Domain 2 ESL Instruction and Assessment Flashcards
Competency 004
The ESL teacher understands how to promote students’ communicative language development in English.
Conversational Support for L2
Create participatory, inquire-based classrooms
Maintain high expectations for all students
Teach ESL through content-area instruction
Use thematic units
Incorporate culturally familiar learning strategies
Use a variety of strategies when teaching literacy
Provide appropriate and valid assessment
Recognize that students use both languages to learn
ESL students’ communication competence/oral proficiency
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Effective transfer from L1 to L2
Language transfer refers to a situation where the learning of a skill in one language transfers to a second language. For example, learning to read in Spanish will facilitate the ability to learn to read in English in an individual who speaks Spanish and is learning English.
There are two types:
Facilitate (positive transfer)
Inhibit (negative transfer)
Instructional Conversation
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Knowledge of individual differences
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Oral language development strategies
As with L1 (or the native language), oral language – listening and speaking – generally develops before reading and writing in the second language.
High quality oral language and word consciousness can be developed through the use of read-alouds and role-playing using culturally relevant classic and contemporary literature including:
Legends Riddles Poetry Analogies Idioms/figurative language
Provide feedback for students development of L2 skills (rephrasing, modeling)
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Stages of Development in Communication Skills
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TEKS for Listening/speaking
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Scaffolding Instruction
Some key elements of scaffolded instruction include:
Intersubjectivity (shared understanding) refers to the combined ownership of the task between the adult and the child, and setting a common goal.
The teacher is constantly evaluating the child’s progress and providing support.
Dialogues and interactions; the learner is an active participant and a partner in deciding the direction of the interaction, and not a passive recipient.
Reducing the support provided to learners so that they are in control and take responsibility for their learning.
The important aspect of the transfer of responsibility is that the child has not only learned how to complete a specific task, but has also abstracted the process of completing the particular task.
Positive Transfers:
- Cognate- L2 (English) word has similar meaning to L1 (native language) word.
Example:
Document Documento (Spanish) Chocolate Chocolat (French) I like chocolate. Wo xihuan qiaokeli. (Chinese)
- Morphology- The study of how words are structured and how they are put together from smaller parts (morphemes). A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has meaning or grammatical function. (stem, prefix, suffix)
Example:
“photo” —> Photosynthesis, Photography, Photogenic etc.
Negative Transfers:
Negative transfers occur when speakers and writers transfer items and structures that are not the same in both languages.
Examples:
The use of adding an “s” or “es” to make things plural.
Intonation and accents. (In the Vietnamese language, the same letter may represent several different sounds, and different letters may represent the same sound.
Syntax - exit = to leave/way out vs. exito = success (also a false cognate)
Pronunciation “h” in Spanish is silent (muda) but it is not in English
Appropriate Feedback
Over correcting ELs can definitely raise effective filters and lead students to participate less.
In order to ensure that your students have a low affective filter, you must:
Emphasize communication and meaning, not correctness- do not correct every grammar mistake if you understood the meaning of the message.
Provide some patterned language to practice specific areas- verb tense, conjunctions, or transitions.
Use modeling- restate student’s sentence correctly.
