Area 2 ALT Program

The 6th Annual ESOL Conference

The 6^th Annual ESOL Conference was held earlier this month at KSU.  The theme?  Collaborative Development of Instruction and Assessment in Content Areas.  Everyone who presented to whole group offered a wealth of information and incite on ESOL, what it is, where it’s going, the Law. 

Jerry Graniero, Director of SE Equity Ctr. in FL kicked off the two day conference with Connecting Commitment to Collaboration.  We also heard from:

• Evelyne Barker, ESOL Title III Program Consultant
• Lynore Carnuccio, Educational Consultant for esl-etc Educational Consultants
• Vicki Gibson, President of the Longmire Learning Center, and
• Kimberly Oliver, 2006 National Teacher of the Year.

Lynore Carnuccio informed us all about WIDA.  Here are some useful documents for all personnel interacting with ELLs. Each document outlines the WIDA Domain with standards.

1 - Download combined_K-2_ds.doc

2 - Download combined_3-5_ds.doc

3 - Download combined_6-8_ds.doc

4 - Download combined_9-12_ds.doc

Vicki Gibson addressed the conference on Differentiation Instruction and how it assists ELLs.  Within her presentation, she offered quite of few important tidbits of information that can make a significant difference within the classroom.

• According to a Hart & Risley (1995) study, it takes 15 exposures to commit something to the short term memory and 35 exposures commit something to the long term memory.
• Whole class instruction – 1 minutes per chronological year
• A new national definition for differentiation -
  …matching instruction to meet the different needs of the learners in a given classroom that includes smalls groups & increased practice opportunities in the form of Reading Centers (FCRR, 2006).
• Short sentences/simple words
• Paired Assosication: i.e. comb – brush
• Preteach vocabulary beyond a word wall. If a student does not know 5 of 100 words within a passage, he/she will not understand that passage.
• Students at risk & EL needs –

o       5 components of reading explicitly taught:  Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

o       Modifications that (1) build background knowledge and (2) scaffold instruction to make it comprehensible.

• Guided Practice Works

o       Teacher-led lesson

o       Opportunities to monitor how well students apply skills

o       Supports skills application while reading

o       Engages students in thinking about meaning of text

• More student engagement needed

o       Repeated practice with positive CONSTRUCTIVE feedback

o       Partnering, peer assisted learning strategies (PALS) Fuchs & Mathes

o       American Sign Language (ASL)

A Library for the World's Children

Linda Starnes, from the GADOE, led me to a fabulous website for any teacher who has contact with a second language learner.  International Children's Digital Library is a portal to language acquisition.  Its mission tells it all…

The mission of the International Children's Digital Library Foundation (ICDL Foundation) is to support the world's children in becoming effective members of the global community - who exhibit tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online free of charge. The Foundation pursues its vision by building a digital library of outstanding children's books from around the world and supporting communities of children and adults in exploring and using this literature through innovative technology designed in close partnership with children for children.

As it reads above – the site is free of charge! The section “Read Books” includes all levels of reader and provides reading opportunities for 10+ languages. For example, there is a counting book in Maori (A language spoken in New Zealand),  a games book in Serbian, and a Spanish book recalling the author’s childhood experiences, dreams, and memories of life in El Salvador and San Francisco.

Sites like this make it easy to connect real life experiences to learning!  Peruse the sight and comment how it will be/is/has been useful in your teaching practices.

ESL Survival Packet

Teaching ELL students can be a formidable challenge, but it is not as arduous a task as it is for those children.  According to Jim Cummins, when explaining three basic stages of language development, ELL students are trying to catch up to a moving target. All other learning does not stop because they are behind in language acquisition.  He continues by referencing research by Virginia Collins and Wayne Thomas.

In a ten month school year, we expect a native speakers of English to make ten months of academic gain.  ELL students, in order to catch up, must make double the progress of their English speaking peers. They have to make 15 months gain in every 10 month school year to catch up within six years.

The ESL Survival Packet website consists reference sheets and links for teachers of ELL students.  Some of the must-have print-outs include Survival Spanish for Teachers, Words for Middle and High School Teachers, and Some Everyday Words and Phrases. I have printed the three handouts mentioned here and keep them with me as I travel from school to school. I can't wait to put my Spanish to the test!

For those ELL students who have internet access, whether at school, at home, ot the public library, the A, B, C's of Student Resources is a great toolbox of online flashCards, dictionaries, quizzes, puzzles, translations, etc.

Study Skills for ELLs will you assist your ELLs in and out of the classroom.

~Chris