Saturday 19 March 2011
SATEAL CONFERENCE
Scaffolding language learning
Identifying language functions
and using key visuals
Manny Vazquez
Hounslow EAL Team
Academic Vocabulary
Compute not your immature gallinaceans prior to the
puncture of their brittle epidermis.
Cleave gamineous matter for fodder during the period
in which the orb of the day is refulgent.
Every substance which coruscates is not fashioned
from aureate material.
After 6-8 months
Polish speaker Year 6
Q.Why do houses have to have a roof?
Because when it raining you cannot..wet.
Q.Why do you wear football boots.
Because when you’re running on the grass you cannot
flip over the edge. If you have these (pointed to studs in the
picture) go little bit ground.
Q.Can you describe how a hot air balloon works?
Fire…. When you pull the arm there is fire and the smoke
go out and… (gesture - pressed arm down) and then the air
pull out the smoke and then air comes in.
Aims
• To explore ways of developing
thinking skills and language
functions in our learners
• To look at how key visuals can help
us do this
Starting point:
Know the Language Functions and their
language patterns
Naming
Sequencing
Describing
Sorting from known criteria
Asking questions
Comparing and contrasting
Classifying
Explaining
Deducing
Hypothesising
Generalising
Reasoning
Problem solving
Analysing
Ranking
Evaluating
Science, History and Geography in the National
Curriculum
Find out about different plants and animals in the
environment
Identify light sources
What objects that have survived tell us about Ancient
Egypt
How a switch can be used to break a circuit
Find out what happened in the Great Fire of London
Follow a route on a map
Recognise how places compare with other places
Use knowledge of liquids to decide how a mixture
might be separated and interdependent
Cognitive language
All language functions are expressed in
language patterns or structures
example
3. Identify the language
functions in a task
How to break a circuit
explaining
Find out about animals and plants in the
local environment
Describing, classifying
What objects that have survived tell us about
Ancient Egypt
Identifying/ describing/ deducing/ hypothesising
The Knowledge Framework
(Mohan 1986)
Classification
Principles
Evaluation
Description
Sequence
Choice
The Knowledge Framework
(Mohan 1986)
Classification
Principles
Evaluation
Classify chess pieces
Understand the rules
for moves
Evaluate moves
according
to strategies
Description
Sequence
Choice
Identify chess
pieces
Sequence moves
Choose
appropriate moves
6 main ways of expressing language
Ways of classifying
Ways of reasoning
Ways of expressing
and justifying an
opinion
Ways of describing
Ways of sequencing
Ways of making
decisions
Activity types
Ways of classifying
Ways of reasoning
Ways of expressing
and justifying an
opinion
Sorting activities
Matching/
sequencing
activities
Ranking activities
Ways of describing
Ways of sequencing
Ways of making
decisions
Matching activities
Sequencing
activities
Decision making
activities
6 types of activity and their matching
language functions
Ways of classifying
Ways of reasoning
Ways of expressing and justifying
an opinion
Sorting activities
Matching/sequencing activities
Ranking activities
Classifying
Generalising
Explaining
Predicting
Deducing
Hypothesising
Generalising
Ranking
Evaluating
Ways of describing
Ways of sequencing
Ways of making decisions
Matching activities
Labelling
Naming
Identifying
Describing
Measuring
Comparing/ contrasting
Sequencing activities
Decision making activities
Sequencing
Narrating
Following a process
Making decisions
Solving problems
Language patterns across a topic
Ways of classifying
Ways of reasoning
Different sources of Why floods occur?
rivers
One source is a glacier
Floods occur
when……which leads to….
Ways of expressing
and justifying an
opinion
What is the most
important use of a
river?
I think the most important
use of a river
is…..because…..
Ways of describing
Ways of sequencing
Ways of making
decisions
Compare and
contrast 2 rivers
What happens in a
flood?
How would you save
water?
The source of the River…
is a …. whereas the
source of the
River….is…..
First………next…. ..then…
I would save water by…..
What are key visuals?
•Visual organisers such as tables, charts, diagrams
• An aid to present information clearly
• Help pupils’ conceptual development
Using key visuals
•
•
•
•
•
•
1.Completing a diagram
2.Classifying pictures and text
3.Listening to and sequencing a text
4.Using clues
5.Reading texts
6.Matching,classifying,sequencing,
ranking/ evaluating statements
Scaffolding
pupil talk
Meat eaters
Plant eaters
Cat
Squirrel
Hawk
Mouse
Producer
Seeds
Consumer/
prey
Predator
Mouse
Cat
EAL Planning Framework
(Pauline Gibbons)
Activity
Visual
support
Sorting
animals
into
plant/me
at eaters
T chart
Creating
a food
chain
Flow
diagram
Language
functions
Language
structures
Classifying
This is a..
Meat
It eats..
Plants
Picture of
garden
Vocabulary
Leaves
Cat
Picture of
garden
Sequencing
a process
First…
Producer
The ..eats..
Consumer
The …is
eaten by..
Prey
Literature Geography
History
Literature
Describing
Evaluating
Expressing
feelings
The top/bottom of the hill… the hillside..
The scenery….down by the river
beautiful, rugged,rolling hills, isolated, bleak, grandeur
Geography
Naming
Locating
Describing
Cause and
effect
The peak…the slope…the valley…the
riverbank…rainfall…erosion
steep, contours,features
caused by…occurs when…
History
Naming
Locating
Describing
Deducing
Hypothesising
Hilltop…slope…valley…riverbank….
hillfort..fortification…rampart…village…dwellings
defence…safety…shelter
was probably…could have been …most likely
Examples of language functions in History, Geography and Science
Naming/ identifying That’s the source of the river.
