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ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students: Grades 9-12
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Grade Level: Twelfth grade in a self-contained ESL class
English Proficiency Level: Advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: College application process
Location: Urban school district in the East
The following vignette describes a twelfth-grade, self-contained ESL transition class of advanced-level students in an Eastern urban school district. The class is composed of mostly Caribbean and Central American Spanish-speaking students. The students take a regular English literature class as well as this transitional ESL class. They are taught by Ms. Rodriguez, a bilingual Spanish/English-speaking teacher whose certification is in English. It is October of the senior year and the students are using English to navigate the college application process -- from researching post-secondary institutions to practicing for an admissions interview.
During this long-term project, which lasted for 4 weeks, students used various reference books and semantic mappings to identify their strengths, potential careers, and the kinds of colleges that would suit them. One of the students was reluctant to participate in these activities because he had no intention of going to college -- as it was not in his family tradition, and he did not see a need for it. He discussed his feelings with two of his friends in class. Over the period of several days, they convinced him to join in the process, even if he did not plan to go to college. They explained to him that he might not want to go next year, but perhaps in the future he would. Also, they suggested the process would help for job applications and interviews.
After Ms. Rodriguez reviewed the elements of a business letter with the class, students wrote for college applications and catalogues. Once the application packets were received, the students worked in small groups to draft their essays. As a brainstorming activity before drafting the essay, the groups shared their career goals, hobbies, and interests, and the background characteristics that they felt a college might desire in its applicants. As a homework assignment, each student was to ask a peer or another teacher to list some positive features about himself or herself. The students were to gather information about their work ethic, potential, achievements, and so forth. The next day, the teacher presented several essays to the class and suggested the students consider one as a model for their own. The students then began working individually on their essays.
The next activity for the class focused on the admissions interview. The teacher showed the students a video with two sample interviews and pairs of students prepared lists of questions and personal notes to use in mock interviews. Some of these included: "Tell me about yourself." "What would you like to do after college?" "At this point in your life, what types of courses do you want to explore?" and "What do you think about distance learning and video conferencing in place of sitting in a classroom with a professor?" The pairs exchange questions and conduct interviews, taking turns as the interviewer and interviewee.
Students are encouraged to
The college application process is often confusing to high school seniors, native and nonnative speakers alike. Some immigrant students need more guidance and support because their families are less knowledgeable about the process. Some ESOL students, even those at advanced levels of proficiency, do not view themselves as "college material." One way to demystify the process is to break it down into discrete tasks as Ms. Rodriguez has done.
During this project, Ms. Rodriguez encourages her students to practice and apply many of the language activities they have learned over the years in a natural context with real tasks. Several of the planned activities have direct application to social situations in the real world. Students will write business letters, and they will go on interviews, whether for a college or for a job.
The students take responsibility for most of the work and interact with classmates to accomplish the tasks. They share information orally and in written form; they express ideas and give opinions; they write personal essays about themselves. They also ask others for opinions to gather information they can add to their application essays. When one student is uncomfortable with the project, the teacher allows him to discuss the situation and resolve it with his peers. In conducting mock interviews, the students learn the value of being prepared, such as anticipating the questions and taking notes in advance for possible responses.
Grade Level: Tenth grade in a transitional ESL/language arts class
English Proficiency Level: Advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Language arts
Location: Urban school district in the Southwest
The following vignette describes a transitional language arts class that prepares ESOL students for a mainstream class the following year. It is taught by a certified English teacher with a masters degree in ESL. Most of the students are native Spanish speakers; a few speak Hindi or Japanese. Instruction is offered in English, but the teacher, Mr. Collins, uses Spanish and the students use their native languages on occasion, primarily for clarification. The advanced ESOL students will receive one full English credit for this class when they complete it in June. The high school is located in a city in Arizona.
Every spring The Arizona Chronicle sponsors a poetry contest for high school students. Mr. Collins shared the newspaper's announcement with his class. Several students indicated their interest in the competition. Viewing it as a voluntary activity, Mr. Collins arranged to meet with interested students at the end of the school day to form an after-school poetry club. Although as a class they had read and analyzed poems, Mr. Collins had never assigned poem composition as a required task. Therefore at this first meeting after school, the students and Mr. Collins spent most of the time discussing strategies for writing poems. Mr. Collins explained that many poets write poems about personal experiences or joys or concerns. Aya, a Japanese student, remarked that she occasionally wrote haiku and drew her inspiration from nature. She agreed to share two of her poems about the desert with the group the following day. In the meantime, Mr. Collins encouraged the students to keep journals, recording encounters, sights, commonplace or unusual happenings, along with their feelings at the time. These journals would be a source for poems.
The students followed Mr. Collins' advice and several began to read poetry books on their own as well. On occasion the group met after school and debated the value of rhyme and meter, works of Pablo Neruda and Maya Angelou, distinctions between metaphor and description, and use of adverbs and adjectives. They began to write some poems to read to one another and solicit feedback. Mr. Collins was careful to act as a member of the group, not as a teacher, nor as the sole advisor. He too wrote some poems to share, and although he occasionally provided technical information, the students ran the poetry group for the most part by themselves. After 6 weeks, each member had a poem ready to submit to the newspaper's contest. Even after the submissions had been sent, the group continued to meet for the rest of the school year.
