‘Celebrating Mistakes’ and Other Ways to Help English-Learners.
‘Sometimes Overlooked’
Valentina Gonzalez is a former classroom
teacher with over 20 years in education serving also as a district facilitator
for English-learners, a professional-development specialist for ELs, and as an
educational consultant. Her work can be found on Seidlitz Education and on
MiddleWeb. You can reach
To become well-spoken and effective communicators, English-learners, hereafter
referred to as multilingual learners (MLs), benefit from role models and
practice speaking in the target language. Listening and speaking banks are
essential yet sometimes overlooked facets of language acquisition and academic
success. Why? These two domains are rarely assessed on standardized tests
other than language assessments, and the grade-level curriculum is already
overwhelming. Many educators are left thinking that there is no time to
provide students with opportunities to talk. On the other hand, students are
given reading or writing assignments that are easily evaluated, so there’s a
heavier emphasis on reading and writing.
Yet, teaching MLs to speak a new language is important to their
linguistic and academic success. Listening and speaking are investments for
future reading and writing and overall literacy. When these two domains are
overlooked, students suffer.
MLs are not monolithic, so individual
consideration is a must. Some are born in the United States and learn two
languages simultaneously. Others immigrate at various ages, with different
levels of language proficiency and diverse experiences that all have effects
on second-language acquisition. These are some questions to consider as you
begin to plan speaking practices for MLs:
At what age/grade level
are they acquiring English?
What types of language experiences do they
have?
What languages can they speak?
Is their first language similar
or very different from English?
Are there cultural norms you should be
are of (eye contact, proximity, etc.)?
In classrooms today, we can ensure
that MLs have equitable opportunities to develop language while acquiring the
academic skills they need to be successful with the grade-level curriculum by
creating daily and intentional opportunities for speaking practice.
ECHO,
CHORAL
ECHO reading is having students mimic reading that the
teacher models first—providing an opportunity to hear the academic language,
tone, prosody, fluency, and English-language structures from an expert reader
before they read aloud as a class. CHORAL reading is reading aloud in unison
as a class. Both methods help MLs hear prosody and practice fluency in
English-language structures. ECHO and CHORAL reading are not actually asking
students to speak their own ideas. These two methods create environments that
get MLs comfortable with vocalizing in front of their peers. And that’s
important because if students are too afraid to open their mouths in class,
speaking won’t happen the way we wish it would. Students can ECHO/CHORAL read
the learning objectives, a sentence, a paragraph, a poem, etc.
Structured
Conversations
Structured conversations offer a routine, set
explicit expectations, and incorporate language and content. All of which
benefit MLs. Typically, when we ask students to turn and talk to a partner,
there is little structure involved. Kids turn to their partners, and the
speaking and interaction that happen vary greatly from student to student. On
the other hand, structured conversations such as QSSSA require teachers to
provide learners with guidelines and a framework for the interaction. Students
engage in a routine, knowing what the goals are and how to achieve them.
There’s no guesswork. Through effective structured conversations. the teacher
…
Strategically and intentionally assigns partners or groups.
Tells
students how the interaction will take place (share in numerical order, share
alphabetically by first names, etc.).
Provides scaffolds such as sentence
starters and visuals.
Walks the room to listen in and observe
interactions.
Provides feedback and clears up misconceptions.
Less
Structured Speaking Opportunities
Two less structured and more
lengthy opportunities for speaking include using wordless picture books and
the Sketchnote Review (Gonzalez, forthcoming). Both of these methods allow for
maximum use of visuals as well as strategic partnering of students. Teachers
can increase or decrease accommodations by applying sentence stems for
listening and speaking.
Wordless Picture Books
Provide
students with an assortment of wordless picture books and allow time for
learners to review them and select one to share with a partner.
Strategically
pair learners.
Have students take turns “reading” the wordless picture
book to their partners.
Variations:
Students can buddy read
the pages, creating an increased need for listening.
Students can read to
a younger grade level.
Provide sentence stems for additional support.
Sketchnote
Review (Gonzalez, forthcoming)
Have students sketch note (take
notes using visuals and words) on a topic during a lesson or as they read or
watch a video.
Provide students time to look over their sketch notes and
prepare to verbally share them with a partner.
Strategically pair
students up and have them verbally share their sketch notes with one another
as they point to each part of their notes. Offer sentence stems as necessary
for listening and speaking.
Speaking of Language
Multilingual
learners who have experiences with languages other than English do not
magically shut off the other languages as they walk into our classrooms. They
use their prior language experiences and knowledge as they acquire new
languages. Languages build on one another, and the process of language
acquisition is fluid and dynamic. It can look one way today and another
tomorrow. It can look this way for one student and differently for another.
Language
and speaking develop through opportunities. I used to think a quiet classroom
meant the teacher had good classroom management. Now, when I observe a quiet
classroom, I wonder about language development. And I wonder about
multilingual learners.
languagesbuild
‘Mistakes Should Be
celebrated’
Julia López-Robertson is a former bilingual primary teacher
and is currently a professor and teacher educator at the University of South
Carolina. She is the author of Celebrating Our Cuentos: Choosing and Using
Latinx Literature in Elementary Classrooms published by Scholastic. She can be
reached at LOPEZROB@mailbox.sc.edu:
“No sé inglés, pero estoy
aprendiendo. Solo que no me gusta hablar [en inglés].”/I don’t know English,
but I am learning. I just do not like to talk [in English].
Yesenia
shared this thought in a small-group reading lesson with other young
Spanish-speaking students. Most young students learning English share this
sentiment, and they are often hesitant to use English in the classroom. There
are many reasons young students learning English are hesitant to speak in
class. They often can’t find the right words to express exactly what they want
to say and many times they are afraid of being chastised or laughed at for
making mistakes. How do we help them overcome this fear? What can we do to
help make speaking English less scary? How do we make students OK with making
mistakes so that they can get the practice they need to become more fluent
speakers?
It all begins with the classroom environment; classrooms must be places
students feel safe taking chances. Mistakes should be celebrated for their
effort, as mistakes are a crucial step in becoming a more fluent speaker. The
classroom must be welcoming of all students’ cultures and languages
(García-Sánchez & Faulstich Orellana, 2022). Teachers should learn to view
their English-learners through an asset-based lens. Learn to see the fact that
they bring a distinct knowledge of the world that the classroom can benefit
from (Delgado Bernal, 2002). Students feel loved and respected by their
teachers, and peers feel less anxious (Krashen, 1985) about learning English.
A welcoming and safe classroom leads to more academic risk taking for all
students, but it is essential for students learning a new language and a new
culture.
A safe and welcoming classroom environment isn’t enough.
The content must be meaningful and relevant for all students, but especially
for English-learners. Learning is much more accessible when students can make
connections to their lived experiences and across the content areas.
Keep
in mind that your English-learners probably won’t feel comfortable speaking
right away. Before they will open up and speak, they need to be engaged to
listen. Engaging read alouds are a great place to start. Can you find a
high-quality picture book that is relevant to your students’ home language? A
native-Spanish speaker is more likely to be engaged by Niño Wrestles the World
(Morales, 2015) while a native Chinese speaker may bring insight to Watercress
(2021). Both students are more likely to provide oral responses to these books
than to something more “traditional” like Curious George. They might not
understand everything, but they’ll pick up on cultural and linguistic cues
that give them something to discuss (López-Robertson, 2022).
Once
you have a classroom culture that is safe and engaging, here are a few
day-to-day strategies for helping students speak:
