3 Seminal Researchers Allow me to Dig InIn my research there were so many key names that came up around my big idea. Today I want to share three seminal researchers that I believe will support my learning. All these researchers have one thing in common, and that is they understand the rigor and complex tasks that the CCSS are asking students for, and they know we need to better understand language acquisition in order to support our language learners in accessing and being able to complete these complex tasks. The First researcher focuses on teachers better understanding the structure of the English language, Lily Wong Fillmore. The second, Aida Walkqui, directs the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) project. The last, Jeff Zwiers, focuses on classroom practices, opportunities, and activities that foster language, literacy, cognition, and content understandings. These researchers cover what teachers need to know about language, how to support their second language learners, and applications for that in the classroom.
First, Lily Wong Fillmore has focused much of her research on the education of language minorities. She has conducted many studies of second language learners in various school settings. She is committed to teachers having the background knowledge about the structure of oral language in both casual and formal academic contexts, and written language. We must better understand the way language is structured in order to break it down for our second language learners. Such things as the basic units of language, what is regular/irregular, how do forms relate to each other, how the lexicon (vocabulary) is acquired and structured, and what really is academic English. Then once mastered orally, transferring it to written language. Written language is not merely oral language written down. A learner has to take an account English spelling, different writing types (narrative, opinion, and informational), what makes a good piece of writing quality, and what makes a text complex. Second, Aida Walkqui, is the head of WestEd's Professional Development. She focuses more on the middle school population of second language learners. She recognizes that many times we simplify curriculum and lower expectations for our language learners, and then they are never able to catch-up. She believes and focuses her research around the need to increase the rigor and tasks for language learners for engagement, while also increasing the support and scaffolding for those students. With CCSS there are three different ways that language is involved in the standards: language requirements in the content standards, English language arts standards, and language-convention-specific standards. This calls for thoughtful planning and integration. The last researcher I focused on is Jeff Zwiers, he is a Senior Researcher at Stanford Graduate School of Education and is the Director of Professional Development for Understanding Language/SCALE. Understanding Language is focused on improving instruction and assessment for English learners. His research focuses on classroom practices, opportunities, and activities that foster language, literacy, cognition, and content understandings. His research looks for ways we can help all students by providing information and tools to help teachers accelerate and deepen their understanding of language, literacy, thinking, and content. These researchers and their BIG ideas provide the foundation of my learning about how to support language learners, and better understand how they acquire language and how that can support their reading fluency and comprehension. NOW, it is time to dig in!
4 Comments
Kelley S. Miller
10/30/2016 09:12:13 pm
It looks like you've found three very valuable angles from which to research language acquisition. As a middle school ELA teacher, I found reading about them intriguing and applicable.
Reply
Becky
11/1/2016 10:57:56 am
I really found your blog very interesting. Are topics are closely related and I want to look up your language acquisition experts and see if they have research that can apply to my topic as well. I really enjoyed your take on the "conversational english" when thinking about re-designation of English language learners. It makes me wonder if providing more strategic academic language opportunities would change re-designation rates. Would academic language show up in any of the 4 areas of CELDT, reading, writing, listening or speaking? Thank you for your insight and valuable experts.
Reply
Jennifer Wade
11/1/2016 05:39:42 pm
Such an interesting topic that I (we) are faced with every day. At Shearer we were looking at the CAASP scores and digging deep into how skills that are currently lacking in our students (pretty much all of our students are ELL's) can be back mapped to kindergarten. We are continuing to 'unpack' the DOK chart and specifically the vocabulary there to see where we are leaving gaps. Even simple things like how we often use the words 're-tell' in kinder but not the word 'summarize.' We often water down language to make it palatable for our younger students, but that is a huge disservice especially when we know they are at the prime of their language learning years. I need to remember to raise the bar and not lower it to make them comfortable. Thanks for sharing this information.
Reply
I really enjoyed reading your blog and thought it was really interesting how Aida Walkqui says that often times curriculum is lowered and simplified for language learners. I agree with her in the fact that we do need to keep the curriculum rigorous enough yet scaffold them properly. The science and art of accomplishing this task can be challenging and tricky. It is always great to learn new strategies to help ELL children. Time and practice is very important for ELL children and their small accomplishments should be noticed. You very interesting topic and I'm excited to learn more about it.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorKarly Miller. Yearning to answer questions, some deeper than others. How to do it? How to craft them? And how to make them have an impact on my work with students. Archives
November 2016
Categories |