He’s a chimney sweep.
Describing
Tutankhamun’s funeral mask was made of gold with…
Classifying
These are different kinds of Egyptian jewellery. Those are
equipment for cooking.
Limestone is a permeable rock.
That’s made of glass.
Sequencing
First of all the Persians invaded Greece. Then…
The first thing that happens is that water flows over rock.
The water then…
Comparing
and contrasting
The climate in England is… whereas in Saint Lucia it is…
Marble is harder rock than chalk
Examples of language functions in History, Geography and Science
Explaining
Henry viii married six times because….
Ranking/evaluating
I think that rivers are important because they provide
water for us.
People in….find that the best use of water is for…..
The most important man in Egyptian society was the
Pharaoh.
Cause and effect
Rivers affect the landscape by….
A cool box is a thermal insulator. As it can keep the
heat out so the food inside the box stays cool
Deducing
I think that he’s a Roman soldier because he’s
carrying….
Hypothesising
They found lots of …. in the Mary Rose. That tells us
that Tudor sailors probably used to….
In Egyptian times the Pharaoh would have……. We
know this because….
•Key Visuals
Used for:
• Organising thinking around texts,
pictures etc.
• Enhancing pupil discussion about
texts, pictures, videos, artefacts etc.
• Reporting back
Language of History
Interpreting and explaining when/ how
Past tense : passive forms
Modal verbs: might have, would have
Abstract nouns
Punishment, the poor
Specialist vocabulary for History
Henry viii ruled….reigned….
Idiomatic language
Sat on the throne
Draw it
What do
you
think its
made
of?
What
colour is
it? Is it
plain or
decorated
?
What do you
think its for?
Who do you
think would
have used it,
rich or poor?
What is this?
I think it is a ,,,,,,because…………….
It could also be ……since it…….
pointed
heart-shaped
metallic
scalloped edges
As it is …………at the bottom it might
be……………
Reasoning and deducing
WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?
TEXT 1 (verbal discussion – context bound)
“try this one…..no it doesn’t go…..it doesn’t
move….try that…..yes..it does a bit….that won’t
work…..it’s not metal…..these are the best…..it’s
making them go really fast”
TEXT 4
A magnet is a piece of metal which is surrounded
by an invisible field of force within it. It is able to
pick up a piece of steel or iron because its
magnetic field flows into the metal, turning it
into a temporary magnet.
Reporting back – a strategy for language
development
3. Our experiment was to find out
what a magnet attracted. We
discovered that a magnet
attracts some kinds of metal.
It attracted the iron filings, but
not the pin. It also did not
attract things that were not
metal.
4. A magnet is a piece of metal
which is surrounded by an
invisible field of force within
it. It is able to pick up a piece
of steel or iron because its
magnetic field flows into the
metal, turning it into a
temporary magnet.
1.
“try this one…..no it doesn’t
go…..it doesn’t move….try
that…..yes..it does a
bit….that won’t work…..it’s
not metal…..these are the
best…..it’s making them go
really fast”
2.
2. “We tried a pin, a pencil
sharpener, some iron filings
and a piece of plastic. The
magnet didn’t attract the
pin, but it did attract the
pencil sharpener and the
iron filings. It didn’t attract
the plastic.”
Opportunities to report back (assessment for learning)
Science: magnets
The magnet did The magnet
attract this
didn’t attract
this
pin
pencil
sharpener
iron filings
plastic
Reporting Back
1. Highly contextualised talk using a key visual
shared experience)
(from a
2. Using the completed key visual as a means of reporting
back to the class (not a shared experience)
1. “try this one…..no it doesn’t go…..it doesn’t
move….try that…..yes..it does a bit….that won’t
work…..it’s not metal…..these are the best…..it’s
making them go really fast”
2.
“We tried a pin, a pencil sharpener, some iron
filings and a piece of plastic. The magnet didn’t
attract the pin, but it did attract the pencil
sharpener and the iron filings. It didn’t attract the
plastic.”
Key Visuals for reading
Scanning
texts
Extracting
Recalling
Reading
and recording information
information more easily
and understanding textual organisation
Trying some texts
Activity
Which key visuals would / could you
use with these texts?
Key Visuals to generate writing
For writing notes
• Sentence level and text level writing – a form
of writing frame
• Tables – for sentence and paragraph
construction
• Matrices and tick charts – for writing
descriptions
• Sequence charts – for writing stories, about
processes
• Explanation(cause and effect charts) – for
writing explanations at sentence or paragraph
level
• Ranking charts – for ranking and evaluating
Write explanations
Existing
condition
A camel is perfect
for the desert
Another reason
Cause
has large
spreading toes
can close nostrils
because
as
Effect
can walk on
soft sand
sand doesn’t
go up them
so
therefore
this means
Explanations
Why/ How? (Causal explanation)
Existing condition
Cause
Effect
How an animal can
live in its habitat
because…
as…
which leads to…
which means that…
therefore…..
Why a thermos
flask is good for
keeping drinks hot
which helps it to…
Why people like/
dislike a character
in a story
Why the Romans
invaded Britain
which lead to…
which meant that…
Why rivers get
polluted
as a result…
KEY VISUALS
• Explanatory
• Evaluative
• Generative
PLENARY
• Try out some Key Visuals to help
mediate and develop language in
your next lessons
• Key Visuals CD
• Questions