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Strategies for Integrating Language and Content in ALL Teaching, Including Remote Teaching (2/2)

Sarah Ottow

Part Two of a Two-Part Series

by Sarah Ottow, Confianza Founder and Director

The tips below are also more broadly discussed in the The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guide for K-12 Teachers of English and Academic Language Learners.

We’re back with more strategies to keep in mind when teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) online (in reality, these tips for working with all students, although English learners especially benefit and have a legal right to receive these supports)! You can read about Strategies 1 and 2 in Part One of this two-part series.

3. Ensure Students are Using All Four Domains of Language

Now more than ever, we can’t lose sight of the importance of integrating all four language domains--reading, writing, listening and speaking. When teaching online, we can overly focus on students writing, listening, reading and forget to include the importance of speaking. We may only have access to asynchronous learning, that is, learning that students do at their own pace, like responding to a stream of assignments on Google Classroom that require students to read text or listen to videos so that they can show understanding through a writing response. We can--and should--bring oracy into the picture because we know how important speaking is to boost language development, and we don’t just need synchronous learning activities for it. Synchronous learning activities include live Zoom or Google Hangout sessions where we can certainly encourage and structure oral language activities. Ideas for bringing speaking into asynchronous learning include having students respond via Flipgrid, Seesaw, or other such tools where the modality is speaking. Just like we do in “regular school” I do encourage educators to reflect on their ratio of balancing all four domains in lessons as best as they can at this challenging time! Structure is our friend since the brain loves patterns and repetition so consider your lesson structure to make learning consistent. See this helpful blog from Empowering ELLs for more ideas on structuring online lessons.

In my current remote classroom, I work with the group and 1-on-1 synchronously through Zoom meetings. I utilize Zoom breakout rooms to encourage oral language interactions between the students. A favorite activity is when Partner A shares their writing with Partner B while Partner B first listens then offers constructive feedback. Then they switch. They also use this same structure during the very popular Friday activity we dubbed “Write, Show and Guess”. For asynchronous activities for all domains of language, I have homework assignments where students read, write, listen and speak through the power of tech tools like Scholastic Bookflix and RAZ Kids. When designing adult learning at Confianza, I am cognizant of making sure that adults get regular opportunities to speak, listen, read and write, not just the passive PD model that is not just unpopular but ineffective!

4. Build Metacognition and Metalinguistic Awareness

We never want to water down grade level content, especially for those developing proficiency in another language. ELLs require accommodations to successfully learn academic content, not modifications. Accommodations provide scaffolds to support the learning of language and content while modifications change the standard being taught. When I coach leaders, we often need to stress this point with language and content specialists because, even with good intentions, educators can lower the bar and not bring in grade level demands and tasks with rigorous depth of knowledge that build metacognition. Whereas metacognition is “thinking about thinking” and all students need those skills, metalinguistic awareness is “thinking about language” and ELLs especially need these skills! One effective way of building in metalinguistic awareness is by having students do their own contrastive analysis between languages. Pictured here is an example of contrastive analysis using Nearpod’s Immersive Reader tool where students can use translation and annotation features to connect their heritage language to the target language. Thanks to Confianza client district Taunton Public Schools, MA and ELL Director Dalia Mendoza for sharing this idea!

In my current remote teaching situation, I know that my students need to be challenged by rigorous, grade level content while also learning about language. One example of what I do to build metacognition and metalinguistic awareness is 1) have students report out daily through feedback on the learning and their effort in it and 2) draw connections between our word work and the Spanish language since a couple of them are learning Spanish as sequential bilinguals. Additionally, because I always want to practice what I preach, I do this in PD as well. As you can see, there are so many parallels to adult learning here as you can read here in this useful overview of Confianza's approach for effective PD.

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