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Best Practices for Teaching ELLs May 24, 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 17 Table of Contents
Interventions for Developing ELLs' Oral Academic Language Skills
Emily S. Frank
Oral Language with Accountable Talk
It is important to carefully listen to students' oral language, because if students struggle with oral language, it is unlikely that their writing will improve until their oral language improves.
However, assessing oral language can be challenging because it requires closely observing and recording data rather than simply collecting work samples.
Accountable Talk is a method for questioning and leading discussion that gives teachers a common language to use across curriculum areas to elicit oral academic language from students.
By deliberately using Accountable Talk prompts, teachers can consistently encourage students to elaborate on their responses and explain their thinking in more detail. The strategy also helps students remain accountable to the learning community, accurate knowledge, and rigorous thinking.
You can read more about Accountable Talk in the article Accountable Talk in Reading Comprehension Instruction (PDF).
Like an increasing number of schools across the country, Fuller Middle School in Framingham, Mass., has a high percentage of students whose first language is not English. During 2009–2010, a study group supported by the Special Education Department at Framingham Public Schools focused on three students in this population who were not receiving special education services but were identified as struggling by their teachers.
We used an instrument we developed, the Red Flag Discussion Guide, to help us fine-tune our identification of particular areas of concern. For each student, we developed a goal and an intervention plan to help the student attain that goal. Then we collected data over a period of at least two months to determine if the student made progress toward the goal during the intervention.
What follows is a closer look at our work with one 8th grader to help him develop oral use of academic language in classroom discussions.
Identifying Areas of Concern and Developing a Goal
Juan was born in El Salvador, attended kindergarten in Framingham, moved back to El Salvador and then to Florida, and returned to Framingham when he was in 3rd grade. He was in the English as a second language program from 3rd through 8th grade. Juan's grades in middle school were A's and B's, and he scored in the proficient range on the most recent statewide English language arts test.
However, a review of his writing revealed that he struggled with word order (e.g., "table kitchen" instead of "kitchen table"), grammar, and spelling. During oral discussions, Juan spoke in brief phrases but rarely expressed a complete thought, his teachers reported. In short, he struggled with oral expression, and it was difficult for him to move beyond using single words and brief phrases when speaking in class.
The review of his history and current school functioning revealed seven Red Flag Discussion Guide indicators:
The 8th grade team developed a goal for Juan: In conferences with the teacher, partner activities, small-group discussions, and large-group discussions, Juan will express complete thoughts using key academic vocabulary. He will express at least one complete thought per academic class.
Creating an Intervention Plan
The intervention plan for Juan included these strategies:
The materials needed for this plan included word banks; sentence starters; graphic organizers; audiobooks; and a self-monitoring checklist to help Juan keep track of how often he participated, if he used identified vocabulary, and if he expressed complete thoughts.
The Results
Through the course of the study, Juan made dramatic progress in his ability to express himself orally in the classroom.
During the first four observations, Juan expressed no complete thoughts. During the last four observations, he expressed at least one complete thought per class. And on the final day of observation, he expressed two complete thoughts and used academic vocabulary twice in social studies, and he expressed four complete thoughts and used academic vocabulary once in science.
For all three students in the study group, identifying a key area of challenge and developing focused intervention plans did result in improved functioning, and broadly implementing the protocol used by this study group may result in reduced special education referrals. In addition, teachers reported that closely following one student and developing a highly focused intervention plan resulted in improved instruction for all students and improved performance for many students.
Reference
Wolf, M. K., Crosson, A. C., & Resnick, L. B. (2006, January). Accountable talk in reading comprehension instruction. Los Angeles, CA: National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED492865.pdf
Emily S. Frank is Team Evaluation Coordinator at Fuller Middle School and Brophy Elementary in Framingham, Mass.
ASCD Express, Vol. 7, No. 17. Copyright 2012 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.
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