Whole Group Systematic ELD --Kindergarten at Garfield with Merce Guixa

Video: Merce Sys ELD B-EI lesson 11-13-15 (15 min.)

After teaching systematic ELD in Kindergarten for a few years as a classroom teacher, I am now a TSA at Garfield Elementary, where we also use systematic ELD during Designated ELD. The video captures a lesson I did in Kindergarten with a group of 22 students who represent different language needs. In this group, 14 out of 22 students are English Language Learners; eight are at a beginning English proficiency level and six are at an early-intermediate level. The remaining eight students are English-only students who participate in ELD with their peers during the first trimester of the year to provide a strong language model and support their peers with English language acquisition.

In Kindergarten, we have a 30 minute Designated ELD block that takes place five times a week. In contrast with other sites, we do not switch for ELD instruction and students stay with their homeroom teacher. From August to December, ELD is taught to the whole group and all students receive the same instruction, as most of our students are ELLs at early stages of English language development. In addition, many English only kindergarten students benefit from the general language development offered by the Systematic ELD kits. Then, in December, we move to a small group instructional model where students receive ELD instruction at their proficiency level based on ADEPT and CELDT.  

The lesson in the video is from lesson 2, week 3 of the The Art of Getting Along. The objective of the lesson was for students to tell what they want to do in class (and what they need to do it) using I, present tense verbs, and classroom objects. Previous to this lesson, students had already learned the vocabulary associated with classroom objects and the activities (action verbs) they do in the classroom such as play, paint and cut.

I planned the lesson to include and practice all the elements described in the learning objective, as well as all five parts of the lesson flow -- the opening, the I do, the we do, the you do and the closing. However, while teaching the lesson, I realized that students needed extra practice with the questions and, therefore, I spent more time on the Practice the New Language in Context (We Do) section. Typically, I ask for just one or two students to model the language for the whole group but, in this case, I invited more students to model and asked them to repeat the sentences as many times as they needed until each was able to ask and answer the questions individually.

As a result of the above modification, I made the “off the cuff” decision to cut the Close of the Lesson but still made sure to allocate at least eight minutes for the Language Application (You Do) section of the lesson, since providing the time to practice the language on their own is the most important piece of the lesson. I modified this part by asking students to practice with a partner using the cards and the baggies rather than using the board game suggested in the curriculum guide because it is more time efficient. Moreover, instead of using A/B partners, as also suggested in the curriculum guide for this lesson, I chose the inside/outside circle speaking protocol because students had previously used it during ELD with their teacher and they really enjoy it.

"Stretched Language" D4L 4th Grade Carpenter Measuring--Level C-Week 4-Lesson 2

Videos:

• The Full Sweep of the Lesson (13 min.)
• “Progressive Chunking” for student repetition of the bold sentences (4 min.)
• Think-Pair-Share, Academic Discussion and Writing (8 min.)

You must be signed into your ousd.org account to view these videos

Introduction 
As Gail Gibbons points out in her book Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, one way to accelerate language learning is to create opportunities for "stretched language," i.e. "...when the situation you face requires you to use language that is beyond what you know how to do. You are pushed to go beyond the language you can control well and to try out ways of saying something that requires you to use language you are still unsure of, probably using faulty grammar or inaccurate vocabulary." (pp. 26-27)

One way to approach this lesson is to ask to what extent it creates chances for students to use "stretched language."

Time, Place and Group
In October of 2017, Ms. Martin and Mike Ray met to plan a D4L lesson for her 4th grade class at Fruitvale, and she then taught the lesson a couple days later with Mr. Ray jumping in now and then. This is a diverse group in terms of proficiency level, from high CELDT 2s to English-only students. The lesson was about 40 minutes long.

Things We Wanted to Try

1. As we planned, we were looking for places in the two-page lesson where Think-Pair-Share would give students a chance to extend the vocabulary concept they were studying as they reached for language. We were looking for "open-ended" questions that students might find interesting so that they would really WANT to talk together.

2. We used "Progressive Chunking" to help students reproduce the bolded, complex sentences in the lesson plan. "Progressive Chunking" is a sort of highly-scaffolded "stretched language" in which students repeat more and more of the sentence, adding chunks as they go: 

T: "The carpenter marks."
SS: "The carpenter marks."

T: "The carpenter marks her measurement."

SS: "The carpenter marks her measurement."

T: "The carpenter marks her measurement on the board."

SS: "The carpenter marks her measurement on the board."

T: Great. Now each person take a turn saying that to your partner (T circulates to listen).

3. We added an open-ended academic discussion question at the end where students could apply the language learned in their own way. We thought this would give them a motivating context for stretching: "What things do you think you might like to make out of wood? What might be challenging?"

4. We also planned for students to take this prompt directly into writing, with the academic discussion supporting the writing that followed.

What Happened

1. The Think-Pair-Shares worked well, with students sometimes stretching to express their ideas, and motivation remained high, with one student spontaneously suggesting in a quiet voice, "Can we talk together again?"

2. The progressive chunking worked well, and as we watched the video, we noticed that even when the students could not repeat one of the bold sentences, they were stretching for meaning. Ms. Martín moved on from bold sentences before repeating them became a boring chore, and this seemed to help keep student engagement up over time. 

3. Students were very engaged in the open-ended academic discussion at the end. We noticed students explaining WHY they would want to make something even though we didn't ask them to (which perhaps we should have). We noticed students encouraging elaboration less by stock prompts such as, "Can you tell me more about that?" and more just out of a passion to say more and to explain more.

