How+Do+I+Create+Centers+For+Students+Who+Don't+Speak+English?

**How Do I Create Centers For Students Who Don't Speak English?**  While centers allow teachers to spend more time with each student in small group and individual settings, there is often concern that an English Language Learner (ELL) will be lost during Center Time. How do I make this time away from the teacher productive for all my students? How can I keep my limited English students actively engaged in centers while attending to the needs of my other small groups?

**Before You Start and After Each Lesson** To keep all students motivated and actively involved in each center [|www.onestopenglish.com] asks teachers to reflect on the following questions during preparation. [] Reflection on these six aspects continuously improves classroom instruction, maximizes productive use of centers, and ensures high student involvement in ELL centers. By reflecting after a day’s center, a teacher can be sure to troubleshoot for activities that follow.
 * 1) Interest: Will the activity engage the children’s curiosity, interest and attention?
 * 2) Participation: Will children participate actively? What factors will encouraged/discourage active participation?
 * 3) Creative thinking: Will children respond to activities with a creative or imaginative response? Did this affect the way they use language? How?
 * 4) Kinesthetic learning: How will activities involve mime and movement? Will this activity help or detract from the children’s learning? Why?
 * 5) Collaboration: Will children collaborate and work well together? What factors will influence this?
 * 6) Enjoyment: Do the children enjoy activities? What effect will this have on their motivation, confidence and self-esteem?

**Scaffold Your Center** Scaffolding is building on what your student already knows. A scaffold provides assistance to help students solve problems by asking questions, probing, and expanding on ideas already composed in the initial lesson. (Freeman, & Freeman, 2001, p. 49). A center employing scaffolding might ask a student to expand on a previously taught concept, allowing the student to move beyond what he understood about the idea if working alone. Scaffolding occurs when the teacher or a peer provides a “structure with slots to be filled in by the student” (Freeman, & Freeman, 2001, p. 50).

**Your student will be more successful in the center if the material:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> (Herrera, & Murry, 2011, p. 75)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Draws from previous knowledge
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Focuses on the most critical concepts within the content areas
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Emphasizes explicit strategies for learning words and concepts from context
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Scaffolds student instruction though the gradual deepening of vocabulary knowledge
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Builds a connection between new knowledge and existing knowledge
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reviews the most important conceptual knowledge in a way that depends its CLD learner’s understanding as efficiently as possible

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Do not present your ELL students with a brand new concept in centers! Use centers to practice or expand lessons that have already been explicitly taught and modeled by the teacher. Front load your ELL students with background knowledge, vocabulary, and explicit directions before beginning centers. In this way, you assure students are not practicing incorrect assumptions or information. Instead, by expanding on a critical concept already presented in class, students gain self-esteem, and academic/language success. Students also reach higher order thinking skills by relating to academic concepts and expanding the ideas they have already been exposed to in class.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Example of Center As Practice** > <span style="color: #30bbbb; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">**Provide Visual Clues and Limit Your English** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Even an ELL student who communicates effectively in casual conversation may still lack the conceptual understanding to communicate in academic language. This is why the academic language in centers may be difficult. Academic language extends into more and more cognitively demanding uses of language, with fewer contextual clues to meaning provided other than the language itself. (Herrera, & Murry, 2011)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|www.onestopenglish.com] Lots of resources for lessons with lots of comprehensible input. You must provide a Log In. However, once this is created the website is free.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] Ideas for Reading Centers
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|www.esl-kids.com] Teacher generated ideas of center activities.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Help your ELL student with academic language use in centers:**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Give your student context clues that use less academic English. Present synonyms, whenever possible to accompany challenging vocabulary. (For example: Find the **bold**, **dark** word.)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Provide Vocabulary Pictures Cards (http://ellteachersurvivalkit.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Procedures)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Before students enter centers, preview or contextualize key vocabulary or concepts.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Include the same classroom manipulatives used during previewed lesson.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Purposefully choose your academic language. Limit your vocabulary to that which is essential to the center’s academic/language skills. Make sure your directions and written language do not take away from the comprehension of the lesson at hand.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Keep the English __basic__. Use sort sentences, commands, single response directions, and Yes/No answers. For example: “Identify the subject and predicate of each sentence.” Becomes: “Find the subjects. Find the predicates.”

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**A classroom example:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Notice how interactive and student-centered this lesson remains with the yes/no and short sentence responses used for EL students.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">I have the kids sit down facing the front while I stand up and ask "How are you?", "What's your name?", "How old are you?", "Do you like banana pizza?" (to laughs and 'yuck' faces) and "What color do you like?" For each question, I use gestures to indicate meaning and I help the kids answer by mouthing and whispering their answers to help them along. This whole section is done with the kids responding together. Next, I ask them individually, so I pull out my 'cow', a fluffy stuffed toy I use as a huge ball, and a bucket. I pick a kid randomly and ask one of the questions above. I help them answer it and toss them the 'cow' saying "Here you are." They reply "Thank you" and I respond "You're welcome". They throw the ball towards the bucket, I yell "mooooooo!" and catch the 'cow' in the bucket. I repeat the procedure with each child. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Examples of follow up centers accompanying this lesson: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) With a partner, students repeat the same lesson over again, taking turns being the teacher. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**2)** Students are given a different animal and mimic the above lesson using new animal.

