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Posted on the CoBaLTT website with permission.
Original citation: Met, M. “Teaching Content Through a Second Language.” (1994)
In Genesee, F. (ed.) Educating Second Language Children: The Whole
Child, the Whole Curriculum, the Whole Community. Cambridge University
Press, New York., pp. 159-182.
7 Teaching content through a second language
Mimi Met
The public media and educational literature have been replete recently
with discussions of educational reforms, educational restructuring, and
educational goals for the year 2000, goals that are the same for all our
nation’s schoolchildren. Yet for a substantial and growing segment
of the school population, achieving the goals of schooling has an added
challenge: How can they be attained when students have limited proficiency
in English?
Many approaches to educating minority language students seem to be based
on the assumption that proficiency in English is a prerequisite for academic
learning, even though research seems to indicate that it may take as long
as seven years for students to acquire a level of academic English proficiency
comparable to native English-speaking peers (Collier, 1989; Cummins, 1981).
Clearly, if minority language students are to achieve the goals of education,
academic learning cannot be put on hold until students have acquired proficiency
in English.
The results of foreign language immersion have shown that students can
develop content knowledge at the same time as they develop language skills.
In immersion, majority language students are educated in a new language.
In total immersion programs, school activities—from mundane tasks
such as collecting lunch money to cognitively demanding tasks such as
learning how to read—are conducted in a foreign (second) language.
Numerous studies of Canadian immersion programs have shown that English-speaking
students schooled in French not only attain higher levels of proficiency
in French than in any other school-based model of second language instruction
but do so at no detriment to their native language, academic, or cognitive
development (Genesee, 1987; Lambert and Tucker, 1972; Swain and Lapkin,
1985).
In the United States, schools are challenged to provide a quality education
to students who are not yet proficient in English, and there are many
teachers charged with developing these students’ linguistic and
academic proficiencies. Some teachers are English as a second language
(ESL) teachers who see the children for part of the school day. Other
teachers are grade-level teachers in whose rooms the students are “mainstreamed”
for most of the day. And others are grade-level teachers whose students
have been “exited” from ESL or bilingual programs but whose
students continue to struggle with the linguistic demands of the academic
curriculum. Yet other teachers of minority language students work in two-way
immersion programs (also known as dual immersion, developmental bilingual,
or two-way bilingual) or are bilingual education teachers whose students
may have limited proficiency in English, and even perhaps their native
language. These students must be provided with content instruction. The
students of these teachers simply cannot wait to develop high levels of
academic language proficiency before tackling the demands of the curriculum.
A basic premise of this chapter is that all teachers who work with second
language students—second language teachers, grade-level teachers,
bilingual education or two-way immersion teachers—must enable their
students to make academic progress while they are learning English. It
is clear from the results of foreign language immersion that achieving
such a goal is possible.
Foreign language immersion teachers must also develop the linguistic
and academic competence of majority language students who are learning
through
a new language. Recently, increased attention has been given to identifying
what immersion teachers do (or should do) to facilitate the co-development
of second language proficiency and academic content learning (Lorenz &
Met, 1988; Mojhanovich & Fish, 1988; Snow, 1987). This chapter will
draw upon the roles and tasks of immersion teachers and apply them to
second language teachers. First, we will see how planning for instruction
is affected by consideration of students’ limited proficiency
in the language of instruction. Then, we will explore how, as in foreign
language immersion, teachers may adjust classroom activities and the
delivery of instruction when the demands of the curriculum exceed the
linguistic
skills of students. Third, the chapter will focus on how assessment of
student progress may be done when students are educated in a non-native
language. Finally, we will discuss the implications of redefining the
roles of teachers who work with second language students as teachers
of
content as well as of language, and the implications of these roles for
teachers' relationships with one another.
Planning for instruction
All good teachers must be good planners. Costa and Garmston (1985) have
suggested that good teaching rests on good planning. They indicate that
the planning phase of the teaching process requires high levels of thought
and may be the most important element in successful teaching. According
to Costa and Garmston, good teachers see each lesson in terms of long-range
and short-term instructional goals. They think about the lesson from the
viewpoint of the learner and consider how individual learning styles,
preferences, and abilities will interact with the lesson to be delivered.
They envision the lesson as it will unfold (almost as though viewing a
video in their head). Effective teachers plan with precision, identifying
what they and their students will be doing in each part of the lesson,
anticipating areas that may cause difficulty, and ensuring that time and
materials needed for the lesson will be available.
Teachers who educate students in a non-native language need to do all
of the above. But their unique charge requires that they perform additional
planning tasks as well. These include sequencing objectives, planning
for language growth, identifying instructional activities that make content
accessible, selecting instructional materials appropriate to students'
needs, and planning for assessment.
Sequencing content objectives
Teachers responsible for developing the content skills may find it helpful
to adjust the sequence of content objectives, as do foreign language immersion
teachers. Immersion teachers develop long-range plans by considering the
language demands of the academic objectives. Where the structure of the
academic objectives permits, teachers may find it helpful to reorder the
sequence of content objectives so that those requiring the most language
skills are postponed until students have had an opportunity to increase
their language proficiency. Some objectives can be taught primarily through
hands-on or visual experiences. Others may be more difficult to demonstrate
in the classroom, be more abstract, or require that students have a greater
repertoire of oral or writing skills. For example, in a primary grade
science unit on “Living Things Grow and Change,” firsthand
experiences allow students to develop concepts about the growth of plants,
concepts which can be developed during a four-week time frame. In contrast,
learning about the growth of people requires pictures and more discussion
since students cannot experience the concepts directly in class in a reasonable
amount of time. Similarly, the effects of adequate and inadequate nutrition
on plant growth can be shown, whereas the effects on human growth must
be talked about. By dealing with plant growth first, second language teachers,
like immersion teachers, can build the language skills necessary for students
to address the objectives related to human growth.
