Making Content Meaningful for the English Language Learner ...



Appendix 12.17 Making Content Meaningful for English Language Learners through Activboard®4

This lesson is based on a literature story entitled “The Mixed Up Chameleon” taken from the Harcourt second grade basal reader Just For You.

The first lesson aims to incorporate metacognitive strategies. These strategies imitate management processes such as planning to complete a task, monitoring the task achievement, and evaluating outcomes upon task completion. Examples of metacognitive learning strategies include organizing information in advance, planning how to use information, drawing attention to select items, learning how to manage your own studying, monitoring your thinking while learning, monitoring your thinking while you speak and write, and checking and reflecting about what you learned (Chamot & O’ Malley, 1994).

First, the teacher will display the content, language, and study skills objective on the first page of the Activboard® flipchart.

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Next, the students and teacher will flip page-by-page through the story to preview the main ideas in “The Mixed-Up Chameleon.” The teacher models how to use selective attention to discuss the title, vocabulary words, pictures, and captions. On the first page of the Activboard® flipchart, the teacher writes the title. She models attention to an example of one of each vocabulary word and picture. Then, as each student recognizes important pictures, concepts, or unfamiliar words, the student will come up to the board and write (or illustrate) it into the second page of their flipchart. The students can use the graphics and sounds from the Promethean planet resource library to illustrate their words and ideas to make the content more visual for the students. Shown below is an example of what this may look like.

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The third Activboard® page will be a chance for creativity and vocabulary building. While previewing the story, the students will see a picture of a zoo, and see pictures of various animals throughout the story. The teacher can stop here to make a classroom zoo. There can be a pre-made zoo where students label or match the names of the animals, or the students can start with a blank page and create their own. The teacher and students can discuss the characteristics of each animal or even make reference to science standards about adaptations and animal behaviors. In my example of the zoo here, the students decipher what the genre of this story, fantasy, means by looking at the real bear and the stuffed bear. The teacher can make voice recordings of the name of each animal that students can hear when they touch on that animal.

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The fourth page has been reserved for writing and illustrating vocabulary words. The students will write each of the words onto the Activboard® page as they are previewing the story. The teacher can ask for their understanding of the vocabulary words and record and/or illustrate their responses. I highlighted my vocabulary words in colors for the beginning English Language, since there are colors transcending the side of each page in the story. The students and teacher will return to this page after reading the story to monitor and check their understanding of this new vocabulary.

Now the students have finished previewing and preparing to read, the students may proceed to read the “Mixed Up Chameleon.” They can listen to the teacher read the story, listen to the story on tape, partner or group read, or round-robin read.

As the students read, the teacher will have a flow chart on pages four and five, so the students can use organizational structure as a means to comprehend the sequence of events. Emphasis will be placed on transition words such as first, then, next, and finally. The flow chart will record how the chameleon moves and changes throughout the story. The chart will also help the student understand chronological order. The teacher can use the reveal tool to show the chameleon’s movement step-by-step. The reveal tool rolls across the screen horizontally or vertically to show the screen little by little.

After reading the students will revisit the vocabulary page and students will re-examine their predictions and definitions of the target words. Students will adjust as necessary. The teacher will pick out images to put on the vocabulary page, and the students must make up a sentence using their new vocabulary words to describe the picture.

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Assessment will be determined in two ways. First, the students must retell the events in the story by using the flow chart created. The teacher will evaluate the students retelling on a scale from one to five. The teacher should remind students beforehand to use chronological words they used when making the flowchart like first, next, then, and finally.

The second method of assessment will be a comparison of a pre-test and post-test. Both tests will be the same, but one will be given before the story, and one will be given afterwards. This will be done using Activboard®’s voting system. The students will be tested on their knowledge of vocabulary and study skills. Assessment questions are listed below:

Student responses and response times are automatically recorded by Activboard®. The teacher may then use Activboard® to graph results or export the results into an Excel spreadsheet to determine how much content and language was learned. This will assist the teacher in setting up remediation lessons, adapting his or her teaching style, and assessing further student needs. The teacher may choose to remediate with the English Language Learner Resource pack or the Harcourt Intervention kit.

Expectations

• Students paid more attention to titles, key concepts, and target vocabulary when taught to use selective attention with Activboard®.

• Students made more predictions relating to word meanings and text when provided with an opportunity to do so.

• Students displayed progress in vocabulary acquisition and study strategies. In addition, analysis showed student response time decreased in post-test answers.

• Students could recall information more readily when visual cues were presented.

• Motivation and participation increased when students were allowed to interact with the board.

• Drawing upon students’ prior knowledge enabled scaffolding and collaboration among the students.

• Introducing key vocabulary prior to the introduction of new material allowed for better comprehension during reading.

• Students used illustrations and problem-solving strategies more often to analyze information.

• Student and teacher questionnaires reflected an overall positive attitude toward the use of Activboard® in lessons.

• Students began to use their peers more often as a source of information and assistance, thus reducing the amount of anxiety.

• Students obtained a working knowledge of how graphic organizers could be used to help organize and understand vast amounts of complex information.

Conclusion

Activboard®’s technology can be utilized to assist English Language Learners in a variety of ways including increasing word and text comprehension, demonstrating appropriate learning strategies to use in the classroom, collaborating among students and other classes, integrating content and language learning, creating motivation in student learning, providing access to digital media and internet-based lessons, and assisting in English vocabulary acquisition.

Source: Neate, 2008, original material

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