1. A Comprehensive Approach to ESL
Curriculum: Convincing Teachers to Apply
Standards and Benchmarks in the Context of
21st Century Skills and Five Language
Components
Dr. Martha N. Echandy
June 28, 2012

2. Objectives
During the workshop the participant will:
1.Identify elements of the change process.
2.Explain characteristics of the adult learner.
3.Examine 21st
Century skills.
4.Reexamine the five components of language.
5.Analyze limitations in the application of standards and
expectations.
6.Analyze and apply strategies that can facilitate the
integration of 21st
Century skills and the components of
language to the use of grade level expectations.

3. Professional Learning
“I can’t wait until I give this to my teachers.
They will be so excited about these new
ideas. This will change their thinking about
how to teach. They will be eager to go back
to their classroom with new teaching tools,
seeing test scores go up.”

4. Convincing Teachers…
“Change is what teachers do and think. It’s as simple
and as complex as that” (Fullan, 1982, p. 107).
Yet, this remains the greatest challenge of the staff
developer – to convince teachers that they do, indeed,
make the difference – in the successes and in the
failures – of their students.

5. This Horse Is Not Dead
1. Buy a stronger whip.
2. Change riders.
3. Say, “This is the way we have always done it.”
4. Appoint a committee.
5. Visit other sites.
6. Increase standards to ride a dead horse.
7. Appoint a team.

6. This Horse Is Not Dead
8. Create a training session.
9. Change requirements, declaring, “This horse is not
dead.”
10. Hire a consultant.
11. Do a cost analysis.
12. Promote horse to a supervisory position.

7. The Three-Tier Change Process
Stage 1: Initiate the Change – Introduce the innovation
to the participants.
Stage 2: Implement the Change – Apply the tools and
techniques of the innovation.
Stage 3: Institutionalize the Change – Establish
accountability for continued use.

8. The Change Game – Elements of the Change
Process
Professional
development
Change in
belief
Change in
student
achievement
Change in
practice

9. The Adult Learner
1. Control of their learning.
2. Immediate utility.
3. Focus on issues that concern them.
4. Test their learning as they go.
5. Anticipate how they will use their learning.
6. Expect performance improvement.
7. Maximize available resources.

10. The Adult Learner
8. Require collaborative, respectful, mutual, and
informal climate.
9. Rely on information that is appropriate and
developmentally paced.

11. Professional Development
• Well-designed strategic planning for ongoing, continuous
professional development is the hallmark of excellence in
districts that target increased student achievement.
• Some of the limitations that impede change through
professional development practices are:
• lack of input on the part of key stakeholders, the teachers
• Initiatives introduced without sufficient context
• Teacher creativity not considered as part of the process.

12. Professional Development: Seven Critical
Qualities
1. Sustained: Training is implemented over time.
2. Job embedded: Training occurs and / or continues at the
work site.
3. Collegial: Training builds and supports a community of
learners.
4. Interactive: Training invites, involves, and engages
participants.
5. Integrated: Training is eclectic.
6. Results oriented: Training meets a need, is goal driven, is
data driven.
7. Practical, hand on: Training is relevant with real-world
problems.

13. 21st
Century
Skills

14. The 21st
Century
In an economy driven by innovation and knowledge … in
marketplaces engaged in intense competition and constant
renewal … in a world of tremendous opportunities and risks … in
a society facing complex business, political, scientific,
technological, health and environmental challenges … and in
diverse workplaces and communities that hinge on collaborative
relationships and social networking … the ingenuity, agility and
skills of the American people are crucial to U.S. competitiveness.

15. Fundamental Changes in the
Economy, Jobs and Businesses

16. New and Different Skill Demands
Advanced economies, innovative industries and firms, and
high-growth jobs require more educated workers with the
ability to respond flexibly to complex problems, communicate
effectively, manage information, work in teams and produce
new knowledge.

