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.

Check Point #1: After 3 weeks of using 'sentence frame' to help my students improve their paritcipation in writing.

What exactly happened in class with my students?

During oral discussions with students about a particular topic or whatever, I provided a sentence frame for them to use as a starter. Often students talk but not in a sentence, it would be in one word or couple of words and that's all. Using 'sentence frame' was to help my students to talk more and increase confidence to write more as well.

How did I do it in class?

As I mentioned above, I provided the chn with a sentence frame most of the time during whole class/group discussions. I wrote the sentence frame on a piece of paper and read it to the chn and then we read it together. I gave them an example before I let them start talking.

1. Talk with a pair (Teacher listens to each pair - sometimes add on or prompt for more info)
2. Everyone shares back their story - sometimes I make them share what their partner has said. (using the sentence frame provided of course)
3. Get their book and start writing down their ideas after forming their own sentence.

                                                      

Critique (Pros & Con)

- it was really helpful especially with scaffolding oral language and writing skills.

- anyone in class benefited from using of sentence frame (ESOL or not)

- I think, sentence frame could be used at any time such as in Maths - for learning new mathematical language to explain thinking. (I will be using sentence frame in Maths and other areas, too) - will talk about that later.

- definitely increased students talk, participation, and confidence (independent writers)

- only one con that I think of now - ie. sentence frame could limit the ability of a child to be creative and write what they want to. (One boy in my class can talk without sentence frames but he often wants to copy others in class.)

Final Thought
I think overall, sentence frame really helped my students to be creative and enable them to add more information to their story. I think my students were grateful to have sentence frames as a guide to help them get started with their talk and writing.

Next Step:

support students to hear and record sounds by clapping hands, and using jingles and rhymes for 20 minutes every day. I have noticed that most students stopped writing when come across a word that they don't know. Their confidence to hear and record sounds is very limited.

Sentence Frame - helping students to write.

Term 2 - 2018

It is a common scene in many classrooms especially at the junior levels, students sit and stare at a black paper because they were asked to write and don't know how to start or they can't think of the right words to use.

In my class, not only that I have students who are 5 yrs old, but most students' first language is not English. They haven't had enough experiences to be able to speak with confident. Wether students are asked to write a story, answer questions, or practice vocabulary words, many have difficulty figuring out how to start writing.

Therefore, I decide to use sentence frame to help them improve the quality of their talk and hopefully lead on to an improvement in the quality of their writing.

My hunch therefore for the next four weeks is:

Will using sentence frame increases quality talk and writing of my students?

https://youtu.be/f3rXwstobh8

I found this video and I know that there are lots out there about sentence frame, but I like this one becuase it specifically talks about how sentence frame scaffolds the development of the Enlish Language Learner.