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Building Language Interest, Confidence, Motivation and Skills: Supporting Struggling Students by Using Focused Small Groups to Differentiate Instruction
- 1. BUILDING LANGUAGE INTEREST, CONFIDENCE, MOTIVATION AND SKILLS: SUPPORTING STRUGGLING STUDENTS BY USING FOCUSED SMALL GROUPS TO DIFFERENTIATE INSTRUCTION Chiungwen Chang Chinese American International School
- 2. Introduction About me - Wen ( 張瓊文） - Chinese Language Support (CLS) teacher - 4 years at CAIS About Chinese American International School (CAIS) - Founded 30 years ago - Chinese-English immersion school in San Francisco - First school of its kind in the U.S. - Pre-k through 8th grade - Around 500 students - 50-50 immersion from Pre-k through 5th grade
- 3. Agenda Purpose Introduction Case Study Resources
- 4. What is the most challenging thing in teaching Chinese?
- 5. Have you ever felt like this? Why are my students losing motivation in Chinese learning? I have students who are struggling in Chinese learning. What do I do? How can I find the best way to help students efficiently with limited time?
- 6. Chinese Language Support @ CAIS Small Group Instructions Grades 1-8 Open Curriculum Goal: To assist students build up Chinese language proficiency
- 7. How does CLS work at CAIS? Evaluate (1-2 weeks) Design (1 week) Execute (Rest of school year)
- 8. Evaluate Potential students Go over the assessment taken place in the first week of school year with home room teachers Collect data Observe class Determine students
- 9. Design Determine focus Set goals Define plans Design schedule
- 10. Execute: Record keeping Sample Schedule for progress Schedule Goals Feb 1 Feb 4 Feb 8 Feb 11 What to achieve Recognize Radicals intro Draw flash Drills & Drills & characters Radicals cards Games Games game Character ✔ Drills ✔ ✔ ✔ Using the Use flash Use flash Use flash character to cards for cards for cards for make phrases ✔ phrases ✔ phrases ✔ phrases Use new Stories & Stories & vocabulary games to games to to make reinforce ✔ reinforce ✔
- 11. Execute: Student self- evaluation Sample Rubrics Goals 100% Be able to use the Be able retell the Speaking Chinese following sentence story(畫蛇添足） in the session ! patterns correctly. using new phrases 除了… and sentence 得…才能…. patterns I not only did it but ✔ also challenge myself using words not in this lesson. I did it! ✔ ✔ I almost did it!
- 12. Agenda Purpose Introduction Case Studies Resources/Appendix Q&A
- 13. Case study 1 Area to focus: Character Recognition 認字 Name： Caiden Grade: 1st Grade Difficulties -Had difficult time remembering Chinese characters - Hard to build up his own Chinese vocabulary -Get confused with Chinese characters that sound similar ( EX: 象 像 相 想 香 ）
- 14. Activity 1 Introducing radicals Guess Who! 每個中文字有部首 請問它有沒有___? 拍 像 想 跑 吃 眼
- 15. Activity 2 Introducing radicals with pictures I draw, You guess! + = 像 + = 問
- 17. I did it! - Positive Reinforcement Students do self-evaluation
- 18. Activity 4 Drill, Drill, Drill! There is no easy way to remember Chinese characters. Activity: Count down! 震撼教育！
- 19. Activity 5 Dealing with confusion Draw and talk! Draw a picture that matches each character
- 20. Activity 6 Dealing with confusion Make connections between pictures and characters
- 21. Activity 7 Chinese Tongue Twister 象 像 想 香 相 的練習 大象看到香蕉的相片想吃香蕉， 想不到，吃到自己的長鼻子， 是象鼻像香蕉，還是香蕉像象鼻？你想一想！
- 22. Activity 7 Chinese Tongue Twister 隻, 只, 知, 直 的練習 我知道老師有十隻蜘蛛和十隻豬 叔叔只有四隻蜘蛛和四隻豬 我還知道豬的腳長得直直的 但是蜘蛛沒有直直的腳
- 23. Case study 2 Area to focus: Speaking 說 Name： Zoe and Zoella Grade: 4th Grade Difficulties - Not able to speak in complete sentences with limited vocabulary and sentence patterns - Using English structures when speaking Chinese - Low confidence in speaking Chinese
- 25. Speaking Chinese is fun! Communication drill A: 我得把功課做完，才能出去玩。 ……. B : 這枝鉛筆根本不是你的。
- 27. Agenda Purpose Introduction Case Studies Resources
- 28. Resources iPad Applications - SonicPics -Puppet Pals -Educreations Books - Struggling learners and language immersion learners by Tara Fortune and Mandy Menke - Critical Issues in Early Second Language learning/ Building for Our Children’s Future by Nyriam Met
- 29. Thank you！ 謝謝！ c_chang@cais.org Chiungwen Chang
Editor's Notes
- More intro about<introduction of myself.> Welcome everyone. Thanks for coming to the session. Before we start, I would like to do a quick introduction of myself and my school.
