Effective Teaching Practices for ESOL
Professional Development Workshop Series
Presenter, Lynda Cavazos
July 11, 2015
About Me
• Classroom teacher for over 20 years
• Adjunct Instructor at Texas A&M & U of H Victoria
• Courses: Education, Bilingual Education, Curriculum and
Instruction, and Early Childhood
• PhD Candidate in Org Leadership at UIW
• Educational Consultant
• Texas State Certified Teacher Mentor
Objectives
•
•
•
•
How to incorporate language rich lessons
How to create effective language activities
How to implement effective teaching practices for ESOL
How to create a goal plan of effective ESOL teaching
practices
• On chart paper, write a group name
What to say instead of
“I don’t know…”
•
•
•
•
•
May I please have more information?
Could you please repeat the question?
May I please ask a friend for help?
Could you please rephrase the question?
May I please have some time to think?
Learning to Read and Write
• On chart paper, each member draw a visual
of how you learned to read and write
• Rocking chair
Numbered Heads Together
• At your tables, number off from one to four
• Think of how you implement language
activities
• Please stand when you can finish this phrase:
One challenge English language learners face
is. .
• All the same numbers get together and share
Research Article
• Motivation and Motivating in the Classroom
Talking to your students
Mutual trust
Enthusiasm
Relaxed
Learning is Relevant
TESL Journal
Dimitrios Thanasoulas
Comprehensible Input
Listening, speaking, writing, and reading
Scaffold to provide support and knowledge
•
Ask many questions to check for understanding
Communicate slowly, directly, and clearly
Review constantly
Be animated
Comprehensible Input
Low level
LANGUAGE
proficiency
does NOT mean
low level
THINKING
proficiency
Pronunciation
Goal is not to eliminate an accent
Model clear speaking
Demonstrate how each individual sound is produced
(placement of lips, tongue and teeth)
Clap or count syllables
Pace speech
Oral Element
Warmers and Fillers for the first 5 minutes
All lessons should include time to talk
See handout, Vocabulary Warmers (Guess the Word)
Review and discuss
Wait Time
It takes more than 1 to 2 seconds to process a question
One second or longer to formulate and produce a response.
When students are allowed 3 or more seconds to answer:
- Saying “I don’t know” drops
- Students produce longer and more correct answers
- The length and correctness of their responses increase
- They will want to volunteer more responses
Eating Elephants
You eat an elephant one bite at a time.
Break the lessons into chunks
Teaching verb tense
•
Do 1 lesson
•
Later, review the first lesson
•
Introduce a second chunk.
Focus on Consonants
• Comprehension depends more on recognizing the consonant letters than the vowels
• The vowels are ommitted from the brief text:
Whr r y lvng nw? Pls snd m yr pstl ddrss whn y hv tm. wld lk t snd y cpy f bk tht jst
bght.
• By contrast, the same text with the consonants omitted is impossible to decipher:
ee ae ou ii o? eae e e ou oa ae e ou ae ie. I ou ie o e ou a o o a oo I u ou.
• The comprehension of spoken English depends largely on the recognition of
consonant sounds as opposed to vowel sounds
Disco dance activity
Tell me About
• "What are you going to have for lunch?“ or "What did you
do last night?"
• Start your prompt with the three most useful words :
"Tell me about ..." If you say "Tell me about what you did
last night?" or "Tell me about what you're going to have
for lunch?"
• They will begin to reply with full sentences and use more
language
Numbers Count
•
Instead of saying “Talk about your home country,” say “Tell your partner
6 things about your home country.”
•
Instead of saying “Make some sentences from this picture,” say “Tell
each other 5 sentences from the picture.”
Accountable Talk
Teachers
Students
Why do you think that?
I notice…
Why do you feel that way?
I think..
Can you tell me more
about that?
I wonder..
I agree because..
I disagree..
I like…
Conversational Skills
• Having everyday conversation
• See Conversation handout
• Make a postcard
• In pairs, practice talking about yourself using
your postcard
Friends or Acquaintances
• Most of the words you have met are acquaintances
• How you can turn students’ word acquaintances into word
friends?
• Teach and practice them, and then recycle them again and again
over a period of time
• Most ESL course books are not constructed for vocabulary
recycling.
• A good rule of thumb is to recycle words after one day, after one
week, after two weeks, after one month, etc .
