Issues in Addressing The Needs of English Language Learners in Context of Science

1. Issues in Addressing The Needs of English Language Learners in Context of Science Yolanda De La Cruz Arizona State University Presented at Claremont Graduate University November 17, 2007

2. The Big Picture What are you are striving to accomplish? • Academic gains in science • English language proficiency • Enrich English learners science academic language in the native language • Close the Achievement Gap • Increase the percentage of English learners that obtain a High School diploma

3. High School Exit Exam • Nearly 40,000 seniors from the Class of 2006 did not pass the exit exam.

4. Numbers of Teachers in the California Workforce .

5. Public School Enrollment, 1990 to 2015

6. .

7. Persistent Inequities . Distribution of Interns, by School-Level Percentage of Minority Students, 2005-06 • Intern teachers are maldistributed– 75% of interns are assigned to high minority schools. • Only 25% of interns are assigned to low minority schools.

8. Students in the lowest performing schools are the most likely to get novice and underprepared teachers.

9. Underprepared First- and Second-Year Mathematics and Science Teachers, 2005-06

10. Number of Underprepared Teachers by Credential Type .

11. What Do These Graphs Mean? • Persistent gap in academic achievement between Caucasian students and those from culturally and linguistically diverse groups: • Many teachers are underprepared to make content comprehensible for ELs. • Few teachers trained to teach initial literacy or content-area literacy to secondary ELs. • ELs are tested in mathematics and reading under No Child Left Behind; and in 2007-08, tests in science have been added to the battery of assessments they must take.

12. Components of Science • Life Sciences-focuses on the characteristics of living things, their structure and functions, and their relationships. • Physical Science-focuses on matter and energy. • Earth Science-focuses on astronomy and the contents and structure of the universe. • Scientific Processes-focuses on the use of scientific procedures such as observation, classification, description, hypothesis testing, measurement and data collection.

13. Description of Science Curriculum • Typically cumulative with increasing complexity. • Includes life, physical, and earth sciences and scientific processes. • In lower grades all sciences are covered in one year; in upper grades typically one science is given in a year-long course. • Textbook language becomes denser and more decontextualized as grade level increases.

14. What’s Different in Science for English Learners? • Discourse structure may be vary different from students’ previous English experience. • Grammatical forms and structures in textbooks becomes increasingly complex. • All four academic language skills are required. • Scientific misunderstandings are remarkably persistent. • Study skills are similar to those in language arts and social studies.

15. Importance of Addressing The Needs of English Learners • Most ELLs need 4-7 years to learn English before they reach average academic performance levels. • As ELLs, they are by definition not proficient. • But they are tested before they are proficient in English.

16. The following example from a high school biology textbook, Invitation to Biology, illustrates the vocabulary density that students must contend with: The members of the kingdom Monera, the prokaryotes, are identified on the basis of their unique cellular organization and biochemistry. Members of the kingdom Protista are single-celled eukaryotes, both autorophs and heterotrohps.

17. Sections that Promote Science Excellence For English Learners 1. Learning Atmosphere & Physical Environment 2. Instructional Practices 3. Science Content & Curriculum 4. Language Practices 5. Family & Community Involvement 6. Assessment of Student Learning

18. 1. Learning Atmosphere & Physical Environment • A caring classroom atmosphere of mutual respect and support is facilitated by the teacher who: • Knows each child as an individual, • Embraces languages, customs, and cultures of ELL students, • Provides culturally rich learning materials, • Encourages self-expression and provides positive recognition, • Builds student confidence and esteem, • Fosters an emotionally safe environment that allows students to feel secure and to take risks.

19. 1. Learning Atmosphere & Physical Environment cont….. • The classroom is visually rich to support student learning • Incorporates displays of student produced work, whenever possible, • Is colorful and thought stimulating, • Contains pertinent, real-world information and applications, • Reinforces math-specific vocabulary and concepts, • Provides color-coded learning supports when appropriate. • Room arrangement facilitates student interaction and group work.

20. 2. Instructional Practices • Instructional practices foster cooperation and collaboration. • Concepts are presented accurately, logically, and in engaging ways. • Multiple representations incorporate science learning levels: concrete, semi-concrete, and abstract.

21. 2. Instructional Practices cont. • The teacher employs student-centered instructional practices. • Approaches content from a concept-oriented constructivist method, • Surrounds students with different modalities, • Connects new concepts to prior learning or prior knowledge, • Encourages students to refine and reflect about their own work and verbalize concept understanding “in their own words”, • Chooses homework to optimize individual content development, • Provides extra help and resources on an individual basis.

22. Activities for eliciting students’ prior knowledge about a science concept include brainstorming, making semantic maps, starting K-W-L Charts, and making visual representations. • Visual representations might include drawing steps of a process or even imagining and then recording an experience related to a science topic(e.g., imagining yourself traveling through the solar system). • All of these activities can be organized as whole class, individual, or cooperative group activities. • It is important for students to record in words (written, oral, recorded), graphs, or drawings, the understanding of the science concepts they bring to the learning.

23. Contextualize to Subject Matter Scaffolds Activity Task: Think-Pair-Share (bridging, schema building) Write the following sentence stem for all to see. Take two minutes to jot down a few notes in response: When I see or hear the word “periodic table,” I think…. Share your responses with a partner.

24. 2. Instructional Practices cont. • Students are frequently partnered with peer learners to enhance learning opportunities. • To develop science content, • To aid English language development, • To insure sustained active participation in the class, • To welcome new students into an established learning community.

