YOUTUBE # 1

MULTI-LEVEL CLASSROOM
 There are students of different English proficiencies or language proficiencies
studying together in the same classroom.

 Sometimes also have different grade levels as multi-level.

 It might have a 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade student all studying together or high
school students all in the same classroom.

 However, a single level classroom can also be seen as a multi-level classroom and
we might not think of it as a multi-level classroom.

 When they’re in a single level that means their English proficiency level average is
the same but their reading might be higher there speaking might be lower their
writing may be somewhere in between.

o Idea: Is that students in single level class may have differing abilities for
different skill levels and still be seen or feel to teacher as multi-level.

MULTI-LEVEL APPROACH

PUSH IN
 It is when in their schedule is mainly just mainstream classrooms.

 Students go in, they learn their content area, subject area, type classes.

 And then ESL teacher goes into their classroom to assist in the E.L development or
proficiency.

 Now they’ll be working on the same curriculum that the whole class is learning. The
ESL teacher may be interpreting of helping them with the different material.
PULL OUT
 When it’s still not scheduled in their daily list of classes but students are pulled
out maybe in small groups or by grade level or by skill level.

 And the E.L teacher then works with those students for maybe 20 – 30 minutes a
day assisting them still, may be on the curriculum of the classrooms or on something
supplemental where they’re trying to increase their English proficiency.

SHELTERED INSTRUCTION
 When it is actually built into their schedule so maybe period 5. There’s and ESL
class or an E LL class or a SOL class.

 There are lot of different terms for these types of classes can be 1 period a day,
2 period a day or block.

o Idea: is that it is a dedicated time for the teachers to teach the students
about English language development.

 They are learning reading, writing, listening, speaking skills, increasing English
proficiency to then get ready for those mainstream classrooms or the classrooms
taking alongside.

 But really to reclassify them into no longer taking ESL.

GOALS OF THE TEACHER IN THIS APPROACH

 Teacher needs to engage students.

 If the teacher able to engage a student they’re going to want to learn.

 It has to be relevant; they’re then going to want to learn material and practice.

 Interact with other students and then really that increases their English
proficiency.
 Practice leads to English proficiency levels going up, when that happens, their goal
is always to reclassify them.

 But always to focus on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

SINGLE LEVEL CLASSROOM

 The most ideal for a teacher.

 Always want to have a single level classroom because it makes it.

 You have 1 set of curriculums, 1 set of materials, the students are generally at the
same level.

 You teach them, you can differentiate a little here and there but it’s a lot more
controlled.

 However, for an administrator, single level is not ideal when building a master
schedule.

 To schedule a single level class means that you need a large enough ESL population
or ESL teaching staff or maybe a medium-sized, it really depends.

o Idea: is you need a class space, you need some classroom space and you do
need to set it up a little bit differently.

TIPS FOR ADMINISTRATOR

 We can think of single level as the most ideal but don’t married to that idea.

 Be open to the idea that multi-level is possible, it does work.

 It is a great program to run.

 When you do multi-level scheduling, always have to keep into account that there are
regular classes.

o For example:
 Science
 History
 Math

o Students need to be scheduled for these classes. They usually take priority.

o Math is also multi-level subject even though we don’t of it like that.

o An 8th grader might have Math, another 8th grader is going to take Algebra one.
So, they need to be scheduled for that first.

 Then you have your ESL class, maybe a 3rd or 4th priority but the idea is if you can
somehow get the ESL schedule to go every period then you will have more room for
flexibility and scheduling.

o For example:
o You did through 12th grade in one classroom. That was not ideal. Almost be very
clear. 39 students and they were all different levels. The way that happened
was you was the only ESL teacher. You taught periods 1 through 7, all different
classes.

o So, at any given point students can be put into your classroom and work on
English proficiency.

 As an administrator, we have to be open to the idea that students can be at

different grade levels, different proficiency levels all mixed together and even
different languages.
 CHALLENGES THAT NEED TO BE EXPECTED

 Let’s start with the teacher, for the teacher, there is a lot more work involved in
multi-level classrooms.

