Friday 23 December 2011
Friday 16 December 2011
Guess the word!
Media Literacy Activity
Watch the Video and guess the word! from Radio Lab NPR
Watch the Video and guess the word! from Radio Lab NPR
Did you know…?
- It can take 5-7 years or more for an ESL student to get their English to level where they can understand abstract academic concepts.
- Learning a language is a process of stages/steps from basic to advanced. A student who barely speaks in phrases now can eventually master the language at a sophisticated level.
- Reading textbooks, participating in academic discussions, or writing essays or examination answers may be much more difficult for ESL students than for first-language English speakers.
- In general, accents can be difficult to change after about 12-13 years old. Pressing for a perfect accent in a learner over this age may not be useful.
- Many beginning ESL students go through a "silent period". This is a period of time where they are not producing any language but are silently 'taking it all in'. This period could last days, weeks or months and it is an important step in the process of acquiring a new language.
- ESL students need to understand what is being said to them in order to improve their English. At the same time they need exposure to more advanced English in order to improve. In one-on-one conversations, try to communicate using an English level only a little more advanced than their level. So, if a student's English is at a level 1, don't speak to them using highly fluent level 5 English, but rather try to speak to them at a level closer to theirs, like level 1.5 or 2.
- Learn a few words in your ESL student's first language ('hello', 'how are you', 'goodbye').
- Allow your ESL student(s) to use their first language when they feel it necessary/helpful. This demonstrates that they, their culture and language are valued.
- Encourage students to share their home language and culture with and your class.
Top 10 Accommodations for ELL Students
Primary Classrooms
1.Use Visuals as much as possible to reinforce main ideas and instruction! Break important tasks into steps and create simple graphics. If you do similar tasks for different lessons create a poster with the steps and hang in the classroom.Use and have students model/act out co-created success criteria.
2. Repeat instructions, have a student paraphrase instructions then check in with students after all instructions to ensure understanding. Done in private, this can help alleviate student frustration or discomfort in asking for instructions to be repeated in front of the larger group. You can also assign a “buddy” to check in with the student.
3. Label everything in your classroom! Get 3x5 cards and stick them on everything that you can in the ESL student’s environment. The word with a simple graphic is great. Turn it into a class activity by having the students create a list together of what needs to be labelled and work together to create neat, legible labels for everything in as many languages as possible. This will make your ESL students feel comfortable and welcome in their environment.Try to include labels for all the first languages of the students in your class and colour code them by language.
4. Assign ESL students with peer buddies to help with classroom tasks, modelling behaviour expectations and helping them to feel comfortable.
5.Have a Listening Centre where ESL students can go and listen to books on tape or instructions for a task. Provide a variety of text types!
6.Provide opportunities for small group work – provides students with a chance to listen and speak to obtain social and academic skills.Accountable talk and flexible groupings will provide opportunities for both oral language input and output
7.Classroom games/Dramatic activities – are key for reinforcing vocabulary, social skills and conversational English. ELL students can participate in presentations even if they can just help with props and set-up.Try tableau's for early stage/step 1 and 2 students
8. Be sure all activities relate to the curriculum content being taught, Ells do not have time to waste learning skills in isolation, they must learn English while learning the curriculum!
9. Provide extra practice. When starting something new, try to send home a simplified version or the vocabulary with a frayer organizer. The student can review at home or with a buddy in class. ELL’s benefit from practice and additional time in thinking about new information. Pre-teach to build schema and vocabulary.
10. Provide visuals or models whenever possible before a unit begins as concrete examples of what you are speaking about. Pictures, posters, manipulatives, and graphic organizers are all useful in increasing contextual understanding for ELL students.
Top 10 Accommodations for ELL Students
Primary Classrooms
1.Use Visuals as much as possible to reinforce main ideas and instruction! Break important tasks into steps and create simple graphics. If you do similar tasks for different lessons create a poster with the steps and hang in the classroom.Use and have students model/act out co-created success criteria.
2. Repeat instructions, have a student paraphrase instructions then check in with students after all instructions to ensure understanding. Done in private, this can help alleviate student frustration or discomfort in asking for instructions to be repeated in front of the larger group. You can also assign a “buddy” to check in with the student.
3. Label everything in your classroom! Get 3x5 cards and stick them on everything that you can in the ESL student’s environment. The word with a simple graphic is great. Turn it into a class activity by having the students create a list together of what needs to be labelled and work together to create neat, legible labels for everything in as many languages as possible. This will make your ESL students feel comfortable and welcome in their environment.Try to include labels for all the first languages of the students in your class and colour code them by language.
4. Assign ESL students with peer buddies to help with classroom tasks, modelling behaviour expectations and helping them to feel comfortable.
5.Have a Listening Centre where ESL students can go and listen to books on tape or instructions for a task. Provide a variety of text types!
6.Provide opportunities for small group work – provides students with a chance to listen and speak to obtain social and academic skills.Accountable talk and flexible groupings will provide opportunities for both oral language input and output
7.Classroom games/Dramatic activities – are key for reinforcing vocabulary, social skills and conversational English. ELL students can participate in presentations even if they can just help with props and set-up.Try tableau's for early stage/step 1 and 2 students
8. Be sure all activities relate to the curriculum content being taught, Ells do not have time to waste learning skills in isolation, they must learn English while learning the curriculum!
9. Provide extra practice. When starting something new, try to send home a simplified version or the vocabulary with a frayer organizer. The student can review at home or with a buddy in class. ELL’s benefit from practice and additional time in thinking about new information. Pre-teach to build schema and vocabulary.
10. Provide visuals or models whenever possible before a unit begins as concrete examples of what you are speaking about. Pictures, posters, manipulatives, and graphic organizers are all useful in increasing contextual understanding for ELL students.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Why is Harper so confused?
Government funding:
Why is Harper so confused as to where the $90 million went? As I reside at the bottom of the government funding food chain, I've posted a link to the Attawapiskat budget. The connection here is that school boards across the province receive funding for First nations, Native, Metis, Inuit, and English language Learners. The money received by school boards is not "sweatered" (this means schools boards can spend the money at their discretion on anything deemed necessary ). Like Attawapiskat, when we crunch the numbers the inequity towards marginalized groups becomes very apparent. It is important to educate and advocate for transparency at all levels so that funding reaches those that need it most.
The real math behind attawapiskats 90 million
Why is Harper so confused as to where the $90 million went? As I reside at the bottom of the government funding food chain, I've posted a link to the Attawapiskat budget. The connection here is that school boards across the province receive funding for First nations, Native, Metis, Inuit, and English language Learners. The money received by school boards is not "sweatered" (this means schools boards can spend the money at their discretion on anything deemed necessary ). Like Attawapiskat, when we crunch the numbers the inequity towards marginalized groups becomes very apparent. It is important to educate and advocate for transparency at all levels so that funding reaches those that need it most.
The real math behind attawapiskats 90 million
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