An Introduction to Teaching Social Studies in the Bilingual Classroom

1
An Introduction to Teaching Social Studies in the
Bilingual Classroom

• Prepared by Global Language Solutions, LLC
• for the
• Institute for Second Language Achievement (ISLA)
  at
  
• Texas AM - Corpus Christi
• and the
• Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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International BINGO

• Sign your name in the center free box
• You will need a pen or pencil and your BINGO
  sheet for this activity
  
• Ask your classmates the questions on the BINGO
  sheet. If they can answer Yes, ask them to
  sign the box
  
• You may only sign a classmates BINGO sheet one
  time
  
• When you get 5 signatures in a row, call out,
  BINGO!

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Objectives

• Address TEKS for social studies and Spanish and
  English language arts
  
• Focus on the effective teaching of social studies
  content through the use of appropriate methods
  for developing bilingual proficiency in students

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Social Studies TEKS Grades K-6

• Pre-Kindergarten Guidelinesnature of people and
  their world, the heritage of the past, and
  contemporary living and culture
  
• Kindergartenintroduction to basic social studies
  concepts
  
• Grade 1home, school, and community
• Grade 2community, state, and nation
• Grade 3communities (past/present, here/there)
• Grade 4Texas in the Western Hemisphere
• Grade 5United States studies
• Grade 6Contemporary World Societies

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Structure of the TEKS

• Eight Strandsintegrated for instructional
  purposes
  
• History
• Geography
• Economics
• Government
• Citizenship
• Culture
• Science/Technology/Society
• Social Studies Skills

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Description of the Social Studies Curriculum

• Promotes knowledge and cultural understanding,
  democratic and civic values, and skills
  attainment and social participation
  
• Stresses historical and geographical literacy,
  important concepts about human society,
  approaches to solving problems

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Description of the Social Studies Curriculum

• Teaches democracys development, values and
  current practice in the U.S.A
  
• Designed to teach procedural knowledge (study
  skills and social skills) needed for
  participation in cooperative and democratic
  activities

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Whats Difficult about Social Studies for ELLs?

• Curriculum assumes prior historical,
  geographical, and civic knowledge and culturally
  based values which may be unfamiliar to students
  
• Specialized vocabulary often refers to abstract
  concepts
  
• Discourse is primarily expository language
  functions include both lower and higher-level
  thinking skills

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Whats Difficult about Social Studies for ELLs?

• Reading texts include sentences with multiple
  embedded clauses, complex past tense forms, and
  extensive use of pronouns
  
• Decontextualized language is used in relationship
  to unfamiliar concepts
  
• Students may have had little experience locating
  information, using maps and graphs, and using
  effective strategies for listening, reading, and
  writing

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Teaching Guidelines for Social Studies

• Assess students prior knowledge about social
  studies topics
  
• Select high priority content objectives from the
  TEKS include both lower and higher-order
  thinking skills
  
• Provide academic language activities in which
  students read, listen to, discuss, make
  presentations on, and write about social studies
  content
• Teach and have students practice learning
  strategies with all social studies activities

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Addressing the Textbook

• Work with a partner
• Fold a scratch paper in half
• On the left side of the paper brainstorm all the
  things that make reading your social studies
  textbook difficult for ELLs
  
• On the right side of the paper brainstorm all the
  things that make reading your social studies
  textbook easy for ELLs
  
• Debrief
• Consider how you can incorporate more of the
  things that make the textbook easy and overcome
  the things that make the textbook difficult

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Addressing the Textbook

• Provide opportunities for spoken and written
  connections to the textbook
  
• Provide supplementary reading materials that are
  related to the textbook and allow students to
  choose and read independently
  
• Utilize a before, during, and after approach when
  reading the textbook
  
• Guide students in how to read the textbook,
  including the organization and the format

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Adapting Written Materials

• Use a predictable text structure (i.e., topic
  sentence followed by supporting details)
  
• Reduce the number of pronouns and synonyms
• Simplify the vocabulary, but retain key concepts
  and technical terms
  
• Use active and simple verb tenses
• Provide contextual definitions for new vocabulary
  terms
  
• Avoid indefinite terms, such as it, there,
  and that
  
• Minimize the use of negatives, especially those
  like no longer or hardly

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Adapting Written Materials

• Rewrite the following sentences to make them more
  comprehensible for ELLs
  
• The Declaration of Independence was signed by
  John Hancock.
  
• There were many reasons people left Europe for
  America.
  
• The discovery of tobacco as a cash crop to be
  traded in Europe guaranteed that the colony would
  do well.
  
• John Smith is remembered for his pragmatic
  leadership.

