Strategies for Teaching English Language, Literature, and Content

Introduction

Strategies for Teaching Language, Literature, and Content is designed to support grade level teachers, content teachers, and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers who are working with learners of English in many different contexts.

Strategies are methods and plans for delivering instruction and promoting learning. We see strategies as versatile instructional tools that teachers–and learners–can apply with a wide variety of materials and instructional goals. We believe that acquiring facility with a range of strategies prepares teachers for diverse teaching and learning situations.

We offer in this book 51 strategies that support active, interactive, and integrated language development. The research-based strategies are designed to increase both learner motivation and learner success. Student engagement in and interaction with all kinds of texts and experiences from literature and content areas are supported and directed toward learning. Most of the strategies also integrate language modes of listening, speaking, reading, and writing to build language fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.

We have organized the guide into five sections:

Strategies for New Learners of English includes 11 strategies for oral and written language development for newcomers to English;

Strategies For Building Comprehension Before, During, and After Reading a Text offers multiple ways to help learners prepare to read, search for meaning as they read, and explore a text in depth after they read;

Reading Process Strategies includes seven different ways to structure the actual reading of a text to bring variety, interest, and depth of processing as learners read;

Graphic Organizers for Text Structure offers a variety of visual tools to show how text is organized and how it works and to promote oral and written discourse around text;

Vocabulary Exploration and Study includes a baker’s dozen strategies to explore words and learn their meanings.

Each of the 51 strategy descriptions includes an example of the strategy in use. Our goal is to illustrate how the strategies are flexible and versatile enough to be used with, and to enhance, the content your students study. We hope these tools will expand your teaching repertoire in ways that make English language teaching and learning rewarding in your classroom.

Mary Lou McCloskey

Janet Orr

Lydia Stack

Gabriela Kleckova

Part One

Strategies for New Learners of English

Newcomers to English have unique needs. They often experience a silent period during which they are developing and understanding language but not yet comfortable producing the new language. The strategies in this section are designed to support newcomers and to promote a comfortable entry into their new language. Most of these strategies integrate speaking, listening, reading, and writing. This offers learners who are literate in their first language opportunities to use their knowledge of the written word in learning a new language, and provides support for students acquiring their first literacy in English to develop the skills and strategies of English literacy (McCloskey, 2017).

The section includes these strategies:

Adapting Oral Language to Increase Comprehension: Teachers can adjust the way they use English to make the language comprehensible and inviting to new learners.

Culturally Responsive Instruction: Connecting to learners’ previous cultural experiences provides learners with respect for their own identities that makes learning more meaningful and engaging.

Total Physical Response: Actions combined with language have been shown to increase learning. TPR is a versatile strategy for developing comprehension and can move into speaking and reading.

Chants, Songs, Poetry, and Raps. Rhyme, rhythm, and repetition make language memorable and encourage learners to create their own discourse by varying within the patterns.

Language Frames: Learners use frames to practice important phrases and patterns of the language, and to learn ways to participate in academic talk.

Guided Reading: Learners develop reading skills and strategies through small-group instruction using books that gradually increase in difficulty.

Shared Reading: Teacher and students use a shared large-print text (on chart, big book, or screen) to develop reading skills and strategies.

Shared Writing: Teacher and students read a shared text together, while they discuss and develop elements of writing.

Language Experience Approach: Learners and teacher write together about a shared experience, then use the text they have created for reading and writing.

Vocabulary Introduction and Practice for Newcomers. Teachers are offered a range of principles and tools to select important vocabulary and help learners acquire those terms.

Dipsticking: Checking Comprehension for All Learners Frequently. Teachers use a variety of strategies for quickly and frequently checking comprehension of all learners in the class as part of daily teaching.

Chapter One

Adapting Oral Language to Increase Comprehension for New English Learners

The way we use oral language can make a big difference in how well students understand us and are able to build proficiency. Here are a dozen suggestions for using our own language to help our learners:

1. Articulate clearly: Avoid blending one word into the next. We naturally compress language a great deal in oral American English, so we need to be self-aware about it. Learners will do best when we pronounce sounds clearly but naturally, and separate words rather than blending them.

No: What…is…your…name? (Speech is too slow to be understood.)

No: Wachername? (Although we do this in conversation, it will be hard for learners to hear the words.)

Yes: What is your name? (Language is natural, but clear)

2. Face students: Watching the mouth positions and movements of a speaker provide extra clues to the language. Make sure that you stand so your students can see your mouth and facial expressions to aid learners’ comprehension.

3. Use pictures, gestures, and realia (real things to see, handle, and talk about). Pictures, things, and actions are very helpful cues to meaning for newcomers. Use these whenever you can to accompany language you use with beginners. You can guide learners to use their own things (e.g., school materials), create their own pictures, or imitate gestures and actions for learning. Do you think you can’t draw? An excellent resource is 1000 Pictures to Copy for Teachers, by Andrew Wright (1985).

4. Increase wait time. Recall your own experience learning another language. It takes time to process oral input in a new language. Provide that time by waiting before you ask a student to respond. We tend to be uncomfortable with quiet seconds in class, but they are much needed to give ELs time to think. The normal wait time in a classroom is only about 1-2 seconds, but with practice you can learn to be comfortable with more.

Researchers have found that increasing your wait time to 5-7 seconds will give many more learners time to respond. So, be comfortable with a little silent time after a question. Count slowly to 5 or 7 or whatever time is needed until most students are ready to respond.

Also remember that if you call on the first student who raises a hand, you will tend to spend most of your time speaking with the most proficient learners. Let learners know that you will nominate responders rather than