Very often we have kids who only speak the language plopped down into our classrooms and we don’t know what to do with them and it’s a pain for us to deal with.
I have already addressed how useful the Word Chunk Team Activity is in occupying these students. But we can’t use WCTA very much in our teaching – it’s just a very fun game.
Now, however, I have found a much more powerful way of engaging these students. They have to write the story in the TL. Well…they can’t. So what to do? Make them write it anyway, on the computer while you are asking the story.
They may need this skill – writing in their first language – some day.
I literally have my L1 story writer, a superstar because getting the details right is so important, sitting next to the heritage speaker L2 story writer to my right in Hub A. See this graphic:
In New Delhi I remember a German kid whose dad is French, who was placed in a beginning French class (I kid you not) but who cannot write, asked me after class to correct what he wrote. It was a mess, an error every other word. He was so grateful to be learning something! I was so grateful to have him doing something meaningful in my class! A win-win for all!