing Quarterly 32 (2016): 373-396; and Silverman and Hines, "Effects of Multimedia-Enhanced Instruction."

40. Carlo et al., "Closing the Gap"; and Darci A. Burns, "Examining the Effect of an Overt Transition Intervention on the Reading Development of At-Risk English-Language Learners in First Grade" (PhD dissertation, University of Oregon, 2011).

41. Llosa et al., "Impact of a Large-Scale Intervention."

42. August et al., "Impact of an Instructional Intervention"; and August et al., "Helping ELLs."

43. Ester Geva and Katherine Herbert, "Assessment and Interventions for English Language Learners with Learning Disabilities," in Learning about Learning Disabilities, ed. Bernice Wong and Deborah Butler, 4th ed. (Amsterdam: Academic Press, 2012), 271-298.

44. Baker et al., Teaching Academic Content and Literacy; and Gersten et al., Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction.

45. Gersten et al., Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction, 6-7.

46. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, "Assessment and Classroom Learning," Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice 5 (1998): 7-74.

47. Kim and Viesca, "Three Reading-Intervention Teachers' Identity Positioning."

48. Burns, "Examining the Effect of an Overt Transition Intervention"; Carolyn A. Denton et al., "Intervention Provided to Linguistically Diverse Middle School Students with Severe Reading Difficulties," Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 23 (2008): 79-89; Barbara Gunn et al., "Supplemental Instruction in Decoding Skills for Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Students in Early Elementary School: A Follow-Up," Journal of Special Education 39 (2002): 69-79; J. Ron Nelson, Patricia F. Vadasy, and Elizabeth A. Sanders, "Efficacy of a Tier 2 Supplemental Root Word Vocabulary and Decoding Intervention with Kindergarten Spanish-Speaking English Learners," Journal of Literacy Research 43 (2011): 184-211; Carolyn R. Ransford-Kaldon et al., Implementation of Effective Intervention: An Empirical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy of Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI); 2009-2010 (Memphis, TN: Center for Research in Educational Policy, 2010); Emily J. Solari and Michael M. Gerber, "Early Comprehension Instruction for Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: Teaching Text-Level Reading Skills while Maintaining Effects on Word-Level Skills," Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 23 (2008): 155-168; Sharon Vaughn et al., "Effectiveness of an English Intervention for First-Grade English Language Learners at Risk for Reading Problems," Elementary School Journal 107 (2006): 153-180; and Sharon Vaughn et al., "Effectiveness of a Spanish Intervention and an English Intervention for English-Language Learners at Risk for Reading Problems," American Educational Research Journal 43 (2006): 449-487.

49. Gersten et al., Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction, 10-11.

50. Baker et al., Teaching Academic Content and Literacy.

51. Andrea Boyle et al., Dual Language Education Programs: Current State Policies and Practices (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

52. For a general review, see Allan Wigfield, Jessica R. Gladstone, and Lara Turci, "Beyond Cognition: Reading Motivation and Reading Comprehension," Child Development Perspectives 10 (2016): 190-195; and Tahir Jahan Khan, Azlina Murad Sani, and Sarimah Shaik-Abdullah, "Motivation to Read in a Second Language: A Review of Literature," International Journal of Research in English Education 2, no. 4 (2017): 41-50.

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It's October in the Rio Grande Valley; the summer heat has receded and the school year is in full swing. Rolando Diaz teaches sixth-grade science at Del Valle Middle School. His class is a mix of English language learners (ELLs) with varying levels of English proficiency.

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Debrief Circles—Teaching Channel Deeper Learning Series

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Students learn by doing at EL Education's network of more than 160 schools. Math, science, and other subjects are taught through "expeditions" that connect them to their communities and teach them the value of service. Students are encouraged to have "academic courage," and they work alone and in groups to conduct original research, analyze data, and present their findings. The work goes in stages as students solicit feedback and make revisions along the way. Each step in the process reinforces a culture of continuous improvement and refinement.

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Linguistic Autobiographies Unit Plan Summary

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Linguistic Autobiographies Unit Plan Summary

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Guideline #4: Simultaneously challenges and supports students.

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GP#3: ELs should be taught language and content simultaneously.
GP#4: ELs benefit when their teachers collaborate to share their expertise.

