Author: ebm21

This chapter taught me two new words with regards to linguistics that I had never heard before: “brick” and “mortar.” I have come to discover that brick words can help students build their language efficiently. According to Zwiers, “bricks and mortar are terms used to differentiate between content-specific vocabulary and general academic terms” (Zwiers 22). Brick words are the big, boldfaced words that are typically more technical and specific to a particular discipline. Mortar words and phrases are like the cement that holds bricks today. Mortar words general-utility words that hold the content-specific technical words together (Zwiers 22).

During my short practicum, I learned the importance of defining brick words. If students do not understand the brick words in a specific content area, then students are unable to follow the rest of the teacher’s lesson. For instance, I went and sat in on a chemistry eleven class. Although I took chemistry in high school, it had been years since I had heard many of the words. Being in a classroom that was foreign to me, the teacher’s incorporation of brick words into her lesson was incredibly useful. I was able to fully comprehend the key concepts being taught and what those key concepts meant in chemistry.

When I begin teaching my own class in February, I will be sure to point out brick words in my lessons to help students to understand the key points of my lesson. My practicum school also has a large ELL student population. It might be beneficial for my ELL students to hear me defining some of the mortar words and phrases used in my lesson as well. This will enable them to link together additional phrases and gain a deeper understanding of the English language.

Erin Milne

The reading on “Language for Academic Writing” is one that resonates strongly with me.  I can’t stress enough the importance of writing.  As stated by Zwiers: “Academic writing usually requires the thinking skills of analysis, casual reasoning, argumentation, and evaluation” (Zwiers 196).  These skills are valuable and will be used in any job that a student will apply for in their future.  Furthermore, writing is extremely important because it teaches students to learn “new ways to organize and present new language” (Zwiers 195).  For many students, they only experience oral language at home and do not engage in any type of written language.  As teachers, we are able to give students the tools required to express themselves in another form of language that they will only benefit from in the future.

After completing my short practicum over the past two weeks, it has reinforced in my mind the importance of both reading and writing in the classroom.  The benefits that come from reading and writing are immense.  In every classroom that I observed, students were required to read some sort of text and respond in writing to those texts.  For example, I observed a chemistry class.  The students were given a worksheet where they were required to read a word problem, analyze the problem, and then answer the question appropriately using both mathematical skills and writing out a final answer in a sentence.  In the drama class that I observed, students were asked to read a script that they would later be performing, analyze the script, and then write a series of stage notes that would be able to assist them in their performance.  I also observed numerous English and Humanities courses.  In these classes, students were continuously asked to read texts, decipher their meanings, and often argue for or against a particular point.

These numerous observations have affirmed in my mind that reading and writing are two of the most important skills that students can take away from their education.  We can scaffold the language of writing by giving students a variety of activities for analyzing texts and expressing their ideas.

Erin Milne

Week 7 Blog Post- Academic Listening and Speaking in Small Groups

Group discussion as argued by Zwiers is an “important part of building thinking, language, and content understanding in all students” (Zwiers 135).  We have learned throughout the duration of this course that for diverse learners, speaking in a large group is more often than not an impossible task.  Diverse learners are not given the opportunity to speak or have an immense amount of anxiety that prevents them from being able to speak with the other individuals in their classroom.  Small groups make listening and speaking much easier not only for diverse learners, but for all learners in the classroom.  I think that small groups should be implemented frequently in the classroom in order to engage diverse or shy learners.

The section that I really enjoyed reading in this chapter was the section on “Techniques for Reporting Out.”  Zwiers argues that “One of the most important yet underdeveloped stages of group work is the reporting out of what was learned or decided” (Zwiers 143).  Although Zwiers makes a good point, I think he is forgetting the importance of the process of small group discussions.  For example, students get to hear recurring themes from the other students in their groups which reinforces ideas and theories in their minds.  Small group discussions also give students the opportunity to have other students challenge their ideas thereby sparking small debates.  Zwiers also pointed out the numerous weaknesses  of reporting out including the problem of having one person dominating group discussion or having many people in the group not paying attention because they are worried about their own reports (Zwiers 143-144).  These are problems that we will all face as teacher candidates and something that we need to be aware of when we ask our students to engage in group work.  I know that when I was a student, I always found it intimidating to speak out loud in class.  Therefore, if another person volunteered to report out all the time, I was never able to develop skills for reporting out.

Although there are many weaknesses associated with reporting out in groups, there are some things we can do about it!  Zwiers gives a couple different examples for reporting out that I think might be effective for me in the classroom.  These include:

-Making sure students have enough time to prepare, then requiring them to stop preparing when a group reports out.
-Having a different topic for each group.
-Having listeners fill in a form, based on information reported out.
-Structuring a way to have audience members ask genuine questions.
-Having group members rotate such that reports are repeated and given in smaller settings. (Zwiers 144).

I thought that this chapter was really useful and had many great ideas that I hope to use in my classroom one day.

