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Learning task 3

Writing a report

The students can use information gathered from a number of sources. Scaffold the learning for the students.

• Read a simple report:
  • Goldfish are small and orange. They have gills, fins and tails. Goldfish swim around and eat fish food. They do not live in the sea, they live in fishbowls.
• Construct a report on a different animal on the board with the students.
• Develop a writing frame for the students who need it.
• Students work in pairs using the report on the board as a guide to write about the animal, using their facts gathered earlier and their pictures.
• Each pair reads their report to another pair and explains where they got their information from.
• Students repeat this on their own, using the animal information they recorded previously to draw and then write a report.

Oral report

The students show and talk about their drawings from their individual report, making sure they talk about appearance, behaviour, food and habitat and where the information came from.

Module 2 - Writing

Introduction

In this module you will:

• look at some writing exemplars
• analyse your students’ writing in relation to The Progressions: ELLP
• identify ‘next steps’ for your students in writing
• plan further opportunities to develop students’ writing

You will need: The Progressions: ELLP booklet that is relevant (Years 1-4, 5-8 or 9-13). This is the booklet which you will use throughout this module. Writing samples from your students from a range of curriculum contexts. ELLP writing matrix (PDF 58KB)

Getting started

To start you thinking about writing, please read the relevant section in The Progressions: ELLP. This is a useful summary, easy to read and contains important ideas about your English language learners.

Years 1-4 pp.36-38
Years 5-8 pp.42-44
Years 9-13 pp.52-54

Summary of key messages about writing

• There are many commonalities in the way that all learners develop writing skills. However, there will be some noticeable differences in English language learners’ patterns and rates of progress.
• As for all students, the better prepared and supported an English language learner is for writing, the better their writing will be.
• English language learners should be encouraged to write in their home language(s).
• Younger writers generally take a shorter time than older students to reach cohort level in writing.

Writing well
Writing on familiar topics is very important at early stages of learning to write in English. At the same time, it is important to develop writing skills in curriculum-related contexts (e.g. a science report, explanations of processes, etc).

In order to write well, learners need to build and/or have access to a bank of vocabulary that is appropriate to the writing task. This would include general vocabulary and topic-specific vocabulary.

Teachers need to analyse writing errors carefully to discover what is causing them.

• If a learner leaves –ed off a verb, this may be because the learner’s home language does not have a past tense construction. Therefore, this feature of English needs to be explicitly taught and not treated just as a spelling error.
• If a five-year old writes ‘I goed to the beach’ it may be attributable to the developmental stage of the learner rather than proficiency in English.

Writing Key Messages (PDF 64KB)

Gathering information

Using the writing section of The English Language Learning Progressions: ELLP

Open the double-sided, fold-out page for the writing matrix in your booklet which is colour-coded for each stage.

Years 1-4 p.39
	Click the above image to enlarge
Years 5-8 p.45
	Click the above image to enlarge
Years 9-13 p.55
	Click the above image to enlarge

The matrix focuses on how learners within each broad stage typically write. Features of writing are described in relation to topic development, sentence development and language structures, vocabulary development, script control and editing, spelling and punctuation.

Look for these aspects of writing across the top of the matrix and the different stages down the side. For each stage of The Progressions: ELLP, the matrices show some characteristics of writing that learners are likely to produce at different stages.

Opportunities for writing assessment

There are many different opportunities for assessing students’ writing. These include:

• analysing writing in day to day writing tasks, including work learners have completed in a range of curriculum areas, for example technology or health and physical education.
• independent writing samples which may have already been analysed against criteria (for example, asTTle, NCEA assessment activities)
• observations of learners as they are engaged in writing with support
• observations of learners as they are engaged in writing independently
• NEMP tasks
• ARBs

Assessment Tools Selector

Further information about a range of assessment tools is available at  Assessment Online

Examining the ELLP writing exemplars

On the pages following the matrix, you will see examples of students’ writing at each stage.
Years 1-4 pp.41-60
Years 5-8 pp.47-76
Years 9-13 pp.57-83

Skim through the exemplars and think about how they provide evidence for each stage.
What features of writing do you notice?

