ELLs and Groupwork

          After reading WestEd chapters four and five, I reflected upon the similarities between strategies for ELL and groupwork, considering rich tasks, the LES teaching strategy, planning a problem-based or project based unit? And also, where are there differences or distinctions? That is, what particularly distinguishes strategies for "making mathematics accessible to English Learners"?

          Both group work and strategies for ELLs require creating a task that requires students to be challenged in higher-level thinking. Also, in both cases the goal for literacy in mathematics is emphasized. In groupwork, students are strongly encouraged and facilitating the use mathematical language and further improve vocabulary, just as ELs need as well. I also enjoyed the point the reading made about the teacher ignoring small grammatical errors and focusing on what the student understands. I could see this also relating to groupwork in that it would be important to emphasize what the student understands and the discussion he or she participates in rather than one correct answer. However, this could also be a distinction in that ELs will have the tendency to make more grammatical errors than non-English learning students. In addition, the goal of ELs is to assist them into becoming proficient in English as well as mathematical language.

My interpretation of the word scaffold used in chapter 5 was just as the quote by Pauline Gibbons explained in the first part of the chapter: “[Scaffolding is] temporary assistance by which the teacher helps the learner know how to do something, so the learner will be able to complete a similar task alone.” The chapter explains the concept of fading support over time. Scaffolding techniques include visuals (like graphic organizers), cues, think-alouds, and reciprocal teaching just to name a few. I see scaffolding within this chapter as a tool to assist English learners, or other students with similar needs, in organizing, understanding, and building upon information they are learning. The teacher may create resources to help better understand a concept where further within the class the student may be less dependent on teacher resources and become more independent in the future. I have mostly heard this term being used as a general word for strategies to help students who have difficulties understanding what is being asked of them, vocabulary within the activity, or need a reference to previous information in able to understand the current activity.