The CALLA Handbook – Chapter 1
What is CALLA?
Dr. Ellen de Kanter
University of St. Thomas
Instructional Strategies for the Content
Area in ESL
BIED 5336
Background and Rationale
Learning Strategies
Academic Language Skills
Academic Content
Influence of Cognitive Theory
Background and Rationale
Most Students can profit from instruction in learning strategies.
Many students lack academic language skills
that would enable them to use English as a tool for learning.
Adding academic content to the ESL curriculum prepares
students for grade-level content classrooms.
CALLA has been influenced and supported by cognitive theory,
research, and ongoing classroom use.
Overview of CALLA
 The CALLA Model
 Content Topics
 Academic Language Skills
 Learning Strategy Instruction
 Calla Integrates
 Language Development
 Content Area Instruction
 Explicit Instruction in Learning Strategies
Theoretical Framework
What is Learned?
Cognitive Theory
Kind of Memory
Declarative Knowledge
Procedural Knowledge
IF my goal is to engage in conversation with sally,
and Sally is monolingual in English, THEN the
subgoal is to use my second language.
Theoretical Framework
Production Systems in math problem
Solving
Understand the Question
Find the Needed Data
Develop a Plan
Solve the problem
Check Back
Theoretical Framework
Meta Cognitive Knowledge
Theoretical Framework
How is New Information learned?
Learning Declarative Knowledge
Learning Procedural knowledge
Theoretical Framework
Learning is an active and dynamic process.
Three types of knowledge.
Declarative: Knowledge of Facts.
Procedural: Knowledge of “ How To” do
things.
Metacognitive: Relate current learning tasks to
past knowledge and learning procedures.
Theoretical Framework
Declarative and procedural knowledge are
learned in different ways and retrieved from
memory in different ways.
Teachers should learn to recognize
declarative and procedural knowledge in
content materials, identify strategies used
by students, and influence strategy use.
Theoretical Framework
Students can take control over their own
learning and develop independent learning
Related Instructional Concepts
 Language Across the
curriculum
 Language Learning
Approach
 Whole Language
 Phonemic Awareness
 Process writing
 Cooperative learning
 Cognitive Instruction
Related Instructional Concepts
 Language Across the Curriculum: practiced in all
subjects.
 The Language Experience Approach: particularly
advantageous with beginning level ESL students.
 Whole Language: valuable for all students.
 Process Writing: recommended for all types of writing in
all content areas.
 Cooperative Learning: A learning stratagy taught overtly
in CALLA.
 Cognitive Instruction: Calla is based on cognitive theory
and research.
WHOLE LANGUAGE
Refers to an approach--not a program. Listening, speaking, reading, and
writing are presented as an integrated whole. Children are challenged to
take risks in using language for a purpose.The teacher always moves
from the whole rather than the part. Skills are not taught in isolation,
but in context of language that is real. Therefore, literature is a vital
focus in whole language teaching. It is used to expand students'
vocabularies and to give them words and patterns they need to express
their feelings and thoughts to others. There is a natural integration with
other areas of the curriculum such as math, social studies, science, and
music. Emphasis is placed on developing the thinking processes such as
organizing information for speaking and writing, making predictions,
and making inferences. These processes are essential for preparing the
ESL student to develop readiness to enter the mainstream curriculum.
Curriculum Guide for ESL.
Alief ISD
Whole Language
Flowchart for Planning Integrated unit
Whole Language
 Commonsense
Assumptions
 1. Learning proceeds from
part to whole.
 2. Lessons should be teacher
centered is the transfer of
knowledge from the teacher
to the student.
 3. Lessons should prepare
students to function in
society after schooling.
 4. Learning takes place as
individuals practice skills
and form habits.
 Whole Language
Principles
 1. Learning proceeds from
whole to part.
 2. Lessons should be learner
centered because learning
because learning is the active
construction of know-ledge
by the student.
 3. Lessons should have
meaning and purpose for
students now.
 4. Learning takes place as
groups engage in meaningful
social interaction.
Whole Language, Cont.
 5 .In a second language, oral
language acquisition precedes the
development of literacy.
 5.In a second language, oral and
written language are acquired
simultaneously.
 6. Learning should take place in
English to facilitate the
acquisition of English.
 6. Learning should take place in
the first language to build
concepts and facilitate the
acquisition of English.
 7 .The learning potential of
bilingual students is limited.
 7.Learning potential is expanded
through faith in the learner.
(Freeman & Freeman, 1991)
WHOLE LANGUAGE CHECKLIST
 1. DOES THE LESSON MOVE FROM THE GENERAL TO THE SPECIFIC?
ARE DETAILS PRESENTED WITHIN A GENERAL CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK?
 2. IS THERE AN ATTEMPT TO DRAW ON STUDENT BACKGROUND
KNOWLEDGE AND INTERESTS? ARE STUDENTS GIVEN CHOICES?
 3. IS THE CONTENT MEANINGFUL ? DOES IT SERVE A PURPOSE FOR THE
LEARNERS?
 4. DO STUDENTS WORK TOGETHER COOPERATIVELY? DO STUDENTS
INTERACT WITH ONE ANOTHER OR DO THEY ONLY REACT TO THE
TEACHER?
 5. DO STUDENTS HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO READ AND WRITE AS WELL
AS SPEAK AND LISTEN DURING THE LESSON?
