Reflecting on ESL Teaching and Learning Across the Curriculum LAUSD District 6 January 18, 2006

Professor Pauline Gibbons Faculty of Education University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Key Question What is the “signature” of an effective teaching and learning classroom environment for English language learners?

3 Basic Assumptions Underpinning ESL Teaching and Learning Effective ESL teaching and learning requires: 1. Development of a “high challenge and high support” curriculum 2. Teachers’ understanding of language as a meaning –making system 3. Explicit teaching of academic language integrated with content teaching.

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence front-loaded scaffolding; scaffolding that builds on what learners bring to the learning situation (language, experience and knowledge), and makes connections between this and the curriculum; language and subject/content integration; meaning-driven language teaching;

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence (continued) explicit focus on form and grammar; links made between spoken and written language; the development of second language literacy;

The Planned Curriculum: Evidence (continued) opportunities for students to use new language in contextually appropriate ways and in authentic situations; ‘message abundancy’; the development of metalinguistic and metacognitive understandings; formative assessment practices with assessment used to inform teaching.

The Enacted Curriculum: Examples extended dialogues (non- IRF) by students with teacher and peers, leading to ‘substantive conversation’ and increased depth of knowledge; increased ‘wait time’ in teacher-student talk, and opportunities for self correction/repair by students; opportunities for students to take on ‘expert’ roles; initiation of questions and topics by students; use of higher-order questioning by teacher;

The Enacted Curriculum: Examples (continued) thinking (of teacher and students) made explicit in the discourse; respect for alternative viewpoints: knowledge as problematic; teacher as active listener (e.g., through appropriation of student ideas, and building on student responses); positive interpersonal/affective relationships; understanding by students of how to work collaboratively.

Implications for Teacher Learning in Schools 1. participation in action learning with others; 2. development of a shared language by teachers (about language, learning and second language development) across faculties, classes;

Implications for Teacher Learning in Schools 3. addressing teachers’ own perceived needs, questions and concerns; 4. authentic collaboration between researchers/academics and teachers;

Implications for Teacher Learning in Schools 5. professional development that mirrors a collaborative classroom: congruence between the ‘medium’ and the ‘message’; 6. a focus on principled knowledge, not simply procedural knowledge.