For the writing exemplars, you should match the description of the text features with the actual example in the learner’s writing, looking to see the specific features that are being described.

Thinking about your own students’ writing

Collect some information about your own English language learners’ writing:

• samples of written work
• students’ exercise books
• writing that students have completed in a range of curriculum areas
• notes about what you observe learners doing during the writing process (e.g accessing vocabulary resources, editing and asking for assistance)

When you have this information about your own learners, you will be ready to start the next section - Making a 'best-fit'.

Making a 'best-fit'

How do I go about making a ‘best-fit’?

By now you will have examples and information about your own English language learners’ writing. In this section you will use this information to decide on a ‘best fit’ stage for your students.

Video: Writing
How one teacher and her colleague work together to decide on a student’s writing stage.

Where do your English language learners fit on the writing matrix?

Now you have seen the digital clip it is time for you to place your own students on the writing matrix.

ELLP Matrices (PDF 112KB)

Use the writing matrix to decide which stage each learner is likely to fit into – make a general decision at this stage.

To confirm your ‘best fit’ decision, go to the pages following the matrix that have more detail and contain some student writing exemplars.

Years 1-4 pp.41-60
Years 5-8 pp.47-76
Years 9-13 pp.57-83

Sit your own student’s writing alongside the exemplars at your best-fit stage.
 - does this look like the right stage?

Examine the ‘Typical features of writing…’ at your chosen stage, looking to confirm the typical features with your own student’s work.
 - does this confirm your identification of the best-fit stage?

If not, look at the exemplars before and after the one you are looking at, to try and find the appropriate stage for your learner.

You’ll notice that Foundation and Stage 2 are broken down into sub-stages (A & B), but you may prefer not to record the sub-stage level of detail.

You will probably notice that students show aspects across more than one stage. You are aiming for an overall ‘best fit’.

Monitoring your learners

Keeping track of your learners’ stages is important. One purpose is to show progress over time and this could be done in a variety of ways.

You could:

• highlight and date the indicators on the matrix and record the student’s ‘best-fit’ level.
• annotate the matrix with extra notes that support your decision
• collate the information on a student ‘record of progress’ form. 
  See the example which you could use or adapt from the booklets.
  Years 1-4 p.64
  Years 5-8 p.81
  Years 9-13 p.89

• record on your school manager or database system

When you have confidently completed this section you are ready to consider how this information helps you, and what you should do next to help your learners.

• what do my students need to learn next? 
• What do I need to do next?

Volcanoes

Learning Outcomes | Teaching and Learning | Assessment and Evaluation | Printing Version

Printing this unit:

•   Volcanoes (ZIP 147KB)

If you are not able to access the zipped files, please download the following individual files:

• Volcanoes (Word 2007 60KB)
• Assessment Schedule (Word 34KB)
• Assessment Task (Word 25KB)

• Words and Definitions Table (Word 39KB)
• Practical Experiment - Convection Currents (Word 22KB)

• Rock Identification Chart (Word 34KB)
• Sequencing Activity (Word 22KB)
• Structure of a Volcano Pair Activity (Word 52KB)
• Text Action (Word 23KB)
• Vocabulary Revision Cloze and Sequencing Activity (Word 23KB)

• Cloze Task (Word 23KB)

Learning task 1

Expected time frame: 1-2 lessons

Teaching and learning purposes

These learning activities are designed to activate the prior knowledge and lexis of students and to extend their topic-specific vocabulary. A number of collaborative oral and reading vocabulary activities are included to give students many opportunities to use key vocabulary in different ways.

