Episode 5 – Let Them Teach You

Let Them Teach You!

Integrated Skills Civil Rights Unit for ELL Middle Schoolers with Nancy Nies

Last spring, when I was unexpectedly teaching a mixed class of middle schoolers from China whose Toefls ranged from 25 to 50, I was running out of ideas how to bridge the gaps in their abilities. “Hey Steve,” I shouted out to my colleague in the hallway. “What am I going to do for the next six weeks?” He replied, “have them teach you!”

This podcast covers the development of a surprisingly successful unit on integrated skill building for international middle schoolers that grew out of that snatched conversation with my friend.

In it, I’ll discuss how to build a unit that evenly develops the four foundational skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a way that is developmentally sound for a mixed-level group, that repeats the lessons with incremental increases in difficulty to increase mastery, and is content rich.

Over a six-week time span, focusing on the topic of the Civil Rights movement, my students each read and researched three separate topics, wrote and revised three short essays, and gave three presentations all of which were practiced then presented formally where they taught the class what they had learned. Given the wide range in ability level, from early beginner to low intermediate, my goal was to help each student advance from where he or she was starting. Also, since the class was on American Studies, I hoped to give the entire class a basic working familiarity with the Civil Rights Movement with exposure to its key players, places, and events and with an ability to discuss those events using their newly learned and shared vocabulary.

While the focus of the unit was researching, reading, digesting and presenting material, writing clear simple explanations for the topics, and learning to speak clearly to convey that information, I found many other useful skills were practiced in the process. First, they developed their rudimentary research skills, learning how to find websites beyond Wikipedia that defined their topics; second, they learned how to create a slide presentation, receiving basic instruction in layout, content, and design; third, they learned how to create a works cited entry for the websites they used since I required it on both their researched paragraphs and on their slides, and fourth, they learned how to separate definitional content–the What of their topics–from the more challenging significance of their content–the answer to the question of Why this matters.

The other significant success for me as a teacher was how much I learned about how to create an effective assignment for both beginning and low intermediate learners. Since I was inventing this assignment where they taught their classmates as I taught it and since I was repeating the assignment three times, each time I could refine what I was asking for by seeing what pitfalls stymied their progress. And the pitfalls varied depending on the fluency level of the student. Learning how to better design a more effective and carefully structured assignment was a definite fruit of this reiterative labor.

I divided the topics into three sections:

Definitions
Causes & Effects
People & Solutions

Each section lasted two weeks and consisted of four separate tasks focusing on building different skills:

A reading component which consisted of Research into the student’s topic seeking answers to three overarching questions each student proposed.
A Writing component where the students answered the three questions and wrote short 1-paragraph answers using full sentences and explanations. This ran about a page.
A Speaking component where the students created slide shows which required editing the material on their essays into bullet points as well as designing slides that communicated clearly.
A vocabulary component where the students created a list of new words they had uncovered that they would teach the class at the beginning of their slide presentation.

First Section: Definitions. The topics I assigned included:

Emancipation Proclamation
Fourteenth Amendment–granted citizenship to slaves (all those born in the US) 1868
Fifteenth Amendment–granting African American men the right to vote in 1870
Jim Crow
Voting Tests
Brown vs. Board of Education
Civil rights

To support the differing skill and ability levels in the class, I assigned topics based on relative fluency in English. So, for this first section, Definitions, I gave the student with the 25 Toefl the Emancipation Proclamation because I knew that even those two words would be a handful and that explaining what those two new vocabulary words meant or what the proclamation consisted of (all I really required was that he note who Lincoln was, when this occurred, and what the proclamation accomplished). I gave the student with the strongest English skills who also was a diligent student, the Brown vs. Board of Education definition. She found it difficult, but was challenged, and did extensive research to answer the questions.

For the Voting Tests definition, I gave the entire class a set of voting tests from the Jim Crow period and had them try to take them. What proved compelling was how they enjoyed figuring out what was wrong with the tests. Given their own limited expertise in English, they were initially as likely to think their confusion and inability to fulfill the test requirements were due to their own limitations. However, once they realized the tests’ purpose to deny blacks the right to vote, they took delight in figuring out what was actually wrong with the English or where the ambiguities lay. This group activity gave another beginning English speaker good material from which to structure and write her definition. For the amendments, those student assigned those topics had to define the word Constitution and amendment and define what those were. So while a definition for a native speaker would be fairly straightforward–the granting of citizenship to former slaves or the right to vote to black men–for the non-native speaker, the concept of the Constitution or an amendment preceded those granted rights.

