Making Instruction Accessible for English Language...

Welcome!

• Make sure to sign in and take a folder.

• Please put your name on the front of your folder.

• Please sit in grade-level groups:

• Elementary

• Middle

• High School

• Take 5 minutes to complete the English Language

Learners survey (Second handout in the right pocket of

your folder)

Writing Unit Plans with ELLs in Mind

by A. Pizzillo Network 102-113, NYCDOE

Writing Unit Plans with ELLs

in Mind

July 29th & 30th, 2014

Facilitated by Anthony Pizzillo

and Adriana DiScipio

Workshop Objectives

Participants will be able to…

• identify the characteristics of English Language

Learners at various stages of language development

according to the NYSESLAT performance levels.

• identify instructional supports and scaffolds for

English Language Learners.

• determine how to write content and language

objectives.

• determine how to appropriately assess English Language

Learners.

• design a unit plan that supports and provides access for

English Languages Learners.



Workshop Language Objectives

Participants will be able to…

• discuss the characteristics of ELLs at various stages

of language development.

• write content and language objectives for one unit

plan.

• list assessments for a unit plan with multiple points of

entry.

• write a learning plan for a unit that includes scaffolds

and supports for ELLs.



Unit Plan Analysis With your table partners, please answer the following

questions:

1. What are the essential parts of the unit?

2. What do you believe is the purpose of each part of the

unit plan you identified?

3. What does the unit plan do well?

4. What are the limitations of the unit plan?



Parts of a UbD Unit Plan

• Established Goals (Standards)

• Understandings

• Essential Questions

• Students will know (Content Knowledge)

• Students will be able to (Bloom’s Taxonomy/Depth of

Knowledge Skills)

• Performance Tasks

• Other Evidence

• Learning Plan



Parts of the UbD Unit Plan that will be

our focus • Established Goals (Standards)

• Understandings

• Essential Questions

• Students will know (Content Knowledge)

• Students will be able to (Bloom’s Taxonomy/Depth of

Knowledge Skills)

• Performance Tasks

• Other Evidence

• Learning Plan



Making Instruction

Accessible for English

Language Learners

Facilitated by Anthony Pizzillo

“Language is pretty invisible if you know it

well; it is not invisible if you don’t know it

well...”

Lily Wong Fillmore

How do we decipher the NYSESLAT Scores? A look at an RLAT report from ATS.

Student

Name Student ID 2013

DEC TOT LIS SPK RED WRI

A 086 017 030 022 017

B 023 007 007 008 001

I 073 019 023 017 014

A 099 025 034 025 015

I 069 011 027 018 013

A 090 023 030 020 022



NYSESLAT, LAB-R and NYSITELL Performance Levels Taken from NYSESLAT Spring 2011 Parent Report Performance Level Descriptors

Beginning • Students can comprehend simple statements and questions. They are able to engage in simple face-to-face

conversations. • Students understand simple material. Their comprehension is limited to main ideas of simple written material that

contains familiar vocabulary. • Students are able to write short notes and messages on very familiar topics.

Intermediate • Students understand general concepts and specific details of short conversations but have only a general

understanding of longer conversations. • They can initiate and sustain conversations with native English speakers. • Students are able to understand narrative and descriptive materials that contain familiar vocabulary. They can write

simple notes using elementary vocabulary and common language structures. • They can express past, present, and future ideas comprehensibly, although errors may occur.

Advanced • Students are able to understand the main ideas and significant details of extended discussions. They can engage in

extended discussions with native English speakers. • Students can understand most printed materials. They can write essays, journals, and personal and business

letters. They use correct English word structure.

Proficient • Students are able to understand standard speech delivered by a native English speaker. They engage in most

social communications with confidence and fluency • Students are able to understand and obtain meaning from a wide range of printed materials. Their reading level and

vocabulary is comparable to native English-speaking students. They can write about a variety of topics using different sentence structures.



Other classifications of ELLs: Newcomers • Have been with us 0 to 3 years Middle year ELLs 4 to 6 years • Critical time • Could become long-term ELLs Long-term ELLs • Have been receiving ESL services for 7 or more years SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Education) • ELLs who have entered a US school after second grade; have had at least two years less

schooling than their peers; function usually 2 years behind in numeracy and literacy; and may be pre-literate in their first language.

Former ELLs • Students that have reached proficiency on a test of English language skills and no longer require

ELL services ELLs with IEPs • Citywide there are a disproportionate number of ELLs receiving special education services and

speech



BICS and CALP as theorized by Jim Cummins BICS: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It

is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are on the playground, in the lunch room,on the school bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not specialized. These language skills usually develop within six months to two years after arrival in the U.S.

CALP: Cognitive Academic Proficiency CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing

about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research (Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has no prior schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers.

source: Judy Haynes. 2007. Explaining BICS and CALP. EverythingESL.net



Think, Pair, Share

• Think of a time when you were learning a second

language.

• What made it challenging?

• What made learning the language easier?



What types of instruction work with ELLs?

“Good instruction for students in general tends to be good instruction for ELLs in particular”†

• Students benefit from clear goals and learning objectives

• Meaningful and challenging contexts

• A curriculum rich with content

• Opportunities to practice, apply and transfer new learning

• Feedback on correct and incorrect responses

• Frequent assessments to check progress

• Opportunities to interact with other students in motivating and appropriately structured contexts.

