Teaching English to first
generation learners
NISA School Leaders Summit,
Dec 5 2012
Common factors affecting teaching/learning
English
•
•
•
•
•
•
Parents have no /very little literacy or English
language skills
No exposure to language and no opportunities for
practice
Teacher language skills need enhancing
Methodology needs to focus on development of
skills ( listening speaking reading and writing)
Teaching learning material has to be chosen with
specific needs in mind
Clarity of objective of teaching ( as a 2nd
Language/ medium of instruction )
Teaching oral language
To develop oral communication skills, focus on
activities that encourage learners to talk in a
supportive environment such as in pairs or groups.
• information gap activities where learners have
to exchange information in order to complete a
task
• Opinion gap activities where learners share and
discuss their own personal feelings, attitudes
or preferences about ideas or topics
Teaching oral language
• General communicative activities - games,
group work, songs, everyday classroom
interactions
• Formal talks, oral reports and presentations.
Debates, skits performance , show and tell ,
circle time etc.
• Encourage use of academic related vocabulary
- Math vocabulary, Scientific vocabulary
• Drill commonly used structures
Content
Vocabulary
(Specific to
subjects)
Academic
Vocabulary
(Used
across all
content
areas)
Support
Vocabulary
Conversational
English
Math
vocabulary
Add , Minus,
Subtract,
Multiply,
Denominator,
Numerator
Science
vocabulary
Questioning
words :
Words used
in text books
and
worksheets
that are
challenging
and students
need to
understand
meanings in
context
Words and
structure used in
conversational
English
Tripod, vapour,
photosynthesis
What, when
who , why ,
where,
explain
Explain,
analyze,
separate,
distinguish
Games that help to reinforce oral language
Simon Says : use to reinforce actions and
vocabulary related to actions. The game is
played by the teacher or student giving
instructions to the whole class Eg : Simon says
sit down; Simon says lift your right hand; Simon
says turn to your left and walk four steps.
The difficulty level and the way in which the
game is played can be decided by the teacher
according to skills and vocabulary to be taught
and reinforced
Show and tell :
This can be a part of every English class / class circle time
where two or three children get a chance to show and talk
about something that is of great interest to them every day
Example : They may bring a picture of their favourite movie
star and talk about him; They may bring their pet dog to
school and talk about the dos to the class
Generally this activity will only take about 5 minutes and
care should be taken to ensure that over the week or month
all students get a chance to participate
Teachers can help with the vocabulary and language content
. The activity is more effective if there can be a question and
answer session as part of the activity where other students
question the presenter
Teaching reading
Phonic methods of teaching reading
• sets of sounds and sound groupings which
differ from the first language
• intonation patterns and their meanings
• patterns of stress and pause
• grammar conventions eg different word
order in sentences
• print conventions eg reading from left to
right
Phonic reading programs
Synthetic Phonics
Jolly Phonics
Teaching Phonics
1.Learning the letter sounds: Children are taught the 42
main letter sounds. This includes alphabet sounds as well as
digraphs such as sh, th, ai and ue.
2.Learning letter formation: Using different multi-sensory
methods, children learn how to form and write the letters.
3.Blending: Children are taught how to blend the sounds
together to read and write new words.
4.Identifying the sounds in words (Segmenting): Listening
for the sounds in words gives children the best start for
improving spelling.
5.Tricky words: Tricky words have irregular spellings and
children learn these separately.
Jolly Phonics Letter introduction sequence
http://jollylearning.co.uk/2010/11/02/jolly-phonics-presentations/
Listening/
Auditory
Seeing/
visual
Speaking/
saying aloud
Doing/
Kinesthetic
Extension activities:
• Vocabulary lists to include active and passive
vocabulary
• Subject related vocabulary to be included
Reading programs :
• Teacher reading stories and text to students
• Independent and guided reading
• Drop Everything and Read
Choose reading materials that:
• have good visual cues to enable the student to
access the story easily
• reflect the experiences, knowledge and interests
of the learners
Involve the learner in a number of reading
experiences every day which focus on language in
context
• Exposure to meaningful print in the immediate
environment - signs, charts, labels
• Use a range of texts to develop understandings
of the organisation and language features of
different genres and the conventions of English
• Taped reading
• Shared book experiences and big books
• wordless books/ picture sequences/
photographs to build a story/recount
• Cloze activities to focus on comprehension or on
different aspects of language
Reading material and strategies
Reading material should be chosen so that they are
contextual and related to the life and experiences of
beginning readers
Use graded reading material with visual clues if
possible – The Orient Longman – CIEFL reading 400
series is a good example of graded reading
Encourage children to keep track of their own
reading levels
Retelling and discussion is important to check
understanding
Have a class library where each student contributes
one book of their choice and have all students
complete all the books by the end of the year
Reading circles
Reading circles in groups of four or six– Have
sets of four books available.
• Let students choose their own book
• Form teams based on students' choices of
books
• Encourage readers to use notes, post-its, and
discussion questions to analyse their books
• Have teams conduct discussions about the book
• Facilitate further discussion with the whole class
on each of the books
• Have teams share what they read with the
whole class
• Book reviews to be written and put up in
class/school
Writing skills
• Classroom teachers can help students to
develop writing skills by using a variety of
strategies that help promote students‛ thinking
in English
• Spend more time in pre-writing stage
• Generating oral sentences before writing
• Use of graphic organizers
• Model good writing at their language level
• Brainstorm vocabulary and make lists
• Teach non-fiction reading and writing first
• Integrate with other disciplines including art,
music and drama
Rather than having students simply memorize
information, teachers must model and explicitly
teach skills Some strategies:
• Taking something meaningful from the
students’ everyday lives and using it as a
springboard to interest them in language use
• Use of modelling, graphic organizers, and a
variety of visual aids, including pictures,
diagrams, and charts, helps students
recognize essential information and its
relationship to supporting ideas.
• Use vocabulary journals, word lists, word
webs, word walls.
• Use interactive editing, cloze paragraphs,
dictations, subject-specific journals
Scaffold learners’ writing by:
• modelling all aspects of the writing process
• teaching the text organization and language
features of different genres through a range of
different activities
• jointly constructing texts with students
• supporting the development of editing and proof
reading skills
• using shared experiences(eg excursions) to write
class or individual books/texts
• using photos and other visual stimuli (such as
sequenced pictures) in the early stages of writing
development particularly
• using groups and pairs to develop group texts
Assessment of Learning ( Formative and
Summative )
• Content Retelling, Content Dictation,
vocabulary tests using unfamiliar content of
grade level
• Cloze Procedure exercises
• Graphic Representation/ semantic maps
• Writing Samples
• Group quiz, participation, presentation
• Teacher Observation / Anecdotal
• Portfolio
• Formal tests covering LSRW skills
Teacher Development specific to teaching of
English – What do we focus on ?
• Developing teacher skills in English
• Defining learning outcomes
• Use of teaching methodology which focuses on
skill development
• Assessment of learning feeding back to
classroom teaching
• Ensuring student engagement
• Identifying, creating and using teaching –
learning material
Teacher Development specific to teaching of
English – How do we do this ?
• Workshops and training
• Reading circles for teachers using different
types of text
• Discussion groups
• Intensive lesson planning sessions conducted
at least once a week and moderated by the
subject leads
• Peer observation and feedback
Teaching learning material used at Christel
House
• Jolly phonics
(http://jollylearning.co.uk/overview-about-jolly-phonics)
•
Orient Longman reading cards ( Reading 400 series)
• Oxford reading tree
(http://www.oup.com/oxed/primary/oxfordreadingtree)
•
Ginn readers
•
Marigold readers and workbooks
•
Pratham books ( http://blog.prathambooks.org)
•
Internet resources