Conjunction Junction: Send Me Back to Grammar School
Most of my middle and high school social studies classes consisted of a fairly even balance of lecture and bookwork. Tests were multiple choice, recalling the dates and names of events, and included little to no analysis. If you could memorize and regurgitate “facts”, you were on your way to an A. That was the late 1990s.
(Mr. Bean demonstrating an average day in my Ancient Civilizations class circa 1999)
“History is boring. Why do I have to take history? I have the internet.” – Students Walking into History Classrooms All Over America, First Day of School, August, 2018
Compared to my snooze-filled classes in the nineties, many high school social studies classes of today require students to become actively engaged in the study of history by developing the skills that historians use to interpret historical events. These skills include: contextualization, comparison, causation, corroboration, continuity and change over time. These are TOUGH skills. We sequence events, look at cause and effect relationships, and spend most of our time working with primary sources.
The study presented in Schleppegrell et al. (2004) focused on how language is used in history textbooks. In my history classes, we spend very little time working with an actual textbook. However, the concepts and skills that students are expected to understand and develop become more demanding. This is especially challenging for ELLs because, “as the difficulty of the concepts we want students to learn increases, the language that construes those concepts also becomes more complex and distanced from ordinary uses of language.” (Schleppegrell et al., 2004, p. 67) While this idea did not come as a surprise to me, I had never really investigated why.
The linguistic analysis was completely eye opening to me. I had never considered, for example, the multitude of ways that conjunctions are used. Going through each example made me realize just how complex history texts are and, frankly, made me feel like I need to go back to grammar school to review! My mind was blown.
Both readings investigated the difficulties faced by ELLs in content specific classes and the way that academic languages differs from conversational language, causing difficulties for ELLs, including those considered proficient. The video offered examples of how to integrate the use of home language and translanguaging into the classroom. They inspired me to think about the way that I use academic language in the classroom and how I approach teaching difficult concepts. While I will certainly spend more time considering these things, here are some of my initial thoughts:
- I think that I do a decent job of verbally explaining things using conversational language. I try to break down difficult concepts by offering multiple examples and explaining in different ways.
- I could improve on many of the linguistic choices that I make in texts.
- Textbook definitions, as written, are often verbose and full of academic language. Often, students copy or read a definition and don’t understand the words used to define the term, therefore they can’t understand what is being defined. A simple exercise that will help students conceptualize the terms would be to have them (possibly with a partner) define complex terms in their own words. This would also be a quick way to check for understanding.
- I love how Schleppegrell et al. article used grammatical analysis to highlight the power relationship between the participants and historical events, as well as the bias by the textbook authors. (2004 ) We talk a lot about power and positionality. I would like to choose some textbook passages to use in my classes to perform this same type of analysis.
- I have had students create graphic novels in my World History classes but never encouraged them to use their home language as part of it like Ms. Ballantyne-Berry did in Episode 3 of Teaching Bilinguals (Even If You’re Not One). I'd like to work that in next year.
- I would really like to spend some time, on my own, to go through a selection of my texts and grammatically analyze them. I think this would help me to identify topics and ideas that are especially difficult for my students and then to figure out how to better deconstruct the concept in order to make it easier for my students to understand.
- What, if anything, in the readings surprised you?
- What do you do in your classroom to help overcome content specific linguistic challenges?
- How do the ENL teachers in your school incorporate the use of content in language instruction?
- The idea of using translanguage in the classroom is especially intriguing to me. What ways, other than what was presented in the video, can translanguage be used in content specific classes by monolingual teachers?
- And finally, did you struggle as much as I did to remember all of the grammar complexities in the English language? Sheesh!
Thank you for reading! I look forward to discussing this week's readings with you!
