ABSTRACT
I am observing a science class in a middle school. The middle school houses Grades 6-8, children between the ages of 11-14. The students in the Science 2 class that I am observing are all in Grade 7 and about 12 or 13 years old depending on the month in which they were born. About 60% of the students are mother tongue (L1) speakers of English and about 40% are English language learners (ELLs) who have varying levels of English language profi ciency. For the past two weeks, the students have been studying the carbon cycle. Today the teacher has been reviewing important vocabulary, such as “atmosphere,” “photosynthesis,” “carbon dioxide,” “greenhouse gases,” “factory emissions,” and “fossil fuels” in preparation for a problem solving activity that she has designed called “Walk About”—an activity that will require students to make predictions. At the moment, students are working in partnerships with small whiteboards. The teacher points to a list of words on the overhead projector and asks, “Which of these words means to change light energy to chemical energy?” Students have 30 seconds to conference, write the word on the whiteboard, and hold it up. After each 30-second conference, she circles the word she is looking for on the overhead. She can see students’ responses on the whiteboards, and students can check their answers and get immediate feedback from the overhead. She also repeats words and states her prompts in slightly different ways so that her learners must stay engaged in the process and cannot choose words by a process of elimination. The teacher then moves to a short problem solving activity, still using the conferencing teams. Her questions are directed at trying to get the students to understand how changing key components in the cycle affects outcomes. In other words, she is trying to get learners to make predictions. The teacher asks, “What would happen if there were not enough sun? What would happen if there were too many auto and factory emissions? What if many plants and trees died?” There are charts around the room labeled “Let me hear you say . . .” On these charts are printed numerous prompts for making predictions, such as “It would . . .” “There would be . . .” “I might . . .” “Perhaps they would need to . . .” The teacher walks to one of the charts and says, “Use these phrases to help you make predictions.” She waits while the students conference with one another. [Christison, research notes]
Task: Refl ect
1. How does the lesson excerpt described in the vignette help the ELLs work with diffi cult content while learning language?
