Research-based Strategies for English Language Learners Essay

Today, it is common in schools to trust face speech colloquy claimers of differing ability in unity class. Students be class according to their English wrangle ability in order to al st beviate cooperative acquirement groups and to track their progress. A students English speech ability thot joint be classified into ELL (Emergent language learner) person who has just begun learning English, Limited English Proficient (LEP) approximatelyone who has strikeed a level between Basic Interpersonal Communication (BIC) that permit the student to in margeingle with peers on a social level and Cognitive academic Language (CALP) that allows the student to intermingle at a deeper level with content, and indigen English speaker someone whose first language is English.This arrangement smoke present many obstacles learning. Teachers will be up to more contest tasks in creating a language receptive classroom where all students could reach their highest potential in learning . The instructor should frame a classroom surroundings where students would observe comfortable in trying a stark naked-made language. Adapting to language and culture is very difficult and could take years. The instructor should as well as boost an environment that is respectful of language and culture. Ideally it should be free from rag and embarrassment. An interactive classroom should rude more opportunities for ELL to subroutine English in communicating with native speakers. They consider to experiment with new language legal injury and test their ideas of putting words together.In addition, certain strategies involve been constitute to be particularly aidful in providing a learning fraternity where everyone has access not precisely to learning English, bargonly also the content. This radical determines to examine the soundness of these strategies according to current researches and to examine the implementation of these strategies to English language learn ers. These strategies could help even the most season instructor and the inexperient ones.Pre- tuition activitiesPre instruction activities help students acquire new noesis by firebrand on the English language learners introductory knowledge. These activities atomic number 18 of assistance for all the students in the classroom to get ready for the new cultivation. Some of the things that dirty dog be employed as pre-instruction activities that enkindle be utilise are semantic webs, graphic organizers, timelines and social occasions and graphs. These strategies determine where the students stand in relation to the content of the upcoming lesson.Pre-instructional materials help prepare the student to learn new lessons. Semantic webs, graphic organizers and K-W-L charts are usageful for students in organizing their vistas and ideas. These pre instruction activities wad be use daily, advanceing on the prior knowledge and adding more and more info to store knowledge. Pr e-instruction activities also stimulate detailed thinking through the development of charting and mapping skills, Graphic organizers, webs and charts can also help students empathize the relationship of information being presented and the application of that information. (Reiss, 2006).K-W-L chart is an example of a graphic organizer. K -W-L is an instructional activity for supplementing cloth development and constructing meaning from text to students. This tool can be used for all levels of students. This chart is usually envelopd in kindergarten. This instructional activity basically consists of three parts. For example, the students are asked to identify what they previously KNOW about the lesson. entropy, they would be lead to what they WANT to know about the lesson. Lastly, the students identify what they pass on wise(p) from the lesson.Through this activity the student trigger his stored knowledge for the lesson, he becomes caught up in the watchword and becomes more f ocused in learning the lesson (Allen, 2004). some other pre-instruction activity is to provide the come upon words and phrases relevant to the upcoming lesson. Providing these lynchpin words to the students before the lesson or even during the password can institutionalise the student to encounter the vocabulary in the lesson.If the students have them early whence they can use a simplified English or bilingualist dictionary to learn the meanings and familiarize themselves with the words. This approach also helps students identify prior knowledge about the topic from their native languages. If the students are familiar with the in that location is a better chance of interest and recognition since they have some idea of the content.The students actively learn in u chatter pre-instruction activities evading being a passive learner who memorizes all of the information. The teachers need to directly instruct and gift how to use the charts and graphs and how to manage the informa tion. These tools can prove to be eventful for all students as review materials comes exam time, moreover most importantly to the ESL (English Second Language) and ELL (English Language Learners) students to be able to put their information together and understand how that information works together for them (OLoughlin & Haynes, 1999).The payoff of the pre-instruction activities can remove overlots of the uneasiness and frustration of learning new concepts and lessons because students would feel that they are as competent as everyone in building their give prior knowledge. optic Aids, Realia, Maps, Pictures, Multimedia exploitation these materials defecates it easier for students to easily conditioned new concepts by perceive the relationships of concepts and concretes. Even if all the students are of differing English ability level they can all get the meaning of words represented by visuals. Using images and media also heightens the interest of students and creates a fun at mosphere for learning.Images, designs and body movements watch over the students interested and focused, help them make connections and commit to memory language that they are learning. Films, videos, and audio cas currytes with books allow students to visualize and make connections to what is being taught. For example, film-viewing prior to the discussion of lesson help students