Students are encouraged to
The poetry group was formed because of the students' personal interest in writing poetry. The English teacher acted as a catalyst in pointing out the newspaper's annual contest to the students and providing some technical advice. These ESOL students, all at an advanced level, accepted the challenge, began to read poetry during their free time, kept a journal as many writers do, and wrote and shared poems. The teacher was a colleague in the process, a member of the group. The students used English to read poems and write their own, to discuss poems read and written, and to debate techniques of poem construction. Their enjoyment of the activity became evident when they decided to continue the poetry group even after their poems had been submitted to the newspaper.
Grade Level: Eleventh grade in a sheltered content class
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Driver's education
Location: Suburban school district in the West
This vignette describes an intermediate-level, sheltered content class with students from a variety of language backgrounds in a suburban setting. The class is studying driver's education, and the students have not yet driven. The teacher, Mr. Murphy, has an ESL endorsement. For this class session, he invited Officer Louis to talk about the dangers of driving.
Officer Louis plans to show a short video of teenage car accidents. He introduces the video with a lecture about different causes of car accidents, such as poor car maintenance, excess speed, and peer pressure to drive recklessly, and asks the students to look for the cause of each accident shown in the video. As Officer Louis speaks, Mr. Murphy writes key words on the board for later reference. Before the video begins, Mai Lin, who has a hearing impairment, moves her seat nearer the VCR monitor. She adjusts her amplification device once the sound begins.
Huynh did not fully understand the officer's lecture. He heard the words excess speed. He knows speed means "fast," but he did not understand what excess speed might mean. While watching the video, he notices the camera zooms onto a speed limit sign that says 65 and then zooms onto the car's speedometer, which shows 80. He thinks, "Perhaps excess means too much." He turns to Thuy and asks him in Vietnamese whether excess means "too much." Thuy confirms that it does.
After students have viewed the video, Mr. Murphy and Officer Louis review the video and key terms. Mr. Murphy asks, "Does anyone know what excess speed means?" Huynh volunteers, "I think it means too much." "How did you figure that out?" the police officer asks. "80 is more than 65," replies Huynh. Mr. Murphy praises his strategy, "That's good, Huynh. You used the video pictures to understand the term."
Next, Officer Louis puts students in pairs with the state's driving code manual. He asks the students to determine which rules were broken and what caused each of the accidents shown in the video.
Mai Lin and Christina work together. They sit side by side so Christina can speak directly into Mai Lin's hearing aid. Christina suggests one rule that was broken. "In the second accident, the driver turned in the wrong place." Mai Lin questions Mr. Murphy about ways to check their answers. He reminds her of the diagrams and recommends she refer to the code manual. Christina remembers that there was a sign on the road just before the accident happened. She searches through the book and matches the sign she remembers with the no-U-turn sign and reads the rule to Mai Lin. Mai Lin agrees, "Oh. That's the rule the driver broke. No U-turn."
Students are encouraged to
In this vignette, Huynh hypothesizes the meaning of excess by relating Officer Louis's spoken language with the visuals he saw in the video. This strategy allows him to understand language he has not encountered before and to learn its meaning. He then checks his hypothesis with his peer, Thuy, in Vietnamese. This strategy allows him to validate his hypothesis. Mr. Murphy also helps his class by recording key terms on the board as the police officer speaks and then reviewing them after the students have seen the video. This strategy particularly benefits Mai Lin who needs some occasional accommodations in class to compensate for her hearing loss.
As Mai Lin and Christina work to determine the causes of the accidents, they ask Mr. Murphy for some assistance. He reminds them to recall the video and examine the diagrams in the driving code manual. Because Mai Lin agrees with Christina's suggestions that the car turned in the wrong place, they check in the book for the visual Christina remembered seeing to find the correct term for it. By using this strategy, they learn the expression, U-turn, and find the related driving rule.
Grade Level: Tenth grade in a self-contained ESL class
English Proficiency Level: Low intermediate
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Language arts
Location: Suburban school district in the Southwest
The following vignette describes a tenth-grade ESL class in a Southwest suburban high school. All of the 21 students are native Spanish speakers who have been in the United States from 1 to 2 years. Most of the students arrived from Mexico and were literate in Spanish. However, three of the students had limited formal schooling before coming to the United States. On the whole, the class is at a low intermediate-level of English proficiency. Several students are more comfortable writing and reading than they are speaking. The students in this class have two periods of ESL instruction daily. Their teacher is an experienced, certified English speaker who recently has completed her masters degree in ESL education. She speaks Spanish and uses it on occasion in the class.
As the ESOL students enter the classroom, Ms. Judson greets each of them and asks how they are. She uses a variety of phrases: "Good morning." " Hi. How are you?" "How's it going?" "How are you feeling?" She also asks individual students some questions about other classes, assignments, tests, presentations, and so forth. Ms. Judson generally spends the first few minutes of class in this way; she calls this a warm-up. Two of the students have been absent for a couple of days and Ms. Judson asks them why. Jose replies, "I was sick." Rafael nods his head and says, "Me too. I had a flu. I couldn't finish my reading paper. Could I stay after school? I have some questions for you." Ms. Judson agrees to meet with him later.
For the past few weeks, Ms. Judson has been working with this class on literature response. In her regular English classes, she engages the students in reading and responding to poems, short stories, and novels, and she wants her ESOL students to have the same kind of experiences. Two weeks earlier she had explained to the students that the focus of the literature study is their own personal response to literature -- what they think and feel about what they are reading.
