Dual Language Literacy Presentation, TexTESOL V Conference, October 3rd, 2009

Among the resources mentioned in this presentation are some student handbooks, which many teachers may also need to use when preparing classroom presentations of concepts. I briefly reviewed some of these in the TexTESOL V Newsletter some time ago and am reprinting that information (with permission) below. I am also including some of the content from the PowerPoint for the TexTESOL V presentation for those who might want to use those strategies or access that information, in lieu of a session handout.

Student Handbooks that Teachers May Need

by Rita Deyoe-Chiullán

Are you teaching content as much as you are teaching English, and perhaps that

content area is not your strong suit? Here are some handbooks for students that I

have found we often need as teachers. Those who teach Spanish-speakers can benefit

from a few handbooks that are also available in Spanish.

GreatSource Handbooks order form  1-800-289-4490   www.greatsource.com

http://www.greatsource.com/GreatSource/pdf/WebHandbookSOF108_low.pdf

Four math titles are available in Spanish and English:

Matemáticas para aprender (Gr.1-2)/Math to Learn

Matemáticas para saber (Gr. 3-4)/Math to Know

Matemáticas en mano (Gr. 5-6)/Math at Hand

Matemáticas inmediatamente (Gr. 6-8)/Math on Call

Only in English:

Algebra to Go (8 & up)   Geometry to Go (8 & up)

ScienceSaurus: Gr. 4-5 (blue cover), Gr. 6-8 (green cover)

Write Source K,,,12, Writers Inc. 9-12, Write for College 11-12

Reader’s Handbook 3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12

Some of these titles originated with Write Source http://www.thewritesource.com/index.html,

which still publishes some of the original versions. I like old editions of Writer’s Express and

Writers Inc. To access their website, use the word “the”; a different company’s URL omits

“the”.

Several of the writing handbooks originally created by Write Source were translated into Spanish

and are available from Hampton Brown, which is now owned by National Geographic. To locate

titles, go to the National Geographic School site  http://new.ngsp.com/Home/tabid/36/

Default.aspx

and use the search tools on the left or use the menus for PRODUCTS at the top of the page, then

select SPANISH LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, SPANISH WRITING HANDBOOKS.

A Navegar (Gr. 5-6) is a useful resource for bilingual teachers, including many native speakers.

Reprinted with permission TexTESOL-V Summer Newsletter 2008, p 6.

Developing Dual Language Academic Literacy: Resources and Realities (Content from selected PowerPoint slides) by Dr. Rita Deyoe-Chiullán, 2009 Annual TexTESOL V Conference: Opening Doors with ESL.

What we have tried that seems to be working…

•Full error correction is done on single-spaced one-page (or double-spaced two-page) reflections that describe what was done/learned in an education class and that student’s personal point of view regarding the topics/experiences.

•No re-writing is required or expected. Students are discouraged from attempting to “master” every error and are told to choose one or two issues they find interesting or surprising, which they will share with classmates.

•On receipt of edited writing, the student selects one of his/her errors to explain to the small class of peers, thus becoming the authority on that error. In larger classes, the explanations are given to a small group of peers.

•No time is spent trying to learn general rules or apply them in practice exercises. Specific errors are discussed within the context in which they occurred. When the correction is a matter of preferred academic style rather than an idiomatic usage or grammatical issue, that is explained, along with the contexts in which one or the other usage would be more appropriate. When a specific general rule or application can be easily drawn from the example discussed, it is mentioned but not assigned as something to be “learned”.

Teaching Suggestions

1.     Learn to recognize and respect the writer’s voice, even when it differs from your own personal style preferences. In particular, with second language and second dialect writers, confine yourself to correcting what are clearly errors of grammar, idiomatic usage, punctuation, spelling and accurate use of standard English/Spanish syntax. Most American writers have been taught to prefer a very direct, simple syntactic style and may be tempted to “correct” writing which contains no actual errors but merely has a more complex, extended or “poetic” tone than is common in expository writing in this country.

2.     If it is feasible, given the time available for such activities as a worthwhile aspect of courses you teach, provide full error correction in writing and set aside a brief amount of time in class for students to pair with a buddy of their own choosing to read their corrections and discuss any they don’t understand. Be available to explain any corrections that neither the writer nor his/her peer understands. Avoid requiring rewrites of assignments if you were able to understand the content and determine whether or not the content objectives for the assignment were met.

