Chapter 3-Liane

It was interesting to discuss the difference between schemata and building background. Even with people whose first language is English there can be different interpretations of the same situation, so even more so with ELs. The analogy to 'building background' that I use with my students is coat hooks. In order to retain and remember new information in our brains, we need to find a coat hook on which to hang it. If there is no coat hook, we teachers must help build one. Once that hook is built, the new information can be hung (or is it 'hanged' Eunice... :-). Once the new information finds a hook to occupy, it is then accessible to long term memory.
I liked the third idea on page 57. To activate prior knowledge or build background, there are many suggestions that begin on p. 57. The third one has the teacher copy a short non-fiction article on the topic in question. Partners read the article and place shorthand symbols in the text. One of the symbols is a '?' That indicates a concept that is confusing or that the reader does not understand. The book says that once the misunderstanding is cleared change the symbol to an asterisk. I like changing it to a light bulb instead.
I love to study words and the ideas to teach words are terrific in this chapter. I appreciate learning from Maria that three words per day is optimal for ELs to tackle.

My students' background strengths are their Yup'ik culture, basketball, and to an extent, technology. I find this interesting, since while they have not been immersed in technology to the extent their peers in other parts of the United States have been, nor are their parents particularly technologically-fluent, like children of their generation, they seem to naturally pick up anything with regards to technology. By relating ideas to one of these three areas, I find that I have more success with many concepts I try to teach. In those cases that I am unable to build on their existing background, I use a lot of pictures, drawings, and simple explanations. My students are very concrete, and not abstract thinkers or learners.

In class, particularly in Social Studies, I try to relate ideas to existing, or previously existing living situations and cultural situations that they have likely experienced or know about through their families and church. By doing so, it engages their interest, and they grasp the concepts much more readily.

I think that by providing more opportunities for them to see and experience physical things (through photos, films, the internet), it will provide possible links for more non-concrete, abstract concepts. Also the use of short literature pieces, short nonfiction writings, and the like, my students will be able to absorb abstract ideas in small chunks.

Chapter 3: Building Background

Discuss these questions prior to reading:

1) What are your students´ strengths in the area of background?

2) How have you helped your students make connections to their background in the past?

3) How will making greater efforts to connect to students’ background knowledge help students make greater gains in achievement?

Before you read a chapter, ask yourself: What will this chapter be about? Jot down any questions or predictions you have.

Questions after reading:
Pick one or more questions you want to discuss in your study groups. Or you can come up with your own questions.

On page 54, feature 7, “Concepts Explicitly Linked to Students’ Background Experiences” is explained. What strategies do you use to connect concepts to your students’ experiences? What new ideas did you learn?

Have you heard of the word “Schemata” before? How would you define it? What does it have to do with students’ background knowledge?


Answer the 3 questions on page 56:
What does activating prior knowledge mean?
What does building background knowledge mean?
How do they differ instructionally?

List 3 additional ways you can introduce, write, post, repeat and highlight vocabulary for students to see.

Page 61 to 62. Do you think it is important to spend time teaching academic words? What are some of the academic words that your students struggle with?


On page 63, the book says “There is little benefit to selecting 25-30 isolated vocabulary terms and asking ELs to copy them from the board and look up the definitions in the dictionary. Do you agree or disagree?
Why do you the research would indicate that this is ineffective?

Page 63 to 68. Pick 2-3 new ideas for vocabulary instruction. Share your favorites with your colleagues in your books study.

Alternate activity:Read the Lesson on Building Background and Teaching Scenarios in the section from pages 68 to 77. Score each teacher according to the rubric on pages 70, 73 and 74. Share your scores with your colleagues.


For your Chapter 3 reflection, think about the discussion and new ideas you learned from the text. Reflect on what you feel was most important to your teaching. Write a 2-3 paragraph reflection.
Quyana!

Chapter 3 Reflection

Building background is very important to a student’s understanding of the material studied. We all connect with what we read by comparing it to our own knowledge or experiences. When you have students who have no background knowledge of the subject, you must build in activities to help them learn about that subject. Brainstorming and other techniques can help you learn what the students don’t know about, then you need to provide activities to build the background. This can be showing a video related to the topic, read a story or article about the subject, or use the Insert Method on page 57 to learn about the subject.

Teaching the vocabulary also helps a child understand the material. Word walls, vocabulary journals, personal word dictionaries, word sorts, and concept definition maps are ways to help them learn the vocabulary. Academic language is particularly difficult for English language learners. Content words, process or function words, and words that teach English function should be included. Using the words in context, posting and reviewing words, and using visuals to provide concrete meanings are used to promote academic language development.

I'm not sure this is what we are supposed to do, but here it is anyway.

Paula

Chapter 3 Reflection.

