Working with English Language Learners

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Working with English Language Learners

• Professional Development for Paraprofessionals

Presented by Amy Suzanne King ELL Instructional
Specialist Kansas City Regional Professional
Development Center
Adapted from The Aspire Curriculum Professional
Development for Bilingual and ESL
Paraprofessionals Center for Applied Linguistics
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Agenda

• Self-Assessment
• Walking Gallery
• Adapting Lessons
• Thinking Skills Language
• Application to Lessons
• Review

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Overall Objectives

• Support Content Instruction for ELLs
• Facilitate Academic Language Learning for ELLs
• Work Collaboratively with Teachers and Others in
  an Instructional Role

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Workshop Objectives

• Learn to Adapt Lessons to Levels of Language
  Proficiency
• Learn and Practice Higher Order Questions and
  Techniques to Extend Students Thinking
• Prepare for Continued Collaboration

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• Strategies Weve Learned

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Strategies

• Round Robin
• Think-Pair-Share
• Webbing
• Five Steps to Reading Comprehension
• Graphic Organizers

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• Self-Assessment

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Think-Pair-Share

• Write your response to the following question on
  one side of a note card.
• What is one thing you will do differently in the
  future when you work with teachers and ELLs?
• Share your answer with a partner.
• Share your answer with the group.

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Think-Pair-Share Redux

• Write your response to the following question on
  the other side of the card.
• What are some things you would you like to learn
  more about?
• Share your answer(s) with a partner.
• Share your answer(s) with the group.

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Gallery Walk

• Create a picture of your lesson.
• Display pictures by grade level.
• Examine each picture carefully.
• Vote for one picture in each grade level that
  best helps ELLs learn
• academic language
• academic content

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Best in Show

• Determine which pictures received the most
  votes
• Describe
• Lesson
• Collaboration process
• Answer the following
• What kind of academic language does the lesson
  teach?
• What academic content does the lesson teach?

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Language Development Stages

• Pre-Production
• Early Production
• Speech Emergence
• Intermediate Fluency
• Advanced

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Mnemonic Device

• PEPSI Ahhhhh!

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Pre-Production

• Students can
• Understand more than they can say
• Actively listen for short periods of time
• Respond non-verbally
• Prompts
• Point to
• Who has the?
• Tasks
• Matching
• Drawing
• Pantomiming

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Early Production

• Students can
• Respond with words and phrases
• Prompts
• Is this a ____ or a ____?
• Wh- questions
• Tasks
• Naming
• Labeling
• Listing
• Categorizing

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Speech Emergence

• Students can
• Participate in small group activities
• Begin to use English more freely
• Prompts
• Why?
• How?
• Tell me about
• Tasks
• Role Play
• Group Work

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Intermediate Fluency

• Students
• Can participate in reading activities
• Can participate in writing activities
• Appear orally fluent, but can still struggle with
  literacy and academics
• Prompts
• What do you think about?
• What would happen if?
• Tasks Can do most classroom tasks with support
  or scaffolding

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Advanced Fluency

• Students have
• Native-like social language proficiency
• Near grade-level academic language proficiency
• Prompts
• Decide if
• Retell
• Tasks Can do almost all classroom tasks with
  very limited support

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• Adapting Lessons for Proficiency Level

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Numbered Heads Together

• Number off and get in groups.
• Answer the following questions.
• What were students asked to do?
• Speak?
• Write?
• Read?
• Think?
• What else could they have done?
• How could the lesson be modified for
• lower proficiency students?
• higher proficiency students?

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• Thinking Skills and Language

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Round Robin Storytelling

• Choose four volunteers.
• Tell the story of Cinderella as a group.
• Each person tells two or three sentences of the
  story at a time.
• Write one question for an ESL student on your
  card.

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Types of Questions

• Knowledge Remembering Info
• Comprehension Understanding Meaning
• Application Using Information
• Analysis Breaking Info into Parts
• Synthesis Combining Ideas and Info
• Evaluation Judging Value of Info

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Cinderella Questions

• What did Cinderella want?
• Do you think the stepsisters loved Cinderella?
• If the prince broke the glass slipper, how else
  could he find Cinderella?
• Who made Cinderellas dress?
• Why was the glass slipper important?
• Did Cinderella like the ball?
• Who wanted to find Cinderella after the ball?
• Do you think that everyone who marries a prince
  will be happy? Why or why not?

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Cinderella Questions
Knowledge

• What did Cinderella want?
• Do you think the stepsisters loved Cinderella?
• If the prince broke the glass slipper, how else
  could he find Cinderella?
• Who made Cinderellas dress?
• Why was the glass slipper important?
• Did Cinderella like the ball?
• Who wanted to find Cinderella after the ball?
• Do you think that everyone who marries a prince
  will be happy? Why or why not?

Comprehension
Synthesis
Knowledge
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Evaluation
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Send-a-Question

• Exchange cards with someone.
• Answer the question.
• Categorize the question by type.
• Share with the group.
• Tally the number of questions of each type.

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LOTS and HOTS

• Lower Order Thinking Skills
• Answers given in the reading
• Students state or recite answers
• Higher Order Thinking Skills
• Answers NOT provided
• Student use information from the reading to
  figure out the answer

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• Application of Thinking Skills

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Numbered Heads Together Again

• Get back into your groups.
• Write one question about the lesson for each of
  the six types.
• Share with the group.

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Extending Thinking Skills
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Strategies

• Wait 3 seconds after asking a question before
  calling on a student to answer
• Wait 3 seconds after a student has responded
  before correcting
• Ask follow-up questions
• Can you tell me more about that?
• Can you give me an example?
• Ask a student to think aloud
• Use Think-Pair-Share
• Use Send-a-Question

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• Review of the Principles and Strategies

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Numbered Heads Together Again

• Divide chart paper into quarters.
• Organize the strategies in terms of the main
  principle it addresses.
• Discuss with whole group.

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Numbered Heads Together Again
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Role Play

• Scenario Paraprofessional presents teacher with
  the checklist as a means of beginning the
  conversation about collaboration using the
  strategies learned
• Scenario Teacher does not understand the value
  of having paraprofessionals work with ELLs using
  various strategies
• Scenario Paraprofessional suggests use of one of
  the strategies as a routine part of the teachers
  lessons

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Requirements

• Assignments
• Portfolios
• Small Group Meetings