LLED 360

This week we discussed multiple readings and explored many topics in class. There were a number of parts that stood out for me.

In chapter seven of our text (Zwiers, 2008), we learned about language for academic reading. One of the most interesting parts of this chapter, which is reiterated in other chapters, is the need for a delicate balance between simplifying and/or translating language for students and challenging students to do the deciphering themselves. There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating a student. However, I found that the strategies that Zwiers presents are encouraging and have been well crafted in a careful and balanced way. The key concept to help create challenging, and yet not frustrating, situations is to help students learn how to deconstruct and unpack the meaning of texts before getting them to attempt it on their own. This way the students learn how to do it along with the teacher and therefore, possess the tools to do it themselves. This mitigates the frustration, as students are more equipped to do the work.

The optional reading (Duff, 2002) presented an interesting point of view on the use of pop culture as a teaching tool. We have been encouraged a great deal to utilize pop culture to make our lessons more relevant, yet this cautionary perspective was not provided and I think that it should be noted by all teachers. The presentation on the reading reminded me of instances when I was alienated and left out by pop culture references in school. For instance, I was not allowed to watch The Simpsons as a child and, because it was very popular, there were numerous times when my teachers would refer to it in class, in relation to what we were learning. I knew vaguely what it was about but I did not understand how it related to the material because I did not know the “inside jokes” and specifics of the show. It definitely made me feel excluded from the discussion and like there was something wrong with me for not watching the show. It was an uncomfortable feeling and it was counterproductive to my learning. It would have been more helpful for my teachers to give more information on the show, so that I could more easily follow and participate in the instruction. In this technological age, I think that it is easier than even to use pop culture in the classroom and it is also easier to use it more inclusively. Teachers can use projectors to show clips of scenes or You Tube videos before discussing the ideas involved. This way, the students have a shared experience of the media being discussed so that all students can participate. Some students will always have more background knowledge of the media than others but it is a step towards a more equitable discussion.

Melanie Reich

References:

Duff, P. (2002). Pop culture and ESL students: Intertextuality, identity, and participation in classroom

discussions. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45, 482-487.

Zwiers, J. (2008). Language for academic reading. In Building academic language: Essential practices for

content classrooms (Ch. 7, pp. 163-194). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Chapter 6: Academic Listening and Speaking in Small Groups

I really like the coloured strips that Chelsea handed out to us in class for our discussion on our language experiences. The phrases on the coloured strips helped to facilitate conversation because they provide the starting point. When I read about the connective phrases that students could use to improve discussions on page 143 of Zwiers’ chapter, I thought about adapting the coloured strips to facilitate content-based conversations. I also like the point about how teachers need to make conversations more academic by “[modelling] for students how to turn an informal conversation into a more formal, academic one.”(145). A good strategy is to use discussion cards that contain organizational phrases to remind students to use them in discussions. Another strategy is to use MOPKAL (my role, other role, the problem, the knowledge that need to role-play, what we need to do or accomplish by talking, language to use) in role plays (149). Role-playing increases the level of interest, engages students, and enhances learning through negotiation of meaning in the process. In our EDUC 450 seminar class, a group did their presentation on performative inquiry and it was fascinating to see how engaged people were when the actors on stage were the students themselves. By directing the spotlight away from the teacher and refocusing on group activities that involve role-playing, students are able to find a new way of learning the content.

Chapter 7: Language for Academic Reading

I really liked the example of putting fingers of one hand under the palm of the other to make a table as a way of showing evidence to make an argument stand. One piece of evidence is one leg, so the less number of legs (pieces of evidence), the weaker the table (argument). I also notice that I myself am able to focus more on what I’m trying to say when I accompany my speech with body language (gestures, movements of the body). Of course, excessive gestures or movements (especially if they are quickly done) may become a source of distraction to the students.

The analyzing the text strategy is especially for ELL students when they are prepping for tests. They must become familiar with the language of the test in order to do well. When I was an ESL student in high school, I didn’t do well on the exams because I didn’t understand the questions being asked. Gradually, the phrases that appear on the exams become internalized and I was able to do better on the exams.