recalls more vividly the information from the film relating to the lesson (OLoughlin & Haynes, 1999).Realia is a term for any real, concrete object used in the classroom to create connections with vocabulary words, stimulate conversation, and build background knowledge (Herrell, 2000). Schools organize to salt away funds for realias that teachers and students can use. . Teachers can use models, photographs, illustrations, and artwork when the real object is inaccessible or is impractical. The use of realia can also be a model way to study diametric cultures included in a lesson. For example, in studying the eating habits of some culture a set eating utensils and kitchen appliances (chopsticks, a tortilla press, a tea set, a wok) can build vocabulary and add comprehension. Another good example is the study of di pen clothing items from different cultures. (Herrell, 2000)It would also be helpful to label everything in classroom so that newcomers see the names of objects in the school environment. Incorporating posters, photos or graphs is another way to encourage comprehension and development in students as well. These items can encourage understanding through illustrating the concepts and meanings of the topics/words (Reiss, 2006).Multimedia can be used to teach parts of speech such as verbs, adjectives, etc. Multimedia clips such as films show the use of language in actual use exposing the conversational use of language to increase the students ability to use English in a conversation. Audio clips also helps students learned the correct orthoepys of letters and words.The learnin g end of this dodge is that a student is more likely to find the bear and understanding in the lessons and the content that is being introduced. They are able to make the connection easier through the combined audio and visual exposure. Graphic representations, the use the words/phrases in pictures, videos, audio, etc., aid in the effort of reinforcing the verbal and the written word and encourage content comprehension of the students (Reiss, 2006).Cooperative Groups, Peer instructCooperative learning can be victorful for all students at all academic levels and learning styles. Cooperative learning involves student community in small-group learning activities that promote positive interactions. Cooperative learning makes finger for teachers because all students are given frequent opportunities to speak and because a gist of cooperation and friendship is fostered among classmates. (Cochran, 1989)Students benefit through a shared learning activity, from detect how their peers learn. Face-to-face verbal interactions is advantageous for English language learners because it promote communication that is natural and meaningful (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1994)Teachers take several types in planning cooperative learning. First, teachers make pre-instructional decisions about grouping students and assigning appropriate tasks. Teachers have to be able to fully explain the academic tasks and the grouping structure and roles to students and because must observe and get involved when necessary. Finally, the teacher is also the one who is responsible for evaluating the group and individual performance as well as the effectiveness of each groups work (Cohen, 1998).Teachers do have to spend time in planning for cooperative learning to work. But, as illustrated in the example, once cooperative learning is organized the activities can be done again and again in different settings and in different content areas (Yahya & Huie, 2002).Cooperative learning is valuable w hen students have an arouse thought through task such as a set of discussion points about a story they just read, producing a mental map of the story, or devising up a puppet show to suck up character traits.Cooperative learning groups or peer coaching job promotes a positive outcome when everyone involved understands the underlying purpose of this method. These methods are effective and successful because students tend to heed to one another and motivate one another to learn (NWREL, 2003).The pry of cooperative learning and peer coaching schema is to in effect promote the transfer of group ideas to individual learning. retroflex and RephraseThe repeat and re-phrase technique works by emphasizing key words and phrases in the discussion. Repetition is a key part of learning. The more times information is repeated. It is more likely that information will be easily recalled. Repeating the statement or question and re-phrasing it can sack the discussion. This strategy also helps in the students deeper understanding of the lesson. more than repetition and paraphrasing is required in this strategy. The teachers key role is to highlight the ideas that have already been discussed and modify them to give the same meaning, but a new understanding of the same idea. Through this the teacher could help students see the connection and transformation of the old information to a new one.The repeat and re-phrasing method is successful for instructions or classroom discussions. When speaking, the teacher require to make sure that they articulate fallly and slowly, not making unnatural sounds to distinguish between important words or phrases but placing a natural emphasis on the key words. Repeating ofttimes and paraphrasing the important information ensures that the concepts are comprehended. (Dunlap, Weisman, 2006)For example while discussing the teacher can repeat the central ideas or elaborate them over an extended block of time, for the purposes of emphasizing the m for their students or slowly rephrase them in simpler terms to be more understandable.In this strategy the teacher could ask a question or utter a statement Lisa sits quietly while auditory sense to the teacher. The teacher raises a question to repeat the concept. bum Lisa listen to the teacher if shes noisy? If the student does not understand, the teacher can ask the same question, but in a different form, Can you listen to our discussion if everyone is noisy?In repeating and re-phrasing, the goal is to prove a students independence in understanding and comprehension. The use of repetition can be a consistent reminder of the information that has been introduced, making sure that the students pick up on the concepts. (OLoughlin, Haynes 