Transcript English Language Learning (TEA Program)

REACHING AND
TEACHING ELLs
THROUGH WRITING
Ivona Todorovic
GF Public Schools
Dakota TESL Conference
October 29, 2012
Fargo, ND
[email protected]
Reach Them, Then Teach
Them…

Teachers must create a classroom culture where all
students regardless of their cultural and linguistic
background are welcomed and supported, and
provided with the best opportunity to learn

Culturally responsive teachers need to engage in
cognitive and emotional processes
Basic needs are sensitivity and selfconsciousness

Knowledge
(about other cultures, nations, behaviors)

Empathy
(understanding needs and feelings of other people)

Self-confidence
(knowing what I want, weaknesses, emotional stability)
Writing and ELLs
Provide a nurturing environment
Plenty of time for writing
Model writing, make comments explicit
and clear
Interactive writing
Connect writing mini-lessons to
reading (writing and reading go hand
in hand)
My Life. My Story.

February 26, 2003
This morning standing in the classroom I was blinded by the
morning sun shyly teasing my eyes. In one moment I
couldn’t even open my eyes and look because the sun
rays were so brightly beaming lightning up the whole
room. I walked toward the windows and saw the chipped
spot on the window revealing the secret of somebody’s
false aim. Broken glass, chipped doors, cracked
windows, mess…my living room thousand miles away and
many years ago…Then the sound came that kills the
nightingale ready for the morning song. People started
frantically run….
Writer’s Notebook

A place for students to makes mistakes

A place for students to be vulnerable or funny

A “garden of seeds”

A tool for lifting craft of writing

A place to experiment with writing

A place to imitate other writers

A place to reflect and write about their own
“territories”

It is NOT a journal
Trust + Relationship= Learning

Leila’s WN entry:
My life is really busy because I transiate for my family
and only 13 years old I try realy hard to learn and help
my family speak Englesh but I can do any thing for
the people that I love. My dad needs help that the
bank wen I go thear I first I said my dads name is Ismet
and he wunts to get $300 dallars from the checking
account and I fell up the chek for my Dad and I said
Think you and we go outside to pae the car the is
100 dallars the pament fof the car and we go home it
is realy hard to help my Dad..
Mustafa’s WN entry

His name is Mutada. He was 12 years old om May
15, 2006. My brother wake up and ask me what time
is it? I answered and he said, “No, I’m late for school…
My brother never came home…I asked his
friends…Next morning at 9:00 am terrorist called the
dad and they said, “We want 150,000 or your son will
be killed and they closed the phone.” My dad start to
cry loud and he said, “ My son..why did Allah let this
to happen to my son? They will kill him…
Habimana’s WN Entry

I kind of feel bad when I remember my childhood.
When I was six years old I use to be shy. I was very
shy and scared of anything. So, people called me
BUCURA, that’s how they call the last child in the
family in my country. They called me
BUCURAMIK’UMUNWA MUZIKO (which
mean they should put my mouth in the fire, so I can
talk). I never had any friends, many boys would me
beat me up and I never knew how to fight back. I would
just cry. But everything changed when Tanzanian
police took my brother away and we never heard of
him again….
Why Writer’s Notebook?

It is a way for a teacher to get to know students better

It gives a teacher a close look at students’ errors (I do not correct or cross out anything
in the notebook)

It provides a teacher and students a special place to communicate ( I write comments;
usually praises or suggestions)

A teacher becomes a writer herself/himself and uses her/his writing to teach craft or
strategies

WN entries can be developed into a poem, essay, or a story

It helps students to visual writing process in whole

It helps a teacher to see what specific language problems (grammar, word choice, etc.)
students struggle with (written feedback)

Students may use their L1 and L2 (transitional phase in ELLs’ writing)
Examples

Character study

Leads

Physical descriptions

Strong verbs

Interactive peer (class) revisions & editing

When we was runner in rain me and my friend, we had so much fun
but in rain was so much mud in ground when I said to my friend can
you just quit run in rain my friend said why do you went to quit
because is so mud and the thunder is in the clouds so hard the light
was so many the sky but we don’t give up to run in rain.

“Tap, tap, tap,” rain thumped on my window that reminded me of
African stormy days when the rain meant life for me. My friend
Mukashaka and I run into rain and screamed so hard that our ears
almost popped. We slipped and fell each time we wanted to continue
to run. Oh, we were so muddy, but totally careless and brave.
Newcomers

Powerful tools for teaching writing and
productive language to newcomers:

Pictures/visual props (a-z example)

Graphic Organizers

Wordless books

Drawings

TPR/oral prompting
Wordless Books

Strong visuals

Help the students to vocalize the story before writing
it down

It is a great scaffolding tool for expanding vocabulary
and writing sentences

It gives the students “room” to grow because the
lessons can be easily adaptable and differentiated

It could be used for all ELLs with well designed
writing instruction focused on diverse needs of all
ELLs in the classroom
A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog
Story Phase
Excellent for oral exercises
Every page is “discussed” and different needs of
each student are addressed
Grammar is not
taught in isolation
Poetry

Poem templates (given structure/s) help students be
more specific: mirror poem, where I am from,

When students have a purpose they are more creative
and try harder (pen pals)

Not demanding like prose; students can learn about
figurative language by writing poems