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“Dove and Honigsfeld’s new book arrives at the perfect time as an increasing number of schools move to a collaborative instructional model and are searching for guidance. The authors not only tell us how to effectively collaborate and co-teach to benefit English l…

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All In: How Educators Can Advocate for ELLs

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All In: How Educators Can Advocate for ELLs

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GP#5: ELs excel when their teachers leverage advocacy and leadership skills

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GP#5: ELs excel when their teachers leverage advocacy and leadership skills

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In our work with educators of English language learners (ELLs), we often find that there is a lack of resources in our field about how to equitably grade ELLs. This blog post offers some insights and ideas that we hope will spur further discussion.

First, we'll share the reason behind our focus on this topic, as well as a summary of challenges related to grading ELLs. Next, we'll give you a brief overview of related research before sharing our own recommendations developed in response to our research, which we call the Five Pillars of Equitably Grading ELLs. (You can find a related infographic on the SupportEd website.) We'll end the post by providing a space for you to share your thoughts, add some additional resources, and share some references with you.

Resources from Larry Ferlazzo

This post complements the following from Larry Ferlazzo:

We also produced a webinar with Larry, available on the SupportEd website (scroll down to "The Five Pillars of Grading ELs Equitably).

COVID-19 updates

For more information on grading equitably during COVID-19, see the following:

Why this topic?

As part of developing a blended ELL assessment professional development course for the Mid-State Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network in Central New York State, we were asked to create a component on grading ELLs. We thought our task would be straightforward enough, but once we started researching the topic, we found very limited resources specifically for ELLs.

In an effort to gather more information, we reached out to our online professional learning network. Diane posted the following questions on the Colorín Colorado Facebook page, the Advocating for ELLs Facebook page, and Twitter in early January 2018:
We're doing a little research on grading ELs at SupportEd. Could you please share your answers to these questions? 1. What are the challenges that you and your colleagues may have in grading ELs? 2. What are some strategies or tools that you find particularly helpful in grading ELs? 3. Do you have any exemplary EL-friendly report card samples you can share?
The responses were numerous and came quickly. Many of our online colleagues shared that they were also looking for guidance around this topic. We also took part in a Twitter #ELLCHAT on January 8 on the same topic with a similar response from colleagues around the country. (You can see a transcript from that Twitter chat by registering for a free account from Participate.com.) We'll summarize the top three challenges that we read about next. Please note we don't share answers to questions 2 and 3 since we incorporate some resources to address these questions in our Five Pillars.

Challenges from the Field

The challenges we saw most often were:

1. Issues with the structure and content of report cards: Teachers mentioned not having an ELL-specific report card, and they also mentioned not being able to adapt their curriculum or school report card so that the ELA skills graded are "on level". (Example: 4th grade beginner student failing ELA because she does not meet grade four ELA standards and is performing at a grade two level.)

2. Lack of validity in grading content: One comment was, "Sometimes a child's grades are just a reflection of how well the teacher taught to their learning style, rather than a true representation of what the child knows." Another colleague wrote, "Separating ELD from content knowledge! So integral to each other - how to assess accurately??" She noted these are listed separately on report card, but there is no tool to assess them.

3. Challenges with school or district policy: Often, educators commented that existing policies at the school and district level don't address the unique considerations inherent in grading ELLs, such as inflexible time limits for exemption from letter grades regardless of the students' language proficiency and educational backgrounds.

Synthesis of Research on Grading Challenges for Teachers of ELLs

The challenges our colleagues reported on social media are in line with what the research tells us, namely that there are many obstacles that may prevent ELLs from benefiting from equitable grading practices. Here we summarize some of findings from relevant research. Please note that this is not an exhaustive literature review!

Research shows that grading, even among teachers at schools with clear grading policies, is often inconsistent (Reeves, 2008; Seeley, 1994). This inconsistency can lead to inequitable grading practices and even failure for certain groups of students, such as ELLs (Waldsburger, 2012). Many teachers believe that report card grades should be based solely on students' mastery of grade-level content standards, which can be challenging for some students. Jung and Guskey (2012) note that while an ESOL teacher may complete a supplemental progress report for ELLs, that piece of assessment information does not often support the general education teacher in assigning grades.

Another obstacle in grading in general is that many classroom teachers feel uncertain about how to hold all students to the same expectations for performance as other students (Guskey, 2011). Teachers can find it challenging to differentiate instruction and grading for ELLs while trying to meet the needs of the other students in their classroom (Pawan & Craig, 2011). Even those teachers who are able to differentiate instruction may find it difficult to score learning tasks and assign grades based on differentiated student work.

