Planning for English Language Learners
M2U5A3
The regional Art theme this year
is “Making ConneXion” and one contest launched by The Association International
Schools in Africa (AISA) is Art Challenge which promotes the connection with
Africa or inspired African arts. In order to align my curriculum and the common
theme, I created a unit called Africa and African Inspired Arts.
For the second grade, I defined
the two objectives for this unit. Firstly, students will be able to make
connection between Visual Arts and Africa and African Arts. Secondly, students
will be able to use elements (lines, shapes, colors, texture) and principles in
Art (movement and rhythm) in drawing African dancers and Djembe (African drum).
In grade two, we have four groups
of English Language Learners, Pre-production, Speech Emergent, Intermediate Fluency,
and Advanced Fluency. In the Pre-production group, we have one Chinese student
who recently joins the school. I therefore use some very basic Mandarin Chinese
words that I still remember to greet him and immediately after that he kept
talking to me in his primary language and called me “Lao su” meaning teacher.
The Speech Emergent group consists of one student from Japan. This is her third
year with this school. She began to use more words and sentences but still
replies on context clues. The Intermediate Fluency group includes one Lebanese
student. She speaks fluently English in academic areas but there are gaps in
vocabulary knowledge and some unknown expressions. They are able to demonstrate
higher order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion
or analyzing a problem. The Advanced
Fluency group has three Indian students. They communicate fluently in all
contexts and can maneuver successfully in new contexts. They still have an
accent and use idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but quite fluent and
comfortable communicating in English. Besides, I still have a majority of
native population in this grade.
Therefore, I employed a
combination of the six strategies for this group age to accommodate different
levels of each and all students.
Join Productive
Activity + Contextualization + Visual Aids
In order to hook student’s
learning and provide a visual concept for the unit, I painted an African
landscape on my glass window and set up my class like a museum exhibits some African
Art works. On the first day of the unit, I invited students to enter my museum,
walk around and quietly observe. This kinesthetic strategy works for all
groups. Then I gathered them in a circle and posed the first question like
“What do you think we are going to learn about today?” Then I allowed 2 minutes
for their discussion with neighbor peers and called for answers. After that, a
presentation on Power Point was shown with a world map, and students were asked
to identify the continent and country where we belong. For some students who
still misused the name of continents and countries, I paused a bit and recalled
the names of six continents.
Next, I posed the question “What
do you know about Africa?” and allowed another 10 minute group discussion plus presentation
by writing or drawing on a poster. This activity encouraged Pre-Production group
to draw and the advanced group to speak. Students brought so much different
life experiences in their discussions and drawings and gradually built their confidence
in collaboration with classmates. The last activity of the first day,
redirected them to the question “What do you know about African Arts?” and
similarly group discussion and presentation. For these activities, Visual aids
and classroom setting are critical and extremely helpful for ELLs.
Through these activities, I
tapped into students’ background knowledge, life experiences and observations.
Students shared responses in pairs, in groups, and with whole class. Then I
connected to the central topic with specific questions.
Visual Aids +
Guided Questions + Meaning-based context + Vocabulary and language development
+ Kinesthetic Strategy:
The second day, I set up the
classroom with a Djembe in the center of the class and invited them to watch a
video about African dancers with Djembe. After 5 minute clip, I employed many guided
questions to direct their observation and encouraged answers using Art
vocabularies in describing dancers, their costumes, and music rhythm and dance
movements. I allowed Pre-Production group to use their body language to
demonstrate their observation, such as using hands to show shapes on the
Djembe, moving body to show dancing positions. Differently, the Intermediate
and Advanced group was asked to use words and sentences to describe dancers and
their costumes and fabrics and musical instruments used in the dance.
Then I invited one student from
the advanced group, who can play Djembe, to demonstrate in front of the whole
class how to play the drum. Honestly, in this session, both students and I learned
from student’s skill and enjoyed her sharing how long she spent to learn this
instrument. After that, I allowed the class to take turn to touch and play a
bit with the drum. Children quickly learned how to use their hand palm to make
different tones. Finally, the class gathered in a circle and made connection
between the movement and rhythm concept in Music and in Visual Arts while recalling
learned vocabularies.
Through this activity, I provided
a few minutes of extra fluency practice for students who need it, said the
sounds slowly and explicitly.
Instructional
Modeling:
On the third day, I recalled the
previous two day activities and introduced the expectations for reflection, named
new techniques used for the art work like print making and tools. The room was
set up with printmaking tools with name on each material or tool. I modeled the
technique while reinforced new vocabularies during demonstrating. Students were
then asked to sit with groups but produced individual work.
Reviewing vocabularies while
modeling is to condition the memory through practice. Instructional
conversation will facilitate content language development.
Metacognition and
authentic assessment + Center setting + Motivation
We spent two days for individual
works, each student was requested to first visit the drawing center to design
an African village background on a foam sheet using their life experience or
creation, then moved to the printing center to printmaking designs.
They then continued to proceed to
the design center to work with Pagne, African fabrics, to tailor and cut
costumes for their dancers. Finally, they revisited the drawing center to add
details for their dancers such as head, moving hair, hands, legs and jewelries
using shapes and lines.
The last day of the unit was used
for personal reflection and Art Critiques. All art works were hung on a board,
students sat in a circle. Each student received on number which was not the
number of their art work, followed steps of Critiques like describe, analyze,
interpret, and decide, which were learned in the previous month combining with
the guided questions on board to talk about each art work using new
vocabularies and learned techniques. During their speaking session, all
students were requested to demonstrate respectful audience attitudes. In order
to build up their confidence in speaking in front of the whole class, I used
many motivation words, eye contact, and gesture codes like thumb up.
In conclusion, the unit yielded
so much fun learning experience for all, teacher, native and students of
different ELL groups. Almost native students shared that they learned a lot
about Africa and African dancers and Djembe through this unit. While ELLs students
overcame silent period, participated using both body and verbal language to
demonstrate their content knowledge and skills with their own life experience.
Importantly, each of them produced art works with their own creation and signature.
And as its result, one student from this grade was one of 12 winners of AISA
Art Challenge 2016.
RESOURCES
Book: 6 Principles for Teaching English Language Learners in
All Classroom – 2009 by Ellen McIntyre, Diane W.Kyle, Cheng-Ting Chen, Jayne Kreamer,
Johnna Parr
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