Although I
do not yet know the grade level I will be teaching next year, I am likely to be
an elementary school teacher. Because elementary school spans five years, I
will assume that I will be a third grade teacher for the purposes of this
assignment. I am not yet a teacher, so I have relatively little experience with
lesson planning. I decided to talk with a few teachers and parents that I know
to get an idea of what third graders are learning. One of the parents I spoke
with told me about a unit in which the children are learning about the structure
of a story (i.e. beginning, middle, and end). This seemed like a unit that I
would enjoy teaching, so I decided to go with that.
Next year,
I will likely be teaching a unit on story structure to my third grade class.
Each student will be required to write a short story with a distinct beginning,
middle, and end and add some supplemental illustrations. Students will be
evaluated on structure, creativity, and spelling/grammar.
I have four
ELL students in my class, each at a different stage of language acquisition.
The five stages of language acquisition are as follows:
·
Stage 1: Preproduction – At this stage, students
have a limited vocabulary of around 500 words or so. As the name implies,
students at this level are not yet producing language on their own but rather
parroting what they hear. At this stage, listening comprehension activities are
very valuable to students.
·
Stage 2: Early Production – Students at this
stage are just beginning to produce their own words rather than just repeating
the words of others. They have a limited vocabulary of around 1000 words.
Students can produce short, simple sentences. Using pictures to as aids is
helpful at this stage.
·
Stage 3: Speech Emergence – At this stage,
vocabulary expands to around 3000 words. Students begin to be able to do
content-specific work with the aid of the teacher. At this stage, students
begin to be able to string together short stories based on personal
experiences.
·
Stage 4: Intermediate Fluency – Students at this
stage are now able to speak in more complex sentences and may begin writing
more. Their vocabulary spikes to 6000 words, and they should become more
willing to talk in class because they are more confident in their language
usage. It is important to note that written work will still have a large number
of errors at this stage.
·
Stage 5: Advanced Fluency – It takes 4-10 years
to reach this stage. At this point, students have near-native academic fluency.
They will still need support in areas like social studies and writing, but they
will likely no longer be in an ESL or other support program.
In my class, I have students at
Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, and Stage 5. For this particular assignment, each of
them will receive some sort of modified assignment, but each will still have
the goal of understanding story structure.
My student at Stage 1, Antonia,
just moved to the United States from Mexico. Other than saying hello to me when
I say hello to her, she does not speak much if at all. She does actively listen
in class, and she is able to comprehend some of what I am saying. For this
assignment, instead of writing a story, Antonia is to draw a story with a
beginning, middle, and end. Her finished product will look somewhat like a
wordless comic strip. Because Antonia is in Stage 1, listening and
understanding is already quite the task for her. If she is able to grasp the
idea of beginning, middle, and end, I will be able to tell from her drawings.
Antonia’s assignment will be evaluated on structure and creativity, but there
will be no words, so spelling and grammar will not be part of the evaluation
criteria.
Roberto,
another student of mine, is in Stage 2. I know little about his background, but
I know he was born in Puerto Rico. For his assignment, Roberto will also be
asked to draw a story in a comic strip-like fashion, but he will be asked to
add some basic dialogue (e.g. Hello!, How are you?, etc). This will give
Roberto a chance to practice some conversational English. Like Antonia, Roberto
will be evaluated on structure and creativity. Despite having some words,
Roberto will receive on praise and corrective feedback on his writing. It will
have no effect on his evaluation.
Amir, a boy
whose family is originally from Egypt, has lived in the United States for most
of his life, but his family speaks exclusively Arabic at home. He is in Stage 4
of language acquisition. For this assignment, Amir will draw a comic strip-like
story, but instead of stopping there, he will summarize each box of the comic
strip, telling the story both through pictures at words. Amir will be evaluated
on structure and creativity, and he will receive praise and corrective feedback
on his writing. Hopefully this assignment will make him feel more confident in
his command of the English language.
Finally,
Nina is in Stage 5. Her family has lived in the United States for her entire
life, but they speak Spanish at home. They are first generation Americans. Nina
is nearly fluent in English, but she still needs some help with her grammar
when it comes to writing. Her assignment will be the same as the original
assignment, which is to write a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and
end and include supplemental illustrations, but her evaluation criteria will be
slightly different. Structure and creativity will be most heavily weighted, and
spelling/grammar will be worth fewer points, but will still be evaluated. Nina
will receive praise and corrective feedback on her grammar to help her continue
to improve and become even more fluent.
Each of
these students will still be able to gain an understanding of the lesson’s
content (i.e. story structure) and be active participants in class. These modified
assignments will give the students confidence as they move forward. Antonia,
Roberto, Amir, and Nina will each receive the help they need to understand
their modified assignments in addition to praise and corrective feedback once
their assignments are completed.
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