Ideas and Strategies to help ESOL Students

Presented by:

Lindsay Zika and Carolyn Johnsen

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Click here to register:

ESOL/ESL/ML

Contact information:

cjohnsen@greenville.k12.sc.us

(make sure you put the E in Johnsen!)

lzika@greenville.k12.sc.us

Our office is located in Room 243

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Agenda:

1. ESOL Fact or Myth
2. What Works for Me
3. Strategies Across the Curriculum
4. Brainstorm for Scaffolding Ideas
5. Wrapping it Up

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ESOL Fact or Myth

1. Children learn additional languages quickly and easily.
2. ESOL students learn English more quickly and easily when surrounded by native English speakers.
3. The younger the child, the faster he/she will acquire the second language.
4. The ability to carry on a conversation in English is a good indication of proficiency.
5. Immigrant parents should be encouraged to switch to English in the home to help their children do better in school.

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1. Research has consistently shown that it takes 5-7 years for native-like proficiency.

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1. Young children have an advantage in pronunciation only.

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1. Skills in the first language translate to skills in the target language. (SLIFE students have a great disadvantage because they don’t have the language skills in their first language.)

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Children learn additional languages quickly and easily.

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1. Learning language takes time and intellectual effort. It is hard work!

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1. Language learners need 2-3 hours per day of quality interaction with native speakers during which time they are respected as equal partners.

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( For cooperative learning activities, I assign them art work, handling the materials, etc.)

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ESOL students learn English more quickly and easily when surrounded by native English speakers.

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1. The language spoken by a five year old is less cognitively complex in any language.

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1. Young children are at great risk of subtractional bilingualism.

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The younger the child, the faster he/she will acquire the second language.

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Students may appear to be fluent because of their oral skills. They may know one way to say something. When you reword something or use different vocabulary, they may not understand you.

Language is reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Any given student is likely to be better in some areas than others.

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The ability to carry on a conversation in English is a good indication of proficiency.

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1. Most language minority parents are not the best source of input in English.

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1. First language cognitive support at home is crucial to the academic and cognitive development of the child.

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1. Language and culture are part of who we are as people. It is vitally important that students continue to develop language skills in their first language. Remember that those skills transfer to the new language.

We, as a nation, took away the language and culture of Native Americans…Lesson learned?

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Immigrant parents should be encouraged to switch to English in the home to help their children do better in school.

What works for me?

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• Preteach vocabulary

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• Think visual!

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• Wording Matters

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• Scaffold with options

Pre-teach Vocabulary

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Use a vocabulary choice board something like this or a variety of graphic organizers.

By pre-teaching vocabulary you are activating prior knowledge and/or building background information.

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Wording Matters

Rigor, relevance, relationship: For rigor, we are supposed to re-word info from the text. For ESOL, it is highly likely they won’t understand and they will give up. They have to see that they can do the work. (That would fall under relationship!)

Example: Teenshealth.org has a lot of topics and many topics are in English and Spanish.

Word the question the way it is worded in the text. Show the students how to find the answers. They will get it and be able to do it over and over again.

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Scaffold with options

-For example, if you want an ESOL student to read something aloud in class:

-choose something short and easy

-give them the option of doing a “listen and repeat”

-use choral reading

Consider letting them write in Spanish/Arabic/Farsi/Whatever

You may not understand it but you could use google translate if you need to know what they wrote.

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General tips and strategies:

• Act stuff out. If you can put some actions to what you are talking about, it will help with Stephen Krashen’s Comprehensible Input.
• Use realia (a.k.a. real stuff)
• Use gestures
• Pair with more English fluent students
• Use ELLevation for more ideas and to get a better understanding of what your specific student can do.

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General tips and strategies continued…

• Encourage the students to write by letting them write in their first language or in English allowing mistakes in grammar and spelling. Or tell them to use the English words they know and their own language where they don’t. (code switching)
• Use constructed sentences and paragraphs.
• Speak slowly and clearly!
• Ask them to teach you words in their own language and try to repeat what they say. (You can both laugh!)
• Use graphic organizers and let them work in pairs and small groups. Use flexible grouping.

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Constructed sentences (sentence frames} and paragraphs:

• Two lines intersect at a _______.
• I predict that ______ will happen, because ____________
• Write a summary:

The short story The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry is a story with a twist. At the beginning of the story ______________________. In the middle of the story _________________________. By the end of the story ___________________. I think the main message of the story is _________________________________________.

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Brainstorming to answer questions:

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Wrapping it up:

Lindsay, Marie and I are happy to help you. However, please try some of our suggestions before you ask for help.

Please help us to improve our presentation by filling out the evaluation. (It has been set up to be anonymous.)

Thank you for your time and attention.

Have an awesome school year!!!!