Planning content lessons
that contain language objectives
Teachers need to view every content lesson as a language lesson. It is
especially important for teachers to see every language lesson as an opportunity
to enhance students’ concept attainment. Snow, Met, and Genesee
(1989) have suggested a conceptual framework for identifying language
objectives and have described how teachers in a variety of language teaching
settings (ESL, bilingual, immersion, and FLES programs) fulfill their
roles within this framework. The authors identify two kinds of language
objectives: content-obligatory and content-compatible language objectives.
Content-obligatory language is language so closely associated with specific
content objectives that students cannot master the objectives without
learning the language as well. For example, students cannot explain when
to add and when to subtract without knowing the terms add and subtract
and without some mechanism for expressing cause and effect relationships
(e.g., “You add because . . “ “When you have . . . you
add.”). In contrast, content-compatible language can be easily taught
through a content lesson, but the material could be taught and learned
without knowledge of this vocabulary, grammar, or language functions.
For example, sixth-grade students discussing the relative merits of different
forms of government can enrich the quality of their arguments if they
have a wide range of vocabulary at their disposal (e.g., liberty, despotic,
tyrannical) but could learn the concepts of democracy, autocracy, and
so on with more limited linguistic resources (e.g., free, unfair, can't
do what you want, etc.).
Content-based second language learning can play an important role in providing
students with the language of academics needed for successful content
mastery. Working collaboratively with grade-level teachers, second language
teachers can identify the content-obligatory language needed for subject
matter mastery in the mainstream classroom. This language may then become
the primary focus of second language lessons. Indeed, the teacher may
teach the content lesson, incorporating the needed language skills and
using activities that make the lesson and language comprehensible to students.
Content-based classroom activities that use concrete experiences, manipulatives,
and hands-on materials can facilitate the acquisition of content-obligatory
language and may provide students with a valuable advance organizer for
lessons on the same topic taught in the mainstream classroom. In bilingual
or two-way immersion settings, teachers also need to identify content-obligatory
language and plan conscientiously for the development of needed language
skills in the course of content instruction.
Content-compatible language objectives are an important factor in students’
continued language growth. They help teachers focus on how students’
language skills can be stretched, refined, and expanded beyond their present
level of attainment. Since students will always need to improve and refine
their language skills (after all, even native speakers do), content-compatible
language objectives are an important part of lesson planning. All teachers
who teach students in a non-native language can find it helpful to build
both content-obligatory and content-compatible language objectives into
the planning of every content lesson.
Content-compatible objectives are drawn from three sources:
(1) a second language scope and sequence that describes how students are
expected to grow and develop in their second language skills; (2) the
teacher’s observation of student language skills and his or her
analysis of their classroom needs; and (3) the anticipated linguistic
demands of the content curriculum to be taught in future lessons. Many
U.S. school districts define ESL objectives in a curriculum scope and
sequence for ESL instruction. Traditionally, these have been taught in
isolation by ESL teachers. The teachers who may have seen their role as
developing survival language skills or grammatical accuracy may find it
more useful to see, themselves as teachers of language through content
(i.e., content-based ESL) and to conscientiously plan for teaching the
language of the curriculum. By selecting content from the school’s
curriculum that is compatible with ESL objectives, teachers can use this
content as a communicative and cognitively engaging means of developing
language and also help to promote their students’ mastery of content
material. For example, a content-based ESL teacher might reinforce the
mathematics curriculum and simultaneously develop the ESL curriculum objectives
related to describing daily activities and routines. The teacher might
have students determine the amount of time they spend on these daily activities
and routines, convert the information into percentages (out of twenty-four
hours), and display those data in a pie graph.
Another example of planning content-compatible language objectives derives
from teacher observation of students’ demonstrated language proficiency.
The ESL, bilingual, or grade-level teacher may note that students consistently
make errors of register when making requests of adults. The teacher notes
that students frequently use commands (“Give me that!”), indirect
declaratives (“I need that.” “I want that.”),
or less polite forms of request (“Can I have that?”). Because
the classroom provides few natural opportunities for students to develop
skill in adjusting their speech register to their audience, the teacher
plans an assignment that addresses both the social studies objective in
Explorers of the New World, for example, and the language needs of students—students
could role-play Christopher Columbus soliciting the support of the Spanish
monarchs in order to give students opportunities to use language for making
requests.
The third source of content-compatible language objectives is the teacher’s
long-range plans for content objectives and the sequence in which content
objectives will be taught. For example, a first-grade teacher (grade-level,
bilingual, two-way, or foreign language immersion) plans a science unit
for December to teach the concept that some objects float and some objects
sink. In theory, the teacher can use any objects to demonstrate the concept—a
bar of soap, an eraser, a brick. But the teacher also knows that in January
students will begin a social studies/science unit on Foods That Nourish
the Body, a unit for which the content-obligatory language will be vocabulary
related to fruits and vegetables. Therefore, this teacher plans to use
fruits and vegetables in December in the float/sink activities, making
future content-obligatory language part of current content-compatible
objectives. In a similar way, second language teachers can help to prepare
their students for the language demands of content lessons to be taught
in the mainstream classroom, by planning lessons that incorporate the
anticipated language needs of the regular classroom.