 6. IS THERE SUPPORT FOR THE STUDENTS' FIRST LANGUAGE AND
CULTURE?
.
COMPONENT PROCESSES OF
LEARNING TO READ
 Phonological Awareness
 Listening games, rhymes, sentences and words, syllables,
initial
sounds (s-and), final sounds (san-d), phonemic segmentation (s-a-n-d),
letter names and sounds.
 Kindergarten through grade one--precedes alphabetic principle--should
precede assessment in this area.





Print Awareness
Alphabetic Awareness
Orthographic Awareness
Comprehension
Practice
(The PEER Program, HISD, 1996)
DEFINITIONS: PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS/PHONOLOGICAL
PROCESSING/PHONOLOGICAL SKILLS
 Sensitivity to segments in the speech stream. Demonstrated
by ability to produce and recognize rhymes, to alliterate,
and to segment and blend words into syllables (e.g., repub-lic), onset; rimes (e.g. c-at); and phonemes--e.g.,
[ability to segment medial phonemes and transpose
phonemes--e.g., play Pig Latin--is reciprocal, with, rather
than a precursor to reading]
 PHONEMIC AWARENESS is the ability to deal explicitly
and segmentally with sound units smaller than the syllable
(i.e., phonemes).
.
READING
 A balanced approach (Honig, 1996) is:
 "one that combines the language and literature and literature rich activities
associated with whole language aimed at enhancing meaning,
understanding, and the love of language with explicit teaching of the skills
needed to develop fluency with print, including the automatic recognition
of a growing number of words and the ability to decode new words."(p. 2)
 One in five have trouble reading (Shaywitz, Shaywitz,
Fletcher and Esobar, 1990)
 all children take what they know about internal sound structures of words
and apply this knowledge to print (Liberman, Shankweiler, and Liberman,
1989). Consequently, all children learn to read by sounding out words
regardless of how they are taught. When children
READING, Cont.
 are successful early readers, it is clear that this skill is maximized. When they fail
to learn to read, it is clear that this particular skill does not develop properly
(Stanovich,1986; Vellutino, 1987).
 …children raised in alternative language environments may have difficulty
learning to decode words because of differences in dialect or because they had
significant exposure to languages other than the primary language of instruction.
In many of these children, the problem still revolves around their development of
phonological awareness skillls (Vellutino, 1987).
 Approximately 80 percent of all children served as learning disabled in the public
schools have problems with reading (Lerner, 1989). Of these cases, it has been
estimated that 90 percent have problems with development of decoding skills
(Lyon, 1995; Lyon and Watson, 1981 ).
(The PEER Program, HISD, 1996)
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
 Cooperative Learning is the structuring of classrooms so
that students work together in small heterogeneous groups to
meet common learning objectives.
 Their contribution to group work results in group as well
as personal accomplishment.
 The student interaction occurring during Cooperative
Learning promotes academic achievement and positive
feelings about school, teachers, other students, and self .
ROLE OF TEACHERS IN
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
1. Set instructional objectives.
2. Make decisions relevant to
grouping, room arrangements,
materials, and role assignments.
3. Set tasks and positive
interdependence.
.4. Evaluate learning and group
cooperation.
"It is important to explain that their
role has shifted from transmitters of
knowledge to mediators of thinking."
IDRA NEWSLETTER XVI {9), 1989
PROCESS WRITING
1. Prewriting (preparing, purpose, main idea, details)
.talking, questioning, clustering, reading, journals
2. Drafting (getting ideas on paper)
.fast writing, buddy/dialogue journals, logs
3. Revising (reordering, reviewing)
.peer response groups, show and not tell
4. Editing (correcting grammar, spelling, mechanics)
.peer editing groups, proof reading
5. Publishing (creating classroom library, sharing)
.bulletin boards, school papers, school book fairs
Peregoy & Boyle, 2001
ACTIVE LEARNING
Definition
It refers to the level of engagement by the
student in the instructional process. The teacher
and student share the responsibility for learning.
T heoretical Base
It derives from situated cognition theorists such
as Paolo Freire (instruction is most effective when
situated within a student's own knowledge and world
view), and L.S. Vygotsky's "zone of proximal
development" ( students learn best when new
i nformation presented is just beyond the reach of
their present knowledge) .
Community and Culture
Key elements of the approach come from Luis
Moll's "Funds of Knowledge" model (language
minority students come to school with knowledge
and strengths that should be utilized by
the school).
Students learn content, develop conceptual
knowledge, acquire language through a discovery
oriented approach to learning. The learner is viewed
as responsible for discovering, constructing, and
creating something new--and the teacher is seen as
a resource and facilitator .
V. Fern, K. Anstrom, B. Silcox, Directions in
Language and Education, Vol. 1 (2), NCBE
C'
Freirei (1970, 1973, 1985)
1985)andFreire&Macedo (1987) have argued for a literacy that
makes oppressed communities socially and
pomically conscious about their subservient
role and lowly status in society. The
argument is that literacy must go welt beyond
the skills of reading and writing. It must
make people aware of their sociocultural
context and their political environment. This
may occur through mother tongue literacy,
multilingual literacy ( and local/international
'multiple' literacies of value in differing
contexts) and localllteracies (Street,1984).
(Baker, C. , 1996, p. 308)