Oral Language

I have been horrible at posting lately as school has got the best of me. But, I promise to make an effort to post more regularly, since we have been doing some wonderful activities and lessons in the past few weeks since school has started. 

 

Here is a quick but handy post on oral language. Teachers are often at a loss for ideas on how to run an oral language activity (I will post some more ideas in another post). This book is wonderful, and although it is targeted for EAL students, it really can be used with an grade and academic level. 

Inside this book, there are numerous flash cards relating to different topics (school, home, activities, food, etc.). I have simply photocopied the flash cards that I wanted onto coloured paper and laminated them. 

Now, in my reading class, we use they flash cards for tons of different oral language activities. 

Some activities we do with the flash cards are:

- alphabetical order

- categorising

- synonyms/antonyms

- letter patterns

- 20 questions

Hopefully this helps spawn some other wonderful oral language ideas!

Maths Vocabulary Posters

The importance of using proper terminology in maths has been proven in numerous studies. Thus, when beginning new units in maths, I also make sure that we come up with a class vocabulary poster. This poster begins with all the vocabulary that the students initially can think of that relate to the topic and as we work through the unit, we add more words to the poster. 

This is also very important for any EAL students in your classroom as it helps them to develop their knowledge of the English language and add to their maths vocabulary. 

Here are some examples from different maths units in my class:

Planning for a Narrative

To help students get used to creating a plan for a narrative, we did a bit of practise. 

We began by creating massive lists for "setting", "characters", and "plot" and all students in the class contributed their ideas to our class posters. This helped generate ideas of what you could write a narrative about. 

In the next session when we introduced the planning template to the students, our class completed the following activity. I wrote each different idea for characters (ex. cowboys, astronauts, doctors, aliens) and each different idea for settings (ex. beach, archeology dig, museum, bank) on little slips of paper. 

One by one, each students came up and selected one paper for setting and one paper for characters from a jar. They then had to create a plot and storyline that involved the settings and characters they selected and complete a planning document for that.

An example is the following:

Setting: Outer Space

Characters: Cowboys

(Students had to create their own plots related to those items)

Plot: Cowboys get trapped in outer space as punishment for losing a rodeo. 

Resolution: The cowboys use their lassos to catch Earth and drag themselves back to Earth. 

This activity was wonderful and students had so much fun coming up with all their amazing creative ideas. Also, this activity is great for EAL students as it forces them to think outside of what they are familiar with. An EAL student in my class picked "ocean" as his setting and "soccer players" as his characters. He knew what soccer players were as he loves soccer but had to ask what the "ocean" was. After explaining to him and showing him a picture, he knew exactly what it was and was then able to plan a story. 

EAL Students in a Mainstream Class

I had a student in my class who was a part of the language centre and was a very new arrival to Australia. His English was extremely limited, and that is where I am faced with the challenge. How do you incorporate students with limited English into a mainstream class? If they've had the same amount of schooling in their native language, than they should be able to work at the same level as the other students who are native English speakers. 

Lucky for me, I have an Education Support staff that speaks/read/writes Turkish which is the language that this student spoke. She was so helpful and handy to have and we tried to ensure that he was doing the same/or very similar activities as the rest of the class. Although you want EAL students to learn English, it is still important that you use the native language in the beginning stages of English language acquisition.

For a deconstruction activity, my ES translated the writing into Turkish. Then, in working with the student, they wrote out each part of the deconstruction in Turkish and next translated it in English. This way, the student could understand each part of the information report and also know what that part was called in English.

Another example of this was in our integrated unit on the Olympics. The student completed a KWL chart, just like everyone else, but began in his language and then translated the words he knew into English with assistance. 

Division Simplified

Here is a poster that I make with the children when we start our unit on division. 

It is crucial that students use the correct mathematical vocabulary but sometimes you need to break it down for the students to help them remember what the vocabulary means.

Keeping this poster up and showing 3 different ways to remember the formal algorithm. It is also very helpful for EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in a mainstream class to help them remember the correct mathematical vocabulary and to remember what the vocabulary means.