Planning instructional
activities
Once language and content objectives have been defined, teachers need
to plan activities that are experiential, hands-on, cognitively engaging,
and collaborative/cooperative. Planning for such activities is likely
to be done by grade-level teachers (mainstream, bilingual, two-way, or
foreign language immersion) and by content-based second language teachers.
Instructional activities and related materials must be both context-embedded
and cognitively demanding. Cummins (1981) defines instructional tasks
in terms of two intersecting continua. Context-reduced tasks are those
that rely on few external supports for meaning (e.g., pictures, realia,
manipulatives, or a meaningful context) (see also Chapter 1). In context-reduced
tasks, meaning must be accessed primarily through language. At the other
end of the continuum, context-embedded tasks use many supports for meaning
to help make language, and thus the task, understandable. Listening to
a lecture on an abstract topic is a context-reduced task; determining
the weight of an object using a scale and metric weights is a context-embedded
task.
Tasks may also be cognitively undemanding or demanding. Counting from
one to one hundred is undemanding for most older children; finding the
number that completes a pattern (e.g., 5, 9, 17, . . .?) is cognitively
demanding. The challenge for teachers is to meet the cognitive demands
of the curriculum by providing context-embedded instruction.
Students who are learning content in a new language have difficulty with
cognitively demanding tasks in context-reduced situations. To allow
students
to acquire abstract concepts, teachers need to design instructional approaches
that make the abstract concrete. By enabling students to match what
they
hear with what they see and experience, teachers can ensure that students
have access to meaning. Experiential, hands-on activities make input
comprehensible.
In fact, it is precisely this process of matching experience with language
that allows students to learn language from content instruction. The
use
of concrete materials, hands-on activities, visuals, and realia provide
multiple access and a variety of multi-sensory approaches to learning.
In sum, these experiences can make the abstractions of content learning,
in Cummins' terms, context-embedded.
Cummins argues that the challenge of teaching students in a second language
is to provide experiences that are both context-embedded and cognitively
demanding. Too often, language instruction that is context-embedded is
cognitively undemanding, simply a series of activities that are reduced,
in the ultimate, to naming pictures. Content instruction by its very
nature should be much more cognitively demanding. Teachers need to design
activities
that are accessible to students yet cognitively engaging. For example,
rather than pre-teach vocabulary in isolation to describe what different
objects are made of (wood, plastic, metal, etc.), one second-grade teacher
used a lesson from a unit on Conductors of Electricity to demonstrate
the meanings of these terms. As the teacher and students tested whether
objects of wood, plastic, or metal in a battery’s closed circuit
would allow a bulb to light, students acquired both the language for
describing
matter and the concept that some materials do not conduct electricity.
Lastly, teachers must plan instructional experiences that provide for
student-to-student communication. Students need frequent and sustained
opportunities to produce language, opportunities best provided through
collaborative group learning activities (Long and Porter, 1985; Swain,
1985). Such collaborative activities provide for critically needed practice
in verbalizing content knowledge. In addition, in mainstream and two-way
immersion classrooms, heterogeneously structured pair and group activities
also provide opportunities for students to use language for meaningful
social interaction with peers.
Planning for instructional materials
One outgrowth of planning activities is the identification of materials
needed for instruction. These will include manipulatives, visuals, and
print and non-print media. Although all teachers obviously have to think
about the materials they will use during instruction, those who educate
through a second language must add special criteria for selecting materials.
Although there may be a large body of commercially produced materials
available, these are rarely appropriate for students learning content
in a language new to them. Most often, commercially available materials
(developed for native speakers) demand a level of linguistic proficiency
well beyond that of students, whereas materials that are at an appropriate
linguistic level will often be inappropriate to students’ cognitive
maturity. Commercially produced materials targeted at native speakers
are often culturally rich. This can be both an advantage and disadvantage.
It is critically important for language learners to understand the culture
of the language they are learning, but too often culturally rich materials
provide an incomprehensible cultural context for learning (see also
Chapter
2). For example, a mathematics word problem-based on a visit to the state
fair may confuse students who know the mathematical principles required
for solving the problem but do not understand the setting, and thus the
nature, of the problem.
Teachers must decide whether to adapt existing materials or develop their
own. Some teachers are reluctant to develop their own materials, believing
themselves less well-equipped to do so than professional authors and editors.
While teacher-made materials have the distinct advantage of being designed
to address the needs, abilities, and cultural background of students,
they do require a considerable investment of teacher time and energy and
often lack the color and artwork that is so appealing to younger learners.
(A more detailed discussion of criteria for evaluating and selecting instructional
materials may be found in Lorenz & Met, 1988.)
Integrating culture
Those who work with second language students just like immersion teachers)
will want to plan for the integration of culture. This may mean teaching
students about the culture of the speakers of the language they are learning
as well as that of the students themselves. Where possible, culture
should
be infused into other areas of the curriculum. Teachers who integrate
the teaching of culture with the objectives of the school curriculum
can
more easily “find time” for one more set of objectives and
enrich instruction because students’ learning is integrated rather
than fragmented. A French immersion teacher working on a grade four
social
studies objective, geographic features of our region, used this opportunity
to compare and contrast the topography of the local area with that
of
a selected region in France. Another immersion teacher used a fifth grade
science lesson on climate as a springboard for understanding the implications
of geography on climate in contrasting Spanish-speaking cities such as
San Juan, Mexico City, Lima, and Buenos Aires.
