Content Area Learning, Academic Language, and Achievement Flashcards
Competency 006
The ESL teacher understands how to promote students’ content area learning, academic-language development and achievement across the curriculum.
Benefits of Content Based ESL Curriculum
First, students learn age-appropriate content knowledge that reflects the content learning in the mainstream. While there is a significant gap in background knowledge between ESL students and mainstream students, CBEC can provide ESL students with opportunities to catch up with mainstream students’ background knowledge. When they learn grade-level content in math, science, and social studies, the background knowledge gained from CBEC will facilitate their learning in mainstream classes. CBEC is a motivation factor for ESL students. They not only feel that they are being challenged with a high-standards curriculum, but also feel more prepared in mainstream classes because they understand more.
Second, ESL students read authentic texts, not simplified or artificial text written for ESL students only. Thus, learning is more meaningful and positioned.
Third, language learning becomes more purposeful. That is, ESL students learn the language, not about the language. English learning becomes a means to an end, which can accelerate second language acquisition.
Fourth, ESL students learn technical vocabulary, which they critically lack. Vocabulary knowledge has been closely linked with academic success. CBEC provides the most meaningful vocabulary learning opportunities for ESL students because they not only learn technical vocabulary but also use it in context. Thus vocabulary learning is not only expedited but also sustained.
CALLA
The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach
CALLA integrates language development, content area instruction, and explicit instruction in learning strategies. With content as the primary focus of instruction, academic language skills can be developed as the need for them emerges from the content.
CALLA was designed to meet the academic needs of three types of students:
ELs who have developed social communicative skills through beginning ESL classes or exposure through English-speaking environments, but have not yet developed academic language skills appropriate to their grade level;
Students who have acquired academic language skills in their native language and initial proficiency in English, but who need assistance in transferring concepts and skills from their first language to English;
Bilingual students who have not yet developed academic language skills in either language.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Pre-teaching Vocabulary Words
One of the most effective methods of helping children learn new vocabulary words is to teach unfamiliar words used in a text prior to the reading experience. Adults (either alone or with the child(ren)) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. Then these words should be defined and discussed. It is important for the adult to not only tell the child(ren) what the word means, but also to discuss its meaning. This allows the child(ren) to develop an understanding of the word’s connotations as well as its denotation. Also, discussion provides the adult with feedback about how well the child(ren) understands the word. After pre-teaching vocabulary words, the child(ren) should read the text.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Repeated Exposure to Words
It may seem common sense that the more times we are exposed to a word, the stronger our understanding becomes. However, repeated exposure to new vocabulary words is often ignored. Adults often forget a person (especially a child) needs to hear and use a word several times before it truly becomes a part of her vocabulary. Providing multiple opportunities to use a new word in its written and spoken form helps children solidify their understanding of it.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Keyword Method
Like pre-teaching, the keyword method occurs before a child reads a particular text. In this method, unfamiliar words are introduced prior to reading. However, rather than encouraging the child to remember a definition for a new word, the adult teaches him a “word clue” to help him understand it. This “word clue” or keyword might be a part of the definition, an illustrative example or an image that the reader connects to the word to make it easier to remember the meaning when reading it in context. The idea behind the keyword method is to create an easy cognitive link to the word’s meaning that the reader can access efficiently during a reading experience.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Word Maps
The word map is an excellent method for scaffolding a child’s vocabulary learning. Like the other explicit instructional methods, the adult (either alone or with the child(ren)) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. For each of these new vocabulary words the child (with the support of the adult) creates a graphic organizer for the word. At the top or center of the organizer is the vocabulary word. Branching off of the word are three categories: classification (what class or group does the word belong to), qualities (what is the word like) and examples. Using prior knowledge the child fills in each of these three categories. Word maps help readers develop complete understandings of words. This strategy is best used with children in grades 3-12.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Context Skills
Context skills are the strategies that a reader uses for incidental vocabulary learning. Texts are full of “clues” about the meanings of words. Other words in a sentence or paragraph, captions, illustrations and titles provide readers with information about the text that they can use to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. These features are often referred to as “context clues” because they are contained within the context of the piece of writing rather than outside it. Young readers should be taught to find and use context clues for learning new vocabulary words. Adult modeling and practice are key for helping children develop this important reading skill.