Since that time, Ms. Judson has worked to engage all of the students in sharing their ideas and feelings. More students are responding now, but she is dissatisfied with how the students listen and converse with each other. Virtually all of the comments are directed to her, and the students do not listen to and respond to each others' comments. She decides to try to demonstrate how she wants the students to work together. She asks the students to sit in two circles with the classroom chairs making an inner circle and an outer circle.
She distributes copies of a Piri Thomas poem, "La Peseta," about a teenage boy caught taking money from his father's dresser. The poem is lighthearted, and some Spanish is sprinkled throughout. Ms. Judson tells the students that she is going to read the poem and then ask the inner circle of students to talk about their reactions. She tells the students that she is not going to respond this time; she is going to take notes on what they say. She also asks the students in the outer circle to pay close attention to what the ones in the inner circle are doing. "How do they behave with each other? How do they work together?"
Ms. Judson reads the poem out loud and then says, "So, what do you want to say about this poem? How do you respond?" She then lowers her head and prepares to write. Some students in the outer circle begin to chat quietly. Ms. Judson looks up and clears her throat. Jasmine elbows Rosa, and they settle down. After some silence and shuffling, one student in the inner circle comments and then another. Because Ms. Judson does not make eye contact with the group members, they gradually begin to make eye contact with each other and pay more attention to what each person is saying. They begin to build on previous statements, agreeing or disagreeing, as they become more conversational.
After about 10 minutes, Ms. Judson stops the discussion and asks the students in the outer circle to comment on what they saw. The first few remarks focus on the content of what the inner circle group said. Ms. Judson acknowledges these observations but explains that she wants the students to think about how the students treated each other. "How did they behave? What did they do in the group?" Eventually, one of the students offers, "They looked at each other." Another says, "They listen, they pay attention. One student says what she thinks." Ms. Judson writes down the students' comments.
Finally, Ms. Judson summarizes what she heard the students say about how the group worked together and adds her own comments about the discussion. "We heard you use English in a number of different ways. For instance, you used English to agree and disagree, saying things like, 'I don't think he should have asked his father first' or 'I agree he needs to learn to act better.' You also asked questions if you didn't understand what someone meant or you rephrased your remark so the others could understand. Most of you also gave reasons for your opinions." She suggests that the students think about the interaction, because this might be helpful for them in future group work.
In the days that follow, Ms. Judson continues to work with literature response, using some poems by Gary Soto and short stories by Piri Thomas and Sandra Cisneros. She notices that more of the students are listening to each other and attending to others' comments instead of paying attention only to her and her comments.
Students are encouraged to
Ms. Judson believes that one of the functions of the ESL classroom is to prepare students for mainstream classes by providing some of the same experiences they will have there. Therefore, she incorporates activities such as literature response in her lessons. She likes this activity because it gives her students multiple opportunities to speak English, when some are reluctant to do so.
Each class period begins with small talk. Ms. Judson wants the students to be comfortable with the type of casual interaction that takes place between teachers and students. Jose and Rafael are able to explain an absence as well as a reason for not completing an assignment. Rafael asks for the teacher's assistance in finishing the task.
For literature study, Ms. Judson chooses poems and short stories by Hispanic authors. She believes that her ESOL students will relate well to these selections culturally and personally. She reads the texts out loud while the students follow along, as a strategy to assist students with limited formal schooling.
Ms. Judson has found that it is most effective to demonstrate the classroom behaviors she wants the students to engage in and then talk about them. Therefore, she asks some of the students to watch the others as they respond to the poem and then analyze what they did. To keep the students on task, Ms. Judson uses some indirect commands, such as throat clearing and eyebrow raising. Her students have learned to interpret these appropriately and modify their behavior. Jasmine used a nonverbal gesture to communicate with Rosa.
Because many of the ESOL students are less used to speaking up and being "on stage," the inner and outer circle technique worked well. Students inside needed to listen and respond to peer's comments, and feedback from the outer circle peers on the inner circle interaction was useful in later lessons with literature response components. The students demonstrated their ability to use English for a variety of conversational functions, such as agreement, justification, and clarification. Ms. Judson hopes that with the in-class emphasis on listening and conversing, her ESOL students will eventually feel comfortable conversing with non-ESOL students.
Grade Level: Eleventh-twelfth grade in a dental careers class
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate to advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Computer technology
Location: Suburban school district in the Northwest
The following vignette describes an introductory dental careers class located in a professional technical center in a large suburban school district. Students learn theoretical foundations of dentistry and perform basic technical skills in a simulated laboratory setting. The teacher, Mrs. Mason, is a monolingual English speaker with minimal training in working with ESOL students. The class is composed of eleventh- and twelfth-grade students of whom approximately 50% are ESOL students with intermediate to nearly nativelike proficiency in English. ESOL students come from South America, Korea, Vietnam, the Ukraine, and the Middle East.
In today's lesson, Mrs. Mason has taken students to the Internet lab to locate articles or information related to dental careers, which they will then summarize in their article summary journals. This is the first time the entire class has visited the lab. Some students have virtually no experience with Internet research, while others have enough experience that they are able to assist classmates with problems. Mrs. Mason offers the students the option of working with a partner at the computer, although each student must select a separate article.