ESOL US 2986 v7 performance criterion addressed:

1.4 The meaning of essential vocabulary as used in each text is given.

Ensuring learners know the content and language learning outcomes

• Share the learning outcomes, including language learning outcomes, with your students, for example:
  • I know some keywords about Antarctica

Activating prior knowledge

• Show students photographs of the Antarctic. The following sites will be useful:
  • Cool Antarctica
  • USAP Antarctic Photo Library
  • Emails from Antarctica photo gallery

• Brainstorming. Ask students to individually brainstorm words about the topic, in their first language (L1) or English, and write them in a list.
• Ask students to share their brainstormed words with a partner. Each student ticks a word s/he already has or adds that word to her/his list.

Giving learners many opportunities to first notice then use new language

Pre-teaching key vocabulary

• Write the Keywords (Word 21KB) for this section on the board and ask the students to identify and talk about the words they recognise and also add the key words they don't have to their lists.
• Say the key words and ask students to imitate.
• Say the words. Students tick each word as they hear them (two ticks if the words are repeated.)

• Say the words and ask students to mark the syllables and stress on their lists. This needs to be taught if the students do not already know how to do this.
• Demonstrate the meanings of the words using pictures. For guidance see  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/presenting-vocabulary
• Syllables Spelling Jumble (Word 20KB). Ask students to work by themselves sounding out the syllables and putting them back together. They check their pronunciation with a partner.
• Put the students into groups of 3 - 4. Distribute a set of pictures and cut-up words to each group, or a set of Words and Definitions (Word 63KB) for students match up. Alternatively, students can find their own words from their lists to write on each picture.
• Ask each student to make a sentence with one of the words. Monitor this activity to check correct usage.
• The students paste the pictures into their books. Under or next to each picture they write a sentence describing the picture. Teachers can add other pictures as needed.

Reviewing key vocabulary

The following strategies can be used to revise the keywords at any stage in the unit or - in some cases - set as homework.

• Whispering game: Divide the class into teams. Give the last person in each team a word. When the teacher says "Go", the last student whispers the word to the one in front and so on until the first in line has the word and runs up to the board and writes it. The first team with the correctly spelt word on the board gets a point. At the end the students are able to see the whole list on the board again.
• Vocabulary Jeopardy: Write new words on the board in jumbled order. Dictate the definition or show a picture. The students write down the words in the correct order.
• Antarctica Extra Vocabulary Tasks (RTF 1MB). These include a collocations chart, a cline and a word cluster.

Principle 6 Ensure a balance between receptive and productive language

Principle 6

Ensure a balance between receptive and productive language.

Are the students using both productive (speaking, writing) and receptive (listening, reading) language in this lesson?

Primary level: Year 5–6 social studies

Secondary level: Year 11 English

Useful teaching strategies to support Principle 6

Running dictation

A running dictation gets students out of their seats and engages reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. It can be used in a variety of contexts, one example is for reinforcing those “little” words (e.g. helping verbs, articles) that are sometimes overlooked by students.

Set-up: Prepare a short text (3–5 sentences) that incorporates the target grammar. You can also use an excerpt from the textbook that contains the grammar point. Print a copy in a 16-point font for easy reading. Place the text at the front of the room. It remains there throughout the activity. (For larger classes, you may need 3–5 copies placed around the room.)

Groups: Students can work in pairs or threes. One person is the designated writer. The other partner is the runner. They can only read and speak. (If you have groups of three, the two non-writers take turns being the runner.)

Action: When time starts, one runner from each group “runs” to the front and memorises as much text as possible. He or she then returns to the writer and reports what was read. The writer writes. This continues until the text is complete.

Rules: The students should try to reproduce the text exactly – including correct spelling and punctuation. With advanced groups, fine points like italics, parentheses, or other features must be accurate. The first group to finish with a correct text is the winner.

Review: After everyone finishes, pass out copies of the text. Student can check their work, note the target grammar structure, and do a follow-up activity.

Teaching Inquiry: Planning to meet student needs

How can literacy learning needs be addressed in the teaching and learning programme?