Similarly, those who work with learners of English can and should ensure
that planning for instruction includes attention to the sociopolitical
needs of students, to cultural information and attitudes that will help
students function in a new culture, and reinforce positive attitudes
to
students’ home culture (see Chapter 12).
Planning for assessment
Instructional planning requires teachers to think about how language and
content objectives will be assessed (see Chapter 9). Instruction and assessment
go hand-in-hand, and planning for assessment and planning for teaching
should be done at the same time. When planning for teaching and planning
for assessment are done in a coordinated manner, teachers are able to
ensure that their objectives, their teaching, and assessment all fit together.
If teachers know what they want students to be able to do, and if they
know how they are going to find out if students can do it, then planning
how students will be prepared to perform (that is, what teaching activities
they will use to enable students to learn) also becomes clear. Particularly
when content is taught through a language in which students have limited
proficiency, decisions need to be made about how to assess content knowledge
through language or independently of language. We will return to assessment
later in this chapter.
In the classroom: teaching students in a second language
Enabling students to develop content knowledge and concepts when they
are being educated in a language in which they have limited proficiency
is not easy. Teachers must perform a variety of tasks and roles to ensure
that students acquire the skills and knowledge in the school’s curriculum
at a level commensurate with those students who are learning it in their
native language. To do this, teachers must be skilled in negotiating meaning;
they must have well-developed skills in monitoring student performance;
they must be expert in instructional decision making; they must serve
as a role model for the use of language, cultural behaviors, and learning
strategies; and they need to structure the environment to facilitate language
learning. Each of these tasks is described in the following paragraphs.
Negotiation of meaning
Teachers who provide instruction in the student’s second language
must be continuously engaged in a negotiation of meaning process. In negotiating
meaning, teachers and students endeavor to make themselves understood
and to understand each other. It is a collaborative process of give and
take in which each participant works to send and receive comprehensible
messages (see, for example, Hawkins, 1988; Saville-Troike, 1987; Snow,
1989). Negotiation of meaning is critical in classrooms where students
are learning content in a new language. If the meaning of what the teacher
says is unclear, it will be difficult for students to acquire the skills
and knowledge of the curriculum.
Although there are many aspects to this process, and some of these aspects
often occur simultaneously, for the purposes of discussion here the role
of the teacher will be discussed from three perspectives: (1) making language
understandable to students; (2) helping students make their messages understood;
and (3) stretching, expanding, and refining students’ language repertoire.
These roles are discussed in greater detail below.
MAKING LANGUAGE AND CONTENT ACCESSIBLE
When students’ language proficiency is very limited, the teacher
plays a major role in the negotiation of meaning process by using context-embedded
instructional tasks and by interpreting students’ responses (or
lack of them) as an indicator of the effectiveness of his or her communication.
Because comprehension is essential to the learning of content, the teacher
must ensure that his or her (i.e., the teacher’s) messages are being
understood. In delivering content lessons, teachers accompany talk with
many contextual clues. Most characteristically, such lessons rely heavily
on concrete materials, hands-on experiences, manipulatives, and visuals.
These help students match language with meaning.
Teachers of content (whether they be content-based second language teachers,
mainstream teachers, or teachers in bilingual and two-way or foreign language
immersion classrooms) can also help students with limited language proficiency
acquire new concepts by linking new learning to background knowledge.
For example, a social studies lesson on modes of transportation in the
students’ community can begin by having them classify miniature
cars, trucks, planes, and so on according to whether they use them regularly,
occasionally, or never; or students may classify these modes of transportation
by the frequency with which they are used in their native country. A reading
lesson on fables is easier for a fourth grader who is familiar with the
structure of fables (e.g., a tale with a lesson at the end) than for one
who is not.
Teachers also make language comprehensible by modifying their speech.
They may speak more slowly, emphasizing key words or phrases. They may
simplify their language, using more common vocabulary or simpler, high
frequency grammatical structures. Redundancy provides additional supports
for meaning. Teachers may restate, repeat, or paraphrase. Synonyms linking
new vocabulary with known words facilitate both content and language learning,
as does definition through exemplification. Similarly, antonyms provide
counterexamples to meaning (e.g., “No, it’s not cold; it’s
hot.”). Body language, such as gestures and facial expressions,
also help to link language to meaning.
HELPING STUDENTS COMMUNICATE
In the early stages of second language development, students have limited
means of conveying their own messages in the new language. Teachers can
play an important role in helping students get their meaning across, particularly
in settings where students are taught by teachers who do not know the
students’ language. Just as teachers rely heavily on concrete materials,
visuals, and body language, so too should students be encouraged to use
these as enhancements for conveying meaning. Thus, students should have
ready access within the classroom to visual and concrete materials. However,
students should be encouraged to use both verbal and nonverbal means of
communicating, or they may become overly reliant on nonverbal supports
to their messages.
Teachers enable students to communicate verbally by making a “rich
interpretation” of students’ attempts to communicate (see,
for example, Wells, 1986), and by maintaining open channels of communication.
