TESMC READING: MODULE 5

Reading 1: Supporting ESL Students with written and visual texts across the curriculum
John Polias
Focus of the article:
By Polias, who aimed to understand ‘How well do ESL students deal with the broad range of
demands we place on them as readers and writers.’
It looked to find out: what are the needs of these students… noting that Christie and
Unsworth state that practicing writing is not enough and that the ESL strategy of a
structured and reflective approach benefits all students.
Findings:
 Students need to understand the task
 They need to know their choices as writers, depending on the genre and task
 Understand knowledge features of genre or subject
As teachers, we should ensure that tasks are meaningful and enable success in students
writing.
We need to be conscious that students are tackling the writing a many levels, including:
words, grammar, and whole text context. We support them by reducing the amount of
guesswork they do, which in turn allows them to move forward. This is important with
writing, which should be seen as an integral part of the process of learning in an educational
context.
Activities are important: warning that expectations do not equal results, and that low
support is a trigger for low engagement
Reminder: Polias also reminded us that collaboration between mainstream staff and ESL
staff is essential.
Polias’ suggestions:
Activities to identify the schematic structure – such as organising jumbled up information,
such as key words and pictures
Comparing similar or different genres – such as recipes from different genres, or the
structures and routines of different experiments
Constructing multi-modal texts -
Clarifying tasks – wording of tasks is important - recognising exactly what teachers want is
hard if students only have the wording of a writing task.
We should be: Clear in our minds about what we want – and work with students on their
understanding of our expectations. Exploring tasks and modelling responses with students
is essential .
Independent writing needn’t be a barrier – it can offer opportunity for more specific
support of groups and individual. – It is also an opportunity for students to seek clarity
and guidance.
Reading 2: Multiliteracies in Literate Futures
Michele Anstey
Focus was on what we need to know about texts to be multiliterate - which is in short, to
consider their purpose.
For this to happen, teachers need to develop a set of understandings about texts that can
be used to inform students literate practices.
Anstey reminds us that we need to consider that all text is constructed consciously with the
intention of being used. – it has intent.
Difficulties presented by this:
Altering the text and therefore intention can have an impact on ESL student – as the
meaning is constructed by the interaction between reader and text.
Some persuasive text looks like other forms of text, either in terms of language, or visual
layout. The author assumes the reader has experience of both, however an ESL student may
not.
A text may have several possible meanings
Some texts use different symbols, defined by codes and conventions – ESL readers may
have difficulty applying the correct convention to a text.
Texts become increasingly hybrid and intertextual, which makes it impossible to predict
the literacy tool kit of the future.