IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE!

STRATEGIES TO BUILD ACADEMIC WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM

SYLVIA VAGO, ESL TEACHER ENDEAVOUR SPORTS HIGH SCHOOL

ESLIN WORKSHOPNovember 2011

What teaching and learning strategies best support ESL/LBOTE students in writing paragraphs using academic language?

ESL students have difficulty constructing sentences and paragraphs. (BICS CALP)

Students have difficulty in integrating concepts and vocabulary in writing.

Grammar taught should emphasise form and meaning in context of usage.

WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS?WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS?

Syllabus requirements: Rich Syllabus requirements: Rich tasks/assessment tasks ~ tasks/assessment tasks ~ Content-driven Content-driven learninglearning

Language requirements: Language requirements: –explanation, –explanation, comparison, deconstructing visual texts, comparison, deconstructing visual texts,

Understanding cause and effect, graphsUnderstanding cause and effect, graphswriting paragraphs in different text typeswriting paragraphs in different text types

How to achieve it

• Backward map from assessment task to identify and plan language activities and strategies with KLA teacher.

• Explicit teaching – Sentence structure, grammar and punctuation.

• Front-load information for better understanding

How to achieve it

• Critical thinking skills: sequencing/ questioning/discussion

• Scaffolds and models - message abundancy: concept and semantic maps and posters

• Reading-recasting–rewriting language

What works

• Authentic texts: relevance to KLAAuthentic texts: relevance to KLA• Model and guided reading/writing of sentence Model and guided reading/writing of sentence

structures (imperfect to perfect)structures (imperfect to perfect)• Teach grammar and sentence structure of text Teach grammar and sentence structure of text

types: PPP (present-practice-produce)types: PPP (present-practice-produce)• Scaffold the metalanguage: dictogloss, mix Scaffold the metalanguage: dictogloss, mix

and match, jigsaw and cloze activitiesand match, jigsaw and cloze activities

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