COOPERATIVE LEARNING Classroom Example
المؤلف:
Jane D. Hill Kathleen M. Flynn
المصدر:
Classroom Instruction that works with English Language Learners
الجزء والصفحة:
P58-C6
2025-09-09
293
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Classroom Example
Take a look at the example below to see how you can implement cooperative learning in your classroom with ELLs at varying stages of language acquisition.
Subject: Science
Content Objective: To know how natural causes change the world.
Mr. Higuera’s 3rd grade class was engaged in a science unit studying how natural causes change the land and how these land changes then affect the world. After learning about the composition of rocks and how they change and about different landforms (e.g., mountains, canyons, plains, plateaus, islands), students were assigned to groups of four for a “jigsaw” activity.
Each student on a home team selected one natural cause for which to be responsible: water (e.g., rain, rivers), ice (e.g., hail, glaciers), wind (e.g., tornadoes, hurricanes), or force (e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes). Students then were reorganized into three-person, topic-alike teams (i.e., water, ice, wind, and force teams) to begin learning about the natural causes of change, how these changes subsequently change the land, examples of the changes, and how the land changes eventually change the world.
After the initial learning—which included students visiting different centers in the classroom that contained resources and information, reading information from two texts, watching a video, and checking a Web site on the Internet—students returned to their home teams, where they shared what they had learned about their particular natural cause and the changes it made. Each student was responsible for orally presenting and teaching the information to the home group, as well as providing an artifact of his findings (e.g., an essay and a physical or pictorial representation).
Once all of the students had presented their individual information, Mr. Higuera asked the home teams to do an assignment entitled “Natural causes change the land; these changes change the world.” He introduced the assignment as follows:
In your home team, prepare a group presentation in which you provide specific examples of this statement. Each team member must participate in the presentation in some way— that is, do part of the oral presentation, create a physical or pictorial representation to be used in the presentation, or write something to go along with the presentation. Be sure to include examples of all the different natural causes and the landforms you learned about, and tell us how the changes in land have changed or are changing the world.
The above activity could be modified for each stage of language acquisition.
Preproduction
Students can join the English-dominant students in developing physical or pictorial representations to share with their home groups and use in the group presentation. When sharing, these students can point to important parts of their representations, as they may not have all the vocabulary needed to explain the natural cause and its consequences. Preproduction students should not be expected to produce an essay, although they can copy words down to use as labels for their representations.
Early Production
Students will be able to connect with the English-dominant students when devising physical or pictorial representations to share with the home team. Plan for all students to go beyond the physical and pictorial by including graphic and kinesthetic representations as well as mental images. Early Production students can use nonlinguistic representations in the group presentation, along with single words and two-word phrases. Their essays should consist of sentence starters that they complete with one or two words.
Speech Emergence
Students can read information from texts, particularly when they include graphs and pictures to aid in comprehension. These students will be less reliant on nonlinguistic representations for sharing with their home groups or in the presentations and can use sentences in explaining their examples. Their essays will reflect the sentences used in their explanations.
Intermediate and Advanced Fluency
Students can participate in all activities and work alongside English-dominant students to develop nonlinguistic representations. They will also be able to compose essays to go along with their artifacts. Expect to hear and see some errors as Intermediate Fluency students speak and write; fewer errors will occur with those students in the Advanced Fluency stage.
Now that you know what ELLs can do with the academic con tent, you can help further develop their language skills by remembering to implement the Word-MES formula. These students use a host of cognitive processes for learning vocabulary, including associative skills, memory, and inferential skills, to figure out what words mean based on what they look or sound like.
Preproduction
Students need help with word selection (e.g., rain, rivers, hail, glaciers, tornadoes, hurricanes).
Early Production
Students will benefit from you modeling correct English. Listen for any errors and remember to avoid overt corrections. If you hear students say “ail” for “hail,” for example, you can model the correct pronunciation by saying, “That is a picture of hail.”
Speech Emergence
Students need to have their language development stimulated, which you can accomplish by helping them put together more complex sentences. When they are developing their essays, for example, you can help them expand their English by looking for sentences that can be combined with conjunctions.
Intermediate and Advanced Fluency
Students need to work on sounding like a book. Listen to their oral presentations and help them by using synonyms for words that they already know. Also, make sure that they are not starting every sentence the same way, either in the oral presentation or in the essay.
When in doubt about what to do with ELLs at different levels, select any one of the Word-MES strategies. Any student will benefit from vocabulary growth, modeling of correct English, expanding English sentences to include more complex structures, and developing academic language that makes one sound like a book.
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