Strategy One: Teacher-Created Visual Aids Description: The strategy I find I employ most often and with the

most confidence is using selfcreated visual aids to help beginner learners grasp vocabulary concepts. In my current placement there is a students whose parents are from the Congo and speak only Swahili. This student moved here only a couple of years ago and is just beginning to grasp the English language. Sometimes, I walk up to her when she is working on a worksheet or something like that, and it is obvious that she does not yet know the vocabulary to complete it. So, to teach her common words like mother, father, My name is, etc., I draw little cartoons in the margins that often feature her in relation to other people (standing next to a father-looking figure, for instance) underneath the vocabulary word to be learned. She seems to love when I do this, because she smiles and laughs as this is going on. I believe it is working because she seems to be doing a little bit better on her worksheets in class. Granted, this is only a start, but its something. Implementation: This was kind of answered above as the strategy is pretty simple. However, when doing this it is important to consider which words youve noticed the student struggling with. These are the words I choose to illustrate for my student. This means being attentive to student learning before and after the illustrations take place to see what is sticking and what is not. Students: This is a strategy that can easily be adapted to other students. As the saying goes, A picture is worth a thousand words, but whoever said that forgot to mention that pictures are worth a thousand words in any language. Therefore, this strategy could be used for any student or any home language. It is especially useful for beginning learners, or anybody that needs a little extra practice. Time: When considering implementing this strategy, time is a consideration. You do not have to be an artist to do this, but it does take a minute or two to draw a clear picture for the students. Still, I think it is worth the time if you think it might work. Strategy Two: TPR (Total Physical Response) Description/Implementation: Another strategy I like to use falls under the Total Physical Response (TPR) umbrella. I worked with a large number of students from east Asian nations (China and South Korea, mostly) this past semester in a Preparation for College Writing course at Michigan State University. The professor that I was working under noticed that many students were having problems with prepositions, both in speech and in writing. We attributed this to the fact that Mandarin, at least, does not use (or might not even have) prepositions, making this concept hard

to grasp for learners. In an attempt to combat this, we came up with a very simple yet effective activity. First, we made a powerpoint to illustrate what exactly a preposition is and how theyre used (basic definition and a few examples of common prepositions). Then, we illustrated the concept with visuals. These visuals contained a picture of an apple on top of a book, or a girl standing next to a boy, or a dog sleeping underneath a kitchen table, etc. My only regret was that we didnt use more humor/visually interesting pictures. Since prepositions are so common, I think we definitely could have been more creative here to make the powerpoint a little more interesting. I ended up trying this activity again a few weeks later and instead of boring pictures of apples on books, I selected personal photos of me being a nerdy kid in high school (i.e. The bored and unhappy girl Im standing next to in this picture is the one I went to prom with). I found that not all humor translates to other cultures, but nonetheless, the students definitely seemed more interested and engaged in the more personal lesson (and I was, too). From there we moved into the next part of the activity: Simon Says. First, I told them how to play Simon Says: When I say Simon Says _________________, you have to complete the action. If you fail to complete the action, complete an action different than what I said, or complete a command that didnt begin with the words Simon Says, then you have to sit down. The last person standing wins. Following these instructions we began to play, with myself as the leader. Mind you, I decided to focus on only five prepositions for each day so that students would not be overwhelmed. I used these same five prepositions in a variety of ways and toward the end of the lesson started using two or more prepositions in the same command sentence to make things a little more interesting. If I were in charge of that class, I might have done this activity randomly throughout the semester so that students would have frequent repeated exposure to the prepositions we were working with. Impact on Students: These were college students, not elementary school kids, and they had a GREAT time. You can really see if the lesson is effective/clear or not because students are standing up and attempting to act out what you are saying to them. If anything is unclear it becomes immediately obvious. Since everybody gets up and gets involved, students did not seem to be self-conscious. Both the introverts and the extraverts were able to excel if they paid attention to the commands. Time: This activity is great because you can spend as little or as much time on it as you want (after the initial instruction day, that is). You can do spend just 20 or so minutes on it for a single class period, you could do it for five minutes per class all semester, or you could just do it every once in a while. If you do it often enough you can have students be Simon and lead the class. This is a great way to check if students are understanding the concepts being taught. If they can lead the activity, you know that you can now make it a little more challenging, or move on to something else because the activity has clearly worked. It also requires no supplies whatsoever: you just need the students to be there.