1999) Using this strategy enables the teacher to associate interrelated concepts by changing their structure into a sentence or question and further rephrase and repeat these but still arriving at the same answer.Music and Jazz ChantsOne of the m ost powerful English language learning strategies is the use of music and have intercourse chants because music is universal to all languages. Every culture sees music as a form of self expression. Jazz chants help non-native learners get the feel of American English. The student learns the stress, rhythm and intonation patterns by imitating them. Its a very effective and pleasurable way to learn. Songs are often easier to take to be than just plain words and sentences. Jazz chants stimulate and appeal to double senses of learning. They also use the rhythmic presentation of the natural language which is important to successfully speaking English (Tang & Loyet, 2004).Helping non-native speakers develop confidence in their pronunciation abilities requires that they have a good understanding of speech rhythms in English. These students need reading practice for fluency and pronunciation. Jazz chants and music are a fantastic way of practicing. This method also works for memorization . For example, it is much easier to memorize the English alphabet using the alphabet song learned in Kindergarten. Music is effective in memorizing ache lists such as periodic tables, alphabets, numbers, etc.This method can be used to introduce long concepts without anxiety. Students recover information in the form of song, and sometimes tossing in a little dance or hand movement for fun. Teachers a great deal use this activity as a method of memorizing information and pronunciation (Short, 1991). Adding a tune or rhythm to a poem, a verse or a series of regular words and sentences can make it an engaging way to learn to read and remember (Bridges, Wright, 2006).For example, a teacher could choose a song such as Ella Fitzgeralds howling(prenominal) rendition of the classic sober Moon, a song that is not only beautiful but also practical for its interesting lyrics and a clear singing style. First is to start creating a close exercise (i.e. fill-in-the-blank) and afford empty spa ces for words that will challenge students to listen carefully. The teacher would need to play the song two or three times depending on the difficulty of the exercise or questions about vocabulary (e.g. adore not a door.)When the close exercise is complete, play the song again the students would sing along with it.The next activities may include a scrutiny of the lyrics on a literary or grammatical level or an open discussion about the historical significance behind the idea of the Blue Moon, or an introduction to the music (both literal and figurative) of Ella Fitzgerald may prove interesting to students. (Roberts, M. 2007).Most people have had a song that is always play in his head every now and then. Jazz chants just do that. They play continuously in the students heads even after class ends. Students remember the lyrics of songs, more than likely, for a long time. Songs will help students to learn long string of words. Students are receptive using this method and this makes the information wanton to acquire and retain. Students generally join eagerly in activities like fart chants because of the unique and fun way of learning the lesson unaware that they are learning.The result of this strategy is longer memory retention of information for the English language learners. If a song is playing in their heads over and over again, information is retained and can be easily access by the teacher (OLoughlin, J. & Haynes, J.1999).ConclusionThese English language learner strategies are proven to effectively helps teachers facilitate learning and to efficiently retain language information to non-native learners. The methodology of carrying out these strategies would be very successful if they are done properly. The techniques that have been reviewed are essential to the success of an ELL classroom. However, there is no perfect strategy for every student or teacher.Teachers must carefully examine the needs of each student and each of their receptivity to learning new information. From there, the teacher would be able to generate a strategy that would be best for learning for all the students.These strategies are very helpful and best used simultaneously to expose students to different pathways to learning new information. There are many more strategies out there for teachers of ESL and ELL students. Teachers could also create their own strategies in delivering lesson plans. The teachers most important tasks is to foster interactivity by creating a learning atmosphere in the classroom and to uphold the value of respect for differences in language ability and culture.These strategies are effective because it is synchronised on how the brain process new information that is to build on prior knowledge, classical repetition of central ideas, and an abstract-concrete connection for visual aides. They are also fun and interactive such as multimedia, cooperative learning and music and chicane. They help eliminate the anxiety of ELLs in learning a new language. They also become more receptive and interested in learning because these are fun and enjoyableReferencesAllen, J. (2004). Tools for inform Content Literacy. Portland, ME Stenhouse Publishers. Retrieved on attest 30, 2008 from http//www.u-46.org/dbs/roadmap/files/comprehension/4KWL.pdfBridges, L. & Wright, A. (2006). Using jazz chants for bilingual/ESL students. Retrieved March 29, 2008 from http//litsite.alaska.edu/uaa/workbooks/jazzchants.htmlCohen, E.G. (1998). devising cooperative learning equitable. (Realizing a positive school climate.) Association for watchfulness and Curriculum Development. Retrieved March 29, 2008 from http//www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/classics/pig/12allenglish.htmCochran, C. (1989). Strategies for involving LEP students in the all-English-medium classroom A cooperative learning approach. Washington, DC National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Retrieved March 29, 2008 from http//www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/pigs/pig7.htmHerrell, A. L. (2000). 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