17. Skills and Qualities Desired by Employers

18. Achievement Gaps: Youth Literacy Rates

19. Framework for 21st
Century Learning

20. Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes
Core subjects include English, reading or language arts, world
languages, arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography,
history, government and civics.
In addition, schools must promote an understanding of academic
content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century
interdisciplinary themes into core subjects:
• Global Awareness
• Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial
Literacy
• Civic Literacy
• Health Literacy
• Environmental Literacy

21. Learning and Innovation Skills
Creativity and innovation skills
• Think creatively
• Work creatively with others
• Implement innovations
Critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Reason effectively
• Use systems thinking
• Make judgments and decisions
• Solve problems
Communication and collaboration skills
• Communicate clearly
• Collaborate with others
www. 2 1 s t c e n t u ry s k i l l s .or g

22. Information, Media and Technology
Skills
Effective citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range
of functional and critical thinking skills, such as:
Information literacy: access and evaluate information, and use
and manage information.
Media literacy: analyze media and create media products.
ICT (information and communications technology) literacy: use
technology effectively

23. Life and Career Skills
The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments
in the globally competitive information age requires students to
pay rigorous attention to developing adequate life and career
skills, such as:
• Flexibility and adaptability: adapt to change and be flexible
Initiative and self-direction: manage goals and time, work
independently, and be self-directed learners.
• Social and cross-cultural skills: interact effectively with others,
work effectively in diverse teams
• Productivity and accountability: manage projects and produce
results.
• Leadership and responsibility: guide and lead others and be
responsible to others.

24. Support system: Standards, Assessment,
Curriculum and Instruction
21st Century Standards – emphasize deep understanding and
engagement.
Assessments of 21st Century Skills – emphasize useful
feedback.
21st Century Curriculum and Instruction – skills are taught
discretely in the context of core subjects and 21st
century
interdisciplinary themes, enables innovative learning methods
that integrate the use of supportive technologies, inquiry- and
problem-based approaches and higher order thinking skills and
encourages the integration of community resources beyond
school walls.

25. Support system: Professional Development
21st Century Professional Development – As a facilitator you
can:
• Highlight ways teachers can seize opportunities for integrating
21st century skills, tools and teaching strategies into their
classroom practice
• Help them identify what activities they can replace/de-
emphasize
• Enable 21st century professional learning communities for
teachers that model the kinds of classroom learning that best
promotes 21st century skills for students

26. Support system: Professional Development
• Cultivate teachers’ ability to identify students’ particular
learning styles, intelligences, strengths and weaknesses
• Help teachers develop their abilities to use various strategies
(such as formative assessments) to reach diverse students and
create environments that support differentiated teaching and
learning
• Encourage knowledge sharing among communities of
practitioners, using face-to-face, virtual and blended
communications
• Use a scalable and sustainable model of professional
development

27. The Five Language Components
Phonemic Awareness
Awareness of and ability to manipulate sounds in words
Phonics
Knowledge of relationships between the letters of written language
and the sounds of spoken language
Vocabulary
Recognizing and understanding the meaning of words in reading
and writing as well as oral language
Fluency
Ability to read rapidly with phrasing, an important bridge to
comprehension
Comprehension
Using a system of strategic actions, smoothly and in coordination,
to get meaning while reading texts
National Reading Panel

28. Vocabulary
•Vocabulary builds reading comprehension, and the converse is
true as well: reading comprehension builds vocabulary.
•Teachers need to:
Develop word awareness and love of words through word
play.
Develop explicit, rich instruction to build vocabulary.
Build strategies for independence.
Engage students actively with a wide range of books.

29. Fluency
One definition of fluency is the ability to read aloud expressively and with
understanding. When fluent readers read aloud, the text flows as if strung
together like pearls on a necklace, rather than sounding halting and
choppy.
1.Model Fluent Reading - In order to read fluently, students must first hear
and under-stand what fluent reading sounds like. The most powerful way
to help students is to read aloud to them, often and with great expression.
Choose selections carefully. Expose them to a wide variety of genres.
2.Do Repeated Readings In Class - Having students practice reading by
rereading short passages aloud is one of the best ways to promote fluency.
When reading aloud, discuss your reading behaviors such as phrasing (i.e.
the ability to read several words together in one breath), rate (the speed
at which we read), and intonation (the emphasis we give to particular
words or phrases).
www.scholastic.com

30. Reading – Strategic Reading
Strategies are any mental operations that the individual
uses, either consciously or unconsciously, to help himself learn.
They are goal oriented and the individual uses them to learn
something, to solve a problem ,or to comprehend something.
Strategic readers actively construct meaning as they read,
interacting with the text. They set purposes for reading, select
methods of accomplishing these purposes, repair their own
comprehension as they read, and evaluate the completed task.

