Teaching English Learners: Effective Instructional Practices
Assessment
Take some time now to answer the following questions. Please note that the IRIS Center does not collect your Assessment responses. If this is a course assignment, you should turn them in to your professor using whatever method he or she requires. If you have trouble answering any of the questions, go back and review the Perspectives & Resources pages in this module.
- Compare and contrast BICS and CALP. Name one point that you think teachers should know about second language acquisition.
- Think about a lesson that you might teach. Briefly describe it and at least four types of sheltered instructional supports you might provide for your EL students.
- Watch the video below to see a second-grade teacher introduce the properties of matter (time: 3:11).
Transcript: Properties of Matter
Teacher: We have been learning about ways to describe matter. All objects are made of matter, and can be made of solids, liquids or gases. What are objects made of?
Students: Solids, liquids, gases.
Teacher: Very good. Okay. Matter is made up of anything that has weight and takes up space. You can describe objects. When you tell about objects, this is called properties. Properties tell us about objects. What do properties do?
Students: Tell us about objects.
Teacher: Very good. We can use our senses to tell us about objects. Let’s review our senses.
Students: Site, smell, hearing, tasting, touching.
Teacher: Very good. An objects can be described by it properties, such as its size. Is it big? Is it small? Its shape. Is it round? Is it rectangular? Its color. Is it red? Is it blue? Is it yellow? How does it smell? Does it smell good? Does it smell bad?
Length is another way that can tell us about properties of matter. Remember all objects are made of matter and can be solids, liquids, or gases. Length measures the distance from one end of an object to another. Length can be measured in centimeters or meters. We use a metric ruler. So, we can see from one end of the rolling pin to the next one is 45 centimeters. Now, scientists use meters, centimeters, and kilometers, and those are parts of the metric system. In the United States, we use inches—like these little guys right here, these are inches; inches, feet and yards—but in science, the metric system is commonly used. Let’s review our vocabulary words before we read from our textbook. The listening center is open for a small group of students to listen to the book on tape. And we will work in our groups to complete some activities about matter and properties of matter.
- Identify four contextual supports that the teacher used to help her EL students better understand the lesson.
- Identify four contextual supports the teacher can change or add to improve her lesson.
- The video below—courtesy of the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts—demonstrates ongoing research with ELs. Identify three instructional supports used by the researchers in the video and explain why they are helpful to ELs (time: 2:33).
“New Light on Literacy: Story Retell,” created by the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, The University of Texas at Austin ©. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Transcript: EL Story Retell
Narrator: The intervention included an additional component. A story reading and retelling activity to develop students’ oral language, vocabulary, and comprehension.
[The teacher speaks in Spanish.]
Narrator: The teacher asks questions to draw out students prior knowledge about the topic in order to improve listening comprehension.
[The teacher and a student speak in Spanish.]
Narrator: The teacher introduces three new words in the story and discusses their meaning.
Teacher: Today you’re going to learn three new words. The first word is simmering. What word?
Students: Simmering!
Teacher: Simmering means to cook or boil slowly. “I like to stir the rice when it is simmering.”
Narrator: The teacher reads the passage a first time then ask questions to help students retell the story in their own words. In these excerpts, we see how students’ language skills are limited early in the year.
Teacher: How does this story begin?
Student: Um…
Teacher: What did her grandfather say?
Student: Say it…That they no have money.
Narrator: By later in the year, the students’ oral language skills improve.
Teacher: Can you tell me the difference between a spider and an insect? Can you tell me one difference?
Student: The spider has two body, and the insect has three.
Teacher: Three body…
Student: Parts.
Teacher: Three body parts. So how many body parts does a spider have?
Student: Two.
Teacher: And the insect?
Student: Three.
Teacher: Excellent.
Narrator: After the retell, the teacher reads the story a second time, asking students to signal when they hear the day’s vocabulary words.
Teacher: Spiders come in many shapes and sizes. Some are so tiny that they are no bigger than a speck of dust. Yes, what is the word?
Students: Speck.
Teacher: You did a great job listening to the words and to the story and remembering what the story was about. Listen for these words—speck, belong, and angry—when you hear stories or when you hear adults talking. You did a very nice job today.
- List at least three things teachers can do when assessing EL students to allow them to more fully demonstrate their knowledge.
