National Institute for Literacy
 

[EnglishLanguage 2019] Re: Students as Sources; Vocabulary Development in ESL

Anne R Connors arconn at juno.com
Sun Dec 16 07:27:11 EST 2007


I pair my students to read. They help each other with pronunciation,
vocabulary, and comprehension. It also helps them with community. I
pair them with someone different each time they read. Sometimes, I put
a low reader in English with one from the same country who reads better.
That way, one student can explain text in the first language. Other
times I put people who have different languages together and
conversations will start (in English) about the content. After being
paired with different people, the entire class knows each others' names,
where they live, how many children they have etc. I meant to ask them
this week, how they felt about reading aloud and forgot. BUT, I didn't
ask them to read aloud to each other this week and I noticed they grouped
themselves and read aloud and helped each other.

I find Spanish students are more prone to act out scenarios than Asian
students, so if any reading, including dialogue, is done in front of the
class, I'll start by asking the Spanish learners. The learner knows
he/she is free to say that he doesn't wish to read or act in front of
the class. This year I had a fellow from India who loved to read almost
anything to the entire class. and would volunteer even when I hadn't
planned for any reading like that. I also have them call out BINGO
words. That is "reading in front of the class."



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