Effective Instruction for ELLs

1. Effective Instruction for ELLs ED.810.629 Supporting English Language Learners in Literacy and Content Knowledge Development (SELL) November 6, 2010

2. Outcomes: By the end of tonight’s class, students will have: Debriefed the experience of creating the mid-term Powerpoint Reviewed the research base behind the three principles of effective ELL instruction in the mainstream Discussed and seen examples of the three principles of effective ELL instruction in action Applied what we have learned to a 2nd grade social studies lesson.

3. Your mid-term exams! Share your PPT with a partner Discuss the following: • Why did you choose the content you chose? • How is this presentation engaging and interaction? • What is the element that indicates whether or not the participants “got it?”

4. Three Principles of Effective ELL Instruction • Language acquisition theories have highlighted three key principles that mainstream teachers can use to support English Language Learners in their classroom: • increase comprehensibility, • increase interaction, and • Increase thinking / study skills

5. Research shows…. What is the research behind each of the three principles? • increase comprehensibility: • increase interaction: • Increase thinking / study skills:

6. Increase Comprehensibility Thisprinciple involves the ways in which teachers can make content more understandable to their students. With early to intermediate language learners, these include: • Constructing background knowledge • Providing many nonverbal clues such as • Pictures, & objects • Demonstrations, • Gestures and intonation cues • Building from language that is already understood, • Using graphic organizers, • Hands-on learning opportunities • Cooperative learning • Peer tutoring techniques

7. Increase Interaction When students talk to each other about class work, ELLs learn important language and content in conversations that are less complex and difficult to understand than teacher lectures. A number of strategies have been developed that increase students’ opportunities to use both their language skills and new content material in direct communication. These include: • cooperative learning (Jigsaws, carousels, etc.) • study buddies, • project-based learning • one-to-one teacher/student interactions • knee-to-knee/think-pair-share

8. Increase Thinking/Study Skills Accommodations for ELLshave traditionally focused on concrete, hands-on activities and reteaching, limiting these students’ access to the abstract concepts and processes that stimulate higher-order thinking. Strategies that develop more advanced, higher-order thinking skills as a student’s competency increases include: • asking students higher order thinking • questions, • “think-alouds” • Explicitly teaching and reinforcing study skills and • test-taking skills, • holding high expectations for all students.

9. Let’s try! Review this lesson from the second grade, 1st quarter social studies curriculum. Considering the three principles of effective ELL instruction, how will you adapt it and what activities will you add to make it more accessible for ELLs?