The next step was for students to reflect on their language learning to date, and then set some language learning goals for themselves. Students thought hard about which language learning strategies they already use, and which strategies they want to try to use more to help themselves improve their English. On October 1st, students will share with you their reflections and goals at our Goal-Setting Conferences, and will tell us how they would like us (teachers and parents) to help them work towards their goals. I look forward to meeting you at that time.
To start off our new year of learning in EAL, we have been discussing strategies for learning language. Students shared their ideas of what behaviours they think help people be successful in language learning. Here's what they came up with: After that, we looked at what the researchers have found are the key strategies for language learning. Please take a look at these strategies and talk about them in your home language with your child.
The next step was for students to reflect on their language learning to date, and then set some language learning goals for themselves. Students thought hard about which language learning strategies they already use, and which strategies they want to try to use more to help themselves improve their English. On October 1st, students will share with you their reflections and goals at our Goal-Setting Conferences, and will tell us how they would like us (teachers and parents) to help them work towards their goals. I look forward to meeting you at that time. Did you know that our library's search engine, Destiny Quest, finds websites in different languages? 1) Students type in the topic 2) Click 'Web Sites' tab 3) Narrow Your Search - choose a language Unfortunately Hungarian isn't one of them, but there's French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and German. Thanks to our librarian, Ms. Cooper, for sharing this! In 4th and 5th grade we have been working on using the strategy of questioning to help us understand what we are reading/hearing/researching about. Questioning is an important strategy we use while reading/listening to help us to think more deeply about the text. As we read, we ask ourselves questions and try to figure out what the answers might be. Our questions lead us to make connections, figure out answers, and often lead to further questions. We have also been talking about 'fat' questions - those that are big, deep, more complex questions, versus 'skinny' questions - those that are simple, surface level. Skinny questions have a simple, straightforward answer, while fat questions may require more extensive research or may have many possible answers or viewpoints. Both types of questions may be important to helping us understand a text, but fat questions require more attention to help us understand more deeply. Students have been analyzing their own questions to identify which are deep and meaningful, and therefore require more attention while reading and thinking about the text. Fourth grade has been applying this questioning strategy in the context of their Rainforest unit. They have been asking questions such as, "Are rainforest people healthier than us?" and "Who owns the rainforest?" Fifth grade has been applying this questioning strategy to their independent reading as well as to shared reading. Some questions they have asked include, "What causes a flood?", "How do ocean animals sleep?" and "Why did the mice and the toys have a war?" Our 4th grade EAL class has been working on inquiry skills. We have been 'wandering and wondering' with books related to our Human Body unit, thinking and asking ourselves questions as we read. We have been talking about how to get from question to answer by researching. We have been making a list of resources that we have available to us to help us research, discussing how those resources are different and how each is best used. And, of course, we have been practicing using those resources to answer some of our own questions! |
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