Entering the lab, each student signs in at a terminal and follows Mrs. Mason's instructions to start the Internet browser software and select a search engine. They then begin their searches by entering key words. Ana and Shannon, who are partners, have some trouble following the instructions and ask Bryce for assistance. Bryce explains how to get to the search screen, where to enter the key word, and so forth. Some other students are undecided as to which topic they want to investigate first. Mrs. Mason invites the class to brainstorm a few possible key words and phrases, which she then writes on the white board: dentist or dentistry, orthodontia or orthodontics, periodontal disease, oral cancer, tooth decay. The lab buzzes with conversation as students confer on selection and spelling of key words, and, when their search results are unsatisfactory, ask and offer advice on finding alternatives that may produce the desired information.
Students review their results in order to select a suitable article, sometimes taking brief notes. Monica scans the list of document summaries and identifies those that best match her search parameters. Huma, however, finds it difficult to decide from the summaries which articles are most appropriate for the assignment and asks Mrs. Mason for some guidance. Mrs. Mason helps her determine which of the documents are advertisements for dental office services, which are general information, and which are highly technical journal articles. Huma then chooses several articles that appear to be best suited to her reading level and knowledge of the subject, and skims them quickly before making her selection.
A minor technical problem complicates the class's attempts to print their selected articles: The printer only accepts print commands from two computer stations. While Mrs. Mason and a few experienced students check the other terminals, most of the students copy the World Wide Web addresses of their chosen documents and then negotiate with JT and Freddy to use their terminals to issue print commands. Several students cluster around the printer, identifying and distributing articles as they are printed. Groups of students informally compare articles and, in several instances, make exchanges. Marcelo, who dislikes reading from a computer screen, is dissatisfied with his article once he reads the hard copy and compares it to Tania's article. Then he quickly returns to his station and uses Tania's advice to find a more appropriate article containing illustrations and charts that help him understand the technical content. By the end of the lab session, all the students have selected and printed an article to summarize in their journals.
Students are encouraged to
Mrs. Mason's class is a diverse group of juniors and seniors, of whom approximately half are nonnative speakers of English, with skills ranging from intermediate to nearly nativelike proficiency. Mrs. Mason has structured the activity so that students conduct academic research with classmates in the computer lab environment, using and developing both English language skills and Internet research skills in an authentic context.
As they work on the assignment, some students need assistance and use English to request help. Ana and Shannon turn to Bryce when they cannot follow the teacher's directions about starting their search on the Internet. Huma asks Mrs. Mason for help in identifying appropriate articles. Other students advise one another on key word search strategies and later compare articles, resulting in some exchanges. Once Marcelo expresses dissatisfaction with the first article he printed, Tania helps him find an article that is more suitable for his reading level. The students also work together when a technical problem arises with the printer. Using their English skills, they negotiate printing options and share the computer equipment that is connected to the printer.
Grade Level: Eleventh grade in a mainstream civics class
English Proficiency Level: Advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Civics
Location: Urban school district in the Northeast
The following vignette describes an eleventh-grade, one-semester civics course, which is composed of 24 advanced ESOL students and mainstream English-speaking students, in a Northeast urban high school. The majority of the students are of Hispanic background. Most ESOL students speak Spanish; other language groups include Haitian and Chinese. Mr. Philippe, the teacher, is certified in both civics and English as a second language. He is proficient in Haitian Creole and English, and has a working knowledge of Spanish. Most of the students in this class are true advanced-level students, although some are more at the intermediate level. The students' ages range from 16 to 19. It is near the end of the school year.
Recognizing the importance of the development of academic skills at the advanced level, Mr. Philippe has developed a series of lesson activities that will take approximately 1 full week to cover in a class that meets for 80 minutes every day. The lesson activities are centered around the theme of civic responsibility and include discussions of what it means to be an informed citizen and how one takes action regarding a community concern. The week-long project requires small student groups to research information from multiple sources and prepare for a debate to compare and contrast points of view on a topic generated by the class during the first day: a toxic waste dump planned for their neighborhood. Six groups of four students are formed and they are given the task of comparing and contrasting articles from different newspapers, magazines, public interest groups' literature, and on-line sources. Whenever necessary, students of the same language discuss difficult ideas in their native language. Some teammates who are native speakers of English explain vocabulary and cultural dimensions to the assignment, such as the value of picketing. The students have had prior experiences comparing and contrasting reading selections and doing some library-based research.
As the research continues throughout the week, Mr. Philippe occasionally calls the class together to share their findings. The ideas and issues that begin to crystallize are recorded on newsprint and mounted on the walls for further discussion. Positions and resolutions are compared and contrasted at times, using graphic organizers. Whenever necessary, the teacher asks open-ended questions based on the resources in order to guide students' reactions and understandings of the articles' ideas, photographs, graphics (e.g., charts), language, and tone. In some instances, they discuss bias-related elements in the research materials.
On the fourth day, students begin practicing for the debate. At this point, Mr. Philippe assigns the positions. Three teams join to represent the side in favor of the dump; the three other teams will oppose it. From the 12 students on each side, peers select 3 to present the case at Friday's debate. The others help plan the points to be offered and critique the practice performances.
After the debate is held, students are asked to write individual essays in which they describe which debate team was more convincing and why. They are then asked to take a position on the debate and support it in writing based upon their own informed perspectives.