These are often accompanied by checks for understanding. When asked how
Native Americans communicated across long distances, a fourth grader replied,
“Smoke.” The teacher interpreted his answer by responding,
“Do you mean the Native Americans sent smoke signals to one another?”
If there are students in the class with greater language proficiency,
the teacher may ask them to expand on the first student’s response
(“Who can tell me more about what Juan has told us?”) or ask
a third student to paraphrase the response of the second (“Lupe,
can you explain what Phan just said?”). These strategies encourage
continued communication between teacher and students, allow teachers to
check their own comprehension of students’ messages, and check students’
comprehension of content.
At this stage of linguistic development, when students are still quite
limited in their abilities to understand and speak the new language, teachers
may find it worthwhile to teach explicitly skills in conversational management.
Students need to know how to say “I don't understand,” or
“Please repeat.” Later, these skills can become more refined
as students learn to rephrase these statements more politely (“Would
you mind repeating that, please?”).
EXPANDING AND REFINING STUDENTS' LANGUAGE
From the time students begin to produce language and as they continue
to develop proficiency, teachers play an important third role. Gradually,
as students become more skilled in their new language, teachers must help
students expand their language skills and refine their existing ones.
This is done both in the course of instruction, as teachers respond to
students directly, or as they observe student-to-student communication.
This, in turn, becomes observational data to be used in planning for students’
language growth and in identifying content-compatible language objectives
for future lessons.
Because continued growth in language proficiency depends upon extended
opportunities for linguistic interaction, teachers need to provide for
frequent collaborative learning activities both in the second language
classroom among learners of English and in classrooms where students can
interact with native speakers. These activities increase the frequency
of opportunities for students to hear language used for meaningful communication
and to test out their own growing language repertoire. Continued, frequent,
and sustained interactions provide for both input and output. In mainstream
and two-way immersion classrooms, communication between native and non-native
students allows learners of English to hear ever-increasing examples of
the language and how it is used. As they listen to others, students also
come to recognize “That’s how you say that!” Each time
these students speak, they are testing hypotheses they have formed about
how the language works. The nature of the responses they receive from
teachers or classmates helps them ascertain the validity of their hypotheses.
While classmates thus provide an important vehicle for language practice,
the teacher is equally important in refining student language. A sixth-grade
student describing religious practices in Ancient Egypt indicated that
the Egyptians would often “kill an animal for a god.” The
teacher replied, “Yes, it was a sacrifice.” Teachers thus
use content lessons as a means for stretching students’ vocabulary,
increasing their exposure to more sophisticated forms of academic discourse,
and for explicitly developing language skills. These content lessons that
embed language development were discussed earlier, in the section on planning
when we examined the role of content-compatible language objectives.
The teacher as monitor
Teaching, it has been said, is like being inside a popcorn machine, with
many things going on all at once. The teacher’s task is to implement
the lesson designed during the planning phase, yet monitor the lesson
and students while teaching it. Monitoring is an integral part of the
feedback cycle needed for effective formative evaluation. As teachers
continuously monitor content mastery and language development, they observe
and analyze students’ verbal and nonverbal performance, checking
for understanding of language and concepts. Often, it is difficult to
ascertain whether students have difficulty with content because of their
lack of language proficiency or despite it.
In a study of novice and veteran teachers, Berliner (cited in Brandt,
1986) found significant differences in their skills in monitoring multiple
classroom events. When confronted with a bank of video monitors depicting
several classroom settings and events, expert teachers were far more skilled
in observing and reporting on their observations. Novice teachers, by
contrast, were barely able to report accurately the events in one classroom.
Teachers in mainstream, bilingual, or two-way immersion settings, in particular,
need to be proficient in monitoring multiple classroom activities and
events. These teachers have to contend with the range of ability levels
characteristic of all classrooms and also with a significantly greater
range of linguistic ability in the language of instruction. Because research
supports the importance of providing students with extensive opportunities
to use their growing language skills, second language teachers and other
teachers who work with second language students need to provide for extensive
pair and group work activities, and they, in turn, require greater monitoring
skills on the part of the teacher (see Chapter 8). In addition, when learners
of English are mainstreamed with native speakers of English, the teacher
has more to monitor because of the distinct needs of ESL students in the
class. Similarly, teachers in two-way programs face the greater challenges
posed by the diversity of students’ cognitive and linguistic proficiencies.
Skills in monitoring multiple classroom activities and events develop
with time. A first and simple step in developing such skills is the awareness
that such monitoring is not only desirable but an important element in
managing learning in the classroom. A useful approach to monitoring student
performance is to identify in advance indicators of on-task behavior,
of successful content mastery, and of successful linguistic performance.
Observations focused on such clearly identified indicators and use of
record-keeping devices, such as checklists and anecdotal records, will
promote effective monitoring of students and provide for sound instructional
decision making (see Chapter 9).
Teachers' observations during the monitoring phase are a primary basis
for instructional decisions. Teachers may use both informal and systematic
observation of students. Students may be observed in cooperative groups
or teacher-centered formats. Observations enable teachers to determine
how well students are learning the curriculum objectives. A variety of
information sources—anecdotal records, checklists, and data provided
by student learning logs, for example—may provide teachers with
the information needed to monitor the effectiveness of their instruction
and make appropriate instructional decisions.
Instructional decision making
Jackson (1968) has noted that teachers may make as many as 1,300 nontrivial
instructional decisions each day. Effective instructional decision making
requires a repertoire of instructional options, and the knowledge base
necessary for choosing wisely among the options.