I think that the chapter five reading for this week is very important because it discusses the importance of providing silence and time for students to think in class.  Zwiers argues that “Silence can be golden thinking time for students” (Zwiers, 2008, p. 121).  For example, when a teacher asks students to answer a question, they need to be given the opportunity to think about how they will answer the question, collect their thoughts and then be given time to build up the courage to respond in class.

I always needed the extra time to think when I was in high school.  I was always self conscious about how my answer would compare to the other students in my class and because of that I always needed time to gain the courage to state my answer in front of the group.  According to Zwiers, if we give students a little more time to think and answer the questions that are asked of them, student responses will be more thorough, contain more precise language related to the topic, and the students will gain a more genuine sense that the teacher cares about their answers (Zwiers, 2008, p.121).  The latter point is something that I think is really important for students to gain a sense of in the classroom.  If students know that their teachers care about them, they will probably be more willing to participate in class on a regular basis.  Furthermore, if the teacher demonstrates that they care about each individual answer; students will feel appreciated and will feel that they truly bring something special to class discussions.

I think that this article is valuable for all of us as teacher candidates because it’s focused on content-area variations of academic language in the classroom.  Many of the discussions that we have had in class have been valuable for me as an English language teacher candidate; however, I realize that I will most likely be faced with teaching something in a different content-area throughout my career.  In turn, this article was useful because it demonstrated how I can deal with language-based challenges in other disciplines.

In chapter four, Zwiers states that teachers often have “‘expert blind spots’ that keep us from realizing much of our complex and abstract knowledge has become concrete and basic to us” (Zwiers 69-70).  I think that this is a really important thing to keep in mind when I construct lesson plans because I want to ensure that even the terms and phrases that seem incredibly simple to me are made clear for my students.  It might even be easier for me to teach something in a different content-area because I won’t have as much expert knowledge in these areas.  Therefore, I would be able to see more clearly what aspects of the lesson might be confusing for students because I won’t personally have as much background knowledge in these areas.

I particularly enjoyed reading about the “language of math” during the reading for this week because it is something that at times was an incredibly “foreign language” for me.  I can see how math can be extremely difficult for students because the language used is quite abstract in comparison to other subject areas.  In addition, Zwiers notes that in math, there is “less overlap with concepts, ideas, and terms found in other subjects” (Zwiers 92).  I definitely encountered this when I was in high school.  I felt like the terms and concepts that we learned were so different from most of the other subject areas that were covered so I felt completely lost when I tried to do my math homework.  My teachers never took the time explain what the phrases and terms meant that I encountered everyday in my math textbook.  If I ever have to teach math during my career, I think I will try to spend a bit of time at the beginning of each class going over what some of the key terms or phrases are from the lesson and why we are learning what I am teaching.  I think that finding a way to apply the language of math to a real life situation would really help high school students understand why it is important to learn math and how it will benefit their life.

Although my blog post this week is not particularly relevant to my own content-area, I think it is critical that I am aware of how language affects other content-areas at school.  This way, if I ever need to teach or substitute teach a math class, I will be aware of how my background in English language can enhance student math education and perhaps allow them to see math from a different perspective.

By: Erin Milne

             The reading for this week called “A Focus on Vocabulary” by Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert was an interesting read and will be useful for me as an English Teacher Candidate.  This article was about vocabulary and its correlation with reading comprehension and student success.  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert note in their article that words come in two forms: oral and print (Lehr, Osbroune & Heibert, p.1).  Oral vocabulary includes words that we “recognize and use in listening and speaking,” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1) while print vocabulary includes words “that we recognize and use in reading and writing” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  I found it particularly interesting to learn that word knowledge comes in two distinct forms: receptive and productive.  Receptive vocabulary includes “words that we recognize when we hear or see them” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Productive vocabulary includes “words that we use when we speak or write” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.1).  Although these concepts about vocabulary seem to be common knowledge for many of us, it is important to remember that many students may not be familiar with a wide range of vocabulary so it will be important to break these concepts into understandable ideas.  I also think that it’s a good idea to give students multi-modal ways to absorb language.  Perhaps the student will not understand the meaning of the word when it is discussed in class but will understand the word when you have the student write it in a sentence.  Furthermore, the student may not have understood the word when they read it in a book but understand the word when they see it used in the context of a movie.  I think it is really important to use a variety of teaching tools to help students develop a rich vocabulary.

This article also discussed that many words in a student’s vocabulary repertoire are learned through incidental learning.  Learning words takes place in every setting that a student is exposed to.  The more words that they see on a daily basis, the better chances that student has for success within the classroom.  Remembering the meaning of a word, however, is not as simple as picking up a dictionary and reading the definition.  During my time as a student, I have come to realize that it is easiest (for me!) to learn the meaning of a word when it is placed in a sentence.  It also helps to use the word in a sentence multiple times in order to assist in my own comprehension of the word.

