Speaking Growth Strategies for Language Learners

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Every week I want to highlight a teacher’s win. A win can be big or small. I want you to celebrate your wins, and we want to celebrate with you! If you have a win you want to share email me at millie@myadventuresinesl.com

The biggest wish for many of our students is to show growth by the end of the school year. I know that I personally want my students to show growth in all the four domains. When it comes to speaking and writing resources, there is no shortage for teachers. The problem comes when trying to find resources on how to intentionally move your language learners to the next level in speaking and writing. Also, during the school year most ongoing assessments focus heavily on reading, so you might not be able to track growth if you aren’t intentional. 

Three years ago I made a very strong commitment to analyze the data. My students and I were on a mission to get to the next level. One of the things that stuck out to me the most were the speaking and writing scores for most of my students. Looking back over the years they were taking the end of the year language assessment, it seemed as if they were stuck. They were showing growth in listening and reading, but when it came to speaking and writing the story was different. I reflected on my practices and thought about what I could do differently. The first thing that came to mind was providing structure. I know it sounds weird but that was the first thing that popped in my mind. 

Structure was the first thing that popped in my mind. Speaking and writing can be very broad for students. This led me to the rubrics so that I can provide structure in an easy way for the students to understand. If they know where they are currently, then the rubrics will provide a roadmap to get to the next level. I also structured the writing for the students by providing them with step-by-step graphic organizers for speaking and writing. I noticed that over time using these graphic organizers  the students writing started to improve greatly. Once they started to feel confident, I removed the scaffold of the graphic organizers. Even after doing so they were still producing stellar writing without the scaffolds. The same mindset shift went towards speaking growth. I modeled consistently throughout the school year, and used speaking rubrics on every speaking assignment. This allowed the students to see their growth throughout the school year which led to growth and proficiency on the end of the year assessment. 

Reflect and think about how you can provide structure for your Language Learners in the speaking and writing domain. I have two easy ways you can do that for your students. The Speaking and Writing Rubrics I have available in my teacher store make that super simple and convenient for you to do. Visit My Adventures in ESL TPT Store to grab the rubrics. They provide six different levels and allow you to easily differentiate for your Language Learners. Use graphic organizers to provide structure for your students while they are writing. I have step-by-step paragraph writing available in my teacher store that you can use for your Language Learners. 

Modeling speaking and writing expectations is also beneficial for language learners, so they can see what it looks like to be proficient in both. 

Here are your next steps:

• Reflect and think about the structure you are providing for speaking and writing. Ask yourself, do you need to provide more structure for the growth of your students?
• Download the FREE Step-by-Step Paragraph Building to use with your language learners. 
• Use rubrics to model for students throughout the school year. This will help them in understanding the expectations, so that they can move to the next level of their writing. 

How are you planning for speaking and writing growth with your language learners?