Pairing Content with Language

As an ESL teacher, how do you decide what to teach?  We are a WIDA state and follow their standards.  In my district, we don't have a particular ESL curriculum.   My students come to ESL for an hour pull out group.  Due to scheduling, a lot of my students miss their science and social studies instruction time with their class.   Therefore, I am always looking for ways to mesh grade level content standards with our language acquisition standards so that students can get the most of their time out in ESL.  I know I can get a whole lot of reading and language taught with science and social studies text so that is where I start.

Today I wanted to share with you how I accomplish this.  For example, I know that my third and fourth graders both have standards related to how energy moves in food chains.  I pair that content up with language skills of sequencing, interpreting graphs, and writing to describe processes.  

I start my units by seeing what students already know about a topic and building background knowledge.  This could be with graphic organizers where students show what they know, labeling a picture with vocabulary they already know, or a quick preassessment.

I select important words that students need to understand concepts as well as key science vocabulary and make unlabeled picture cards for each word.  We spend a few minutes each day reviewing words and playing vocabulary games. 

Then, we read as much as we can on food chains, food webs, energy pyramids, etc.  We watch video clips, make our own flowcharts using manipulatives, act out the parts, think pair share with a partner or group, etc.  I am consistently monitoring for understanding during activities as well as with quick writes and exit tickets.  

At the end of the unit, I want to assess student learning.  I have recently started creating some ESL packs that allow me to assess their understanding of content standards as well as practice the four domains of language.  I am very excited about these because they are an efficient way to monitor learning and practice for our annual ESL test.

Here is what is included in each practice pack:
*Speaking:  background text, model examples, questions for the students to respond to, and a rubric.
*Listening:  teacher script, student questions, and an answer key.
*Reading:  text, student questions, and an answer key.
*Writing:  background information, writing prompt, writer's checklist, and a rubric.

**Special Note- I use these activities with ESL students who are in grades 3-5 and are at the intermediate to high levels of language acquisition.**

Click on the link to see some sample pages in my store.
Food Chains: ESL Practice Packets

I am finishing up my plants practice packet and have so many ideas for other content themes!

Happy Adventuring,
Heidi

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Think and Writes: List and Describe the Picture

The last two skills I am going to share with you in my "Think and Writes" series are List and Describe the Picture. Check the bottom of this post for links to the previous posts in this series.

List is my students' all time favorite.  I always save it for Fridays.  It is a fun way to see what vocabulary words students know within a certain topic or theme.  List is exactly like it sounds.  I put a topic on the board.  The students have 4 minutes to write a list of all the words they think fit in that topic.  Spelling does not matter.  If they can't think of the word in English, then they can write out a description.   If they are not sure it fits the category, they can write it anyway, and we will discuss at the end.

When the 4 minutes is up, we go around the room and start naming the words they wrote.  I record the words on the white board.  If you wrote a word that has been called by a classmate, you put a check by it.  This gives us a chance to share what words we know as well as introduce some new words that classmates know.   When we are out of words, we count them and write our total on the board.  This is the one "Think and Write" that I don't differentiate for grade levels or language acquisition.  We have a little competition to see which group could think of the highest number of words.  On Monday, I give the winning group a sticker for their notebooks.  It is rare that the same group wins two weeks in a row.

Here are some topics I have used:  transportation, things with numbers, weather words, animal adaptations, U.S. states, character traits, landforms, color words, animals with wings, vegetables, etc.  

Depending on my levels of language acquisition, I call the final "Think and Writes" either Describe the Picture or I See.  My goal for this skill is to get students to write detailed sentences or paragraphs about what they see.  I scaffold this with a teacher example (of a different picture) and a paragraph frame.  As the year progresses, I can take away that scaffolding if it is no longer needed.  I ask the class what words they need from the picture, and we will work together to label the picture.  It is like we are making a word box.  Then students will write to describe what they notice in the picture.  For my higher students, I encourage them to start their writing with a topic sentence.  I use the hamburger model a lot when teaching writing so I may have a hamburger drawn on the screen. 

In the classroom, I write the words students call out directly on the white board where my picture is projected. 

As students finish their writing, I remind them to reread their sentences to see if they make sense.  A lot of mistakes can be caught by just reading aloud.   I then read their sentences and give feedback on capitalization, punctuation, academic vocabulary, sentence structure, etc.  This"Think and Write" skill takes the longest so I sometimes let them just share their favorite sentence with the class. 

I hope this series has been helpful.  Click below to visit my previous posts on "Think and Writes."

Same and Different

What Doesn't Belong?

Here's the Answer

Happy Adventuring, 

Heidi

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