I once taught a 5th grade G.A.T.E. class at a very affluent school for the final two months of the school year.  It was my off-track vacation time and their teacher could not finish the year. I had never seen students like these before. These kids openly, in fact brazenly did the math when receiving an assignment. They cared about the writing assignment exactly as much as the math told them to care about it.

These are the two “MATH QUESTIONS” that came out of their mouths NON-STOP:
1. Is this graded?
2. How much of our grade is it?

Depending on the answers to those two questions they would quickly determine how much they were going to invest in the assignment.

They would decide:
• I better get started on it now and I better do a great job. Also, I had better check my work for careless mistakes.
Or
• I can goof off for 7 minutes and then quickly dash off the assignment. I’ll probably get an A, but if I get a B, it’s not that important because this one grade shouldn’t affect my overall grade.
Or
• This isn’t graded? Hey, Joe, what are you doing after school?

If it wasn’t graded… they didn’t care about the assignment. (It is different when a class has experienced multiple teachers but still… I had never done so much grading in my life. I learned a lot from that high-achieving G.A.T.E. class.)

Struggling Students ALSO Do the MATH before they do the WRITING

A lot of inner-city students, remedial students, ESL students, and students with learning disabilities also do the math before they start their writing assignment… and for them, they don’t like how it all adds up.

For them… it adds up to failure… so why get started?

I teach lots of kids in this latter category and I learned early in my teaching career that I have got to get them writing and I have got to get them writing fast. Quite simply, teaching students how to get an assignment, break it down, and then start and finish the assignment changes “the math” for them.

After they are “writing fast” I can layer all kinds of fantastic writing instruction on top of these core writing skills. With these core writing skills firmly in place, students seem to respond about 50% better to all the other writing instruction I layer on top.

With these core skills in place “THE MATH” has changed so students invest more. They are just like the G.AT.E. kids!

THEN ADD LAYERS OF DEPTH

Acting with an Accent… in Writing?

In acting, an actor creates the character and then layers on the accent.  The accent is just like a hat or a costume that the actor will layer on over his character. The character is supposed to be a real person, not an accent. What makes up a person who he is? It is all the things the person says, does, thinks, feels, and believes. In other words, the accent is not the character. The accent is simply a layer put on top of a person.

Poor actors think the accent is the character. With these actors it is very easy to see the accent. In fact, that is often all you can see. This makes it very difficult to see a real person underneath that accent.

Most of the writing tips, writing tricks, and writing tools that are taught in school, really should be layered on top of a solid foundation.

The heart of teaching elementary students (and remedial writers in upper grades) how to be successful writers has to do with four aspects of writing:

1. How to organize and structure writing
2. How good writing is about good communication
3. How to break down an assignment and get started
4. How to get the job done in the time allowed

Once students are comfortable with these skills, layering on more tips and tricks is easy!

Good writers and successful students have mastered how to receive an assignment, break it down, organize their thoughts and then quickly start and finish the assignment. In short, they can write fast!

Be sure to read the next blog post on “Teaching Children to Write FAST Using the Timed Writing System.”

Grammar, phonics… whatever my students need is what I want to teach. I can get as excited about the sound of a single letter as I can about an entire essay.

Discovering the full beauty and interconnectedness of a particular subject is always fascinating to me.

This beauty exists in even the most minute details of a language. However, in order for ESL students to master English you will find that grammar, vocabulary and worksheets are not the ultimate and final solution. They are important… but as my story will illustrate, they are not “the ultimate solution.”

Discovering the Full Power of Authentic Written Communication for ESL Students

Step 1 – Learning Words

I began my teaching career in Los Angeles as a substitute teacher. At the time, with bilingual education, many students in the majority of classrooms knew very little English.

Imagine teaching a kindergarten class when they speak no English… and you speak no Spanish. Funny… but not fun. In fact, it could get a little nutty. I had to learn a lot of Spanish words fast so that I could get the kids both working and behaving.

Step 2 – Worksheet Torture… Until I Discovered “THE TRICK”

Living in Los Angeles and loving to surf, once I was teaching full-time I would take surf trips to Central America on my vacation. I would find a Spanish school right on the beach and I would get college credit through an extension course in the United States. I would return from my vacation with a great tan and 9 units of college credit.

