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The student will be asked a question based on the subject. When they get the question right the students can choose different distances to try and score. The distance is based on the difficulty of the question. 1 point would be the easiest question to answer and 3 points is the farthest distance and would be the most difficult questions.

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In groups of 4 or 5, students will answer an open-ended question on a piece of paper with some markers. Once everyone is done, the class will discuss the questions all together. This allows the teacher to see where all students are in an idea. The teacher will know what concepts to review.

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A Kahoot online quiz where the teacher checks what their students know and understand would be a great formative assessment. This also allows students to engage with technology as well as healthy competition while challenging what they know.

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Journals - Claire, Meghan, Caroline, Gwen, and Andree

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Journals - Claire, Meghan, Caroline, Gwen, and Andree

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Journals or learning logs will help students to talk about what they have learned and what they want to learn. We can keep all of these entries in a portfolio so we can look at their progress and growth throughout the year.

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graffiti board - harley, holly, tessa, elizabeth, + destiny

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graffiti board - harley, holly, tessa, elizabeth, + destiny

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This activity allows for all students to jot down some ideas and put them together with their classmates to see how they all connect. This also could provide some movement in the classroom and some individual thought/reflection.

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Help students process their thoughts and emotions on a topic by engaging them in a written conversation with their classmates.

Advisory

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

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

- Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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Help students process their thoughts and emotions on a topic by engaging them in a written conversation with their classmates. Advisory English & Language Arts History Social Studies Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools. - Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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LeDajah, Olivia, Vivian, Stephanie, & Ashley - Daring Doodles

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LeDajah, Olivia, Vivian, Stephanie, & Ashley - Daring Doodles

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One way to challenge students with a formative assessment is to tell them to draw a doodle that represents a new concept or idea that they just learned. This assessment allows students to express themselves creatively, and it challenges students to go beyond words.

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One strategy that I really appreciate and hope to bring into my classroom is collaborative reading. Though we often perceive reading as an individual activity, making it a collaborative one yields multiple benefits, such as increasing students' fluency, comprehension, and ability to synthesize the text. Furthermore, reading texts collectively brings the words to life, as students are able to interpret the text in different ways. This strategy would also be useful for English Language Learners because they can gradually build their confidence in reading aloud while also developing literacy skills such as understanding the text and identifying the main idea.

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Collaborative Reading: Building Successful Readers Together

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I found this strategy in the extra credit presentation project. The teacher used images, intentional breaks, and discussion to help the children fill out their plot maps. They highlighted the key parts of the story, what lead up to them, resolutions, and all of the characters involved. This allowed for the student to have a comprehensive understanding of the tone and mood of the piece, which is essential when working through reading. Additionally, he facilitated discussion when filling out the plot maps to allow the students to communicate in both English and their native language. This allowed for further support of the tone. Overall, the visual representation of plot with clarification of tone and purpose assists readers in their inferencing and reading comprehension abilities.

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Hannah Song- Language Experience Approach

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Hannah Song- Language Experience Approach

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This form of collaborative writing involves the teacher and students writing together after they have experienced something together. This is a great teaching technique because it builds a sense of community, models writing and allows students to participate and engage in the learning process. It allows the students to practice their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Start by describing an experience (such as a field trip, science experiment, movie, or book). Students can then share their experiences with a partner or a group to come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Students can then share their experiences with a partner or a group to come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Once the class has shared their sentences with you, lead them in creating their own text about the experience on chart paper. As a class, read the sentences aloud after writing them. The class then rereads the whole piece once the shared writing has been completed which helps students practice reading fluency. Finally, facilitate a discussion on organization, revision, and editing.

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There are many different scaffolding strategies for reading depending on what specifically needs to be focused on. Some of them include show and tell, tap into prior knowledge, give time to talk, pre-teach vocabulary, use visual aids, pause, ask questions, pause, review, and read-a-loud. All these strategies help with reading comprehension because they involve the students reading, learning vocabulary, looking at visuals to get a better understanding, and listening to teachers read. The main scaffolding strategy I would use in the future is a read-a-loud with the students because teachers and students can read together, so if a student doesn't know a word, the teacher can help.

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Image source: www.mshouser.com
According to the Glossary of Education Reform (2014), "Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process." When teachers use scaffolding, they provide successive levels of support that help students to reach higher levels of comprehension that they would not have been able to achieve without help. The supportive strategies are gradually removed when they are no longer needed and the teacher shifts more responsibility over to the student.

Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks, then providing a tool. or structure to use with each chunk. When scaffolding is used for reading, you could preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and read and discuss as you go. (Alber, 2014)

According to Alber (2014), here are some strategies that can be used to scaffold a lesson:

1. Show and Tell - Model and demonstrate to students exactly what they are expected to do. You can use a "fish bowl activity" where a group of students are in the center of the room circled by the class. The middle group "fishbowl" are engaging in an activity and modeling how the activity is done for the whole group. The students on the outside can see how the activity is done while watching the inner group. Another strategy in this category is "think alouds". This process allows you to model your thought process as you read, solve a problem, etc.
2. Tap into Prior Knowledge - Have students share their experiences, ideas and knowledge about the concept of study. Help them connect their prior knowledge to the concept.
3. Give Time to Talk - All students need time to process new information. Giving students time to talk to others who are also engaged in the same experience will help them to make sense of the material. Try to use "think-pair-share", turn and talk, and structured talking time throughout the lesson.
4. Pre-Teach Vocabulary- Introduce new words to students prior to reading or beginning a lesson. Use analogies, metaphors, graphics, and discussions so they are prepared to tackle challenging text.
5. Use Visual Aids - Some scaffolding tools include, graphic organizers, pictures, and charts. Help students organize information, grasp concepts, and guide their thinking so students can grasp the information and apply it to their learning.
6. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review - This strategy is used to check for understanding while students read difficult text or learn a new concept. Start by sharing a new idea from the text or discussion, then pause (providing think time), then ask a question and pause again. Design the question ahead of time to make sure they are guided an open ended questions. Have students discuss with a neighbor and give plenty of time for responses.

According to the Glossary for Education Reform (2014), some additional strategies for scaffolding a lesson include:
1. The teacher gives students a simplified version of a reading and/or assignment then gradually increases the difficulty or complexity over time.
2. The teacher describes, illustrates, or models the concept or problem to ensure understanding in multiple ways.
3. Students are given an example or model of an assignment that they expected to complete. The example would be explained as to why it is exemplary and how it represents high quality work.
4. The teacher clearly describes the purpose of the activity, the directions, and the learning objectives they are expected to achieve.
5. The teacher describes how the lesson builds on the previous knowledge and skills have been taught in a previous lesson.

Math
Scaffolding can be used quite easily in the content area of mathematics. It is a method that would naturally require scaffolding when teaching a new concept. Since many higher level problems build upon earlier knowledge, the teacher would have the opportunity to start with what the students already know, then demonstrate how to solve a more difficult problem with new knowledge. The teacher should demonstrate how to solve the problem by incorporating "think aloud" as a way to walk the student's through the thought process of problem solving. As the teacher models the skills to the class, this is the "I do" portion of scaffolding. Next, the student's would begin a problem together, with the assistance of the teacher. This portion is the "we do" part of scaffolding. The teacher may have the students work through the problem as a large group with help, or in pairs, small groups, etc. Finally, after modeling, and practice, the students would then work on a problem by themselves, which is the "you do" part of the strategy. Responsibility gradually shifts from the teacher to the student.

