- Review your classmates’ posts and respond. Compare the answers of your classmates to yours. Notice any similarities and differences to teaching adults versus K-12. For distinguished peer responses, respond with a minimum of five sentences that add to the conversation, and refrain from evaluative posts (i.e., You did a good job.).
PEERS POST:
- Describe some challenges with teaching writing in an ESL classroom.
Writing is essential in the progress of a student’s academic achievements, and it also strengthens their social and emotional growth. It is also a fundamental skill needed to succeed. Some of the challenges that ESL teachers face come from the difficulties their students come up against. These challenges can be poor vocabulary, spelling, and grammar skills, lack of motivation, and shortage of reading supplies. Other problems that can occur for educators are various education levels of their students, difficult curriculums, and a limited period of time for teaching. (Moses & Mohamad, 2019)
- Explain how teachers help students overcome those challenges.
It is a good idea to quiz your students’ first thing to see what they already know. After that, you can develop a lesson plan. Writing is a “social process” (Piper, 2015) so it is important to make writing lessons in the classroom meaningful and an integral part of the other language domain activities. To solidify what your students have learned, you should use the same verbiage for everyday items and tasks. Consistency is key. Journaling or short writing assignments are great ways to introduce your students to writing. Partnering with other students is beneficial because it makes the student responsible for his/her learning. (Hill, 2017) Strengthening spelling skills through mnemonics (linking the way a word or part of a word is spelled with another word) (YourDictionary, 2009) will help students gain competent writing skills.
- Determine how teachers can help students with the vocabulary needed to write.
Elicit new vocabulary – miming, visuals (like flashcards), word walls, and writing word clusters.
Demonstrations – charades and picture-word pairing
Antonyms and Synonyms – not only is it important to know the definition of a word but it is also just as important to know the opposite meaning (antonym). It is also useful to learn other words that have the same meaning as the word you are memorizing (synonym).
Practice, practice, practice!
- Defend how BICS and CALP language proficiencies can impact a student’s writing.
BICS is known as playground language and CALP is academic language. Students are able to learn BICS quicker because it is the language they use with their peers. Understanding these will help determine how much knowledge the student has of the language they are learning. This helps educators create a lesson plan that will fit the student’s needs. (Colorín Colorado, 2019)
-Tarah Risher
References:
Moses, R. N., & Mohamad, M. (2019). Challenges Faced by Students and Teachers on Writing Skills in ESL Contexts: A Literature Review. Creative Education, 10(13), 3385–3391. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2019.1013260
Piper, T. (2015). Language, learning, and culture: English language learning in today’s schools. Bridgepoint Education.
Hill, K. (2017). Writing Strategies for ESL Students [YouTube Video]. In Acacia University (Ed.), YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd3ezbUBbLo
YourDictionary. (2009, July 22). Teaching Spelling Strategies to ESL Students. YourDictionary. https://esl.yourdictionary.com/lesson-plans/Teaching-Spelling-Strategies-to-ESL-Students.htmlLinks to an external site.
Colorín Colorado. (2019, May 10). What are BICS and CALP? Colorín Colorado; Colorín Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/faq/what-are-bics-and-calp
MY POST:
Challenges with Teaching Writing and Content in an ESL Classroom
Teaching and writing English as a second language can be challenging, just like other second languages. Acquisition of a new language, as indicated by Acacia University’s research outcome on ESL, goes through five stages. These are; early production, speech emergency, intermediate fluency, and the advanced fluency stages. Learner’s experience writing and content acquisition challenges in every step, more so in the first two stages. Such challenges include inadequate mastery of Vocabulary and students’ readiness to write and master the new language, as put forward by Robertson (n.d) in his illustrations on how the students behave -when told to carry their pencils and when not supposed to. Student anxiety towards the new language and poor spelling. Teachers also experience challenges when teaching writing and content acquisition in an ESL classroom: learner differences and lack of student interest in learning the new language.
How Teachers Help Students overcome those Challenges
There are three broad strategies on how to help learners overcome writing and content in an ESL classroom, namely, the use of word walls, graphic organizers and partnering activities (Acacia University, n.d). Word walls involve meaningful teaching of Vocabulary. It has proved to be important in that it improves the students’ ability to read, comprehend and write, allows learners to internalize key concepts, increases interactive learning sessions and encourages the acquisition of new Vocabulary.
Graphic organizers enable teachers of ESL to organize their content comprehensively and act as a visual aid; hence the learners can gain more understanding of the teaching concept, internalize, and write. They are very important since they are favorable for different learners and therefore consider individual learner differences. Lastly, partnering as a way to help learners in writing and content acquisition in an ESL class has proved to be very helpful in that it encourages learner interaction with peers and the instructor in the classroom. It allows learners to practice writing the second language and use it in their communication. The teacher keeps engaged with the learners through question-and-answer sessions, hence able to gauge the understanding level of the learners in terms of ESL and make appropriate adjustments. Other ways include sentence auction and the use of the language experience approach.
How Teachers can help students with the Vocabulary needed to write
Teachers can help students in the following ways to acquire new Vocabulary to help in writing during ELL classroom sessions;
- Enable them to figure out the already developed words and then introduce new words (from known too unknown).
- Engage learners in dictionary usage to get the meaning of the new word.
- Select interesting texts and choose a wide range of words from the text.
- Discuss the word definitions and later engage them in question and answering sessions.
Defend how BICS and CALP Language Proficiencies can Impact a Student’s Writing
BICS and CALP are the determiners of time duration spent by a learner to acquire a new language and the academic grade proficiency in a given language. BICS is considered to be a playground and a social language. It is non – specialized, not complex and does not require any training. On the other hand, CALP language is an academic language and is applied in various content teaching areas. Here, learners develop new skills such as comparison, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis. BICS and CALP are related in that BICS sets from birth through interaction, but later on, it is influenced by CALP when a child starts schooling and writes in the language accepted in the learning institution.
References
Acacia University, (2017). Writing Strategies for ESL students. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd3ezbUBbloLinks to an external site.
Minimize Video
Piper, T., 92015). Language, learning, and culture: English Language learning in today’s schools.
Robert, K (n.d). Improving writing skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing | Colorin Colorado (Colorado.org). Retrieved from https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/improving-writing-skills-ells-and-joy-writingLinks to an external site.
Writing a paragraph with high schools, (n.d). Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbZ2k5j8MFkLinks to an external site.
