Hi! We have five international students this year who are for the most part mainstreamed but whose English needs reinforcement. I teach the ESL Support class to the three 7th graders. We have been taking several approaches so far, most of which involve communication among their various teachers. 1. grammar. We look at writing samples, determine grammar needs, and then work to address those both through editing other work (e.g. I would copy a passage from "Walk Two Moons" while leaving out articles and have the kids figure out where articles are missing and fill them in) and original writing and editing of stories and other writing. 2. textbook skills. We examine their textbooks and make sure they have an awareness of how best to use the textbook. For example, they had no idea what "key concepts" meant and so were ignoring that sidebar altogether. 3. Guessing from context. They look at paragraphs with words missing, and try to determine what might fit there, or at least what ideas the word might need to describe even if they don't know one. This is also an opportunity to learn that they can understand the essence of a paragraph even without knowing all the words. 4. Working through specific textbook assignments together. This is a way to build reading skills, ensure they know "key terms" as well as "key concepts," and give them a grounding in ideas before the class which goes over the reading. 5. Writing in specific genres. For example, they recently had a science class on comparing and contrasting, and we prepped them for it by having them write a comp/cont paragraph on respiration and fermentation. The next step, which they just started, is practicing for an eventual comp/cont essay in Humanities by writing one on the topic of their choice (e.g. "sports vs. studying"). 6. Cultural Adjustment. We talked through similarities and differences between their old schools and my/our school, and they wrote letters to their teachers describing themselves and giving other information they thought would be helpful for the teachers to know. 7. Independent reading... which I *think* they understand is actually the most efficient way to improve their reading skills, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. And all that with no homework assigned :-)
Take care, Bill Ivey Stoneleigh-Burnham School _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
