Reading in English - How to motivate and engage your students

29 May 2006Chinese University of Hong

KongB6, Ho Tim Building

5.00 - 7:00 pm

Motivating and engaging low proficiency students

Gertrude Tinker Sachs

Georgia State University

Overview

• Handouts – what are they about?

• Where are we in our thinking? Understanding why – articulating why – theories that inform our views and actions

• Strategies and approaches

• About taking action and being proactive

Handouts – are they useful?

Let’s have a look – pre-reading

Cooperative Learning

What it is not.

Shoulder partners and eyeball partners – number off please

Let’s start with you

• School level

• How would you describe your learners?

• How would you describe yourself as a teacher?

• Please put your name and school on the paper and turn in.

Where do I stand?

How do I view Hong Kong teachers?

Major findings from research

• Children acquire the foundations of literacy within their native language and culture (Cummins, 1989; Wells, 1986; Wong-Fillmore, 1991)

• There is a social nature to literacy learning (au & Mason, 1981; Heath, 1983; Scriber & Cole, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978)

Major Findings

• Background knowledge plays a significant role in meaning making (Bruner, 1996, Goodman, 1992; Langer, 1984)

• Reading and writing are interrelated (Clay, 1979; Harste et al, 1984)

Major Findings

• Becoming literate in a second language takes time 5-7 years depending on the individual, strength of native literacy, type of second language instruction, and status of the second language (pg.23)

• Perez, B. (1998). Language, literacy and biliteracy. In B. Perez (Ed), Sociocultural contexts of language and literacy, pp21 -48. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Creating Classroom Contexts

Non-linear thinking

• promoting risk-taking, problem solving,

• Offering their own ideas about text

• Open classroom for the flow of ideas

• Meaningful literacy learning connected to the real world

• Thinking about thinking - metacognition

Classroom Contexts

• Scaffolding linguistic and background knowledge – connecting to what they know and have experienced

• Asking decontextualised questions will limit use of linguistic code; ask what do you think…

• Adopt an interactive stance in your teaching

Classroom Contexts

• Set a purpose

• Students read their drafts to other students

• Respond to stories read by their teacher

• Respond to prompts

• Create some prompts from current affairs in HK, the region, around the world

Reader response strategies

• What is my purpose• Why did the author write this text – what did s/he

teach me• What parts to I like best/least/why• Does the text remind me of another text –

similar/different• What would I have changed if I had written it?• Are there parts I don’t understand – what can I do

about it?

Reference

• Kucer 1995, Guiding bilingual students “through” the literacy process. Language Arts, 72, 23.

Response – Read Pair Square

• Hong Kong is full of people

• Ah Wah

Poems by Mike Murphy

Activity – work with slide 14 - RRT

Reciprocal Teaching

• What is it?

• Lesson observation – Grade 2 accelerated students in a small group

• Review handouts

• Key elements – predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing

• teacher modelling, student leadership and responsibility, articulating processes

Metacognition

• Understanding why we use certain strategies

• Articulating how we do things

• Working to reduce our weaknesses and increase our strengths by understanding what experts do

• TEACHER MODELLING is the KEY!!

Reciprocal Teaching - Superfoods

Select your role – predictor, questioner, clarifier, summarizer

Read your helpful bookmarks first

Literature Circles

• What is it?

• DVD observation – who are these learners, what are they doing, how are the activities structured?

• Article

• Look at the Highwayman Notes – read quickly

• Let’s look at the poem

Extensive Reading

• Bring me three gifts – Doris Jones Yang

• Article – pre, during and post reading, writing, speaking, listening, visualising activities

• Interaction in the ERS lesson. Guidelines June 2003, 25 (1).

Transforming extensive reading.

• May 2001, Horizons in Education, 43.

Dragon Boat Festival

• Activity – see next set of slides

• Culturally responsive teaching

• What activities can you get your students to do?

• What did you learn?

Shared reading experiences

• Modeling reading and motivating students

• Listening to texts read well and forming discussion groups

• Repeated reading, radio reading, choral reading

• Readers’ Theatre

• DVD – Ivy Sun’s Coffee or Tea Drama

• Article forthcoming - TESOL publications

Follow-up activities

• Oral response – discussion, think-pair-share, oral reading

• Written response – writing to a prompt, open-ended writing, journal writing, poetry writing

• Visual response – creating a drawing/picture, induced imagery

• Physical response – physical tableau, pantomime, dance and movement

Motivating students

• How do we do it?

• Discuss

• Round Robin – quiet voices

• Lucky Draw

Purposeful Teaching

• Connecting to self

• Connecting to text

• Connecting to others

• HK/Atlanta connections

Meaningful Teaching

• Low achieving students – what is your belief?

• What can we do?

• What ideas can we use from this workshop?

• Numbered heads

Spirit-Centred Teaching

• Our beliefs govern our teaching• Our attitudes govern our teaching• We work with our like-minded peers to be

spirit-centered teachers who seek to make a difference despite the mandated difficulties

• Open-mindedness• Always receptive to professional

development

It’s a profound joy to be back with you – thank you!

• Gertrude Tinker Sachs

• Middle Secondary Education Instructional Technology Department

• Georgia State university

P.O.Box 3978

Atlanta, GA 30302-3978

USA gtinkersachs@gsu.edu

Workshop Feedback

• Thank you!!!