Claire Preston, ESL, Erwin HSChrista Preston Agiro, English Education, Wright State University, OH

claire.preston@bcsemail.org

Strategies for ESL Students… and for everyone else•English Learners’ needs•Simple instructional techniques that foster both language development and content knowledge

1.Increasing Student 2. Linking Vocabulary

Output to Concepts

• Student-centered learning: • GENIUS POINTS for good questions. • CELEBRATE – encourage other students to answer

• Students hold up cards with responses on them• Silently point to the statement that represents them

• I know I don’t know• Understand Lost• Agree Disagree• True False• Advantage Disadvantage• I like this I don’t like this• My mind is working My mind is shut down

• Happy face Straight Face Sad Face• Yes Maybe No• + - ?• Racing Trotting Crawling• Finished Checking Need More

Time

**Color code

• North, South, East, West• 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th centuries• Impressionism, Cubism, Dadaism,

Fauvism• Assonance, Alliteration, Consonance• :, ;, ,, none• Transcendentalists, Naturalists, Realists

• 1. “You’re wrong.”

• 2. “There are different ways of speaking.”

“Their language is a history inherited from their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents—a treasure of words and memories and the sounds of home, not a social fungus to be scraped from their mouths and papers.” (Christenson, 2009, p. 2)

• No matter how fairly a teacher tries to grade, he/she is influenced by the name on the top of the paper.

1. Tell students not to put their names on their papers; grade the writings without knowing whose they are.

2. Let them pick their papers from a pile.3. Put the score on the under side of a sticky note.4. Students will write their names on the note and return

it.

• Level 1—Beginning/Preproduction: • level 1: does not understand or speak English with the

exception of a few isolated words or expressions.

• Level 2—Beginning/Production: if all of the following criteria are met:

• (a) understands and speaks conversational and academic English with hesitancy and difficulty.

• (b) understands parts of lessons and simple directions.

• (c) is at a pre-emergent or emergent level of reading and writing in English, significantly below grade level.

• Level 3—Intermediate: • if all of the following criteria are met: • (a) understands and speaks conversational and

academic English with decreasing hesitancy and difficulty.

• (b) is post-emergent, developing reading comprehension and writing skills in English.

• (c) English literacy skills allow the student to demonstrate.

•Start class with an image or piece of art. • “What do you notice?” •Assessing prior knowledge and building background

• Largest and smallest known universe: http://htwins.net/scale2/

• Land to see: 35,000 feed up and down: http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=30703

Make your own:

• Wordle.net• Creates word clouds• Visibly represents most frequently used words

• Tagxedo.com – word clouds in shapes

Tier two consists of high frequency words that occur across a variety of domains. That is, these words occur often in mature language situations such as adult conversations and literature, and therefore strongly influence speaking and reading.

Examples of tier two words are: masterpiece, fortunate, industrious, measure, and benevolent.

We need to teach more Tier 2 - This will benefit the whole class.

• Original text is changed by supplying alternate words with similar functions

• Students are adding familiar elements to complex text

• Mathlibs.org• Madglibs.com• Wordlibs.com

• Sets classroom content to hip hop music• Rhythm, music, and rhyme serve as mnemonics• Use rigorous academic terminology; song AND lyric

• What was your favorite idea?

• How might you adapt it for your classroom?