5 minute activity (warm up or filler)
Grammar
• Cartoon strip
• Change the tense
Spoon Feeding Correction
• Students need to hear their own speech
• Student A makes a mistake: He says "Yesterday I
go to the bank.”
• You shake your head to indicate something is
wrong, and you say "Try again.”
• Student A repeats the incorrect sentence.
• You shake your head again and prompt the
student by saying
"Yesterday you?" (Or by saying "Go or went?"
or "Go in the past?")
• Student A says "Yesterday I went to the bank."
TPR (Total Physical Response)
by James Asher
• Language teaching method
• Based on coordination of language & physical
movement
• Brain compatible
• Begins in infancy for developing L1 acquisition
• “Pick up your toy” “Take my hand”
• Critical period/Internalizing sounds and patterns
• Respond to commands
• Learn directions
TPR Activity (Government)
• Model
• There are 3 branches of government (3 fingers)
• The Executive branch (salute) carries out the law)
rock arms together
• The Legislative branch (L sign) creates the laws (write
with hands)
• The Judicial branch (hands on waist) judges the law
(puts arm in front like giving something)
• Practice together
• Practice in groups
The Art of Government
TPR Activity (Driving a Car)
• In groups, practice the TPR activity
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
take my car key in my hand
walk to the car
unlock the car door or I use my remote to unlock the door
open the car door
get into the car
close the door
put on the seatbelt
place the key in the ignition
start the car
drive off
TPR Activity
• As a group, come up with a TPR activity for a
theme you are teaching
• Be prepared to share
Checking for Understanding
• Language rich lessons need __________
• Effective language activities need _________
• Comprehensible input involves _____________
Role playing
• An excellent way of providing students with oral practice
• A script is helpful
• Provide students with a series of written prompts, organized
in the form of a visual (flowchart)
• Something physical to hold on to
• Gives them direction
• See handout and practice
Music
Schoepp, Kevin, Reasons for Using Songs in an ESL Classroom, TESL Journal, Vol.
VII, No. 2, February 2001
Human experience
Integral part of language experience
Reasons – linguistic, cognitive and affective
Processing: Bottom up (sounds into words, sentences and meaning)
Top down processing (background knowledge to understand the
meaning of a message)
Skills: language
lexicon (vocabulary of person, language or knowledge)
listening skills
attitudes and feelings
creativity and imagination
relaxed classroom atmosphere
•
•
•
•
Music
• Brainstorm the title. Create a graphic organizer or a thinking
map.
• Without reading the lyrics, listen to the song twice and write
down thoughts about the song.
• What words do you hear?
• What do you think the song is about?
• Is this song happy or sad? Why?
• Introduce vocabulary and its meaning.
• Do a cloze activity with filling in the blank for every 5th word.
• Using the lyrics, circle the verbs or adjectives.
• Discuss the grammar is it more present or past tense. Was the
grammar correct?
• Make connections to the students’ lives and classroom themes.
Music
http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?Music:
Music Activity
•
Discuss the title. What do you think the song
is about?
• What is the message of the song?
Vocabulary
• Focus on approximately 4-7 core vocabulary words per
lesson.
• Tie vocabulary to relevant experiences in the students'
lives.
• Practice an example
• See handout
Vocabulary
(Window Paning)
Conveys much
information through
visuals and little print
Organizes steps for a
process
Cut into parts and
reassembled again to
demonstrate
comprehension of a
process
Helps to remember
important concepts or
vocabulary words.
Vocabulary
Frog eggs
Froglett
Window Paning
Tadpol
e
Tadpole with legs
Adult Frog
Work from Meaning to Word
Using the word “chicken,” ask: “What’s the
bird/animal that gives us eggs?”
Have a discussion about chickens.
More efficient to work from meaning to word.
Create visuals/graphic organizers
Visual
Thinking Maps
Pinterest Thinking Maps
Graphic Organizers
Comprehension
Herringbone or Fishbone Organizer ..Enchanted Learning
Story Map.. Enchanted Learning
One Sentence Summary Frame
Activity
This article/information/story about
_______ begins with the idea that
__________ , develops the idea that
___________ and ends by saying
_________.
Comparison Frame
______ (is, are) the same as ___________ in
several ways. First of all, ______________.
Secondly, ____________ . In addition,
_______________. Finally, _______________. It
is clear that __________ and ___________ are
alike in many respects.
Questions
Last thoughts???
Goal Plan and Reflection
List 3 goals
Share goals
Reflection