Language Objectives

Planning Teachers should write both content and language objectives Content objectives are drawn from the subject area standards Content objectives can demonstrate declarative knowledge - what students should know procedural knowledge - what students should be able to do to demonstrate their understanding of the content

Planning Language objectives should provide ELLs with the language needed to understand and express content knowledge Language objectives can be written for the text level, paragraph level, sentence level, or word level

ELLS Content objectives should be the same for ELLs and native English speakers Language objectives should vary depending on the ELL’s level of English proficiency Consider the following example

Content objective – Students will demonstrate an understanding of the stages of the water cycle Beginners – Students will draw and label pictures of each stage Intermediate – Using pictures as visual supports, students will write sentences to describe each stage Advanced – Students will write a science report describing the stages of the water cycle

Text level language objectives – Knowledge of genres Personal genres Literary genres Factual genres Analytic genres

Text-Level language objectives Students will understand the social purpose of different genres Students will understand how different genres should be organized Students will understand the language features appropriate to each genre

Purpose of the genre Narrative – to entertain and, often, to teach a lesson or moral Argument – to persuade the reader to agree with a claim or point of view made by the writer

Possible Language Objective Students will write a paragraph contrasting the purpose of a narrative and the purpose of an argument.

Organizational structure Narrative – orientation, events, complication, resolution Argument – statement of position and preview of following arguments, arguments with supporting evidence, (counterarguments) reaffirmation of writer’s position

Possible language objective Students will write a narrative that includes the typical elements expected in a narrative. Students will be able to label the different sections of a narrative (orientation, events, complication, resolution).

Language features of narratives sequenced in time so uses time connectives written in past tense contains many action verbs also contains dialogue and saying verbs (some may show how things are said) also contains thinking verbs to show what participants are thinking/feeling uses descriptive language to describe people and things

Possible language objective Students will add dialogue to a narrative they have written using a variety of saying verbs. Students will add dialogue to a narrative they have written correctly punctuating quotations. Students will write a narrative using past tense action verbs to show action and present tense verbs in dialogue.

Language features of arguments Uses connectives to show logical sequence (first, then, finally and therefore) uses simple present tense to express generalizations uses content-specific vocabulary uses evaluative vocabulary to indicate writer’s point of view

Possible teaching activities Have students work in groups Give each group an excerpt from a different genre Ask students to decide which genre they have Ask them to support their decision with textual evidence

Possible teaching activities Use graphic organizers to help students organize their writing to follow typical structures of genres Deconstruct short texts to help students see typical genre structures Assess student writing based on the presence or absence of typical genre structures

Possible teaching activities Choose particular language features to teach verb tenses types of connectives (signal words) descriptive adjectives content-specific vocabulary

Paragraph level language objectives Students can use different language forms to provide greater cohesion in paragraphs. These include: pronouns that clearly refer to previous sections of the text conjunctions that show connections between and within sentences nominalizations of verbs presented earlier in the text different patterns of cohesion to connect sentences

Possible language objectives Students will write a paragraph using chaining to provide cohesion between sentences. Students will provide the correct pronoun forms to complete a Cloze activity.

Possible teaching activities Lessons on pronouns Lessons on conjunctions that signal relationships within the text Lessons on nominalization Lessons on patterns of cohesion between sentences

Sentence level language objectives Students can learn to write complete sentences with appropriate punctuation Students can learn to write complex sentences by connecting clauses with conjunctions Students can learn to write lexically dense sentence by using expanded nominal groups

Possible language objectives Students will expand nominal groups by adding adjectives and relative clauses. Students will add appropriate end punctuation to a passage that lacks end punctuation (periods, question marks, exclamation points)

Possible teaching activities Work on simple sentences Work on adding conjunctions to create complex sentences Work on using nominalization to create lexically dense sentences Deconstruct – reconstruct activities

Word level language objectives Teaching content-specific vocabulary related to different fields being studied

Possible teaching activities Various activities to teach individual words, word parts, and word learning strategies, such as using context clues

Genre-based Teaching based on Gibbons 2009 Building the field Modeling the genre Joint construction Independent writing