1. Sociocultural Benefits
Part Three: Try It Out!
Team member’s name: Mariell Ramirez
Name of strategy implemented: Picture this!
With whom the strategy was implemented (grade-level/content area, other teachers, etc.): A kindergarten student from my class.
Student/participant examples and pictures (if available) to document the outcome of the strategy attached.
Sociocultural Benefits
Picture This! is an activity that facilitates sociocultural interaction, since while the students are coming up with words/ideas of what they are seeing in the pictures, they are working together and learn from each other.
Classroom Tips:
Group the students in a way that they can benefit from each other and maximize the experience.
Linguistic Benefits
Picture This! allows CLD students to consolidate and build new vocabulary. Since it can be done in group CLD students can get the benefit of learning from their peers and reaffirm what they think they new or build a new concept.
Get CLD students try to come up with some random words or ideas and the let them work in peers to clarify, confirm or add new information about what they already knew.
Academic Benefits
Through this activity the CLD students have the opportunity to acquire new vocabulary and concepts and therefore, become more proficient in the new language.
It also gives the student time to acclimate and anticipate what the teacher is going to introduce. This helps the students prepare for learning.
In my case (weather and seasons) I was able to help my students build a new concept based on what they knew before from their previous experience with the weather here and the weather from where their family were from (if they knew).
I would recommend to the teacher to make sure she activates prior knowledge by asking questions and leading the observation and discussion part. This is going to help her students be prepare to accommodate the new concept.
Cognitive Benefits
This activity is a great strategy to introduce new themes and concepts. Because making that connection with their prior knowledge would help the teacher build a bridge between what students already know and what she wants them to learn.
Also using image support is always a good resource to use with CLD students to help them visualize what they are learning.
Provide different kind of questions to encourage student’s reflections and guide them towards the objective of the activity(in this case identify weather/season)
Questions for the team regarding implementation of the strategy (e.g., length of time, supplementary materials, recommendations for implementing/adapting the strategy) written as a bulleted list by the team member who implemented the strategy.
- This activity should be cover in about 45 minutes.
- The teacher can use a head projector to project the images to the whole class.
- The teacher can lead the observation to make sure the students are looking at all the details in the image she wants to highlight.
- She can ask questions such as: have you seen this before? Where? How do you think you would feel if you were there again? Etc. To make sure she brings up that previous knowledge and that she can create that bridge to connect with the new vocabulary.
- I would recommend the teacher to write on the board all the ideas the students are coming up with. This will help them go back and reinforce that what they knew built the base for what they are learning now.