<span style="color: #37c3c3; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">**Use the First Language** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cummins' Transfer Hypothesis states students who develop literacy in the first language are able to transfer these abilities to a second language. This transfer hypothesis is equally valid in all subjects, including math and science. Hencin-Bhatt (1993) demonstrated a strong relationship between phonological awareness in Spanish and word recognition in English. Specifically, CLD students who could perform well on tests of phonological awareness in Spanish were more likely to demonstrate the ability to read English words and English-like pseudo words than were students who performed poorly on tests of phonological awareness in Spanish (Herrera, & Murry, 2011, p. 111).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use of the First Language is also important when your student is writing or composing ideas. According to Krashen’s Monitor Hypothesis, it is difficult to both create a new thought and monitor ideas for the correct language usage. Requiring students to write in English may limit what they wish to say as they are stuck on the correct vocabulary or sentence structures to use. (Freeman, & Freeman, 2001, p. 85).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**For the use of First Language (L1) in your centers:**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Provide the vocabulary and key concepts in L1. Vocabulary cards in both languages or student created reference sheets are convenient resources.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Provide an overview or review of language/academic main ideas in L1.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Allow students to write in L1. In a separate draft they can change this L1 to English, just as a native English speaker would revise a later draft of writing.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Resources for Learning Content Knowledge:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [|www.literacycenter.net] Activities in L1 for early elementary grades <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [] Activities in L1 for older students <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [] Lists of academic terms provided in both L1 and English

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Resources for Writing in First Language** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [] Students can create comics in L1; wonderful for summary, sequence, or many other Reading Course of Study requirements. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [|www.storybird.com] Students can write books in L; will help increase classroom library, and allow student products on

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **Use Total Physical Response** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Using Total Physical Response activities gives students an opportunity to be active participants in center work without requiring verbal use of language.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Total Physical Response (TPR) activities greatly multiply the language input and output that can be handled by beginning English language learners (ELLs). TPR activities elicit whole-body responses when new words or phrases are introduced. Teachers can develop quick scripts that provide ELLs and other students with the vocabulary and/or classroom behaviors related to everyday situations. For example, "Take out your math book. Put it on your desk. Put it on your head. Put it under the chair. Hold it in your left hand."

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Students become ready to talk sooner when they are learning by doing. TPR activities help students adjust to school and understand the behaviors required and the instructions they will hear. This will help them in mainstream classrooms, in the halls, during lunchtime, during fire drills, on field trips, and in everyday life activities. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">[]

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Examples of Total Physical Response Activities:**

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**1) For Younger Students:** We all stand up and I call "Attention! Salute!" The kids respond by standing up straight and raising their hand to their forehead. "Everybody, let's walk!" and we march around the room as I continuously call "Walk, walk, walk!" When I ask them to stop, we do the 'attention' thing again and repeat with run, jump, hop, swim, and crawl. Then we stand up and I call the following commands (doing the actions with the kids) "Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, jump, jump, jump, turn around, clap your hands, stomp your feet, brush your teeth, brush your hair, wash your hands, wash your face, clean your ears, blow your nose, rub your tummy and pat your head, shake, sneeze!" Then we go straight into the 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' song, lying on our backs for the second verse (causing the kids to lift their feet in the air so they can touch their toes - very funny!). []

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**2) For Older Students:** A team building activity I like to do on the first or second day of class with my high school students (ESL and other classes alike) is to form a circle, outside weather permitting, and hold hands. The object is to see how quickly they can "heart beat." They pass the beat by squeezing the hand to the left after they receive it from the right. We try it again throughout the year and see if we get faster. It is a lot of fun and the kids are usually cheering when we break our previous record. Some are squeamish about holding hands but with prompting I usually get 100% participation. Only once has someone refused and I felt it important to honor his discomfort and didn't force him to join. [|www.eslcafe.com]

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**3) Easily Modified for All Students:** Call students to the front of the class, mostly at random. (You might want to use a more outgoing seeming student first) Show the student an adjective, and they have to act it out for the other students to guess the word. No speaking allowed by the student doing the acting. I mix together easy and difficult adjectives so the student talking doesn't know what kind he or she is going to get.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Easy examples - fast, happy, cold, sleepy, short Difficult examples - wet, rich, lazy, late, smart. I've used this with students aged 12 to mid-forties and it works quite well. The students relax and get a good laugh out of it. [|www.eslcafe.com] ===<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Student demonstration: Students can also take turns playing the roles of the reader of the series and the performer of the actions. Meanwhile, the teacher can check on individual students for comprehension and oral production. [] ===

