I have enjoyed reading this book so far, and exploring all of the options for real-world application in my classroom. My class really enjoyed our activity today, which was based on the sentence frames included in the "Core Academic Conversation Skills" described in chapter two, and specifically in the area explaining how to introduce conversation skills at the beginning of the school year. I am glad I can implement these skills now and "test-drive" using these methods so that at the beginning of the next school year I can introduce them to students right away. Fourth grade students have been working on persuasive writing and using research to support their opinions. This week, they researched reasons why students should and should not have homework. As a culminating activity before they start writing about their own opinions, we used today as an opportunity to discuss their opinions using their research for support. We discussed what typically happens when we share our work, and that often students take turns reading from their papers, possibly looking up occasionally, and often do not give feedback or respond to what the other person is saying at all. I also role played a few examples of what might happen in conversations that do not use the "Good Conversation Behaviors" described in the book (i.e. going off on a tangent, looking at your watch, watching another group or talking to a friend across the room). This was a great lesson hook, and helped students to share more about what went wrong and what went right. We also talked about correct body language and why it helps to make sure you are responding appropriately. Then, I gave students printouts with sentence frames from the Elaboration and Build on and/or Challenge a Partner's Idea sections of the Core Conversation Skills. I was impressed overall with many of the conversations that I overheard during this activity, and how many of my quieter students found it easier to participate and talked more because of the sentence frames. I also think it helped them to shift the focus from "share your work" to "try to have a good conversation". Students were making more of an effort to listen and understand what their classmates were saying and to come up with meaningful responses. When we got together to reflect on how things went, many students said they thought that the sentence frames helped them. Several students pointed out that this is an opportunity for them to get to know different people. Even though students were discussing an academic topic, many pairs were able to find things they had in common and ended up in deeper conversations about the stress and anxiety that school can cause them. When I asked what things were challenging, everyone seemed to struggle more with responding than with the sentence frames that asked for more information. I think this is expected, because responding in a way that prompts more conversation is a difficult skill and requires a different type of listening. However, my class definitely agreed that if they tried this again it would be easier, so I am eager to keep them practicing and see what kind of improvements they make. Link to Video 1 Link to Video 2
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After reading the "Executive Summary of the National Literacy Report on Language Minority Children", I have a few main takeaways about how to help Multilingual Students learn best. I found it very interesting that the report found that "language-minority students rarely approach the same levels of proficiency in text-level skills achieved by native English speakers". This points to the idea that it is extremely important to focus on vocabulary and other aspects of comprehension. I specifically pulled this out because I notice that my students who are Multilingual Learners often perform lower on reading comprehension assessments, and very often that is because of a lower vocabulary score. We always continue to target vocabulary with those students, and I think that is validated based on these findings because the report states that "vocabulary and background knowledge, should be targeted intensively throughout the entire sequence". The second takeaway I found interesting was that the report discussed using students' first languages to support literacy development in English. I had not thought of this previously, but it makes perfect sense. As someone who has taken a TON of Spanish classes in my lifetime, I would have been very overwhelmed if I never used English to help with learning the meanings of words or comprehension skills with Spanish literature. I loved this point of view as a way to use the first language as an additional support for these students and an asset. I think this could also be a challenge for teachers, as most of the time classroom teachers do not speak a native student's language so it can be difficult to figure out how to use that to best support that student.
Another major challenge that teachers face with engaging multilingual learners, I think, is figuring out what that student's Zone of Proximal Development is and what prior knowledge that student specifically has and needs to acquire. This can be more difficult depending on the severity of the language barrier. I think that we do a great job of addressing this challenge at LTE with our approach to personalized learning for all students, so we are constantly collecting data about our students to assess and reassess how we can best support them in all subject areas. One of the visual learning strategies that I already employ that helps multilingual learners while also supporting personalized learning is my integration of writing exemplars in the classroom. When students have a constant visual of writing expectations with examples from their classmates, it is easier to understand the expectations and simpler to set personalized goals. Another visible learning strategy in my classroom that supports multilingual learners is the mindmaps that we create together, encompassing our areas of study for science and social studies. Mindmaps help students to connect ideas together, which can help multilingual learners make meaning from more complex topics. This is also a very low-stakes activity that includes everyone, because the goal is not to evaluate our ideas right away, but just to put as many connections as we can down on paper and to work as a class to think about what we have learned. I am looking forward to reading this book. Conversations are so important in the classroom, not just for multilingual learners, but also for other students. Giving students opportunities to work together and discuss their learning helps to broaden their understanding and to see things from a different perspective. These skills are essential to building critical thinking and problem solving for all areas of life. Specifically for multilingual learners, conversations in the classroom allow students to practice oral language patterns, auditory comprehension and conversational skills, and using academic vocabulary. All of these things were discussed in the report (mentioned above) as being essential to supporting multilingual learners. I look forward to reading about different ways to integrate these conversations into my classroom. |
AuthorCourtney Hayes is currently a teacher at Lone Tree Elementary Magnet School in Colorado. She has teaching experience in both primary and intermediate grades, and is passionate about personalizing her instruction to meet the needs of all students. Archives
April 2021
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