EL Strategies
Sentence Stems
Sentence stems are helpful for students of all ability levels, but especially for students English Leaners (ELs). Students new to the English language may have difficulty with challenging vocabulary words or expressing their understand of the content. This is particularly true for science vocabulary that students may not know in their first language or is a word that is not used in everyday life. Sentences stems can assist ELs both in the areas of oral language but in writing as as well. Students will feel more confident to volunteer in a group setting or in front of the class when provided a stem.
Anchor Charts
Anchor charts make content visible and provide visual cues to students new to the scientific terminology. It is a way to simplify content for ELs and help them recognize the main objective of a concept. Anchor charts should be clear, neat and without too many words or colors for beginning ELs. Anchor charts can also include sentence stems.
Closed-Captioning
When watching video clips or listening to science songs, if available, I choose closed-captioning. ELs can benefit from reading a foreign language as well as listening. This is also beneficial for students that are hard of hearing.
STEMscopes
STEMscopes is a comprehensive curriculum program that is 100% aligned with our Texas TEKS. The curriculum provides an online teacher site as well as an online "textbook" for the students. We have a supplemental text for the classroom called a STEMscopedia, which has replaced our textbooks in our effort to go almost paperless. The teacher website provides background information, hands-on activities, inquiry labs, cross-curricular connections, intervention strategies, accelerated activities for gifted students, and a verity of assessment types all broken down by 5E Model and for each TEK.
However, my favorite aspect of STEMscopes is the Spanish resources it provides my students. Every reading comes in English as well as Spanish. When I have Latino/Hispanic students who are new to the United States or come from the Newcomer Center, I give them a copy of both the English and Spanish chapters prior to the unit to read ahead of time. This allows students to read scientific terminology first in their native language of Spanish before reading it in a foreign language. I feel that this has dramatically helped some of my ELs in retention of content.
In addition to reading in both languages, STEMscopes also provides video clips of the science content in both English and Spanish. In class, we watch both the English and Spanish video clips. First, watching in English. Then, watching in Spanish. Definitions are provided in both videos so students can practice reading in a foreign lanuage as well as listening.
Sentence stems are helpful for students of all ability levels, but especially for students English Leaners (ELs). Students new to the English language may have difficulty with challenging vocabulary words or expressing their understand of the content. This is particularly true for science vocabulary that students may not know in their first language or is a word that is not used in everyday life. Sentences stems can assist ELs both in the areas of oral language but in writing as as well. Students will feel more confident to volunteer in a group setting or in front of the class when provided a stem.
Anchor Charts
Anchor charts make content visible and provide visual cues to students new to the scientific terminology. It is a way to simplify content for ELs and help them recognize the main objective of a concept. Anchor charts should be clear, neat and without too many words or colors for beginning ELs. Anchor charts can also include sentence stems.
Closed-Captioning
When watching video clips or listening to science songs, if available, I choose closed-captioning. ELs can benefit from reading a foreign language as well as listening. This is also beneficial for students that are hard of hearing.
STEMscopes
STEMscopes is a comprehensive curriculum program that is 100% aligned with our Texas TEKS. The curriculum provides an online teacher site as well as an online "textbook" for the students. We have a supplemental text for the classroom called a STEMscopedia, which has replaced our textbooks in our effort to go almost paperless. The teacher website provides background information, hands-on activities, inquiry labs, cross-curricular connections, intervention strategies, accelerated activities for gifted students, and a verity of assessment types all broken down by 5E Model and for each TEK.
However, my favorite aspect of STEMscopes is the Spanish resources it provides my students. Every reading comes in English as well as Spanish. When I have Latino/Hispanic students who are new to the United States or come from the Newcomer Center, I give them a copy of both the English and Spanish chapters prior to the unit to read ahead of time. This allows students to read scientific terminology first in their native language of Spanish before reading it in a foreign language. I feel that this has dramatically helped some of my ELs in retention of content.
In addition to reading in both languages, STEMscopes also provides video clips of the science content in both English and Spanish. In class, we watch both the English and Spanish video clips. First, watching in English. Then, watching in Spanish. Definitions are provided in both videos so students can practice reading in a foreign lanuage as well as listening.
ESOL Endorsement
LING 106 Introductory Linguistics
C&T 325 Education in a Multicultural Society
C&T 620 Teach English as a Second Language/Bilingual Education
C&T 621 Diagnosis and Remediation in Second Language Education
C&T 622 Second Language Acquisition
ESOL Praxis: 149 (138 to be highly qualified)
C&T 325 Education in a Multicultural Society
C&T 620 Teach English as a Second Language/Bilingual Education
C&T 621 Diagnosis and Remediation in Second Language Education
C&T 622 Second Language Acquisition
ESOL Praxis: 149 (138 to be highly qualified)
Cultural Diversity
Katy, Texas is a suburb in West Houston near the district called the Houston Energy Corridor. It is called Energy Corridor because many energy industry-related companies have offices or headquarters in the district. BP America, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobil, and and ConocoPhillips all have buildings in the district and bring employees from all around the world. As a result, my classroom made up of a group of very diverse students who have had multiple moves around the globe with many adjustments both environmental, emotional and educational. I have students from: Sibera, Bulgaria, Macedonia, England, Nigeria, India, Singapore, Brazil, Philippines, Belgium, Angola, Egypt and the list goes on and on. Educational systems in these countries are all widely different from one another. New students move throughout the year. I am constantly facing the challenge of assessing students ability levels and catching them up to our curriculum in 8th grade. I also face the challenge of students being significantly more advanced than 8th grade ability level. Perhaps the greatest difficulty has been encountering students with learning differences that are not recognized because of multiple moves and getting the process of testing, and accommodations in place.
ESL Reference
For those inquisitive on my teaching with EL students, contact:
Grace Villafone
281 - 234 - 2497
Tays Junior High School
[email protected]
Grace Villafone
281 - 234 - 2497
Tays Junior High School
[email protected]