In the content area of FACS, scaffolding is a natural part of teaching in the lab portion of Foods classes. If you use the example of teaching students knife skills for a vegetable soup lab, which requires cutting vegetables with various cuts, scaffolding is required in order to ensure success and safety. The way this process would work is that the teacher would first demonstrate how to hold a knife when cutting vegetables, and model how to dice, mince, julienne, shred, chop, etc. The next stage would be to go through each cut, allowing each student to practice while the teacher can monitor student progress, making corrections when necessary. Finally, would be the day of the lab, when the teacher would have the students preparing vegetable soup by cutting each vegetable according to the directions. Scaffolding in this situation allows students to move from dependence to independence, and success in the lab.

Scaffolding can be applied to all of the MN core writing standards. One standard that this strategy fits well in is 6.7.5.5. This standard says that with some guidance and support from peers and adults, students will use a writing process to develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. Depending on which standard the teacher is working on, they could scaffold any lesson or assignment to achieve the objectives in the writing standards. For the example of standard 6.7.5.5, the teacher could easily model for the students the writing process, then have them write a first draft. After the teacher then works with the student, offering suggestions on editing and revising, the student would go back and make changes. The process could involve peer editing as well. Finally, students would make revisions, and incorporate suggestions and comments to prepare the final draft on their own.

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Image source: www.mshouser.com According to the Glossary of Education Reform (2014), "Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process." When teachers use scaffolding, they provide successive levels of support that help students to reach higher levels of comprehension that they would not have been able to achieve without help.

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I chose to explore some scaffolding strategies regarding writing because I personally enjoy writing, but know that it is a big area of struggle for many students. One thing that students have trouble with, and I as well, is how to let their writing flow. Sometimes, it can be difficult to write fluidly and create a story or piece of writing that is clear and consistent. Being a very organized person, I understand that children tend to enjoy structure and routine. So, graphic organizers stand out to me as something that can be beneficial for students' writing. A graphic organizer does not have to be as boring as it may sound. A lot of really great organizers use simple imagery in order to let students structure their writing and organize their ideas. For instance, a graphic organizer can be the layers of a hamburger, with each one representing a different way to organize/sort the elements of their writing. These activities allow students to have some guidance when putting their ideas down on paper, while also understanding how writing can flow. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/graphic-organizers-help-kids-writing

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Graphic Organizers to Help Kids With Writing

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Discover four graphic organizers that can help kids organize their ideas in a very visual way. They also help break a writing project into smaller, more manageable steps. Graphic organizers are especially helpful for children with dysgraphia, executive functioning issues, and other issues that can cause trouble with writing.

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This writing scaffolding strategy stood out to me because I think that creating guidelines for sentence frames is a great way to help students understand how form sentences correctly. This will also help students learn the parts of sentences: subject, object, verb, etc. The website states, "a sentence frame is a structure with fill-in-the-blank words created for your students to use as a starter to answer questions. Sentence frames can be used for any subject, including math, science, history, and English" (Brakebill, 2018). Sentence frames are a great way for students to focus on their creativity when creating content for their sentences, even if they do not know how to correctly form a sentence at that point.
https://blog.edmentum.com/why-you-should-be-supporting-your-english-language-learners-sentence-frames

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Communicating in the classroom promotes stickiness of concepts and academic vocabulary. Yet, in nearly every classroom, English language learners (ELLs) often struggle to communicate their feelings, ideas, and thoughts because they are not confident about how to phrase things. You may notice that your ELLs don't raise their hands to answer questions in class or don't provide input when working with a partner or a group. The struggle to communicate can stymie both content mastery and academic language acquisition in ELLs, widening the achievement gap between them and their native English-speaking peers.

Improving outcomes for ELLs continues to be an important topic in education and even more so as of late, as federal requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) require an English language proficiency (ELP) indicator in all state plans. One scaffold that teachers can use to help their ELLs communicate more clearly and confidently is using sentence frames.

A sentence frame is a structure with fill-in-the-blank words created for your students to use as a starter to answer questions. Sentence frames can be used for any subject, including math, science, history, and English. For example, an ELA sentence frame for retelling a story could look like: "I think that Bob ____________ his mom because____________." A math sentence frame for studying decimals and describing how the number can be broken apart could look like: "There are ____________ ones and ____________ hundredths in 5.41."

Sentence frames are a great starting point for ELLs to begin forming answers on their own because they aren't having to think about how to correctly phrase an answer and they can instead focus their cognitive effort on the academic content.

Here are some benefits of the use of sentence frames in the classroom:

Sentence frames clarify the instructions.

By providing the students with a structure for their response, they'll already have an idea of what is being asked of them. Remember, ELLs may not understand every word of the instructions, so the sentence frame gives them a better idea of the response you are expecting.

2. Students can focus on learning the content.

Even when ELLs understand the instructions and the type of response they should give, they may still get stuck when it comes time to produce a response because they aren't sure how to phrase it in English. With sentence frames, students can focus on the content because the correct sentence structure is already written for them.

3. Students learn English sentence structure and grammar.

In addition to being able to focus on the content, when using sentence frames, students will also pick up on correct English grammar and sentence structures to use in the future. ELLs can learn more easily by good modeling and repetition.

4. Classroom conversation is enriched.

Once students feel confident speaking up in class, they will start to do it all the time. Sentence frames are a helpful tool when you are looking to get discussions moving in the classroom because they give students a place to start conversation and share opinions.

Creating Sentence Frames

To create a sentence frame, start with the end goal in mind. What are you wanting your students to get out of using them? Before creating your structures, decide what your focus will be. Do you want your ELLs to learn specific vocabulary or just learn how to structure an answer? Once all of that is decided, consider their language level and what type of sentence you should present them with. Next, go ahead and create the sentence structures, leaving blanks where you want the students to provide their thoughts. Use simple structures and words with beginning ELLs, and make the language more complicated as students become more advanced. Finally, creating a word bank can be especially helpful for students in the early stages of English-language acquisition.

For example, if I were a teacher currently focusing on vocabulary, I could create a few sentences with blanks where I want them to insert the words we are learning. Let's say that my students are learning the words "adopt" and "absorb." To use sentence frames, I would create some structures where my students can fill in the vocabulary words:

____________ means to soak up something.

____________ means to take in and take care of a person or animal.

As my students would begin learning the vocabulary, I could add new sentence frames to give students context or simplify a specific one into a general frame to be used across content areas.

You can use a paper towel to ____________ a ____________.

My family will ____________ a ____________.

____________ means to ____________.

Looking for more strategies for working with English language learners? Check out our blog posts on preparing ELLs for high-stakes testing and supporting ELLs in a mainstream classroom.

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Why You Should Be Supporting Your English Language Learners with Sentence Frames

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Improving outcomes for ELLs continues to be an important topic in education and even more so as of late, as federal requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) require an English language proficiency (ELP) indicator in all state plans. One scaffold that teachers can use to help their ELLs communicate more clearly and confidently is using sentence frames.

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Elizabeth Rivera- Student Fishbowl Activity 

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Elizabeth Rivera- Student Fishbowl Activity 

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One aspect that I want to include within my teaching is to provide interactive and engaging scaffolding activities. We have discussed heavily in this class about incorporating differentiating learning methods since not all students will understand the material in the same way. A big listening strategy that is often used is the idea of show and tell. When it comes to young ELLs, they love to interact and share about themselves. By having them interact with themselves, they are practicing their listening and speaking skills without even realizing. The activity that I found is called the Student Fishbowl. An overview of this activity is that students are in small groups and they are give 30 mins for each student in the group to answer the prompted questions that the teacher provides. Only one student at a time speaks while the other wrote about their classmates. Once they are done, the class will come together as a group and share. The most important aspect of this activity is that it lets the students know that they are the most important resources that teachers.
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/activities/fishbowl.html

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Student Fishbowl
This activity requires 60-90 minutes.

