These are very comprehensive teaching ideas and would be great for a stage 2 class, but could be easily adapted for stages 1 and 3.
Please feel free to use them.
tell-me-a-dragon-teachers-notes.pdf |
Pie Corbett, creator of the Talk4Writing program, recently shared some teaching notes for the book 'Tell Me a Dragon' by Jackie Morris. These are very comprehensive teaching ideas and would be great for a stage 2 class, but could be easily adapted for stages 1 and 3. Please feel free to use them.
If you are teaching EAL/D and you want to teach NAPLAN skills without using the same material (usually old NAPLAN tests) that the teachers in class may be using then try the Victorian AIM past papers which can be found here.
I print the reading magazine and the questions and then go through the questions step by step, breaking down the words and looking at what each question is asking the students to do. The students find that going at a slower pace and by explaining the questions in a step by step manner easier than just being left on their own to practise. Hopefully you will find these past tests to be useful practise papers. The art of teaching vocabulary is so important, not just for EAL/D students but for all students. This is especially true from Stage 2 onwards as students move from learning to read to reading to learn. NAPLAN results show many students stagnate between the Year 3 and Year 5 NAPLAN tests, resulting in what many call the 'Fourth Grade Slump'. From working with the Focus On Reading program I have learned (well may have already known but nice to have the program back my opinion up) that a large part of reading to learn is understanding key vocabulary. Here is a great web post that talks about learning vocabulary and has ten minute vocabulary lessons you might like to try. http://www.middleweb.com/15903/ten-minute-vocabulary-lesson/ I came across this idea when working in a year 2 classroom recently. The students were learning about writing in paragraphs. They had completed the 'Hamburger' paragraphs activity (a similar activity but in the shape of a hamburger) but didn't really seem to get it. Then the teacher, very cleverly, introduced the 'Traffic Light' paragraphs activity. As the students were still working on their paragraphs while I was there I didn't get to take a photo of their work - but I will try to next time I am there. The above pictures come from Googling 'Traffic light paragraphs'. It seems this activity is very popular and I can see why. It slows the students down and makes them think of the different types of sentences that go into making up a paragraph. It makes them look at having a topic sentence - to introduce what the paragraph is about, then two supporting sentences and a final concluding sentence. In the Year 2 classroom the teacher explained the activity and then had the students choose their own topic to write about - so each student had a different topic. They were then given strips of coloured paper (1 green, two orange/yellow and 1 red). They needed to think of a way to introduce their topic and write that sentence onto the green strip of paper. Then they had to come up with two facts about the topic and write each in a sentence on the strip of yellow/orange paper, and finally they needed to come up with a summing up sentence to tie it all together. They then were going to paste them onto a sheet of paper and display them in the room. I think this is a great activity for all students as it breaks paragraphs down into sentence level and allows the students to really understand how many sentences and what type of sentences make up a paragraph. For those of you who are familiar with the Super Six Comprehension Strategies you will appreciate this webpage from the busyteacherscafe.com: Comprehension Strategies This webpage features activities (printables - for free!) and lesson plans for each of the strategies. The super six comprehension strategies are shown to develop the vocabulary and comprehension skills that not only EAL/D students need but also all students need. I only came across this website yesterday while looking for 'questioning' activities. I struggle to think of good activities to go with this strategy. The activity I chose came from this website. It was the 'I wonder' web and I am hoping it goes well in my lesson. Many EAL/D students rely on visual cues to help them get by and it is very easy to think that a student understands when it may just be the case that they are relying on the body language and visual cues from those around them to get by.
One type of activity that will really help to build receptive language skills, listening skills and aural comprehension skills is to listen to authentic speech and to answer a range of comprehension questions based on that speech. I am often looking for good, authentic recorded conversations that will help my students build these skills. One website I have come across is 'Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab'. These conversations are a mix of easy, beginner conversations with topics suitable for primary school students - to more complex conversations with topics suitable for High School students. Sadly, they aren't sorted in that order so it can take a while to listen to a few to see if the conversation is right for your student. Each activity has a pre-listening exercise, the listening exercise, a related grammar activity, a post-listening exercise and an Online Investigations area - should you wish to take the language further. I usually just do the pre-listening, listening, grammar and sometimes the post-listening activity. If you are looking for good authentic conversations on a range of topics then this site is worth a look. I have been working in a Year 2 classroom every Thursday afternoon with a classroom teacher who has been trained in models of contemporary learning.
