Providing Appropriate Scaffolding

• Explicitly share with students the purpose and expectations of the talk.
• Provide clear directions and explanations of tasks. This is a critical element of effective instruction that is very frequently overlooked. Language learners and students in the primary grades especially benefit from clear explanations and instructions. Here are some steps for making your instructions clearer. Remember to repeat, amplify, and expand to provide additional support.

• Use clear and precise language.
• Break the task into manageable chunks and explain the steps one by one, in chronological order.
• Check for understanding.
• Use gestures, visuals, written instructions, etc.

• Model how to engage in the discussion. Demonstrating for students provides them with a clear picture of what is expected. Any interaction protocol that is introduced for the first time should be modeled.  
• Teacher modeling or a demonstration such as the “fishbowl” strategy, and the gradual release of responsibility to groups of students will allow them to become autonomous.

Examples:

• Teacher-created video explanations and modeling (e.g., use Screencastify or Loom).
• Amplification of written instructions (examples, rubric/checklist, student-friendly language, visuals, color-coding, glossary, etc.)
• Translations (e.g., use Google Translate or Immersive Reader)

Establish discussion norms and reinforce these norms before, during, and after the discussion. See below the key traits of effective discussion norms.

DISCUSSION NORMS

• Norms specific for discussion
• Visually accessible
• Explicitly introduced and modeled
• Ongoing reinforcement, monitoring, and assessment of norms

RESOURCES

Discussion Guidelines (Voice 21)

Sample Norms and Expectations (Voice 21)

Creating a Culture of Talk

Assign discussion roles to facilitate turn-taking and to practice academic discussion skills.

RESOURCES - DISCUSSION ROLES

• Academic Discussion Roles for Students
• Voice21 Discussion Roles
• Literature Circle Role

Use dialogue protocols to promote equitable and accountable participation. See the Toolkit of Interaction Protocols section for detailed descriptions of numerous protocols as well as ideas for effective implementation in multiple contexts.

Offer sentence stems and/or key words to scaffold the talk. See the section below on linguistic supports.

“Before we join Zoom breakout rooms, let’s take two minutes to think about our responses to the question/s. You may want to jot down some notes.”

“I am going to give 15 seconds of wait time before I call on someone to respond to allow your brains to process the information. I will also give the speaker five additional seconds of wait time after s/he responds.”

“Students, when you are working in pairs/groups, remember to give each other time to think before expecting a response.”

Provide praise and feedback on both what is being discussed and how the students engage in the discussion, including the language they use.

“As I listened to your conversations, I noticed all of you followed our discussion norms which created a safe and respectful place for talk. Well done!”

“I would like to share some specific academic language I heard/read for: A) building on the ideas of others, and B) supporting your own ideas with evidence. I want to hear all of you using this type of language during our conversations.”

“I still notice that many of you are jumping to the next topic instead of listening and building on what your partner said first.”

Provide opportunities for students to reflect on the content learning they gained from the discussion and on their own participation and language used during the discussion.

Modifying speech is of special importance when communicating with students through video or phone conferencing, in order to counteract any visual and sound quality deficiencies.

Additionally, it may be beneficial to encourage students to modify their own speech to support each other during peer interactions, and to model for them how to do it.

Here are some effective ways of modifying speech to make it more comprehensible:

• Slow speech rate
• Enunciate clearly
• Increase voice volume and emphasize key words/phrases
• Use people’s names instead of pronouns
• Choose less sophisticated vocabulary, or provide additional explanations
• Choose less sophisticated language structures, or provide additional explanations
• Limit use of idiomatic expressions, or provide additional explanations
• Clarify the meaning of possibly unfamiliar words
• Use cognates and point them out to students
• Use the primary language strategically
• Repeat key ideas and vocabulary
• Rephrase or restate (paraphrase) language frequently
• Act out meaning, use gestures and facial expressions, and use the total physical response
• Use longer and natural pauses to provide processing time
• Follow appropriate pacing

Provide an abundance of language and explanations that help build some context. Elaborate ideas, provide examples, redundancy of information, etc.