 Let’s just be honest, lots more planning, lots more time teaching because you can’t
just do direct instruction.

o Idea:
o If you are a science teacher, you’re expected to teach biology to teach your
students.

o Imagine in one classroom trying to teach biology to this group, physics to this
group, and chemistry to other group within the same time frame within the
same class period.

 You can’t just do direct instruction to everyone so the idea there is you really want
students be able to learn all the material that they need to learn not everyone
else’s.

 Preparation time is going to be a lot longer, it’s very important to have a set
curriculum, so that teachers can already use that and follow along.

o You could not just take one reading and say “Okay everyone we’re all going to
read the advanced reading now!”.

o The beginner might not even understand what have just said.

 What you have to do is take that one reading and write it for the advance that
like high intermediate, the intermediate, the low intermediate at the beginning, the
zero English.
 o Idea: That you write it so many different ways, so they are responsible for
their material. A program like that is not sustainable. You are constantly
writing new material.

 Because if you’re a low-level student, the next year you’re going to intermediate, they
can’t use the same material.

 That is why eloquence was born, that idea that you have to get help out there
because even you’re going to search for an exact book, you cannot find a good multi-
level curriculum for secondary, 6 to 12.

 Your eloquence needs to put together different levels and made them structured
on the same way so you can do the same type of activity but different topics.

 Students were working on different topics in the same classroom, teacher could give
direct instruction to small groups but never had to keep writing a material year
after year to be different.

HOW WILL YOU ENGAGE THE STUDENTS?

 First, writing the material to different levels.

 Setting tasks so small tasks, bite-sized tasks.

o Here is your 10-minute task you need to complete and show me in 10 minutes.

 While you are working with others students in different levels.

o Go to the beginner, start to explain what they need to work on, then the
next level up then the next level.

o The advanced students can be starting on their own doing any pennant study
more like reading on their own.
 o Previewing vocabulary on their own but the tasks are so small, if you just say
“Okay, here’s your task, you have an hour”, they’re going to do it in the last 10-
minutes not in the hour.

HOW THE ADVANCED STUDENTS MAY GET BORED?

 There tasks, their material are going to be much more challenging.

 You can’t just teach one material to the middle class; you’re going to lose a low
level and you’re going to lose the high level.

ROLE OF TECHOLOGY IN MULTI-LEVEL CLASSROOM

 Technology is used to assist the teacher.

 We can never let technology take over the teaching because then why would
teachers be here right.

o Idea: That you want technology to give the teacher time to work individually
and give direct instruction.

o For example:
o If you build something on technology like Quizlet.

o Quizlet is a free program teacher can use out there.

o You set up the quizlets or you have a student set up their own, they’re working
on a task with vocabulary at same time.

o You as a teacher are giving direct instruction to the other levels teaching them
vocabulary so they have something to work on, it’s assisting, it’s not doing the
teaching.
 o Doing the teaching would look like “Okay, everyone site of your quiz. Let’s go
learn your vocabulary”.

o Here’s your test, you never explain anything. You never give them to speak
anything, they really need that practice.

PITFALLS OF TEACHERS BY USING TECHNOLOGY

 The biggest pitfall, it’s horrible when a teacher says “Oh I got a classroom of
computers, I got some Google Chromebooks. I need to use technology”.

 Students go, they sit at their desks, bell rings, students are done, then they check on
the backend and lose the teaching moments.

 The pitfall is they put them on a program if it’s an adaptive program that may be
even more detrimental to the students because what happen is then they’re just
doing over and over practice or they’re moving to the next level.

 This teacher really has no idea, not saying it’s a bad program but it’s just it can be
used in that fashion.

 Teacher believes in blended learning, blended learning is the best way to teach
where internet access in necessary, technology is necessary but it assists the
teacher.

 The teacher is a facilitator, a teacher, a coach, they use a technology for 15

minutes. They come back, they share with the class, they do a task, they then come
back share with the class.

 You have little stations where they can work on it and they rotate through them.

 A lot of different ways to set up blended learning, really getting that technology
into play, assisting the teacher in the learning but not taking over the instruction.
 WHEN IT’S FUN WHAT TENDS TO HAPPEN IN YOU CLASS?

