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Print literacy can be very abstract to adult English learners new to school.  What are some teaching techniques that you have used to contextualize basic skills, make them less abstract and have meaning to the students?  What stories can you tell that show they work?

martha.bigelow - 05 January 2012 06:21 PM

Print literacy can be very abstract to adult English learners new to school.  What are some teaching techniques that you have used to contextualize basic skills, make them less abstract and have meaning to the students?  What stories can you tell that show they work?

I’m looking for more ideas about this very subject, as many times, I feel my students get “lost in the words” when trying to look at print. I have tried using oral stories, rhymes, fairy tales, and many other oral tradition styles of vocabulary, but believe I can do more. I also make frequent use of visual and physical realia whenever possible. I would welcome other ideas!

I find that my students (mostly Karen refugees) lack oral English so I can’t really start with that. One thing I’ve found very useful with beginning literacy students is to always work inside a theme (personal information, family, etc). That allows for repetition of vocabulary and structures. After many years of teaching I’ve also begun using little stories about me as a starting point for reading. I used to think this was too much “all about me” but now find that students like it and it helps them get started reading. A story might be something like: My first name is Abbie. My last name is Tom. I live in Chapel Hill. I am married.
Stories get longer as we go along but are always based on the theme and vocabulary we’re studying. Abbie Tom

Hi Abbie - This is a beautiful example of how to make language comprehensible.  I also think that building an oral base with newcomers is the right choice before diving into dense English literacy lessons.

Language experience approach is one way to integrate orality and literacy in multilevel classes?  The online course has a video of Andrea, a beginning literacy teacher, carrying out this methodology through a shared experience the class had visiting a hardware store.  It’s really interesting to see how she weaves oral skills together with literacy skills.

I am teaching very beginners who have almost no oral skills in English; this is their first experience going to school as well. One thing I have done is to make flashcards of their first and last names, countries and languages. I introduced the flashcards one at a time. After just two weeks, my learners can pick out their names, language and country flashcards from the other learners’ flashcards. Sometimes I put categories (first name, last name, language and country) on the board and have them stick their flashcards under the appropriate category. This seems to work well. That said, I am still trying to find a way to do more top down skills, but with limited oral skills, this is challenging. I know we will get there and it is only week 3…

This is a great idea valmillar.  You are working with these words as “sight” words and I’m glad it’s working.  Can you also begin to break down the sounds so that students can do the bottom-up work of sound-symbol correspondence? 

Yes, thanks. We are starting to work on sound letter correspondence but it is all very new to them. Still, it is fun.
Today we worked on colours orally (we have been doing this for a few days. We took cameras and went outside and took various pictures of red or blue things. I am going to try to connnect this with the words red and blue next. Never a dull moment with these guys.

Another thing I think is helpful to beginning literacy students is to establish certain predictable routines. Every month my students fill out a calendar. Every class we look at the calendar and talk about what date and day it is… also tomorrow, the day after tomorrow,etc. Then I say numbers and they tell me what day it is. I use cardinal numbers (one, etc) rather than ordinals (first, etc) because it’s easier and doesn’t hinder communication. I also write a paragraph on the board at the beginning of each class: Good morning. Today is Wednesday, February 1, 2012. It is cloudy and warm today. After while the students can write or fill in blanks for the first part.
I think these routines makes students more comfortable. I believe that every class should have a mix of comfortable/ familiar work with other activities that are more challenging.
One other challenge of very beginning students is to figure out how many ways you can circle around/ vary the same material.
Abbie Tom

***Posted on behalf of an anonymous user***

How long do you stay with something?  Is there ever a time when you think that someone will never get it?  Do you encourage homework?

How long to stay with something is a very good question. My literacy class has been working on personal information for several weeks. Yesterday we had one of those “oh my God it’s Monday and nobody remembers anything” days. But it’s time to move on to family. However, that doesn’t mean abandoning personal information. Now we’ll talk about their family members (first name, last name, birth date, birthplace, etc). And we’ll still have a “comfort” paragraph at the beginning of class about the date and the weather and work with the calendar. Telling time won’t be abandoned either. After family we’ll work on daily activities (with picture cards) and include what family members do and times of activities. My stories will be about my family and later about my family’s and my own daily activities.
Abbie

How long to stay with something is a very good question. My literacy class has been working on personal information for several weeks. Yesterday we had one of those “oh my God it’s Monday and nobody remembers anything” days. But it’s time to move on to family. However, that doesn’t mean abandoning personal information. Now we’ll talk about their family members (first name, last name, birth date, birthplace, etc). And we’ll still have a “comfort” paragraph at the beginning of class about the date and the weather and work with the calendar. Telling time won’t be abandoned either. After family we’ll work on daily activities (with picture cards) and include what family members do and times of activities. My stories will be about my family and later about my family’s and my own daily activities.
Abbie

There is an interesting article in language magazine that talks about ELLs with learning difficulties.  What do you think about the strategies in this article?
http://languagemagazine.com/?page_id=5602

martha.bigelow - 01 February 2012 09:25 AM

This is a great idea valmillar.  You are working with these words as “sight” words and I’m glad it’s working.  Can you also begin to break down the sounds so that students can do the bottom-up work of sound-symbol correspondence? 

Great idea! We do focus a bit on first sounds as well. By mid way thru the term, they usually know what each others names begin with. For instance, if I say “ppp. What begins with p”, they say “Paulina” or “Purna”. Thanks for the reminder to also do bottom up work.

That said, it now turns out this term I am teaching a much higher literacy class. My learners now have many sight words and, if reminded, have first sound phonics for predictable words. They are a lot of fun so far.

Cheers,
Val

abtom - 13 November 2012 12:48 PM

How long to stay with something is a very good question. My literacy class has been working on personal information for several weeks. Yesterday we had one of those “oh my God it’s Monday and nobody remembers anything” days. But it’s time to move on to family. However, that doesn’t mean abandoning personal information. Now we’ll talk about their family members (first name, last name, birth date, birthplace, etc). And we’ll still have a “comfort” paragraph at the beginning of class about the date and the weather and work with the calendar. Telling time won’t be abandoned either. After family we’ll work on daily activities (with picture cards) and include what family members do and times of activities. My stories will be about my family and later about my family’s and my own daily activities.
Abbie

I love that you are recycling the material. Personal info can be recycled into almost all themes, can’t it?

One of my colleagues started some really great classroom routines connecting oral and written language skills. In every class she does a few rotating dialogues where students make two rows and practice a dialogue with the person across from them. Once both partners have had a chance to complete the dialogue and then switch roles, one of the lines steps to the left and the person on the end walks to the other end of the line to fill in the empty space. Students repeat the dialogue with several partners. This gives the students a LOT of practice with the same dialogue, which is often what Emergent Readers need. Before doing the rotating dialogue, however, she writes the entire script on the board, using different colored markers to indicate the two roles in the dialogue. She reads the dialogue through, then has the students read it through with her a few times, pointing to each word as they say it. After seeing the same dialogue written on the board at every class, students start to make the words in the dialogue sight words. Here are some simple dialogues she used:
What did you do yesterday?
Yesterday I ______.

What are you doing tomorrow?
Tomorrow I will _____.

Who is this? (student points to a person in their partner’s picture of their family)
This is my ______, ________ (relationship, name). He/she is ______. (age)

Students learn to make sight words of question words and several common words.