Week 3 Response

“Language is therefore not just a means by which individuals can formulate ideas and communicate them, it is also a means for people to think and learn together” – Neil Mercer, The Guided Construction of Knowledge. That quote serves as the basis of importance when reading this weeks pieces. In both books, Literacy for the 21st Century and Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning we are presented with ways in which students, mainly ELL, communicate and how important it is that they can do so with fluency and understanding.
I found chapter two of SLSL to be very intriguing. The chapter poses the idea that when ELL students struggle to be understood, they often learn better than if they were not in a more pressured situation. Being that ‘interaction is a significant factor in language development’ it is crucial that all students, ELLs especially, engage in plenty of communication/interaction with peers. As we read in the last articles IRE (Initiation, Response, Evaluation) and recitations do not offer many opportunities for students to effectively communicate with each other and as this chapter stresses the importance of such action, it is even more clear how important it is for us educators to steer away from such limiting teaching practices. Page 17 of SLSL states, “The teacher in fact says far more than the students do”! Now, if we are trying to aid ELL student’s communication ability why are we limiting their practice of speech and interaction? We already know we can talk and communicate effectively so why don’t we just take a backseat and listen to them for awhile?!
We need to form a classroom community which engages with each other in comfort and positivity. Whether it be through group work, discussions or games like “Find the Difference”, our students need activities like this if they are ever going to be successful communicators. Other useful tools for communication practice are, journal writing, vocabulary exercises, teacher-guided reporting, experiments and any other activity that provides students with the chance to engage in speaking, listening and thinking in a communicative manner.
As we have seen from both the last week readings and this weeks, on top of the importance of student interaction, the other crucially important and related issue at hand is the role a teacher plays in the classroom. As mentioned previously, if we talk too much we are potentially silencing our students. However, as we obviously must talk in order to education we need to remember the powerful role of the ‘scaffolder’. It is up to us to find the balance which will allow our students to express themselves, think and learn but also be guided in a conducive manner that will result in concrete knowledge and understanding.