It has been an invaluable experience as I have learned so much about how to apply techniques about vocabulary building to a whole class. Usually, in my EAL/D position, I am working either one on one or in small groups. When I suggest activities to classroom teachers they look at me and say "Well that is fine for small groups, but not really practical for a whole class". The techniques I have been learning are being used with the entire class and it is having a major effect on the student's writing and comprehension of texts. Sadly, I am never there for the full cycle of learning - just the vocabulary building, and I very rarely get to see the finished product being produced (but see it after it is finished). At the moment the class have been learning about bears. They have completed a literary unit on 'The Very Cranky Bear' and are now working towards gathering factual information about bears. In the lesson prior to yesterday (when I worked with the students) the class had watched a Youtube clip about bears (from what I can gather from their work it was a clip about Brown or Grizzly bears). They participated in an active listening session. The session involved watching the clip all the way through - uninterrupted. Then the students briefly discussed what they saw. Following this they watched the clip again. This time they were looking for 'nouns'. The teacher stopped the clip at particular spots and asked a variety of students for a noun they had heard. These nouns were recorded onto individual strips of paper and were given back to the students. This happened all the way through the clip. Following the active listening part of the session, the teacher asked the students to stand and say their 'noun'. Then, as an example to show me, she asked all of the students with nouns about what bears eat to enter the circle. Those students then read aloud their noun. I made the comment that already these students had enough words to build a good paragraph about what bears eat. However, the aim of Thursday's lesson was to work on 'elaboration' - not simply noun gathering. So, on Thursday the students watched a clip about Polar Bears. They watched it all the way through without stopping. Then they watched it again, actively listening for nouns. The teacher, once again stopped the clip at particular points to record down nouns. Then I worked with the class on building elaborations for the nouns. Firstly I made sure each student had a noun - there were only two who hadn't found a noun during the active listening and so I gave them a noun. We then went over what an elaboration was (they had done this with the teacher the day before so most of them knew). Then the students found a partner. They read their noun to their partner. They were then given two minutes of 'thinking time' to come up with an elaboration for their noun. They were told their elaboration could not be a short sentence and that it must be linked to the topic of bears. For example a student with the noun 'grasses' could not simply say something like "Grasses grow on the ground" as the elaboration must be linked to bears. It needed to be something like "Bears eat a variety of foods, including grasses and fish. This food is important as it gives them energy, especially after hibernation". Once the thinking time was over they had to turn to their partner and say their elaboration. Their partner's job was to critically listen to the elaboration and give feedback. They had to consider if the elaboration was long enough, if it gave enough information and if it was linked to the topic of bears. Once the partners had agreed that it had met the criteria then they made their way back to their desks and wrote their elaboration on the back of their noun piece of paper. We then, as a class, listened to the elaborations and discussed whether we thought each elaboration fit the criteria - if it didn't we suggested ways it could be changed to meet the criteria. This activity could easily be adapted to any stage and any topic. The skills of active listening are so important. This class, at the beginning of the year, were terrible at listening and gathering information. They simply watched a clip for enjoyment, not to gather information. However, by breaking down the clip into small chunks and focusing the students on looking for particular types of words, the students have learned to be fantastic active listeners. Last term the students completed a similar task on a unit about water. The students were grouped according to their words, into expert groups. These words were then used to create sentences, then paragraphs and finally a whole text. They showed a much more sophisticated level of understanding about water and its uses. They also used a wider array of vocabulary. I love working in this year 2 room. I am learning so much. As I learn more I will share it with you. Perhaps you can try some active listening in your classroom. I have another ESL website to share with you. It is good for beginning English learners as well as those who need help with sentence structure and vocabulary. It is called ESL Games Plus. I have found the Sentence Monkey games very useful, and they are broken into different aspects of grammar: Adjectives, Actions (simple and present), comparatives, prepositions, passive voice etc.
They also have a range of memory games for learning phonics, vocabulary, puzzles, word searches etc. As well as these online games they have a variety of printable games and worksheets. I think it is really worth a look, especially if you have a struggling writer or a new arrival. I've just become aware that the Learning 21st Century Snapshot weebly has a link to my weebly - which is very flattering, as the Learning 21st Snapshot weebly is an invaluable resource for teachers.
It has amazing links to blogs, websites, new curriculum ideas and planning, apps, web 2.0 tools (which I love) and a whole host of resources. I could literally spend hours searching this site. There are so many great ideas and resources. Please take the time to have a look as it will certainly give you a lot of inspiration! The Foxes and the Marshmallow Tree is a short story I created on a website called Storybird.
Storybird is a website that helps people (adults and students) write and create interesting narratives. Storybird gives you access to a variety of beautiful illustrations and often these illustrations come in a series of similar pictures (see my story above as an example of a series of illustrations). It is very easy to choose a series of illustrations and then create a narrative around the pictures (this is what I did with my short story). Students can also search for illustrations using key words - e.g. dog will bring up pictures of dogs, so if they are writing a narrative and there is a dog they will be able to find an illustration that will support their text. As well as this, students can submit their own artworks (which will need to be scanned and put as an electronic version into their account). I think Storybird is a great way to engage students in narrative writing, to inspire ideas and to release creativity. It can also be a great way to model narrative writing to a group or to the whole class, as you could display the images on the smart board while you write. My favourite thing about Storybird is that it is a free website! If you, or your students, do create a story using Storybird I would love to see it! Public speaking can present a real challenge to many EAL/D students.