Purpose:

Fishbowl activities force participants to listen actively to the experiences and perspectives of a specific group of people. A student fishbowl gives pre-service and in-service educators an opportunity to hear the experiences, ideas, and feedback of current students while giving the students an opportunity to be active in the dialogue on educational equity.

Preparation:

The only major resources needed for this activity are current K-12 students. My exerpience has been that eight or ten students comprise an optimum fishbowl group. If your class or workshop focuses on a particular educational level (i.e., early childhood, secondary, etc.), you should try to find students at that level to participate. A useful strategy for finding fishbowl participants is to tap into local schools.

To prepare for the actual fishbowl dialogue, ask the fishbowl students to sit in a circle in the middle of the room. Your class or workshop participants, or the "observers," should sit in a larger circle around the fishbowl students.

Instructions:

The following steps will set the ground rules, then initiate and process the dialogue for the student fishbowl activity:

1. One important ground rule must guide the participation of the observers: During the course of the fishbowl, observers are not allowed to speak. Their job is to listen and learn from the fishbowl students. Mention that the observers will have an opportunity to discuss any issues that emerge in later processing dialogue.

2. If possible, assign one of the fishbowl students the role of facilitator. It will be her or his responsibility to ask questions, facilitate the fishbowl discussion, and make sure everyone has an opportunity to talk. If necessary, you can play the role of facilitator.

3. The topics to be discussed by the fishbowl can be developed to be relevant to your course or workshop. For the most part, fishbowl participants should have an opportunity to take the conversation where they want - or need - it to go. If it becomes necessary to push the conversation along, possible prompts include the following:

What are your favorite things about school?

What aspects of your school do you feel should be improved?

What can your teachers do to help you learn better?

Share a story about when one of your teachers did something that made you feel especially included in the learning process.

Share a story about when you felt you were especially excluded from your own learning process.

Who is your favorite teacher? Why?

Who is your least favorite teacher? Why?

What do you feel is the role of school in your life?

What do you feel should be the major goals of schools?

4. Make sure everybody in the fishbowl has an opportunity to talk.

5. Allow the fishbowl discussion to continue for at least 30 minutes. You can allow it to continue longer if time permits.

6. When the fishbowl discussion winds down, divide the combination of your participants and the fishbowl students into small groups of 6-10. This will provide the observers an opportunity to ask for clarification on comments made during the fishbowl. Instruct the observers that they are not to invalidate or question the students' experiences or perspectives. They should use the small group discussions only to learn more from the fishbowl students. Allow at least 30 minutes for small group discussions.

7. After small group discussions, call everyone back together. This will be the final processing discussion. A variety of questions can guide this conversation:

To the observers: Was it difficult to not respond to the fishbowl students' comments during the fishbowl? Why?

To the fishbowl students: How did it feel to share your feelings about school, knowing that these teachers were listening closely?

To the fishbowl students: Do you usually have opportunities to share your perspectives on school and your education?

To the observers: Did you hear anything from the fishbowl that surprised you?

8. To wrap up the exercise, pose a final question, giving everyone an opportunity to answer: What is one thing you have learned from this experience?

Facilitator Notes:

A few simple strategies will help you facilitate this activity smoothly. First, remember that this activity is as much about reminding teachers that students are their most important resources as it is about teaching. As mentioned above, it is thus crucial that observers show maximum respect to the fishbowl students by following the silence ground rule. It may take some effort to enforce this ground rule, as many teachers are not fully ready to play the role of learner from people who may be their own students. Consider writing something on the chalkboard or newsprint pad such as "We are all teachers. We are all learners."

Student fishbowl discussions usually are most successful when they are informal. Remember that the fishbowl students have not had an opportunity to develop comfort with the participants of your class or workshop.

A noticeable level of tension often is evident in the room as teachers learn about their own possible areas for improvement from students and students try to respectfully critique the people who they have been taught to trust and respect. A variety of strategies can be used to ease the tension, ranging from starting with a fun icebreaker to serving snacks.

[ Return to the Awareness Activities Page ]

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Student Fishbowl This activity requires 60-90 minutes. Purpose: Fishbowl activities force participants to listen actively to the experiences and perspectives of a specific group of people. A student fishbowl gives pre-service and in-service educators an opportunity to hear the experiences, ideas, and feedback of current students while giving the students an opportunity to be active in the dialogue on educational equity.

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Chandler Redden - Peer Feedback and Discussion

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Chandler Redden - Peer Feedback and Discussion

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The scaffolding strategy that stood out to me while reading through this was Peer Discussion and Feedback. When students use this strategy, they are given the opportunity to discuss ideas, learn from their peers, and have engaging opinion-based discussions amongst one another. Students tend to learn a lot from each other and this strategy gives them the opportunity to in ways that the teacher might not be able to.

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6 Ways You Should Be Scaffolding Student Writing - It's Lit Teaching

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You've probably heard a million times that you should be using differentiated instruction in your classroom. If you're in a stricter building, it may even be required that you document your differentiation strategies. But how, exactly, are we supposed to differentiate writing instruction for our advanced, gifted, special education, trauma-sensitive, and ELL learners in a single class period!?

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Contextualizing language means giving students non-verbal clues or evidence that supports students' ability to infer meaning along with the oral language input they are receiving (teacher talking).  This strategy is very important to incorporate in daily instruction so students are building their knowledge base from context and experience. From the GO-TO Strategies Project (2013), the teacher should "provide visuals, gestures, facial expressions, body language, illustrations, realia (real objects), maps, graphs, timelines, diagrams, and manipulatives to increase comprehension of language and content" (p. 39). A lot of these components will be used naturally, however it is important to provide extra opportunities to ELLs and assess their understanding.
Example: While doing a read aloud, the teacher mimics the emotions of the main character of the story. The teacher could also mime certain actions that students may not know.
Example: While studying the anatomy of a plant, the teacher provides physical models that the students can manipulate, or diagrams. The teacher points to each part of the plant as she describes them.
Levine, L. N., Lukens, L. & Smallwood, B. A. (2013). The GO TO strategies: Scaffolding options for teachers of English language learners, K-12. For Project EXCELL, a partnership between the University of Missouri- Kansas City and North Kansas City Schools, funded by the US Department of Education, PR Number T195N070316.

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https://www.readingrockets.org/article/reconsidering-silent-reading
Silent/independent reading is when students read silently by themselves. Most of the time, students are reading self-selected books or books that they are interested in. When students read books that they are interested in, their reading comprehension increases.  Silent Reading time spent is used to increase the amount of reading students do and encourage them to develop the habit of reading daily. Silent reading is vital because it helps improve text understanding as students can concentrate more on the reading rather than pronunciation. Children also develop and read faster. Reading silently absorbs more information than one reading orally.

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It's called lots of different things: Drop Everything and Read (DEAR), Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), and Million Minutes to name a few. Regardless of the different names, the intent is the same - to develop fluent readers by providing time during the school day for students to select a book and read quietly.

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This scaffolding strategy is useful for all children (both ELs and non ELs). It usually takes about 3-10 minutes and they just write a quick paragraph about a prompt given to them. Writing a full page or multiple paragraphs can be overwhelming to students who are new to the English language, so quick writes chunks it into smaller pieces, making it less overwhelming. Doing quick writes everyday gives them the practice they need writing while also increasing their confidence in themselves.

https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/04/10/8-ways-to-scaffold-writing-for-english-learners/

https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/micro-writing-for-english-learners

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This scaffold is within the context of showing ELL students a video or a story of some sort. The goal here to to give students a purpose or motivation to listen. This can be done by asking them to listen out for one specific thing, like the main idea or who the different characters are. This is extremely useful because otherwise, the students may get overwhelmed with the amount of content they are having to take in. If students are told why they are watching a video or listening to a story, they are more likely to become confused and not pay attention. This scaffold allows them to focus on one aspect within the film or story which takes away the stress of taking in every single detail and actually ends up allowing them to take in more.