• Videos to support developing literacy leadership and effective literacy teaching practice across all learning areas. These videos provide brief summaries of the different stages of the inquiry undertaken by Mt Albert Grammar in 2011 as a result of its involvement in the project.

• The Guidelines for Effective Adolescent Literacy Instruction provide teachers with a framework for literacy inquiry and outlines the principles of effective literacy instruction.
• Earth Under Pressure – A unit of work for Year 10 combining Science, Social Studies and English learning outcomes. This unit exemplifies how literacy learning can be addressed in the context of each learning area.
• Making Language and Learning Work 2: Integrating Language and Learning in Secondary English and Social Science is a DVD that shows how teachers can effectively integrate content-area teaching and language learning. Copies of this DVD were sent to schools and further copies can be obtained from Down the Back of the Chair. Facilitation Notes accompany the DVD.
• Examples From Practice: These brief examples show how classroom teachers are identifying and addressing students’ literacy needs in Social Sciences
  • Example from practice Social Science Year 10 (Word 2007 17KB) Year 10 Social Science. Managing the issue of writing summaries of texts read, viewed or listened to in class.
  • Example from practice History Year 11 (Word 2007 16KB) Year 11 History. Analysing the writing needs of students when their oral contributions do not match their written work.
  • Social Studies Year 10 - Supporting students to read and select relevant information within a research project
    Case Note Social Studies year 10 (Word 2007 279KB)
• Units/lesson sequences based on Social Sciences (and other) curriculum objectives, designed or re-designed for English language learners.

How does research inform my inquiry?

• Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: An overview of the importance of literacy embedded in the context of secondary school learning areas. Alliance for Excellence in Education (2007)

How will progress be monitored?

Your inquiry will determine the ways in which progress should be monitored. For example, you may decide to monitor progress through student writing, oral responses, research skills and/or presentations.

Need help from your colleagues? Join the Secondary Literacy mailing list .

Teaching Inquiry: Planning to meet student needs

How can literacy learning needs be addressed in the teaching and learning programme?

• Videos to support developing literacy leadership and effective literacy teaching practice across all learning areas. These videos provide brief summaries of the different stages of the inquiry undertaken by Mt Albert Grammar in 2011 as a result of its involvement in the project.
• The Guidelines for Effective Adolescent Literacy Instruction provide teachers with a framework for literacy inquiry and outlines the principles of effective literacy instruction.
• Earth Under Pressure: A unit of work for Year 10 combining Science, Social Studies and English learning outcomes. This unit exemplifies how literacy learning can be addressed in the context of each learning area.
• Making Language and Learning Work 1: Integrating Language and Learning in Secondary Maths and Science is a DVD that shows how teachers can effectively integrate content-area teaching and language learning. Copies of this DVD were sent to schools and further copies can be obtained from Down the Back of the Chair. Facilitation Notes accompany the DVD.
• Units/lesson sequences based on Science (and other) curriculum objectives, designed or re-designed for English language learners.

Examples from Practice - Science Year 10 - Supporting students to read and select relevant information within a research project.

• Case Note Science year 10 (Word 2007 279KB)

How does research inform my inquiry?

• Teaching Science through Literacy: An article by Cynthia Shanahan, from Adolescent Literacy Research and Practice, Edited by Tamara L. Jetton and Janice A. Dole (2004) Guildford Press.

How will progress be monitored?

Your inquiry will determine the ways in which progress should be monitored. For example, you may decide to monitor progress through student writing, oral responses, research skills and/or presentations.

Need help from your colleagues? Join the Secondary Literacy mailing list.

Teaching Inquiry: Planning to meet student needs

How can literacy learning needs be addressed in the teaching and learning programme?

• Videos to support developing literacy leadership and effective literacy teaching practice across all learning areas. These videos provide brief summaries of the different stages of the inquiry undertaken by Mt Albert Grammar in 2011 as a result of its involvement in the project.

