Every day during the week of Sept. 19, about 23 teachers were are absent due to the English Language Development Conference held at the District Office.All five FUHSD schools participated in this conference; this week was MVHS’ turn. In order to spread out teacher absences during the five-day conference, approximately 22 to 23 teachers were assigned one day of the week to attend. After the district sent the first e-mail notifying the staff on Aug. 25, Front Desk representative Diane Howard spent two weeks recruiting substitute teachers to fill in the gaps. To allow the least disturbance to class curriculum as possible, students followed a seven-period schedule during the week.Many former MVHS teachers who are now substitutes recall that such conferences have been held in the past to educate teachers about new methods to enhance student learning.
Though the MVHS API score has increased by another six points this year, the number of MVHS English Language Development students passing the California High School Exit Exam has decreased. This district workshop was geared towards exploring opportunities for students developing their skills in speaking English.According to English teacher Christy Utter, this year the conference was focused on academic communication—more specifically, ensuring that students are extracting the meaning of what they are learning by asking them to write and speak about it. In terms of speaking, teachers were asked to especially note the amount of involvement students have in the class.
“It was more about offering students a greater percentage of the time to talk [in the classroom]. For example, if students are in a group of two rather than a group of four, they get to collaborate twice as much,” Utter said.
Teachers were also taught to encourage the use of academic language, such as vocabulary that was used in previous lessons, during students’ collaboration times in class. This, according to Utter, is supposed to help determine whether or not students understand what they need to evaluate and analyze.As an English teacher, Utter found it easy to implement several of these strategies, and in fact, did so the day after she attended the conference in her Literature and Writing Sheltered class.
Instead of just asking students to brainstorm whether the narrator of the book they were reading was responsible for the death of the protagonist, Utter had them list all the potential reasons for the narrator being guilty in one minute. Then, she allowed them to switch papers with partners to add to their list.
“[The activity] made room for [students collaborating], writing, producing, and building off of each other’s ideas,” Utter said.
All such skills were mentioned in the conference as ways of allotting more class time for students to vocally show comprehension of the material.
Check back later this week on elestoque.org for more information from English teacher Vanessa Nava, who helped organize the conference.