Students are encouraged to
Mr. Philippe recognizes the importance of a classroom environment that is conducive to language acquisition and learning. One way learning occurs is through meaningful activities, so he allows his students to select the topic they will explore for the civics assignment. He also provides his students with direction and material in order to build on their prior background and experiences. Through sharing and discussing, analyzing language and organizing information, responding to text, and working in groups and as a whole class, the students participate in activities that develop their academic English, integrating all four language strands.
Students research information and generate opinions about a topic of interest to their lives within the context of the civics curriculum. They locate multiple sources of information and through class discussion come to understand the different genres in which information can be shared as well as the potential biases that writers can include in their material. This helps the students develop an awareness of the power and impact of language.
Students in Mr. Philippe's class also acknowledge one another as resources and look to classmates for assistance. For example, native-English-speaking students and those who are not recent immigrants are able to act as cultural informants with respect to civic action. Mr. Philippe, likewise, allows more proficient students to explain concepts in the native language of their peers.
The students are also called upon to use their cognitive abilities as they prepare for a debate. They must clarify their own positions, argue persuasively, and anticipate the arguments of their opponents. In a supportive environment, students rehearse with their teammates' guidance. Help in this regard is further provided by the teacher's planned activities for comparing and contrasting viewpoints with the class as a whole. The recorded ideas, issues, and observations remain on the newsprint in sight of the students throughout the week.
After the group activity is completed, Mr. Philippe gives a writing assignment that permits him to assess the knowledge individual students have acquired. The students argue a position in an essay drawing from the syntheses and analyses of information that they made in their groups and from their responses to the debate they observed.
Grade Level: 16- to 21-year-olds in an alternative high school
English Proficiency Level: Beginning to intermediate
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Vocational education
Location: Suburban school district in a Rocky Mountain State
Mr. Sanchez is a bilingual teacher who acts as a resource to the vocational education program at an alternative high school in a Rocky Mountain State. Older students, aged 16-21, attend this school. Spanish-speaking students have core curriculum courses in Spanish for half the day and vocational courses in English the other half. In the following vignette, Mr. Sanchez works with the Spanish-speaking students from Mr. Feehan's vocational class, using sheltered instruction techniques to teach about safety in English.
Mr. Feehan's Building Trades class has been studying safety, and he has requested help for some students who are having difficulty understanding the vocabulary involved. Dressed in carpenter's overalls, Mr. Sanchez greets the students as they enter the room. Mr. Sanchez has safety goggles around his neck, a tool belt with various tools on it, and workboots with steel toes. Mr. Sanchez refers to the safety guidebook that they have been studying and asks them what their understanding of safety is. "What is safety? Why do we study about it?" There are several answers about saving lives, and one student mentions preventing accidents. The teacher encourages this student to give an example of how safety might prevent an accident, and he talks about clothing, which, conveniently, is the first topic to be covered today.
At this point, Mr. Sanchez asks the class how many of them work in the construction field. Several of them raise their hands. The teacher asks them what they think the most important points about dressing safely are and why, based on their own experience. A good discussion follows, so a list of the most important points to remember is generated on an overhead transparency. Mr. Sanchez then uses an overhead projector with diagrams and pictures to illustrate what appropriate dress for a building trades professional should be.
The students are asked to form pairs, read the corresponding pages in their safety guidebooks, underline the most important words and phrases, and help each other clarify meaning. Afterwards, a student records the underlined terms on the board and then the class compares them with the list generated earlier. Finally, Mr. Sanchez asks if there are any words which they still do not understand and explains them through demonstrations, pictures, or objects at hand.
Showing a picture of a sloppily dressed worker on a transparency, Mr. Sanchez asks the students to identify what is wrong with him. They note the baggy pants that are worn too low and therefore a possible hazard in terms of tripping. He has sandals on instead of workboots. He is wearing jewelry: rings that could crush a finger and chains that could catch on moving machinery. His shirt is too loose as well and might catch in a moving saw blade. They also notice that he does not have safety glasses visible anywhere.
Another picture is shown of the same worker all cleaned up with his shirt tucked in, his pants pulled up and buckled, workboots clean, and a hardhat in place. One of the students points out that this individual had long hair in the first picture and asks what had happened to that. A good demonstration of how to tie up long hair under a hardhat is offered by an experienced class member. Another brief discussion follows about hair and jewelry and getting and keeping a job. Mr. Sanchez displays the two pictures of the same worker, sloppy and neat, and asks the class whom they would hire if they had to choose. The answers are unanimously in favor of the neat worker.
The students engage in an open-ended discussion about how clothing is a safety issue as well as an employability issue sometimes. The class critiques Mr. Sanchez's overalls and general appearance, too. The class concludes with an assignment to reread the section on tool safety the next day.
Students are encouraged to
Mr. Sanchez provided listening and speaking activities for the students in the bilingual program to enhance their reading comprehension on the topic of safety. He motivated them by "personalizing" the topic of safety. Several students described their own experiences doing construction work and the whole class discussed safety issues at the work site. Building on student knowledge, Mr. Sanchez used probing open-ended questions to help students focus on safety procedures in the workplace: "What is safety? Why do we study safety -- to pass a test or to prevent an accident, injury or death?"
The students drew conclusions about proper workplace attire by analyzing Mr. Sanchez's clothing and critiquing the overhead transparency images. On one occasion, a student asked, "What are workboots?" Mr. Sanchez showed him his boots and explained how they were different and why they had a steel toe. The lesson material was presented by written word, pictures in the text, authentic materials, overhead transparencies, and modeled by the instructor. It was reinforced through discussion. By the end of class, the students recognized proper attire for construction settings.