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Choosing a Task

The next way to support your struggling listeners is through the task. I mentioned above that the task is more important than the recording, which is why it's so important to be realistic with your expectations and to give your students the support they'll need to be successful.

Be Realistic: If I have a beginner-level class and I play them a segment from Good Morning America there should be no issue. However, if I ask them to listen to that segment and then give me their opinion on the issue that is discussed, I'm going to lose them.

Creating realistic tasks is one of, if not THE most important part of a listening exercise. Asking my students to give their opinion on the segment will require them to understand the words being spoken, comprehend the topic, connect it to their previous experience and knowledge on the topic, and formulate their own thoughts. That's a lot of work.

However, if I ask my students to simply tell me what is being discussed, it becomes a lot more attainable. They'll be able to use body language, vocabulary, tone, and visual cues to identify the issue that is being discussed on a show created for native speakers.

Listen for a Purpose: So, you have realistic expectations for your students, now you have to explicitly identify them and communicate them. If you show your students the Good Morning America clip with no context and no purpose, you'll receive blank stares when you ask your follow-up question.

Listening to something created for native speakers in your second language is an overwhelming task, especially when you don't know what you're listening for. Tell your students why they're listening, so that they're prepared to extract the data they need!

If you want your students to listen for the main idea (the topic being discussed or the hosts' feelings), tell them that! If you want your students to listen for a specific detail (the name of the celebrity or the date of the crime), tell them that!

Stay on Topic: If you've set a realistic goal and a purpose for listening, then stick to it. No curve balls, especially if your students are struggling with listening comprehension! The goal here is to strengthen your students' listening skills and provide them with the support they need to be successful.

If there are multiple things that you want your students to identify, split it up into multiple listening sessions. Listen once for the main idea, a second time for a specific detail, and a third time for the way the host pronounces a certain word.

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Supporting Struggling Listeners: 3 Ways to Scaffold Listening Exercises in the ESL Classroom - Everyday ESL

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There are three ways that you can support your struggling listeners and scaffold your listening exercises. The first is to support them through the recording that you choose or the materials that you make available.

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Shared reading can allow students to become more confident in their reading skills. Because everyone in the class is reading in unison students will not feel like their mistakes or unknown words are a big deal. Shared reading provides students with an opportunity to have extra practice with their reading skills, speed, and language. There are many different ways you can facilitate shared reading. For example, echo reading allows students to repeat, in smaller sections, after the teacher reads. You can also use reader's theatre which allows students to divide the text and read assigned sections.

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by Valentina Gonzalez

"Learners who know the language can concentrate on the academic content. But learners who do not know the language, or do not know it well enough, must devote part of their attention to learning and understanding the very language in which the content is taught" ( Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010).

Imagine that for a moment. Let it soak in. If you didn't yet know a language well enough, you would need to spend energy understanding the very words and not just the reading. Maybe you've experienced this before. It's a literal struggle, trying to decode and put together sounds, then figure out and translate the words. This can take a toll on a person!

Now imagine a child doing this daily. Or for that matter, doing this all day long . Picture a newcomer in a high school biology class at the end of the day. If they are new to the language, they will most likely have to translate complicated text word by word after having spent every previous class that day translating each word. To help students, we can adapt and scaffold reading instruction to fit their unique needs.

The National Literacy Panel (2000) identified phonemic awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing as the five key components of literacy. With these components in mind, let's look at a few scaffolds (temporary supports meant to be gradually released) for reading that may work to enhance English learners' success with comprehension.

These reading scaffolds can be implemented in any grade level and content area through whole group, small group, or individual settings for differentiation:

Chunking

Chunking is a technique that breaks larger reading texts into smaller portions for students. When texts are dense or lengthy, they can seem overwhelming. By breaking them down into smaller pieces, we help to lower students' anxiety. Think of a large pizza. Would you eat the entire pizza in one bite? Probably not. It's sliced for us to hold a piece at a time. Then we take small bites from that one piece. It's manageable that way. Chunking texts is especially useful in areas like social studies and science, where text has the tendency to be vocabulary heavy.

Adding in opportunities to talk makes content even more comprehensive. For instance, a routine such as Nancy Motley's Talk, Read, Talk, Write offers students chances to access prior knowledge and build background before reading. Students discuss with a group or partner. Then students read a text with a purpose for reading that is given to them by the teacher. Once everyone has signaled that they are finished reading, they participate in structured discussion again. And finally students write about their reading while using the discussions they've had to support their thoughts. Teachers can chunk reading even more for students who are at beginner levels of English proficiency: talk, read, talk, read, talk, read, talk, write.

Shared Reading

Shared reading (Holdaway,1979) is the act of reading together in unison as a group. All students have access to the text. Shared reading is not just for elementary levels. In primary grades, teachers may read from big books, but in secondary classes, shared reading can be poetry, brochures, an excerpt from a chapter, a paragraph, song lyrics, etc. Teachers can provide each student with a copy of the text or can project the text on a screen for everyone to see. First the teacher models expectations by reading the text. Then the teacher invites the class to read together. This oral reading practice provides students with an opportunity to gain fluency in a risk-free setting. Everyone is reading aloud. Shy students can listen and read aloud as they feel brave enough, and more vocal students gain practice, too. Students benefit from practicing intonation and appropriate rate of speed.

Three ways to differentiate shared reading are Echo reading, Choral reading, and Reader's Theater.

Echo Reading is perfect when students need to hear the teacher model each sentence first while they are tracking print. Then students repeat the sentence. This technique is best for students at beginner proficiency levels or when a new language structure is being shared.

Choral Reading is a typical shared reading experience in which students and teacher read in unison, often with the teacher tracking print. English learners gain fluency and benefit from the low-risk environment. They have the ability to listen and join the reading at their comfort level.

Reader's Theater is an excellent method to use with students after they have had a chance to hear a text in its entirety. Reader's Theater can be done by dividing a text into parts and assigning students or groups to read certain lines or paragraphs. English learners benefit from rehearsal time with the lines or paragraphs they will read aloud to the whole group. Some teachers ask students to create props for their characters or parts. Acting out a story is both enjoyable and engaging for students as they participate in listening, speaking, and reading with expression.

Adapted Texts

Adapted texts are texts that have the same content but are at different reading levels. Using adapted texts helps English learners continue to learn content while they are learning English. Many teachers create their own adapted texts, which allows them to control the vocabulary that is embedded. However, creating adapted texts does take time. There are also many online platforms that offer adapted texts such as Newsela, Newsinlevels, and Wordify.

Partner Reading

Providing time and space for students to read together, or partner read, supports English learners with reading comprehension, listening, and speaking. Peer-to-peer interaction is important for English learners' language development. Partners usually read the same text and hold their own copies. In primary grades, and many times in secondary too, students are more successful when the teacher offers explicit modeling of expectations ahead of time. For example:

"During partner reading, I'm looking for partners who are sitting with their knees close to touching. You will take turns reading a page. After your partner reads, you will share what the main idea of their reading was. I'm listening for sentences like: 'The main idea was...' or 'I didn't understand...'"

Primary Language Support

When I was an ESL teacher, the students I taught spoke Korean, Urdu, Japanese, Russian, etc. I was not able to speak all of their languages, but I could still provide primary language supports. I provided my ELs with bilingual dictionaries and taught them how to use them. We also worked hard at valuing all languages. It was important for me to show my ELs that the literacy they had in their primary language was valuable and useful as they acquired English. We labeled the classroom in the students' home languages. I also made it known to them that continuing to read, write, and speak in their primary language was important, and so I encouraged them to read books in their primary language. Anytime we had extra funds, I asked to purchase books in our students' primary languages for the library.

