Instructional Plan -Jose

Biliteracy Blog:  Instructional Plan for José

Oral:  In order to increase José’s English vocabulary, I will continue to explicitly teach awareness and identification of cognates.  Given that between 30-40% of Spanish words have a related pair word in English (Colorín Colorado), this is an enormous support for Spanish-dominant ELLs and serves to boost vocabulary in all three domains.  The teaching of cognates, words with similar 1) meaning, 2) pronunciation, and 3) spelling, goes hand in hand with word study, as well, since parallels can be drawn among parts of speech, suffixes and spelling, for example. 

José is currently completing his “identity text”  (along with his Nepalese and Chinese classmates in Newcomers Class).  Students learned eleven concepts relating to identity, including identity, gender, ethnicity, nationality, clan, culture, traditions, religion, symbols, history and politics.  They learned how to define, say and write these words in their native language and in English.  They used their own words to define the concepts and illustrated the concepts with drawings and “identity boxes”.  José was surprised to find that “ethnicity, nationality and identity” translated as “etnicidad, nacionalidad and identidad”.  Students can learn that the endings –ity translate into –dad and that they are all feminine nouns.  Thus, the explicit teaching of cognates is very important because it not only provides an immediate boost to vocabulary, it also offers an opportunity to study suffixes and parts of speech, for example.

I will also continue teaching vocabulary using the Heinle picture dictionary and assessing its use through written and oral practice. 

I will also provide other opportunities for oral practice (show and tell, for example) and story re-tell, which the students love.  Students will be filmed on Tuesday as they present their “identity boxes” (concept from James Cummins.)  I will continue to use the WIDA CAN DO descriptors to inform my choice of oral language activities.

Reading:  Spanish Language Arts students will have ample opportunities to identify and list cognate pairs in context (in the final chapter of Cajas de Cartón)  Students will also continue to study the preterite and the imperfect tenses, the accent rules and difficult aspects of spelling (c/s/z, b/v, and y/ll in the context of Cajas and in the context of the upcoming Concurso de Delitreo.  In English (Newcomers), José will read carefully-selected fiction and non-fiction, and I will ask students to help me select from the books I have prepared (Knutson, CAL Digests, Dec. 1998). José and his classmates will do a lot of guided reading, and I will scaffold very carefully in terms of group placement, text selection (natural language, pre-teaching), my introduction of the book and my prompts.  I will also provide opportunities for post-reading expressive output (re-tell, writing a story ending or illustration, for example.)  José’s reading is developing well.  He just needs more practice.  Jose does not require practice in terms of phonemic awareness or sight words.  I assessed him in these areas, and he has tested out of these activities.  I will also use BrainPOP ESL to scaffold my reading instruction in the areas of grammar and syntax.

Writing:  Jose’s Spanish writing has improved considerably, which I observed in the Spanish part of his bilingual book which forms part of his ”identity text”.  José and his classmates still need considerable practice in accents.  They are working on recognizing “aguda, llave, esdrujula and sobreesdrujula words”, and José is beginning to apply these rules to his spelling as he prepares for the Spanish Spelling Bee. 

As part of the writing process during the identity text process, he and I had writing conferences and talked about discourse patterns and the placement of periods.  We also talked about consistency in grammatical tense while writing.

The research emphasizing the importance of learning as a social exercise (Vygotsky, 1978) and the metatalk in the target language generated by collaborative writing exercises (Swain, Lapkin, 1998)  The Language Related Episodes that are produced contribute to both linguistic and cognitive development, something I have observed in my Spanish Language Arts class as students construct, deduce and infer  meaning in Cajas de Carton.  Once meaning has been constructed, understood and expressed, students undertake word study (cognate identification, imperfect/preterite, sorting according to accent rule (aguda, grave, etc.)  Students do all of this collaboratively, and they learn a great deal from each other as they share their knowledge and ideas.  There are many “AHA!” moments.    Fortune (2001) continued this research (CARLA, Maximizing Language Growth), and I will definitely use the model lesson plan provided on the bill of rights.  This model lesson plan is cross-curricular, thorough and fascinating!  I will use this model extensively throughout my upcoming Social Studies unit (Spanish Language Arts).

As for English writing in Newcomers, I will continue to use BrainPOP ESL as a scaffold and teaching tool to teach usage and syntax.  I will assign writing in response to the books we select in accordance with the WIDA CAN DO indicators.  José can do Level 3 activities now, so I will continue to challenge him and make it fun.  I will also continue to use the writing method, including pre-writing mini-lessons and conferences, to ensure that students use revision and correction to improve their writing.  I will continue to use cognates and word study to help Jose bridge from Spanish to English, while reminding him of the distinct discourse patterns, syntax and usage specific to English.