Ways to provide instruction to beginning ELLs.

1. Providing Programming &
Instruction to
Beginning ELLs
Judie Haynes
NJTESOL/NJBE 2017

2. Link to Slide Share
• Go to slide share and google
– Judie Haynes or
– Providing Programming and Instruction to ELLs
• OR use link
• https://www.slideshare.net/secret/mr55Af
QGJPQH8M

3. • Now we’re going to look at different
types of beginning ELLs who are
coming into the U.S.

4. Zacarian, D. (2013). Mastering academic language: a framework for supporting student achievement .
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

5. Carries Academic
Language
 More formal education
 Coach
 Time-centric
 Oriented to Future
 Goal—Independence
 Home practices relate
to school practices
Academic Language
Learner
 Less formal education
 Oral traditions
 Relational
 Direct
 Learning contextual &
immediately relevant
 Goal- Collectivity

8. Trauma
Violence
Chronic Stress

9. Students experiencing trauma, violence, and/or
chronic stress are not monolithic group
Divorce
Homelessness
Poverty

10. SLIFE
1. Interrupted
2. Could not
attend
3. Sporadic

11. What group do teachers belong to?
• Most of us have limited training for
teaching and working with students
and families that are distinct from our
own.

12. Share: What you believe is essential to meet
the needs of ELs who possess and don’t
possess school language and ELLs from both
groups who experience trauma, violence or
chronic stress?
WITH A PARTNER

13. Six Key Strategies
1. Teach to students’ strengths. Consider what they
bring to the classroom, not what they can’t yet
do.
2. Build background knowledge
3. Provide comprehensible input
4. Modify vocabulary instruction
5. Use cooperative strategies
6. Classroom environment supports student
learning

14. Strategy 1
Teach to students’ strengths. Consider
what they bring to the classroom, not
what they can’t yet do.

15. Teaching to Strengths
• Identify students’ existing strengths
• Honor, value, and acknowledge these strengths to
the students
• Help students become aware of their strengths
• Build instructional programming that boosts
social ties and networks by drawing from
students’ strengths

16. Ensuring asset-based language
Ex. 1: Good luck working with Lisette. She picks fights with
other students, I can never trust her to get along with
others.
Ex. 2: Lisette is resilient. She endured a lot last year & still
managed to show up to school & make the best out of her
day. I observe her taking care of her siblings, showing love,
& responsibility. She helped the class set up the microscopes.
I intentionally partner her with students that have had little
experience or desire to use a microscope in my science class.
Zacarian, Alvarez-Ortiz, & Haynes (2017).. Teaching to strengths: supporting
students
living with trauma, violence and chronic stress a ASCD.

17. Promoting Student Voice
• Trauma can cause feeling of loss of control
• Regaining control crucial
• Student empowerment defined as: giving them
real opportunities to participate and make
decisions about what works
Zacarian, Alvarez-Ortiz, & Haynes (2017). Teaching to strengths:
supporting students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress
ASCD.

18. Using a Consistent Strengths-based Approach
• How great it is that Javier comes to class on time!
She is demonstrating such responsibility!
• It is terrific to see Jasmine participating in class.
She is an enthusiastic and committed learner.
• I appreciate how Ana takes time to ask questions
about what we are studying. She is very curious
about learn

19. Ways to Empower Students
• Relating curriculum to ELLs’ background
experiences
• Respecting students’ opinions by asking their
permission to bring in an article on such a
personal "hot-button" issue such as gang violence
in Honduras.
• listening to their personal commentaries
(Larry Ferlazzo)
Zacarian, Alvarez-Ortiz, & Haynes (2017). Teaching to strengths: supporting students
living with trauma, violence and chronic stress a. ASCD.

21. Strategy 2
Build background knowledge

22. Building Background Knowledge
• Brain based research points to importance
of linking prior knowledge
• Content area teachers need to consider the
background knowledge of their students
• Understand what your beginning ELLs do
not know

23. Strategy 3
Provide Comprehensible Input

24. What does the research tell us about
rate of speech and pacing?
Teachers speak 170-180 words per minute &
provide 1-2 seconds of wait time
Elementary students get 120-125
words/min.
Secondary students get 140-150 words/ min
Hull, R.H. (2008, November). How to talk to children. Technical session
presented at the annual meeting of the American Speech Language-Hearing Association,
Chicago, IL.

25. What does the research tells us about rate of
speech and pacing?
• ESL and bilingual teachers modify speech
according to proficiency levels of students
(Owen, D. 1996).
• ELs’ teachers and peers need to know the
importance of monitoring (slowing) their
speed and pace
Owen, D. (Autumn 1996). Do teachers modify their speech according to the proficiency of
their students? ELTED. 2(1). Retrieved March 1, 2011:
http://www.elted.net/issues/volume-2/owen.pdf.

26. Classroom & subject area teachers should:
• Plan ways to make content meaningful and
comprehensible
• Use concrete examples and real-life
experiences.
Example: A field trip taken at the beginning of the
unit.

