Developing Social and Academic Oral Skills
A primary goal of English language instruction for English Language Learners (ELLs) is to become proficient at communication, which encompasses all aspects of language use. Language usage consists of both receptive (i.e., listening and reading) and productive (i.e., speaking and writing) skills. Receptive skills are those strategies language users employ to decode the text for meaning; whereas productive skills are those routines language users practice to give expression of meaning to others through various formats, under specific conditions, and for a variety of purposes. For this entry, I have incorporated two artifacts that are useful to my ability to become a more culturally responsive educator.
As a mainstream classroom teacher of ELLs, I am responsible for helping ELLs develop their communicative competence through the four pathways of communication - listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull (2008) have argued that classroom management is deeply interconnected with classroom culture in that it is a cognitive approach to shaping how communication is set up to exchange, share, and mobilize knowledge among students and teachers. According to these researchers, classroom management is "the set of strategies that teachers and students use to ensure a productive, harmonious learning environment to prevent disruptions in the learning process." Such disruptions may include off-task behaviour, inefficiencies, and lack of clarity over classroom routines, including transitions, roles, and use of materials. A deeper understanding of classroom management takes us to consider the pedagogical values that are held and how these inform and shape decision-making with and among the students. Both Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbell (2008) found that from their pool of study participants the majority of the self-reported immigrant Latino-teachers and students espoused collectivist values. These values refer to practices like taking action for the wellbeing and health of the group, family, and/or community; seeking self-realization through cooperation and interdependence; demonstrating a social orientation through respect, modesty, and social intelligence. Interestingly, these researchers note that approximately 70% of the world's culture expressively aligns itself with a collectivist vision and through corresponding practice. Countries like United States, Australia, Western Europe, and Canada more closely associate with individualist values, including core priorities like becoming able to demonstrate individual resiliency, independence, and self-esteem. As an educator of ELL, there is a high probability that these students bring with them a collectivist orientation to their learning experience, so supporting the language development of English through cooperative, mutually accountable strategies of teaching and learning practice would well position me as a culturally responsive educator.
While Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbell (2008) have introduced the observation that ELLs carry with them deeply embedded cultural values that inform and shape their abilities to understand curricular topics, interact with peers and teachers, and develop further skill proficiencies within the classroom environment, the issue about how to address these cultural values and build upon them through the perspective of the students' strengths was not clearly addressed. So my attention has turned to another artifact that helps with this emergent pedagogical problematic. Jennifer Himmel (2012) provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels. Similar to the usage of content objectives or specific expectations gleaned from curricula documents, the creation and design of language objective or expectations can help make visible the implicit linguistic demands placed on all learners who along the way to demonstrating a skill, knowledge, or ability also at the same time exhibit English language competencies. In the words of Himmel (2012), language objectives:
articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).
are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.
Language objectives encompass the four areas of communication - listening, speaking, reading, and writing - so when translating a content objective into a language objective there is need to make explicit how the students are to demonstrate accomplishment of the content objective through expression of language skills. Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners in the following video:
I find this pedagogical strategy very helpful to my lesson conception, design, delivery, reflection, and revisions. I have since used the practice of designing language objectives in my lessons and have found it has led to more customized scaffolded support in relation to all students, not only ELLs.