Small group work with English Language Learners

1. Small group work with English Language Learners Boosting Language Confidence through Collaboration, Communication, Choice and Creation By Fatima Valle Willamette University

2. Introduction • “Small - group instruction for English language learners provides an environment in which students can feel comfortable practicing and receiving feedback and teachers can offer additional teaching and modeling.” (Kendall,2006 ) • As part of my Inquiry Project, I worked with three groups in a 3rd grade dual-language classroom. One group was considered my full “bilingual” group, one was a Spanish as a Second Language Group and one was an English as a Second Language group. For the purpose of this Professional Contribution I will focus on my findings from this third group. This is a group with which many teachers find themselves working with, often without many tools or time to do so. • My goal for this group was to build their language confidence in English through working with a topic they enjoyed and giving them choice and ownership in their learning.

3. Lesson Plan • Interview students to get to know them and learn more about them, specifically their language backgrounds and interests. • Meet with students in small group and just talk, again to see how they use language and their comfort levels. • Explore research topics and decide on a topic of high interest. • Research individually and collaboratively within the topic, focusing on mini-topics of interest. • Encourage students along the way to communicate, collaborate, and create, in their second language and using first language as needed. • Find a final project to create, giving them an end goal and authentic audience to present their ideas. • Self-evaluate along the way to check in with their language confidence and set mini-goals. • Compare student talk and language confidence with previous recordings and data.

4. Students were encouraged to begin with speaking whatever language was easiest for them in an effort to establish comfort within the small-group setting. These students would code-switch as they spoke many times and this was encouraged to get them to speak more. • Research shows that using a native language to help their second language (code-switching) can enhance their learning of this L2. (Combs, Evans, Fletcher, Jimenez, Parra, 2004) • As time went on, I would remind them of their language goals and they would usually respond positively and switch their language to L2 as needed, continuing to use each other for help with the new language. Parameters How student language was encouraged.

5. *Bilingual Self-Evaluations Daily: Did they use their L2? Did they get or give help? Did they enjoy it? What would they like to do next time? What is their language goal for next time? *Library Books: Students and I travelled to the library to pick out relevant books for our topic of “Animals”. Each student then had a sub-topic, or specific group of animals for their personal focus. These resources were most often found in English, their L2, though occasionally we found some in Spanish. Additional Materials used in Small Group

6. Communication • Codeswitching was allowed as needed and as students preferred. Second language was encouraged but giving them the option allowed them to feel comfortable in taking risks with their language. • Student talk with the teacher was different than talk with their peers. Used more second language with the teacher than with peers at the beginning. • Telling stories and making connections was very important with this group. I encouraged this greatly, even if it meant pausing in the “research”. It got students talking- which was more important!

7. Communication contd. • “Dialoguing is regarded as a ‘meaning-oriented’ exchange between teacher and students.” (Forman, 2012) • The focus should be put on creating a communicative environment where students can make mistakes and learn from them (Furkert,2010). • Whatever I could do to get them to talk… I asked questions, I would start with easy questions that would engage them. I would encourage and positively praise when they made an effort. Bringing in relevant, new and interesting materials helped to keep them engaged and talking. It was very important to encourage Talking, with me and with each other. Authentic communication is how they best develop language.

8. Collaboration • Students worked together to decide on a topic of high interest. (Animals) • Students would help each other in translating texts so they could understand them. • Students helped each other in translating words when they took notes and during their final project and creations. • Teacher and student collaborated in translating text and new vocabulary.

9. Collaboration contd. • In final project students collaborated in making their final creation: a zoo using the animals they drew and researched. • Each student made a specific portion of the zoo, collaborating with peers on how to create the best environment for all the animals. • In small groups, it’s much easier for teachers to interact directly with students as well as students with their peers. There are more opportunities for students to develop their oral language skills and work together (Kendall, 2006). • The spaces created within these unique small groups allow for “a bridge between ideas, a navigational area for students to work in communities, and a transformational space where students affect one another” (Fitts, 2009)

10. Choice • Students had a lot of choice in this small group. From choosing their initial topic, to their more individual topics to research, to how they would present their information in the final project. Choice in language at times also boosted their confidence as well as choice in their research and texts. • Choice had amazing positive results. Students were excited and motivated every time we met. They were interested in their topics and excited to be able to choose what they learned, how they learned it, and how they presented it. This had a positive and direct correlation with their second language use. More of their L2 was heard as the group went on and they spoke more in their L2 with each other as they became interested in each other’s chosen topics.

11. Choice contd. • “When students are given the opportunity to decide, they communicate about topics relevant to them, making the language ultimately more meaningful…Allowing students to make choices about and help guide instruction makes them feel valued and, in turn, helps them learn more.” (Furkert, 2010)

12. Creative Creations • Students were presented with a multi-genre list that they could pick and choose from on how to present the information they learned and had gathered. • From this list students chose the ones they felt they could express their knowledge and work. • Students were very involved in this process because it allowed them to incorporate many of their interests including drawing, painting, art, movement, and science. • Students were building things and creating hands-on while talking and sharing their information with their peers. All the “C’s” were incorporated in this final project and language use was high.

13. Creative Creations contd. • Student creations were then presented in an authentic manner to their peers from the other groups. Students were complimented on their creativity and their final projects and they were proud of what they had accomplished. • During the final evaluations students agreed that they felt more confident in their language use and that they felt happy that they could share what they learned with peers of a different language ability. • “But creating goes further to engage students in L2 which expands the content and associated language beyond what is given by the text.”(Forman, 2012)

14. Creations

15. Why does this matter? • These “Four C’s” (Collaboration, Communication, Choice, and Creation) can help teachers to incorporate and make time for these learning and language development strategies. ELLs benefit greatly from all of these as I found in my research project. Even including or making sure that these elements are present in a lesson plan can help to boost student language and confidence in their abilities.

16. Conclusion • If teachers make a conscious and consistent effort to include these in their teaching, they will see growth in their students. In an effort to make students successful and engaged, we must make changes in the standard curriculum to incorporate more choice and creation, more authentic communication and small group collaboration.

17. Bibliography • Combs, M.C., Evans, C., Fletcher, T., Jimenez, A., & Parra, E. (2004). Bilingualism for the children: Implementing a dual language program in an English only state. University of Arizona. • Fitts, S. (2009). Exploring third space in a dual-language setting: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Latinos and Education, 8(2), 87-104. Retrieved March 14, 2012, fromhttp://www.mendeley.com/research/exploring-third-space-duallanguage-setting-opportunities-challenges/ • Forman, R. (2012). g Six Functions of Bilingual EFL Teacher Talk: Animating, Translating, Explaining, Creating, Prompting and Dialoguing. Sage, 43(2), 239-253. Retrieved March 20, 2013, from http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/239.full.pdf+html  • Furkert, K. (2010, July 8). Empowering English Language Learners with Choice in Instruction.EmpoweringEnglish Language Learners. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from http:// education.missouri.edu/orgs/mper/fellows/files/Secondary%20Empowering%20ELL.pdf  • Kendall, J. (2006, February). Small-Group Instruction for English Language Learners. Principal Leadership,1, 28-31.