One Picture: Engaging ELD Newcomer students

A vocabulary lesson using a picture

The essential question read: What's the weirdest thing you've eaten? This week's vocabulary words was initially and the prompt was for students to describe a time (real or imagined) when they initially tried a food and had a second thought. I encouraged them to think about a time they tried a food and changed their mind then let them think. And then I put this picture up. The buzz in the room was infectious. Pulpo. I looked up the word in Spanish as this is their primary native language. Now they were ready.

My collab teacher and I modeled to see who had eaten the weirdest food. She shared using a complete sentence, "The weirdest food I've eaten is a snail." The class erupted. With their A/B partners, they tried to outdo each other. Then my partner pre-selected some students who shared using the frame, "The weirdest food I've eaten is.."

Next we moved on to the paragraph. I read the paragraph aloud and the class echo read. Then we worked through the sentence frame by crowd-sourcing the paragraph blanks. Each time students discussed with their A/B partner. I explained the grammatical structure to help them with finding the correct word. We chunked out each blank and I slowly revealed my model. Students worked with their A/B partner to see if they could come up with an additional word.

Here is my example:

Many of them thought of other foods types and food dishes like Arabic and Thai. Additionally we talked about capitalizing proper nouns. Ultimately the engagement stemmed from a single picture.

Reflection

Many teachers struggle with the daily monotony of teaching from a "scripted" program but simply by adding an engaging picture or asking an essential question it can capture your newcomers. Some might underestimate what a newcomer can do, and giving them a chance to practice with academic vocabulary with lots of support, they will rise to the occasion. Just food for thought.

The Lesson Sequence

1. Essential Question

2. Think time

3. Modeled prompt

4. A/B partners and Pre-selection

5. Modeled reading

6. Echo reading

7. Crowd source frame

8. A/B partners read 3 Xs