How to teach books?
August 18, 2016 12:10 PM Subscribe
Help me be as good a (low-level, ESL) literature teacher as I can!
Hi y'all,
So I'm beginning a new job this fall, as a (full-time!) ESL teacher at a private high school. I'm super excited and super terrified - I'm transitioning from a glorified adjunct at a small college, so this will be a big change for me. One of the classes I am teaching is a very low-level literature class. I was given a reading list and some vague literacy guidelines to meet, but otherwise I have just a few weeks to try to put together a class. I love literature and I've been teaching ESL for a while, but I've never actually taught literature to non-native speakers. What are some tips and tricks for helping lower-level kids understand and succeed with these books? Do I use tons of games and movies? Daily vocabulary quizzes? Longer-term projects? Do I structure things around unit tests? I myself am just a walking ball of literary enthusiasm, so I've got to think carefully about how to teach people who are probably ... not like that.
(Bonus points if you can also work in advice about how to pull this off amidst the stress and anxiety that I am bound to feel during my first year.) :)
Thanks, as always!
Hi y'all,
So I'm beginning a new job this fall, as a (full-time!) ESL teacher at a private high school. I'm super excited and super terrified - I'm transitioning from a glorified adjunct at a small college, so this will be a big change for me. One of the classes I am teaching is a very low-level literature class. I was given a reading list and some vague literacy guidelines to meet, but otherwise I have just a few weeks to try to put together a class. I love literature and I've been teaching ESL for a while, but I've never actually taught literature to non-native speakers. What are some tips and tricks for helping lower-level kids understand and succeed with these books? Do I use tons of games and movies? Daily vocabulary quizzes? Longer-term projects? Do I structure things around unit tests? I myself am just a walking ball of literary enthusiasm, so I've got to think carefully about how to teach people who are probably ... not like that.
(Bonus points if you can also work in advice about how to pull this off amidst the stress and anxiety that I am bound to feel during my first year.) :)
Thanks, as always!
In terms of teaching vocabulary, one thing I find helpful is having the students generate their own vocab lists. Instead of you going through and trying to guess what they don't know, assign them hw of just going through a few pages of the book and looking for unfamiliar words. Have them keep a personal dictionary with their own definitions.
Expect to spend a huge chunk of time on just the vocabulary.
One thing it's important to keep in mind when grading is what you're teaching. Don't get sucked into correcting every spelling and grammar mistake if you're looking for comprehension of the book's theme, for example.
posted by Trifling at 9:18 PM on August 18, 2016
Expect to spend a huge chunk of time on just the vocabulary.
One thing it's important to keep in mind when grading is what you're teaching. Don't get sucked into correcting every spelling and grammar mistake if you're looking for comprehension of the book's theme, for example.
posted by Trifling at 9:18 PM on August 18, 2016
I taught literature in an ELD setting for several years at the high school level. And frankly? It doesn't really work.
The thing I did that worked best was Romeo & Juliet. We used multiple movie versions and a graphic novel adaptation. Even then, I'm not sure I'd do it again, even though many of my students got something out of it. I also had success with (I think a simplified? version of) Esperanza Rising, but only with the girls; high school boys weren't super into it.
Full disclosure: I don't like teaching literature to ANY students. I taught high school English for ten years, and I think I did the best possible version of teaching literature. But it didn't work well. We did all the reading in class (which is required to actually get all students to read). I provided audio versions of all texts (YouTube has a surprising number of audio books. Ask me about the 40k people who have listened to me reading the first chapter of Great Gatsby aloud in my classroom).
Here's what I do instead of teaching literature in a traditional way:
--Skill-driven practice using very short texts. I start with SWBST (somebody, wanted, but, so then), then move to character motivation (what is he thinking? How do you know?) then conflict and plot structure, then protagonist/antagonist, then literary terms, etc. I use Simon's Cat mostly, because they are 90 seconds-ish and kids like them. We did four of those today in my class. Best of all: NO WORDS. They can access the story without dealing with difficult vocabulary
--Once they master a skill (takes between 10-30 of each skill), move to a longer video text. I love Jim Henson's The Storyteller (fairy tales, Greek myths).
--Use a combination of the movie versions and short passages of the text to aid comprehension. Always start with the movie. Graphic novels are better than written text.
--Let students read what they want, and have them use that to practice literary analysis skills. They can make projects and present to the class on what they're reading. Book groups are also good.
I would also explicitly teach vocabulary, but I'd focus on the Kate Kinsella's methods, especially the academic vocabulary.