Another way to include primary language support is through preview-review. This technique is sometimes referred to as preview-view-review and takes only a few extra minutes before and after a lesson ( Wright, 2015). It has been found to be effective in increasing comprehension, especially for students at beginning levels of English proficiency. Preview-review includes providing students with primary language support before and after a lesson or a read aloud. Let's look at a classroom example:

The second grade class is preparing to learn about living and nonliving things. The ESL teacher gathers English learners prior to the lesson to preview in their primary language. She asks them what they know about living and nonliving things. They discuss and make a chart in their primary language. The teacher reads a short passage and checks for comprehension, and then they return to the whole group.

The mainstream teacher conducts the whole-class lesson on living and nonliving things in English. The teacher shelters instruction to ensure that ELs comprehend the lesson. She uses repetition, visuals, and gestures. Then she sends them off to read and write with a partner in English.

Following the English lesson, the ESL teacher pulls the ELs back together once again to review what they learned in their primary language. This is an excellent opportunity to clear up misconceptions.
Note that, In this example, the ESL teacher is able to speak the students' primary language. But that is not always the case. It is suggested that if the teacher cannot speak the students' home languages, a same-language-speaking paraprofessional can provide the preview-review.
The bottom line of all this is that, when students enjoy what they are reading and they understand what they are reading, they will feel successful. The more often this feeling occurs, the more they will want to read, and the more their comprehension will increase.

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Teaching Techniques to Scaffold Reading for English Learners

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by Valentina Gonzalez "Learners who know the language can concentrate on the academic content. But learners who do not know the language, or do not know it well enough, must devote part of their attention to learning and understanding the very language in which the content is taught" (Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010).

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners - Seidlitz Education

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Destiny Goldsmith - Language Experience Approach

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Destiny Goldsmith - Language Experience Approach

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A great writing strategy that teachers could use for ELLs is the Language Experience Approach. In this strategy, students and the teacher write together after a shared experience. It is a great scaffolding strategy to use because it builds community, models writing, and increases student participation and engagement. Throughout the activity students listen, speak, read, and write. First, the teacher would share an experience with the class (like a field trip, science experiment, movie, book, etc). Then, students would talk to their peers about the said experience that they’ve gone through and come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Once everyone is finished, the teacher would lead the class in creating a text about the experience on chart paper or the white board. As students share their sentences with the teacher, s/he would write them down and with each sentence the class would have to repeat what is written. When the shared writing is complete, the class would reread the whole piece together. Finally, the teacher would lead the class in discussing organization, revision, and editing.

Link: https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/04/10/8-ways-to-scaffold-writing-for-english-learners/#:~:text=8%20Ways%20to%20Scaffold%20Writing%20for%20English%20Learners,Language%20Experience%20Approach.%20...%208%20Mentor%20Sentences.%20

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Harley Courtney - Providing handouts with written/visual support

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Harley Courtney - Providing handouts with written/visual support

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This scaffolding strategy will help students refine their listening skills in providing additional support and ensuring they have retained all the given information. In giving a physical copy of the information the students are listening to (powerpoint, presentation, speech, etc.), you are giving them the resources to feel confident in their listening skills. Especially with ELLs, this could be a great tool for them to follow along in one language and be able to make connections to what they're hearing on paper. The website below also provides many other good listening-related scaffolding strategies, which are broken down into groups of before/during/after listening to further provide assistance to all students

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By using the scaffolding strategy of constructing a read aloud with the class, students are likely to be more engaged and are able to follow the content of the reading. A read aloud will allow the students to develop social relationships with their classmates and improve their reading and speaking skills.

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Image source: www.mshouser.com
According to the Glossary of Education Reform (2014), "Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process." When teachers use scaffolding, they provide successive levels of support that help students to reach higher levels of comprehension that they would not have been able to achieve without help. The supportive strategies are gradually removed when they are no longer needed and the teacher shifts more responsibility over to the student.

Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks, then providing a tool. or structure to use with each chunk. When scaffolding is used for reading, you could preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and read and discuss as you go. (Alber, 2014)

According to Alber (2014), here are some strategies that can be used to scaffold a lesson:

1. Show and Tell - Model and demonstrate to students exactly what they are expected to do. You can use a "fish bowl activity" where a group of students are in the center of the room circled by the class. The middle group "fishbowl" are engaging in an activity and modeling how the activity is done for the whole group. The students on the outside can see how the activity is done while watching the inner group. Another strategy in this category is "think alouds". This process allows you to model your thought process as you read, solve a problem, etc.
2. Tap into Prior Knowledge - Have students share their experiences, ideas and knowledge about the concept of study. Help them connect their prior knowledge to the concept.
3. Give Time to Talk - All students need time to process new information. Giving students time to talk to others who are also engaged in the same experience will help them to make sense of the material. Try to use "think-pair-share", turn and talk, and structured talking time throughout the lesson.
4. Pre-Teach Vocabulary- Introduce new words to students prior to reading or beginning a lesson. Use analogies, metaphors, graphics, and discussions so they are prepared to tackle challenging text.
5. Use Visual Aids - Some scaffolding tools include, graphic organizers, pictures, and charts. Help students organize information, grasp concepts, and guide their thinking so students can grasp the information and apply it to their learning.
6. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review - This strategy is used to check for understanding while students read difficult text or learn a new concept. Start by sharing a new idea from the text or discussion, then pause (providing think time), then ask a question and pause again. Design the question ahead of time to make sure they are guided an open ended questions. Have students discuss with a neighbor and give plenty of time for responses.

According to the Glossary for Education Reform (2014), some additional strategies for scaffolding a lesson include:
1. The teacher gives students a simplified version of a reading and/or assignment then gradually increases the difficulty or complexity over time.
2. The teacher describes, illustrates, or models the concept or problem to ensure understanding in multiple ways.
3. Students are given an example or model of an assignment that they expected to complete. The example would be explained as to why it is exemplary and how it represents high quality work.
4. The teacher clearly describes the purpose of the activity, the directions, and the learning objectives they are expected to achieve.
5. The teacher describes how the lesson builds on the previous knowledge and skills have been taught in a previous lesson.

Math
Scaffolding can be used quite easily in the content area of mathematics. It is a method that would naturally require scaffolding when teaching a new concept. Since many higher level problems build upon earlier knowledge, the teacher would have the opportunity to start with what the students already know, then demonstrate how to solve a more difficult problem with new knowledge. The teacher should demonstrate how to solve the problem by incorporating "think aloud" as a way to walk the student's through the thought process of problem solving. As the teacher models the skills to the class, this is the "I do" portion of scaffolding. Next, the student's would begin a problem together, with the assistance of the teacher. This portion is the "we do" part of scaffolding. The teacher may have the students work through the problem as a large group with help, or in pairs, small groups, etc. Finally, after modeling, and practice, the students would then work on a problem by themselves, which is the "you do" part of the strategy. Responsibility gradually shifts from the teacher to the student.

In the content area of FACS, scaffolding is a natural part of teaching in the lab portion of Foods classes. If you use the example of teaching students knife skills for a vegetable soup lab, which requires cutting vegetables with various cuts, scaffolding is required in order to ensure success and safety. The way this process would work is that the teacher would first demonstrate how to hold a knife when cutting vegetables, and model how to dice, mince, julienne, shred, chop, etc. The next stage would be to go through each cut, allowing each student to practice while the teacher can monitor student progress, making corrections when necessary. Finally, would be the day of the lab, when the teacher would have the students preparing vegetable soup by cutting each vegetable according to the directions. Scaffolding in this situation allows students to move from dependence to independence, and success in the lab.