25. All students have prior knowledge about the world which has been gained through daily living and observation. Even young children understand there is a relationship between dark storm clouds and rain, and that when water is heated it boils and changes into steam. But their explanations of many scientific phenomena often verge on the magical, because of a naïve understanding of scientific principles. They have an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of the scientific • This naïve understanding can be so strong that it overrides scientific explanations of science, teachers can help them identify and write down their prior understandings of a scientific phenomena, then revise what they have written in light of discoveries made by participating in hands-on inquiry.

26. 2. Instructional Practices cont. • Instructional activities are varied and support diverse learning styles and multiple intelligences, including for instance: • Frequent use of models, • Music as a motivator and anchor, • Mind maps, poster-walks, and word walls • Key vocabulary and cognates presented in different forms, • Vivid adjectives, • Graphic organizers.

27. Graphic Organizers Description-test describes or defines information Organizers-webs, features charts, comparison charts Enumeration-text lists information about several related items, (e.g., events, characters, objects) and provides supporting evidence or details Organizers-tree diagrams, branch diagrams, webs, outlines, comparison charts Comparison-contrast-text comments on similarities and differences among facts, people, events, and uses comparative adjectives and transitional markers (e.g, “on the one hand…on the other,” “both…only one”) Organizers-Venn diagrams, comparisons Chronological or sequential-text organized in a time sequence and uses temporal markers, such as dates, prepositional phrases of time, sequence words (e.g., first, next, then) Organizers-timelines, story summaries Cause-effect-text describes cause-effect reactions, how one thing occurs as the result of another and uses causative words (e.g., so, as a result, therefore) Organizers-flow charts, sequence chains, and cycles Problem-solution-text presents a problem, and one or more solutions, word choice relates to options, alternatives, consequences, and results Organizers-decision-making diagrams, semantic maps

28. Compare and Contrast Different Alike Different

29. Sequence or Chronological

30. Cause and Effect Effect Effect Effect Effect Implications

31. Problem/Solution . Possible Solution Possible Solution Problem Possible Solution Possible Solution Solution

32. Four Square Lab Report Question proposed: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Materials: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________

33. Periodic Table Activity 1. In a Think-Pair-Share grouping, answer the questions from the proceeding slides 2. Does the simplified language “dummy-down” the learning? 3. Why or why not? 4. Website for science Power Points http://science.pppst.com/index.html

35. Vertically into Groups Horizontally Into Periods Elements are arranged:

36. Why?

37. If you looked at one atom of every element in a group you would see…

38. Each atom has the same number of electrons in it’s outermost shell. • An example…

39. The group 2 atoms all have 2 electrons in their outer shells Be (Beryllium) Atom Mg (Magnesium) Atom

40. Chunking Example • Each group has distinct properties • The Periodic Table is divided into several groups based on the properties of different atoms. • Highlight the sections you are studying within the periodic Table.

41. 3. Science Content & Curriculum • Glossary of science terms is always available for reference. • English-Spanish Dictionary or Math Glossary http://www.mathnotes.com/aw_span_gloss.html http://math2.org/math/spanish/eng-spa.htm • Content is aligned to appropriate grade-level, science content standards and professional standards. • Content is based on diagnosed student needs.

42. 3. Science Content & Curriculum cont…. • Content is systematically designed to incorporate sound learning principles. • To incorporate increased complexity, • To present a cohesive big-picture through chunking, • To connect concepts through bridging and scaffolding, • To emphasize multidisciplinary understandings, • To reflect on inherent patterns by comparing and contrasting concepts.

43. 3.Science Content & Curriculum cont…. • Curriculum is challenging, relevant, age-appropriate, and well-paced • To include contextually-based problems, • To incorporate student realities, • To involve interactive problem solving.

44. Integrate Learning Strategy Instruction(Handout-How to Teach Strategies for the Steps of the Scientific Method)) • Ask the Question/Identify the Problem. • Make A Hypothesis. • Collect Data. • Record Data. • Answer the Question/Solve the Problem.

45. 4. Language Practices • Language support is offered without supplanting English instruction. • Support is aligned with student’s diagnosed language needs. • Language used is appropriate to age and grade level and presented in a socially meaningful context. • Science-specific vocabulary is explicitly and implicitly taught and reinforced through repetition.

46. Science Activities Can Include: • Demonstrations • Observations • Structured discussions • Exploration of scientific phenomena • Gathering and organizing data • Systematic experimentation

47. These activities provide practice in the process of science which are as important in science instruction as the conceptual basis of scientific knowledge. • Practicing scientific processes allows students to act like scientists in systematically investigating a problem or phenomena. • Observation is the basic process used in conducting scientific inquiry. • Other important science processes are classifying, measuring, communicating, predicting, and inferring. • More complex processes include controlling variables, interpreting data, making hypotheses, defining operationally, and investigating through experimentation. • Science processes require active engagement of students’ minds and many also lend themselves to hand-on activities.

48. Lab Reports • In addition to practicing science processes, students need hand-on experiences in scientific expermentation, an essential part of the scientific method. • The information should be included in the students’ lab reports on the experiment. The steps of the scientific method can be used to prompt students to conduct their experiments and record their observations accuratley. • Lab report templates http://www.see-n-believe.com/prolab/index.htm

49. 4. Language Practices cont…. • Teachers are knowledgeable about the second language acquisition theories and best practices. • Ideally, dual language instructional support should be offered. • When dual language teachers are not available, sheltered instruction should be utilized to provide strong language support by addressing content through ESL.

50. What can you do? • Visuals • Realia • Collaborative interactions Partners or small groups Water Cycle Fossils