Factors That Have a Positive Influence on English Language Acquisition:

Listen to teacher, Amber Prentice, as she describes several strategies she uses to welcome English language learners!     http://bcove.me/jm5g8fsu

Facilitate Morning Meetings - daily gatherings where adults and students join together.  There are 4 components:  

Greeting Students and teachers greet one other by name.
Sharing Students share information about important events in their lives. Listeners offer empathetic comments or ask clarifying questions.
Group Activity Everyone participates in a brief, lively activity that fosters group cohesion (for example, reciting a poem, dancing, singing, or playing a game that reinforces social or academic skills).
Morning Message Students read a short message written by their teacher. The message is crafted to help students focus on the work they'll do in school that day.

Create a WELCOMING school community:

• All staff is aware of and understands the process for receiving English language learners and their families.
• There is a school reception team (e.g., administrator, office administrative assistant, ESL/ELD teacher, interpreter, and settlement worker, where available).
• Families are informed about the necessary documentation for school registration. 
•  There is a designated, comfortable place for the family and reception team to meet and share information.
• Ample time is dedicated for the intake interview and for orientation information about school and basic routines. 
•  There is access to competent adult interpreters who can assist parents and help them fill out forms.
• Multilingual signs, in the languages of the community, are visible in the school.
• There are efforts to build cross-cultural understandings. 
•  Information is available in a variety of languages about community resources (e.g., libraries, community centres, adult ESL classes, places of worship, cultural organizations).
• Parents are regularly invited into the classrooms and the school to celebrate student work.
• Space is provided for families to gather if possible (e.g., a room to sit, drink coffee or tea, and read announcements in home languages or meet fellow parents).
• Create a student ambassador program to orient the new students to the school.

Supporting English Language Learners in Grades 1 to 8

English Language Learners in Ontario Schools

 

Who are English language learners (ELLs)?

• Students enrolled in provincially funded English language schools whose first language is a language other than English.
• Typically, English language learners require focused attention and additional supports to assist them in attaining proficiency in English.
• English language learners can be born in Canada or they may be students who have recently arrived from other countries.  
• Students in Ontario schools speak more than 200 different languages
• About 20% of Ontario's students in English-language elementary schools are English language students (EQAO, 2005-6)
• 58 % of this group were born in Canada (EQAO, 2005-6)
• It takes more than 5 years for English language learners, both immigrant and Canadian-born, to catch up to their English speaking peers (EQAO, 2005-6)

Key Differences Between Everyday Language and Academic Language

Everyday language proficiency includes:	Academic language proficiency includes:
The ability to maintain a face-to-face conversation with peers and with a variety of school personnel in various settings, inside and outside of the classroom	The ability to understand when there is less opportunity for interaction (e.g. when listening to a presentation or reading a textbook)
The ability to talk, read, or write about familiar content or about what is happening here and now	The ability to talk, read, and write about content that has fewer connections to prior learning or personal experience, is more abstract and is more distant in time or space (e.g. learning about Canadian provinces)
Knowledge about basic vocabulary/high frequency words such as old, food, tired, cares	Knowledge of more sophisticated, low frequency words such as ancient, nutrition, fatigued, vehicles
The ability to use simple sentences and the active voice such as 'We heated the water until it boiled.'	The ability to use more complex sentences and grammatical structures such as ‘When the water was heated to the boiling point, a thermometer was used to measure the temperature.’

Supporting English Language Learners in Grades 1 – 8 (Ontario, 2008)

Stages of Cultural Accommodation

In the same way that ELLs go through stages of English language learning, they may also pass through stages of cultural accommodation. These stages, however, may be less defined and more difficult to notice. Being aware of these stages may help you to better understand "unusual" actions and reactions that may just be part of adjusting to a new culture.

• Euphoria: ELLs may experience an initial period of excitement about their new surroundings.
• Culture shock: ELLs may then experience anger, hostility, frustration, homesickness, or resentment towards the new culture.
• Acceptance: ELLs may gradually accept their different surroundings.
• Assimilation/adaptation: ELLs may embrace and adapt to their surroundings and their "new" culture.   http://www.colorincolorado.org

 

Here we meet again!

Greetings everyone! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This semester you will have an opportunity to blog about three new areas of exceptionality:

• Special Health Care Needs  
• Neurological Disorders
• Severe & Multiple Disabilities· 

In addition, I will be blogging about English Language Learners and Students identified as gifted, creative and/or talented. 

 

The expectations for each entry are the same as before.  You will however be forming new teams!  As a reminder, the blog entries are listed below:

 

One – Definitions, Prevalence, Categories, Etiology  

Two – Assessment

Three – Intervention (medical, therapy, educational)

Important Notes

1. The first hour of several classes will be spent in the computer lab.  Students are expected to work collaboratively on their blog entries during this time.
2. Information is to be gathered first from the two course textbooks and supplemented with other reliable, Canadian sources.