3.     Provide reading response templates or lists of criteria that will guide your students to write complete sentences that will lead them to mirror more complex and developed language usage than they might choose to use otherwise. Several of my colleagues have their own preferred reading response generators that solicit the same sort of writing I receive in response to my NewKnewSRU template.

4.     Make it clear that your corrections are a gift of knowledge, not a punishment for taking risks and trying to learn. I ask my bilingual students to write for me in their weaker language, so they will have an opportunity to learn more. If I find they are turning in virtually perfect papers in what is clearly their dominant academic language, I tell them they are depriving themselves of an opportunity to learn, because I don’t count off for their linguistic errors in writing, only if they fail to learn the content or do the work I require. Also, I point out that we all continue to make errors in every language we use, including our dominant language, and most of us who are bilingual have greater strengths in one language than in the other.

5.     Encourage students to purchase and use a writer’s handbook for each of the languages in which they write for professional purposes. I have had good results and positive responses from adult students I have encouraged to try using a handbook intended for fourth and fifth graders writing in English Writer’s Express: A Handbook for Young Writers (Kemper, D., Nathan, R. & Sebranek, P., 2008), currently available through Houghton Mifflin/The Write Source, and a handbook for fifth and sixth grade students who are writing in Spanish A Navegar!, which is currently available through National Geographic School Publishing/Hampton Brown.  This level includes most of the rules, explanations and information needed to correct the treatable errors made by adult writers who are native speakers of the language; after all, newspapers are supposedly written at the fifth grade reading level, and they are read primarily by adults.

6.     All bilingual/ESL teachers should be encouraged to find a colleague whose language strengths and weaknesses complement their own. The teacher who needs a bilingual colleague’s help to send a note home to a parent who only knows Spanish can be sympathetic to her peer’s need for an editor to proofread professional writing in English. We all need an educated native-speaker expert to help us with the untreatable errors that Spell-check will not understand.

7.     For second language writers, it is useful to point out that effective use of bilingual dictionaries usually requires seeking a translation, then checking the meaning of that word in a monolingual dictionary of the language you are translating into to ensure it is the particular meaning of the original word you intended to convey. For idioms that are not easily found in dictionaries, there are several online services or groups that explain the meanings of these. One is an online chat group called English Forum (http://apps.world-english.org/Forum/TopicGroup) where English learners all over the world share requests for explanations and respond to one another. I have also just discovered that http://www.spanishdict.com/ not only provides an immediate online translation from English to Spanish or Spanish to English, but also links to a Spanish Learning Community chat room and Spanish Forum where language issues can be discussed with others. Larry Ferlazzo’s website and daily newsletter (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/larry-ferlazzos-english-website/) share an overwhelming variety of online resources for English learners at several proficiency levels.

8.     Provide structured opportunities in a low threat environment for bilingual teachers in training to read aloud in their weaker language to a peer. Be available and prepared to explain vocabulary that neither peer knows (or bring along a bilingual dictionary or let them use an online dictionary if the classroom has a computer with Internet service. Find and provide reading material in Spanish in both narrative and expository genres that is just above the level of everyday speech in your community. I have used books intended for bilingual students in grades four through six from the Vistas del Mundo series published by ETA-Cuisenaire (expository and narrative), narrative myths and legends from a book intended for Spanish speaking students in the upper elementary grades, National Geographic en español (expository/photojournalism), and Al Dia (Dallas newspaper).

9.     Finally, talk with your students about their feelings and previous experiences with regard to error correction. If they believe you are open to their perceptions and opinions and truly want to support their academic growth and success, they will provide you with clear and useful guidance.

More detailed information about this research can be found in this article:

“Improving the Writing Skills of Preservice Bilingual Teacher Education Candidates” by Rita M. Deyoe-Chiullan, pps. 182-205, Current Issues and Best Practice in Bilingual and ESL Education, Fall 2008, Texas Woman’s University/Federation of North Texas Area Universities.

•For limited remaining copies of the monograph, contact mcowart@twu.edu Melinda Cowart, Managing Editor of the Monograph Series or for a reprint of the article, contact the author of the article rdeyoechiullan@twu.edu

•Resources from other conference presentations by Dr. Deyoe-Chiullan are located or referenced on her blog at http://maestrostexas.edublogs.org

•There is a new monograph, with a new article by Rita Deyoe-Chiullan, due out any day now, which updates some of the material in the 2008 monograph, particularly as it applies to bilingual teacher candidates writing in Spanish. Limited copies will be available on request from the monograph editors, or a photocopy of just the one article may be requested from the author once the monographs are received.

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