Learning the Language

In a video that I watched this morning "Ms. Griego" models for "Ms. Sullivan" how to give English-language learners "think time" during a lesson and how to guide students to chat with a "shoulder partner," whoever is sitting next to him or her. Ms. Griego is a coach for teachers of ELLs, and Ms. Sullivan is a teacher being coached. The video doesn't name the schools where the teachers work.

The video captures excerpts of Ms. Griego's model lesson delivered to ELLs in 3rd grade, and conversations between the two teachers. It's available online from Stanford's School of Education. The coach explains, for example, why she thinks it works best to assign ELLs to work in groups of four, with students of different levels of proficiency in the same group.

The video is one of a series on teaching ELLs that have been created by professors Kenji Hakuta and Guadalupe Valdes. The one I watched was called "Modeling and Coaching SDAIE." The acronym, by the way, refers to specially designed academic instruction in English, a set of strategies used in California to teach intermediate ELLs content and language at the same time.

The video lessons seem to be well-thought-out and and correspond with three Stanford courses concerning the education of ELLs.

I learned about them through the Princeton, N.J.-based ETS, which hosted Mr. Hakuta and Ms. Valdes as panelists at a symposium about ELLs in January. You can find Power Point presentations from that meeting posted online at the conference site by clicking on the "Agenda" tab.