Lesson Accommodations
With my training and experience in working with bilingual and ESL students, I focused on making many modifications in my daily lesson plans. In this report I will highlight a few of the accommodations that I made.
Since most of ESL students do quite well with Math and other visual and logical tasks that do not involve language, the majority of my accommodations were made in reading, writing, and spelling. I made several kinds of modifications in these lessons: level of support, length of assignment, objectives, and language used. However, I strongly believe that the level and complexity of the content should not be altered, and I made efforts not to do so.
In reading, I often read with my Spanish-speaking ESL students in Spanish. A few of the ESL students were not reading in either language, and I chose to focus their reading instruction in Spanish because it was familiar to them and because the language is so structured and consistent. The desicion was also based on bilingual education research that shows that learning in the native language helps students to learn more easily in the second language. Once the student masters concept or a skill in the first language, he can demonstrate it in the second language as soon as he gains the vocabulary (Ovando and Collier, 1997). So, I believe that a skill such as learning to read in their native language will help and not hinder their reading in English.
During independent reading time, when I would conference with individual students about their reading progress, I often pulled aside ESL students and read with them in Spanish. I focused on comprehension (predicting, summarizing, and questioning) with grade-level books for enjoyment or ones that corresponded to the current theme unit. For phonics instruction (beginning sounds, rhyming words, etc.), I borrowed beginner books from a first grade teacher, and invented word games using words from the books. These books were very short and offered high levels of support with phonics, picture clues, and repetition. We read the books together first; then taking turns; until finally they felt confident reading the book themselves (if only by memory). Then I would encourage them to share their new book with the class, another teacher, or their families. I often sent home the book that day so they could read it at home.
Writing also required drastic modifications since many ESL students had not learned to write in either language. My focus during writing was for students to develop an understanding of the purpose of writing and to enjoy it. In these beginning stages of emergent writing I think it is important to encourage students to get their ideas down on paper, and not require correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Educational research supports the theory that children write more and enjoy writing more when they write for meaning and are not required to have perfect mechanics (Short and Harste, 1996). I gave them high levels of support in spelling and mechanics, depending on their individual abilities and needs. With some students I was happy if they could tell me beginning sounds of words and some vowels; other students only needed to be reminded to use the Word Wall and they were fine on their own. Many times I would ask them to tell me the story while I myself wrote it down. Then I would ask them to read it back to me. This accomplished our goal of having a written record of the student’s ideas.
Time was dedicated each day to spelling, specifically: Word Wall and Working With Words. The Word Wall is a visual resource to all students for spelling high-frequency words, but is especially critical to ESL students. I taught them how to use the Word Wall and constantly reminded them by offering support during whole-group activities. ESL students are more successful when several learning styles are combined in a lesson—visual, kinesthetic, auditory, etc. (Gibbons, 1993). While calling out spelling words and using them in a sentence, I would ask, “If you were looking for this word on the Word Wall, what letter would you look for?” Sometimes I would appoint an able student to be point out the words as I called them. ESL students were encouraged to sit at the front table and use the Word Wall during any spelling activity. We would also clap and chant to the words, using body movements for each letter. This extra support increased their exposure to the correct spelling and usage of these words. Spelling tests were modified in the following way: instead of spelling the words independently, ESL students were asked to identify the correct spelling among three choices.
After implementing these modifications we saw general improvement in the performance of many students. Spelling scores were higher after only two weeks of using the Word Wall. They learned to recognize Word Wall words with almost perfect accuracy. Two of the “non-readers” made great improvement in a short amount of time in reading. One student, when I met her, had no understanding whatsoever of the alphabet or the printed word. When asked to write or spell a word, she would simply write down any random spelling word (for example writing “it” or “as” when asked for the word “that.”) When reading she made no attempt to sound out words or identify them through context. Through our guided reading in Spanish she made connections between the letters on the page and the words they represented. She was able to identify beginning sounds, sound out short Spanish words, and use context and picture clues to read unknown words in a predictable book. She could then transfer this understanding of the meanings and sounds of letters to read short English words as well.
Furthermore, from her new understanding of reading she was able to piece words together while writing. She could successfully identify beginning and ending sounds of words, and sometimes simple vowel sounds. She was able to spell short phonics words on her own, and/or use the Word Wall to find the beginning sound and narrow her choices.
One of the greatest gains was made, however, in their attitude toward reading and writing. They wrote longer and more interesting stories than before and showed enthusiasm when sharing their accomplishments. All of this evidence suggests that the modifications I made for these ESL students were effective.
Bibliography
Gibbons, Pauline. Learning to Learn in a Second Language. Heinemann, 1993.
Harste, Jerome and Short, Kathy. Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers. Heinemann, 1993.
Ovando, Carlos and Collier, Virginia. Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1997.