31. Reading Strategies
Self-monitoring – knowing when to adjust reading rate and
reading strategies to understand different kinds of texts.
Visualizing – creating mental pictures that strengthen
inferential thinking.
Questioning – forming questions that will help keep the reader
engaged, clarify confusion, stimulate research efforts, and
promote deeper thinking about text.

32. Reading Strategies
Determining importance/Main Idea – identifying key ideas
central to text meaning.
Making connections – thinking about connections formed
between the text, other stories read, and/or the world.
Inferring – combining prior knowledge with textual information
to interpret the text.
Synthesizing – combining new information with existing
knowledge to form an original idea or interpretation.

33. Methods for Teaching Reading Strategies
1. Cognitive Structuring – this refers to the way classroom
activity is organized to support learning: frontloading,
sequencing, direct reading and thinking activity.
2. Modeling – ways of making reading, learning, and thinking
visible and available: think-alouds, drama, art, symbolic
story representation.
3. Questioning - Includes question-answer relationship,
questioning circle, questioning hierarchy.
4. Explaining/Instruction – talking through problem solving;
lending language to the learner.

34. Methods for Teaching Reading Strategies
5. Feeding/Naming – providing explicit feedback and
naming what the reader is doing or not doing, and
explicitly naming what might be done.
6. Contingency Management – this refers to the
management of consequences and rewards of
various learning activities, and managing the
context that may provide these rewards. Some are:
social/peer assistance, thematic units, and projects.

35. Academic Conversations
•Academic conversations are sustained and purposeful
conversations about school topics.
•Conversations are exchanges between people who are trying to
learn from one another and build meanings that they didn’t have
before. Partners take turns talking, listening, and responding to
each other’s comments.
•Core conversation skills are: elaborate and clarify; support ideas
with examples; build on and /or challenge a partner’s ideas;
paraphrase; and synthesize conversation points.
•Interaction without depth.

36. Conversations and Communication Skills and
Values
 Argumentation skills
 Group discussion skills
 Listening
 Valuing talk and clarity
 Building of critical thinking skills
 Fostering skills for negotiating meaning and focusing on a topic
 Conversation cultivates connections.
 Conversation builds relationships.
 It fosters engagement and motivation.

37. Integrating Academic Conversations
Teachers who foster
effective whole-class
conversations:
• Ask deep questions at
the right times.
• Keep the conversation
focused.
• Notice when students
are confused.
• Build ideas upon ideas.
Teacher-like skills that
students should learn how
to use:
•Listen
•Ask useful questions
•Build and explore ideas.
•Debate issues
•Solve problems
•Teach and learn
•Negotiate meaning
•Be leaders and team
players

38. Academic Conversations
1. Discuss the purpose of conversation skills.
2. Introduce and model.
3. Establish shared conversation norms:
• We listen to each other.
• We share our own ideas and explain them.
• We respect one another’s ideas, even if they are
different.
• We try to see the other’s view.
• We try to come to some agreement at the end.
• We take turns and share air time.

39. Conversation Skills
1. Elaborate and clarify.
2. Support ideas with examples.
3. Build on and/or challenge a partner’s ideas.
4. Paraphrase.
5. Synthesize conversation points.
6. Consider the attitudes for effective conversations:
humility, thoroughness, respect, positivity,

40. Organizing Their Ideas

41. Supportive Examples Practice
Students can use the following starters:
For example According to To illustrate
Another example As stated in Consider
In fact The text shows

42. Evaluating the Support of Examples

43. Academic Conversation Activities
 Two-Minute Opinion Share – Take a controversial issue and
have students think (or write down) about their opinions for a
minute before they describe these and vice versa.
 Interview grids – Have students quickly answer questions and
have partners paraphrase the answers on paper.
 Design tasks with conversation components that require and
show thinking: respond to a movie, design a quiz, a table or
chart, create a poster, a children’s story, design a plan, create
an advertisement for the idea discussed in text, prepare for a
debate.