Still another challenge that stands in the way of equitable grading for all students is the belief that grades should be used to identify and maximize differences among students (Guskey, 2011). Many teachers feel that there should be students who perform well and students who perform poorly, such as with a normal bell-shaped curve. Jung and Guskey (2012) share that teachers often grapple with questions of fairness, such as giving a passing grade to an ELL who did not meet grade-level content standards. However, Guskey (2011) notes that when teachers identify what they want students to learn and be able to do and when they do all they can to support students in meeting these goals, it is possible for all students to obtain high scores on academic tasks and thereby receive high grades.

The literature we reviewed notes several recommendations for improving ELL grading systems as a whole (e.g., Waldsburger, 2012). For example, one recommendation is not giving letter grades to newly arrived ELLs who are beginning to learn English. Another option is to provide narrative assessments only or use a system of pass, fail, and high pass that measures effort, language growth, and content standard mastery based on students' levels of language proficiency. Tomlinson (2001) suggests providing two grades for all students. The first would be a traditional, standards-based grade, and the second would be a grade based on an individual student's progress towards language and content learning goals. Similarly, several authors (e.g., Jung & Guskey, 2010; Tomlinson, Moon, & Imbeau, 2015) recommend three grades for differentiated classrooms based on a student's product (mastery of content), process (effort, motivation, and participation), and progress (improvement over time).

Our Recommendations: The Five Pillars of Equitably Grading ELLs

We drew from our colleagues' responses, the research we synthesized on grading ELLs, our review of best practices in ELL grading, as well as our own expertise in the field to create five recommendations for equitably grading ELLs. We call them the Five Pillars of Equitably Grading ELLs. For each pillar, we provide a few steps to incorporate that pillar. In defining and describing the five pillars, we fully realize how intertwined effective instruction and equitable grading are. You simply can't fairly grade ELLs if you haven't already positioned them to access the instruction of content.

Pillar 1: Identify the content and language standard(s).

In setting up a system in which ELLs can be graded fairly, teachers first need to define which content as well as language standards they would like their students to meet. Hand in hand with these two sets of standards go content and language learning objectives for ELLs based on these standards. We recommend that teachers share these content and language learning objectives with ELLs using "student-friendly" versions to the degree possible. Also, we recommend that teachers identify success criteria for ELLs in meeting the objectives, and share models of strong work samples with ELLs so that students are aware of teachers' expectations. Model work samples should also include models produced by ELLs at different levels of proficiency so ELLs can see themselves reflected in exemplary student work.

Pillar 2: Incorporate scaffolding to support ELLs in achieving the standards.

Depending on their level of English proficiency, most ELLs will not be able to access grade-level content standards without appropriate scaffolding. We recommend using three types of scaffolds in the areas of materials, instruction, and strategic grouping of students to work toward removing linguistic barriers for ELLs. In implementing scaffolds, we recommend you do so based on ELLs' English language proficiency level as well as individual ELL strengths and needs and also the demands of the particular lesson (Staehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017). In addition, we recommend that teachers set expectations with students for the gradual removal of scaffolding, as appropriate. ELLs should be aware that scaffolds are temporary and will be removed as they gain language proficiency and content knowledge and skills. Further, we stress that it's crucial for ESOL and content teachers to collaborate to determine appropriate scaffolds for their ELLs to meaningfully access content.

Pillar 3: Support ELLs' progress toward mastery.

We believe that grades should not be used punitively for any students, and especially not for ELLs who are already more inclined to drop out of school than non-ELLs. Therefore, we suggest providing ELLs sufficient time and opportunities for learning, such as offering " lunch bunch" and after-school opportunities to do schoolwork with guidance from teachers, tutors, or peers. In addition, we recommend focusing on ELLs' progress towards mastery as well as their achievement. It is important to underscore that we are evaluating ELLs' progress towards mastery, not just whether they have mastered the objective or not. In spite of careful scaffolding, all grade-level standards may not always be 100% achievable for certain ELLs. It may be more motivating for an ELL to recognize his or her progress than to see an achievement score alone.

Also, since many ELLs have responsibilities such as work and taking care of siblings outside of school, they may not be able to complete all assignments on time. Therefore, we recommend allowing ELLs to turn in some work late without penalty if they are in communication with the teacher about the unique circumstances. Moreover, late work may be a sign that an ELL is needing more support to be able to access the content, understand the directions, and/or complete the task. Finally, if homework is given, we recommend using it as an opportunity for non-graded practice.

Pillar 4: Assess ELLs' progress equitably.