The Reading component: For their short researched paragraphs, their instruction was to read material from websites to gain a basic understanding of the material. I handed out a list of linguistically accessible websites for them to start with such as history.com, Britannica.com, and the national humanities center. Given their low to middling level of fluency, they were allowed to read Wikipedia to get a general idea of their topic, but just to start good habits, I required that all material come from more reliable websites. The challenges for them with websites were expected but worthwhile. They could not always read the material, so, for example, one student wrote that segregation was a problem in South Africa, which, while accurate, had little to do with American civil rights. He had drawn his conclusion from a text that compared Thurgood Marshall to Nelson Mandela, drawing parallels he could not decipher. However, as I allowed them to work on these projects in class as well as at home, and because I would review their reading research as soon as they google-doc’d it to me, I could travel the room and offer guidance that kept them on track. One girl, a 7th grader with low fluency struggled because she wished to copy the language. However, I encouraged her to write in declarative sentences, since those are what would work on the slides anyway, so she still had to distill what she read and turn it into her own language. If I repeat this assignment, I might offer the younger less fluent learners some of the civil rights packets I often offer my 9th grade ELL class.

The writing component: For the writing assignment, they had to write three questions and then answer them simply. I quickly learned from their 1-2 page responses that setting up their own questions was confusing because they had trouble identifying what was important and what wasn’t so were led down squirrel holes I didn’t wish them to pursue. I had imagined them constructing simple questions such as “what is the Emancipation Proclamation?,” but my student’s first question was: “Why Lincoln think it is for the preservation of the Union rather than the abolition of slavery?” which actually delves more deeply into Civil War history. I had imagined a definition of Voting Tests that followed the examples I handed out, but my student wandered far afield, asking, “What happened led to the voting Rights?” And answering,

“Alabama state troopers attacked the peaceful participants.” Somehow, we had moved from voting tests to the voting rights act of 1965 to the Selma to Montgomery March. I knew I needed to set up the questions for them for the next round.

Fortunately, since revision is built into all my classroom work with international students, they had a chance to revise their three paragraphs extensively after responding to my comments. In keeping with the research that prioritizes authentic communication as a means for building language skills, I focused my comments on content rather than on grammar. I made some comments on grammar (the usual shout outs about articles or subject-verb agreement) but mostly I tried to respond to the student’s thinking and help them clarify. They then passed in a second revised version of their researched paragraphs which I graded.

The Presentation

The third assignment was to prepare a public presentation for the class in which they would teach the material that they learned that listeners could grasp.

My primary goals for this assignment was to practice speaking skills and to practice writing clear short bullet points from which they could speak more extensively which would require them to generate their own language not on the slides and thereby advance their speaking skills and their capacity to generate material on their own without reading, a challenge for all of them. I also wanted to keep the presentations simple, time-limited, and clear enough that the listeners could actually engage with the speaker. Working on the fourth skill–improving listening accuracy-was key which meant that the presentations themselves had to be clear in order to communicate effectively with a mixed group of imperfect listeners.

For this assignment, I required a basic slide structure:

Title page
Vocabulary slide–usually 3-5 words
Three questions
Question 1 plus answer
Question 2 plus answer
Question 3 plus answer
Summary slide

This assignment proved more effective than I had envisioned, primarily because of the real connection between the student “teaching” the material and the listeners. This process also went through revision: students had a chance to make a presentation which the class would critique and then the student could revise the slides and do a second presentation for a grade.

This exercise proved particularly effective because the student had to direct her attention to the class and try to teach what she knew, ensuring her classmates’ comprehension. Listeners could ask questions, comments, and present their confusion. Quickly, students realized, amidst much laughter, what was missing on their slides, what they had not explained effectively, what their viewers failed to grasp. Long-winded explanations to questions quickly drew glassy stares, which I would point out. Sometimes I would ask the speaker, during the practice session, to ask his or her audience to answer the question he or she posed. The often confused reply led to class discussions on how to revise for clarity. This practice session also led to a recognition of pronunciation errors and led to student presenters teaching the class how to pronounce impossible words (discrimination, segregation, emancipation). Also, the vocabulary used in the presentation was on the first slide, so this process of teaching the slide offered connection with the audience, since they had to actually teach the words, not just read them out. Sometimes they would teach and ask classmates to define the words they had just taught without reading from the slide, again an exercise in formulating language individually as well as in pronunciation practice. Sometimes the teacher student would go around the room having each classmate pronounce the word until he or she was satisfied.

Given their complete lack of experience in presenting to classmates, I simplified the requirements and had them adhere to them fairly strictly. Even then, the pitfalls were many. Some wrote whole paragraphs, stealing them from their researched paragraphs, instead of bulleted points. Some, as would be expected, copied wholesale from internet sites, despite their revisions to their research. However, they quickly saw how difficult it was to read a complicated passage aloud, especially one they slapped in there without really grasping the content, and how they quickly ran over the 3-minute time limit. They also saw how attempting to crowd all of the information into the slides was impossible. The question and answer structure of the assignment followed by short bulleted points helped control the endless creative alternatives they thought of.

