English Language Learners (ELL)

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With the diversity and demographic of our students in Canadian classrooms growing vastly, a huge focus will be on the inclusion of ELL specific goals, and to appropriately scaffolding for ELL students, resulting in the benefit advancing student learning for all. To do so, throughout our unit design, we are mindful to meet the Alberta ESL Benchmarks (Learn Alberta, 2012) for grades 7-9 (Level 3) through multimodal approaches. The benchmarks will be based on four key categories that include listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The following strategies and activities woven within this unit will act to scaffold towards the benchmark goals:

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• Providing writing samples, guided writing/statements/templates, word lists and engaging through blog/journals will enhance students’ work while engaging deeper in the topic from their peers’ perspectives.

• Teaching through modeling, highlighting key concepts, and summarizing big ideas into digestible bits.

• We will define all key terminology, supplement it with multimodality, and explicitly teach vocabulary along with providing collaboration with peers to expand ongoing definitions. These strategies will be important for students to familiarize themselves with the 15,000-word requirement to successful measure language proficiency within the Level 3 ESL benchmark category. In addition, resources for home use/families (Learn Alberta, 2012), which provide ELL students more points of entry in learning.

• Constant verbal and nonverbal checking for understanding: physical movement, thumbs up/down, acting out, facial expression/body language, hold ups (mini whiteboards), think-pair-share, open ended discussions, fill in the blank statements, and guided notes.

• Providing various opportunities to work in groups of three to four, which has been shown to be an ideal group size for ELLs (Alberta Education, 2012). Integration of class discussion will provide an opportunity for students to respond to open-ended questions, receive clarification by listening to peer dialogue, and sharing organized ideas and thoughts (Alberta Education, 2012).

• Planned for extra time required to process information and complete learning tasks. This extra time will allow students time to document their ideas before sharing with peers, and work with peers to supplement their understanding. These strategies will help students to progress through the ESL Proficiency Benchmarks from Alberta Education (2011) and develop communication skills that are outlined in the Alberta Program of Study for English Language Arts. 

• Students will also have access to various assistive technology as referred to on our Technology Integration page, and graphic organizers to help with piecing together their understanding. For example, adjusting the degree to which students will have to read or write by use of speech-to-text and text-to-speech apps and allow them to use their strengths in speaking and listening. This way, students can focus on reading components through following the words on the screen and controlling the speed of the text-to-speech, or editing the words they are speaking to formulate proper paragraphs and grammatical sentences after they have had the chance to conceptually understand the text. This strategy can also be helpful for students with fine motor disabilities, students that struggle due to lower literacy skills, and students that need support with developing an editing process.

• Providing students with peer and self formative assessment tools opportunities through guided checklists, this can also help students stay focused and on task. We will also review writing samples with different editing errors to model technique and strategies.

• Brief idea documentation and first drafts could be in multimodal forms, or writing pieces in a student's first language, as the intention of these are to act as formative assessment of engagement in the discussion process. 

• A scribe and editing support resource may also be used to assist students, as there is availability.

 

It is important to note that these strategies are not only for ELL learners, but also addresses all learner types and are for the benefit of all students.