 You actually get to see them mature in front of your eyes.

o Idea: You can see a 5th grader now talking about a real-world issue when maybe
even in a normal 5th grade classroom he didn’t get that opportunity so the idea
is that they are learning real world.

o They then have content to then talk about and make an intelligent conversation
with someone else and that’s what you want to prepare them for.

 To be able to speak out later in their mainstream classroom to feel confident.

 To find their voice and that’s really important but the main thing is when you make
it relevant.

 When you make it challenging, they want to practice, they want to study and they
want to push each other on.

 Example:
o My experience that the Principal was when I’m talking to the students out on
the playground, I can tell right away which was her favorite class and I
understood why just because it was engaging, it was fun, it just addresses all
the areas that really the kids need in order to progress to that proficiency
level.

ADVANTAGES OF MULTI-LEVEL CLASSROOM

 This is where the teachers are probably anxious take notes down because they want
to know why they should actually use a multi-level classroom or continue with the
multi-level classroom.
 Multi-level is so complex, its’ dynamic, it’s a fun engaging learning environment if
of course the teacher sets it up correctly and the students become united with a
single goal of learning English that’s why they’re there.

 Example:
o Let’s imagine for a second you’re in a single-level classroom intermediate, a low-
level student in that classroom is only going to know that I need to get pass the
highest student which is still intermediate, in a multi-level classroom, the low-
level student knows “I need to get all the way past that top student.

 All that top student just went into the mainstream, it’s totally doable.

 It encourages them, it gives them hope.

 It shows them the roadmap of how to get out of ESL and learn that English

HOW THE STUDENTS BECOME UNITED?

 The very most important things are to have a teacher create a safe learning
environment. If the students feel safe, they’re going to participate, they’re going to
interact, friendly competition.

 So for any activity of vocabulary, reading, speaking activity, if you have a game that’s
coming and they already know who’s on their team or they know that it could be
anyone, you want to be sure, you know your material, you don’t want to be the one
holding your team back especially if you’re 10 th grader and you have 5th grader on our
team or 8th grader.

o Idea: You know smaller age gap but you really do want to push each other to
practice so the little 5th grader will say the sounder “Hey, did you study, we’re
going to be on the same team. We have to win this time.

 And they are pretty much friendly, you know by friendly means encourage each
other to study, compete to practice, so then it leads to fluency.
 HOW STUDENTS PARTICPATE IN ACTIVITIES?

 The key is wait time.

 Wait time is in ESL that low-level students need more wait, the high-level students
don’t.

o If a teacher asks a question to the whole class, you’re always going to get them
“I know the answer”. And then when they answer, they’re going to say it and
then the low-level students have no chance.

o They don’t even listen to the question anymore.

 You need to structure an activity that creates more wait time and the way you do
that is you ask.

o Maybe you put them in certain rows, “This row, Row 1 can you answer this
question?” but you know that the Row 1 students are all or the intermediates,
whatever your leveling is but the idea that you increase wait time.

 Another way is you ask the question, everyone write down the answer, then you can
call on anybody and this works for content area classes too.

ACTIVITIES THAT CAN BE USE

 Zero preparation, it’s going to work nicely now at the end of the year because
everybody has a word list, vocabulary for finals, whatever subject area are
teaching.

 All you need is they’re worthless, their vocabulary list.

o The teacher is up at the front, puts on the board team names, team partners
and then students are partnered by a level.
 o Pete and I are beginners, we have our beginning word list.

o You have to more students out there Rebecca and Akira, they’re intermediates
and the idea there is that they have their own wordless.

o Teachers are different obviously so they are responsible for their own
vocabulary arrays for sentences happens when the teacher gives a time limit,
maybe 25 minutes.

o At those 25 minutes, teacher gonna see which team has the most points.

 The way you score points is by using our vocabulary in a context, students make a
sentence.

o Student decide “Oh, let’s just write one vocabulary word sentences, let’s go
quickly and get our points up there”.
o Student could say “Let’s try to sit here and think of five words to put in one
sentence as our strategy.

o The students racing as soon as they finish one sentence, they go up, they show
up.

 The teacher reviews its instant informal assessment.

o Which words do Pete and Brennan don’t understand certain words right?