My first Spanish school that I attended was right on the beach in Costa Rica. They took their job a little too seriously. In fact… there were tests and homework!

Upon arriving at the school everyone thought I would be the star student. I knew a lot of words and I was not afraid to speak them regardless of how silly I sounded! Everyone else in the class had taken classes. Many had taken years of Spanish classes. Soon I was struggling to keep up with the course work. I knew a lot of words but I knew nothing about the structure of the Spanish language.

One day as I was starting on my second hour of homework, another student who had finished his homework in just 10 minutes said, “Listen… you just need to find what the TRICK is… and then fill in all the blanks using that trick.”

I wanted to learn the language… but once I knew that I could simply use the trick and then go have fun… it was hard not to take advantage of this newfound knowledge. I almost felt embarrassed that for several weeks I had spent hours completing my homework.

Use the trick, pass the test, have fun now, and learn Spanish later! This is the problem with both worksheets and grammar! After all, who is so strong willed as to resist this strategy when sitting just steps from the beach in Costa Rica?

Step 3 – Oral Fluency is Just Barely Competent

As I went on more surf trips and attended more and more Spanish schools, I developed quite a network of Spanish speaking friends. Most of my days were spent practicing grammar in the classroom or speaking Spanish with friends. There were times when my head was spinning so fast with Spanish verbs that it would feel as if I were about to head out into orbit.

You would think that this is what it takes to master a language! However, there was something missing and I was about to discover what it was quite by accident.

Step 4 – The Hidden and Neglected Key for Breaking through to Fluency

With bilingual education on the outs, I rarely spoke Spanish while back home in Los Angeles. However, I had quite a few friends in Central America with whom I would email regularly. I am not a perfectionist but I do try to do things correctly. As such, I poured my heart and soul into most of my emails.

I was expressing “deep thoughts in Spanish!”

I returned to my favorite Spanish school right on the beach the following year and it turns out I had become FLUENT in Spanish since I last attended. EVERYONE would ask, “Where… how… when… did you learn all this Spanish?!”

Authentic Written Communication is the Key with Elementary and Middle School ESL Students

The above learning experience GREATLY increased my use of authentic written communication in the classroom. One key to my success in Spanish was that I took pride in my writing and I wanted it to be correct. I was self-monitoring in my writing.

In order for ESL students to develop this same self-monitoring pride in their writing they must be communicating what they perceive as an important “big picture message.” In other words, there must be structure to their overall message even if it is written with grammar errors and simple vocabulary.

When students take pride in their “authentic written communication” many grammar errors simply will not sit well with them. They will want their masterpiece to be perfect!

Day-by-day your “ESL students” will simply become successful students. Focus too much on grammar, vocabulary, and worksheets and your ESL students will stay ESL students!

Ideas to Walk Away With

1. Vocabulary – A large vocabulary is great. However, when it is time to work in an academic capacity the limitations of just a large vocabulary are quickly exposed.
2. Grammar and Worksheets – These work great for learning “the trick.” It’s true that learning the trick is a part of learning the language. However, the truth is that worksheets are often not done with the true intent of learning at all. Students don’t have an unlimited amount of time to complete their work. As such, students’ main objective often becomes to get their work done as correctly and as quickly as they can using whatever tricks they can.
3. Speaking Fluently – You don’t need to know how a car works in order to drive one… but if you want to become a professional race car driver… you do. We want our students to have a “professional level” of competence in their new language. Students need more than just oral fluency.
4. Authentic Writing – This is the most neglected and among the most valuable tools for teaching ESL in elementary and middle school.  Teachers often think “but my students don’t have the vocabulary to write a lot” or “my students need to improve their grammar before they can write a lot.”  The truth is that this thinking is backwards! Students need a REASON to master their vocabulary and grammar! Authentic writing is this reason!
5. “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” is a writing program developed by a teacher who has extensive experience teaching ESL students AND by a teacher who has actually learned a second language. “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” will quickly TRANSFORM your ESL students into shining examples of grade level success stories!

Authentic written communication even with limited vocabulary, and even with lots of grammar errors skyrockets student motivation! Students need a BIG reason to focus on the SMALL details!