ESOL RATIONALES

Suggested orientations, contexts and techniques for teaching LEP students.

See, also, Foreign language Methodology

See, also, the ESOL page

ESOL RATIONALES - I

Rationales Regarding Transfer*

1.     Transfer depends in large measure on the perception and generalization of the principles and relationships inherent in the subject matter field that one is studying.

2. Learners must be motivated by bona fide opportunities to communicate with the content of the subject matter.

3.The teacher should modify the standard exercises and practice in the textbook so as to accommodate a particular group of students.

4. Above all, students want to use new knowledge in the affairs of daily life.

5.Pictures may be used to supply situations which are outside the classroom, situations likely to arouse and hold the learner's interest, situations suitable for intensive work with the content.

6. A series of panels or frames each showing a stage in a story or incident specially designed for story telling and question-and-answer work.

7.It is possible to tell the story without bringing in the possibility of too many other words.

8. The advantage of making one's own pictures for this type of lesson is that one can choose the kind of subject which one knows to have an appeal to the learner.

9.With a little ingenuity it is not difficult to design a series of pictures to illustrate a situation suitable for treatment of the variety of kinds of content. The essentials may be summarized thus:
The series should be designed so that a variety of questions is possible, especially of the types -
a. What is he going to do? c. What has he just done?
b. What is he doing? d. What did he do next?

10.The subject of the pictured story can be chosen so that it enables the teacher to deal not only with the situations in the picture but with real situations in real life.

11.Ear training facilitates speaking. Articulation is dependent upon hearing sounds accurately, discriminating among sounds, establishment - i.e., memorization or internalization - of proper auditory sound images, and development of a feel for the new language.

12.Concentration on one skill at a time facilitates learning by reducing the load on the student and by permitting the use of materials and techniques geared to the specific objectives and requirements of each skill.

13.When students are required to speak from the outset, the likelihood of errors is increased, apprehensiveness on the part of the student impedes learning, and confidence develops slowly (if at all). When listening comprehension precedes speaking, the student's initial experience includes more correct responses and more frequent positive reinforcement, less apprehension, and more rapid development of confidence in his language learning ability.

14.Prematurely listening to his own unauthentic pronunciation, and to that of other students, may interfere with the student's discrimination and retention of correct sounds.

15.Every lesson, every part of every lesson, and even every line may be judged on three qualities, which we shall call strength, lightness and transparency.
a.Strength - Does it carry its own weight by means of the rewards that it makes available?
b.Lightness - Is a single "unit" so long that the student wearies of it before it is finished, and loses any sense of its unity?
c.Transparency - Transparency is primarily a cognitive problem: how readily can the user of the materials see the units and their relationships?

16.Lexical exploration is used to emphasize the active, creative, partially unprescribed role of the learner. It, then, refers to those aspects of a lesson through which the student expands his ability to come up with, or to recognize, the right word at the right time. It would be desirable to relate lexical exploration not only to the basic sample, but also to the projected occasions for use.

17.Teachers adapt materials and begin by making a survey of both content and the student he/she is dealing with.

18.We suggest that a prospective adapter begin by making a careful survey of both sides of the gap he is trying to bridge. Once he has done so, he can connect the two sides by using whatever devices he is most comfortable with.

19.Supply whatever is necessary (dialogues, drills, Cummings devices, etc.) in order to bring the students from mastery of the existing materials to the uses.

20.The nearest reference to meaning is a statement that the vocabulary in basic subjects is drawn from the subject matter itself.

21.The first step toward adaptation is to form a clear picture of the students, their needs and interests. This picture may take the form of a simple sociotopical matrix.

22.The goal of adaptation will therefore be to enable the students, in relation to the existing linguistic framework as much as possible, to use the content in a connected and communicative way in one or more contexts that are meaningful to them.

23.A crucial issue in drill design that has great bearing on one's teaching method is the extent to which context or situation plays a part in the drill.

24.A substitution drill, then, has a master output into which items are inserted according to information supplied in the input.

25.The effectiveness of a drill is increased if the language of the drill is related to communicative activity.

26.Studies demonstrate the importance of meaning in the storage of words.

27. Attention is being given to the way of thinking which characterizes the subject-matter fields. The way of thinking which underlies a discipline involves the particular set of assumptions, generative propositions, and typical problems of the special field. [Also, language related to the concepts/content.]

28. Instrumentalities are described as modes of internal representation and are called enactive, iconic, and symbolic representation. Enactive refers to psychomotor response patterns, iconic to visual images, and symbolic to logical propositions and internalized language.

29. Iconic representation has to do with perceptual organization which makes use of diagrammatic devices, summary images, and graphics.

ESOL RATIONALES

1. Transfer depends in large measure on the perception and generalization of the principles and relationships inherent in the subject matter field that one is studying.

3.The teacher should modify the standard exercises and practice in the textbook so as to accommodate a particular group of students.

6.A series of panels or frames each showing a stage in a story or incident specially designed for story telling and question-and-answer work.

7.It is possible to tell the story without bringing in the possibility of too many other words.

9.With a little ingenuity it is not difficult to design a series of pictures to illustrate a situation suitable for treatment of the variety of kinds of content. The essentials may be summarized thus:
The series should be designed so that a variety of questions is possible, especially of the types -
a. What is he going to do?
b. What is he doing?
c. What has he just done?
d. What did he do next?

12.Concentration on one skill at a time facilitates learning by reducing the load on the student and by permitting the use of materials and techniques geared to the specific objectives and requirements of each skill.

13.When students are required to speak from the outset, the likelihood of errors is increased, apprehensiveness on the part of the student impedes learning, and confidence develops slowly (if at all). When listening comprehension precedes speaking, the student's initial experience includes more correct responses and more frequent positive reinforcement, less apprehension, and more rapid development of confidence in his language learning ability.

17.Teachers adapt materials and begin by making a survey of both content and the student he/she is dealing with.

18. We suggest that a prospective adapter begin by making a careful survey of both sides of the gap he is trying to bridge. Once he has done so, he can connect the two sides by using whatever devices he is most comfortable with.

22. The goal of adaptation will therefore be to enable the students, in relation to the existing linguistic framework as much as possible, to use the content in a connected and communicative way in one or more contexts that are meaningful to them.

23. A crucial issue in drill design that has great bearing on one's teaching method is the extent to which context or situation plays a part in the drill.

24.A substitution drill, then, has a master output into which items are inserted according to information supplied in the input.

25. The effectiveness of a drill is increased if the language of the drill is related to communicative activity.

26.Studies demonstrate the importance of meaning in the storage of words.

27. Attention is being given to the way of thinking which characterizes the subject-matter fields. The way of thinking which underlies a discipline involves the particular set of assumptions, generative propositions, and typical problems of the special field.









*Excerpts and applications to ESOL by David W. Gurney,
Associate Professor, College of Education
Jan. 27, 1992