In order to equitably assess ELLs, teachers need to design assessments and supports that allow ELLs to access and demonstrate mastery of content and/or language objectives. To equitably assess ELLs' progress, it is critical to also scaffold assessments (not just instruction) for ELLs based on individual ELL strengths and needs. For example, depending on an ELL's level of English proficiency, that student could be provided sentence frames, images, or a word bank to lighten the "linguistic load" of the assessment to be able to provide a more valid picture of what that student knows and can do in a particular content area. During instruction, ELLs should have ample classroom opportunity to practice with any scaffold that will also be provided during an assessment. Another aspect of equitably assessing ELLs' progress comes in the form of group work. While we recommend strategically grouping ELLs as a form of scaffolding instruction, for grading group work we recommend assigning individual scores instead of a group grade to students, including ELLs. In this way, individual students aren't penalized if all students aren't contributing equally to a particular group project.

Pillar 5: Involve ELLs, families, & colleagues.

We have often found that ELLs and their families do not have a full understanding of grade-level expectations, how grades are given, and what each section of a report card means. We advocate for explaining grade level expectations, the grading process, and report cards to ELLs in their home language whenever possible. In addition, ELLs and their families should be involved in the entire grading process, beginning the school year or their enrollment in school with an overview of what the grading expectations and processes look like. Such meetings are also a good time for ELLs and their families to set goals for their learning. Finally, while collaboration and co-teaching have been on many teachers' radar for some time now, co-grading may not be. We strongly recommend that ESOL and content teachers co-grade, collaborating to assign grades to ELLs on formative and summative assessments as well as discuss final grades on report cards. In that way, the level of collaboration will strengthen, and all teachers can leverage their expertise when it comes to ELLs.

Your Thoughts

While we offer our ideas on guidance around equitably grading ELLs, we also encourage you to share your thoughts here. If you have any samples of ELL-friendly report cards, grading policies, success stories, or additional considerations, please share them in the blog post comments!

Additional Resources

References

Guskey, T. (2011). Five obstacles to grading reform. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 16-21.

Jung, L. A., & Guskey, T. R. (2010). Grading exceptional learners. Educational Leadership, 67(5), 31-35.

Jung, L.A. & Guskey, T. R. (2012). Grading exceptional and struggling learners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Pawan, F. & Craig, D. (2011). ESL and content area teacher responses to discussions on English language learner instruction. TESOL Journal, 2(3), 293-311.

Reeves, D. (2008). Leading to change: Effective grading practices. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 85-87.

Seeley, M.M. (1994). The Mismatch Between Assessment and Grading. National Education Association. National Education Association. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/teachexperience/ ask040326.html.

Staehr Fenner, D., & Snyder, S. (2017). Unlocking English learners' potential: Strategies for making content accessible. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). Grading for success. Educational Leadership, 58(6), 12-15.

Tomlinson, C.A., Moon, T. and Imbeau, M.B. (2015). Assessment and student success in a differentiated classroom, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/assessment-and-di-whitepaper.pdf

Waldspurger, T. (2012, March). A? B? C? Assigning meaningful grades for ELLs. Presented at the TESOL Convention, Philadelphia, PA.

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The Five Pillars of Equitably Grading ELLs

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In our work with educators of English language learners (ELLs), we often find that there is a lack of resources in our field about how to equitably grade ELLs. This blog post offers some insights and ideas that we hope will spur further discussion.

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Austin's Butterfly: Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback

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Video: Using Realia to Teach Background Knowledge

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Video: Using Realia to Teach Background Knowledge

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Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava describes the "realia" activity she used to introduce Burro's Tortillas and some of the items she brought into the classroom for the lesson.

School Name: Lew Wallace Elementary School, Albuquerque, NM

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Ali Nava is an elementary teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico and a member of the first-grade cadre in our Common Core in Albuquerque project.In this video, Ali describes the "realia" activity she used to introduce Burro's Tortillas and some of the items she brought into the classroom for the lesson.

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Video: Instruction of Key Academic Vocabulary with High School ELs

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Video: Instruction of Key Academic Vocabulary with High School ELs

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Instruction of Key Academic Vocabulary with High School ELLs

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In this lesson, students will read a letter that Captain John Smith of the English Army wrote to Queen Anne in 1616. He wrote this letter about his encounters with the Algonquin Indians of Virginia.

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Virginia DOE, 2012

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Graffiti Walk, Carousel Discussion, or Poster Walk

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Try a carousel discussion or poster walk to encourage movement, conversation, and reflection between students