Scaffolding can be applied to all of the MN core writing standards. One standard that this strategy fits well in is 6.7.5.5. This standard says that with some guidance and support from peers and adults, students will use a writing process to develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. Depending on which standard the teacher is working on, they could scaffold any lesson or assignment to achieve the objectives in the writing standards. For the example of standard 6.7.5.5, the teacher could easily model for the students the writing process, then have them write a first draft. After the teacher then works with the student, offering suggestions on editing and revising, the student would go back and make changes. The process could involve peer editing as well. Finally, students would make revisions, and incorporate suggestions and comments to prepare the final draft on their own.

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Image source: www.mshouser.com According to the Glossary of Education Reform (2014), "Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process." When teachers use scaffolding, they provide successive levels of support that help students to reach higher levels of comprehension that they would not have been able to achieve without help.

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Holly Langenderfer- Process Based Writing 

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Holly Langenderfer- Process Based Writing 

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This scaffolding strategy is used to help students develop writing skills and help them develop some ideas for their writing. This will also help students learn the format and the process of writing. To implement this strategy you will have a handout with each stage of writing on it. You will explain what each stage is and what is expected in each stage. This will help them write each part of the paper and then put it all together. You can do two processes; the first is to do an introduction, body paragraph one, body paragraph two, and conclusion. Then have them do the process pictured above which is rewriting, drafting, responding, revising, editing, publishing. This is a good way for the students to see the process and give them a structured way to form their writing.

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This strategy is used after reading a book or story. It is used to help a student think about what they just heard and write about it. This strategy is used to see if the listener was able to comprehend what was read to them and then if they were able to write about it. On the checkmark card you can put questions that are directly about something that took place in the story or a complete the sentence. For example, on the checkmark card you might put: I just read...... or I just heard you read....This is a great strategy to see if the student understood what they read but can also write about.

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Before reading a story, a book, or parts of a a book with students, the teacher would introduce the text's different vocabulary words to the students. By introducing these vocabulary words to the students before they read it, the students will have a better or a more complete understanding of the definitions of unfamiliar words. Also, the students would be able to interpret the meaning of sentences that include these new words, and they would better understand the text while they are reading it. Not only would students improve at reading English, but they would also improve at comprehending new stories.

This strategy is "Pre-Teach Vocabulary," found here: 6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students | Edutopia .

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A writing scaffolding strategy would be doing a ticket out the door. This would allow students to write down what they learned before they left this classroom. This would make sure that the student understood what was going on in class that day. This would also help students to improve on their writing abilities. This would be a good way of making students learn how to process their thoughts into words to advance their writing skills and words they have in their vocabulary. This scaffolding strategy would help students in many subjects but focusing on writing it would allow them to be able to develop thoughts into writing and expand their vocabulary use.

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Jigsaw reading allows students to practice speaking in smaller groups which is easier and more comfortable for EL students. In this exercise, students work in a group and each group member is assigned a different part of the reading. Each member becomes an "expert" at their specific topic working with others in the class that were assigned to their topic if needed. Then the group comes back together and each expert shares about their topic and clarifies any questions.

http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/using-jigsaw-cooperative-learning-30599.html

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This school closely monitors their regular assessments to guide the formative assessments they conduct throughout the lessons their teachers give.

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Sentence starters/frames are a great way to scaffold ELLs for writing because they provide structure for students who may not know how to best articulate their thoughts onto paper. Frames help students convey a message in a clear way, until they feel comfortable enough to structure writing on their own.

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Using graphic organizers as a reading scaffold helps ELLs organize the information they pull from the text. Directive labels may help them to know key information to look for as well.

From "The GO TO Strategies: Scaffolding Options for Teachers of English Language Learners, K-12"

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"Turn and Talk" is a speaking scaffold in which students will discuss a topic (usually a question posed by the teacher at the start or end of a class) with a partner. This is a great scaffold for speaking because it allows casual, peer learning to occur; in a less formal setting, ELLs can build their confidence speaking in the classroom.

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Teacher Toolkit: Turn and Talk (Secondary)

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Total Physical Response is a scaffold for ELLs that encourages students to engage multiple modes of learning. This video explains the process in depth and shows real life classroom examples at the end!

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ESL Teaching Strategies: #1 TPR or Total Physical Response (VIPKID)

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Using visual aids, such as Key Word Charts, images on slides, picture-books, or time-lines, ELLs will be able to draw connections between what they see and what they hear. The use of visual aids is a great scaffolding technique for listening because it supplements any missing vocabulary or listening gaps a student might have.

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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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Learning logs are a great tool to use as a formative assessment for ELLs. Students can document their learning process throughout a lesson and then write a reflection once the lesson is completed. This gives them not only practice with writing in English, but also mastering the concepts they are learning by representing them creatively visually through sketches and developing metacognition as they write and think about the learning they are doing as they are doing it. Its a great assessment at the end of a lesson to see what the students took from it as well as at the end of the year for teachers, parents, and students to look back on what the student learned as well as how their writing and thought processes have developed throughout the year!

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Model writing  is a technique that starts with the teaching writing in front of students. This allows for the students to "think aloud" and understand what effective writers do mentally. This can help students visualize the writing process. We can include different structures and specific vocabulary before they go and write on their own.

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This activity, as shown in the video below, is a great way for students to get up and moving. Hula Hoops are placed on the ground with numbers in them in sequential order from 1-20 (or any group of numbers that you want your students to review). Then the students are asked to jump in the hoops, like hop scotch, in the correct number order. This scaffolding activity, like the others in the video below can be altered and created based on the students learning level. By creating differentiated groups, you can cater a more individualized learning experience for your students to be successful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iki2hAYK74

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This activity can be used when introducing a new "sound" into the classroom. For example, if you are practicing the /ae/ sound (like in “cat,” “hat,” etc…, you could read the following script. “Yesterday, my cat ate a plastic toy and swallowed it fast.” Whenever students hear this sound for the first time (cat), they should stand. When they hear it again (plastic), sit down. This is beneficial for ELL because something as simple as developing recognition of a sound may be harder for them as they are not native speakers, so spending time on really listening for these sounds will help in all domains. This also encourages movement in the classroom which I believe to always be better than requiring children to sit in a desk all day.

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by abepiusc 654,456 views

Listening is the gateway to understanding and communicating and, therefore, is absolutely critical for language learners of all skills.

If students struggle to listen carefully, they will miss out on important interactions both inside and outside of the classroom.

The problem with listening instruction is that it is commonly thought to be boring and passive; students simply sit and listen. However, teaching listening doesn't have to be dull! There are many ways to create engaging and interactive lessons that focus on listening skills. Here are eight different ways to build students' listening skills:

Try These 8 Activities to Improve Listening Skills

1. Voice blogging

Using a free website (such as Voice Thread) have students record voice journals about their week. Encourage students with semi-personal topics or hypothetical questions (e.g. What would you do if you had one million dollars? Describe your best vacation. etc..) to prompt speaking. This works just like a blog but with student voices rather than writing. Even if your school doesn't have computers with microphones or recording capabilities, with VoiceThread students can use any phone to record their voice blog.

Students can then be assigned to listen to several of their classmates and give each other comments. By listening to each other and giving encouraging comments, you are building a positive classroom environment and cooperation within the classroom all while students build their listening skills.

2. Listen for the hidden phrase

An engaging whole class activity is to pair students up and give each pair a "secret" word or phrase. For easier dialogues, give a simple phrase such as "I love soccer," or "My father works a lot;" etc... To challenge students, give a slightly more obscure phrase, such as "John does yoga every Saturday," or "I saw a UFO in my yard last night."