The students learned safety vocabulary pertaining to clothing in a variety of ways. They talked about it and listed important concepts and words on the board; they read about safety in their books and noted words to learn. Mr. Sanchez also used diagrams on an overhead projector and wore an appropriate work uniform so students could see the real items. Through these various presentations that addressed different learning styles, the students learned the vocabulary easily. The subsequent classes on tool safety were presented the same way and the results were equally as successful. The students later passed the required safety test, performing better than the students who had not been similarly instructed.
Grade Level: Ninth-eleventh in a nongraded, regular math class
English Proficiency Level: Beginning
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Consumer math
Location: Rural school district in the Southwest
The following vignette describes a high school consumer math class in a rural school district. The teacher, Mr. Jones, is a monolingual English speaker with minimal training in working with ESOL students. The class is predominantly white, non-ESOL students spanning Grades 9-11. There are three ESOL students, all Hispanic and recently arrived from Mexico; one student has limited formal schooling.
Mr. Jones' class has been studying a unit on measurement. To date, students have learned to measure and calculate surface area and volume in preparation for a hands-on construction project that they will undertake, namely, redecorating the classroom and building some bookshelves. Mr. Jones has learned that Luis, an ESOL student with limited formal schooling, had construction experience when he lived in Mexico, and asked Luis if he would talk about his experience with the class.
Luis has agreed, although he admitted to Mr. Jones that he was nervous about speaking to the class because his English skills are not very strong. Mr. Jones encouraged Luis to practice beforehand. "It's fine to gather your ideas in Spanish. Ask your dad for some help too."
Luis brainstorms the ideas he would like to cover in the talk and gets ideas from his father. He decides to practice with his friend Ramon. Luis writes notes for the speech about building a shed in Spanish first. He checks with Mr. Jones about the topics to include and then rewrites his notes in English, being sure to address all the requested topics.
Luis gives the speech to the class 3 days later, and it is well received. Several classmates ask some questions that Luis feels confident answering. When the construction project begins the following day, Luis works with the redecorating and bookshelf-building groups to plan, measure, and estimate costs. He gives advice and applies his prior knowledge to the project at hand.
Students are encouraged to
Mr. Jones' high school consumer math class is composed of students in Grades 9-11, mainly native English speakers with a few nonnative speakers who have beginning English language skills. In this class, the students use English to achieve academically, and Mr. Jones is not specifically trained to work with ESOL students. Nonetheless, he exhibits good judgment when he encourages Luis to gather and plan his information in Spanish before giving the speech in English to the class.
Luis uses several learning strategies as he approaches his task. He uses his native language skills to develop his English language skills. He brainstorms and practices before giving his talk on constructing a shed. By practicing with his friend, he receives feedback in a nonthreatening environment. He also gathers information from a nonprint resource, namely his father, and seeks assistance from Mr. Jones to make sure he understands the assignment and the teacher's expectations. Also important is Luis' ability to connect new and prior knowledge. By drawing from his construction experience in Mexico, he becomes a resource to his classmates as he applies the known information to the new class project.
Grade Level: Ninth grade in a self-contained ESL class
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Language use
Location: Urban school district in the Southeast
The following vignette describes a ninth-grade, self-contained ESL class in an urban school district, which is taught by Mr. Murray, a bilingual English/Spanish teacher certified in ESL and bilingual education. The class contains 15 intermediate ESOL students from 13 different countries who speak eight different languages. The class has been studying the difference in how language is used according to the context, participants, and topic. To date, the students have made various requests orally and in writing for information from friends, family, teachers, and businesses. Groups of students have videotaped sample transactions at a store in which students had to purchase and return an item and either complain to the manager or compliment the manager as a result of their transaction.
In today's lesson, the students are examining the videotapes of the store transactions. They are working in small cooperative groups and critiquing their own videotaped transaction as well as those of the other group members. Mr. Murray and the class previously created a checklist to provide structure for the critique process. The checklist was developed as a performance assessment tool to review what the students had learned about appropriate behaviors to use when conducting the transaction as well as to guide their viewing of the videotapes after the transactions had been completed. Students have been assigned roles in their groups: One student is the facilitator, another is the note taker, and the third is the videotape production manager. All students play the role of the critiquer.
Alana, the facilitator of Group 1, works to keep her group on task. After they viewed the first videotape and shared their reactions, she asks Frederic to explain what he means when he says that Vladimir did not use the correct form to ask to see the manager. Frederic checks the quote he wrote down while viewing Vladimir's videotape. (The checklist requires him to write down specific quotes in order to critique them.) Frederic reads aloud. "Vladimir said, 'Take me to your manager.' I think he should have been more polite." Mr. Murray overhears the remark and inquires, "What might Vladimir have said?" Frederic pauses and then says, "Maybe he could say 'May I see the manager?'" Alana agrees. Then she adds, "Or, he could say it like a polite sentence, 'I would like to see the manager." Nodding, Mr. Murray asks, "Why are those two options better?" Frederic explains, "Well, like, Vladimir didn't have a problem with the manager, you know? If he wants the manager to help him, then he should start by being nice."
