hi and welcome to this week's episode of the language lady I'm your host dr. hem
Phil and I'm so excited to be able to bring this topic with you today I'm
gonna start talking about this new topic by having you ask two following
questions have you ever asked yourself these questions
my LLS can't speak English my Els they can't do the work in my class and I
can't speak their language help me dr. hem Phil what do I do
my Els don't understand what I'm telling them I know that they would be able to
do the work if I could speak their language I don't speak their language
help me tell me dr. hem Phil well I'm happy to tell you that there's an
exciting movement going on in the United States it's been happening for quite a
while and it's through a network called the WIDA consortium and the WIDA
consortium put out these standards in listening reading speaking of writing
that can be used for any school district any school and they are not to replace
the already standards that you use in your classroom but instead what it does
is that it serves as an overlay for your standards so it shows you the language
needed for students to be able to meet the content standards in your in your
district so for example if you're watching a TV show and someone who is
hard of hearing or is hearing-impaired watches that show you're not going to
change the content you're just gonna change the mode in which they're able to
understand the content so what you do is you have closed captioning you're not
changing the content you're just changing you're giving them access to
the information that's what the WETA standards do for English language
learners every school district is different uses a different measure and
how they determined that a student needs second language services or English
language learner services but if your stay is part of the WIDA consortium
and I'm gonna put a link below so that you can find out more about this
incredible resource your school district is using the wAPT or the whopped in
order to determine if a student is eligible for a second for English
language learner services but even if your child isn't or your school district
it's not part of the WIDA consortium I think that you will benefit a lot on the
resources and ideas that I'm going to share with you in this video in this
video I'm going to attempt to take you through the steps from the moment that a
student walks into your building and it's tested and then what you do from
there but you would give them administer them
though is the wapt and then the wAPT is gonna give you a score it's gonna give
you a score on their language level overall proficiency level whether they
are one all the way to a six and also it will tell you their level in listening
reading speaking and writing this is so important because what a student is able
to do at a level language level one it's very different from what a student can
do from a level two three up to six I also want to give out a disclaimer that
two students or three students who are at Alette language level one are not
necessarily the same because even though their overall proficiency score is a 1
they're speaking and their writing scores could put very so you have to
tailor their needs based on their listening reading speaking and writing
scores if you're interested in learning more about what students look like and
what they're able to do to each of the proficiency level please go to my a
previous video that I made called factors in learning a second language or
factors in learning a new language I should say so in this pretend scenario
I'm gonna introduce you to a girl named Powell and she's originally from Brazil
and she's new to this country she's um can understand more than she's able to
speak and what she's also able to write since is determined that bow Lola speaks
another language we give her the whap test and hear her results she has a 1.5
and listening 1.7 and speaking a 1.1 reading
then a 1.0 in writing and we it breaks it down if you go scroll all the way
down her overall score is a 1 so her overall score is basically a an average
of her listening speaking reading and writing skills
this chart shows what she's able to do at her level since she's a level one
we're gonna only look at the green section that shows what she's overall
able to do listening speaking reading and writing feel free to press the pause
button anytime so that you can take a deeper look and take your time and
looking at all the levels so today we're gonna delve deeper into the can do the
scriptures we're gonna look at that is the language of mathematics the language
of language arts also we're gonna look deeper into the language of social
studies and what that entails what what can students do in listening speaking
reading writing of social studies as well as the language of science so
everything that we look at has language we usually think of language just with
language arts but it's everywhere what I want you to do now is I want you to look
at this Apple and I want you to look at it from a different point of view I want
you to describe this Apple as a mathematician as a scientist as an
artist and also as a literary critic so what did you notice you notice that you
have to pull different vocabulary from these different subject areas that's
exactly what happens with our English language learners in order for them to
be successful in whatever content area they're learning and they need to learn
the vocabulary and the language function necessary to be successful in that
particular content area so we've the WETA standards operate is that there's a
standard for every grade level from K through 12 and for every domain
listening speaking reading and writing and also for every content area that I
mentioned prior but each of these content areas or the each of these
standards have a pattern each have an MPI which is a model performance
indicator and a strand and I'm gonna be talking about an MPI in
a couple of minutes but a strand means going from expanding all the way to
bridging and and reaching so students starting at the beginning level and all
the way and then no matter which box you look at what grade level on what subject
area each one is comprised of the same pattern it has a language function the
type of support and the content so nigs example name familiar objects is the
language function because that's what we want
PLL's to be able to do the type of support that they're going to be able to
name familiar objects is with weather condition I'm sorry with photographs or
illustrations and then finally the type of content area is weather conditions so
I can so this is the same pattern over and over again model performance
indicators across all language areas as well as subject areas so to recap the
levels are levels one through six your domains are listening reading speaking
of writing and then your model performance indicators are what's
contained within every single box so let's go back to our example of Pola
from Brazil she is in third grade so I'm gonna look at the grade three to five
cluster and I'm gonna look at the language of math and reading I'm gonna
look at the language of math in terms of speaking what can she
what is she able to say for her level I'm also gonna look at what she's able
to do in writing so this is what allows me to be able to meet her knees
specifically here are more examples of interactive supports that I can use I'm
not limited to what's inside the box and then here we have an example of the
website the landing page for the WIDA consortium and on the right hand side
there's free downloadables that you can have at your disposal so you can
understand better how to help your ll video enabled you to understand more
deeply and more specifically on what the language is needed for students across
all grade levels subject in content areas in next week's
video I'm gonna go more into detail as to how to use that information when
setting up your lesson plan and deciding how you're going to differentiate
content for your students so for example if you're a math teacher middle school
math teacher or high school teacher or if you teach math at the elementary
level how you can use this information that I just taught you today on how to
specifically meet the content and deliver it in a such a way that's
meaningful for your English language learners based on their language level
please comment below what levels of English language learners are in your
classroom and also what aids in resources do you use to enable them to
understand your teaching thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you
next time