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Well-Equipped Classroom

• Current world map and globe
• Realia, visuals, and hands-on materials
• Culturally relevant reading materials
• Audio-Visual materials
• Classroom reference library
• Social Studies Center

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Social Studies Center

• Flags of different cultures
• Thematic books
• Realia from different cultures, coins, etc.
• Photographs
• Visuals of heroes and famous people
• Timelines
• Posters
• Music from different cultures and different
  historical periods
  
• World map

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BICS CALP
The Nature of Language Proficiency

• Basic
• Interpersonal
• Communication
• Skills
• Conversational

• Cognitive
• Academic
• Language
• Proficiency
• Textbook language

Cummins, 1979
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Levels of Language Proficiency

• Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
• (BICS)
• Everyday language
• Communicative
• Universal across all native speakers
• Not related to academic achievement
• Usually attained within 2 years

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Levels of Language Proficiency

• Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)
• Abstract, decontextualized language
• Non-interpersonal
• Related to literacy skills and academic
  achievement
  
• CALP in L1 and L2 overlap despite differences in
  surface features
  
• Usually develops in 5 to 7 years or longer
  depending on individual and contextual variables

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Iceberg Analogy
BICS
CALP
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The Dual Iceberg Representation of Bilingual
Proficiency
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Cummins Four Quadrants
Cognitively Undemanding (BICS)
Context Embedded
Viewing
Talking
Context Reduced
Doing
Transforming
Cognitively Demanding (CALP)
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View

• Pictures and primary source documents
• Active video viewing

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Pictures
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Suggestions for Implementation

• Generate random vocabulary
• Describe the picture
• Interpret the picture
• Brainstorm a list of possibilities
• Talk and write answer questions specific to the
  picture
  
• Read the passage and make connections

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Active Viewing

• As students view any video clip, they should take
  notes on an active viewing handout
  
• Any graphic organizer or scaffold used with a
  video will allow students to gain more
  information

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Do

• TPR
• Picture Stories
• BINGO

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Total Physical Response
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Picture Timeline

• Arrange the items, dates, descriptions, and
  pictures in the correct chronological order to
  create a timeline
  
• Take turns telling a partner about the important
  acts and events that lead up to the American
  Revolution

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Talk

• Information Gap
• Games

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Information Gap

• Work with a partner
• One partner will be A and the other will be B
• Stand back to back with your partner
• Use the stem questions to ask your partner for
  the missing information and record the answers
  you get
  
• Use the information on your sheet to answer your
  partners questions
  
• Check with your partner at the end to make sure
  you have all the appropriate information

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Games

• What kinds of games have you used with your
  students?
  
• Why were those games effective?

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Transform

• Language experience
• Human sentences
• Journals

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Language Experience Approach

• The experience to be written about may be a
  drawing, something the student brought from home,
  a group experience planned by the teacher (i.e.,
  field trip, party, etc.), or simply a topic to
  discuss.
• The student is asked to tell about his/her
  experience.
  
• The student then dictates his/her story or
  experience to the teacher, aide, volunteer, or
  another student. The writer copies down the
  story exactly as it is dictated verbatim.
• The teacher reads the story back, pointing to the
  words, with the student reading along.

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Language Experience Approach

• The student reads the story silently and/or aloud
  to other students or to the teacher.
  
• The experience stories are saved and can be used
  for instruction in all types of reading skills.
  
• When student are ready, they can begin to write
  their own experience stories.
  
• Students can rewrite their own previous stories
  as their language development progresses, and
  then illustrate them to make books for other
  students to read.

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Human Sentences

• You will be given a card with a word on it
• Arrange yourselves in order to make a sentence
  that is historically accurate and grammatically
  correct
  
• Have a spokesperson read the sentence aloud

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Dialogue Journals

• Make sure each student has a notebook to use for
  journal writing
  
• Be sure students know they can write about
  anything in their journals, that they wont be
  graded, and that noone but the teacher will read
  them
• Be sure to respond to each journal entry
• With pre-literate students, you must write your
  response while they are watching, sounding it out
  as you write, and point to the words as you
  reread your response

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Dialogue Journals

• Never correct student entries. You may ask about
  something that is unclear or you may choose to
  model a correct form in your response if that
  seems natural
• Try not to dominate the conversation. Let the
  students initiate topics

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Vocabulary

• Word Sorts
• Concept Definition Map
• Verbal-visual word association

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Word Sorts

• Sort the following words into these categories
  (-tion, -sion, -tation)
  
• Revolution, tension, frustration, taxation,
  representation, vision, plantation, mission,
  participation, solution, passion, transition,
  nation

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Concept Definition Map
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Verbal-Visual Word Association
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Linking Instruction to Assessment

• Tests are appropriate for varying levels of
  Spanish and English language proficiency
  
• Use a diversity of measures, such as portfolios,
  observations, anecdotal records, interviews,
  checklists, and criterion-referenced tests to
  measure content knowledge and skills
• Take into account students backgrounds,
  including their educational experiences and
  parents literacy
  
• Add context to assessment tasks with familiar
  visual prompts, questions for small group
  discussion and individual writing, and activities
  that mirror learning processes with which
  students are familiar
• Allow extra time to complete or respond to
  assessment tasks
  
• Make other accommodations, such as permitting
  students to use dictionaries or word lists

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Practical Ideas on Alternative Assessment for ESL
Students

• Jigsaw

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CASH Graphic
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Module Assessment

• Complete the assessment provided in the
  handouts.
  
• Participants are expected to get at least 70
  percent of the assessment items correct to
  demonstrate mastery of the content of this module.