===<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">5) Partner activities: students work in pairs or teams of four to tell or read the series. In teams of four, two students give commands and two respond physically. Meanwhile, the teacher monitors each team and suggests ways to elaborate on the vocabulary by adding new words. === <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is one example of the process: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Let's go to the zoo. Open the door and get in your car.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Turn on the engine in your car.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Drive to the zoo.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Park the car.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Get out of the car.
 * 6) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Buy your ticket with a $5.00 dollar bill.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hold out your hand for your change.
 * 8) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walk to the entrance.
 * 9) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Give your ticket to the person at the gate.
 * 10) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Open the gate and go in.
 * 11) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wave at the giraffes.
 * 12) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walk like a giraffe.
 * 13) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wave at the monkeys.
 * 14) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Laugh like a monkey.
 * 15) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wave at the elephants.
 * 16) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wave your trunk like the elephants.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Point, “Can You Touch?” Mix, Organize, Gather ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">During the Silent Period, your ELL student usually understands more than he is willing to produce. More listening means more time for students to acquire the raw materials of speech—sounds and words tied to appropriate meanings, structures, and settings. (Cary, 2007, p.58) Provide your students with centers where they are not required to communicate orally.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use manipulatives to allow students to organize the concepts they have learned. In this way, they do not have to produce the vocabulary, but can practice correctly using the vocabulary and key concepts. Mix, Organize, and Gather activities allow students to use manipulatives and visual representations of the concept

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Example Activities: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) Have your student point to the correct answer. Practice the lesson before hand and use a Peer Teacher or Prerecorded Teacher Instructions for ELL student to follow. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Use vocabulary cards and a partner. Compose only pointing or yes/no answer questions for your student to use. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Use stickers, fingerprints, Expo or lesson specific worksheets for documentation of correct pointing answers. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Use point and click computer lessons. Especially for lower grade materials, interactive websites review academic concepts and only ask students to click on the correct answer. [|www.starfall.com] is an excellent example. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">5) Create point and click Power Point activities. Make your own review lesson requiring only point and click reaction from students. [] provided lots of helpful Power Point Templates.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Here is an example of an interactive, partner-based game requiring only pointing and yes/no answers.** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Since, we are doing body parts, the leader asks them to touch various body parts. If they make a mistake, they sit down. We play a few times so they still have a chance even if they lose early in the first round or two. Being a tactile learner, Taichi seems to be getting to grips with the vocabulary now that he's using real body parts. The next game is "What do you have?" I give Sayaka a body parts card and she holds it close to her chest so the others can't see. They all ask "Do you have (body part)?" and Sayaka answers "No, I don't" until someone gets it right. They love this game and they love 'being the teacher' at the front with the cards. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Use Graphic Organizers  ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Give your students the manipulatives and placement in physical directions of graphic organizers. Graphic Organizers are a visual cue to help students understand the directions and expectations of the lessons. They are also used as a learning strategies to help students with content and language. The use of graphic organizers creates a visual representation (such as Venn diagrams, timelines, webs ,and charts) of important relationships between concepts (Chamot, 2009, pg. 63).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Resources for Graphic Organizers:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [|www.readwritethink.net] Has lots of useful tools. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [] Lots of Print Outs for Graphic Organizers <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">* [|www.puzzlemaker.com] Also allows your student the graphic organizer of words. However, be careful here your student is actually learning the words and not just filling out the grid.

<span style="color: #35b6b6; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">**Other Methods to Encourage:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Give your students a reason to talk! Make your classroom so engaging reluctant students speak in spite of themselves! Remember, working in a classroom with an unfamiliar language is challenging. To keep your student motivated in activities incorporate their interests. Fill the conversations, curriculum, and class library with things you know they love. Ask parents for resources and knowledge of your students. Develop friendships. Casual conversations with peers may be more natural and less intimidating than academic language with an adult.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ideas to Encourage Participation: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) Increases time and opportunities for meaningful talk <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Incorporate students’ personal interests <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Provide emotional “safe ground” for language risk-taking <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Encourage English speaking while honoring students’ first language <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Cary, 2007)

<span style="color: #2eb8b8; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">**Sources:** Web Pages [|www.onestopenglish.com] [|www.puzzlemaker.com] [|www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/] [|www.esl-kids.com/in-class/in-class3.html] [|people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html] [|www.starfall.com] [|www.colorincolorado.org/educators/content/oral/] [|www.eslcafe.com] [|www.literacycenter.net] [|www.aulafacil.com/] [|newyorkscienceteacher.com/sci/pages/esl/index.php] [|www.makebeliefscomix.com/] [|www.storybird.com] ellteachersurvivalkit.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Procedures [|vygotsky.ced.appstate.edu/reading_strategies/index.asp] [|www.esl-kids.com]

Books: Cary, S. (2007). //English language learners answers to teachers' top ten questions//. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Chamot, A. (2009). //The Calla handbook: Implementing the cognitive academic language learning approach//. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Freeman, D, & Freeman, Y. (2001). //Between worlds: Access to second language acquisition//. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Herrera, S, & Murry, K. (2011). //Mastering ell and bilingual methods//. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Ovando, C, Combs, M, & Collier, V. (2006). //Bilingual & esl classrooms//. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.