Tue, Nov 22, 2022 10:15 AM
Review of Article
I really like all the strategies that were introduced in this article. This article mostly focused on the teacher educator and her pre-service students as she practices applying strategies for helping students improve English language skills to teaching science. People may think, how can I teach students if I don’t speak their native language?” or “what do I do if I have students from several different language backgrounds?” The article answers some of these questions. GLAD is a model for planning science, social studies and literature-based units. The first strategy within GLAD is “pictorial input,” in which students put pictures about the content and then key concepts and vocabulary around the pictures. Pictures can help provide background knowledge and adds support to ELL students. Then there are Picture File Cards. Teachers can make science picture file cards by cutting pictures out of magazines such as National Geographic, or encyclopedias. The teachers can laminate this and put it around the classroom. The teacher can allow students to discuss the pictures in their native languages, focusing on the meaning of what they are saying, rather than the syntax of vocabulary. Poster boards are another strategy, where there are poster boards for visual support in the classroom. There is ear-to-ear reading, where people take turns reading sentences to each other while sitting next to each other. The strategies that were mentioned in this article are only a short foundation of what else is out there for ELL students. These strategies are definitely things that I will implement in my future classroom with ELL students. While reading, I realized how critical the three dimensions are to the best classroom and that it is important for teachers to know there are ways to modify your teaching and strategies to allow all students to meet National Science Education Standards (NRC) and have equal opportunities of understanding. The accessibility of the NGSS is providing information needed to fix the achievement gap, and in today's diverse culture, this is what we as teachers need to create an equitable learning environment for all students. You do not need to be bilingual in order to facilitate a classroom environment where all students are supported regardless of their language.