Page 17 - Project ALPHA FINAL

Project
Teach Out of the Box
ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTENT AREAS FOR ELLS
With a focus on oral and written language development in the content areas, ELLs work on increasing their capacity to create spoken and written discourse about concepts in a content area. At the same time, they develop their understanding and produce the types of texts specific to that area.
The main study that Project ALPHA bases work in integrating oral and written English language instruction into content area teaching is August, D., Branum-Martin, L., Cardenas Hagan, E., & Francis, D. J. (2009). “The impact of an instructional intervention on the science and language learning of middle grade English language learners”. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(4), 345-376. In addition, five studies that met WWC standards provide evidence for this recommendation. All five studies resulted in positive impacts on content-area acquisition measures in science or social studies. Two studies (August et al. (2009); Vaughn et al. (2009)) essentially investigated the effectiveness of interventions that provide comprehensive instruction in content-area classes by employing all the practices articulated in this recommendation. The remaining three studies (Brown, Ryoo, and Rodriguez (2012); Ryoo (2009); Silverman and Hines (2009)) furnish evidence for some of the instructional practices described in this recommendation. Given the overall consistently positive impacts across all five studies and as there are no discernible or contradictory negative effects, the panel has assigned a strong evidence rating for this recommendation.
• Suggested activities to promote oral and written language development: Strategically use instructional tools— such as short videos, visuals, and graphic organizers—to anchor instruction and help students make sense of content. Explicitly teach the content-specific academic vocabulary, as well as the general academic vocabulary that supports it, during content-area instruction. Provide daily opportunities for students to talk about content in pairs or small groups.
Resources:
Reading Non-Fiction Text with High School ELLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6k0cRsn40
How to Write an Effective Essay: The Introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6IOSMviS4
Six Key Strategies for Teachers of English-Language Learners
https://uteach.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/files/SixKeyStrategiesELL.pdf
Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in a Second Language http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi- TeachingSpeaking.html
Scaffolding Writing Instruction for English-Language Learners https://www.weareteachers.com/step-by-step- scaffolding-writing-instruction-for-english-language-learners/
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