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Descriptive Statements:
- Apply knowledge of strategies for creating, organizing, and managing a supportive, student-centered learning community for English language learners.
- Apply knowledge of research-based best practices for promoting English language development, including providing opportunities for comprehensible input and output, providing appropriate feedback, and integrating listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
- Apply knowledge of strategies for supporting the language development and academic achievement of individual English language learners, including students who have had limited formal schooling (LFS), have special needs, and/or are gifted and talented.
- Apply knowledge of research-based best practices in vocabulary instruction to support English language learners' listening, speaking, reading, and writing development in English.
Sample Item:
An ESOL teacher explicitly teaches beginning-level English language learners conversational strategies (e.g., elaboration, circumlocution). The teacher also regularly arranges for the students to practice these strategies in conversations with partners who are at varying levels of English proficiency. This instructional approach supports the students' English language development primarily by:
- promoting their ability to produce comprehensible language output.
- helping them understand differences between social and academic language functions.
- providing them with exposure to different English language varieties.
- enhancing their awareness of the influence of social context on language use.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
A. This question requires the examinee to understand research-based best practices in ESOL instruction. A vital component of effective communication is conveying a comprehensible message. Successful language learners compensate for their language deficiencies by using conversational strategies, such as elaborating to clarify meaning and using known words to explain an unknown word, to make their messages comprehensible. Teaching English language learners how to use such strategies and giving them practice applying the strategies in conversation promotes their ability to produce the comprehensible language output that is essential for effective communication.
Descriptive Statements:
- Apply knowledge of classroom-based assessment of English language learners' oral and aural language development in English.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of listening skills and strategies for a variety of social purposes.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of speaking skills and strategies for a variety of social purposes.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of listening skills and strategies for a variety of academic purposes.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of speaking skills and strategies for a variety of academic purposes.
Sample Item:
An ESOL teacher records an English language learner responding to several open-ended questions that require the student to describe a personal experience or express a personal opinion. Afterward, the student and teacher listen to and discuss the recording. This strategy is likely to support the student's English language development in which of the following ways?
- helping the student recognize various rhetorical devices used in oral discourse
- promoting the student's ability to use appropriate pragmatic conventions in various communicative situations
- providing the student with practice using correct grammatical structures in spontaneous speech
- developing the student's ability to use self-assessment to monitor the effectiveness of oral language production
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
D. This question requires the examinee to understand how to assess and promote English language learners' oral and aural language development in English. There are a number of advantages of recording English language learners' speech. The capability to pause and replay the recording allows one to analyze short segments of language. The exercise of hearing one's speech from the perspective of a third-party listener prompts one to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of oral communication. These qualities of recorded speech make it an especially beneficial strategy for developing English language learners' ability to self-assess their oral language production.
Descriptive Statements:
- Apply knowledge of classroom-based assessment of English language learners' reading development in English.
- Apply knowledge of classroom-based assessment of English language learners' writing development in English.
- Apply knowledge of instructional strategies for promoting English language learners' beginning reading and writing development in English.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of reading skills and strategies for a variety of social and academic purposes.
- Apply knowledge of instructional practices that promote English language learners' development of writing skills and strategies for a variety of social and academic purposes.
Sample Item:
A high school ESOL class is working on an essay writing unit. Which of the following strategies would be most effective for the ESOL teacher to use during the unit to promote the students' accurate use of standard English grammar in their essays?
- having individual students take turns generating grammatically correct sentences to create a collaborative class essay on the board
- giving individual students focused corrective feedback on their recurring grammatical errors as part of the essay revision process
- providing the students with grammatically correct sample essays and having them read and analyze the essays independently
- asking the students to try to identify grammatical errors as they listen to classmates read their essays aloud during the publication process
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
B. This question requires the examinee to understand how to promote English language learners' literacy development in English. Effective writing instruction for English language learners balances writing fluency with grammatical accuracy. Focusing too much on grammatical forms in the early stages of the writing process can impede a student's ability to communicate ideas fluently. In addition, form-focused instruction is most effective when it is provided within meaningful contexts and targets a few critical errors that students make repeatedly. Therefore, the best approach to promoting these students' accurate use of language forms is to give them focused corrective feedback on their recurring grammatical errors in the revision stage of the writing process.
Descriptive Statements:
- Apply knowledge of classroom-based assessment of English language learners' content-area learning and concept development.
- Demonstrate knowledge of principles, features, and applications of content-based approaches to ESOL instruction and of sheltered approaches to content instruction.
- Apply knowledge of instructional strategies for making academic language and content-area concepts comprehensible for English language learners, including developing authentic uses of academic language and scaffolding content-area tasks.
- Apply knowledge of instructional strategies for promoting English language learners' development of important learning skills and strategies, including critical-thinking skills, to support their content-area learning.
Sample Item:
To introduce middle school English language learners to a particular note-taking technique, an ESOL teacher plays a video recording of a short content-area lecture in segments, while modeling the note-taking technique on the board using student input. This strategy is likely to support English language learners' content-area learning primarily by:
- contextualizing new content-area vocabulary for students.
- helping students link content-area concepts to prior experiences.
- simplifying content-area concepts for students.
- scaffolding students' use of content-area learning strategies.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
D. This question requires the examinee to understand how to support English language learners' access to the core curriculum. Scaffolding a new content-area strategy, such as a particular note-taking technique, involves facilitating students' proficiency with the strategy through temporary support that is gradually removed until the students have mastered the strategy. An important step in the scaffolding process is providing students with clear models of the strategy before asking them to practice and then apply the strategy independently. This teacher's approach of playing a video in segments and encouraging student contributions while demonstrating the note-taking technique on the board is an excellent example of how to provide English language learners with a clear model of a content-area strategy in order to scaffold their use of the strategy.
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