Discussion Stems

Last week I posted on "the basics" for incorporating turn and talk.  Hopefully you have tried it out or at least reflected on how much you provide talk time in your classes.  Tori Mazur, ESL teacher at NAMS, brought up some great points on the benefits of talk time for English Language Learners.  In her comment, Tori noted how providing talk time:

• helps ELLs "rehearse", which is especially good before writing down ideas.
• provides social safety for students who feel more confident sharing with one than a large group.
• allows for peers to "coach" one another.

Many students will not be successful with turn and talk without instruction and guidance from you.  Sentence frames and question stems are a great way to help students begin to use academic language during class discussions.  I have collected some great sentence starters and/or question stems for different content areas. 

>>General Sentence Starters<<

>>Math Talk Stems<<

>>Social Studies Sentence Frames<<

>>Rich Questioning in Science<<

You want these to be in students' hands, not yours!  Post on the wall, tape to students desks, or provide copies for your students so they can regularly use these.  Good luck!

ExC-ELL

Have you ever heard of ExC-ELL?  Is your first thought of spreadsheets?  Well, that is Microsoft's Excel. ExC-ELL stands for Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners.  It is a research-based literacy model developed by Dr. Margarita Calderon that is funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the US Department of Education.  I, along with Dubraska Stines (ESL Lead Teacher) and almost 20 other ACS teachers, attended ExC-ELL training, sponsored by NCDPI, in Charlotte, NC, August 5-7.  All of the teachers were charged with coming back to our district to share ExC-ELL strategies which help students access the text with the use of vocabulary, reading, and writing tasks.  Although ExC-ELL was designed to help English Language Learners, the work can help any student to improve their reading in various content disciplines.  

We have a great team of teachers who are willing to share.  We hope to be able to snag some dedicated PD time during the year, but if you have a particular interest and would like to start the year off with new learning, contact a team member.  Matt Edwards and Chandra Collins, both from NAMS, implemented it in their classes last year and have completed advanced training.  They are great contacts! (Check us out presenting during the closing session on Day 3.)

 

Chandra M., Dubraska, and Betsy

Chandra C., Matt, Chandra M. and Dubraska