Strategy Three: Description/Implementation: A third strategy I use when teaching English Language Learners in a mainstream classroom is an adaptation I found from the Colorn Colorado website, which is a resource for teachers of ELLs. This adaptation is pretty simple. You simply highlight or bold the words in your lessons or powerpoint presentations that you are focusing on so that ELLs (and all students) can see them better because they stand out more. For instance, if you are giving a grammar lesson on adjectives, in your examples sentences you should highlight all of the adjectives, making sure that they are all the same color. You could even take this a step farther and highlight all of the different parts of the sentence (verbs, pronouns, etc.) so that students can visually break the sentences down. Going one step farther than this, you can pull out the highlighted adjectives from the sentences and illustrate them. For instance, if your example is The big, red balloon floated over the treetops, highlight the words big, red and show a big red balloon. Then, change the example sentence to The truck-shaped balloon floated over the treetops, this time pulling out and illustrating a truck-shaped balloon. This would help students truly grasp how adjectives can impact a sentence. You could even have the students write their own sentences, highlighting and illustrating their own adjectives as they go. Granted, this activity might work better with beginner learners, but can probably be adapted to other, more advanced, grammatical concepts with a little thought. However, this activity could be of use to all learners who are trying to figure out exactly what an adjective is and how they function in sentences. Impact on Students: This lesson will certainly benefit the visually inclined. I have found that lessons like this really helped me as a learner of languages other than English. I dont think a lot of students would struggle with a lesson like this, especially if you choose to illustrate the adjectives and how they are used in writing and speech. Differentiation: I think that when using visually based strategies it is important to as attentive an instructor as possible. Meaning, if you notice your students, or a large number of them, are struggling with a particular concept, that probably means you need to change your mode of instruction regarding that concept. Therefore, if its not adjectives that the students need work on but say, appositive clauses, you should adjust the lesson accordingly. I think most grammatical concepts (not all, but the parts of speech) could be represented visually and by using visual cues (such as bolding the appositive clause) to benefit students. Time: To prepare this type of strategy you dont necessarily need to invest more time than you usually would. Bolding or highlighting words is obviously an easy adaptation to make, but the drawings could take more time. However, you dont necessarily need to do the drawings yourself. Feel free to use clip art or images found on google. As long as they illustrate the concept it should work.

Strategy Four: Student Grouping Description/Implementation/Rationale: The next strategy I plan to employ in my future classroom is of the affective variety, meaning that it more so appeals to learners emotional state as they learn. This is primarily because I know, having once been in high school, that if you feel uncomfortable or socially awkward, you are far less likely to learn and far more likely to focus on the seemingly terrifying social situation you are in. I believe that for English language learners this can be especially true. It must be odd being in a country where you cannot really understand what people are trying to communicate with you (or about you). In an attempt to address this, I plan on placing ELL students next to students I know will be on the more-friendly and -helpful side. I have seen my mentor teacher do this in my current placement and it seems to be highly beneficial for all of the students involved. My mentor teacher has her classroom set up in such a way that students desks are pushed together in groups of four or five. At one table group near the front of the room she has placed a beginning ELL from Myanmar with a high-intermediate ELL whose parents speak Turkish and Kurdish at home. Whenever the students are assigned group work, both of these students can be seen talking to one another, helping each other out by learning from and teaching one another. At first, the student from Myanmar was very quiet, reserved, and I would say nervous to participate in class. Now, however, he still does not usually participate in full class discussions but he does get his individual and group work done. Not to mention that instead of seeing him standing alone in the hallways between classes like I used to, I now see him and the high-intermediate student running around the halls, being seventh graders with a large group of other seventh grade boys. As a preservice teacher, this is really nice to see because I know that he is getting exposure to low-risk native speaker conversation outside of the classroom and, more importantly, because he seems happy with a group of friends to talk to. He definitely seems more comfortable using English now than he did when I first met him in January. Impact on Students: In the case mentioned above, using this type of strategy has been very beneficial. However, you simply do not know what is going to happen when you choose student groups (or, at least, it seems that way). If a student is really shy, this type of thing would not work as well and you would need to find another way to make sure that this student feels comfortable and is getting a good amount of natural exposure to the target language. Differentiations: I think the best way fix a situation in which students arent getting along as well as you would have liked would be to try a variety of groupings centered around a variety of group related activities. This way, the students are exposed to a lot of different people and ideas and there is a higher chance that the ELL will eventually meet someone that they are comfortable enough with to ask questions and maybe even befriend.

Time: To implement this type of strategy would take no time at all. However, the teacher should put some thought into what the various group dynamics in the classroom will be like as a result of these changes. It may take weeks before the teacher finds a grouping system that works. If I were to do this I would be prepared to make a mistake or two the first time that would have to be addressed. Strategy 5: Teaching English Through Drama Description/Implementation: A strategy that I have not yet tried but have hear about in my LLT 346 class is the concept of teaching the English language through drama. Based on the handout my professor gave us (he may have written it up for us as there is no citation information for the document), it appears that having students get into small groups to close read a passage from a play or even a novel or short story to have them act it out can be effective. Basically, students demonstrate comprehension of the text by briefly acting out what they have read. Conversely, teachers can see what concepts the students are having trouble with based on what they choose to act out. I think this activity could potentially be a lot of fun for students, as well as a great way to learn. I do think that this could be addressed by making sure you are using a text of appropriate complexity, and also by fostering an accepting learning community. Accepting learning communities do not happen over night, of course, but if that is something you have been working on all year, you might not have anything to worry about. I also think that having ELLs work in these drama groups with native speakers to problem solve is a good way to ensure that they are getting the exposure to the target language that they really need to succeed. Impact on Students: I can see a few potential speed bumps that might get in the way of this activity, the most glaring of which might be stage fright. I can foresee some students, perhaps especially ELLs, not being comfortable getting up in front of a room of their peers and acting out something in English. Differentiation: I do think that this could be addressed by making sure you are using a text of appropriate complexity, and also by fostering an accepting learning community. Accepting learning communities do not happen over night, of course, but if that is something you have been working on all year, you might not have anything to worry about. Time: For an activity like this, time is definitely a consideration. Again, depending on how large a chunk of text youd like them tackle, this could take anywhere from around half an hour to two or three class periods. Obviously, you would have to plan accordingly. The longer and more complex the text you want them to act out, the more time they will need to do a good job with it. While I am not even close to being an actor myself, I think I would give this strategy a try in the future.