EAL Grade 3 Research

One of our learning intentions during Sharing the Planet Unit of Inquiry was to develop our students' research skills. Our Grade 3 English learners had various opportunities to practice looking for information, extracting the important bits from the text, paraphrasing and taking notes.

In Miss Lisa's classroom, the children were learning about various climate zones. They were offered to read the text about different climates, focus on keywords, paraphrase the important facts and use them in their own posters.

Miss Lisa gives instructions.

In Miss Anita's and Miss Lisa's rooms, several students chose to focus on the problem of food waste. They decided to interview our cafeteria chef to find out what happens to the food leftovers in ISPP. I supported these students while they were thinking of the interview questions. It was exciting to observe our third graders (several of them EAL students) confidently asking questions and taking notes when they heard the answers. Everyone in our group enjoyed this authentic learning experience. The children discovered some cool facts about our school and were eager to share their findings with the rest of their class.

Revising the questions before the interview.

EFL Grade 3 Class

In our EFL class, the children learned about the pollution of the ocean. We listened to several podcasts and watched a couple of videos ( video 1; video 2). I chose to practice note taking in the form of mindmaps. After a meaningful discussion, the children were ready to create persuasive posters. The students choose to persuade various audiences to help sea turtles to survive. As usually persuasive sentence frames were offered to our English language learners to support them.
The students enjoyed creating the posters in pairs or groups of three and presented the outcomes at the end of the class. The audience was very supportive and lots of positive feedback was provided.

Bravo Sean and Hyon Ung!

Chou chay and Riku did a good job!

Soyal, Oscar and Peter's presentation was a big success as well!

GRADE 3 EAL SUPPORT IN CLASS

Reader's Theatre was the highlight of this week in Miss Lisa's class. Several plays about recycling and environmental issues were offered to our students. The children worked in 5 groups of four and enthusiastically practiced reading with expression. It was exciting to observe the spontaneous discussions in the groups that happened during the reading practice. Our Grade 3 learners asked each other questions, made comments and practiced giving reasons for their opinions.

Our students worked in small groups.

Miss Lisa's students also enjoyed "I WONDER" session this week. "I WONDER" time gives our students a chance to pursue their own interests and enrich their knowledge about the matter of their choice. Most of Grade 3 students are interested in various fields of knowledge: some like to learn more about space and our Solar System, others are interested in animals and insects or various machines and robots that help people. The students are guided in the process of inquiry and research and are aware of the success criteria for the project. The outcome of the research can be presented as a slide show, a poster or a fact sharing session. The children may choose to present to the whole class or small group or not to present at all. The scaffolding in a form of sentence frames is offered to our students to support and structure their presentations or sharings.

Nao Nao collects information about our Solar System.

In Miss Anita's class, we continued to support our students in a quality opinion writing. The focus of this week was on "hooking" the audience. Various strategies for building connections with your audience were revised and discussed. The students shared their knowledge and discussed the language features remembered from the books they read. The importance of strong and thoughtful reasons with facts was highlighted by some children. 
After the discussion, the students were engaged in a collaborative thinking activity. They had to make a claim and support it with three strong reasons. The students worked in pairs and had to share and comment on the quality of reasons. I have prepared some card with claims, however, the children were allowed to come up with their own ideas.

Pair-sharing the claims and discussing the reasons.

Luie and her partner had opposite opinions on the same matter and had a great discussion.