Discussion Question 1 in the book questions the importance of linking a students’ cultural background to new information to make content concepts more meaningful, even if they have been ‘Americanized’. I believe it is polite and right to acknowledge a persons background even though they do not necessarily flaunt their cultural differences. I would imagine that an ELL student born in this country still has strong roots in the parents’ culture. Even though a student may not display or sound like someone from their parents culture, he is raised by parents who grew up in a different culture. Undoubtedly there will be cultural differences in the home, for example, values, food, views on medicine, schools, etc. I say these students have the benefit of comparing and possibly getting a broader idea of a concept. Regardless of the background knowledge, it is the teachers’ job to find a link between it and the new information in order to make a new concept more relevant and memorable.

Voni

Chapter 3 - Sabrina

This chapter on Building Background gave various suggestions to help students achieve greater understanding of vocabulary before diving into a lesson. Brainstorming about a topic before going into greater depth helps students have a firmer grasp on the subject at hand. When I was in school, we would always read the book first, and then watch the movie - as a kind of fun ending to the unit. What I'm reading here, and I've also heard other teachers in Kipnuk mention, is that watching a video before reading the story might help EL students understand what they will be learning a bit more than just beginning with reading the book. It also gives them a chance to have a visual when wrapping their minds around the abstract concepts they might encounter in the text.

New information must be integrated with what students have previously learned. This helps students realize that there is a process to learning, and that you must build on what you already know, simple concepts, to new, more complex concepts. The 3 Tiers of words helped me understand the type of scaffolding to use when introducing new vocabulary (and other concepts) to students. I also liked the idea of keeping the Word Wall current, not continually adding new words to the wall ending up with a crowded mess of words. After students master certain words, you can take them off of the Word Wall, and maybe have students write them in their word journals. I like the idea of the word journals for my students, especially since they're learning to sound out more words on their own, it could be like their own personal word wall, and they can practice reading those words on their own.

Reading this section was kind of a blast from the past - it had me reliving my elementary and high school experiences, since some of the activities mentioned were ones my teachers used in the classroom.

Sabrina

3) Supplementary materials are very important to use when teaching students of all ages to master the language and content objectives. I use hands-on materials when introducing in a new unit in math almost all the time. We are starting a new unit on coins, and the only way the students will understand and learn the coin names and to count on is by using play money.

Share your reflections

Thanks for sharing your reflections

Making Meaning Comprehensible, Ch 2: Lesson Preparation

Pages 22 through 51.

We are going into our 5th month of SIOP implementation here in Kipnuk. By now you have learned a great deal about SIOP Lesson Prep. How is it going? You can share with your colleagues some of your successes and some things that you still want to improve.

Just to review the 6 features of Lesson Prep:

1) Clearly define content objectives for students
2) Clearly define language objectives for students
3) Content concepts appropriate for age and educational background level of students.
4) Supplementary materials used to a high degree, making the lesson clear and meaningful (e.g., computer programs, graphs, models, visuals)
5) Adaptation of content to all levels of student proficiency
6) Provide meaningful and authentic activities that integrate lesson concepts with language practice opportunities


Pre-reading Questions

1) Why do lesson plans for Sheltered Instruction take extra considerations?
2) What has been your experience with SIOP lesson planning over the last couple of months? What has worked well for you? What feature of Lesson Prep has helped you the most?
3) Do you notice any improvements with your students and their learning in your classes, since you have added some of the SIOP features to your planning?
4) What feature would you like to work on more?
5) What do you not understand about SIOP Lesson Prep?

After reading Ch. 2: Lesson Prep (you may choose from these questions or come up with your own)

1) What do we need to do, if a major part of the information we need to teach are students is in textbooks that are above their level of English proficiency? (p. 24)
2) What is one new thing you learned about content and language objectives that you learned from reviewing the information on pages 24 to 32?
3) What supplementary material could you add to your lessons that could help students master the language and content objectives? (Feature 4, pgs 33 to 34)
4) Share one example with your colleagues about how you can use a scaffolded outline (p. 35) for the grade level and subjects that you teach?
5) How could you use Native language text in your class to help increase comprehension (p. 38)
6) Read the SIOP lesson teaching scenarios about the Gold Rush, on pages 39-45. Score the lessons according to the protocol for lesson prep on pages 42-45. You can have 1-2 people in each group read about one teacher and score their lesson. Then compare your scores with the scores and analysis on pages 46 to 50.

You can also use the questions on pages 50 to 51. Question 2 is a great one to discuss with your colleagues.

Next meeting

When will we be meeting next, Maria?

SIOP Book Study: Making Meaning Comprehensible

This blog is for Kipnuk teachers to post their reflections following their book study. We have just read the introduction to the book, Making Content Comprehensible. Our first book study took place on Friday, January 29th, was great. It was wonderful hearing all your ideas.

If you did not answer the following questions in your book study, take time to share some of your thoughts now. "How does the book define Sheltered Instruction? How is Sheltered Instruction different than Content-based ESL Instruction?"

Also: Skim through pages 15 through 20. What is one new thing that you have learned about SIOP that you did not understand before? What makes you excited about teaching SIOP? Write a 1-paragraph reflection.