Teaching & Learning Language

Annotations:

• WIDA incorporates SLA theories into their framework. Or, conversely, we can keep theories in mind as we design lessons around WIDA standards. 

1. Behaviorist/Skinner
   1. Mimicry & Memorization
2. Inatist/Chomsky

   Annotations:

   • Some SLA theory is left out in the cold and unconnected. Why? Because their father's failed to see connections! In all seriousness, Chomsky saw inatism as stand-alone, and we now know there is much more to it than that. Although all of these ideas play a role in acquiring language, it is hard to find a direct connection for them. 
   1. Critical Period Hypothesis
   2. Universal Grammer
   3. Krashen: Comprehensible Input
3. Sociocultural/Vygotsky
   1. Zone of Proximal Development

      Annotations:

      • We cannot expect students to understand, let alone show evidence of understanding, if we are teaching them things outside of their ZPD.
4. Interactionism
   1. Modified Interaction
   2. Noticing Hypothesis
   3. Input=Acqustion

Annotations:

• UBD, I feel, is at the center of all of this. It is how we will teach language and how students will learn it.

1. Backward Design: 3 Stages

   Annotations:

   • As it relates to SLA, backward design can be effective. In fact, backward design is tailor made for teaching languages. Making language goals clear from the start will help us create our instruction around those goals. I find this hard to articulate so I'll make an example in final lesson plan.
   1. 1. Identify desired results
   2. 2. Determine acceptable evidence
   3. 3. Plan learning experiences & instruction

      Annotations:

      • WIDA gives us a framework from which we can plan our instruction. With MPIs and the strands within them as our goals and with domains and the 6 levels acting as evidence of understanding & learning, we can build our lessons.
2. Understanding

   Annotations:

   • Reflection: Backward design leads to student understanding (and lends itself to understanding). If we first identify our goals, then we know what students should understand. If we then determing acceptable evidence of understanding, then we can either be explicit about what we want students to be able to do or at the very least know what to look for. If we then lastly plan our instruction, it can be tailored in a way that facilitates understanding by way of showing evidence.
   1. Transfer

      Annotations:

      • Transfer is the ability to apply skills, knowledge & understanding learned in different academic areas to others. Transfer is a product of understanding, that is it comes after understanding, but it also is evidence itself of understanding. Whie I don't think all 5 goal areas of ACTFL can be connected with transfer, some can, like connections. In connections, studen ts reinforce & further knowledge of other disciplines. It's the same thing as transfer really. Transfer of knowledge and understanding can also be connected to communities, in that students transfer what they learn in school back into their worlds. They can use what they learn in their science classes to plan green energy initiatives, or what they learned in economicss to advocate for fair pricing.
   2. Showing evidence

      Annotations:

      • Tasks should be designed in such a way that students show evidence of understanding. "Getting evidence of understanding means crafting assessments to evoke transferability: finding out if students can take their learning and use it wisely, flexibly, creatively." (48)
3. Differentiation

   Annotations:

   • Differentiation is essentially the process of adjusting instruction, texts, tasks and assessments, among other things, in order to accomodate all learners and ensure that they are provided with an ideal learning environment. It's a key component of lesson planning, and we must know for whom and how we are differentiating, what we are differentiating and how and why we differentiate. That is, it must be intentional, purposeful and well thought-out, and it must fit the contexts of our classrooms.
4. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

   Annotations:

   • CRP is making instruction, activities, classrooms and assessments relevant to learners. Culture here is, to me, very broad, and can include student's home lives, home languages, backgrounds and experiences, interests, friend groups, personal philosophies, practices, rituals, families, food, music, sports, and more (probably). Basically, we need to make sure that what we teach students is relevant to them in order to maximize engagement and learning. Next, see "leveraging student assets". 
   1. Leveraging Student Assets

      Annotations:

      • We learned in OLPD about student's "funds of knowledge", which are essentially the experiences, knowledge, cultures and backgrounds they bring into a school. I think for CRP to be effective, we must first A) learn who out students are (see "classroom community" tab) and then use what we know as tools to build CRP and also to differentiate. Teachers, in other words, should not be the center of attention. 
5. Building Classroom Communities

   Annotations:

   • I have learned in my student teaching placements that building a community in a classroom is necessary if learning is to take place and if students are to get along both among themselves and with their teacher. I build this off of lesson planning because without community, lesson planning become nearly pointless. Community, to me, means a place where people want to be, and if students don't want to to be in class because they don't feel like it's a community, then they won't learn and lesson planning is rendered inneffective and pointless. 
   1. Co-construction With Students

      Annotations:

      • The community must be made with (or by, if possible) students. Teachers can help make norms, expectations and consequences with students; ideally, we are just guides, and students make the rules (after all, teachers will always follow the rules, right?). And all students must be involved, not just a vocal few. In lower level ELD classes, this may be difficult, but there are generally people in buildings who can help with language support, so we ought to use our resources. 
6. Student-Centered Instruction

