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.