Larry Ferlazzo is an English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.
(This is the first post in a two-part series.)
The new question-of-the-week is:
What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach English-language learners?
This series is part of a longer series of questions and answers inviting educators from various disciplines to share their “single most effective instructional strategy.”
There are many more to come!
Today, Valentina Gonzalez, Denita Harris, Cindy Garcia, and Deedy Camarena offer their responses.
Before we get to today’s guest, I’d like to share my own answer.
Two that contributors to this series don’t mention and are ones I like to use often are the Language Experience Approach (LEA) and Total Physical Response (TPR).
Now, to responses from today’s guests:
Shifting the way we approach teaching English-learners can have a positive effect on their success in our schools. When we see our English-learners’ assets first, we recognize everything they come with and value not only their culture but also the content and literacy they bring to the table.
I’ve found the Picture Word Inductive Model (Calhoun, 1998) to be one of the most effective instructional techniques in my experience teaching ELs. The benefits of using PWIM with English-learners are many. This literacy technique is quite flexible and can be used cross-curricularly no matter the grade level, language level, or content. PWIM leverages students’ funds of knowledge and builds upon them. Through the PWIM, ELs are engaged in thinking and in all language domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing with scaffolds and supports such as visuals and sentence stems or frames. This method can be used in all grade levels and cross-curricularly.
These are the steps I use to implement an adapted version of PWIM with English-learners and how each step benefits ELs:
