The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners PDF
Preview The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners
UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners (ELLs) using Multiple Intelligences Theory and Cooperative Strategies. TESIS DOCTORAL María Isabel García Garrido Granada 2010 Editor: Editorial de la Universidad de Granada Autor: María Isabel García Garrido D.L.: GR 4251-2010 ISBN: 978-84-693-6700-1 Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Dr. Ángeles Linde López, Senior Lecturer at the University of Granada, for accepting the direction of this Doctoral Dissertation, for teaching and inspiring me, for making a difference in my life, for giving meaning to what Kathy Davis once said: “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove . . . . but the world maybe different because I was important in the life of a child.” To my parents, my brother and my aunt Mari, for motivating me to be a better person, for your unconditional love and support, and for always believing in me! To Dr. Jane A. Montes, Director of Language Minority Services of Cicero Public Schools District 99 and Dr. Cynthia K. Valenciano, Department Chairperson for the Department of Early Childhood Primary and Bilingual Education of Chicago State University, for accepting being the expert reviewers of this doctoral dissertation. To the teachers who have contributed with the letters about the students who participated in this study: Gina Pontarelli, Ryan Pellizari, Dorothy Vitacca and Luis Ramirez. Thank you for your time and collaboration. To the teachers at Lincoln School: Paula Kostelec, Paula Manetti, Erin Scott, Carole Scardina, Dalia Sobyra, Camille Salas, Carlin Martinez and Julie Bero. Thank you for your help, professionalism, and support in hard times. To my fantastic students, for always feeling like participating, for your positive attitude, for lighting my days with your joy and for helping me become a better teacher. To the friends who supported me along the way: Juan Villegas, Susana Oncina, Carolina Maroto, Yelena Vargas, Loli Valero, Marta De Miguel, and Maria Jose Chamorro. Thank you for putting a smile on my face when I most needed to laugh. To Bashir, for showing me respect, love and admiration. Thank you for your kindness and for being there for me every time that I needed you. If Thornton Wilder was right, I must be ‘alive’ today because I count you all as my treasures. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~ Thornton Wilder Expert Reviews 1 Dr. Jane A. Montes Cicero Public Schools District 99 Director of Language Minority Services Maribel Isabel Garcia Garrido The Teaching of Writing to English Language Learners (ELLs) using Multiple Intelligences Theory and Cooperative Strategies To: The Doctorate Commission, University of Granada in Spain The focus of this dissertation topic reflects the language domain that tends to be the most challenging area of language proficiency for ELLs who are school‐age and older. In Cicero Public Schools District 99, a K‐8 urban school district located in Cicero Illinois, ELLs receive bilingual program services via ESL instruction or in our additive transitional bilingual education (late‐exit) program. They often remain in services due to their inability to meet the program exit criteria that now includes the attainment of a Literacy Proficiency Level of 4.2 (Reading and Writing) along with an Overall Composite Proficiency Level of 4.8 (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing). The author has provided her students with an essential opportunity to learn writing at a time when there was no formal writing program in District 99. Next school‐year (2010‐2011) our district will implement a new literacy initiative that features a reading and writing workshop approach for students across programs. 3 Thanks to the innovative writing instruction that Ms. Garcia conducted with her students for her doctoral work, several of them have already met exit criteria and are now poised to be successful junior high readers and writers. Current literature on best practice instruction for ELLs promotes the same features of Ms. Garcia’s dissertation on writing instruction for ELLs. Pauline Gibbons’ 2009 professional book, for example, entitled English Learners Academic Literacy and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone (a Heinemann book forwarded by Jim Cummins), makes a case for emphasizing academic literacies. In addition to reading and writing effectively, Gibbons stresses the need for students to use “literate talk” (p. 7): … make their reasoning explicit, use language precisely, question and critique others’ ideas, and be prepared to rethink their own ideas. These language and learning opportunities can be found throughout the 57 Writing Lessons that Ms. Garcia developed and taught to her 5th grade students. How to Help Students Succeed Across Content Areas (2009) by Yvonne S. Freeman and David E. Freeman (a Heinemann book forwarded by Robert J. Marzano) is another recent professional book that discusses the benefits of developing meaningful content instruction with both content and language objectives including: identifying aspects of academic language that students should learn, how to determine if students have achieved those results, and then using that information to inform instruction and learning experiences for students to learn successfully. Self‐assessment is a critical 4 aspect of this dissertation. Ms. Garcia carefully incorporated explicit and comprehensible instruction on topics such as intelligence, multiple intelligences, social emotional learning, and cooperative learning strategies as a vehicle for establishing a learning context from which to write. By the time the students learned the different types of writing, they were equipped with personal and authentic information to generate an organized, body of writing that they could self‐assess for quality and possible revision. Most importantly this type of writing experience will reveal to them their own writing improvement in English. The literature review in this dissertation sets the stage for the innovative writing instruction that Ms. Garcia designed for the high achieving ELLs in her classroom that is also good writing instruction for ELLs at all proficiency levels. Evidence of the students’ learning is captured in detail on the DVDs she recorded and there is no doubt that the students gained a level of self‐confidence as individuals, learners, and writers for a variety of purposes. The I am Special and I’m Smart student activities demonstrate this in action. It is refreshing to know that school‐age students are becoming knowledgeable about intelligence and multiple intelligences via cooperative learning strategies that provide them with daily opportunities to work collaboratively with their classmates while developing their second language proficiency in all four language domains: Listening, speaking, reading and writing; while also building their self‐ esteem. 5 In closing, it is important to recognize the notable increase in the writing proficiency level, literacy proficiency level and overall composite score on the annual Illinois English language proficiency test (Assessing Comprehension and Communication State‐to‐State) of several of Ms. Garcia’s former students to whom she taught these writing lessons. The three years (2008‐2010) of these ELL students’ performance on ACCESS suggests that her writing instruction laid a strong foundation that led to especially high ACCESS writing scores that are not usually typical in our school district: Female 1: 1L S R W Literacy PL Overall Composite (OC) 2010: 5.0 6.0 5.0 4.6 4.7 5.2 MET EXIT CRITERIA 2009: 4.8 4.7 5.0 3.9 4.1 4.3 2008: 5.0 6.0 5.0 3.6 4.4 Female 2: L S R W Literacy PL Overall Composite (OC) 2010: 5.0 6.0 5.0 4.6 4.2 5.2 MET EXIT CRITERIA 2009: 5.0 5.4 5.0 3.9 4.1 4.3 2008: 5.0 6.0 5.0 3.9 4.6 Male 1: L S R W Literacy PL Overall Composite (OC) 2010: 4.6 6.0 5.0 4.5 4.6 4.9 MET EXIT CRITERIA 2009: 5.0 5.4 2.4 3.7 3.1 3.6 2008: 4.6 6.0 5.0 3.4 4.3 1 L: Listening, S: Speaking, R: Reading, W: Writing. 6
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