Providing instruction in a students’ second language requires a
greater repertoire than that of teachers in monolingual settings. Teachers
who lack repertoire lack the flexibility to respond to learner’s
needs. Teachers who know only one way to teach a skill or concept have
no fallback options if observations indicate that this one way is ineffective
or inappropriate for a given individual or group of students. While all
effective teachers need a repertoire of instructional approaches, teachers
in second language settings need an expanded repertoire of strategies
for making abstract skills and concepts concrete. That is, not only must
the teacher have alternative approaches for teaching a given concept,
the alternatives must also address the special linguistic and cultural
needs of students. And the use of multiple approaches to making concepts
understandable often means that a variety of learning preferences are
addressed (i.e., the visual, the tactile, the kinesthetic, etc.).
Good decision making requires more than repertoire, more that is, than
an awareness of the many options available. It also requires that teachers
be able to select appropriately from this range of options. The ability
to choose within one’s repertoire depends on a sound understanding
of how language and concepts are learned, and of how the characteristics
of learners and instructional settings interact. Good decision making
is informed decision making.
For teachers who teach content in a language new to students, informed
decision making may depend upon an even deeper understanding of students
and how they learn than it does in a monolingual setting. The teacher’s
knowledge of students’ needs and abilities and of their linguistic
and cultural characteristics will help to determine which of the available
options is most appropriate at a given moment. For example, in a lesson
on the natural habitats of frogs, a minority language student states that
most frogs live in trees. The teacher’s options include:
• accept the student’s response without comment
• respond with positive reinforcement
• correct the student if the response is deemed incorrect
• probe to see if the student has misunderstood the lesson
• conclude that the student said tree because that is the only word
for natural habitats the student knows, and therefore, the teacher decides
to provide additional vocabulary options in her response
• conclude that the student has said tree because in Puerto Rico,
where this student comes from, there is a common tree frog (coqui), and
therefore, for this student, the answer is correct
• decide that further instruction using pictures and visual aids
is needed to ensure that students are aware that frogs have several natural
habitats and that students have the verbal skills to discuss them
While teachers in monolingual classrooms may face similar decisions, teachers
who work with second language learners will need to have a broader understanding
of students’ background and a broader range of repertoire in order
to make appropriate instructional decisions.
The teacher as model
For students who are being educated in a second language, teachers are
models of linguistically and culturally appropriate behaviors. The teacher
models both the academic and social language students will need. As we
have seen earlier, content lessons serve as a vehicle for teachers to
model the language of the academic curriculum. Through these lessons students
acquire both new knowledge and the means to talk about them. In addition,
teachers have opportunities throughout the day to model social language.
They greet students, discuss students’ activities outside the school
setting, describe their own activities, and conduct administrative routines
that provide many opportunities for non-instructional interaction. Culturally
appropriate behaviors (both linguistic and nonlinguistic) are also modeled
through instructional and non-instructional interactions. Students may
observe differences between the way teachers speak to one another, the
principal, parents, and other adults in the school and the ways in which
they speak with children. Students may also observe nonlinguistic features
such as proximity, gestures, and other body language appropriate to their
new language. These learnings, in the long run, contribute to the growing
effectiveness of students’ communication.
Like teachers of native speakers, second language teachers can also model
learning. Such techniques as reciprocal questioning and think aloud
protocols
(Bereiter & Bird, 1985) modeled by teachers (and later used by students)
have a dual function when students are learning content through a new
language. In the first language classroom, these techniques help students
to acquire useful strategies to improve and monitor their own learning.
Teachers who model these techniques to students who are learning content
in a new language are additionally providing these students with the
language
they need in order to be clear in thinking and talking about their content
learning. Further, such strategies promote higher order cognitive processes.
This is particularly important in second language classrooms where too
often instruction can easily slip into mere rote recitation of facts,
labeling, or naming activities.
Whether a second language, grade-level, bilingual, two-way immersion,
or foreign language immersion teacher, it is helpful for teachers to be
aware of and exploit opportunities to serve as models of language, learning,
and culture.
Structuring the environment
Grade-level teachers can help students acquire content in a language new
to them through a carefully structured environment. A daily schedule that
follows predictable patterns can facilitate language comprehension in
the early stages of language development. Students can surmise that the
teacher is directing them to prepare for lunch if lunch predictably follows
the end of the mathematics lesson each day. Similarly, other classroom
routines (attendance, collection of lunch money, distribution of materials)
can help students match language to experience. Environmental print can
help students begin to recognize the relationship between the oral classroom
vocabulary they know and associated print labels. Bulletin boards filled
with an abundance of visual materials can support content objectives;
print labels and text accompanying the visuals can also provide for increased
content and language learning. Most importantly, learning centers filled
with hands-on experiences and listening tasks can contribute to content
learning and language growth
A supportive, accepting learning environment benefits all students—regardless
of their home language or culture. For students who may be anxious about
trying to learn demanding content in a new language, a supportive environment
is even more critical. Activities that are structured for success are
likely to build the self-esteem needed for academic achievement. Frequent
positive reinforcement helps uncertain learners know they are on the right
track and encourage them to persevere. Wait time, which has been shown
to increase the quality and quantity of student responses in native language
classes (Rowe, 1978), is even more necessary in second language content
classes. This is because limited-proficiency students must not only think
about the right answer from the content perspective, but they also need
time to formulate how they will communicate their response.