Group Editing

This is an absolutely amazing idea that was shared with me by my colleague Ryan, who is also coincidentally an amazing teacher. It can be used for any writing genre and has been used in the classrooms for grade 3 to grade 6 students. It can definitely also be used for high school students.

As you move through the writing process for a genre, use this activity for the editing and revising  stage of the writing process. 

Students are placed in mixed ability groups of approximately 4-5 students. They work together to edit each other's writing piece. The person whose work is being edited puts their work on the interactive white board and also have a copy printed for themselves. They get to sit in the "teacher chair" with a clipboard, their printed copy and a red pen for corrections. 

One of the other students is the "computer jockey" and is in charge of the whiteboard marker. The other two or three students are editors. They all sit around in a semi circle facing the interactive whiteboard. The "computer jockey" begins to read the writing piece out loud and editors can chime in whenever they think there is a correction that needs to be made. As a group, they decide how to change the error or how to revise the sentence to make it sound better. The group member whose work is being edited, then make changes on their hard copy.

The students loved this activity as they got to take greater ownership of their work and were given more responsibility and control over their learning. Some constraints may be a lack of interactive whiteboards to use. I was lucky that I have one in my room and was able to borrow a TV for another classroom to connect to. This way I could have two groups editing at the same time. While this occurred, other students were either finishing drafting, or publishing once their work was group edited. 

After the group edited the work, the group decided as a whole if the student whose work was edited achieved our writing goals. They then placed a sticky note beside the goal achieved. Most students achieved the majority of the goals and then simply had to go back to their edited draft and add in either "juice language" (descriptive language) or more technical language (so only simple revision).

I absolutely loved doing these writing sessions and the excitement of the students made it even more worth while. 

This activity is easily linked to the e5 model of instruction as students are able to evaluate their work against learning goals and can visually see their improvement and also areas for future improvement. 

This is also a very positive activity for EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in a mainstream class as they are able to receive assistance from native English speakers in a non-intimidating setting and environment since all students are editing each others work.

One Dollar Sentences

A short one but a good one!

I learnt about this while I was in teacher's college as a strategy to help students explain an idea/concept/etc. in a short sentence. I've used this strategy in high school and now I often use it in primary school and students find it exciting and a challenge. 

It is called a $1 sentence and each word is worth 10 cents. Students are asked to respond to a question or summarise a passage in a one dollar sentence (ten words only!). 

Try it out!!! Trust me it is wonderful!

Possible Sentences

I learnt about this activity in a PD I went to on teaching EAL (English as an Additional Language) students. It is called possible sentences and can be used in reading and writing and also can be modified to be used across all year levels. 

It must be used on a familiar topic but it is a great way to introduce new vocabulary to the students. My example is on London and I have used information from Microsoft Encarta to create the example. 

Students are given a sheet (or place this on the IWB) that looks like the following:

LONDON

1.       capital city, United Kingdom

2.       largest city, Europe

3.       population, 8 million people

4.       the Queen, lives, Buckingham Palace

5.       Westminster Abbey, famous church

6.       transportation, the Tube, double-decker buses

     Only the key words are provided to the students. Their challenge is to put together a sentence using the exact words on each line. So they will essentially build a paragraph of six sentences based on this example and in sentence one, the must use the words "capital city" and "United Kingdom". 

     My students really enjoyed this activity and I've used it to teach new vocabulary, to focus on an area of grammar (such as past tense or writing consistently in a tense) and to model what a paragraph should look like for a writing style.

    If you find this activity is to easy for some students, you can challenge them by stating that their sentence must start with a particular word. For example, a sentence I would make for line one is: The capital city of the United Kingdom is London. But, if I challenge the students and state that they must start the sentence with the word "United Kingdom", it forces students to change their sentence structure and add in more words to something like this: United Kingdom is a collection of countries, yet, the capital city is located in London, England.

     This can also be used at the younger levels by helping students create a sentence by giving them the key vocabulary to use, rather than a paragraph. An EAL strategy but also so useful for language development in native English speakers!

Sculpting

This is an EAL (English as an Additional Language) strategy that I learnt about at a PD by Margery Hertzberg. The name of this activity is "Sculpting" and is a great way to assess whether your students have understood a concept, storyline, definition or idea. Hence, there are a number of ways that you can use this activity. 