Students are then tasked with developing a dialogue with their partner that somehow uses this phrase. Students may script the dialogue if they wish, but only give them limited planning time (5-10 minutes). After they have prepared their dialogue, students perform the dialogue in front of the class, and the other students listen carefully to hear which words or phrases seem extra carefully planned to find the secret phase. If you have individual white boards, have the students write down the phrase as they hear it and then show their board after the pair has finished the dialogue. If they found the correct secret phrase, they get a point. If no one finds the pair's secret phrase, the pair that developed the dialogue gets a point.

3. Listen for the word

Using popular culture media is always a good way to practice listening skills. Using songs, watching TV shows, or even listening to podcasts will help build skills. To go an extra step, have an additional task while listening to the song or TV show such as assign students different words to listen for and have them keep track of how often they hear these words. This is particularly helpful with reductions like gonna, wanna, hafta.

Listening to various media is also a good time to practice unfamiliar words. Encourage students to write down words they have never heard before. Without subtitles or lyrics, students will have to rely on the sounds they think they heard to make a guess at how to spell this unfamiliar word. Encourage students to write down other surrounding words to help you decipher what the word might be or to write down the time when they heard the word so you can go back to the spot and listen again. These are important skills for students to master so that they can continue learning even outside of the classroom by hearing new words.

5. Student-designed quizzes

If students are in a computer lab or if they have iPads/iPhones, give each student a dialogue, lecture, or song to listen to. These can be easily found on various free listening websites. Have students listen to the lecture multiple times and then create a quiz for another student to take. Students will be excited to "play teacher" by creating quiz questions, and they will have to rely on their listening skills to write accurate questions.

6. Describe the...

Place students into pairs and have them sit back to back. Give one student in the pair a unique picture with a lot of simple shapes drawn on it. I prefer to draw my own pictures with some randomly placed like:

Hearts

Flowers

Stars

Houses

Stick Figures

1. Put these shapes in different places, angles, and with extra features as desired. Give the second student in the pair a blank piece of paper. The student with the picture must dictate to his/her partner how to draw the picture. Make sure to emphasize no cheating or peeking! When finished, change the pictures around the groups and have the partners switch roles. When everyone has drawn once, the team with the most similar pictures win!

2. Put the celebrity in the right place

Similar to the picture describing game, this game has a similar setup but without the drawing. Give students a chart with many different celebrities in the boxes/grid. This can be easily done by creating a table in a word processing program and pasting internet images of celebrities in the table. Be sure to make several different versions with celebrities in the different spaces. It's okay if the students don't know all of the celebrities; in fact, it may be better if there are some they don't know, so they have to rely on describing physical features rather than giving names. Print a second blank grid with the pictures of the celebrities cut out into individual pieces but not attached to the grid.

Students should sit back to back and be instructed to not peek or cheat. The student with the table with pre-assigned celebrities should give the other student instructions on how to fill in his table with the celebrity picture pieces. For example, the first student might say "The picture of Brad Pitt goes in the first square, and Angelina goes in the square below Brad Pitt." It may be helpful to pre-teach the vocabulary "columns" and "rows."

3. Stand up/sit down

When working on individual sounds, give students a target sound and then read a script out loud that contains multiple examples of this sound. For example, if you are practicing the /ae/ sound (like in "cat," "hat," etc..., you could read the following script. "Yesterday, my cat ate a plastic toy and swallowed it fast." Whenever students hear this sound for the first time (cat), they should stand. When they hear it again (plastic), sit down. Read slowly enough for them to have time to stand up or sit down. This activity is great because it gets them out of their seats and lets them get some excess energy out!

5. Vowel discrimination

Another good activity to do when you are studying specific vowel sounds is to give students two different color note cards (e.g. one red card and one blue card). For a review activity, assign one vowel to the red card (e.g. the /ae/ sound as in "bat") and another card to the blue card (e.g. the /ei/ sound as in "bay"). When you read a word, have students raise the card in the air for the correct vowel/sound they heard. For a more advanced game, give students several colors of cards to correspond with several different vowels. Also, you could give the students several cards and read a sentence where each word represents a different vowel. Students must recreate the pattern of sounds they heard by lining up their note cards in the correct order.

Students engage in listening every day, so it's important for ESL students to continue developing their listening skills.

Engaging them in fun listening activities will hopefully motivate them to practice more listening and take advantage of all opportunities around them.
How do you get your students excited for listening practice? If you're an English teacher teaching students aged kindergarten to senior high (or even adults), check out our partner sites HelpTeaching, KidsKonnect, and Elementary Librarian for hundreds of additional ESL resources including worksheets, quiz questions, tests, books, and more!

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Do You Hear What I Hear?: 8 Activities to Improve Listening Skills

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by abepiusc 654,456 views If students struggle to listen carefully, they will miss out on important interactions both inside and outside of the classroom. The problem with listening instruction is that it is commonly thought to be boring and passive; students simply sit and listen. However, teaching listening doesn't have to be dull!

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This is a quick way to assess the students while the information is fresh in their mind. It forces students to come up with something they learned that day in class. This will also encourage students to pay attention during class if they know that they are going to complete this at the end of class.

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Word walls are large graphic organizers that can be filled with words from the students vocabulary, readings, etc. They can also use objects on word walls. It is a fun way for the teacher and student to collaborate and make something together to help the students. It is good for the students to be able to see the words and language of what they are learning and can use it in their writings.

https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/04/10/8-ways-to-scaffold-writing-for-english-learners/

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With film circles, the class is given different scaffolds like word banks, graphic organizers, guiding questions, etc. The class watches a film together and then put in small groups to discuss the film together. These groupings can be mixed or by ability level and it is a low-stress environment. By exploring and discussing the film, students are critically thinking and strengthening their language acquisition by sharing with one another.

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Andree Marino - Tap in to Prior Knowledge 

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Andree Marino - Tap in to Prior Knowledge 

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One scaffolding strategy is asking students to share their own experiences, predictions, and ideas about the content in class. This allows them to relate the content to their own lives and use their prior knowledge to make sense of what is being taught. I think this would be a good scaffolding strategy because it engages students with the material and also encourages collaboration and sharing in the classroom which makes it a more fun and safe place for students. When sharing stories about their lives, they are sharing things about themselves which will help them feel more comfortable in the classroom if they feel heard and understood, which helps make them want to participate.

I found this strategy from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber

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Students each have three cards of the colors red, yellow, & green. At the end of a lesson, the teacher will ask them to hold up a card depicting how they feel about their level of understanding. (Red=very confused, Yellow=somewhat confused but somewhat understands, Green=fully understands) The teacher will then use this to note how well the students are picking up on the material.

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Silly Starters is a writing scaffolding strategy that helps randomly prompt students different starters for writings. It helps students get the ball rolling on writing and expanding topics they may have never written about. It allows students to pursue a creative topic and go in any direction they want.

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Read-alouds allow students to make connections by seeing how words are pronounced, used, and how context clues are used. It also gives the teacher the opportunity to help students that struggle with story-telling and how pictures help tell the story.
https://www.collaborativeclassroom.org/blog/scaffolding-techniques-english-language-learners-part-1/

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The teacher would give each student a piece of paper with a question about the lesson on it. Then, each student would write their answer on the paper and crumple it up. Then the students will engage in a "snowball fight" and toss these papers across the classroom. At the end, the student will choose a "snowball" and uncrumple it and read the question and answer aloud. The class can discuss the answer and the teacher can see how effective the lesson was.

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For this specific activity, Fish Bowl, there is a small group in a circle in the middle, this is the fish bowl. Then, there is a larger circle around them. This is the audience. The people in the fishbowl do the activity. This uses students who understand to demonstrate the activity to the audience on the outer circle. For ELL's they could start on the outer circle, so they have a chance to see how the activity is done before doing it themselves.

