REACHING AND TEACHING ELLs THROUGH WRITING

Ivona TodorovicGF Public Schools

Dakota TESL ConferenceOctober 29, 2012

Fargo, ND

ivona.todorovic@gfschools.org

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 self-consciousness

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 ELLsProvide a nurturing environment

Interactive writing

Plenty of time for writing

Model writing, make comments explicit and clear

Connect writing mini-lessons to reading (writing and reading go hand in hand)

My Life. My Story. February 26, 2003This 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 PhaseExcellent 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, non-

transient, 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/Sentence- combining

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.