Week 10: Reading and Writing

Instructor: Jennifer A. Foote
Course: EDPY 416/516, Fall 2025
Institution: University of Alberta
Department: Faculty of Education

Housekeeping

The discussion board is closed for this week.
Students are requested to bring their laptops to the next class for hands-on practice with vocabulary tools.

Adding Oral Language to the Classroom

Scaffolding

Definition: The support or assistance that teachers provide to enable students to learn.
Purpose: Building on students’ existing knowledge or skills to enable them to progress in their learning.
Key Questions:
- How can we scaffold oral language for learners in terms of:
- Comprehension?
- Production?
- Interaction?

Comprehension

Strategies for Scaffolding Comprehension

Activating Prior Knowledge
Adjusting Teacher Input
- Face students while speaking.
- Speak naturally but at a slightly slower pace than usual.
- Use pauses between thought groups to allow for processing.
Contextual Support
- Employ visuals, keywords, and clear instructions.
Instructions for Group Work:
- Join with your learning group.
- Designate a note-taker and a speaker for the discussion.
- Answer the questions orally while the note-taker records the responses.
- The speaker will report back to the class.
- Time allocated: 10 minutes.

Production

Challenges

Initial Reluctance to Speak:
- Should students be pushed to speak initially?
Coehlo's Insights on ELL Learners:
- It’s important not to compel new students to speak immediately.
- Incorporate the “Just listen… and read” approach, as discussed in Lightbown and Spada.
- Pushing students can increase anxiety, which is counterproductive.
- Providing comprehensible input is essential for learners to gradually feel ready to participate.

Safe Learning Environment

Key Strategies:
- Create a safe space for language learning.
- Encourage peer support among students.
- Foster positive attitudes toward language learning.
- Promote bilingualism.

Reference

Toohey Ethnographic Study (Lightbown & Spada):
- ESL students were strategically placed closer to the teacher.
- Policies against lending/borrowing materials hindered interaction.
- No copying was allowed, despite it being a common method for L2 learners to engage.

Interaction

Group Management

Key Insights:
- Assign groups thoughtfully (lessons learned from personal experience).
- For certain activities, assign clear roles to students.
- Emphasize the importance of collaboration in completing tasks.
- Stress that the goal is to complete the task well, not to finish first.
Promote Interlanguage Pragmatics:
- Establish language structures for situational responses in class.

Language Creation

Language Guides for Students

How to Disagree Politely

Example Phrases:

Formal/Polite:
- I have a different point of view.
Informal:
- No way! I don't agree with you.
Less Polite:
- That's a stupid idea.
Encouraging Disagreement:
- Let’s agree to disagree.
Source: Coehlo, p. 248

Activity Design for Mixed-Level Learners

Jigsaw Method

Base Groups: Each student has a unique task.
Expert Groups: Students with the same task meet to discuss.
Return to Base Groups: Students complete their tasks collaboratively.

Pronunciation

Unique Aspects

Challenges: Pronunciation does not easily fit into general theories of language acquisition.
Important Domains:
- Age
- First Language
- Identity
- Motor Skills
- Outcomes

Identity and Pronunciation

Exploration of Self:
- An accent reflects one’s individual experiences, background, and identity.
- Perceptions of speech often relate closely to perceptions of the speaker. (Source: Matsue, p. 1329)

Three Important Constructs

Comprehensibility:
- How different someone's speech is from the variety used by the listener.
Accent:
- The phonetic characteristics that may vary among speakers.
Intelligibility:
- How difficult speech is perceived to be by the listener.

Relationships Among Constructs

Connection: Accent affects both intelligibility and comprehensibility but not solely focused on one aspect.

Practical Applications

Understanding Ratings

Students rate how easily they understand a speaker on a scale from 1 (very hard) to 9 (very easy).
Students also rate how accented the speech appears on the same scale.

Shadowing Activity

Example dialogue from "The Big Bang Theory" featuring characters Sheldon and Leonard.
Exercise involves listening and comprehension, showcasing spoken language dynamics.

Text Structure Awareness

Importance

Understanding the structure of various text types can aid comprehension.
Examples of Text Structures:
- Textbook layouts
- Research articles
- Newspaper articles

Skimming Techniques for Research Articles

Read the abstract first.
Go directly to the introductory paragraph of the discussion section.
- Avoid expending time on the results section, as it lacks interpretation of data.
  (Source: Derwing, Munro, Thomson, 2008)

Scaffolding Reading

Techniques for Support

Utilize the Zone of Proximal Development: Identify what students can learn with guidance versus what they can do independently.
Language Experience Approach:
- Integrate familiar experiences told orally while writing, using these narratives to scaffold further written activities.

Knowledge Structures

Definition

Patterns that display the relationships between various pieces of knowledge, facilitating content comprehension across disciplines.

Graphic Organizers

Function

Graphic organizers make underlying knowledge structures visible, employing visuals to enhance understanding.
Different types such as T-Charts can facilitate comparative analysis.

Examples of Transformation by Graphic Organizers

Original Text: A complex tax explanation.
Transformed into Visual: Simplifying relationships between costs, commissions, depreciation, and improvements.
Comparison and Contrast Example: Clear distinctions between whales and fish attributes.

Applicability

Effective across age groups and educational levels, aiding comprehension through visual supports.