The hardest task for ELLs is writing a poem that
rhymes
How can we help ELLs write meaningfully in
English before they have developed English skills?
Think spelling stages:
* writing in first language
* mixed L1 and L2
* transitional writing
* approaching standard English
Code switching is not a deficiency.
“ I associate literacy in Chinese so much with writing
and less with reading.” (Cindy)
Transitional writing helps students to keep writing and
learn new vocabulary when they revisit their WN entry

Yan’s example:
The hair makes me think of _______ when I was
young; I always had short hair. My mom does not
like long hair. I _______somebody called me “boy”
all the time when I was young. Now, I have long hair,
I guess my mother _________ on hair. Short hair is
simple, _______, and _________.
Interactive Notebooks

A collection of notes taken from reading, lists,
discussions, and viewing, including corresponding
responses, either in graphic or written form (Carter,
Hernandez, & Richison 2009).
IN helps ELLs

to become familiar with academic language

Scaffolds content to move ELLs to the stage where
they are academic language learners (ALLs)

To actively engage in high level skills making
learning more efficient
Explicit instruction; clear goals, place to
practice applications of skills
Allows ELLs to use skills other than
just written language
Writing is ELL’s pathway to active engagement
with text using the language

Writing helps ELLs “marinate” their thinking in order
to become active readers and thinkers:

Response to reading (Krishna’s example)

Western ND project (level questions, business letters to legislatures)

Diary entries from the past

Movie trailer
Monitoring errors in the classroom

How do you usually correct your students’
oral errors?

How do you usually correct your students’
written errors?
Recast/Prompts

Student: It have mixed colors.

Teacher: Yes, it has mixed colors.

Student: I didn’t think about nothing.

Teacher: Oh, you didn’t think about anything.

Recasts are desirables; but unfortunately some students
perceive recasts incorrectly

These are implicit forms of feedback

Prompts-give students a cue to self correct (What did you
mean?)

Or repeat with intonation on mistake
Written Explicit Feedback
on oral and grammar errors

Recast and prompts are effective for incidental
learning or when repeated many times, but many
students need an explicit feedback because they
might perceive them more accurately:

Corrective feedback is clear!

Corrective feedback is not transient!
How do we do it?

Teacher writes on a feedback form three suggestions for
students’ frequent errors (pronunciation, intonation,
subject/verb agreement, etc.)

Teacher’s handwriting needs to neat and legible

Teacher indicates what type of error

Short, brief, simple, and effective

Ensures noticing, makes type of error salient, nontransient, and not disruptive

Students put these in a file folder for further reference
and additional exercises
Why Written Feedback?

Students like it because

It helps them understand specific errors

It helps them remember mistakes

It helps them to review grammar

It gives them more confidence than red ink all over their
writing crossing everything that they have done

It helps them with pronunciation

It can be saved for later study

It can be used for “hot” topics in the future when a teacher
plans reviews and lessons
Continued…

Personalized

Individualized

Timely

Regular feedback helps students to stay focused and
feel respected and appreciated
Why is this an effective tool for
teachers?

It doesn’t take a lot of time

It is quick and explicit

It can be written on any kind of paper or sticky notes

It helps a teacher focus and see the pattern of mistakes

It can be a class feedback (write on the board and have a
class correct them and discuss each mistake)

It gives a chance for teachers to re-teach some topics
individual students are struggling with
Teaching Grammar & Writing

How do you teach grammar?

Can you share with our group some successful
lessons?

How do you incorporate writing in your lessons and
why?

How often do your students write?

What do they write about?
“Teaching grammar in isolation does not do much to enrich the quality of
students’ writing, nor does it do much to enhance its accuracy.
(Weaver, 2007)

Teachers:

should operate from solid knowledge (know their
students, their subject, and best practices)



be risk-takers and experimenters
innovators
integrators within and across subject areas
Framework for Teaching Grammar
Throughout the Writing Process

Share a model (from literature, previous or current student, teacher in advance or
on the spot)

Create another model (teacher, teacher and students together)

Compose and do similar activity in small groups or pairs, and clarify as needed.

Compose individually and share.

Ask students to apply concept in their own writing.

Consider giving students a checklist that includes the item to use in their final
revision

Provide feedback from peers and teacher

Teach a new mini-lesson and/or hold revising conferences to re-teach concepts as
needed, showing students how to correctly apply the concept in their own writing.
Examples: Participial Phrases/Sentencecombining approach

I am a red, round Frisbee.

The Frisbee is crashing through a window.

The Frisbee is landing in the grip of a canine’s jaw.

The Frisbee is sailing through the air.
“Out-of-order” Adjectivals and Absolute
Phrases

Adjectives that occur right at the beginning of a sentence; right
after the noun they modify; or at the end of the sentence (even
if they modify the subject)
Examples:
Bare, it looked like a child’s top with much too long of a stem.
Nervous and eager, she obeyed.
She stared up at him, terrified.
Daja, angry and hurt, stomped out of the forest.
About to touch him, she changed her mind.
Beside her they placed her few bags, completely packed.
Absolute phrases

An absolute phrase is almost a sentence, but not
quite. It acts like a “zoom lens” focusing in to focus
on the detail of someone or something.

Examples:

She stood alone on deck, the low-slung moon casting
a path across the water.