Language Matters

Lecture based on Hill & Flynn’s (2006) Introduction and Chapter 1

“We are our language” (p.1)

• Educators can’t take language for granted.– (applicable to both L1 and L2 contexts)

• “just talking” won’t help ELLs succeed with language demands of schools.

• Accommodations for language: Help ELLs – New to mainstream teachers– Challenging

• Phonology, lexicon, syntax, semantics, speed of speech, visuals, body language, model, scaffold, activate prior knowledge, etc.

Growing Numbers of ELLs

• Over the past 25 years:

– Between 1979 and 2003: total school-age

children population grew by 19%

– School-age children who speak a language

other than English at home 161%– Large majority of this population with

difficulties in English

ELLs Instruction: Everyone’s Responsibility

• Historically the job for the ESL teacher in the

ESL classroom

• Now, ALL teachers should know how to help

ELLs in the classroom

• Challenge:

– ELLs are not the same: language proficiency,

educational background, grounding in their L1

Classroom Instruction That Works for ELLs

• Research-based practices, adapted from L1

instruction to L2 instruction.

– Meta-analyses of over 100 studies of instructional

practices

– 9 categories identified To help ELLs to learn

language while they learn content

Category 1: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

• Ts offer Ss direction for learning

• Ts offer Ss information on their performance

• Setting objectives:– Narrow the focus of students

– Ss may adapt the Ts’ goals to personal needs

• Providing Feedback:– Corrective in nature

– Timely

– Specific to a criterion

– Self-evaluation

Category 2: Nonlinguistic Representations

• Use of mental images to enhance Ss’

ability to represent, elaborate, and add to

their knowledge

• Activities that produce nonlinguistic

representations:

– Graphics, physical models, generating mental

pictures, drawing pictures and pictographs,

kinesthetic activity

Category 3: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

• Targets Ss’ abilities to retrieve, use, and organize what they know about a topic.

Activation of Prior Knowledge!!

• Cues: focus on critical info for Ss to understand

• Questions: Higher-level produce deeper learning than lower-level– Higher-level question: What do the authors mean when they

state ‘language is the air that we breathe’?

– Lower-level question: What is the first of the 9 categories on the book?

• Advance Organizers: Organize and focus the Ss information. Most helpful when the information is not well organized.

Story Map

Time

Characters

Resolution

Problem 2

Problem 1

Place

Mr. Sticky

Story Map: Jack and the Beanstalk

Characters Place Time Plot Resolution

KWL Chart (Ogle, 1986)

Known Will learn… Learned…

Category 4: Cooperative Learning

• Interaction in groups to enhance

learning To make sense of new

knowledge

• Be mindful of putting together

homogeneous groups!

• Small groups

• Should be consistent and systematic

Category 5: Summarizing and Note Taking

• Ss’ abilitiy to synthesize and organize

information to capture main ideas and main

supporting details.

• Both help students process information.

To summarize:

Students must deeply comprehend the info.

– Delete, substitute, and keep information.

• To take notes:

– Identify key info and restate it.

Category 6: Homework and Practice

• Extends learning opportunities for reviewing and

applying knowledge

• Offers opportunities to reach the level expected

• Practice: to develop a skill so that it can be

applied promptly and fluently, with minimal

conscious thought.

– Multiple opportunities required.

Category 7: Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition

• Effort contributes to achievement.

• Students should know that it is their effort

the responsible for academic success

• Recognition rewards or praise students

accomplishment of a goal.

Category 8: Generating and Testing Hypotheses

• Inductively or deductively

• Students should explain their thought process.

Category 9: Identifying Similarities and Differences

• Ss make new connections, experience new insights, and correct misconceptions.

• Ss compare, contrast, and classify.• Comparing• Classifying• Creating metaphors• Creating analogies