 The teacher can then informally assess everyone if they’re coming up and doing
sentences and then put scores on the page on the screen.

o The idea then is the student can see how many points he/she have, how many
need to try to compete but most importantly he/she are working with his/her
vocabulary, putting it a new context, practicing it.

 Teacher getting informal assessment, game over. The teacher can then go over the
common error.
 Informal Assessment, the teacher could actually use the feedback from the
students to actually just tweak your lesson plan to address the need that the
students have.

TIME LIMITATION

 How important is the kids knowing how long did it be participating in this activity?

 How crucial is it?

 Time is always important, if it’s too long they’ll get bored.

 Teachers call time whenever they feel the class energy is going down.

 And again, going back to those small tasks, time is always important.

 If they know they have too much time they’re not going to do it.

 They want that you need to put a little bit of pressure on them, light a little fire
under them.

 That way you can keep the class engage and moving.

ANOTHER ACTIVITY

 We always taking about speaking, listening and writing activity called FLUENCY
LINES it could be all of them combined.

o The idea that you have two line, you have your speakers and your listeners and
they could be multi-level.

o You agree that you are partners, you’re a higher level and you is a lower level
are writing topics maybe different or you’re getting prepared to write but the
idea is as you increase more and more round rotations, you are practicing more
 and more fluency. Maybe the first time we have our writing in front of us, the
next three times we do after that is disappears.

o But if you formally do this and you keep practicing, they can then formally
give a presentation at the end and feel very practiced.

 That’s the goal of all teachers not further students to be able to express
themselves and they’re all words.

SOME QUESTIONS:

 How many ELLs would you recommend a classroom to have?

o For multi-level classroom, the more students, it really does increase the
headache for the teacher honestly.

o I would say well research shows 17 is a great number, so anytime you have up to
17 students you’re in a comfortable learning environment.

o That is because you have enough students for small groups and you also don’t
have too many.

o If you have 5 or 2 that’s a little bit harder to do because then you have maybe
5 students, all at different levels. They can never partner. There’s very little
interaction.

o You don’t want to class too tiny but you don’t want to class to large.

o I always say my magic number is 20. It is great, I fell super satisfied with how
I’m teaching. I feel right on top of everything.

o Once 21 hits, you feel like the chicken with your head chopped off. Every one
after 20 you feel it, every single time.
 There are plenty teachers here, they have 30, 35 students in the class or 39, what
can they do?

o Anytime that happens you’re going to just have to be more prepared than the
students.

o More activities, get everybody that extra talking time. That’s when the period
day will be so much more important than a one period day.

o Because if you do 39 students into 50 minutes, that’s not even two minutes for
each student if you think about it.

o And also, as a teacher you can talk to the administrators so you can get some
support in the classroom especially when you have large numbers.

 What lesson plan now do you recommend I use whenever pair my plan?

o Teachers and their credential programs are trained in SAYA.

o They take workshops on it. SAYA, we hear that term a lot

o It’s for sheltered instruction and what’s most important is just like in
eloquence, it’s need to give background information.

o Give comprehensible input, something the students can understand as new

material, practice it, do interaction through all theses games and activities
that just talking about.

o Review and assess, so the 8 components and the idea are that in the lesson, it
really does touch on all of them.

o Think about having it on paper, it’s a plan, you can change it up and that way you
can address the time of the period.
 Do you recommend yells in high school to be in an E L classroom for 1 period or 2
period a day, assuming each period is 50 minutes long?

o Knowing master scheduling sometimes it’s even hard to get 1 period a day in so
at least 1 period every day would be great.

o But if you can ever get 2 period, much better.

o Because 2 period blocks right around the 35-minute mark students really start
to get engaged in the lesson and then at 40 it’s over, 50 minutes “Okay back
up”.

o So, it’s kind of hard to get them concentrating and flowing if your periods are
so short.

o That’s why block days are much preferred, if you have a 1 period that’s fine but
you have a block scheduling day. It really does increase your chances to get
them started on activity and get them into that flow.

o And they can actually put the student in 2 periods, the students going to
progress much quicker and we under reach out proficiencies instead of only 1
period a day