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Example 1: Using the Can Do Descriptors to Inform your Instructional Planning
We will use fictional multilingual student "Tuaha", located with additional information in the profile available above, for this example. Tuaha is rated at the following WIDA proficiency levels:
| Tuaha's Overall Proficiency: |
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| 4.7 "Expanding" (out of 6.0) | |
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| Listening |
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| : 2.4 "Beginning" | Speaking |
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| : 2.6 "Developing" |
| Reading |
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| : 6.0 "Bridging" | Writing |
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| : 4.5 "Expanding" |
In this example, we can see that the same student may have greater proficiency in some modality areas more than others. The outcome of this is that the type of language support offered must reflect the academic language required as well as the SWRL (Speaking, Writing, Reading or Listening) primarily used to demonstrate or understand the lesson's learning objective.
Let's say our example lesson objective relates an 11th grade Earth Science class and the following MN Science Standard and benchmark. I've pasted it here so that you can see it in it's original langauge:
The objective, then, for this lesson with "Tuaha" is that "Students will be able to (SWBAT) gather and synthesize information related to the how perceived climate change impacts one MN American Indian Tribe through the oral presentation of a guest speaker representing the local tribal indigenous community".
As the teacher, I would identify that the primary language modality needed for this objective and activity, which in this case is "Listening". The academic language needed for success for the primary language function "synthesize" might be as follows: 1) Form(s): Sustainability, phenomena, impact, 2) Syntax: "
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I have seen..." and "Over time, the Earth..." 3) Discourse: Extended Narration of Life Experiences
Based on my lesson's objectives and my example student, Tuaha, I am going to select
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discourse as academic language my focus. Tuaha has higher scores in the areas of Reading and Writing, but he could easily get lost in the extended narrative provided by the guest speaker
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as I see when I check what Tuaha "Can Do" in that are using the level 2 descriptor below:
I see that Tuaha can sort the guest speakers oral language statements according to time frames. This is great! However, my guest speaker will not be speaking in statements spaced by large amounts of "wait time", or a slower rate of speech than is normally used for story-telling and extended narration which can best be understood in a paragraph-like format. I then realize that Tuaha may need an accommodation or support to help him keep pace with this oral presentation by our guest speaker. I consult tools like the matrices and charts below and consider what may help Tuaha navigate this discourse level academic language need.
Any accommodations you decide to make for your multilingual students should be guided by the Five Principles for instruction of English language learners (Levine, et al., 2012). More information about these five principles and the evidence-based research tgrounding them are located here. In summary, Levine's Five Principles are:
- Focus on Academic Language, Literacy, and Vocabulary
- Link Background Knowledge and Culture to Learning
- Increase Comprehensible Input and language Output
- Promote Classroom Interaction
- Stimulate Higher-Order Thinking Skills and Use of Learning Strategies
Since you may have a variety of WIDA proficiency scores represented in your class, you may need to examine the academic language and supports needed at more than one level (1-6). You may also decide that no further supports are needed for your multilingual learners to achieve their instructional goals, in which case-- you may want to consider extending your lesson's instructional objective(s), language modality (SWRL), or the complexity of the academic language used to challenge and support your learners for whom the lesson content may be too easy.
Additional Resources and Leveled Adaptations for Academic Language Supports
Finally, a reminder that collaboration with experienced your colleagues, such as your cooperating teacher and your school's Multilingual Specialist or ESL Teacher, is key to developing the best plan for meeting the needs of your individual learners, including your multilingual learners.
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Additional Resources and Leveled Adaptations for Academic Language Supports
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Included below are further tools which have been developed to help you with the initial decision-making process of what your multilingual student(s) may need based on their proficiency scores in order to achieve the instructional goals and lesson objectives. I highly recommend starting with the "Strategy Cards" as the most straightforward supports shown to be beneficial to all learners, including multilingual learners. The "Go To Strategies Project" delivers a matrices based on the Five Principles that allow for a bit more nuanced support related to specific level and SWRL needs. For a deeper dive, a full copy of the "Go To Strategies Project" is available HERE, with pages 23-66 serving as an inventory of activities related to specific language proficiency levels aligned with Levine's Five Principles. Thirdly, the "Virtual Supports and Accommodations for English Learners" document embedded below with accommodations by language level for sensory, graphic, and interactive supports relative to synchronous or asynchronous virtual learning and on-line tools used for each.
Strategy Cards:
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The Go To Strategies Project:
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Virtual Supports and Accommodations for
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ELs:
View file name WIDA AL Strategy Cards.pdf height
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. 150 View file name The GO TO Strategies
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Matrix pp22-23.pdf height
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150
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View file name SC ESOL Virtual Supports and Accommodations (1).pdf height
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150