Sarah Girgis
CLAD chapter 4- Oracy and literature for English-language development
This chapter discusses 3 themes
1.) English Language development standards that help teachers organize and
develop their programs.
2.) Model for integrating the language methods within a specific curriculum.
3.) We explore the four language modalities and provide suggestions for specific
lessons and activities that promote English-language oracy and literacy
development.
English-Language Development standards
1.) In order to provide educators with directions and strategies to assist English
Learners, the international professional organization teachers of English to
speakers of other languages INC, (TESOL, INC._ developed an ESL standards
documents to draw attention to English leaner’s needs.
2.) 3 ESL goals and standards
a. Goal 1: To use English to Communicate in social settings
i. Use English to participate in social interactions
ii. Interact in, through and with spoken and written English for
personal expression and enjoyment.
iii. Use learning strategies to extend their communicative
competence.
b. Goal 2: to use English to achieve academically in all content areas
i. Use English to interact in the classroom
ii. Use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject
matter information spoken and written form.
iii. Use appropriate learning strategies to construct and apply
academic knowledge.
c. Goal 3: to use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways
i. Use the appropriate language variety, register, and genre
according to audience, purpose, and setting.
ii. Use nonverbal communication appropriate to audience,
purpose, and setting
iii. Use appropriate learning strategies to extend their
sociolinguistic and socio-cultural competence
Integrating Language skills
The integrated skills approach states that instead of teaching reading apart from
writing, listening, and speaking, educators now recommend that these skills be
combined smoothly into instruction that develops language in a unified way.
LISTENING:
Listening to Repeat: the most common audiolingual strategy is…
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Minimal pair pattern practice
o Students are asked to listen to and repeat simple phrases that differ
by only one phoneme
o Ex- it is a ship/it is a sheep, he is barking/ he is parking
Backward buildup
o Students are given the end of a sentence or phrase to repeat; when
they are successful, earlier parts of the sentence are added until the
complete phrase is mastered.
o Ex- store/the store/ walked to the store/ peter walked to the store
Listening to understand: the task approach
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typical classroom tasks are listening to an audiotape and completing
true/false exercises based on the content.
Listening to a lecture and completing an outline of notes.
Listening for communication: The comprehension approach
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Total physical response (TPR) based on the association between language
and body movement and can be an engaging, lively addition to classroom
techniques.
Ex- the teacher says “stand” while standing up and sit while sitting down and
students follow along.
o The instructor repeats the commands followed by the appropriate
action until students perform without hesitation.
o The instructor then begins to delay his or her own action to allow
students the opportunity to respond and this demonstrate
understanding.
Speaking
Situations for spoken discussions
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students learn needed discourse skills by interacting with different
conversational partners, other students, the teacher, other adults at school,
cross-age peers, classroom visitors, and so on.
There are 3 principles to help teachers set up such environments
o 1.) Consider the emotional setting: Teachers set up a climate of trust
and respect by encouraging students to respect the language of their
peers by listening respectfully when students speak, and by working
with students to establish classroom rules of respect and support.
o 2.) create a physical setting for talk: classrooms need to be arranged
so that students have flexibility in working and interacting group
students for instruction: students need frequent opportunities to talk.
Improving oral- proficiency
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intervening actively: clarification checks may be interjected politely when
communication is impaired.
Correction or completion by the teacher may be given after the teacher has
allowed ample wait time.
On page 84 there is a list of activities that teachers can use for oral practice in
the ELD classroom
Ex: mini conversations, role play, oral games, skits—group puzzles,
brainstorming, storytelling—panel discussions, debates, discussions of
literature.
Reading
Seven instructional procedures have proved successful in leading students to
literacy in their second language.
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Environmental print: students see labels, announcements, names, and signs
with as many contextual clues as possible. Such labels are often written by
the students themselves, giving them pride of ownership and purposeful
writing opportunities.
Meaning based- literacy activities move from the known to the unknown.
A silent period in reading: literacy is allowed to emerge naturally. Students
go through a silent period in reading, often mouthing words while the
teacher reads aloud.
Low-anxiety environment: Effective literacy environments are free of
anxiety.
Motivating activities: activities stimulate thinking and have value beyond
that of a classroom exercise. They enjoy writing when they know they will
have a comment, not a correction, from the teacher.
Integration of content and literacy: content- area instruction is integrated
with literacy. (table 4.4 page 88) provides teachers with activites to support
English Learners literacy development
Strategies for English learners literacy instruction
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Pre-reading activities: help students background knowledge prior to working
with text.
Language Experience Approach (LEA) a strategy that is particularly helpful
for non-literate students. As a student tells a story or relates an event, the
teacher writes it down and reads it back so that students can eventually read
the text for themselves.
o Advantages include: lea connects students to their own experiences
and activities by having them express themselves orally.
o It reinforces the notion that sounds can be transcribed into specific
symbols and that those symbols can then be used to re-create the
ideas expressed.
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o It provides texts for specific lessons on vocabulary, grammar, writing
conventions, structure, and more.
Directed Reading-thinking activity
o Teacher guided activity that leads students through the prediction
process until they are able to do it on their own.
o A strategy that develops students abilities to predict text
Literature Response Group
o Help develop a community of readers and assist students in
understanding the richness of the literacy experience; teachers
engage them in literature response groups.
o The teacher listens and, after each student has had a turn, opens the
discussion with a thought-provoking question.
Writing
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There are 3 general stages to writing—prewriting, writing, and editing- allow
students to organize, develop and refine concepts and ideas that the product
approach to writing does not.
o For example during prewriting, students are involved in oral-language
experiences that develop their need and desire to write. These
activities may include talking about and listening to shared
experiences, reading literature, brainstorming.
o During the writing stage students write quickly to capture ideas,
doing the best they can in spelling, vocab, and syntax. They then
rewrite and redraft as necessary.
How to treat errors that are made in Oracy and Literacy instruction
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teacher focuses on the students message and provides correction only when
the meaning is not clear.
Teacher can observe systematic errors in the class and discuss them with the
class, or provide mini-lessons with a small group who display the same error
or with individuals.
Treatment of Grammar
o The effective language teacher, therefore, organizes instruction
around meaningful concepts—themes, topics, areas of student
interest—and deals with grammar only as the need arises. (should be
done individually)
o Instead of providing students with worksheets to supply, for example,
the correct tense in a list of fifteen noninterdependent sentences, a
cloze paragraph on the topic currently being studied serves the same
purpose and provides more meaningful practice.
Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL)
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Call can support students acquisition of English by providing authentic,
meaningful contexts (e-mail messages, internet) and application programs
(word processing, presentation software)
Powerful learning took that requires the teacher to organize, plan, teach and
monitor. Call must be used with teacher assistance.
Applying to School Psychologist
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As school psychologist we will be interacting with English learners a lot, so it
is important to understand the methods that teachers are using to teach
these children. In understanding these methods we can find out what
strategies work with certain children and which strategies do not.
Question
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Do you feel that these tools and strategies are the most effective way to
improve literacy outcomes for English Learners?
What other teacher and strategy development to you think are needed to
better instruct English learners.