4. The writing was fairly high volume, with most students writing several sentences directly related to what they had discussed with their partner and using at least a couple of the words we studied that day.

Conclusions

You can get students to produce "stretched language" if the learning context is engaging, relevant and challenging at the same time. Overall, we felt we created various opportunities for stretched language, and that students enjoyed the activities and the challenge.

• We concluded that fumbling the bold complex sentences is OK--it means students are being pushed and entering the territory of "stretched language." We thought the progressive chunking maintained the focus on meaning, with each progressive chunk causing the sentence to mean more. 

• We thought three Think Pair Shares per lesson worked well, because, again, it gave them a chance to try out language and express new ideas. However, we didn't always choose the best question from the manual.

• The academic discussion and writing worked well, and we thought we should have students read their pieces to each other as well. This could be a nice way to open the next lesson.

• Finally, we noticed as we watched the video that we very rarely pushed students to further elaborate their answers or provide evidence for their ideas. This is a growth area for our teaching, and it would have provided more opportunities for "stretched language."

---Mike Ray, OUSD ELD Coordinator, with Lilia Martín, 4th grade at Fruitvale

D4L Pablo Picasso "Head" Video-1st Grade

Video: D4L 1st Grade Box A theme 1 week 3 lesson 1
Time: 7 minutes

In OUSD, Discussions4Learning is most often used as a supplementary Designated ELD material in grades 2nd to 5th. However, some sites are trying the Box A, the first of the four, in 1st grade, and an introductory video provided on the D4L website from Worcester MA actually features a 1st grade class.

Time, Place and Group
In May of 2017, Ms. Blossom at New Highland Academy graciously allowed me into her classroom during her Designated ELD time to try the lesson. This group had a fairly high proficiency level, from high CELDT 2s to English-only students.

Things I Wanted to Try
1. Teach the students the Think-Pair-Share protocol. TPS encourages me to include Think or wait time, and allows all students oral practice during the Pair while I circulate to check for understanding. During the Share I can either just take some answers, or, if the prompt is open-ended and rich enough, have a full academic discussion.

2. A lesson prep procedure that included several planning moves which I think are applicable to many lessons, especially b, c and d.
a. Adding a very open introductory question: "Look at this image, what do you notice?" which I had seen other teachers use. It allows students to try out all kinds of language and make a personal connection to the details of the image. This comes in handy for developing language later in the lesson.
     
b. Reading through the whole script and deciding where I could put the Think-Pair-Share opportunities. I wanted to pick questions from the script that were fairly open ended and that kids might feel comfortable discussing independently.

c. Using a different "progressive repetition" procedure for repeating the black bold sentences. First, the teacher says the first logical chunk of the sentence and has students repeat it. Then s/he says that first chunk but adds on the next as well, and has students repeat that. The teacher keeps going until s/he gets to the last chunk, and then s/he has the students repeat the sentence to partners:
          T: He transformed
          SS: He transformed
          T: He transformed things we see and use
          SS: He transformed things we see and use
          T: He transformed things we see and use into art.
          SS: He transformed things we see and use into art.
          T: Great, now say, "He transformed things we see and 
          use into art" once to your partners.
          SS taking turns in Pairs: He transformed things we               see and use into art.

I like the way this technique provides a high level of scaffolding but keeps students at all levels engaged as they attend to how the sentence gradually unpacks, similar to the way students follow the gradual creation of a pictorial input chart. The procedure thus makes repetition of key vocabulary and sentence structure a bit interesting, helping students get "miles on the tongue" during Designated ELD time.
    
d. Making sure there was a bigger open ended question that I could use after the lesson to drive a more open academic discussion. I decided to add, "Do you think this sculpture is funny? Why or why not?" after the vocabulary review at the end of the lesson.

What Happened
When you watch the video, maybe you'll see that some things worked and some didn't.

What I see at times is that I have some very short wait times after I ask a question, and that I talk quickly. If I could have allowed more wait times and spoken at a fast walking speed, rather than a run, it probably would have been more comprehensible. That said, I think the gestures and repetition of key words allowed students to understand what was going on. That "message abundancy" is something that Gibbons talks about in her amazing book, Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, so I always try to include strategic repetition of important language when I teach.

I made the decision, after the lesson, to cut out the word "transport." This is not something I did lightly, partly because the 4 to 6 words taught in each lesson intentionally spiral over time, so leaving one out could cause difficulty later. 

I took the the word out because it breaks up the theme and meaning of the lesson. All the other words and conversation nicely center around the theme of Picasso transforming the everyday into art, while transport is completely disconnected from this theme. Notice how transform and transport are also very similar in sound, something which also confused many students.

Conclusions
Overall, I felt that it worked well for first grade. The students were interested in the image, and I could see them stretching to find language to talk about the image. That kind of supported language stretch is just what is called for in the CA ELA/ELD Framework. 

The technique of "progressive repetition" (let me know if you have a better name for this technique) also worked well. 

I only wish I could have had the academic discussion at the end because I wanted to see how students talked about the image, and whether any of the vocabulary learned would come up, or whether they could be nudged into using it. In the end, difficulties with the word "transport" with this group took up too much time.

Finally, I think a slower pace for me would be better, with a bit more listening and pausing to really see and hear what is going on.

Below I include the pages of the lesson, which I like to photocopy and mark up before I do a lesson. 

---Mike Ray, OUSD ELD Coordinator