Increasing Language - Help

Have you ever looked at the Language Program that is part of Audiblox?
They use an interesting concept.

Ideas and experiences, no formal programs.

They need to be given what they have missed — a rich language environment.

Actual conversations with adults, not just commands and stereotyped answers, and not rambling disjointed monologues.
Practice both asking questions and listening to answers when you get them.
Being read to (and being required to listen, not zone out or fool around)
Being told stories of all sorts — history, culture, civics, science, teacher’s personal experiences.
Learning to follow oral instructions of ever-increasing complexity.
Watching (and listening to) good informational films/videos.
Learning to sing, meaningful songs from various traditions.
Learning to recite poetry.
Learning to clap and move in pattern to songs and chants.
Word play, silly rhymes, tongue-twisters, jokes, puns.
Learning to form organized sentences; learning oral grammar (NOT diagramming sentences, but usage)
Being required to speak clearly (as age-appropriate, but not accepting things far below age-appropriate).
Learning vocabulary by direct teaching, not just hope and prayer or osmosis.
Reading out loud, both as practice for accuracy and for mastery of expression.
Discussing the material read for meaning, vocabulary, inferences, humour, page-by-page as it is read.
Relating to reading material on a personal level (negative reactions allowed and even encouraged — there’s a lot of trash out there.) Same for reacting to poetry and music.
Technology can be used to tape speech and singing and to encourage self-criticism and improvement.
Thigs NOT to do include spending valuable class time passing out and filling in worksheets or sitting in a daze while the teacher goes over and over the same text; also not imitating the lowest common denominators of popular culture, but working on language and music (of whatever styles) with some depth of meaning.

Where it is possible, early exposure to a second language has a very positive feedback effect on the first language. By school age this exposure is best if it is moderately formal teaching including teaching of the practical applied grammar of the new language and including both oral and written components. Just being talked to in a second language for short periods is not helpful; work is needed to develop strength. The general learning of another language develops the brain, and looking at how another language patterns the world differently helps give a new point of view to look back and understand English.

I appreciate your concerns, I’ve been putting together short stories with commentary as well as great poems - all chosen to elicit a response from “regular” kids - by this, I mean our middle of the road guys - including our LD’s. As a behavior person, I’ve always pretty much presumed our LD kids to be basically “mainstream” - especially when compared to my world.

Thanks again, keep sharing your brainstorms. Ken

Have you read Marva Collins’ book(s?) yet?

Sue, I have not. Please refer the best one to begin. Ken

Oh, my, you’re in for a treat *and* an inspiration.

Marva Collins’ Way is anecdotal but includes resources at the end, and being a “story” means you’re almost in the classroom with her, observing, which is the only way to get the whole picture.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/edu/marva/ has an article about her current school in Milwaukee. ( http://www.marvacollinsprep.com/index1.htm is the website of the school itself). Basically, she had to leave “the system” to do what worked… wish that were a surprise…

Hi Ken,

Things are so different now days than when we were kids. There are so many things to do, life is at a faster pace. But one thing I think today’s society has missed out on is the slower pace of life where people spent more times interacting and talking, doing things togther like preparing meals, doing chores, playing card games, board games. Now we live on the run, fast food, fast this, fast that, computers, video games, motel kids, some are even homeless have broken families, some kids I know live in group homes, their life is horrible…

I work in a school that has many lower socio-economic families. The teachers sometimes presume that just because the kid heard the story that he understood what the teacher said. But like you have discovered it wasn’t in their background knowledge so what the teacher said or was in the story had no meaning to them. What I end up doing as an SLP is I have to go the extra mile, using lots of visuals, socratic questions and give and take to help them connect the new concepts with their limited vocabulary and background knowledge and slowly but surely we eventually get to where they need to be. But it is a rough road to haul, it takes a ton of time.

Another idea that I heard about was to allow children to take books on tapes home along with an inexpensive tape player and the children share their books with their parents and this helps their parents become more literate. But in many of these homes the parents are working 3 jobs just to keep food on the table and they are worn out. We also have an afterschool program, an early morning program and the kids come in droves just to eat breakfast.

There is no quick fix on this…

FUnny thing, we do the same thing with the college students here ;)

I am lost… :wink:

We back things up a little, and take the time to *fill in* the background. F’rinstance, the novel for the semester is “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Before ever they crack the cover, they do some highly structured research on the basics of that thing called the Viet Nam war — which includes what Communism is and why we were so worried about it. They look up the author (dodging the websites for one of my favorite songwriters with the same name ;)) and read his essay on what makes a “true” war story. They do not enough work on vocab — workin’ on that. Lots of work connecting to their experiences — instead of the shortcut of trying to find work that they’ve already got a lot of connections to, they work to build more connections to the stuff of a college education.
Closing date on my abode is next Wednesday :-) My math folks have asked if it will be a “Shelter for Battered Algebra Students.” If you’re ever passing thru …

Ken,

I met you at IDA, by the way!

A nearby booth at IDA was SRA. They sell some direct instruction materials including Language for Learning, Language for Thinking, and Distar Language III (which is under a revised name in the 2005 catalog, I think). I am going to try this program with some of my language delayed students. I can’t speak personally about it’s effectiveness yet, but I have read positive articles and reviews. Most direct intstruction programs were designed for just the kids you are talking about. You may want to check it out.

Janis

Ken,
Although I’m not a teacher I love introducing and discussing language and can share what I do at home and also working as a Title I Aide in the classroom.

For my own children I’ve always read books that are full of rich language (like classics). One series I’ve read through with each kid are the Oz books. They are fun, visual and have plenty of “older generation” high level language. Often during the reading I’ll stop a moment to define a word or ask my child if they know the definition, why they think something was done, or how things are connected, etc….

In the classroom I work with ESL and a large lower social-economic population. Being an aide I don’t have as much control over what I can “teach” the kids, but when I have reading groups I’ll often stop at the end of a page and ask them lots of questions. What do they think that word meant? Why are the characters thinking or doing a certain thing? How is this similar to or different from life today? And then I’ll share connections I might notice and ask them what they think, or feel, or how does it relate to something else. Also, I always try to use a richer vocabulary for every day conversation and pull in vocabulary words they might be working on whenever I can.

So in a nutshell: classic books and lots of discussion and use of higher level vocabulary. Sort of like what one does in a college English class.

Although does anyone have time for this in a public school classroom? I get the feeling most teachers are being pressured to “rush through” material. There’s little time for socratic methods.