Beginning English students often don't have enough language to fully participate and students with developing English skills often lack the technical vocabulary needed to write a good quality speech. There are also those students (old Phase 2 and 3 students) who find it difficult to be succinct and end up circumventing the topic (talking around the topic rather than getting to the point). As an EAL/D teacher it is often my job to help a student prepare for public speaking, usually this ends up being an assessable task. In order to make my EAL/D students feel comfortable with public speaking I attempt to warm up with a few 'no pressure' public speaking games. One game I played this afternoon involved writing different nouns on a pieces of paper (words I know the student knows well) and placing them into a bag. The student then takes a piece of paper out of the bag and reads the word. They get one minute thinking time and then I put the timer on for one minute and they have to stand up and tell the group everything they know about that topic. For example a student might pull out the word 'ice cream'. They then think for one minute and tell us everything they know about ice cream: "It is cold, it melts on hot days. It comes in lots of different flavours. I like chocolate ice cream. It is made from milk. You can buy it at the supermarket". When the timer goes off it is the next persons turn. As they become comfortable and confident with this activity I begin to add some rules. 1 point for speaking clearly, 2 points for making good eye contact, 3 points for talking without stopping and -1 point for saying 'ummm'. As the students become familiar with this activity we do it as a warm up before writing speeches, practising speeches and delivering speeches. They seem to enjoy this activity. It is fast paced and the range of topics is fun. Another great activity from Revisit, Reflect, Retell by Linda Hoyt. I thought of this activity because yesterday was the birthday of John Venn (think Venn diagram) and my husband's class just completed a Character and Me activity for Boy Overboard using a venn diagram (pictures to come). On a page in their books the students drew three overlapping circles (see example venn diagram below) and wrote their name in one circle, Bibi's name in another and Jamal's name in the final circle. They then went on to write things that they all shared in common in the very centre of the diagram, things they shared with each of the characters where their circles overlapped, and things the two characters had in common where their circles overlapped. They then wrote things that were not common for each character in the outer parts of the circles. I have put an example worksheet below. Feel free to download it and change the headings to suit whatever text you are reading.
Lately I have been doing a bit of work on pronouns with one of my students who mixes them up. If you have a student who mixes up pronouns or doesn't use them correctly perhaps they can take a look at this clip. I have used this clip many times in the last few years. It is great for looking at parts of a sentence (subject and predicate) as well as looking at past tense verbs. Beware - the song is a bit of an earworm! My husband's class are doing a description/narrative unit on Boy Overboard at the moment. It is such a fantastic book! Alongside of their novel study they are learning generally about descriptive language and this week they are focusing on adjectives and using a thesaurus to find synonyms for those adjectives, in an attempt to move away from the 'easy' basic adjectives. One activity we saw while looking up ideas on the Internet was the idea of 'Alien Adjectives' (which has nice alliteration - another of their focuses in a different week!) Today we found a heap of alien pictures on google and tomorrow the students will cut out one alien and glue it into the middle of an A4 piece of paper. They then have to write as many adjectives that they can to describe the alien - using basic adjectives at first. Once they have described the alien they pass their alien onto the next person and the next person uses a thesaurus to look up synonyms for those basic adjectives and adds them to the words around the alien. This continues until each student (either in their group or in the whole class) has had a turn at searching for synonyms for the alien. The aliens will then be displayed in the classroom and those words will help later for their own character descriptions when they write their narratives. Also, it gives the students an oppotunity to learn about the thesaurus, what a synonym is and how they can use more interesting and complex words to describe. Below I will put the word file with the aliens we are using and on the last page of the file a display heading.
Last term I worked a lot with narrative units. One activity that I found to work well is based on Linday Hoyt's Sketch to Stretch activity from Revisit, Reflect, Retell.
