Writing
If English were a person, this is how they would dress.mp4"If English were a person, this is how they would dress" from Twinkl Resources for ESL Teachers, Facebook May 18, 2021
"Written language is very different from oral language, and various genres of writing are used differently in various cultural contexts. This means ELLs have to learn how to organize and express ideas in a specific piece of writing such as a narrative or a lab report. As well, many ELLs find the mechanical aspects of writing challenging if their own language uses a different script, or has different kinds of punctuation" (Coelho, 2016, p. 148).
It is also important to remember that many cultures follow different discourse patterns than here in Canada. Some writing conventions in other cultures may find that explaining ideas clearly as a form of disrespect to the reader. Consider using translanguaging practices where students can negotiate language differences using their first language as a resource to write in English and allow them to integrate their native cultural rhetoric with Canadian academic conventions.
This page will highlight strategies that complement the steps outlined by Coehlo (2016) in Adding English: A guide to teaching in multilingual classrooms (p. 148). University of Toronto Press and can be integrated with students' first language resources.
The Teaching and Learning Cycle (TLC)
The TLC is a pedagogical framework for scaffolding academic writing through deep and critical thinking tasks, academic discussions, interactive reading, and language development that closely aligns with Coehlo's recommendations on how to support developing readers and writers. This framework works well when writing paragraphs or longer pieces of academic writing.
The TLC framework is a strong, research-based pedagogical approach beneficial for EAL students and for students whose first language is English. Learning about academic writing structures is not an innate process and educators should not assume all learners are familiar with them. For example, a student moving from another province in high school may have not had to write a source analysis in their Social Studies curriculum and therefore are not familiar with its structure.
Personal Narratives
The Reading Teacher - 2022 - Sciurba - Paper Selfies Centering Students Identities in Baseline Writing.pdf
Mentor Texts
Learn more about Language Dives here
Text Structures and Signal Words
A great visual to move students in the right direction with their transitions.
Writing Scaffolds
Coelho, E. (2016). Adding English: A guide to teaching in multilingual classrooms (p. 257-260). University of Toronto Press.
One pager
Cloze Activities
This "fill-in-the-blank" technique can be adapted to focus attention on and help students practice using specific language functions. Create cloze passages that summarize or paraphrase the content of a reading or lesson, deleting the feature you want students to practice.
Cloze passages can appear to be simple, but for EAL students can be challenging. Choosing among various forms of a word and manipulating grammatical endings involves higher-level thinking skills.
For example, this cloze passage provides practice in using passive verbs, which are commonly used to describe procedures and processes, especially in science.
Use the correct form of some of the verbs to complete the report about our experiment. You can use some of them more than once.
place fill empty pour heat collect heat measure calculate read
To find the volume of an irregularly shaped solid by using a graduated cylinder:
The cylinder was filled with water to a level of 20 ml.
The object _______ __________ into the water.
The level of the water rose, and the new level _______ __________ on the graduated cylinder.
The difference between the levels ____ ________ to be 5 ml.
Therefore, the volume of the object ______ ________ to be 5 ml.
-Coelho, E. (2016). Adding English: A guide to teaching in multilingual classrooms (p. 257). University of Toronto Press.
Sentence-Combining Activities
This scaffold helps students begin working with longer sentences. In the following example, students need to retell events in a story by choosing appropriate conjunctions to link parts of sentences. Similar activities can be created to focus on connectives that signal cause and effect, sequence, and so on.
Dr. Katie Toppel uses similar sentence-combining activities, such as the examples below, which she calls "Sentence Patterning Charts". Click here to check out her YouTube video on how to make sentence patterning charts and some ideas for how to use them for language development.
The plant on the window sill grew taller because....
The plant in the corner received less light. As a result, ....
The plant in the closet received no light. Therefore, ....
We conclude that ... in order to grow.
Sentence-Completion Activities
Sentence-completion activities provide a framework to help students construct various sentence types. The example to the left focuses on cause and effect using the content of an elementary science lesson.
ELL Supports for Writing and Discussion.pdfsomebody_wanted_but_so_c_0.pdfIt Says - I Say- And So.pdf
Not all languages arrange their describing words in the same order as English. Having a chart like this Royal Order of Adjectives available on your classroom walls provides students with a quick visual on how to add descriptive language using the patterns of English.