I used this in my reading class as a way of students showing their understanding of a new word we learnt that week. The focus in the class that week was making meaning of unfamiliar words.

Teammates sharing a high five after a win with an excited commentator and spectator on the side.

For this activity, students had two minutes in their groups to create (sculpt) a still frame image  to represent to word "commentator" as that was a new word we learnt. I was sooooo impressed with the creativity of the students and all the different ideas they came up with for their image.I've covered their faces for privacy, but the facial expressions added to their images also.

This was a great way for EAL students to show their understanding of a new word. Sometimes they are not always able to verbalise their understandings, thus this activity allows these students to show their understandings in a creative way still proves their learning. This can also be an oral language activity as students need to communicate with their group members to create their sculpture.

A running race with a spectator and commentator on the sidelines.

A basketball game with a commentator on the side of the court.

A ballet performance with a host commentator.

What I Know About...

This was an excellent way to start off our unit on graphing but can be used for basically any topic you would like.

Students formed into a circle and the only material I needed was a soft toss ball. I started by tossing the ball to a random student and they had three seconds to share one thing they knew about graphs. After stating their fact, they toss the ball to the next student and so on. If a student could not state a fact within the three seconds, they sat down. We continued to toss the ball until there were only two students standing up. 

Such a simple concept but the students loved it. As you know, their competitive side often comes out in games in the classroom. We must of come up with over thirty different facts about graphing in this game. 

Next time we play, I will use this to form a class K-W-L chart for the unit. Rather than doing a brainstorm session on the carpet to fill in the "What I Know" section, we will play the game and have a student (or myself) record all the facts stated by the students to then be placed in that section of the K-W-L chart. 

This is also a wonderful EAL strategy to use in a maths classroom. The best way to help students develop their knowledge of the English language is through oral language. We often struggle or forget to focus on vocabulary in maths, thus this game allows students to verbally express their ideas and have exposure to vocabulary specific to the unit in focus. 

Please let me know how you can use this and/or modify it in your classrooms.

Graphing Brainstorm

Here is another example of how to use a progressive brainstorm. This time I used to it introduce different graphs to the students.

Check out my past blog post "Progressive Brainstorm-Fractions" to learn more about how they work. This is a strategy to be used with EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in your class and as you can see, it can easily be used in maths classes also (extra bonus)!

Hot Seat

I've been focusing on questioning in reading and an activity that I found really useful and students love is called "Hot Seat".  I learnt about this activity when I was on a professional development workshop titled Teaching EAL Students in Mainstream Classes  presented by Margery Hertzberg.

During the reading session students read a passage that includes some details on a character, whether fictional or real. After reading the passage, the student is put in the hot seat. They sit on the teacher's chair and take on the role of that character. Students in the class are then able to ask the character questions and the student in the "hot seat" needs to answer with the information they've gained from the passage.

Some questions may be evaluative or inferential, thus, students in the hot seat have to make an inference about how the character may act or feel in a specific situation. 

This activity works well for assessing students comprehension of the passage and also the ability of students to form literal, inferential and evaluative questions. For reading, I follow John Munro's High Reliability Literacy Teaching Procedures. One of the strategies is questioning and this activity falls right into this category.

I would love for other teachers to try this out and send me their feedback and any modifications that worked well. :)

Ask the Right Question

An excellent oral language game that I've used in my reading group is called "Ask the Right Question".

Students play in a group and each person is given a card with a word and picture related to the word on the card. To get the point, students need to ask a question to their group to have students say the word on their card. Almost similar to a Jeopardy, the word on the card is the answer to their question.

For example, if the word on the card is "Olympics", the student may create the following question: "What international sporting event was held in London in 2012?"

This is an excellent game to play with all students but primarily works well with EAL students in your classroom. Many students try to simply give clues, instead of asking a question, so this game forces students to improve their questioning skills.

My students have loved playing this game although it seems like such a simple concept. It can be change for any topic or book that you are studying at the time. Vocabulary cards can then be re-used for other oral language games, such as 20 questions and charades.