- My name is Wen. 張瓊文. I am currently a Chinese learning specialist at Chinese American International School or CAIS. I have been at CAIS for four years. CAIS is founded thirty years ago and is a prek to 8 Chinese English immersion school in San Francisco. We have around 500 students enrolled. We do fifty percent English and fifty percent Chinese from prek through grade 5.
- Let’s go over today’s agenda. I will start with purpose of this presentation. The benefits of the Chinese language support program running at cais. Next, I wlll do a quick introduction of CLS. Next, I will share two case studies with you. At the end, I will be sharing the resources for your reference. Any question so far? If no,Then I have questions for you. Please raise your hand if you think teaching Chinese is fun! Please keep your hands up if you think teaching Chinese is fun but also challenging. Please put your hands down.
- Question for everyone: What is the most challenging…?<Read the question>Any volunteers to share your answers? Anyone? (if no)…
- (In addition to what everyone has shared)In my experience some of the most common challenges in teaching Chinese are:<Paraphrase list of challenges><If you see people nodding>It looks like a lot of you are nodding, so I think you’re in the right session!At CAIS, our Chinese Language Support program is focused around these challenges…
- A little bit about CLS…This program is really designed to provide extra support for struggling students and It is unique in a few ways:Small group instructions: I take students out of their classrooms and put them into small group environments. Typically group sizes are 1-5. Includes grades 1-8: The program covers the whole lower school and middle school. from grade 1-8.Open curriculum: I do not have a text book for CLS students, but I design the curriculum based on what they are learning in their classes.SO now that you know a little about CLS, how does it work? What is the CLS process?
- There are three phases to the CLS process:The 3 phases of CLS are: Evaluate, Design, Execute (E.D.E)Evaluate usually takes 1-2 weeks and happens at the begging of the school year. This is where I work with the teachers and figure out which students need CLS support.After evaluation, I will spend about a week to design a specific plan for each CLS student.Lastly, I put the plan into action. This lasts for the rest of the school year.Now let’s talk a little bit more about each phase in detail.
- So, how do i do evaluation? Based on the benchmarks .I talk to each teacher and come up with some potential students. I also go over the assessment result with the home room teacher to see whose Chinese language proficiency is falling behind the grade level. I collect data. Data can be students’ summer assignment, the assessment I just mentioned and the students work from last school year. Once I get the potential students, I go to each class to do observation. Last, based on all the data we have, home room teacher and I determine who needs the support. And I am able to move into the second phase, design.
- In this phase, I start determining the focus. What areas should I work on with the students? Listening, writing, reading or speaking?Following that are setting goals and making plans in order to help the students learn the most efficiently and also to achieve the goals. Next, I would make schedule according to each student’s needs. How long does the student need the support and how often. Once this is all done we are ready to execute…
- This phase includes working with students, adjust strategies and record keeping. Since I will be sharing two case studies later. I will jump into the record keeping now. I do record keeping for each student. Here is the example.I usually set two-week-goals for students to achieve. For example, I work with this student twice a week so there are four dates on the top. In each box, I put the activities I did with the student and check the box if the student achieve the goal. It is easy for me to see student’s progress and also to see which activity works and which doesn’t. collecting these charts over time, it is easy to see the students progress.
- Unlike the chart I just showed. I also have students to use rubrics to do self-evaluation.There are two reasons. First, It is easy for students to know what their goals are by looking at the rubrics. Second, to have them get involved with their own learning progress. From my experiences, when they do this, they know what they have achieved and what area they should work on. if they can check the box” I did it”, it is a great feeling for them. It is also another good way to have them gain their confidence.One thing I want to mention about this chart is. When I make this rubrics, I use positive language. For example instead of I didn’t achieve, I use “I almost did it!” to help motivate the students.