Often I have seen teachers use sketch to stretch with informative texts, however I had the idea to use it with narratives after I asked a new arrivals student to tell me what she understood about the class novel 'James and the Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl. The teacher was reading to the class at the time so instead of answering me verbally she began to draw. She used a whole A4 piece of paper and drew the story from the start up until the chapter they were currently listening to. She used arrows between each picture to show the flow of the narrative. I was amazed as she was able to demonstrate a much more detailed understanding of the text than I had anticipated. At the time her oral language skills still needed assistance and so it was lovely to see her explain, through pictures, the narrative in such detail - detail that would not, at the time, have been possible to have been told orally. In this activity I take the class narrative (novel) and re read the current chapter - or pre read the next chapter with my students. On the first reading they just listen. Then I read the chapter again. This time the students have to sketch each part of the chapter as I read. I explain to the students that a 'sketch' is a quick drawing without too much detail - it is not a finished picture. I read slowly to allow them time to think and draw. Then I have the students explain their sketch to a partner. The partner must listen and decide whether or not the person sketching has missed any important parts. They then describe their sketch to their partner and the original person listens and points out missing elements. Missing elements are added as they are pointed out. Then the students label their sketches with key words (which I happily spell should they need it). Following that the students use their labelled sketches to write a chapter retell. I find this activity goes a long way towards allowing the students to fully think about the chapter and the words used in the chapter, to visualise the action, prior to writing. They have talked through their ideas and seen the ideas drawn on paper. Usually their written retells (or oral retells if that is what you want to work on with a student) are more detailed and longer. Here are some Popplet examples from my year 2 EAL/D students. They have only just been completed. Click on the image to go to the actual Popplet page to read what they have written.
These Popplets came at the end of a unit on Transport and Machines ( and they were only finished today!) The students did a lot of research into their chosen transport or machine. They looked for key words, seperated ideas under four headings, drafted sentences for each heading and finally published their information as a Popplet. I am very proud of the work they have achieved! My students love this activity. I usually do it at the beginning of a unit based around descriptions and narratives.
Students are broken into pairs. Each student is given two pieces of paper. On the first piece of paper each student draws a monster (without their partner seeing). Once both monsters have been drawn they continue to hide their monster from their partner - however one person in the pair now becomes the describer and the other becomes the drawer. Person A will describe their monster to person B (without showing person B the monster). Person B must listen and draw what they hear - but they do not show person A what they are drawing. Once person A has finished describing their monster in as much detail as possible then person B has a turn to describe their monster. Person A draws (without showing person B) exactly what person B is describing. When both people have finished describing and drawing their respective monsters then the original monsters get compared to the ones drawn from the descriptions. Students, with the teacher, discuss why/why not the monsters look like the original. Students pin point ways they could have better described how their monster looked. They compliment each other on parts that were described/drawn similar and say how they would describe their monster differently next time. I find this activity is useful as it helps the students focus on the importance of accurately describing something in detail - and it allows students to understand that when something isn't described in detail that the person listening to the description might paint a different picture in their mind to the actual thing. This is especially important when writing a character description. Often students picture the character in their mind - and in great detail - but when they come to writing about the character they fail to mention important things about the character. I hope this activity makes students realise that the more detail that is given to the listener/reader, that the more the listener/reader's image of the character will be like their own. On this week's TES Australia there was a link to the ESL Toolkit activities.
There are a range of activities ranging from Year 1 to Year 5. I haven't had a chance to look through it properly yet, but I am sure you may find them useful. TES Australia ESL Toolkit One of the most useful strategies I use with stage 2 and 3 students is teaching the students how to code a text.
I begin by giving each student a copy of the text we are going to look at (usually given to me 2 mins prior by the classroom teacher). Then I ask them to look at the title and we predict what we think the text may be about and the students discuss any prior knowledge they have of the topic. I did this yesterday with a worksheet on Gold with a year five class. It was titled 'Gold Fever', and it was very interesting to find out what the students thought 'Gold Fever' might mean as no one in the group had heard that term before. After we predict and discuss possible information we think we might find in the text then I show them how I want them to code the text. * for important information * ? for something I didn't know/new information ( ) around words I don't know the meaning of _____ technical words zig zag line for something interesting Then I read the text to the students. I read it slowly, line by line, so they have time to code. I stop at the end of each paragraph and I ask what words they found that they thought were important words, what words had brackets (then I explain the meanings of each word), what words had a ? and what was an interesting fact they learned (zig zagged lines). Then we write the technical words they found in each paragraph on the board and add to the list as we continue paragraph by paragraph. I then finish each paragraph by having the children tell me what they thought the paragraph was about and we discuss the meaning of the entire paragraph. We continue in this fashion until each paragraph has been covered. The students seem to enjoy this activity as it breaks the text down to paragraph level and it makes it less intimidating. It also gives them ample time to discuss how and what they coded and compare with others and it allows key vocabulary to be explored paragraph by paragraph - so as those words continue to feature through the text they no longer become unknown words. There is a similar activity in Linda Hoyt's 'Revisit, Reflect, Retell'. I have adapted it to use my own codes and you can make up what ever codes you wish the students to use. |
Mrs McNamaraI am an EAL/D teacher currently teaching in a primary school within the Newcastle area of NSW, Australia. Categories
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