TAILORING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE EXPECTATIONS TO DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY Rusty Bresser & Kathy Melanese, UCSD.

TAILORING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE EXPECTATIONS TO DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

Rusty Bresser & Kathy Melanese, UCSD

OUTCOMES

Share what we have learned about how to support candidates in the area of academic language

Use math as a context to model activities we do to develop candidates’ competency in teaching English language learners

SUPPORTING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN MATH CLASS

Development and organization of the resources: Resources for teachers include books for grades

K-2, 3–5 and a video Books include lessons from a variety of math

strands

Use in teacher education Vignettes Lesson Plans Lesson Plan Template Step by Step guide to writing lessons Video and Facilitator’s Guide

A LOOK AT THE ACADEMIC LANGUAGE RUBRICS

What elements of the rubric are critical for candidates’ success in the academic language portion of the Teaching Event?

EM 11: Understanding Academic Language Demands

EM 12: Supporting Academic Language Development

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Candidates study documents that provide descriptors of each proficiency level ELD Standards CELDT resources (cde.ca.gov) Additional resources from readings

Candidates collect data for Context for Learning about numbers of ELs in their classroom and their corresponding proficiency levels

Modeling the “Build a Shape” activity

1. Find a partner. 2. Get a baggie with pattern blocks 3. Each partner should take one of each

pattern block:

1 green triangle 1 blue rhombus 1 red trapezoid 1 yellow hexagon 1 tan rhombus 1 orange square

RUSTY’S SHAPE:

IDENTIFYING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE DEMANDS OF A LESSON – “BUILD A SHAPE”

Play “Build a Shape” with a partner

What language did you need to understand and use in order to play the game?

What language would you expect to hear/see in order to assess whether or not students are meeting the objective?

THESE ARE YOUR LANGUAGE DEMANDS~LINGUISTIC TASKS AND VOCABULARY

STUDENTS WILL NEED IN ORDER TO FULLY ENGAGE IN THE LESSON

BUILD A SHAPE

Math Goal/Objective: Students will be able to describe location and movement using common language and geometric language

Language Goal/Objective: Students will be able to use prepositions to describe the location of specific geometric shapes.

Key Vocabulary: above, below, on, to the left/right of, sides, vertex/vertices, rhombus, hexagon, trapezoid, square, triangle

SUPPORTING STUDENTS WITH THE LANGUAGE DEMANDS

o Identify and explicitly teach key vocabulary

o trapezoid, square, triangle, rhombus, hexagon

o sides

o vertex/vertices

o above

o below

o on

o to the left/right of

SUPPORTING STUDENTS WITH THE LANGUAGE DEMANDS

Create frames for identified proficiency levels: All students:

Put the ____________ above (any preposition) the _________.

Beginning: The _________ should touch.

Intermediate/Advanced: The ________ of the __________ should touch the

_________ of the ____________.

Use familiar topics/content when introducing frames

SUPPORTING STUDENTS WITH THE LANGUAGE DEMANDS

Have students practice frames and vocabulary Modeling

Guided practice

Independent practice with lots of feedback

Leave frames posted for students to use throughout the lesson

DURING THE LESSON – SCAFFOLDS AND SUPPORTS

Sentence frames posted for student use

Concrete objects

Vary number of blocks used in building shapes

Game format – high motivation

Language use is required to play the game

Visual with object names and traits posted in classroom

Partner work

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

Played “Build a Shape” for two days Second day, added sequence words Students played with partner Created new shape they had to describe in

writing Swapped papers and had to read to recreate

partner’s shape

LANGUAGE WAS AN ESSENTIAL PIECE OF THE ENTIRE LESSON SEQUENCE

VIDEO CLIPS: EXAMPLES FROM REAL CLASSROOMS

Lessons taught by authors of books Provide authentic classroom contexts for

observation and analysis Lesson excerpts allow an in-depth look at

some of the instructional strategies and practices

4th grade classroom Identifying and Describing Polygons (3-5)

2nd grade classroom Capture – A game of finding sums (K-2)

VIDEO CLIP 1: USING SENTENCE FRAMES TO SUPPORT LANGUAGE USE AT DIFFERENT PROFICIENCY LEVELS

After watching the video clip, talk with a partner about the following prompts: What did you notice about how the teacher

modeled and facilitated student use of the sentence frames?

What evidence did you see that the frames provided support for students in using language to communicate their math thinking and understanding?

VIDEO CLIP 2: ASKING QUESTIONS AND USING PROMPTS TO DIFFERENTIATE BY PROFICIENCY LEVEL

After watching the video clip, discuss the following questions with a partner:

What questions were used to engage students in talking about their learning?

How did the questions vary in terms of their support for students?

What other strategies/scaffolds did you notice the teacher using

RESOURCES Bresser, Melanese, & Sphar (2009). Supporting English

Language Learners in Math Class

Peregoy & Boyle (2008). Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL

Garcia, E. ed. (2003). English Learners: Reaching the Highest Levels of Success

Cloud, Genesee & Hamayan (2009). Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners

Helman, L. ed. (2009). Literacy Development with English Learners

California Reading and Literature Project (2008). RESULTS and RESULTS for English Learners

Echeverria, J., Vogt, M, & Short, D. (2008). Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model

TO CONTACT US:

Rusty Bresser, [email protected]

Kathy Melanese, UCSD

[email protected]