- Now I’m going to share twoactual case studies with my students
- The student’s name is Caiden. He is a first grader.He struggles with memorizing Chinese characters. He sometimes can remember but forgets easily. Therefore, it is hard for him to build up his Chinese character vocabulary. He also gets confused with the characters that sound similar. The following are some examples of activities I designed for him:
- Activity 1 is about introducing radicalsIt’s called Guess Who.Basically, I put a bunch of character flash cards on the table and secretly pick one.Then Caiden has to use the sentence 每個中文字有部首，請問他有沒有_____? ( with rhythm) to guess the secret one. For example using these 6, I will pick “Chi”. Caiden needs ask….. If he is wrong, then he crosses it out until he guesses the correct one.This activity is helping Caiden to get used to see radicals in Chinese characters and see Chinese characters in a meaningful way. It helps him to remember them.
- The next activity is similar to the last one but with pictures It is called I draw, you guess! I have him draw a lot of radicals on cards. Then he matches the cards into words and I have to guess. For example….This first picture is a person, plus this picture is an elephant…can you guess what the word is?This one is a picture of a door, plus a mouth…can you guess what the word is?This activity is fun for him and really gets him motivated in learning Chinese characters and seeing memorizing Chinese characters interesting. Let’s move on to the next challenge. It is hard from him to build up his own Chinese characters.
- Since he likes to draw, my strategy is to utilize his interest. I made him draw his own flashcards. Before he starts drawing flashcards, I go over each characters to make sure that he knows the meaning of the characters and he can make phrases with them. with his own drawing, it reinforces the connection between the pictures and the characters. Here is the example.(Show the video)
- So now, he has a set of his own flashcards. What do I do with the them?I prepare a folder that has two side pockets. One pocket is for the characters he can recognize. The other is for ones he cannot recognize.I use this folder for him to do self-evaluation.Each session, I have him test himself by taking all the cards from the pocket that he cannot recognize from last time. He always gets very happy to know that he can recognize some characters and is able to move them to the other pocket.It is also another way to help him gain confidence. At the end of each session, I have him take ten characters from the pocket he recognized before to test himself to see if he still remembers. If he doesn’t, I drill with him again and he has to put them back to the pocket for characters he cannot recognize. So, he draws and makes his own flashcards. What if there are still some characters he still cannot remember?
- There is not short cut to remember all the characters. This is my favorite activity! I call it count down. Or 震撼教育! How does this work? I usually set the timer for 1 to 2 minutes. Once I set up the timer, he has to finish reading all the cards. The challenge is if he makes one mistake in the middle, he has to start over. This activity is very stressful but works very well with students who needs a lot of drills. Let’s move on to the next challenge. He gets confused with the characters that sound simliar.
- Activity 4 is for dealing with words that sound similar.This is an activity where Caiden has to draw a picture that matches each character.Here is the example.
- Activity 5 is similar to 4 but I use my own pictures for him to match with character and has him move.
- Activity 6 is to help Caiden with pronunciation using tongue twisters.I made this and he loves it! Here is the example and his drawing to match the tongue twister.
- Here is another tongue twister….So these are just some of many activities I designed for Caiden. Any questions before we go on to the next Case Study?
- The second case study is Zoe and Zoella. They both need to work on speaking. They likes to talk but not in Chinese. The reason is that with lack of practices, vocabulary and sentence patterns, they don’t get used to speak Chinese in complete sentences or use English sentence structures when speaking Chinese. So they got corrected often and got low confidence in speaking Chinese.
- My strategy is to make them feel ease to practice speaking Chinese as much as they can. I choose audio lingual method to provide them a lot of drills with Chinese sentences patterns. Audio-lingual is a method frequently used in a lot of language classrooms. There are many different drills in this method. Today, I am sharing three drills I use with Zoe and Zoella and it worked.
- The next drill is a communication drill. It is a lot of fun because the students have to improvise.For example, here the students must begin with sentence A and end with sentence B and in the middle…tell a story.
- Their work with out doing rehearsal.After the conversation, I had them listen to it again and use rubrics to do self-evaluation.
- These are just some of many ways I work with students.
- These are a few useful I pad applications I recommand. My students …You can find them in app store. Here are the useful books good for teaching.
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