Professional Development: GaTESOL / Rigor, Relevance, and Research-Informed Literacy Strategies for

Dr. Andrea Honigsfield

During GaTESOL 2015, Dr. Andrea Honigsfield gave an engaging and interactive session about best practices for teaching literacy acquisition to 6-12 grade ELLs. She started off the session with an interactive demonstration in Spanish, where she spoke in Spanish while performing simple tasks that the audience was encouraged to mimic. This demonstration lead to a discussion on key strategies that help ELLs learn a second language – including Total Physical Response techniques, repetition techniques, exaggeration of gestures, modelling behavior, and verbal / non-verbal input.

Along with these techniques, she also introduced checkpoints – or methods of assessing students – including built in wait time, being conscious of pacing, and the use of cognates that allow students to reflect on prior knowledge. When it comes to teaching literacy, Honigsfield emphasized some basic key points to address in your instruction. These key points include making lessons multidimensional, using mediation strategies, checking for student comprehension, making target content accessible, and making the lesson both meaningful and useful. Along with these keypoints, Honigsfield shared many materials and resources that were great examples of the strategies she talks about (WIDA mediation, blobtree, etc). She also touched on the importance of sensory support – using charts, graphics, and interactive visuals. These interactive visuals can allow for more student talk by requiring students to report back their understanding about certain charts and tables used in class.

When it comes to homework, Honigsfield offers an inventive way to ensure that both students and parents are engaged in the student’s learning. She offers the option of giving parents homework – where parents are required to ask questions to their child and the child uses this prompt to talk about their learning.

Lastly, Honigsfield offers ways to scaffold lessons and appeal to different learning levels in the classroom. She presented a worksheet with missing information – in the layout of a chart. Students can be paired up with different worksheets. One students will have half of the answers filled in while his or her partner will have the other half filled in. Students cannot share answers – but can work together to complete their charts. By deleting more sections, students who want a more challenging activity can stay active in class.

I thought this session was incredible valuable in sharing different strategies that appeal to different learning styles. I also appreciated the effort in these strategies to make students more responsible for their learning and encourage critical thinking in the classroom.