When I was student teaching, my mentor teacher taught an ENL class. Because that was not a part of my undergrad major, he mostly taught that class and I helped students individually. I mostly worked with the students who were the most proficient in the English Language. Because of that, a lot of what I worked with them on was content area academic language. While they were proficient at reading and writing English, there was a struggle with academic vocabulary. We would break the words down and put it in more accessible language. I guess I didn't realize we were basically doing CBI.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to what you were saying in your blog post, I think this is something that I should be doing in my content area class for all students as well. Although a majority of my students are not ELLs, this will be helpful to all students. I loved your idea of them putting the content area vocabulary definitions into their own words with a partner. I think I will be using that in my class.
MaryBeth,
DeleteI think it is really awesome that you got the chance to spend a lot of time with ENL students and engage with them through their learning process. I am sure that has benefited you in many ways as a teacher and it gave me a couple ideas for my future classroom. I hope that I get a lot of exposure to ENL students during my blocks next year! I really want to apply a lot of the concepts that we are learning in class to my future content and students!
What a great student teaching opportunity! I had some exposure to ENL students during my student teaching but never witnessed any kind of intervention taking place. It wasn't until I had my own classroom full of ELLs that I ever really considered the need for intervention. Luckily I work in school with talented people who are focused on working with our ELLs but we are all learning as we go.
DeleteI agree that breaking down the vocabulary in that way will benefit all of my students. I'm always looking for ways to improve vocabulary comprehension. One of the biggest take always for me was how well breaking down the sentences helps with comprehension.
This was a great post! I am so happy that you have learned a lot from this class and you are able to apply this content into your own classroom!
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of information that jumped out at me from the text. Especially, the sections discussing the activities that can be incorporated into the classroom that will help ENL students. For example, creating activities that allow students to use their home language. This includes activities that involve students using their home languages. I could easily apply this concept to writing, reading, and creative projects in my classroom! I want to encourage my students to be proud of their home language and utilize it as much as possible as they are learning the English language. I am excited to become a teacher and apply the concepts we have learned in this class to my own classroom.
Also, you are not alone!! I definitely struggled with remembering all of the grammar complexities in the English language as well!
Thanks, Taylor! I love that you use the word 'proud'. I had not thought of it in that way before but it's perfect. I want my students to be happy and comfortable with who they are and where they come from. I love when they talk about their families and backgrounds and clearly what we've learned is that home language is a big part of that. I think that you're going to be a great teacher!
DeleteHi Taylor, I also can't wait to create activities that will encourage my students home language in my classroom. Are there any specific crafts you would want to try to encourage students to use their home language? In the video it talked about the students creating a graphic novel all about themselves. I think that would be a cool idea to do with my own students. I also was thinking about creating an all about me poster for my students. I think this would be fun because they would get to express who they are and where they come from in this activity. Since I started this class I keep thinking of ways I could get my students to be proud of their home language and want to use it. I thought of things like asking my students how to say certain words in their home language and the all about my posters. I also can't wait to become a teacher and use the concepts we have learned in this class so far.
DeleteHi Rebeccah,
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your question of "how do the ENL teachers in your school incorporate the use of content in language instruction?", theres one ELL teacher at my school and she has an assistant. What they do is provide supplemental resources for the content that the general education teacher teaches in class. Then, when the ELL teacher pulls those students out or the ELL assistant pushes in the classroom, they are able to teach students content in a way that they can understand. It helps because students are understanding content based on their language experience.
Something I see keep making a reappearance is students using their home language in the classroom to improve their knowledge or understanding of English. In the teaching bilinguals even if you're not one video Ms. Ballantyne-Berry used graphic novels to help students, in a sense, express who they are and be proud of who they are. Your question of can translanguage be used in content specific classes by monolingual teachers? I would answer yes to this question. In another blog post I talked about translating. I think that having your students translate parts of history into their own language from the text book can help them understand the complex passages in some history texts that you referred to in your blog post. I think that translating could be something simple but effective to do in your classroom for a monolingual teacher. You could pick out hard words from the text and break them down with your class in English then turn it over to your bilingual students and ask how they would break it down in their language. I think that being able to understand the history text from their language could really help them in the class and improve their understanding of English as well.
