Reinforcing the Academic Vocabulary and Concepts of the Unit During EAL Class

During the first unit of the year I thought it was important for my students to begin developing a critical approach to learning, including strategies for dealing with unfamiliar texts and language.

Vygotsky (1978) states that for young learners in the early stages of development there is a close bond between what they see and meaning. Considering this, we showed our students colorful images of vocabulary during the beginning of the lesson.

Miss SunKim (my EAL TA) and I took time during the lesson to check that students had understood the meaning of key words or concepts. This strategy may have enabled students to connect new vocabulary with words that they already knew in their first language (Brewster, Ellis and Girard 2004). 

We often used questions to check that students had understood the meaning of key words or concepts, providing examples of words, their meanings and demonstrating how they might be used. The targeted language was modeled for the students.

Modeling targeted language, discussing the meaning with my students

Keeping in mind that "the acquisition of the word meanings takes much longer than spoken form of the words, and children use words in their speech long before they have full understanding of them” (Cameron 2001:73), we gave our students enough time to build confidence in using new vocabulary. To implement this task my students were given a chance to participate in meaningful dialogues during the pair share learning engagement.

Monika and Sofia putting down their three arguments after meaningful pair-sharing

After that the Think Aloud strategy was modeled for our students and we discussed with my Grade 2 class why it was good to drink a lot of water, eat healthy food, go to bed early, etc. My Grade 3 students were sharing their thinking about the decision making process and providing three arguments to support their choice.

Jan in sharing his thinking.

In the end of the class my students had a chance to create a mind map with the new vocabulary (Grade 2) and write down their 3 arguments and illustrate their written response (Grade 3).

Our vocabulary work will be continued next week during in-class support.  Following Vygotsky's idea about the powerful connection between image and meaning, next week we will introduce our students to the CSI (Color-Symbol-Image) Thinking Routine. I am sure that this thinking tool will successfully support our EAL students in building their understanding of the unit vocabulary.

In Class Support

The most important component of our EAL elementary programme this year is in class support. Miss Sunkim (our EAL teaching assistant) and I are working collaboratively with Grade 2 and Grade 3 homeroom teachers supporting our EAL learners.

Recently we were supporting our students in developing their writing skills and focusing on recount and persuasive piece writing. The Grade 3 team is practicing the persuasive genre and in Miss Lisa's, Miss Michelle's and Miss Claire's classrooms I was helping our students to understand the structures and think of opinions and reasons. In Miss Anita's and Miss Courtney's classes I worked with a group of students and/or the whole class on shared recount writing. With Miss Karyn's students we had meaningful discussions before they had to participate in an unassisted recount writing activity.

Shared recount created by Miss Courtney's students

I would like to share with you here some of Pauline Gibbons' strategies that were successfully used in the classrooms. 

“It is a special kind of help that assists learners to move toward new skills, concepts or levels of understanding…… It is future-oriented.” (Gibbons, 2002 P 10)

WRITING

Each genre has its own difficulties – personal writing and reports being less demanding than imaginative. Oral preparation is important and pupils should be encouraged to link writing to experience. 

Teachers will probably be using most of these strategies already.

• Oral preparation is very important to help child build a meaningful context from their own experience.

• Questions provide a structure and help the writer focus.
• Grids and matrices provide key information to support sentence writing – pupils find it difficult to write notes and tend to write full sentences when planning.
• Cloze procedures reinforce key vocabulary and ideas.
• Sequencing supports understanding of structure.
• Provide models to illustrate genre
• Use something the class are reading as a model and/or make into a Cloze text to practice vocabulary, verbs, adjectives etc
• The class help create a word bank at the start of the lesson- this should include verbs, thinking of tenses, and adjectives.
• Practise key structures before writing
• Use pictures to support understanding – could be used as matching exercise with model text
• Add captions and speech bubbles to pictures
• Provide sentence starters and writing frames
• Link writing with listening comprehension – this is an alternative way of giving a model
• With help of the class write a simple story on the board and ask pupils to add more detail.
• Pupils find planning difficult – use mind maps or other visuals – Inspiration has a good variety – time lines, cause and effect, narrative sequence, venn diagrams etc
• Sequencing – cut up model text or use scribed writing.
• Scribing for the pupil helps them get started and can extend their language as scribe produces full sentences from words provided.
• Pupils have writing buddy ( could be same as reading buddy).
• Clicker grids – add examples
• Instead of returning a pupil’s writing, if time permits, produce a word processed corrected version.  This can be also used for cloze etc. Using the child’s own work is more meaningful

Intensive EAL Support

Today Miss Kim (EAL Teaching Assistant Grades 2 and 3) and I started our Intensive EAL Support programme. The goal of the programme is to help our new EAL students with limited English vocabulary to adjust to the ISPP environment and support them during their first weeks at our school.

 We say: No English -  do not panic!! You are not alone, we are here to help you!

We will be using EAL Beginners' Curriculum to develop our EAL learners' English skills. The material is organised into 16 units of work based around topics that are appropriate for newly arrived students.

We will be supporting mainstream primary classroom teachers by providing practical ideas and resources for newly arrived primary EAL learners. 

Parents can see the material here.

YuBin and Thomas were practicing greetings, colors and the names of objects around the classroom.

Dear Families,

Your children brought their first home reading books from school today.

Please enjoy and support our home reading programme! Read with your child, follow the routine and help your child to remember to bring the home reading folder back to school this Friday.

Warm Regards,

Miss Tatiana

Home Reading Programme

Dear Families,

Welcome to the new school year! 

Learning to read will be an important goal for your child this year. We will be working on this goal every day in our classroom, and you also have an essential part to play at home!

This year you and your child will participate in the Home Reading Programme.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday your child will bring a book home. Please spend ten minutes on the Home Reading Programme with your child each evening.

Here is how the programme works – I will send a book, several cards with questions, a notebook for answering questions and drawing, and a log sheet home with your child in his/her home reading folder.

The Home Reading routine is simple:

•        Enjoy the book together.
•        Then spend a few minutes answering the questions, encourage your child to illustrate his/her answers with colorful drawings.
•        Let your child know that you enjoy the time together
•        Make listening to reading a special time
•        Sign the log sheet for that book

Please have your child bring his/her reading folder to school on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

As always, please contact me if you questions or want to share information about your child. Together we will help children become strong and successful readers!

Sincerely,

Ms. Tatiana

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back!

We had a very exciting first couple of weeks in our new ISPP campus! There are so many changes around and our whole ISPP Elementary community is ready for new beginnings.

I was glad to welcome back my old students and meet the newcomers. During our first week we were getting to know each other. I was trying  to find out more about my students' learning styles and carried out multiple intelligences assessment that I modified for my EAL learners.
They had to answer the questions expressing themselves through words, symbols and color.
The activity was a big success and all my students were very engaged.

Visal, Jock and Samir were very creative!

We also talked about respect and how it is important to respect ourselves, others, ISPP and our planet. During the discussion my students moved from a local to global perspective and created meaningful mind maps that were discussed during a pair-share session. 

Ichiru and Monica are very respectful girls and they were very enthusiastic creating their mind maps.

Sometimes you can pair share with your teacher.

More often you pair share with your friends.

Sharing with friends is so much fun!