Project SMART Teacher Leader Quality Partnership

P.S. 306

SMART 2010 TEAM REPORT

2009-2010 ACADEMIC YEAR

Project SMART Teacher Leader Quality Partnership

In collaboration with Oswego State University

Team Members

1 Bilingual and ESL Coordinator / Foreign Language Teacher

1 Bilingual / ESL Specialist

1 Bilingual / ESL Teacher

3 Classroom Teachers of ELLs

Team Name

BEARS Bilingual and ESL Action Research Study

Participants

1. Andrea Worthington- Garcia
2. Marta Canales
3. Yvelisse M. Perez
4. Sharon Cannella
5. Stephanie Feliu
6. Alexandra Tory

Academic Year: 2009-2010

Summer Institute/A

TEAM Location and Focus:

PS 306

40 West Tremont Avenue

Bronx, NY 10453

(718) 583-5885

Team Focus

Who are we?

We are a group of teachers of English language learners from PS 306 in Bronx, NY. We are a learning community committed to using student and school-wide data to make decisions about what and how we instruct. Our goal is to develop effective and efficient ways to instruct vocabulary development for reading and writing that will help all learners especially our English language learner population.

What are we doing?

We meet and discuss different aspects of teaching ELLs and struggling learners. Through our discussions we seek to find solutions that we can incorporate into our lessons for student success in language development for writing instruction. We are trying through our learning community to develop practices that will work with our population of learners and that we can use now and later with future learners.Through a modified lesson plan study, we hope to develop a cadre of strong lessons to develop student use of tier II and III words with the ultimate goal of improving scores on the NYSESLAT writing subtest. Teachers will choose three students per class, one student far below grade level, one approaching grade level and one at or above grade level. First, we will use our current writing baselines and examine the work using a group-developed rubric to count the use of tier I, II, and III vocabulary. Then, based on our findings, we will begin to plan lessons, using Isabel Beck's Bringing Words to Life and When English Language Learners Write as our guides. Then, with at least some of the group members observing to provide feedback, teachers will deliver the lessons. We will share the feedback with each other on each lesson and work together to improve them. Then, another teacher will teach the improved lessons, we will observe and provide feedback, and so forth. While this modified lesson plan study is going on, we will also periodically gather assessments for our chosen students and look together at the work to see if our instruction is effective or not.

Why are we doing it?

We have met and discussed that our school on a whole has been struggling with a common characteristic in reading and writing development as measured by our academic gains in the ELA and NYSESLAT Exams. On a yearly basis we have seen small gains, the most difficult being developing critical readers and writers.It is our hope as a group that this work will not only lead to an improvement in our writing/vocabulary instruction with ELLs, but it will also lead to an adapted/enriched literacy curriculum for our ELLs and an improved structure of the bilingualand ESL program at PS 306.

P.S. 306 Data

Teacher Members

Member Name / Position / Certification / Years Teaching
Andrea Worthington-Garcia / ESL/Bilingual Coordinator / TESOL and Spanish / 8
Stephanie Feliu, / 2nd Grade ESL Self-contained teacher / General Education 1-6 and TESOL / 6
Yvelisse Perez, / 1st/2nd Grade Bilingual Teacher / General Education 1-6, Bilingual Extension and TESOL / 12
Martha Canales / ESL Teacher / General Education 1-6, Bilingual Extension and TESOL / 12
Sharon Cannella / 4th Grade Teacher / General Education 1-6 and Literacy / 5
Alexandra Tory / 1st Grade Teacher / General Education 1-6 / 9

Data of Teachers Serving ELLs

Teacher Qualifications at PS 306

Number of Certified ESL Teachers / 5 (1 bilingual teacher is dually certified ESL/ Bilingual) / Number of Certified Bilingual Teachers / 5 (2 ESL teachers are dually certified ESL/Bilingual) / Number of Certified NLA/FL Teachers / 1(1 ESL teacher is dually certified Spanish FL/ESL)
Number of Content Area Teachers with Bilingual Extensions / 0 / Number of Special Ed. Teachers with Bilingual Extensions / 0 / Number of Teachers of ELLs without ESL/Bilingual Certification / 0

School data

School Demographics

Number of ELLs at PS 306

2008-2009 / 188 / 2007-2008 / 181 / 2006-2007 / 166 / 2005-2006 / 175

September 2009- January 2010

Total Number of Students in School / 726 / Total Number of ELLs / 175 / Percent of ELLs / 24.1%

February 2010-May 2010

Total Number of Students in School / 751 / Total Number of ELLs / 188 / Percent of ELLs / 25%