Assessing student progress
All teachers use assessment to measure how much students have learned;
they use the results of assessment to evaluate the degree to which student
learning meets their stated objective(s). When assessing students, teachers
should be most concerned with finding out what students have learned,
and they should allow students to demonstrate what they have learned.
The emphasis should be on what students do know and can do, not on what
they do not know and cannot do.
Assessment takes place both continuously and at the end of a unit of study.
Teachers are continuously monitoring student performance informally during
instruction. As was discussed earlier, such informal assessment provides
important information for instructional decision-making, enabling teachers
to informally monitor the effectiveness of instruction in addressing the
learning needs of students (see Chapter 9). Information about student
achievement collected in such an informal manner is based on students’
verbal and nonverbal feedback during the course of lessons. This kind
of assessment information is extremely useful for modifying ongoing instruction
to ensure that what is taught and how it is taught is effective in helping
students learn concepts and language. More formal methods of assessment
(such as tests) tell teachers how well individual students are progressing,
whether they have attained unit objectives, and whether the teacher should
advance to the next unit. Most commonly used forms of assessment are for
these purposes.
Assessing concept mastery
Educating students in a second language presents unique problems in assessment.
Teachers may have difficulty determining whether students fail to perform
as expected because they have not mastered the concepts or because they
simply lack the linguistic resources to demonstrate what they have learned.
When students are extremely limited in their linguistic repertoire, it
may be best to separate assessment of content mastery from language. What
strategies can teachers of content use to ensure that students can demonstrate
content mastery even when they are as yet unable to verbalize their knowledge
and understanding?
Students may be asked to act out their knowledge. For example, students
may take on the roles of the sun, moon, and earth and move in relation
to one another to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts of revolution
and rotation. Students may be given physical objects with which to demonstrate
their understanding, as when students categorize plastic foods into the
four basic food groups. Pictures can be part of paper/pencil tests, with
students crossing out pictures that do not belong in a given group (e.g.,
Which of the following does not conduct electricity—a metal pin,
a plastic ball, a piece of paper, or aluminum foil?). Or students may
draw a picture to show what they know (e.g., foods the settlers of New
England introduced to the Native Americans; foods the Native Americans
introduced to the settlers).
Performance assessment is a way of measuring student achievement “by
means of observation and professional judgment” (Stiggins, 1987,
p. 33). It is “the process of gathering data by systematic observation
for making decisions about an individual.” (Berk, 1986, p. ix).
Classroom-based performance assessment uses a variety of procedures and
approaches for gathering information about student performance. Portfolios
of student work (such as audiotapes and videotapes, writing samples, projects,
posters, dioramas, and models), systematic observation of classroom performance,
and conferences with individual students about their assignments and projects,
are also effective ways to find out about student progress in relation
to the objectives set for them. Because they are based on student performance,
and not on some idealized, nonexistent average student or native speaker,
they show what students actually know and can do. They can also be used
to compare each student to his or her last performance and thereby give
an indication of how individual students are progressing. Lastly, they
are an appropriate way of ensuring that the delivery of content instruction
is commensurate with the linguistic proficiency of the student at that
point in time and in that content domain.
As students’ language proficiency grows, and in particular their
ability to read and write their new language, paper/pencil tests may be
used for limited responses. For example, true/false items, multiple choice
tests, fill-in-the-blank items (particularly when a word bank is provided)
can provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning despite
their limited expressive capabilities. These tasks may lead the way to
even more linguistically demanding assessment tasks such as rewriting
false statements as true ones or responding with simple sentences and
short paragraphs.
Although decisions about appropriate content instruction for students
with limited language proficiency should not be based primarily on language-based
assessments, it is important that students eventually be able to demonstrate
their knowledge both verbally and nonverbally because “language
proficiency is important to nearly everything that takes place in education”
(Oller, 1991). The more effectively one can express one’s thoughts
through language, the more clear and precise thinking becomes. Research
on the process of writing, for example, has shown that the processes required
to produce a good piece of writing require and produce higher levels of
cognition (Olson, 1985; Tierney, Soter, O'Flahavan, & McGinley, 1989).
Therefore, as students become increasingly proficient at expressing themselves
(whether orally or in writing), it becomes increasingly appropriate for
teachers to encourage students to demonstrate content learning through
oral and written communication.
Assessing language proficiency
Perhaps the most neglected aspect of assessment is classroom-based assessment
of students’ language skills. While many teachers conscientiously
assess how much content students have learned, assessment of language
frequently is done only through standardized tests of English language
proficiency for determining eligibility for special services.
However, second language teachers, along with grade-level, bilingual,
and two-way immersion teachers, are both content and language teachers.
They need to plan as conscientiously for language growth as they do for
content and vice versa. To assiduously plan for language growth, ongoing
assessment of students’ proficiency is a must. Planning for language
growth means the teacher must be continuously assessing where students
are in relation to where they ought to be and using assessment data to
identify areas where further development of language growth is needed.
These data are one of the bases for identifying content-compatible language
objectives. Language assessments are based on the objectives determined
in the planning phase of instruction. These objectives will most likely
include both content-obligatory and content-compatible language objectives.
The planning phase should also include indicators of how teachers will
know that students have achieved these language objectives.
