Planning for English Language Learners

With so many families moving throughout the world, teachers must be prepared to welcome all levels of English language speakers into their classroom. There are six stages of language acquisition: pre-production, early production, speech emergent, beginning fluency, intermediate fluency and advanced fluency. What would a teacher do if, he or she had a class with four different levels of ELLs? What would I do? If I was teaching a 3rd grade unit on habitats, how would I manage a classroom with four different levels of ELL students?

First, when introducing the topic of habitats, I would show a video to the entire class about the specific habitat we are going to study, for example, the ocean. I would show a short documentary that shows the ocean and the animals that live there. With a video, all students are engaged and, for those students who are ELL, they get the visuals that they need to understand the topic. I would follow-up the video asking the whole class questions: Have you ever been to the ocean? What can you smell? How do you feel? And, ask them to share an experience they had at the seaside. Having the class participate in this way would make it more meaningful for them. This type of discussion would also be good for the ELLs because we are modeling speaking and sentence structure for them.

The next step would be to modify learning about the ocean habitat for each ELL level. For the pre-production student, who is most likely a student who has just arrived in the country and in my classroom, he or she may have no English. I would focus the activity on visuals. Pictures of the ocean and sea life with words and flash cards. I would concentrate on a specific set of vocabulary as to not overwhelm them and have them repeat the words frequently to practice speaking. The student could draw a picture of the ocean and use the new ocean vocabulary to label the different parts of his or her picture. I would probably have to work closest with this student, if possible or assign the student a buddy to work with.

The early production ELL student has a limited English vocabulary and can speak in very short sentences. I would provide this student with similar visuals to the pre-production student, such as images of the ocean and sea life along with easy reader books. But, I would also give him or her a descriptive text that describes oceans that he or she would fill in the gaps, so the student could do a little scaffolded writing.

The third group, speech emergence, has more vocabulary, can ask simple questions and can hold short conversations with classmates. For this student, I would have them match images with definitions. Then, I would have them write a short paragraph about an experience they had at the ocean. This student, could then share his or her paragraph with a partner.

With the fourth level of ELL student, who has intermediate fluency, I would still begin with some visuals and vocabulary. But, because the student's level of vocabulary is fairly good at around 6,000 words and the student is able to express his or her opinion, I would then try to integrate the student into the main class activity of paired work, so that he or she gets as much speaking practice as possible.

I think the key to working with different levels of ELLs in the classroom is knowing the specificity of each stage of language acquisition so I can better meet the needs of the student. Three important ideas to remember are to provide lots of visuals, opportunities for speaking and breaking down larger concepts into smaller steps. And, as the teacher, I need to make the students feel comfortable,  model words and behavior for them and give them the time to reflect and speak. Creating and cultivating a classroom that meets the needs of each individual will ultimately benefit all students with lifelong skills.  

Sources:

http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php

http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/language-acquisition-overview