Whatever you do, PLEASE PLEASE do NOT send ELD students home with a text to read. That is taking one of the hardest tasks they have to do and taking away the resources they need to understand it - you, their peers, class dictionaries, a quiet learning environment, etc. - means making their work so much more difficult and frustrating. Same with writing. Do all of that in class. Always. It's also more equitable; not all students are able to study at home, for whatever reason. So if something is required, do it in class.
Trifling's advice about choosing an area of focus when you grade is SO important. I wish someone had told me that marking Every. Single. Mistake. was a big fat waste of my time and my students' time. They didn't read it, and obviously didn't learn from it. It took me so long to mark things that the kids had forgotten what we were learning when they did that assignment. The key is immediate feedback.
Please email me (address is in my profile) if you have questions or want to talk through any of this. I can also point you towards other appropriate short videos to use in class.
And good luck! In my first few years, it helped me to remember that I always knew at least a little more than my students. And if I didn't know something, that's what the internet was for. :-)
posted by guster4lovers at 9:57 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
The thing I did that worked best was Romeo & Juliet. We used multiple movie versions and a graphic novel adaptation. Even then, I'm not sure I'd do it again, even though many of my students got something out of it. I also had success with (I think a simplified? version of) Esperanza Rising, but only with the girls; high school boys weren't super into it.
Full disclosure: I don't like teaching literature to ANY students. I taught high school English for ten years, and I think I did the best possible version of teaching literature. But it didn't work well. We did all the reading in class (which is required to actually get all students to read). I provided audio versions of all texts (YouTube has a surprising number of audio books. Ask me about the 40k people who have listened to me reading the first chapter of Great Gatsby aloud in my classroom).
Here's what I do instead of teaching literature in a traditional way:
--Skill-driven practice using very short texts. I start with SWBST (somebody, wanted, but, so then), then move to character motivation (what is he thinking? How do you know?) then conflict and plot structure, then protagonist/antagonist, then literary terms, etc. I use Simon's Cat mostly, because they are 90 seconds-ish and kids like them. We did four of those today in my class. Best of all: NO WORDS. They can access the story without dealing with difficult vocabulary
--Once they master a skill (takes between 10-30 of each skill), move to a longer video text. I love Jim Henson's The Storyteller (fairy tales, Greek myths).
--Use a combination of the movie versions and short passages of the text to aid comprehension. Always start with the movie. Graphic novels are better than written text.
--Let students read what they want, and have them use that to practice literary analysis skills. They can make projects and present to the class on what they're reading. Book groups are also good.
I would also explicitly teach vocabulary, but I'd focus on the Kate Kinsella's methods, especially the academic vocabulary.
Whatever you do, PLEASE PLEASE do NOT send ELD students home with a text to read. That is taking one of the hardest tasks they have to do and taking away the resources they need to understand it - you, their peers, class dictionaries, a quiet learning environment, etc. - means making their work so much more difficult and frustrating. Same with writing. Do all of that in class. Always. It's also more equitable; not all students are able to study at home, for whatever reason. So if something is required, do it in class.
Trifling's advice about choosing an area of focus when you grade is SO important. I wish someone had told me that marking Every. Single. Mistake. was a big fat waste of my time and my students' time. They didn't read it, and obviously didn't learn from it. It took me so long to mark things that the kids had forgotten what we were learning when they did that assignment. The key is immediate feedback.
Please email me (address is in my profile) if you have questions or want to talk through any of this. I can also point you towards other appropriate short videos to use in class.
And good luck! In my first few years, it helped me to remember that I always knew at least a little more than my students. And if I didn't know something, that's what the internet was for. :-)
posted by guster4lovers at 9:57 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Quizlet is awesome for vocab, Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers is excellent for grammar/mechanics, They Say, I Say is excellent for academic writing conventions.
I strongly recommend doing vocab as a requirement every day. Without serious vocab growth, reading/language skills will stagnate. It's not unreasonable to expect high school kids to learn 50-100 vocab words every day or two, and Quizlet is great for this--you can make your own sets and monitor your students' usage. You can also use Quizlet to generate quizzes, but I think writing your own sentence-completion quizzes is a better approach.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:59 PM on August 18, 2016
I strongly recommend doing vocab as a requirement every day. Without serious vocab growth, reading/language skills will stagnate. It's not unreasonable to expect high school kids to learn 50-100 vocab words every day or two, and Quizlet is great for this--you can make your own sets and monitor your students' usage. You can also use Quizlet to generate quizzes, but I think writing your own sentence-completion quizzes is a better approach.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:59 PM on August 18, 2016
Stuff I forgot from your question:
1) There are video versions of most texts used in schools on YouTube
2) HS students are the most difficult age level of ELLs to teach. They lack motivation and often lack home support. Look into ClassDojo or ClassCraft - they are ways to give students positive and negative reinforcement in a way that is motivating to students. Make it as fun as possible.