In her 2009 book English Learners, Academic Literacy and Thinking, Pauline Gibbons describes message abundancy as “key ideas being presented in many different ways.”

For example, instead of simplifying the sentence “The government’s funds were depleted,” we can add on additional explanations that may be easier to understand: “The government was almost out of money. They had spent a lot of money on different things. They didn’t have any more money to spend on anything else.”

The idea is to amplify the linguistic input, rather than simplifying it. 

Language is best learned in context. Context brings language to life and helps students make meaning. We can help contextualize language for our students in the following ways:

• Personalize the lesson
• Provide hands-on practice
• Think alouds — Model your thinking and reasoning for your students, and elaborate on the information provided.
• In order to help students construct meaning, use the following:
  • Realia and props
  • Visuals
  • Maps
  • Graphs
  • Manipulatives
  • Word banks (with pictures)

• Activate prior knowledge — Activating prior knowledge and student experiences is really important as it establishes a basis for the new learning. It connects the material to students’ lives, providing a link of the known to the unknown and connecting the new material to existing mental structures. This can be done by:
  • Brainstorming
  • KWL and KQL charts
  • Anticipation / anticipatory guides
  • Extended anticipatory / anticipation charts
  • Identifying related experiences, related literature
  • Preparatory texts
  • Drawing on the home culture as sources of prior knowledge and experiences

Use the take five approach to modify and contextualize the text to scaffold reading comprehension and content learning.

Before assigning a text for students to read, use the take five approach to plan your lesson:

1. Decide on the purpose for reading a particular text that will help your students achieve the desired outcomes.

2. Read and chunk the text into meaningful and manageable pieces of information.

3. Create reading focus prompts for each chunk.

4. Offer students an appropriate graphic organizer to help guide and organize their thinking.

5. Identify some of the language demands for understanding the text.

6. Plan scaffolding that you will use to support students, including effective interaction and collaboration opportunities with peers.

Additional ways you can scaffold to make a text more accessible to language learners:

• Number paragraphs to make it easier to refer back to the text when discussing it.
•  Add visuals, maps, graphs, pictures to contextualize and illustrate meaning in the text.
• Add footnotes with explanations and additional context.
• Create glossaries with key terms.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS:

During ELD, dual language and world languages instruction, our purpose is to support and challenge students to continue their language development journey, working towards the next proficiency level. Keep that in mind as you decide when it is necessary to modify materials for English language learners, or when it is appropriate to challenge students with grade-level text while scaffolding the learning.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR TEACHERS OF WORLD LANGUAGES:

Students of world languages need to be exposed to authentic unmodified materials from the target culture (e.g. movies, posters, menus, etc), appropriate for their language proficiency level, supported with appropriate scaffolding so they can access the content. Consider how you might apply some of the scaffolding strategies above without modifying the authentic materials.

Use the documents below to help you select appropriate linguistic support for students by taking into consideration their language proficiency levels:

Sentence Stems by Language Functions and Proficiency Levels (ENGLISH)

Sentence Stems by Language Functions and Proficiency Levels (SPANISH)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Our purpose is always to support and challenge students not to stay within their current proficiency level but to work toward the next. Keep that in mind as you select supports from the document above.

Asking questions is one of the most effective ways of engaging students, checking for understanding, and supporting language development. Carefully planning the questions we ask students can dramatically increase instructional effectiveness.

Using prompts and questions adapted to a particular proficiency level is one way to help students feel supported and encouraged to participate, thereby increasing oral language practice.  

For a detailed explanation of this strategy see the Leveled Questioning or Tiered Questioning Strategy document.

Use the document below to help you design questions for students by taking into consideration their language proficiency levels.

Question Stems by Proficiency Level (ENGLISH)

Question Stems by Proficiency Level (SPANISH)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Our purpose is always to support and challenge students not to stay within their current proficiency level but to work toward the next. Keep that in mind as you select supports from the document above.