Evaluation & Sustainability - Term 2 2018

How will you sustain the habits that are promoting success
for your students in Term 2?

Sentence Frame - Continue to use this twice a week. I believe that
maybe twice a week is enough because my students need to
have an opportunity to create their own story using their own words.
This is going to be interesting, but I would like to give them an
opportunity to take risks as well.

Phonemic Awareness - I love this strategy. My students love this, too.
Children's writing show that they love writing because they are able
to write down something for their ideas. Clapping of hands is a very
good tool to use especially for the little ones - its interacting and fun.

Cut-Up Sentence - For all my new entrants, this is how I teach them
how to write a sentence. It teaches them the directionality, the punctuation,
the capital letters, holding an idea in the head for a while before recording,
and other things. I feel like that I don't need to teach those goals individually
because it is covered by cut-up sentence.

Rub Off Dictation - Helps chn to hold information in their head for
a while before recording it down. I do this every day and it will continue
just like that in Term 3.

What did you learn as a teacher / what surprised you? (Term 2)

I knew that TESSOL strategies help but doing/using them in class
really made me see how chn enjoy having fun in their learning. All
of the above strategies have contributed a lot to chn's great
improvement in their writing.

How will you transfer your new learning to other students
/ curriculum areas? (in Term 3)

I use Sentence-Frame in Maths - it helps chn in learning new language
in Maths.
eg. Sione is taller than .....

Clapping to hear dominant sounds in an unknown word helps chn to
be confident in their own writing.

Cut Up Sentences - for all new entrants!

I have been a Reading Recovery teacher for some times and what really amazed me was the using of cut-up-sentence. The sequencing of words to create a meaningful thought along with searching for visual information, I thought was very powerful and a very simple activity to be used in class. 

According to Reading Recovery teachers, cut-up-sentence is also use to teach phrasing and fluency. And I think this is perfect for our ESOL students because it helps them to practice saying foreign language multiple times. 

HUNCH
Will using of cut-up-sentence (with ipads) everyday increase new learners' confidence to create a meaningful story, and help with phrasing and fluency of their reading?

How am I going to do this?
In a small group of 5 during writing I will ask each child to compose a story (one or two sentences) then I will assist the child if needed to complete the story.

I will then write the sentence on a piece of paper while the child watches.

Next, I would cut the sentence up (word by word) while the child watches.

Then I will scramble the words, and the child reassembles the sentence.

Give the child his book to stick his work in and draw pictures. Remind the child to keep reading his work or maybe rewrite his story down (this might help increases his vocabulary knowledge).

These are short video clips of what I have done in class last week. The sentence that they are reassembling is a short shared story that we have created. I thought if I would start off with using their shared story would be a good practice.

The person above is very confident with reassembling his story. (The story was rubbed off from the board)

The child above was also confident in doing so. But as you can hear, they need lots of this in order to improve phrasing and fluency in reading.

Because they are in a group of three, they can easily be helping each other as you can see in this video.

Cut Up Sentences

Goal:  

I will use  these TESSOL strategies (4, 3, 2 & vanishing cloze & cut up sentences & IOL) to scaffold student talk & writing for student to create and share independently.

 

One of the stories that students had to create while in the photo talk session in IOL.

IOL  lifts the quality of student talk in class - some students begin to elaborate their sentence or their idea.

Some students are beginning to show confidence in leading a conversation or a group discussion - I believe this happens because how much information and vocabs being introduced to them through IOL.

Cut up sentences is something to continue because students are learning about features of a sentence, new words and build confidence towards writing a story independently.

I have noticed that all my target students have improved their abilities to write. They are all able to hold their ideas in their head for a while before recording it.