Teaching EAL students the art of the craft: Tried and tested activities that work! - Part 1

The new #Crafting #texts unit introduced in #vce's English and EAL study design has teachers scrambling to find ways to teach their young writers #strategies to enhance their #creative #writing. The focus is on helping students recognize how language needs to be effectively used, and indeed, manipulated to convey a particular message to a specific audience, in the best-suited form - a daunting prospect for even the most experienced #englishteacher catering to students for whom English is their first language.

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So, spare a thought for the humble #eal teacher preparing, with #culturallyresponsiveteaching as the underpinning approach, to unpack the exact same unit, skills and knowledge to their diverse audience of EAL students?- #diverse culturally, linguistically and in target language level and ability! It is no surprise, then, that the avid and keen, #experienced and #enthusiastic EAL #teacher is a creature that is, slowly yet surely, vanishing from the flock of language teachers, here in Victoria.

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My fellow EAL teachers ask me to share activities that I use to help engage my EAL learners in the art of crafting texts in a language that the students, for the most part, are struggling. This request is, most often, for activities that are short and sharp yet get students to delve into a language device or a writing feature that they can have a play with and then transfer that skill to their creative writing tasks. Keen and avid, experienced and enthusiastic EAL teacher that I am, and very much looking to pull back this tiny group of amazing #educators from the brink of extinction, I plan to make a portfolio that curates the activities that have worked successfully in my EAL classes, as my students and I navigate this unit of work.

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And sharing this with my fellow EAL colleagues would be my way of saying, #thankyou. Thank you, dear EAL colleague, for the depth of indefatigable #patience, #courage and #understanding you bring to your classroom every single day as you embark on a task that is not for the faint-hearted! Even though you may feel lonely, you are not alone. You are noticed and loved by every one of your EAL students and while their heartfelt #gratitude might be your only reward, know that this gratitude is #priceless. For, through you, your students learn not just a language but gain insight to fresh new ways of viewing the world and themselves.

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EAL teachers of Victoria, this one is for you! An activity that is simple and straightforward, yet helps EAL students understand the significance of #imagery through thoughtfully crafted #metaphors, #similes and extended #analogies.

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I call this activity Think-Draw-Explain.

• The first step is to emphasize the thinking stage of this #activitybasedlearning.
• Get students to pick one object, one living organism and one colour that they think best represents themselves.
• The thinking process must especially include why this particular item or colour is representative of them; the more clarity in drawing connections, the better the final step of explanation will be.
• Then, (and this is the step that gets teachers a bit queasy, but if the goal is to get students to do something, then the process MUST involve a demonstration!) #model this kind of thinking and brainstorming and picking, with great thought and care, the best suited object, living organism and colour that represents you! Let your students ‘see’ your thought processes, see you make mistakes, see you correct them and refine your ideas. This step is the most powerful one of all as it is low-stakes for your audience - it takes the pressure off the EAL student, allowing them to completely enjoy and engage with the material that is being presented.
• The students then have a go, #drawing their three items - object, living organism, and colour. At this stage, you as the teacher, conduct a walk about, stopping by each student and asking them to share their thinking behind their choices. This gives you the best opportunity to prompt your students to make their connections more explicit, if they need to, hence providing them more fodder to tweak, refine and polish up their #ideas before they even begin writing.
• Finally, step back and watch the magic happen! Watch the young minds produce ideas that will floor you, stun you, make you laugh out loud, make your heart break, make your heart beam, and humble you!

?Here are some gems (edited by me for easier reading!) that my students offered in their pieces of work that I will add in my treasure chest of student work:

1. The object that represents me is a "semi transparent pick for (my) guitar. I lose myself as often as I lose my picks!"
2. The colours that represent me are blue, khaki and green. "All three colours are low impact" "and might not seem good just by themselves. But when they come together in one drawing, they coordinate. I have good and bad in my personality but when they come together, they form the best mixture of my personality."
3. "The object that represents me is a book... The thickness of the book means lots of experiences contribute to enrich my life."
4. "A clock doesn't stop for anything and keeps going on ... In a similar way, I have a personality of just going on, irrespective of any hardships or difficulties I face."
5. The living creature that represents me is a sea turtle. "Sea turtles are independent animals that face harsh and dangerous oceans from birth."
6. The object that represents me is a thermos bottle. "I feel that I am a person who seems cold on the outside but hot inside. I always show myself that I don't want to talk to anyone which makes people think I am not easy to become close to. But to my friends, I treat them kindly and help them when I can."
7. "The object that represents me is the apron that my beloved grandmother gave me when I was 12 years old. The reason is because I have always been baking since I was young. The place where I feel most comfort and relief is my kitchen back home, wearing my apron."
8. "A magic cube has 6 different sides in different colours. Scramble the sides and it becomes a mixture of 2 or more colours, but it's still a cube. The 6 different colours on the cube represents the identities and the personalities I have, which means I am a mix of different things and unique."

Happy #thinking, #drawing, #explaining, #sharing, #modelling, and more importantly, enjoying #teaching and #learning .. from each other and from life!