Reflecting on ESL Teaching and Learning Across the Curriculum

LAUSD District 6January 18, 2006

Professor Pauline GibbonsFaculty of Education

University of TechnologySydney, Australia

Pauline.Gibbons@uts.edu.au

Key Question

What is the “signature” of an effective teaching and learning classroom environment for English language learners?

3 Basic Assumptions Underpinning ESL

Teaching and LearningEffective ESL teaching and learning

requires:1. Development of a “high challenge and

high support” curriculum2. Teachers’ understanding of language as

a meaning –making system3. Explicit teaching of academic language

integrated with content teaching.

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence

front-loaded scaffolding;

scaffolding that builds on what learners bring to the learning situation (language, experience and knowledge), and makes connections between this and the curriculum;

language and subject/content integration;

meaning-driven language teaching;

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence (continued)

explicit focus on form and grammar;

links made between spoken and written language;

the development of second language literacy;

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence (continued)

opportunities for students to use new language in contextually appropriate ways and in authentic situations;

‘message abundancy’;

the development of metalinguistic and metacognitive understandings;

formative assessment practices with assessment used to inform teaching.

The Enacted Curriculum: Examples

extended dialogues (non- IRF) by students with teacher and peers, leading to ‘substantive conversation’ and increased depth of knowledge;

increased ‘wait time’ in teacher-student talk, and opportunities for self correction/repair by students;

opportunities for students to take on ‘expert’ roles;

initiation of questions and topics by students;

use of higher-order questioning by teacher;

The Enacted Curriculum: Examples (continued)

thinking (of teacher and students) made explicit in the discourse;

respect for alternative viewpoints: knowledge as problematic;

teacher as active listener (e.g., through appropriation of student ideas, and building on student responses);

positive interpersonal/affective relationships;

understanding by students of how to work collaboratively.

Implications for Teacher Learning in

Schools1. participation in action

learning with others;

2. development of a shared language by teachers (about language, learning and second language development) across faculties, classes;

Implications for Teacher Learning in

Schools

3. addressing teachers’ own perceived needs, questions and concerns;

4. authentic collaboration between researchers/academics and teachers;

Implications for Teacher Learning in

Schools

5. professional development that mirrors a collaborative classroom: congruence between the ‘medium’ and the ‘message’;

6. a focus on principled knowledge, not simply procedural knowledge.