Activation of Prior Knowledge
It is important to determine the extent to which students have prior knowledge about a certain topic. It’s important that teachers also recognize that students’ prior knowledge of a topic may be influenced by cultural practices from their home language and culture, and their prior knowledge may differ from the background experiences of the teacher.
K-W-L chart
K-W-L (Know, Want to Know, Learned).
Strategies to Determine Prior Knowledge
Classroom Discussion
Have a classroom discussion about the topic that will be studied.
KWL Chart
A KWL chart (Ogle, 1986) is a three column chart that asks what students know about a topic, what they want to know about a topic, and what students learned about a topic. A KWL chart will give teachers an idea about the extent to which students have some prior knowledge about a topic. Teachers write down what students know about a topic, including inaccurate information or misconceptions. After asking students what they know about a topic, they then ask students to brainstorm questions that students may have about a topic. At the end of the unit of study, or throughout the unit of study, teachers revisit the “know” and “want to know” columns in order to write down what they have “learned” about a topic. Click here for the KWL Chart
Inquiry Chart
The inquiry chart is a Project GLAD strategy and is a variation of the KWL chart. The inquiry chart has only two columns: 1) What we know about ___ and 2) What we are wondering about ____. Teachers write down all student comments about what students know about a topic, including misconceptions and inaccuracies. Throughout the unit of study, teachers return to the inquiry chart to confirm or revise students’ initial understandings about a topic. Click here for the Inquiry Chart.
Anticipation Guide
An anticipation guide is a list of statements that are given to students prior to reading or learning about a topic in order to elicit student discussion and determine prior knowledge about a topic. The list can contain “true/false” statements or “agree/disagree” statements that students discuss with their classmates and teacher prior to reading. For example, prior to reading the book “Tuck Everlasting” teachers can give students a graphic organizer that asks whether students agree or disagree with the following statements:
It is never okay to kill another person.
People who break the law should always be punished.
Students can discuss the three statements related to themes that will be addressed in the book, and can revisit the three statements during or after reading to discuss whether their beliefs or views about the statement have changed over the course of the reading. Click here for Anticipation Guide.
Observation Charts
Observation charts are a Project GLAD strategy designed to engage and motivate students as well as determine prior knowledge about a topic of study. Teachers print various pictures about the topic of study and allow students in pairs or teams to observe the pictures and write down their observations, questions or predictions. Click here for Observation Chart.
Academic Strengths
There are numerous positive outcomes that result from continuing to promote the ongoing use and development of ELs’ first languages. Respect and use of the first language contribute both to the building of a confident learner and to the efficient learning of additional languages and academic achievement, including:
developing mental flexibility developing problem-solving skills communicating with family members experiencing a sense of cultural stability and continuity understanding cultural and family values developing awareness of global issues expanding career opportunities
Students who are able to communicate and are literate in more than one language are better prepared to participate in a global society.
Instruction
The goal of differentiated instruction is to create learning opportunities that make allowances for differences in how individual students learn in order to ensure equal access to important academic content. Content may be modified for students who need additional practice with essential elements before moving on; however, the expectation is that modifications in other areas will ultimately allow all students to master the same key content.
Thus, “differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction. Every student is not learning something different; they are all learning the same thing, but in different ways. And every student does not need to be taught individually; differentiating instruction is a matter of presenting the same task in different ways and at different levels, so that all students can approach it in their own ways”
Differentiating Instruction for ELs
Differentiated instruction, by definition, is instruction that is designed to support individual students’ learning in a classroom of students with varied backgrounds and needs. For this reason, the same general principles that apply to differentiated instruction for native English speakers also apply to ELs.
Teachers are successful at differentiating instruction for ELs when they:
Get to know as much as possible about each student
Have high expectations for all students
Have a variety of research-based instructional strategies at hand
Use ongoing assessment to guide instruction
Provide multiple types of assessment
Differentiate homework
Collaborate
Use flexible grouping
Make content comprehensible for all students
