Do you struggle to teach your ELs to do research? In today’s episode, I share a coaching session I had with a ESL Teaching Roadmap member. She teaches 9th grade ELA and ELD in a district that is just getting their ESL program off the ground. She explains that there is no curriculum for her to work from, so she feels like she is making everything up as she goes.
We begin by discussing one student, in particular, who is a newcomer in one of her mixed proficiency support classes. I recommend one of my favorite resources for newcomers, National Geographic Inside the USA and resources that I have created to accompany them. Then, we talk through some creative ways to carve out some one on one time with a newcomer within a mixed proficiency class, whether that is finding one on one time with him while other students are working independently or pulling him from another class period. She also asks how to assess this new student to see what he is actually capable of understanding and producing. The WIDA just doesn’t give the information she needs to see where he is. I recommend an informal assessment tool so that she can decide on a starting point for working with this student.
Next we discuss how to teach research to English Learners. This teacher is struggling to figure out how to teach her EL students to do research, cite sources, and do things like differentiate between fact and opinion. I point her to resources she can find inside the ESL teaching roadmap membership. We talk about the cultural differences that may make the idea of intellectual property difficult to understand as well as the temptation for EL students to copy and paste directly from resources. To approach this, I recommend starting with a lesson on note taking, followed by a lesson on paraphrasing, a lesson on plagiarism, and a lesson on citations and why they are important.
She shares that one challenge is that her teaching her EL students to research is that all of them are choosing different articles, many of which are very difficult for them to read. We brainstorm some ways that she could change the structure of the assignment in the future to allow the students choice, but also provide them more scaffolds. Having students work in partners or groups is one strategy we discussed, followed by reducing the number of choices students have to choose from for their research.
Listen next week for part 2 of this coaching session.
What you will hear about in today’s coaching session:
- Resources and strategies for teaching newcomers in a mixed proficiency classroom
- Informal assessment tools that can be used to see what newcomers actually know
- Lessons to teach EL students before and during research projects
Resources
As mentioned in the episode, I am linking some useful resources!
- ESL Teacher Support – 1:1 coaching session with Ieva Grauslys (©Simply Ieva)
- ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join
- 25 Authentic Speaking Activities for Your ESL Classroom
- Simply Ieva ESL Teachers Pay Teachers Store
- Teachable Platform – Courses and Workshops
- Follow me on Instagram
- Join the Simply Ieva Facebook Group
- Simply Ieva Youtube Channel
You may also be interested in:
- Episode 36: How to set up your mixed-proficiency classroom for success
- Episode 37: 3 Activities That Work Fantastically Well in Mixed-Proficiency Classroom
- Writing Vocabulary Posters
- Romeo and Juliet meets West Side story lesson
- Inside th USA textbook (Affiliate link)
- I Want to Learn English (Affiliate link)