ReplyDeleteTorri, I agree with you I love the idea of using translanguaging as often as possible. Teachers make the on the spot decisions all the time to decide what is best for their students in terms of learning, understanding and retention. I can only image history courses would be both fascinating and incredibly confusing for most ELL's with the scholarly language in most textbooks, journals and even videos. English is my first language and I have to admit, I have found myself Googling more than a few words this semester in my college courses. You could make all sorts of fun games to break down word meanings and all students would have fun, so English speaking and ELL's could both greatly benefit from this!
DeleteResponse to question number 3:
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do not have my own classroom in a school yet, I do work at a daycare. We have a Spanish teacher that works with kids of all backgrounds, learning both English and Spanish at very young ages. She does the best she can to incorporate different manipulatives such a flashcards, rhyming poems, and even singing songs. I just listened in on a lesson the other day to a group of 5 year olds learning a song in spanish that was on the tv and it had pictures of what the words in the song meant as they were singing. (Hopefully that makes sense) Then, she played it in English for the Spanish speaking children in the classroom. I really wish that I knew the name of the song so that I could share it with you all.
Rebeccah,
ReplyDeleteReading your blog reminded me of something a history professor told our class when I was an undergrad, "why would we have you memorize names and dates when we have access to google and we can just look it up?" As I reflect, we spent a majority of our time in that class reading primary sources and organizing the data. This type of historical instruction is ideal in a world where everything can be "googled" in a matter of seconds. However, without care this type of instruction can present immense challenges with ELLs. As a history teacher, I don't do enough to help ELLs cope with this time of instruction. At times, I become too reliant on the ELL teacher to help clarify certain concepts. As you mentioned, the English language can be very confusing. I know today there are certain idioms or expressions that are used that I don't even understand. I can't imagine the confusion it must cause to ELLs when they navigate these primary sources. I really like your graphic novel and allowing students to use their native language. I think that is a tremendous way for them to merry the content with their own experiences and understanding. Much better than memorizing names and dates!
Great blog! I have this challenge with my students on a daily basis and I definitely need to make improvements; however, there are ways me and my staff find ways to compensate. One of the activities that I found myself giving my students was a simple vocabulary list for them to go over on a weekly basis. I found a list of words that some education site said were specifically for 8th grade or higher. Now, I'll be honest, I didn't always know some of the words, but I like a challenge, so I used it anyway. I would post the words and definitions and have my students copy them down and then create a story using at least five of the words. There was an issue, that you brought up in your blog: the definitions were full of jargon that was not common language, so it was as confusing as the original word itself. I also, apparently, didn't take into consideration the reading/ELA levels of my students. Even though the majority of them are 16 and older, many of them are reading/writing at a 5th-7th grade level. Now, most of them would do the assignment, but they would ask me, "what is the point of this?"...Sigh....it was a very good question. So now, we try to incorporate the learning of new vocab words in a more receptive and content-specific ways, allowing them to see how these words can be used in their regular conversation. I hope that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteHi Rebeccah,
ReplyDeleteI love your self reflection in this post and your transparency. One thing that stood out to me in the reading as well was the very quote you highlighted in your post: “as the difficulty of the concepts we want students to learn increases, the language that construes those concepts also becomes more complex and distanced from ordinary uses of language.” (Schleppegrell et al., 2004, p. 67) Educators in classroom settings have sooooo much on their plate. Without taking step back and thinking, it can be easy to forget the very thing Schleppegrell highlighted. I like how the readings and videos actually give us tangible practices and techniques that we can be used to combat some of the challenges ELLs face. Allowing students to utilize their home language as much as possible, translanguaging, and even some of the suggestions our peers bring to the table are all great ways to support emergent bilinguals. The first couple weeks of class I remember thinking that a lot of the readings made things sound easy and great, but how can educators really implement practices with frequently changing policies and the lack of support that is often times experienced. The deeper we get into the readings I feel so much more hopeful about the education of all students.