ESL ! ! !
Posted by dmlagrone on October 14, 2008
After a couple of weeks and 5 different high schools, I’ve found a couple of issues that seem to be fairly universal: 1) ESL strategies, and 2) strategies for getting students up and out of their seats. Fortunately, these go together!
First, the ESL issue…it seems like we have 2 different groups of ESL kids: those who have some English and those who are newly arrived and have no English. These are not the same ESL student! The first group, those with some English, can participate in class with support and scaffording. The second group, those with virtually no English, are much more difficult. For this post, I’ll be talking about the students who have some English.
ELLs are the very ones who need to be up out of their chairs the most. I firmly believe that we learn by thinking and talking to others and then thinking some more. I hope that a huge, expanding spiral is ascending, with great experiences and much learning happening.
One of my favorite “get ‘em up” strategies is the Tea Party. I like to bring in “tea” or some kind of a festive treat; if it connects to the content of the reading, even better! The students relax, which certainly helps learning. They also can choose their partners as they mix and mingle, trying to figure out the selection! I like the way that they support each other in explanations of unknown words, unfamiliar concepts, and the really weird stuff that we know to include!
Zap me a note with your favorite strategies to get the kids up and talking! It’s so much better than the ubiquitous “shhhh”s you hear.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Ok–I am repeating a response I just typed in, because I didn’t see it show up anywhere; I was saying I hope to have more to say about your ESL post after our faculty meeting later this week. Our new ESL specialist is giving a presentation on ESL strategies!
October 16th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Diane–
SO…We just had a presentation from the ESL teacher here at our middle school. She refreshed us on some old strategies, but one particular area she discussed seemed the most salient:
She talked about spatial learning…As you wrote about in your post, it’s good to get kids up and moving. But she actually suggests teaching DIFFERENT CONCEPTS in DIFFERENT AREAS of the room. That way, students form a memory of the instruction and they remember “where” they learned, for example, past tense verbs or literary terms. Then, when you review before an assessment, you move back around the room, reviewing each concept from where it was originally taught. Brilliant!
Credit to: Angela Morrow, Baines MS, FBISD
October 21st, 2008 at 8:32 am
Great idea! Not only does this increase cognitive function, it also gets kids up and out of their seats! I think we can do much with this. I’d love to hear ways that others use this concept!