Action Plan

Action / Usually, English language learners have the most difficulty acquiring writing skills, as it is an extremely cognitively demanding skill. At our school, ELLs have needed the most improvement on the writing subtest of the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT). Therefore, we decided to focus on improving writing instruction for our ELLs. We decided what proficient writers do and then assessed student writing pieces for those elements. Then, we planned a series of targeted grammar lessons to address these issues, executed the lessons, and then shared the results. From there, we adjusted the lessons as needed. In June, we will review student endline pieces to see how students' writing improved and to decide where we will go next.
Rationale / A school-wide goal for the past three years has consistently been improving writing instruction for English language learners. The New York State English as a Second Language (NYSESLAT) scores have shown that students need more targeted instruction in writing. As a team, we agreed that one thing that makes writers more proficient is improving academic vocabulary. However, once we met as a team to look at the baselines, we decided that we needed to target sentence structure before we could consider vocabulary.
Responsibility / As a group, we worked together and shared responsibility for the planning portion of the project. After planning, each teacher was then responsible to go back and implement the lesson in their own classroom. Although we would create a generic plan as a group, each teacher would then need to modify the lesson to suit the needs of his or her specific students’/grade level needs. Once the lesson was implemented, each teacher would be required to analyze the results and reflect on what went well/what still needed improvements. After a follow-up discussion with the group, the teacher would then create follow-up lesson plans to target students’ needs and weaknesses.
Timeline / November 2009
The group created an Action Plan and goals for the time spent throughout the project. We agreed we wanted to focus on improving ELLs writing.
December 2009
We looked at students’ baselines. We used a protocol, “Describing Student Work a Slice of Writing”, to look at student work. We decided: What is proficient writing? What were the students lacking? What steps did we have to take next?
January 2010
Due to the fact we noticed that students seemed to be struggling with what made a complete sentence we decided to teach subject and predicate. Based on the students’ baselines, everyone in the group did the same lesson, which was writing simple sentences.
February 2010
As a result of the lessons and work done in January, we decided the next lessons would focus on combining sentences. Instead of everyone doing the same lesson, teachers planned their lessons according to their students’ specific needs.
March 2010
We compared the baselines from December to students’ midlines. We found students were able to complete grammar activities but didn’t internalize what they learned. Next we decided to use the student writing to teach grammar lessons.
April 2010
We used student work to teach grammar lessons.
May 2010
We will administer the endlines to see where students have grown and what they need for future instruction.
June 2010
Through our reflections and meetings, we will plan for next year.
Evaluation / In order to find out if our action plan made a difference in our students’ writing skills, teachers met to compare the three December baselines to the March midlines and noted the differences between them. We also brought in class work that resulted from lessons planned during our bi-weekly meetings and addressed the skills that we agreed to teach. Finally, we collaborated to assess our students’ class work and plan follow-up lessons. All feedback was obtained by shared noticings and observations of students work.
Resources / For our action research project, we used many resources that were already available to us at our school. Some resources include:
- The Write Source Guide
- English at Your Command
We also used several online resources that were helpful in developing our lesson plans. Some websites included:

To find research and information to support our planning, we looked at several articles from “The American Educator”, including:
The Most Daring Education Reform of All.
Other articles include:
“Literacy Development for English Language Learners: Classroom Challenges in the NCLB Age” by Linda W. Thomson, Ph.D (2004)
“Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn” by Barry Mclaughlin (1992)
“Challenging Common Myths about Young English Language Learners” by Linda M. Espinosa (2008)

Each group member completed this questionnaire. This is a compilation of our responses.

Name ______

Grade_____

Teacher Questionnaire

Directions: Answer the following questions as they apply to your own thoughts, ideas and how they affect you and your students within our school community:

1. Why is this data relevant?

We looked at writing samples from several students in each of our classrooms, one low performing, one high performing, and one average. The data we used was relevant because we were able to see exactly what strengths and weaknesses our own students had in terms of their grammar, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. It was beneficial to look at our actual students, rather than simply interpret abstract and general data from research materials.

2. Why should I know about this data?

This data ultimately helped to drive our instruction, and we used that data to create focused, structured lesson plans. The lessons we developed were based on the areas that we found students were struggling with. Without the data, we would not truly know what our students needed assistance with.

3. How does this data impact my teaching and student learning?

The data helps us to see how students are performing across different grade levels. We were able to observe common weaknesses and strengths that all ELL students possessed. Also, by using data, we can make sure that we are targeting the specific skills that the students need help with, and we are not spending time focusing on concepts that the students already understand.

4. How will this teacher data from our learning community help to influence our school policies for ELLs?

The teacher data we gathered will help us to develop a more effective curriculum for the upcoming school year(s). We now have a better understanding of what the students are able to do, and what areas they need help with. By looking at the data, we can create a list of skills and strategies that should be our primary focus, and we can develop our units and create lesson plans that integrate such ideas throughout the year. In addition, we can create a learning plan for ELLs that will ensure they are given the learning opportunities they need and deserve.

5. What do we now know through our learning community that we did not before?

By looking at data in our school, we observed that regardless of the grade level, all ELLs seem to have weaknesses in similar areas. Grammar and spelling were major weaknesses across the board, as well as sentence structure. Prior to this experience, teachers were not able to collaborate and discuss their individual observations. Working with different grade levels helps us to create consistent lesson plans so that students will continue to develop concepts as they advance from one grade to the next.