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/activities/fishbowl.html

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This formative assessment requires students to display their work or projects around the room so that their peers can view what they did, and then the teachers ask the students to write one thing they liked about their peers work and one constructive criticism. This allows the students to be vulnerable which can create a better class community and hearing their peers feedback and ideas can be very beneficial to students.

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This is a writing scaffolding activity in which the students will each have a piece of paper that has categories and a line next to each and students will walk around and find other students that fill each slot. Potential categories can include things like "find someone who likes Taylor Swift" or " find someone who likes Chick-fil-A."

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/3-activities-try-your-english-language-learners

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A Quick Write is a short writing task which takes around 3-10 minutes to complete. It is important for students to practice their writing daily, and Quick Writes can be a lot less intimidating for EL learners. Through this activity, they are able to hone in on a small chunk of their writing opposed to feeling overwhelmed by long essays. "Chunking" a task makes it seem more doable. It is important to find activities that allow for EL students to feel comfortable doing, rather than coming up with unmanageable tasks. Eventually, they will build their way up to the larger writing activities, but it is important not to push them too hard at the early stages of their writing.

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by Valentina Gonzalez

Scaffolds are temporary supports meant to be released when no longer needed. Think of buildings that are under construction. When the building is in the early phases, more scaffolding is necessary to sustain the structure. As the building progresses, less scaffolding is needed. Finally, before the construction is complete, the scaffolding is removed.

Scaffolding our instruction for students, English learners or not, is similar in theory. Assessing when and where the scaffolds are needed, and removing them at the right time is critical. Keeping a scaffold for too long can create a crutch for some, and students may become dependent on scaffolds that remain too long. The goal of a scaffold is to support students toward future independence.

These 8 writing scaffolds can be implemented in any grade level or content area:

1. Sentence Frames

Sentence frames are highly structured. They are basically sentences with fill in the blanks that support students at earlier stages of language proficiency. Here are a few examples of frames:

The ___has ___sides.

The ____revolted against the___.

A ___is larger/smaller than a ____.

2. Sentence Stems

Sometimes sentence stems and sentence frames are used interchangeably. However there a difference between the two. As shown above, a frame provides a tight grammatical structure. A stem, on the other hand, is as the name indicates, just the "stem" or base of a sentence and not a whole sentence. Students must continue the thought. Sentence stems give students just enough structure to begin more elaborate writing. Here are some examples of sentence stems:

Based on the experiment, I can conclude that...

In the beginning I thought..., but now I think...

One way that ___and ___are alike is that....

On the other hand, they are different because...

3. Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are also known as exemplars. They are models of high-quality writing for students. While adult-authored books or articles are often a main source of mentor texts, it is also effective to use high-quality student-authored examples. One teacher I know would save the original student samples of writing to use as exemplars. Another made digital copies. (Either way, always be careful to remove any identifiable information such as names.) Mentor texts set students up for success because they show students what the target is, which makes it much easier to achieve. Sometimes using student-created exemplars makes the target seem more attainable for students.

4. Interactive Word Walls

Interactive Word Walls (IWWs) are large, thematic or unit-based graphic organizers filled with rich vocabulary and visually supported with graphics and real objects. IWWs are often co-created with students rather than premade by the teacher. They can be used as scaffolds for writing in all content areas because students can easily take the language from the unit-based word wall and use it in their writing.

5. Model Writing

Model writing is similar to the Read-Aloud; in fact, some call it Write-Aloud. When we write in front of students in real time, we have the opportunity to "think aloud" and model what effective writers do mentally. This helps to make the writing process visible for students. Students see how an idea moves from the abstract to a concrete piece of writing. Modeling writing in all content areas helps students develop the language of the domain. For example, when we model how to write a lab report, we can share with students the language structures and academic vocabulary that scientists use. This modeling process supports students as they go off to write on their own.

6. Quick Writes

Not every piece of writing students do has to be lengthy. In fact, quick, daily writing is an effective way for English learners to practice writing in a low-stress setting. Long essays and pages of writing can be intimidating for students who are learning the structures of the English language. What's the saying? "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Breaking a task into small chunks (or "chunking" the task) makes it seem doable. A Quick Write is a short writing task-usually about 3-10 minutes. Author and teacher, Larry Ferlazzo writes about the power Quick Writes, or Micro-writing, holds for ELs here in an article for ASCD. He shows how this type of writing can improve English learners' confidence and language proficiency.

7. Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach has been around for a long time. It is a method of shared writing in which students and the teacher write together after a shared experience. This is actually one of my favorite techniques because it builds community, models writing, and increases student participation and engagement. Students listen, speak, read, and write.

Begin by sharing an experience (like a field trip, science experiment, movie, book, etc). Next, have students talk about the experience with partners or a group, and come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Then lead the class in creating a text about the experience on chart paper (or under a document camera) as students share their sentences with you. After you write each sentence, have the class read it aloud chorally. (This provides tons of reading practice for fluency.) When the shared writing is complete, the class rereads the whole piece. Finally, lead the class in discussing organization, revision, and editing. Students can suggest adding and deleting sentences and decide to change words or punctuation. To see an example of what this can look like, check out Carol Salva's use of LEA here!

8. Mentor Sentences

Think of a mentor in your life. Who did you imagine? Someone you look up to? Someone you try to emulate? Mentor sentences are sentences students try to emulate. Jeff Anderson, author of Mechanically Inclined and Patterns of Power writes about the effectiveness of mentor sentences. The sentences that we choose can come from Read Alouds or we can make up our own sentences using information relevant to our students and our class.

For instance, suppose we had a visit from the fire department and the kids couldn't talk about anything else. So my mentor sentence may have been, " While waiting anxiously to hear all about the apparatus, a crowd of kids huddled around the fire truck ." First I read it aloud, and then we read it chorally. I then invited students to discuss the sentence with their partner or in groups. What did they notice? What did they observe about the sentence? I called on a few students randomly. Some noticed that there was a comma. One student said that the sentence was in the past tense, and we asked how he knew. He said, "Because the word 'huddled' ended with an -ed." Another student said that it looked like two sentences stuck together. We talked more about that and discovered that the first part of the sentence wasn't a complete sentence but a phrase. Finally, the students wrote their own sentences modeled after the mentor sentence. Some students used this frame:

While waiting ______to hear all about the_____, a crowd of ___huddled around the ____.

One student wrote: While waiting eagerly to grab all the kibble, a crowd of dogs huddled around the food bowl. To add to it, he drew a group of dogs around an empty food bowl.

If you have students who struggle with writing, try some of these scaffolds to support them along the way to independence and success!

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners

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by Valentina Gonzalez Scaffolds are temporary supports meant to be released when no longer needed. Think of buildings that are under construction. When the building is in the early phases, more scaffolding is necessary to sustain the structure. As the building progresses, less scaffolding is needed.

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Offer students a "3,2,1" Meaning: 3 things I learned, 2 questions I still have, and one thing I really enjoyed.
It allows them to remember part of what they learned, it allows us to see what questions they have, and for them to get the chance to ask questions, and it also allows us to hear what they enjoyed so that we can continue to help them learn in the ways they enjoy learning.

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Mind Maps are like brainstorms with pictures. there is a central topic and then branches come off that topic into subsections and then branches come off the subsections to make smaller subsections. This could be given to students when starting a new unit. Some parts of the mind map could be provided to the students like central topic and subsections that are going to have a lot of branches coming off. Then the student fills in the knowledge as we progress through the unit.

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The students will be asked to write down a question that they have about the day's lesson. They will crumble up the piece of paper and through it around the room. Each child will get a different question, and they will have to answer it out loud to the class.