• The Guidelines for Effective Adolescent Literacy Instruction provide teachers with a framework for literacy inquiry and outlines the principles of effective literacy instruction.
• Earth Under Pressure A unit of work for Year 10 combining Science, Social Studies and English learning outcomes. This unit exemplifies how literacy learning can be addressed in the context of each learning area.
• Making Language and Learning Work 2: Integrating Language and Learning in Secondary English and Social Science is a DVD that shows how teachers can effectively integrate content-area teaching and language learning. Copies of this DVD were sent to schools and further copies can be obtained from Down the Back of the Chair.  Facilitation Notes accompany the DVD.
• Units/lesson sequences based on English (and other) curriculum objectives, designed or re-designed for English language learners.

How does research inform my inquiry?

• Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas : An overview of the importance of literacy embedded in the context of secondary school learning areas. Alliance for Excellence in Education (2007)

• Helping Adolescent Readers through Explicit Strategy Instruction Jeffery D. Nokes and Janice A. Dole (2004), in Adolescent Literacy Research and Practice, Edited by Tamara L. Jetton and Janice A. Dole, Guildford Press.

How will progress be monitored?

Your inquiry will determine the ways in which progress should be monitored. For example, you may decide to monitor progress through student writing, oral responses, research skills and/or presentations.

Need help from your colleagues? Join the Secondary Literacy mailing list.

Learning task 1: Introductory lesson

Context: reading varied poems

The teacher presents the class with a large variety of poems (at least 1 for each student).

Suggested poems

A mixture of old and new, with different emphases (rhythm, rhyme, free verse, sound, image ...) works best. Some that have worked well are:

• The Railings - Roger McGough
   
• The Tiger - William Blake
   
• The Soldier - Rupert Brooke
   
• Metaphors - Sylvia Plath
   
• Witches' Speech (Double double ..) from Macbeth
   
• This is Just to Say - William Carlos Williams
   
• Miss World - Benjamin Zephaniah
   
• The Bus - Charles Gillespie
   
• Sky Diver - Roger McGough
   
• For Heidi with Blue Hair - Fleur Adcock
   
• Advice to a Discarded Lover - Fleur Adcock
   
• Chance Meeting - Reimke Ensing
   
• How to Eat a Poem - Eve Merriam
   
• I Waited All Day - Pearl Jam (Vitalogy album)
   
• Dissection - Colin Rowbotham
   
• Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
   
• Excerpts from Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot
   
• A Birthday - Christina Rossetti
   
• A Poetic Definition - Christopher Morley
   
• Coal Fire - Louis Untermyer
   
• Poem About Writing a Poem - Eric Finney
   
• Pigtail - Tadeusz Rozewicz - trans. Adam Czerniawski
   
• Vegetarians - Roger McGough
   
• Declining the Naked Horse - Bill Manhire
   
• Rain - Hone Tuwhare
   
• Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll
   
• High Flight - John Magee
   

But also see the following sites which contain many poems:

• BBC Arts: Poetry
• The Internet Poetry Archive
• PBS Poetry
• poetry 180

The students spend time browsing through the poems, pausing to read any that appeal at first glance (a full understanding is not necessary - instead, the student should look for sounds, images or patterns that appeal).

Students focus on a poem or part of a poem that they particularly like. They share the poem and their reasons for liking it with a partner.

Volunteer students share their poem and reasons for its appeal with the class.

The teacher leads the students through the various ways a poem makes its appeal - eg. sound, rhyme, pattern, image, narrative, rhythm. At some stage it may be useful to revisit the use of images with these ARB resources:

• Personification (ARB username and password required to view this resource)
• Metaphors (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

The students take a copy of their poem. Underneath it, they write why they like it.

For close reading of other poems, see these ARB resources:

Prescription (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

I'm Home (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

Parcel (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

Sea-dog (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

Learning to Read (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

Special Holiday Attraction (ARB username and password required to view this resource)

For drawing inferences from poems, refer to Assessment Resource Bank resources (key word search - inference/poetry).