Students are encouraged to
The ninth-grade class is composed of nonnative speakers of English. In this vignette the students learned how to modify their use of English in various situations. The students were required to purchase something at the store, return it, and then either complain to the manager or compliment the manager on the service they received. In this particular lesson, the students were working in their cooperative learning groups to discuss their critiques of each other's transactions.
Alana, like her classmates, exhibited an intermediate level of proficiency in English yet a high-level proficiency in social skills. She performed very well in her group and worked with other members to accomplish the task at hand. She was skillful at helping the other students in the group learn to support their critiques with specific information, as in a quote or from notes taken during the viewing.
Mr. Murray has created a learning environment where students work together to practice using various forms of English in meaningful, realistic settings, such as the transactions at the store. Not only do students demonstrate their language use in these situations, but also they have an opportunity to review the transactions later and reconsider their choice of register and degree of formality. In small groups, the students make suggestions or give advice for language modifications, always grounding their opinions in the intent of the speaker and setting in which the interaction takes place.
Grade Level: Eleventh and twelfth grade in a regular career education class
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate to advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Cosmetology
Location: Suburban school district in the Midwest
The following vignette describes a cosmetology class with ESOL students mainstreamed among native English speakers. The class is taught by Ms. Crabtree, an English-speaking cosmetology instructor who has no formal training in ESL or second language acquisition. The class of 19 students includes five intermediate- and advanced-level ESOL students from four countries, all of whom speak Spanish as a native language. The class is studying workplace social skills as they apply to working in a team and encountering clients in a cosmetology salon. To date, the students have worked on a variety of academic content-based projects in teams and worked with clients from the local community in the school's cosmetology salon. Topics have included the use of English for communication in the workplace, greeting customers, assessing the customers' desires and needs, and making small talk with them. Students have done written work related to cosmetology and human relations in the past.
At the beginning of class, after all the students are seated, Ms. Crabtree engages in a very brief conversation, greeting a student in the back of the class. She then asks the students to tell her what they recall from the conversation and writes what they tell her in dialogue form on a piece of newsprint. She asks what this form of writing is called, to elicit the word dialogue. She tells the students they will be writing a dialogue in small groups and divides her class into four writing teams. Two teams are seated on opposite sides of the room with all students facing an A-frame easel in the middle of the room. On each side of the easel is a different set of instructions. One set of instructions asks Teams 1 and 2 to write a dialogue in which a customer has a positive communication experience with the salon employees through their use of polite and professional language. Teams 3 and 4 are to write a dialogue in which the customer has a negative experience due to overly casual or improper language or comments by the salon employees. Further directions tell Teams 1 and 3 to write about a new customer entering the salon for the first time and Teams 2 and 4 to write about a regular customer already seated and in the middle of the styling process. Additionally, each team is to make a list of special words, phrases, and topics that are either appropriate or inappropriate in the context of a professional salon. The two teams that work on a positive communication dialogue are instructed to make lists of negative communication attributes, and the other teams make a list of positive attributes.
After the students write the dialogues, each group performs for the class. After each performance, the teacher asks the students to identify the positive or negative language that was used and if the interactions were realistic or exaggerated. In cases of exaggerated behavior, the instructor asks for other words or behaviors that might be more realistic. The language used in the dialogues is compared with the word and topic lists that each team created.
After all the dialogues are performed and discussed, the students have an open discussion on the importance of proper language in the salon context.
Students are encouraged to
Ms. Crabtree uses a variety of activities to reinforce the concept that language is used in different ways in different settings. Although this lesson begins by asking students to read directions and write a dialogue (which the teacher models), the fundamental component of the lesson is intended to be oral language as used in a professional context. Students in her cosmetology class have an opportunity to conceive of a potential conversation with a customer and act it out for the class. The dialogue instructions direct the teams to consider not only different customers -- one with whom the hair stylist is very familiar and one who is a new customer, but also the type of oral interaction that might occur at different points during the styling transaction (e.g., greetings, requesting information, small talk). The students work in a group to do this, gaining practice in that important workplace skill.
Classmates are asked to comment on the dialogue presentations and discuss negative and positive attributes of the interaction. Because the dialogues may only focus on one negative or positive topic or a limited set of appropriate or inappropriate words, Ms. Crabtree broadens the students' awareness through the list activity. Through this process and with teacher input, the students identify appropriate language and topics for use with customers in a salon.
Grade Level: Tenth grade in a social studies class
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate to advanced
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Social studies
Location: Suburban school district in the West
The following vignette describes a social studies class where half of the students have a native language other than English. Students come from Mexico, China, Palestine, and Russia. Three out of those 10 students have nativelike proficiency in English while the rest are at an intermediate level. The rest of the students are native speakers of English from the mainstream culture. The teacher, Ms. Bohland, who has had ESOL students for 6 years, has taken two graduate-level courses on teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students.
The class is completing a unit in sociology. In this lesson, Ms. Bohland steers the discussion to focus on the issue of formality, and she shows a short clip from a Marx Brothers movie in which the protagonists attend a very formal event and act in extremely inappropriate ways. The clip is shown without sound, so that students can focus on the nonverbal aspects of behavior. The students then make a list of the inappropriate behaviors they observed in small, mixed-ability groups and the entire class discusses how they would change those behaviors to be more appropriate for the context. Using that list, the groups create a Venn Diagram to compare behaviors in formal and informal settings. If inappropriate behaviors from the list might suit informal settings, the students add them to that section of the diagram. If the behaviors do not fit anywhere, the students write them around the outside of the Venn circles. The groups then complete the diagram with other appropriate behaviors. While the groups work, Ms. Bohland makes a list of some of the vocabulary that was new to the ESOL students to give to the ESL tutor who works with the students after school 3 days a week.