   Annotations:

   • This is the final node I will add to the mind-map and it is, for me, the most important.. Students must be at the center of all of our instruction and their interests, backgrounds, experiences, ideas, cultures and everything else about them must be reflected in their instruction. This idea is a central component of WIDA which is why I connected those two and is also the foundation of CRP, hence that connection.
   1. SLIFE

      Annotations:

      • SLIFE have unique considerations that we as teachers must account for when lesson planning. We must be exceptionally sensitive of their needs and provide them with they need according to their age and developmental levels in order for them to be successful. We must also teach them practical life skills and be aware of their experiences in order to best inform our practice.
   2. LTEL

      Annotations:

      • I still have a lot to learn about both SLIFE and LTELs, but both of these types of students have unique considerations we must account for when lesson planning, building classroom communities, and everything else. Our goals with LTELs should be to deliver lessons and assessments that teach and assess them on what they need in order to exit EL services and be successful in other content areas.

Annotations:

• These are standards for teaching world languages 

1. 5 goal areas

   Annotations:

   • If students are achieving within the 5 goal areas, they are showing evidence of understanding.
   1. Culture
   2. Communication
      1. Presentational

         Annotations:

         • Presentational communication represents transfer, that is students can transfer the knowledge in their minds to some sort of representation of that knowledge
      2. Interpersonal

         Annotations:

         • Interpersonal communication is developed, in part, through modified interaction. It also represents transfer. Students who can communicate knowledge are tranfering it from their minds to oral communication.
      3. Interprative

         Annotations:

         • Students who can interpret communication are showing understanding.
   3. Communities
   4. Connections
   5. Comparisons

Annotations:

• WIDA and its framework, standards, can do statements, domains, etc can be connected back to UBD & backward design principles, SLA theories, and ACTFL 5 goal areas. ELD standards have goals at their heart. For example, in the language of social studies standard, we could use a topic like "the cold war". The goals for the language of the cold war could be for students at level one to name some events & concepts: bay of pigs, Vietnam War, communism, etc. As we move on, goals can grow and become more complex, such as describing the events, placing them in a historical context, describing outcomes and long-term consequences, etc. The central goal would always be for students to use key terms. By the end, students would have developed a broad understanding of the Cold War.

1. Model Performance Indicators

   Annotations:

   • MPIs and the strands contained within them are the goals.
2. 4 Domains & 6 levels

   Annotations:

   • These constitue our acceptable evidence
3. 4 Key Uses

   Annotations:

   • Key uses can help us plan our instruction. We want to teach, for example, with arguing in mind. 

Annotations:

• I don't think the importance of academic language can be overstated; it is everywhere, in every content area, in every text, in all we do. The question is, what is academic language? Is there any real fixed definition? Can it be seperated from social language? I don't think so; all forms of conversation, be they written or spoken, have some element of "academic" within them, or at least technical terms, and those are academic. I would say that academic language is a purely subjective determination, so we need to be very selective and purposeful about what academic language we choose to teach. With the next revision of the mind map, I plan to build more on this. 

1. Content-Based Instruction

   Annotations:

   • Every content area has its own academic language, and my biggest take away from this program has been that we should not teach language in isolation whenever possible. Rather, we should teach language through content, or teach the language (or the academic language) of a content area via that content
   1. Meaningful Interaction

      Annotations:

      • Every content area has its own academic language, and my biggest take away from this program has been that we should not teach language in isolation whenever possible. Rather, we should teach language through content, or teach the language (or the academic language) of a content area via that content.  In order to learn content-area academic language, interaction with it must be meaningful and authentic. When lesson planning, we should take into consideration how students can interact with language within a framwork of content-based instruction. This also goes back to UbD: what do we want students to be able to do by the end of a lesso or unit, and how can we get there? Planning meaningful activities for interaction will help give us an idea of how we want students to reach a goal by the end of a unit.
      1. Assessment

         Annotations:

         • We can use meaningful interaction and authentic assessments and activities as just that, ways to assess our students. All of our assessments should be authentic and kids should be able to show evidence of understand (hence the connection) in their assessments. There is an element of transfer in assessment as well; our assessments can and, if appropriate should, assess skills students can transfer to other content areas, which is why I connect it to academic language and content-based instruction (ideally we are also assessing students on academic language AND content).
         1. Integrated Performance Assessments

            Annotations:

            • Whenever possible, we should design IPAs. We can do this within a UbD framework by creating assessment goals and essential questions first. It's connected to ACTFL because IPAs incorporate the 3 modes of communication (ideally) and can reach the 5 goal areas of ACTFL as well. They can also assess content understanding and academic language, hence the connection to those two.