How Is Everyone a Language Teacher?
Over recent years, it seems that the challenges students face when having academic conversations have only gotten larger. Students struggle to have meaningful conversations, they struggle to stay on topic, they struggle to find the words to help them speak knowledgeably and precisely about the topic being discussed. While these challenges exist for a number of reasons, the reality is that these are challenges that impact us all. Whether we are teachers of Reading, Math, Science, junior high, high school, or the elementary level, we all rely on language as the vehicle for learning and measuring the impact of our teaching. And in the world of education, oral language is king. We talk, explain, lecture, discuss, read out loud, and listen each and every day. Oral language is part of the fabric of teaching. Yet, do we actually know what oral language actually is? Well, oral language is generally made up of the following five elements: academic vocabulary – understanding the meaning of words (T1 – T 3) morphological skills – understanding the impact of word parts on word meanings (including prefixes and suffixes) syntax – understanding the rules of word order and grammar phonological skills – understanding the range of sounds pragmatics – understanding the social rules and nuances of conversation and communication Instruction that works to develop students’ oral language has to begin with the recognition that students can not be sheltered and kept from critical questions with no easy answers. Rather, as teachers we have a great opportunity to layer in oral language in order for our students to access this rigorous content. While we will talk more about the strategies that increase oral language development, the following are just a few ways that you can begin to do this: Make time for focused and critical discussions, Promote meaningful and deep conversations by providing language frames to guide the communication, Explicitly teach students the rules of how to have conversations prior to using structures like turn and talk, Provide opportunities for students to engage with rich and complex texts, Advance students’ academic vocabularies by selecting fewer words to master more deeply with a focus on application in all areas of their language use, Allow time for reading aloud to students in order to provide access to more challenging texts thy may not able to access on their own Use content area texts to teach critical grammatical structures that Allow time for students to talk through their understanding before putting anything to paper.
Part 3 – Strategies for Learning Unknown Words
Yes, students need access to a large bank of words in order to be successful readers. But they also need to be able to process and analyze new words for meaning as they encounter them. Without this skill, readers miss important parts of text that hinders their ability to make meaning. These “word learning strategies” generally fall into two categories. The first category is “inside” the word clues (from here on out referred to as inside strategies). These clues come from the morphemic analysis of the word itself. The second category is “outside” the word clues (from here on out referred to as outside strategies. These clues come from the contextual analysis of the surrounding text and text features of a passage. When teaching inside strategies, teachers have the opportunity to show students that we can find meaning in a word by looking at its important parts. Students do so by looking at root words, base words, affixes, inflectional endings, and chunking. When teaching inside strategies to ELL’s and struggling learners, consider including these critical pieces as part of direct instruction. Know that gradual release (teacher modeling, shared practice, guided practice, independent practice and application) of this skill is necessary for effective implementation by students. Look to see if there is any word chunk that you recognize (either base, root, or other high frequency word you know). Take apart the word into any bases or roots and their affixes. Find meaning from those word parts that you’ve taken apart. Rebuild that word using the meaning you’ve gleaned from each important part. When teaching outside strategies it is important to help students see syntactic and semantic clues provided by surrounding words and phrases. Syntax is a fancy way of talking about the rules that form our grammar structure and the patterns that we find in sentences (e.g. if you see a subject first, you know that a verb must follow). Semantics simply means, meaning or an interpretation of its meaning. Therefore, outside strategies really help students understand how to use what they know about English and the meaning of the surrounding text to make educated guesses about what a word means. When teaching outside strategies to ELL’s and struggling learners, it is important to include the following components as part of the process for increasing vocabulary development. Teach students that writers use specific clues to the meaning of challenging words in the text. Deliver explicit instruction that includes modeling and examples of the various types of context clues (i.e. definition, synonym, antonym, example, and general). Provide guided practice in using context clues with authentic and appropriately challenging texts. Now, I know that we have simplified this process greatly. However, if you are interested in what these two approaches might look like, please take a look at our products Context Clues and Text Clues. Both of these common core aligned resources provide student reference sheets, anchor charts, activities, and explicit examples for teaching inside and outside word clues. And, as always, if you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to send us a message. By: Alexandra Guilamo