English as an Additional Language

I've been attending a number of professional development sessions on teaching English as an Additional Language learners in mainstream classes. The school that I work at has a 94% rate of EAL students. Thus, I believe that receiving EAL training and trying out these strategies is so crucial to assisting in all student's learning in my class.

 

*ESL (English as a Second Language) is now termed as EAL (English as an Additional Language) as many of these students know more than just two languages.

I am hoping to post as many of these strategies that I try out onto this blog. Many of the strategies that we use for EAL students in our classroom also work well for all students. They include a lot of scaffolding of tasks and differentiation of activities. Keep checking the blog for more ideas to use in your classroom.

Below is a list of a few EXCELLENT resource books that I HIGHLY recommend for teaching EAL students:

Teaching English Language Learners in Mainstream Classes by Margery Hertzberg

This can be purchased on the PETAA website: http://www.petaa.edu.au/publicationsstore/publicationdetail?ProductCode=PET097

Grammar and Meaning by Sally Humphrey, Louise Droga, and Susan Feez

This can also be purchased on the PETAA website:
http://www.petaa.edu.au/publicationsstore/publicationdetail?ProductCode=PET098





A New Grammar Companion for Teachers by Beverly Derewianka

Again from the PETAA website:
http://www.petaa.edu.au/publicationsstore/publicationdetail?ProductCode=PET095




Conversations About Text
by J Rossbridge and K Rushton

 

Progressive Brainstorm - Fractions

Learning Focus: Representing fractions in different ways

This is one of the first lesson’s we did in our unit on FRACTIONS. Students completed a pre-test and K-W-L chart on fractions the day before. To assess whether students were able to identify fractions represented in different ways, I decided to use a progressive brainstorm.

Students were placed into four mixed-ability groups and each group was given the same colour marker. Each group was given a poster with a fraction on it. They then had three minutes to write everything they knew about that fraction on the poster. This activity is also sometimes called a GRAFFITI ACTIVITY. When the three minutes finished, the posters were moved to the next group and so on, until each group had a chance to write on each poster. We then shared our posters at the end of the lesson.

The progressive brainstorm strategy works well for EAL students as they are working with their peers and are able to see different ideas on the posters as they are moved around to the groups. Hopefully the different images and visuals on the posters help them spur their own ideas to put on the posters. This activity is great to activate student’s prior knowledge of the topic.

Here are the posters from our class. Remember that when we first started the activity, I had only written the following onto the posters.

one fifth (written out in words), 1/3 represented as a circle, 1/4 represented as a set, 3/4 written as a fraction

From this activity, I was able to learn a few things about the students’ knowledge of fractions. Firstly, most of the students have not understood that each piece of the fraction needs to be an equal part of the whole. Also, I learnt that the majority of students in the class were able to recognise a common fraction based on a picture. This will help lead my sequence of activity for the next few lessons on fractions.

Creating a Bar Graph

Learning Focus: Creating a bar graph from data

During our whole class focus, students spread out into a circle and began to create a large bar graph in the middle of the circle. All the labels for the graph were pre-written by the teacher and students had to take turns placing all the labels onto the graph.

Students had to place the title, labels for the x and y-axis, scale numbers, and categories for the x-axis onto the graph. Then, using the data, they had to create their bar graph by representing the data with concrete materials.

The EAL strategy used is called Matching and Labelling. This activity caters to EAL students in your class as it scaffolds the task for them. Instead of giving students a blank canvas to create a graph, students are given the labels to assist them in beginning to create their graph. This also allows teachers to observe students understanding of how data is displayed on a graph (ex. what information goes on what axis). Also, by allowing students to work in a mixed ability group, EAL students get a chance to observe 5 star work and input their own opinions and ideas without feeling intimidated to get the wrong answer.

Although this was an EAL strategy that I used, all students were focussed and thoroughly enjoyed the activity. This maths activity was SO engaging for the students as they did not want to stop. One student asked if we can do this every day.

After we created a whole class graph, in groups, students went and made their own graph using concrete materials in the room with new data. Here are some of their work samples: