A Comprehensive Approach to ESL Curriculum: Convincing Teachers to Apply

Standards and Benchmarks in the Context of 21st Century Skills and Five Language

Components

Dr. Martha N. EchandyJune 28, 2012

Objectives

During the workshop the participant will:1.Identify elements of the change process.2.Explain characteristics of the adult learner.3.Examine 21st Century skills.4.Reexamine the five components of language.5.Analyze limitations in the application of standards and expectations.6.Analyze and apply strategies that can facilitate the integration of 21st Century skills and the components of language to the use of grade level expectations.

Professional Learning

“I can’t wait until I give this to my teachers. They will be so excited about these new ideas. This will change their thinking about how to teach. They will be eager to go back to their classroom with new teaching tools, seeing test scores go up.”

Convincing Teachers…

“Change is what teachers do and think. It’s as simple and as complex as that” (Fullan, 1982, p. 107).

Yet, this remains the greatest challenge of the staff developer – to convince teachers that they do, indeed, make the difference – in the successes and in the failures – of their students.

This Horse Is Not Dead

1. Buy a stronger whip.2. Change riders.3. Say, “This is the way we have always done it.”4. Appoint a committee.5. Visit other sites.6. Increase standards to ride a dead horse.7. Appoint a team.

This Horse Is Not Dead

8. Create a training session.9. Change requirements, declaring, “This horse is not dead.”10. Hire a consultant.11. Do a cost analysis.12. Promote horse to a supervisory position.

The Three-Tier Change Process

Stage 1: Initiate the Change – Introduce the innovation to the participants.Stage 2: Implement the Change – Apply the tools and techniques of the innovation.Stage 3: Institutionalize the Change – Establish accountability for continued use.

The Change Game – Elements of the Change Process

Professional development

Change in belief

Change in student

achievementChange in

practice

The Adult Learner

1. Control of their learning.2. Immediate utility.3. Focus on issues that concern them.4. Test their learning as they go.5. Anticipate how they will use their learning.6. Expect performance improvement.7. Maximize available resources.

The Adult Learner

8. Require collaborative, respectful, mutual, and informal climate.9. Rely on information that is appropriate and developmentally paced.

Professional Development

• Well-designed strategic planning for ongoing, continuous professional development is the hallmark of excellence in districts that target increased student achievement.• Some of the limitations that impede change through professional development practices are:

• lack of input on the part of key stakeholders, the teachers• Initiatives introduced without sufficient context• Teacher creativity not considered as part of the process.

Professional Development: Seven Critical Qualities1. Sustained: Training is implemented over time.2. Job embedded: Training occurs and / or continues at the work

site.3. Collegial: Training builds and supports a community of

learners.4. Interactive: Training invites, involves, and engages

participants.5. Integrated: Training is eclectic.6. Results oriented: Training meets a need, is goal driven, is

data driven.7. Practical, hand on: Training is relevant with real-world

problems.

21st Century

Skills

The 21st Century

In an economy driven by innovation and knowledge … in marketplaces engaged in intense competition and constant renewal … in a world of tremendous opportunities and risks … in a society facing complex business, political, scientific, technological, health and environmental challenges … and in diverse workplaces and communities that hinge on collaborative relationships and social networking … the ingenuity, agility and skills of the American people are crucial to U.S. competitiveness.

Fundamental Changes in theEconomy, Jobs and Businesses

New and Different Skill Demands

Advanced economies, innovative industries and firms, and high-growth jobs require more educated workers with the ability to respond flexibly to complex problems, communicate effectively, manage information, work in teams and produce new knowledge.

Skills and Qualities Desired by Employers

Achievement Gaps: Youth Literacy Rates

Framework for 21st Century Learning

Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes

Core subjects include English, reading or language arts, world languages, arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography, history, government and civics. In addition, schools must promote an understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects:

• Global Awareness • Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial

Literacy • Civic Literacy • Health Literacy • Environmental Literacy

Learning and Innovation SkillsCreativity and innovation skills• Think creatively• Work creatively with others• Implement innovationsCritical thinking and problem solving skills• Reason effectively• Use systems thinking• Make judgments and decisions• Solve problemsCommunication and collaboration skills• Communicate clearly• Collaborate with others

www. 2 1 s t c e n t u ry s k i l l s .or g

Information, Media and Technology Skills

Effective citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills, such as: Information literacy: access and evaluate information, and use and manage information.Media literacy: analyze media and create media products.ICT (information and communications technology) literacy: use technology effectively

Life and Career SkillsThe ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous attention to developing adequate life and career skills, such as: • Flexibility and adaptability: adapt to change and be flexibleInitiative and self-direction: manage goals and time, work independently, and be self-directed learners.• Social and cross-cultural skills: interact effectively with others, work effectively in diverse teams• Productivity and accountability: manage projects and produce results.• Leadership and responsibility: guide and lead others and be responsible to others.

Support system: Standards, Assessment, Curriculum and Instruction

21st Century Standards – emphasize deep understanding and engagement.Assessments of 21st Century Skills – emphasize useful feedback. 21st Century Curriculum and Instruction – skills are taught discretely in the context of core subjects and 21st century interdisciplinary themes, enables innovative learning methods that integrate the use of supportive technologies, inquiry- and problem-based approaches and higher order thinking skills and encourages the integration of community resources beyond school walls.

Support system: Professional Development

21st Century Professional Development – As a facilitator you can:• Highlight ways teachers can seize opportunities for integrating

21st century skills, tools and teaching strategies into their classroom practice

• Help them identify what activities they can replace/de-emphasize

• Enable 21st century professional learning communities for teachers that model the kinds of classroom learning that best promotes 21st century skills for students

Support system: Professional Development

• Cultivate teachers’ ability to identify students’ particular learning styles, intelligences, strengths and weaknesses

• Help teachers develop their abilities to use various strategies (such as formative assessments) to reach diverse students and create environments that support differentiated teaching and learning

• Encourage knowledge sharing among communities of practitioners, using face-to-face, virtual and blended communications

• Use a scalable and sustainable model of professional development

The Five Language Components

Phonemic AwarenessAwareness of and ability to manipulate sounds in words PhonicsKnowledge of relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken languageVocabularyRecognizing and understanding the meaning of words in reading and writing as well as oral language FluencyAbility to read rapidly with phrasing, an important bridge to comprehensionComprehensionUsing a system of strategic actions, smoothly and in coordination, to get meaning while reading texts

National Reading Panel

Vocabulary

•Vocabulary builds reading comprehension, and the converse is true as well: reading comprehension builds vocabulary.•Teachers need to:Develop word awareness and love of words through word play.Develop explicit, rich instruction to build vocabulary.Build strategies for independence.Engage students actively with a wide range of books.

Fluency

One definition of fluency is the ability to read aloud expressively and with understanding. When fluent readers read aloud, the text flows as if strung together like pearls on a necklace, rather than sounding halting and choppy.1.Model Fluent Reading - In order to read fluently, students must first hear and under-stand what fluent reading sounds like. The most powerful way to help students is to read aloud to them, often and with great expression. Choose selections carefully. Expose them to a wide variety of genres.2.Do Repeated Readings In Class - Having students practice reading by rereading short passages aloud is one of the best ways to promote fluency. When reading aloud, discuss your reading behaviors such as phrasing (i.e. the ability to read several words together in one breath), rate (the speed at which we read), and intonation (the emphasis we give to particular words or phrases).

www.scholastic.com

Reading – Strategic Reading

Strategies are any mental operations that the individual uses, either consciously or unconsciously, to help himself learn. They are goal oriented and the individual uses them to learn something, to solve a problem ,or to comprehend something.

Strategic readers actively construct meaning as they read, interacting with the text. They set purposes for reading, select methods of accomplishing these purposes, repair their own comprehension as they read, and evaluate the completed task.

Reading Strategies

Self-monitoring – knowing when to adjust reading rate and reading strategies to understand different kinds of texts.Visualizing – creating mental pictures that strengthen inferential thinking.Questioning – forming questions that will help keep the reader engaged, clarify confusion, stimulate research efforts, and promote deeper thinking about text.

Reading Strategies

Determining importance/Main Idea – identifying key ideas central to text meaning.Making connections – thinking about connections formed between the text, other stories read, and/or the world.Inferring – combining prior knowledge with textual information to interpret the text.Synthesizing – combining new information with existing knowledge to form an original idea or interpretation.

Methods for Teaching Reading Strategies

1. Cognitive Structuring – this refers to the way classroom activity is organized to support learning: frontloading, sequencing, direct reading and thinking activity.

2. Modeling – ways of making reading, learning, and thinking visible and available: think-alouds, drama, art, symbolic story representation.

3. Questioning - Includes question-answer relationship, questioning circle, questioning hierarchy.

4. Explaining/Instruction – talking through problem solving; lending language to the learner.

Methods for Teaching Reading Strategies

5. Feeding/Naming – providing explicit feedback and naming what the reader is doing or not doing, and explicitly naming what might be done.

6. Contingency Management – this refers to the management of consequences and rewards of various learning activities, and managing the context that may provide these rewards. Some are: social/peer assistance, thematic units, and projects.

Academic Conversations

•Academic conversations are sustained and purposeful conversations about school topics.•Conversations are exchanges between people who are trying to learn from one another and build meanings that they didn’t have before. Partners take turns talking, listening, and responding to each other’s comments.•Core conversation skills are: elaborate and clarify; support ideas with examples; build on and /or challenge a partner’s ideas; paraphrase; and synthesize conversation points.•Interaction without depth.

Conversations and Communication Skills and Values

Argumentation skills Group discussion skills Listening Valuing talk and clarity Building of critical thinking skills Fostering skills for negotiating meaning and focusing on a topic Conversation cultivates connections. Conversation builds relationships. It fosters engagement and motivation.

Integrating Academic Conversations

Teachers who foster effective whole-class conversations:• Ask deep questions at the right times.• Keep the conversation focused.• Notice when students are confused.• Build ideas upon ideas.

Teacher-like skills that students should learn how to use:•Listen•Ask useful questions•Build and explore ideas.•Debate issues•Solve problems•Teach and learn•Negotiate meaning•Be leaders and team players

Academic Conversations

1. Discuss the purpose of conversation skills.2. Introduce and model.3. Establish shared conversation norms:• We listen to each other.• We share our own ideas and explain them.• We respect one another’s ideas, even if they are

different.• We try to see the other’s view.• We try to come to some agreement at the end.• We take turns and share air time.

Conversation Skills

1. Elaborate and clarify.2. Support ideas with examples.3. Build on and/or challenge a partner’s ideas.4. Paraphrase.5. Synthesize conversation points.6. Consider the attitudes for effective conversations:

humility, thoroughness, respect, positivity,

Organizing Their Ideas

Supportive Examples Practice

Students can use the following starters:For example According to To illustrate Another example As stated in Consider In fact The text shows

Evaluating the Support of Examples

Academic Conversation Activities

Two-Minute Opinion Share – Take a controversial issue and have students think (or write down) about their opinions for a minute before they describe these and vice versa. Interview grids – Have students quickly answer questions and have partners paraphrase the answers on paper. Design tasks with conversation components that require and show thinking: respond to a movie, design a quiz, a table or chart, create a poster, a children’s story, design a plan, create an advertisement for the idea discussed in text, prepare for a debate.

Traffic Light Reading

1. Introduce to students that there are different reasons to read. Link the reading process to the analogy of driving a car. Display three hats – a baseball cap labeled “Read for Fun,” a plastic construction hat labeled “Read to Learn,” and a visor labeled “Read for Information.”

Read for Fun

Read to Learn

Read for Information

Traffic Light Reading Modeling

2. Wearing the visor, the teacher pretends to comb through a newspaper's cinema listings, finger-pointing until she identifies the particular movie to be watched. The teacher agrees that sometimes we read for information. Next, the teacher puts on the baseball hat. "When do we read just for fun?“ she asks. Students share their own reading for enjoyment selections. Picking up a comic book, the teacher continues, "How should I read these selections? Should I read at a slower pace or a faster, more skimming pace?"

Traffic Light Reading Modeling

3. Finally, the teacher picks up the construction hat along with a social studies textbook. "A lot of school work involves reading to learn," she explains. "Now I have to read more carefully, making sure I'm understanding the Big Idea and remembering important facts."

Traffic Light Reading

1. Using the analogy of driving a car, tell students they will need to obey the traffic signals. Hand students individual traffic lights along with sticky notes and pass out or assign the text to be read. Using the red-light portion of a stoplight graphic, explain that they should prepare by asking and/or doing the following things: What do I ALREADY know about the subject? Did I look at the pictures and words in bold? 2. To mark special places on the road of reading, ask students to pre-label sticky notes with either question marks (for what is not understood), exclamation points (for fun facts), and smiley faces (for the parts already known or with which there are personal connections).

Traffic Light Reading

3. Guide students to look at the yellow light components, (during-reading strategies) and make sure they know what they should do to monitor understanding while they read. Yellow-light components include: Can I tell myself the important facts so far? Are there any tricky words? Do I have questions? Is my MIND MOVIE (like a navigation screen on your dashboard) turned on?

At this time students are divided for partner reading.4. Put on your hard hat and declare yourself to be the Drivers’

Education Instructor. Circulate the room and listen to students whisper-read. Watch as they position sticky notes. If there is little evident of comprehension monitoring, issue a reminder sticky note to reinforce appropriate during-reading strategies, such as look-backs and self-talks.

Traffic Light Reading

5. When all students have completed the reading, have them look back to the green-light checklist on the traffic light. The checklist includes: What did I learn? What was the BIG idea? What do I need to remember? Individual "drivers" can then share relevant Big Ideas or flagged information (connections, questions, and cool facts).

6. At the end, all rate their personal Mind Movie with a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down." What were their most vivid visualizations? Or were their movies simply composed of a few stale images?

7. The teacher commends at the conclusion. A checkered flag may even be waved in celebration.

K-3 Preparation for 21st Century Skills• Developing good people skills (group activities)• Developing listening skills. Children with good listening skills perform better in school, are more successful in social relationships, and have better frustration tolerance• Knowing more about the world.• Thinking outside the box: brainstorming activities and creative activities• Compare and contrast activities• Activities for drawing conclusions (observation): photo study, movies• Introduce students to a variety of text types.

Recommended site for Listening/Speaking Literacyhttp://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/contents_speakinglistening.htm

Application

1. Identify the limitations and challenges you face as a facilitator.

2. Picturing adult learners, write down the implications for Professional Development for your teachers.

3. Use the chart provided to think of strategies that could aid in the integration of 21st Century skills and the components of language to the use of grade level expectations.

ReferencesFogarty, R. & Pete, B. (2007). From staff room to classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.Fullan, M., & Stiegelbauer, E. (1991). The new meaning of educational change. New York: Teachers College.Marcell, B. (2007, May). Traffic light reading: Fostering the independent usage of comprehension strategies with informational text (60)8. International Reading Association, Inc.Rotherham, A. J. & Willingham, D. (2009, September). 21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead. Teaching for the 21st century (67),1, 16-21. Wiers, Z. & Crawford, M. (2011). Academic conversations: Classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content understandings. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.Wilhelm, J. D., Baker, T. N., Hacker, J. D. (2001). Strategic reading. Postsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.