The Have You Ever strategy (189) can be pretty useful for tackling vocabulary in the reading. By placing difficult words within a question that starts with “Have you ever…” the student could provide answers based on their personal life experiences, as opposed to having the teacher make up random sentences that are irrelevant to the students’ own contexts. I can see this as a practical strategy to make new vocabulary more accessible and relevant for the students.

My biggest take away from this week was the emphasis on meaning and meaning making (thanks to the group presentation btw). In my perspective, a lot of teachers are not able to convey meaning simply because they do not put themselves into the shoes of their students, particularly with ELLs. Teachers already know the message they are trying to convey, the students do not. I enjoyed the example that was used in the presentation about using hand gestures to deliver meaning about why dogs are better than cats and how he used his hands to illustrate an argument analogous to how the legs of the table help support the entire structure.  This chapter provides a variety of examples and methods in order to help cultivate a culture of reading in the classroom.

I liked the idea of teachers being adaptive to kinaesthetic, auditory, and visual learners. Every class I had with a teacher who just stood at the podium and lectured made me want to shoot myself in the foot. Sure, there are some pretty engaging lecturers out there, but when he’s simply just reading off of his notes and not bothering to answer questions that his/her students had, then there is a problem. Zwiers encourages teachers to move and act out brick words to his/her students, to break it down, or have students experience the word for what it is. In an English classroom, for the most part, the only words students see bolded come from introductions or author’s notes preceding the actual text to be read and when there are words that are bolded or footnoted, they do provide and explanation that is very much surface level and not enough for students to fully comprehend what they are reading.

3. What sorts of reading support can you build into your own classroom, and how/when will students be able to use these supports? Will you make a word wall? How can these kinds of spaces/resources be interactive?

There is not a lot of heavy reading in art class, and while I think this should remain at a minimum I think there is some opportunity to build in reading supports as well. Some text students may be asked to read might be about background information about an artist, their artist statement, their own research material, drawing prompts, power point presentations and so on. A few ways I have thought about incorporating more academic language building are as follows:

-Student handouts during power point presentations highlighting key words and definitions
-“Word of the day”-One word each class where students have to try to use it as many times as possible in their speech and visual journals
-Descriptive word lists as reference during critiques
-Sample critique statements with “fill in the blanks” distributed to each student so each has a chance to try a new phrase
-Play videos of artists talking about their work with subtitles on
-Artist statements with brick words bolded so they can be discussed and their meaning deconstructed
-Art projects centred around the meaning of one word, where students are required to read a variety of sources as inspiration for their artwork
-Daily visual journal prompts with academic language built in

Art class is a place where students are often enjoying the escape of the academic nature of other courses. I will be cautious when providing reading and writing assignments so encourage student creativity to be fuelled into their artwork. Art class can be a class where language learning can be incorporated in creative and fun ways. In well placed, small doses reading can enrich the creative experience and depth of art knowledge for students.

Physical Education is an interesting subject to teach because unlike other disciplines, there is usually no textbook associated with it. This is not to say that students never have to read anything for physical education, as teachers will sometimes provide handouts or reference notes for students in order to prepare them for unit tests. The language used in physical education which appears on these handouts are often very hard for students to understand because of the different types of words that are associated with physical education. For example looking at the concept of invasive team games, the word invasive can be scary for some learners to see. It is important as teachers that we read out the handouts to the class and make sure that they understand what the words mean in relation to physical education.

One way for teachers to get students used to the words used in physical education is to have words written on pieces of paper around the gym with images beside them. This allows students to use see a visual understanding of the word which can help all students, including ELL students to understand what the words mean in physical education.By using these visual aids and by the teachers explaining the words out loud for auditory learners, students will be able to have a better understanding on what the words actually mean.

Another idea for physical educators would be to provide students with a vocabulary sheet that explains the key mortar terms for physical activity. Therefore, students will already have been introduced to the different words before they are used in the classroom setting.

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.