Because language objectives are most appropriate when tied to the linguistic
demands of content objectives, assessment of language skills may be made
during the course of content instruction. Checklists that specify language
functions, grammar, and vocabulary needed for content knowledge can be
used for assessment of students during routine classroom activities. As
students demonstrate (or fail to demonstrate) their ability to use the
requisite language skills, teachers can keep records of students’
language performance. Conferences with small groups of students or individual
students that focus on content are also a good source of data on students’
ability to understand and produce content-related language. Similarly,
dialogue journals and learning logs provide teachers with information
about students’ ability to verbalize their content knowledge through
print. It is extremely important that teachers have clearly defined objectives
and criteria for students’ linguistic performance in order for the
data-gathering activities just described to be useful for assessing student
progress and planning further instruction.
Classroom-based language assessments that are part of the instructional
delivery system also help to identify content-obligatory language objectives
for future lessons and units. Classroom-based language assessments help
teachers know whether students have the language skills they will need
for academic performance precisely because the assessment ties language
to its purpose, which is content learning. Classroom-based language assessments
are authentic in that they measure student proficiency in the real contexts
in which language use occurs (learning of academic subject matter); they
are integrative; and they assess the broad range of language skills needed
in the classroom. Such assessment, in essence, has content validity.
From the day-to-day instructional perspective, the integration of language
assessment with content assessment helps teachers—whether they are
second language, grade-level, bilingual, two-way, or foreign language
immersion teachers—engage in a constant formative/diagnostic feedback
loop. Assessing students’ background knowledge prior to introducing
new concepts is important for all teachers. For those who teach content
in a second language, assessing background knowledge also means knowing
the range of the students’ linguistic ability to handle the concepts.
Teachers also need to know the language demands of their curriculum objectives,
the extent to which students will be able to learn concepts and information
from verbal input, and the extent to which special strategies, manipulatives,
and concrete materials will be necessary for instructional delivery. Similarly,
teachers need to know what supports must be provided to students for them
to be able to demonstrate their knowledge and learning, especially when
verbalization of what has been learned is not the best medium for getting
and giving that information.
It is clear, then, that as instruction progresses, and as teachers observe
the growth of students in the course of teaching and learning activities,
a great deal of assessment data can be collected about the achievement
of both content and language objectives. These data provide important
information about individual students. In the aggregate, data from systematic
observations, checklists, portfolios, and teacher-made tests provide information
about the effectiveness of the instructional program.
Conclusion
Several implications emerge from the issues examined in this chapter.
Perhaps the most salient is that it may be necessary for teachers who
work with second language learners to redefine their roles vis-à-vis
their students and vis-à-vis one another. If the purpose of schooling
is to educate students, then all teachers must contribute to students’
achievement of curriculum objectives. Language cannot stand apart from
content learning; rather, language should be acquired through content
learning just as content may be learned through language. Teachers may
no longer be able to afford the luxury of a language curriculum separate
from the demands of the larger school curriculum. Instead, the language
of content may be the most appropriate second language curriculum. Survival
language and grammar are important parts of the curriculum, but perhaps
it is equally, if not more, important that second language teachers be
defined as teachers of academic language.
Grade-level teachers, such as mainstream, bilingual, and two-way immersion
teachers, will need to have a clearer responsibility for the language
development of their students. This means ensuring that plans for every
content lesson include language objectives as well. While content objectives
may drive decisions about instructional activities and materials, teachers
will also need to consider the academic language needed for successful
mastery of current subject matter instruction (content-obligatory language),
the anticipated language needs of students in future content lessons,
and the language demands beyond the classroom (content-compatible language).
If teachers redefine their instructional responsibilities, they may also
redefine their relationships with one another. Clearly, in schools where
second language teachers work side-by-side with mainstream, bilingual,
or two-way immersion teachers, there needs to be a coordinated approach
to meeting the needs of students. Collaborative planning among teachers
can ensure that the linguistic demands of content learning are addressed
both in the second language and the content classroom. Similarly, collaborative
planning can enable teachers to provide content-based lessons that support,
reinforce, and coordinate with content lessons provided by other teachers.
Teachers have a significant leadership role to play. They may need to
take the initiative in collaborative planning activities, in identifying
the academic language skills students will need for success in content
learning, and in planning content-based lessons that support those in
other classrooms. They may also need to assist mainstream teachers to
understand how theories of second language acquisition can inform content
lesson planning and to understand how content lessons may be made more
comprehensible to second language learners. Lastly, it may be necessary
to restructure how students are grouped for instruction in pullout programs
(see Chapter 8). Rather than group students by language proficiency, it
may be more useful to group them according to grade level (or rough approximations
thereof). If second language teachers are to function as teachers of language
through content and plan collaboratively with content teachers, then grade-appropriate
content instruction will drive decisions about classroom activities. As
such, it may be more feasible to group students with similar content (and
language) needs than by overall language proficiency.
Second language teachers, bilingual teachers, grade-level teachers of
minority language students, and foreign language immersion teachers all
face the challenge of enabling students to learn content in a language
new to them. This chapter has attempted to describe how teachers can enhance
their effectiveness as teachers of language through content and of content
through language, through the effective planning, delivery, and assessment
of instruction. Despite differences in their roles, these teachers share
a common goal: to develop students who demonstrate content knowledge,
skills, and concepts at or above grade level expectations; students who
are proficient in at least one language in addition to that spoken at
home; and students who can function effectively and comfortably in another
culture.
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