Goldenberg, 2008



Instructional Supports for ELLs

ELLs benefit from the explicit teaching of components

of literacy, such as:

• phonemic awareness

• Phonics

• Syntax

• Grammar

• vocabulary

• comprehension

• writing

Goldenberg, 2008

Goldenberg, 2008



Building Vocabulary in English

ELLs learn vocabulary when the words are embedded in meaningful

contexts and students are provided with ample opportunities for

their repetition and use - “abundance and redundancy”

ELLs can be supported by:

• Identifying key vocabulary to access unfamiliar texts and content

or used to

• Provide student-friendly definitions for students and give examples

that use these words in authentic and meaningful/engaging

contexts.

• Provide frequent opportunities for students to discuss and use new

vocabulary.

• Highlight the connections of words, such as cognates,

morphemes, core vocabulary, and extended vocabulary networks.

Goldenberg, 2008



Promote oral language development

“Effective instruction to build up oral language provides students with

deep, language- and content-based learning experiences that provide

plenty of opportunities for reading, writing, and meaningful

discussion (Lesaux, 2012).”

Possible strategies to promote oral language development:

• Sentence frames for speaking and writing

• Jointly constructed, academic writing

• Open-ended questions and strategic responses.

• Interactive read-alouds

• Facilitate productive interaction among ELLs and English

speakers, such as cooperative learning, socratic seminars and

turn-and-talks.

• Role playing and rehearsed oral performance

N. Lesaux & J. Russ Harris



Make texts in English more comprehensible by

• Using texts with content that is familiar to students

• Making texts available that reflect the students’ interests

and experiences.

• Eliciting students’ prior knowledge

• Building background knowledge

• Pre-teaching vocabulary, language structures and

discourse forms embedded in the text



Promote first language literacy

• Incorporate the students’ first languages in instruction whenever

possible.

• Encourage students to preview, summarize and respond to content

lessons in their first language.

• Encourage students to use their first language through reading,

writing, listening, and speaking activities in the classroom.

• Provide native language supports such as:

• Native language texts

• Cognates

• Bilingual dictionaries and glossaries

NYSED site for Bilingual Glossaries:

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/biling/bilinged/bilingual_glossaries.htm



What is scaffolding?

“Both a structure and a process, scaffolding refers to dynamic and responsive supports that enable learners to develop their full potential and eventually become autonomous learners. With appropriate scaffolding for academic practices, students are able to simultaneously build conceptual understandings, academic skills, and the language needed to enact them.”

A. Walqui & K. Strom, 2014



Models of Scaffolding

Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004

Teach

Model

Practice

Apply

Whole class

Small Group

Partners

Independent Work



Types of Scaffolding

Verbal Scaffolding:

These are techniques that are focused on language development, such as...

● Paraphrasing - restating a student’s response in order to model correct English

usage

● Using “think-alouds” - carefully structured models of how effective strategy users

think and monitor their understandings (Baumann, Jones & Seifert-Kessell, 1993)

● Reinforcing contextual definitions - an example is: “A cell, the smallest working unit

of living things, can be seen with a microscope.” The phrase “the smallest working

unit of living things” provides a definition of the word “cell” with the context of a

sentence.

● Eliciting more language and information from the students. Students often provide

one- or two-word responses to teacher questions. Ask them to tell more or explain

their ideas more fully, giving students the chance to advance their language skills.





Procedural Scaffolding:

These are techniques that relate to grouping and activity structures. For

example:

● one-on-one teaching, coaching, modeling, small group instruction, or

grouping that allows more experienced students to assist those with less

experience.

● Providing opportunities for extended interactions with teacher and peers;

● Predictable and consistent classroom management routines, aided by

diagrams, lists, easy-to-read charts, which the teacher refers to

frequently;

● Additional time and opportunities for practice;


Goldenberg, 2008




Instructional Scaffolding

These are tools used to provide English learners with access to content and language concepts.

Examples include:

● Graphic organizers that make content and the relationships among concepts and different lesson

elements visually explicit, such as T-charts, Venn Diagrams, and KWLs;

● Redundant key information, e.g. visual cues, pictures, and physical gestures about lesson

content and classroom procedures;

● Adjusting instruction (teacher vocabulary, rate of speech, sentence complexity, and expectations

for student language production) according to students’ oral English proficiency; and,

● Giving students extra practice in reading words, sentences and stories in order to build

automaticity and fluency;

● Identifying, highlighting, and clarifying difficult words and passages within texts to facilitate

comprehension, and more generally emphasizing vocabulary development; and,

● Targeting both content and English language objectives in every lesson.


Goldenberg, 2008



Bibliography CAST. “Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.0.” 2011. Print.

Duguay, A., Massoud, L., Tabaku L., Himmel, J. & Sugarman, J. “Implementing the Common Core for

English Learners: Responses to Common Questions.” CAL Practitioner Brief. 2013. Print.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., Short, D. 2004. Making Content Comprehensible for English Langauge

Learners. Pearson. Boston.

Goldenberg, Claude. “Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does – and Does

Not – Say.” American Educator. 2008. Print.

Hiebert, E. “Vocabulary Unpacked” New York City Office of English Language Learners. 2014. Print.

Lesaux, N. & Russ Harris, J. “Supporting ELL’s Achievement: Oral Language Unpacked.” New York

City Office of English Language Learners. 2014. Print.

Walqui, A. & Strom, K. “Scaffolding” QTEL, WestEd in Partnership with the New York City Office of

English Language Learners. 2014



If you have any questions please

contact me.

Anthony Pizzillo

Network 102/113

[email protected]



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