After the groups share their diagrams, Ms. Bohland focuses on customs that groups or communities share. She elicits from the ESOL students ways in which customs differ in the various cultures they represent. For homework, the students are asked to interview an older person from their own culture and have them talk about some of the differences in nonverbal aspects of interaction that they have experienced with someone from a different culture. The next day, students will present their findings.
Students are encouraged to
This lesson takes place in a diverse, mainstream classroom. Although the curriculum is not sheltered, Ms. Bohland makes accommodations for the ESOL students, namely by using mixed ability groups, multimedia, graphic organizers, and targeted vocabulary learning. The after-school tutor provides additional support for these language learners.
The movie clip is an excellent prompt for a discussion of appropriate behaviors in formal and informal settings. By beginning with a movie, the students can analyze behavior in a nonthreatening way. In small groups, they have more opportunities to use English as they discuss what they saw and complete the assigned task. Later, Ms. Bohland builds on the one culture reflected in the movie by expanding the discovery to embrace many cultures. She asks all the students to explore nonverbal communication across cultures, seeking information from the local community. The students will use English to gather the information and report it back to the class.
Grade Level: Twelfth grade in an internship program
English Proficiency Level: Intermediate
Language of Instruction: English
Focus of Instruction: Workplace skills
Location: Urban school district in the East
The following vignette describes students in a career internship program where each student spends 4 days per week for one semester in one of a variety of community workplaces. These include schools, factories, businesses, hospitals, and so forth. The program is coordinated by the school-to-work counselor. All students in the school participate in the program and because of the large number of ESOL students, one of the bilingual teachers consults with the counselor. This vignette describes the activities of several ESOL and native-English-speaking students who will complete their internship in the local hospital.
In early December, Mr. Castellano, the bilingual teacher, suggests to Mrs. Reinhardt, the school-to-work counselor, that the students in the bilingual program who will be participating in the second semester internship prepare for the activity in advance, through a mini-research project on language use in the workplace. Mrs. Reinhardt welcomes the idea because several of her nonnative English speaking students have, in the past, commented that they were not always able to communicate well with their co-workers. Mrs. Reinhardt realizes that this activity would benefit native-English-speaking students as well. The two teachers agree to have all the second-semester students observe and interview their peers currently at the worksites.
Mr. Castellano gets the students together after school to prepare them for the language observations. First, he calls upon the students to share any experiences they have had where communication has been difficult. After a few students discuss miscommunication with their parents or boyfriends and girlfriends, Mr. Castellano guides the discussion toward communication in the workplace. He explains there are norms and customs for communication in work environments that might be unfamiliar to those outside that work site. At this point, he describes the research assignment and asks the students to work in small groups and generate a list of scenarios where different types of language might be used in the workplace. Students suggest the lunchroom, the boss' office, the place where a worker interacts with a customer, and so on. As a whole group, they decide what to look for: Who initiates conversations? Who does most of the talking? What topics are used? How formal is the language? What is the role of humor? Is it okay to use a language other than English at work?
Each second-semester student is paired with a current internship student and spends two days shadowing that person "on the job." Veronica follows Amelia, another student from the bilingual program, as she works around the hospital linen supply room. Veronica jots down notes about specific interaction styles and language patterns that she notices and, at the end of the first day, consults with Amelia about certain things she does not understand. For example, she asks Amelia whether she realizes that she speaks differently to the drivers who bring the fresh linen each morning and the nurse managers who pop in from time to time. Amelia reflects on this and comes to the realization that she does adjust her speech according to her conversation partner.
The next day, when a nurse comes by to complain that sheet supplies are low on her floor, Amelia is very brusque with her and continues piling the blankets on the shelf. After the nurse leaves in a huff, Veronica points out that Amelia may have upset the nurse by being inappropriately abrupt and not seeming to care. Although Amelia agrees, she cannot come up with an appropriate response that she could have given the nurse. The two discuss this and then think of some different options. Veronica writes them down and promises to take them back to school the following day to get some feedback from Mr. Castellano.
Students are encouraged to
In this vignette, the bilingual teacher was well aware of the need to develop language observation skills in his students so that they might continue to learn to use language in appropriate ways. This is a skill that even native speakers of English would benefit from, both to become more effective speakers and listeners and to develop an awareness of language norms. Mrs. Reinhardt concurs when Mr. Castellano brings it to her attention. She makes it possible for him to work with not only the bilingual students but the native English speakers as well.
In the school setting, students talk about language use at work and prepare to investigate it. At the hospital, Veronica evaluates the appropriateness and effectiveness of different ways of speaking with Amelia as they discuss the observations that Veronica has made while watching Amelia work. This activity is not threatening to Amelia; rather it allows her to think about language use herself. Furthermore, because the students have had practice in giving advice to peers through writing workshops in class with Mr. Castellano, the two girls are able to communicate well. Through their conversations, Veronica and Amelia both increase their self-awareness of language use on the job. After a negative communication experience occurs, Veronica and Amelia consider alternative language that might have resulted in a more positive outcome. Veronica chooses to check the appropriateness of their suggestions the Mr. Castellano.
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