27. How Teachers Modify Speech
• Use shorter sentences at ELLs ELD level
• Stress high frequency vocabulary repeating
and reviewing
• Watch ELLs for comprehension
• Adapt texts so content is accessible

28. Forms of Scaffolding/Support
• Auditory support (music, rhymes, podcasts,
videos)
• Kinesthetic support (actions, realia, touch)
• Visual support (pictures, graphs, maps,
drawings, graphic organizers, web 2.0 tools)

29. What is visual scaffolding?
Visual scaffolding:
• Provides a visual match to vocabulary so
ELLs can transfer to L1
• Helps students remember language chunks
• Gets ELLs interested in task
• Helping learners who are not yet working
independently providing with support

31. Step 4
Modify Vocabulary Instruction

32. Indirect and direct instruction
Students acquire new language by
indirect an direct instruction

33. Indirect learning
Indirect learning occurs in multiple
ways:
–Interacting with others
–Being read aloud.
–Reading independently

34. Indirect instruction
Learning English and content
indirectly does not occur routinely
for beginning ELLs

35. Modify Vocabulary Instruction
• Provide direct, explicit instruction of
academic vocabulary.
• Provide ELs more exposure to new terms,
words, idioms, and phrases than English
fluent peers.

36. Prior concept knowledge
Know what’s been previously learned and
experienced by students.
–For example: Natural Disasters unit,
teachers might ask ELLs for
information about the kinds of extreme
weather conditions that are found in
their native countries.

37. What’s essential?
 Select 3-8 essential terms, words, idioms, and
phrases [TWIPs]
 Connect them to student’s prior knowledge
 Use visuals
 Create activities that:
Demonstrate meaning of TWIPs
Provide student’s with practice using
TWIPs multiple times in context

38. Tier 1 TWIPs
Tier 1 TWIPs include:
basic 1-2 syllable words or phrases used in
everyday conversation (e.g., blue, pencil, chair).
Adapted from Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. (2002). Bringing Words to Life:
Robust Vocabulary Instruction.

39. Tier 2 TWIPs
 More sophisticated tier 1 words.
 Often one or two syllables longer than tier 1
words.
 Transition words used to mean and, but, and so
such as also, however, and therefore
Adapted from Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. (2002). Bringing Words to Life: Robust
Vocabulary Instruction.

40. Tier 3 TWIPs
Low frequency, often academic multisyllabic TWIPs
that are not likely to be used outside of class
(examples: volcano, precipitation, fraction,
longitude, latitude)
Adapted from Beck, McKeown, and Kucan. (2002). Bringing Words to Life: Robust
Vocabulary Instruction.

41. Example of a display to help ELs and others
develop Tier 2
And But So
Also However Consequently
In addition Except Accordingly
Plus On the other
hand
As a result
Therefore Nevertheless Thus

42. Discuss
Brainstorm a list of ways that you can
help ELs practice new vocabulary.

43. Strategy 5
Use Cooperative Strategies

44. What’s important to know…
• Lecture-led is least effective.
• Native speakers of English understand
only 14% of a lecture.
• ELs will understand even less.
• Small group learning is beneficial to ELs.
• ELs are able to benefit from comprehensible input
and output.
Andrews, J. D.(2003) Teaching format and student style: Their interactive effects on learning. Research in Higher
Education, Volume 14, Number 2

45. Cooperative learning:
•Supports ELs’ learning styles.
•Many ELs come from cultures in
which collaboration is norm.
•Many beginning learners of English
are visual and kinesthetic learners.

46. Small Group Work
• All small group configurations are not
created equal.
• Teacher “A” instructs students to “work
with a partner and complete a
worksheet”.
• Is the command “work with a partner” a
guarantee of participation?

47. • Teacher “B” structures groups. Every
student has a role and knows what to do.
• Structured small learning groups help build
cooperation and sharing in your classroom.

48. Appoint a Social Facilitator for small
group work. This person keeps a tally
sheet for group interaction.
Hana ///
Safwon /
Thomas ////////
Margo //////

49. Choose meaningful activities that allow
beginning learners of English to perform
a role
(illustrator, time keeper, errand runner)

50. Strategy 6: Classroom Environments
Support Student Learning

51. Arrangement of Classroom
Physical space should:
• be conducive to learning
• reflect learning style of ELs
• involve student input
• allow for students to communicate with
each other

52. Decoration of Classroom
Displays and walls should:
• contribute directly to learning
• be clutter free
• not be confusing to a linguistically diverse
group

53. Discuss
• Discuss with a partner what kind of
classroom you feel is conducive to learning.
Consider arrangement of furniture and
classroom decorations.

54. Books
 The Essential Guide for Educating Beginning
English Learners can be purchased from
Corwin at goo.gl/ndpCEv or from Amazon
or Barnes & Noble

55. Coming September, 2017
• Our new book is being published!
Teaching to strengths: supporting students
living with trauma, violence
and chronic stress
By Zacarian, D., Alvarez-Ortiz, L & Haynes, J.

56. Judie Haynes at
judieh@optonline.net
website at http://www.everythingesl.net/
TESOL Blog at http://blog.tesol.org/
Follow me on Twitter at @judiehaynes