Faculty Survey

Teacher Bilingual/ESL Survey

How prepared are we to meet the growing needs of our students who are ELLs

and their teachers at P.S. 306?

Directions:

Please take this survey regarding statements about teaching ELLs and our own ELL students.

Place an X to indicate if you think that the statement is True or False.

Thank you in advance for taking the time and helping us on our Action Research with the SMART

Project in collaboration with OSWEGO State University to develop effective teaching strategies

to use in teaching reading and writing to our PS 306 ELLs student population.

Don’t forget to pick up your complimentary Pen.

Statement / True / False
1. Learning two languages during the early childhood years will overwhelm, confuse, and/or delay a child’s acquisition of English.
2. Total English Immersion from Pre-Kindergarten through Third Grade is the best way for a young English Language Learner to acquire English.
3. Because schools don’t have the capacity to provide instruction in all of the languages represented by the children, they should provide English-only instruction.
4. Native English speakers will experience academic and language delays if they are enrolled in dual language programs.
5. Spanish –speaking Latinos show social as well as academic delays when entering Kindergarten.
6. Latino English language learners are less likely to b e enrolled in Pre-kindergarten programs, because of their families’ cultural values.
7. At our school the need for Bilingual, ESL, or Dual language programs is not necessary; our student population is not big enough.
8. At our school our new comer students are more successful in English only classrooms with Native English speaking teachers.

Source: Statements 1-6 Challenging Common Myths About Young English Language Learners, by Linda M. Espinosa, FCD Policy Brief Advancing PK-3 No. E IGHT January 2008

Results

PS 306

SMART 2010 TEAM PROJECT

Faculty Survey:

Question Number / Response / Response / Response / Response
Questions / True / False / Not sure / No Response
# 1 / 5 / 29 / 1 / 4
#2 / 15 / 18 / 2 / 4
#3 / 11 / 23 / 0 / 4
#4 / 3 / 31 / 0 / 4
#5 / 7 / 24 / 0 / 5
#6 / 7 / 27 / 1 / 4
#7 / 3 / 27 / 2 / 5
#8 / 4 / 30 / 1 / 4
Totals / 55 / 199 / 7 / 34
Percentage / 19% / 67% / .02% / 12%

Charts and graphs

Teacher Reflections

Sharon Cannella

Reflection

As a participant of this course, I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight regarding the instruction of English Language Learners. Over the course of the year, I have had the opportunity to study research and methodologies’ relating to the instruction of ELLs. I then discussed this research with my peers, and finally implemented the concepts into my own classroom instruction. I was able to analyze my students’ growth and progress, and use the learning outcomes to guide my future planning.

When I began this journey in September, I felt fairly knowledgeable about the development of ELLs and I was familiar with a wide multitude of instructional strategies that were said to work well. I knew that my instruction had to be concise and specific. Whenever possible, I would try to connect the information to their pre-existing schemas, and I would also build background knowledge. I was big on visual aids, and keeping things structured (graphic organizers were a must)! In short, I felt I was doing just fine the way I was.

While I would not say that I was completely clueless before we began this coursework, I can definitely say my eyes have been opened. Simply having discussions with other teachers of ELLs has been extremely beneficial to me. Discussing our students’ strengths and weaknesses, and analyzing work from all grade levels allowed us to identify consistent behaviors and patterns among ELL students. It was interesting to see that regardless of their grade level, the students all had similar problems, especially in regards to literacy. We learned that across the board, the students struggled with grammar and spelling, and had a lot of trouble expanding their ideas in writing.

After identifying their weaknesses, we began to think of ways we could remediate the problems. It was really extremely advantageous to brainstorm ideas and have discussions with a group of experienced educators. Often when I am working alone, I have trouble making a decision or thinking of a creative way to instruct a mini-lesson. When you have a group of people, everyone can bring in their own teaching style, and together we can create unique and effective lesson plans. I think the hardest part of our planning was narrowing down exactly what we wanted to do; for once, we had too many ideas, and we needed to figure out what our focus should be.

We chose to focus mainly on grammar skills, and I began to incorporate specific grammar mini-lessons during my writing workshop. I made sure that the lessons were integrated into our curriculum, and tried not to isolate the skills all the time. I felt it was more effective to tie the lessons into what they were doing. After implementing several lessons with a focus on sentence structure, I did notice some improvements in their writing. However, many of the students were still not able to transfer the knowledge into their everyday writing; they were able to revise their stories in class much better, but their journal entries and work done at home did now show much improvement. This told me that they have not mastered the skills yet, and I still need to do more modeling.

Overall, I think the information I took in throughout the year, and the lessons that I implemented had a very positive effect on my students. I think that incorporating different learning styles and using creative lessons helped to engage my students and keep them interested. I can only hope that they will be able to retain the information they have learned, and they will carry over the skills and strategies they learned as they advance to the next grade level. I know that I plan to continue using the lessons with my future students, and hope to see even more progress in the upcoming year!