44. Traffic Light Reading
1. Introduce to students that there are different reasons to
read. Link the reading process to the analogy of driving a
car. Display three hats – a baseball cap labeled “Read for
Fun,” a plastic construction hat labeled “Read to Learn,” and
a visor labeled “Read for Information.”
Read for
Fun
Read to
Learn
Read for
Information

45. Traffic Light Reading Modeling
2. Wearing the visor, the teacher pretends to comb
through a newspaper's cinema listings, finger-pointing
until she identifies the particular movie to be watched.
The teacher agrees that sometimes we read for
information.
Next, the teacher puts on the baseball hat. "When do
we read just for fun?“ she asks. Students share their
own reading for enjoyment selections.
Picking up a comic book, the teacher continues, "How
should I read these selections? Should I read at a
slower pace or a faster, more skimming pace?"

46. Traffic Light Reading Modeling
3. Finally, the teacher picks up the construction hat along
with a social studies textbook. "A lot of school work
involves reading to learn," she explains. "Now I have to
read more carefully, making sure I'm understanding the
Big Idea and remembering important facts."

47. Traffic Light Reading
1. Using the analogy of driving a car, tell students they will need to
obey the traffic signals. Hand students individual traffic lights along
with sticky notes and pass out or assign the text to be read.
Using the red-light portion of a stoplight graphic, explain that they
should prepare by asking and/or doing the following things: What do I
ALREADY know about the subject? Did I look at the pictures and words
in bold?
2. To mark special places on the road of reading, ask students to pre-
label sticky notes with either question marks (for what is not
understood), exclamation points (for fun facts), and smiley faces (for
the parts already known or with which there are personal
connections).

48. Traffic Light Reading
3. Guide students to look at the yellow light components,
(during-reading strategies) and make sure they know what
they should do to monitor understanding while they read.
Yellow-light components include: Can I tell myself the
important facts so far? Are there any tricky words? Do I
have questions? Is my MIND MOVIE (like a navigation
screen on your dashboard) turned on?
At this time students are divided for partner reading.
4. Put on your hard hat and declare yourself to be the Drivers’
Education Instructor. Circulate the room and listen to
students whisper-read. Watch as they position sticky notes.
If there is little evident of comprehension monitoring, issue
a reminder sticky note to reinforce appropriate during-
reading strategies, such as look-backs and self-talks.

49. Traffic Light Reading
5. When all students have completed the reading, have them
look back to the green-light checklist on the traffic light.
The checklist includes: What did I learn? What was the BIG
idea? What do I need to remember? Individual "drivers" can
then share relevant Big Ideas or flagged information
(connections, questions, and cool facts).
6. At the end, all rate their personal Mind Movie with a
"thumbs up" or a "thumbs down." What were their most
vivid visualizations? Or were their movies simply composed
of a few stale images?
7. The teacher commends at the conclusion. A checkered flag
may even be waved in celebration.

50. K-3 Preparation for 21st
Century Skills
• Developing good people skills (group activities)
• Developing listening skills. Children with good listening skills
perform better in school, are more successful in social
relationships, and have better frustration tolerance
• Knowing more about the world.
• Thinking outside the box: brainstorming activities and creative
activities
• Compare and contrast activities
• Activities for drawing conclusions (observation): photo study,
movies
• Introduce students to a variety of text types.
Recommended site for Listening/Speaking Literacy
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/contents_speakingliste
ning.htm

51. Application
1. Identify the limitations and challenges you face as a
facilitator.
2. Picturing adult learners, write down the implications for
Professional Development for your teachers.
3. Use the chart provided to think of strategies that could aid in
the integration of 21st
Century skills and the components of
language to the use of grade level expectations.

52. References
Fogarty, R. & Pete, B. (2007). From staff room to classroom.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Fullan, M., & Stiegelbauer, E. (1991). The new meaning of
educational change. New York: Teachers College.
Marcell, B. (2007, May). Traffic light reading: Fostering the
independent usage of comprehension strategies with
informational text (60)8. International Reading Association, Inc.
Rotherham, A. J. & Willingham, D. (2009, September). 21st Century
Skills: The Challenges Ahead. Teaching for the 21st century
(67),1, 16-21.
Wiers, Z. & Crawford, M. (2011). Academic conversations:
Classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content
understandings. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.
Wilhelm, J. D., Baker, T. N., Hacker, J. D. (2001). Strategic reading.
Postsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.