Ells and the Appropriate Educational Strategy

TESOL: Strategy The instructional strategy utilized for this exercise was the concept of pairing actions with words in order to provide contextual meaning for the ELL. This was situated in an informal, casual method of conversational instruction during a one-on-one, face-to-face moment, in which I could engage the students individually to help reinforce concepts. This instructional strategy is based on the recommendation of Peregoy and Boyle (2013) to differentiate so as to expand on the meaning of the lesson of the day (p. 86).

The idea here was that I would focus on vocabulary words that could be demonstrated actively, concentrating on verb conjugations (the difference between verb endings in present, past and future). For example I could say, "I pick up the pencil" at the same time that I pick it up. I would also spell this out on the board or on the ELL's paper. Then I would say, "I picked up the pencil," after picking it up and putting it down, demonstrating past tense usage of the action verb.

Then I would say, "I will pick up the pencil," and then I would pick it up, thus demonstrating future tense. I would use different words with each student so that those listening who were not directly being given the example could also hear and have the general idea reinforced into their subconscious minds.

The point of this instructional strategy was to acquaint the student with more conversational English so that the ELL could pick up on the subtleties of expression and at the same time be able to identify verb conjugations and realize distinctions between verb endings and tense. For the most part the student was very receptive to the strategy and could follow along very well. I assessed the learning and progress of the student over the course of the week and had the student repeat tense examples back to me.

So the student would demonstrate an action, such as kicking at a ball or throwing a piece of paper or reading a book (depending on the verb vocabulary words that we were practicing that week), and through these various examples, the student would show both differentiation in use of the language herself and understanding of the concept of conjugating verbs. The student was able to verbally state the correct conjugations while demonstrating the correct associated actions for each of the three tenses.

Only once or twice did I have to verbally assist her in using the correct verb form and that was for irregular verb endings, which I knew would be confusing for new learners, so this was not very concerning. It was mainly a matter of memorization and repetition. Had the student not been able to demonstrate any sign of understanding or comprehension, I would recommend a strategy of reinforcement and repetition through continuation of differentiation, using visual learning with oral learning and experiential learning.

The repetition in and of itself would help to drive home the points of conjugation and a game could be played to reinforce the conversational aspect of the.