There are many interesting linguistic techniques that will incorporate ELLs and benefit the whole class. The first major area to discuss is direct instruction. Students get plenty of direct instruction throughout the day, so there needs to be time to switch it up. Students need to make their own connections to ideas without always being talked at. Tapping into students' prior knowledge is key, this is why the Constructivist Theory is effective. There are ways to incorporate students' prior knowledge to any lesson by asking them questions or allowing them to explore topics on their own. A video called "Post-Its: Little Notes For Big Instruction" (teachingchannel.org) shows one teacher giving her students post-its to gather their thoughts on each page as they read. The students can make connections to the reading through the post-its or they can make predictions. I think this can be effective especially for ELLs because the post-its are completely personal. They can make whatever connections they want and even write them in whatever language they desire.
Incorporating art into language is also a very popular and effective idea. One teacher incorporated vocabulary words onto paint chips in a video called "Vocabulary Paint Chips" (teachingchannel.org). This helped the students see a word, with different variations of the word written on each shade of the paint chip. Seeing words on different shades and colors will help students when they go to think back on the word. That extra connection to color may be surprisingly helpful. Also, making a word cloud is another great idea. In "Literacy In Science: Word Clouds," (teachingchannel.org) a teacher discussed weird words and ideas in books with the students then made a word cloud via the internet for the class to see. Seeing the words as art is another way for students to retain them. This is especially helpful for ELLs because art becomes that extra tool in memorizing words. I also like the idea of illustrating connections to stories after students are finished reading. They are not actually illustrating the story, but rather how they personally connected to it. They can talk about those connections with other students and even see similar connections that students made. These illustrations are helpful for ELLs because they will have a personal drawing of a connection which will help refreshen their memories when they come back to it.
Incorporating art into language is also a very popular and effective idea. One teacher incorporated vocabulary words onto paint chips in a video called "Vocabulary Paint Chips" (teachingchannel.org). This helped the students see a word, with different variations of the word written on each shade of the paint chip. Seeing words on different shades and colors will help students when they go to think back on the word. That extra connection to color may be surprisingly helpful. Also, making a word cloud is another great idea. In "Literacy In Science: Word Clouds," (teachingchannel.org) a teacher discussed weird words and ideas in books with the students then made a word cloud via the internet for the class to see. Seeing the words as art is another way for students to retain them. This is especially helpful for ELLs because art becomes that extra tool in memorizing words. I also like the idea of illustrating connections to stories after students are finished reading. They are not actually illustrating the story, but rather how they personally connected to it. They can talk about those connections with other students and even see similar connections that students made. These illustrations are helpful for ELLs because they will have a personal drawing of a connection which will help refreshen their memories when they come back to it.
Above is a Word Cloud I made with words from the book, "I Was So Mad," by Mercer Mayer. I made this Word Cloud from www.jasondavies.com
Other resources for this post:
teachingchannel.org
Other resources for this post:
teachingchannel.org