By: Sandra Castellanos, Claudia Arroyo, Noemi Ribot Munoz, Jade Valdez, Rubi Yanez

Teaching language arts for authentic meaningful learning. Engaging students in writing poems describing deep emotions and experiences is a way to invite students lives and experiences into the classroom as part of the curriculum.

Meaningful Language Learning Sociolinguistic M.A.K Halliday designed a language development model for engaging students in meaningful language learning

How can a teacher integrate students background knowledge and make connections to what they already know?

The purpose of an assessment is to facilitate both the teacher and the student by expanding and developing the language.
Standardized and Mechanical assessment of language learning are not recommended. An assessment should be continual and multidimensional.

The importance of a field trip:

ELL students participate in various

language activities. (oral and written) Activates background knowledge through personal stories Promotes interactive learning Facilitates the integration of language with any subject.

The teacher is responsible to create language learning activities that can be connected to a meaningful language event.
The rules, concepts, and uses of language have to be explicit to the ELL for the teacher, and to engage them in the language activity at hand.

This is one of the most versatile teaching strategy used to assist students in their language development.

Teacher-Student interaction the former devise learning situations aimed at modeling for students step by step the sophisticated use of language. The Scaffolding and the careful planning of instruction should be framed within the specific abilities of reading and listening comprehension speaking and writing that ELL are developing.

Teachers can use the resources that they have in their classrooms to support their students language development. Students can be translators or cultural mediators
To develop language proficiency the composition of heterogeneous groups is very important. The ideal number of students for group is three or four.

Developed as a way to work in each of the four basic abilities of language development which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The reason for using Living Language Workshop as a curriculum organizer for teaching language arts is that many students , particularly ELL students, do not master the language power of Standard English. The central purpose is to comprehend, use, and construct meaningful text for authentic purposes.

The teacher should organize the activities around meaningful language events to facilitate students learning language in context as well as learning about language.

It is more practical to organize the curriculum around literary genres such as narratives, poetry, or writing for example.
Using genre as a way to organize basic language development facilitates explicit teaching about that specific genre to students as individual, small and whole group levels. In addition, when students are interacting and sharing their products, they will have opportunities for them to learn more about language at work, and for teachers to address the specific needs of the students.

Listening Center
Speech Center Reading Center Writing Center

In this center, students should be able to practice listening comprehension.

To be exposed to models of the specific genre.

And to become motivated for reading and writing about the genre at hand.

Students understand and practice different types of discourses, language forms and styles appropriate of the language in power. A child need to learn to use different language register with her/his classmates from that used with the school principal. Students should develop multiple competencies in language in order to function socially and academically.

Students are able to selfselect their books for buddy or individual reading. Children should be explicitly taught how to consider books that might interest them and connect to their background, knowledge and culture. Students should learn that there are multiple purposes for reading and they need to set short and long-term reading goals.

The activities in this center may take more time, because students should be able to produce publishable writing pieces on self-selected topics using the focused genre. For every piece of writing, students will use the writing process including: drafting, writing, revising, conferencing and editing. In this center, there might be various activities organized as stations.

This component of the Living Language Workshop allows teachers to explicitly target language as a subject of instruction. The content of mini-lessons results from observations and assessments of students specific needs. The mini-lesson may be about procedures( poetry, structure of the story, how to write, etc.) or about language conventions (grammar rules, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, etc.)

Integration of the language curriculum with another area. Sheltering strategies can help the students to operate at his/her potential level of cognitive development, such as with the use of multiple language arts activities.

Language activities should have purpose for the students and reflect the development of language by inviting their lives and experiences into the classroom. Teaching language arts should target the basic language abilities: R,L,W,S. Assessment enhances and deepens the language development assisting both, the teacher and the student. Teacher is responsible for creating learning situations that involve the development of the various language abilities.

The teaching of language arts can be enhanced by using scaffolding, heterogeneous groups, and involving students as resources. The Living Language Workshop can be used as a curriculum organizer for teaching the language arts. Learning through language in a content area can be challenging for ELL students because it makes it difficult to understand the content, but there are resources available in the classroom to facilitate their development. It is important to distinguish between second language development and cognitive capabilities in ELL students.

ACTIVITY TIME!!!

I am from a life of poverty and despair, with no one around to care.

I am from a small home with a big family, which didnt worry or bother me, having the same food every day to eat, all the chili, rice, beans, and meat. I am from knowing that living the way we did wasnt great, hoping and dreaming that wasnt our fate. As my family had struggled in the field, I wondered what my life would yield. I am from problems with my dad when hes drink, Im sitting in my room pondering lifes choices. I contemplate what had went wrong in the past. I am from hoping this good feeling would last. I pray that all the troubles wed been through before would remain only locked behind hidden door. I am running from always getting into trouble with my older sis, which would be a funny thing to always remember and miss. Im from always being through of as a trouble making child, always running free and being so wild. Im from being told that I wasnt too smart, just dumb, but thats ok, look at me now and picture where I come from.

Gather with your group and ask yourself questions such as:
Where do you come from? What makes you YOU? How is your family? What are your likes and

dislikes?