As a teacher candidate, it will be difficult to use class time to explain every new word that a student encounters.  If I did that, I would probably have no time to teach my lesson!  Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert propose that teachers should look at the importance, usefulness and frequency of word use before teaching it to their students.  Words can be categorized into three tiers which help teachers gain an understanding of which words they should focus on teaching in the classroom.  Tier one consists of words such as clock or baby “whose meanings students are likely to know” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  The second tier consists of words such as fortunate or maintains which are words that are “likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  Finally, the third tier is made up of words such as pallet or retinue that “appear in text rarely” (Lehr, Osbourne & Heibert, p.10).  By splitting up vocabulary words into three tiers, it makes it easy for me as a teacher candidate to instruct students on tier two vocabulary words that recur frequently.  The students can then gain a strong grasp of these words that are used on a regular basis so that they will be prepared to effectively answer questions in class or during exams.  If the student has difficulty with tier one or tier three questions, they can either look the words up on their own time or come to me after or during class with additional questions.  Using this three tiered approach is effective because it will allow me to address the meaning of important vocabulary words while ensuring that slower or more advanced learners still feel comfortable asking me about the meaning of vocabulary words that are problematic for them.

Fang and Shleppegrell’s article demonstrate that it is important for educators to come up with discipline-specific ways of using language in order to help them succeed in the classroom.  I am in complete agreement with them.  Fang and Schleppegrell discuss how functional language analysis allows students to identify language patterns and associated meanings that are specific to certain disciplines.  By doing this, students can gain a more thorough understanding as to how language works in their discipline-specific setting and can help them comprehend and critique texts (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 588).

I think that functional language analysis is important in any classroom setting by giving students a framework for understanding a variety of texts from disciplinary backgrounds.  For example, last week in class we discussed the importance of teaching brick and mortar words to our students in order to help them understand the language of a certain discipline.  By teaching students the meaning and importance of these words in the classroom, they will have a better concept of why certain words are being used in their teacher’s lesson.  Furthermore, demonstrating how language operates across specific disciplines shows adolescents how “content experts use language in characteristic ways to present information, engage in interpretation, and create specialized texts” (Fang and Schleppegrell, 2010, p. 591).

I also believe that teaching students discipline specific ways of using language will make the discipline seem more approachable.  What I mean by this is that students will probably be more interested in their work if they have a strong understanding of the meaning of the words used in that particular discipline.  Discipline-specific learning will also help students see connections, patterns and differences between the languages being used in each of their classes which can then be applied to their lives both academically and outside of the school setting.  This is extremely valuable for the students because it will help improve their critical thinking skills and ability to make connections when problem solving and learning in society.

I think that the functional language analysis approach will be extremely useful for me to adapt my own classroom when I become a teacher.  By assisting students in understanding discipline-specific language in my classroom, they will discover how this language transfers into other areas of their life.  It will assist them in having a successful experience in my class by giving them the basic knowledge needed to understand each lesson and the expectations required of them.

By: Erin Milne

Week 1 – Chapter One Blog Post

The chapter one reading for this course highlights the academic language skills of diverse learners in the twenty-first century classroom in connection with their family life and home.  Furthermore, this reading discusses the problem teachers overlooking the skills and strengths of diverse learners and devaluing their academic language skills.

It was very interesting reading the section titled “Valuing and challenging diverse learners.”  Zwiers explains that there is a preference for academic language and literacy practices in school and work settings.  Why does this preference exist?  Zwiers says that it is a “social reality that dominant socioeconomic and political groups strongly influence what is valued in a society” (Zwiers 11).  Many students from “non-mainstream” backgrounds are not exposed to the same language and literacy experiences at home that students from “mainstream” backgrounds will have been exposed to at home.  In general, teachers expect students from all backgrounds to use the same style of academic writing that a middle or upper class student might use.  Although students from diverse backgrounds may not produce writing that looks “mainstream,” the content of their work may contain valuable thoughts and ideas that are useful for classroom discussion and learning.  I think that teachers should be fostering the language skills of diverse learners in order to give them the opportunity to speak out and share their ideas.  Sometimes students from diverse backgrounds are not given the opportunity to communicate their thoughts and opinions at home.  Therefore, school gives them the outlet needed to articulate these ideas and enhance these skills for future schooling and work.

Zwiers also referred to this concept of academic language preference in his chapter reflection questions as “language-ism” (Zwiers 17) and questioned if it was possible to say that it is more prevalent than racism.  I thought that this was an interesting parallel.  I think that language-ism could very well be more prevalent than racism.  Teachers assess assignments on a daily basis with their personal biases in mind.  If you do not fit the rubric for “mainstream” academic language, then your work is considered less worthy of a good grade.  I think particularly in the English subject that teachers need to be extremely careful about the way they grade papers.  It is important to focus on thoroughly examining the content of the work before judging the work based on general flow and presentation.

By:Erin Milne