I did hand out a sheet detailing the guidelines for creating slides such as

using bold headlines
using bullets
30 point font
effective typefaces
layout: how to position type on the slide.
using phrases not sentences
checking for grammar and spelling errors

And guidelines on practicing.

practicing with a classmate or in front of a mirror
timing themselves

Of course, they did not follow directions, so, when it came to design, they also learned from teaching each other that 20 point type is not visible at the back of the class or that photos dated from 2002 probably are not from the Civil Rights movement. Class critiques were boisterous, lively affairs because everyone stumbled at this new activity and because the problems were shared and repeated. Photos were too small or too large or not connected to content. Slides were too crowded or a timeline had too many dates. The text was too dense for the speaker to read or the listener to understand. These features that impeded communication became quickly obvious in a group critique Also, the class discussion of how to improve each student’s presentation provided meaningful exchanges in which to practice spoken English. Again, practicing engaged communication with classmates and attempting to provide worthwhile information helped them develop their speaking skills. Finally, they were given a second chance to present and the class offered a new critique. The final results adhered to the 3-question format more closely, the photos matched more closely with content and the students were creative with color and font!

Another useful factor was that often the challenging vocabulary or concepts that showed up on slides were cited by multiple students, so the concepts or words would be repeated, building a common corpus. I collected the shared words and created a Civil Rights vocabulary list –one for concepts and one for unfamiliar words.

Second Section: Actions and Events

Having defined key concepts in their civil rights definitions, we moved on to actions and events.

I chose the following events:

Lynching
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
Ku Klux Klan
Freedom Riders
Greensboro Four
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Selma to Montgomery March
The March on Washington

Again, we went through the same three projects:

Reading research materials
Writing answers to three questions (and this time, I defined the questions as

o What is this event?

o Who was involved?

o Why is it important to civil rights?

For the second iteration, the students showed massive improvement Not only did they understand the expectations and demonstrate a working familiarity with how to complete the assignments, they were fully engaged. Each person had his or her own project; each wanted to be a good teacher. Furthermore, they had learned what went wrong last time, yet they were starting again with fresh, but more familiar material. The discussion of civil rights that ensued due to the first project led to greater working knowledge, shared vocabulary, and historical context. I was impressed at how great the improvement was

Third Section: People

Finally, for the third section, I chose the following people:

Emmett Till
Rosa Parks
Ruby Bridges
Thurgood Marshall
James Meredith
Martin Luther King–his leadership
Martin Luther King–his speeches
Little Rock 9

Not surprisingly, these last set of short essays and presentations were the most polished. Students had mastered how to research material, create appropriate slides, and genuinely answer the questions in a detailed and focused way. There was absolutely no comparison to their first efforts and their final results. I was very proud of them and they were proud of themselves. What had been a hassle in the beginning–all the strictures I placed on what they could include, the simplicity I demanded on the slides, the accuracy of the information in their own words rather than stolen from websites–became structures they had learned how to follow. Their speaking improved; they took pride in explaining what they knew; their shyness disappeared.

So, what were the challenges?

In this class I had several very low level students, that is, students who ranged from 12-14 whose Toefls ranged from 25-40. What worked about this assignment was that they could fully participate even though their skills were limited. They all made the common error of copying too much material at first, but by the end, they each learned to present in clear declarative sentences in keeping with their linguistic level. They all had trouble researching because reading even simple websites such as history.com proved difficult, but I worked with each of them to help them get the main ideas. They each had trouble speaking extemporaneously especially since I would not allow them to read their slides. But I had them put the key concepts on their slides and they practiced after school with me.

The more advanced students also improved significantly and by the time of their final presentations were easily able to use the civil rights vocabulary they had mastered, were able to create really strong and impressive presentations, and had become more skilled teachers with a greater command over the classroom. The great thing was that both sets of students were able to actually teach the class what they had learned, no matter what their level was, and so doing actually were mastering the material for themselves.

I closed the unit with a presentation on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to show them the results of all this struggle. I also gave them a Civil Rights Test which included being able to write definitions for all of the key concepts, an ability to match concepts with people or events, and finally, writing a one-paragraph essay that explained the causes and effects of the Civil Rights movement and the people involved. I listed all of the events, causes, people, and concepts we had covered and then required they incorporate half of these terms in their essays.

Overall, I was really pleased with the effectiveness of this unit in building skill mastery and basic knowledge of a key period in our recent history. The repetitive process allowed students to steadily improve and the structure kept my teaching of material to a minimum. So, when you wonder what to do next to improve the knowledge and skills of English language learners, my advice is: let them teach you!