Monday November 4, 2019

Greetings Oakland Friends & Family!

For our November newsletter, we return to the Essential Practices for ELL Achievement with a focus on Essential Practice #2, English Language Development, the heart of our work at ELLMA. This month we look at Integrated and Designated ELD in the elementary grades, while next month we will dive into this practice in the secondary context.

In addition, this newsletter features two Teacher Spotlights on powerful strategies for a language-rich classroom: Acorn's Jayme Kriztler on Language Dives and Global's Eva Belecha on 3 Reads for newcomers. Finally, you will find information about an upcoming Sanctuary Event and PD opportunity as well as updates for our ELL Ambassadors. Please read on!

-ELLMA Team

ESSENTIAL PRACTICE #2:

Integrated & Designated ELD in Elementary

What is Integrated and Designated English Language Development (ELD)

Integrated ELD is the practice of intentionally teaching language ALL DAY LONG in every content area.

Before and during a lesson, teachers wonder, “What are the language demands of this lesson that might prevent ELLs from fully engaging in grade level learning, and what are the highest value language development opportunities that will help students with not just this lesson, but across this unit and this academic year?”

One strong way to support Integrated ELD is through increasing student talk and through the use of complex text to make meaning and develop complex language.

Here are some helpful resources:

For complex text in elementary classrooms: BAL Whole-Group Text Approaches
For student talk, see the PD series Student Talk and Academic Discussions Basics
For more helpful ideas, visit Teacher page on the ELLMA website (Be sure to scroll down to access the strategy one-pagers.)

Designated ELD is similar to what we used to simply call “ELD:” a protected time to provide focused language development that attends to a student's proficiency level.
New in the state ELA/ELD Framework is a requirement that Designated ELD be directly connected to core instruction, thereby making the language learning and application more meaningful. There is also an overall shift towards “interacting in meaningful ways,” and away from isolated grammar practice.

The Sentence Unpacking / Language Dive strategy featured below is a good example of this new type of Designated ELD.
Elementary practitioners can learn more by reading The OUSD Approach to Designated ELD.

What about newcomers?

Newcomers are now 27% of our ELLs (up from about 10% 5 years ago). The increase in newcomer population makes our take-up of quality Integrated and Designated ELD even more crucial. For an overview on additional supports for newcomers, we hope these resources are helpful:

This month's ELLMA Spotlight: 2nd grade teacher at Acorn, Jayme Kriztler

This month, we caught up with Jayme Kritzler of Acorn Woodland to learn how she approaches Language Dives. This interview took place in May 2019 after she taught a Language Dive focused sentence from Ruby Bridges to her 2nd grade class. Check out the video 7 minute video of her lesson here, and the detailed lesson plan here.

A Language Dive (aka Sentence Unpacking) allows teacher and students to focus on one complex sentence in order to build fluency with the academic language of complex text. The teacher breaks the sentence into chunks which the students discuss as they mine for meaning and language features like the ones called out in Part 2 of the CA ELD Standards. Finally, they practice with the complex language structure featured in the complex sentence.

See the beginning of the interview below and the full version here.

What have been some of the benefits to your kids of doing Language Dives?

J: I think building a love of language and the complexity of language and words. I think my class really really enjoyed that and I think just teaching kids that you can think very hard about words and the way that words are arranged can change the meaning of a sentence.

What are your favorite parts of the lesson that you did on Ruby Bridges?

J: There are three parts to the lesson - The Deconstruction where you are trying to really dig into the meaning of each chunk of the text, and talking about the language features lightly. Then comes the Reconstruction where you substitute words and mess with the order of the sentence and focus a bit more on the language features. In part 3, you do the Practice with the structure you focused on. During the second part of the lesson, the Reconstruction part, we took out a chunk of the sentence and the kids figured out that now the sentence made it sound like the parents were proud of themselves, rather than being proud of Ruby Bridges. Since they really get the meaning of the story they were able to laugh and say, “That’s hilarious,” but they could see that Ruby couldn’t have done what she did without her parents.

Eva Belecha on using 3-Reads in an Integrated ELD Math Class.

Read how, i n Eva's own words, she engaged in inquiry to better support her newcomers to make meaning of word problems and express their mathematical thinking: a great example of powerful Integrated ELD, in which students are simultaneously developing language and content.

ELL Ambassador Corner

ELL Ambassadors are site-based liaisons who hold the reclassification process and bring an ELL-lens to instruction.

1. NEW ELL Snapshots and RFEP Snapshots will be ready in your Google folders on 11/12/19.
These snapshots are great for creating action plans for ELLs as we head into another RI window for ELLs only, 2nd -12th grade, beginning on 11/4, and they are ready for elementary trimester one parent-teacher conferences.

2. See you at ELL Ambassador Meeting #2 on November 19th from 4:00 - 5:30 at West Oakland MS. Please sign up on On-Track, Class ID: PD7234. We will have two different options for learning about Winter Reclassification. If you're new to it, you can get the soup to nuts details from Mike. If you're experienced and can understand everything from the procedures linked below, you will meet with Tom to consider with colleagues to how to use reclassification data sources to drive ELL achievement at your site. ELPAC testing as a lever for ELL achievement will also be covered, and more!

3. Winter 2019-20 Reclassification forms and spreadsheets in your Google folders on Mon. 11/18, all Due Fri 12/6. You can see all the steps in the document ELL Ambassador Procedures for Winter 2019-20 Reclassification.

Contact: Mike, ELD Services Coordinator

Professional Learning Opportunity Coming Soon!

As our newcomer population continues to grow across all of our schools, we are excited to offer INVEST, a PD series for elementary school teams to develop responsive systems and supports. Space is limited and demand will be high so begin to talk to your colleagues about forming a team. Click below to see the full flyer with more information and link to the application.

For more information, contact James Kindle.

Join our next Sanctuary event on Nov. 16th @ Urban Promise Academy!

Highlights include performances from UPA students, updates on public charge and census outreach, and workshops on family preparedness and rapid response training.

RSVP here!

We'd love to hear from you! Please contact Nicole with communications inquiries.

Meet the ELLMA Team!

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Oakland, CA | 94608-1142 US

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