This blog post is written in response to question #1: What reading strategies do you remember helping you when you were in school? Although I have never taken part in an ESL class, I do recall my experience learning French throughout my high school years. One of the biggest challenges for me and many of my other classmates was having such a limited vocabulary and trying to make sense of passages of writing. Depending on the level our ELLs are at, we may find them also struggling with the vocabulary in our course subjects, both brick terms as well as general vocabulary.

One important aspect I remember from my French classes is that my teachers would often read and then reread passages very slowly, emphasizing words we needed to know. If the word could be acted out or pointed towards, the teacher would do so as she was reading. I think this could be a useful strategy for us teacher candidates when reading aloud to our ELLs. As mentioned in the chapter and in class, we can use hand gestures to try to make the material more understandable. We can also use visual cues like pointing and making actions to describe nouns and verbs as they come up in the text, or simply give students a definition verbally. I like the use of visual cues because it allows students to internalize the word both through listening and watching. They key with using such visual cues is to make sure students are both looking at the teacher and following along with the text. This is made easier if the passage can be put up on the board or screen as the teacher is reading it, instead of having handouts that pressure students to put their heads down and not look up.

In the social studies subject area there is a wide range of text that students will be exposed to; everything from very old primary source documents to textbooks and even images. Often, primary source documents are very challenging for all students to read because, depending on the text you choose, they can be very dense and use irregular and unusual phrasing. This would be especially difficult for ELLs who are struggling with modern English techniques. Textbooks can be slightly less confusing as students are exposed to textbooks in a range of subjects and are likely to have had some experience reading them, certainly more than with primary documents. I think that the most interesting area in terms of ELLs would be ‘reading’ visuals. Visuals are a type of primary document that can be easily overlooked in the daily lessons, but they represent a potentially powerful alternative source of information.

Images, be they photos, videos, paintings or political cartoons, represent a very specialized form of reading which may be more easily accessible to ELL students if they are properly introduced to the techniques required. Certainly, they offer ELLs the opportunity to make use of skills that require less processing of confusing text, instead offering a more direct approach to learning about historical events and perspectives. Many of the skills needed to process primary source images are also required when considering primary text documents, and images can become an important stepping stone where students can learn the techniques they need before having to use them on more complex, confusing materials.

October 16th 2013

I am always in admiration of teachers that can keep an energetic dialogue going in their classes.  I enjoyed what this chapter had to offer in terms of different activities and techniques to keep students equally engaged.  In my experience, especially in older grades, the classroom was, for the most part, teacher led.

An example that comes to mind that involves two of my biology teachers in high school.  One had been teaching for years, and had a very lecture based style of teaching.  She would often put up pre-prepared notes on a PowerPoint and read through them while we copied her notes.  This was done on a regular basis, and was quite a dry, formal way of presenting the material.  My other biology teacher was extremely personable and funny, through his humor he could connect well to a large group of students, keeping them engaged in the material for the majority of the class time.  Although they had very different classroom dynamics and generated different atmospheres, their teaching tactics were relatively similar: both lectured for the majority of the time.

During my education, discussion based learning in small groups within courses such as science and math were often very limited, if present in the curriculum at all.  They were much more common in classes such as English and Social Studies, but I wonder if some of the attributes of discussion based learning can be effectively applied to courses outside the humanities.  I can definitely see the merit in this type of learning especially for ELL students or even those who are not comfortable speaking in front of the larger class.  Developing academic language, as we’ve seen, is not simply limited to the courses in the humanities such as English, and disciplines like Science and Math have very specific academic languages with many brick words and technical terms.  To more fully facilitate the development of this type of language, students need practice not only hearing, but using and applying it; in this small group activities can be an effective means to encourage participation and practice.

Kathy

To get you started, if you need a bit of help…

1. What reading strategies do you remember helping you when you were in school?

2. What sorts of texts will your students be reading in your subject-area? What might some of the challenges be? What creative reading strategies might you employ in your own classroom?

3. What sorts of reading support can you build into your own classroom, and how/when will students be able to use these supports? Will you make a word wall? How can these kinds of spaces/resources be interactive?