3) Structure everything around skills. They write every day, they read every day, they learn vocab every day, they watch something every day, they talk every day. Break up the period into no more than 15 minute chunks; 10 minutes or less is better. They need to be moving between all those chunks. No activity should last longer than those chunks. If something is longer, break it up into small parts that are different enough to feel new
4) I know a lot of ELD teachers who use fairy tales or children's books as reader theatre performances. They can practice using an audio version, and then practice animating their voices to match the characters. Plus, it's pretty fun
Over the last two years, I have had two students who moved to the US and were dropped in my class with nothing more than playground English and both were designated fluent by the end of the year. By the spring, one of those students placed third in the county in an essay writing contest. In English. I also taught them Ancient History. Try explaining human evolution to a student who only speaks Norwegian. That's pretty fun.
Much more fun than teaching literature, though.
posted by guster4lovers at 10:07 PM on August 18, 2016
1) There are video versions of most texts used in schools on YouTube
2) HS students are the most difficult age level of ELLs to teach. They lack motivation and often lack home support. Look into ClassDojo or ClassCraft - they are ways to give students positive and negative reinforcement in a way that is motivating to students. Make it as fun as possible.
3) Structure everything around skills. They write every day, they read every day, they learn vocab every day, they watch something every day, they talk every day. Break up the period into no more than 15 minute chunks; 10 minutes or less is better. They need to be moving between all those chunks. No activity should last longer than those chunks. If something is longer, break it up into small parts that are different enough to feel new
4) I know a lot of ELD teachers who use fairy tales or children's books as reader theatre performances. They can practice using an audio version, and then practice animating their voices to match the characters. Plus, it's pretty fun
Over the last two years, I have had two students who moved to the US and were dropped in my class with nothing more than playground English and both were designated fluent by the end of the year. By the spring, one of those students placed third in the county in an essay writing contest. In English. I also taught them Ancient History. Try explaining human evolution to a student who only speaks Norwegian. That's pretty fun.
Much more fun than teaching literature, though.
posted by guster4lovers at 10:07 PM on August 18, 2016
Oh! And puppets!
Puppets are a great tool to get kids to practice speaking in a low risk way. If the puppet makes a mistake, it's the puppet's fault - and no one expects the puppet to speak perfect English!
I have my students make their own puppets and name them and make them into characters with back stories. It is surprisingly fun, even with high schoolers. They forget to be pretend adults and become kids again.
Send me a memail if you want more info on using puppets in the classroom.
/sorry for so many back-to-back answers...
posted by guster4lovers at 10:47 PM on August 18, 2016
Puppets are a great tool to get kids to practice speaking in a low risk way. If the puppet makes a mistake, it's the puppet's fault - and no one expects the puppet to speak perfect English!
I have my students make their own puppets and name them and make them into characters with back stories. It is surprisingly fun, even with high schoolers. They forget to be pretend adults and become kids again.
Send me a memail if you want more info on using puppets in the classroom.
/sorry for so many back-to-back answers...
posted by guster4lovers at 10:47 PM on August 18, 2016
This is probably not a helpful answer, but I'd like to corroborate guster4lover's note on puppets: I was fully literate in Chinese at age 4, came to the US, stopped speaking it at home by age 8, and the only way I got myself to try it out again, probably mid-high school, was talking to myself in a puppet voice, and then to my mother in the car, where nobody else could hear.
Having been in ESL and essentially, Chinese-as-a-second-and-first-language, reducing feelings of shame and inadequacy is key. The analogue in ESL was my teacher acknowledging that there were languages that were not English, since a lot of my fellow 6-year-olds hadn't had opportunity to grasp that. (They just thought I was quiet.)
posted by batter_my_heart at 1:38 AM on August 19, 2016
Having been in ESL and essentially, Chinese-as-a-second-and-first-language, reducing feelings of shame and inadequacy is key. The analogue in ESL was my teacher acknowledging that there were languages that were not English, since a lot of my fellow 6-year-olds hadn't had opportunity to grasp that. (They just thought I was quiet.)
posted by batter_my_heart at 1:38 AM on August 19, 2016
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posted by katie at 1:00 PM on August 18, 2016