Mathematics ESOL Teaching Strategies

Strategy 1:

MAFS.2.MD.3.8 Solve one- and two-step word problems involving dollar bills (singles, fives, tens, twenties, and hundreds) or coins (quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies) using $ and cents symbols appropriately. Word problems may involve addition, substraction, and equal groups situations.

Identify the value of coins and paper currency.
Compute the value of any combination of coins within one dollar.
Compute the value of any combinations of dollars (e.g., If you have three ten-dollar bills, one five-dollar bill, and two one-dollar bills, how much money do you have?).

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Learning Centers

Learning centers are vital when teaching elementary mathematics. Centers give students time to explore with hands on activites, experience new skills, expand skills, and work with other more cooperatively. Learning centers are especially important for ESOL learners because it helps them expand their verbal interaction as well as hands-on practice to develop their language acquistion and development. When teacher's implement learning centers into the classroom they need to: identify skills to be practiced, introduce the centers, document the center work, keep students up-to-date, assess students' progress and understanding, and involve technology. Some examples of learning centers for mathematics would be grouping the students' into three or four centers all regarding dealing with money. For example one center could be a pretend grocery store where students' had to add up their amount they are spending and figure out which dollar bills to use. Another center could be where students' have a worksheet to complete addition and subtraction problems dealing with money.

Source: Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012).Learning Centers: Extending Learning Through Hands-on Practice. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 2:

1. Relate the value of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to other coins and to the dollar (e.g., There are five nickels in one quarter. There are two nickels in one dime. There are two and a half dimes in one quarter. There are twenty nickels in one dollar).

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Sorting Activites: Organizing information into catagories

Sorting activites are perfect when working with money and ESOL students'. These types of activities help ESOL students to provide a way for them to manipulate objects and symbols in order to show their understanding of the topic. It also helps build the ESOL students' vocabulary and specific structures needed for verbal interaction among other students. A simple activity involving mathematics and sorting would be to have the students' sort the coins into pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters and even dollar bills. Teachers can also have the students' sort the money into specific amounts once they have grasped the concept of each coin. This will help bring recogonition to each money value as well as recognition to sorting.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012). Sorting Activites: Organizing Information into Categories.. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 3:

MAFS.2.MD.4.10 Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Modeled Talk: Demonstrate as you talk

In order for this strategy to work teachers need to identify the lesson being taught as well as materials needed, practice model talking, design a visual of directions, and review the steps that need to be taken. This strategy is perfect for ESOL students' especially when teaching a mathematics lesson plan because most ESOL students' learn best by seeing. It helos the students' to visualize the information and see it demonstrated by the teacher. Modeled talks include gestures, visuals, and demonstrations as the explainations are being made. For this mathematics lesson and standard it would be easy for the teacher to model the picture graph and bar graph on the smartboard. Teachers can model what it looks like, how they can put it together, how it can be taken apart, and how we can compare information using a bar/picture graph.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012). Modeled Talk: Demonstrating as You Talk. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 4:

MAFS.2.G.1.3 Partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, half of, a third of,etc., and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths. Recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Manipulatives Strategies: Using Objects to Connect Concepts

Manipulatives are great to use for all students especailly in math. They are concrete devices that the students are able to move and handle to support their thinking and learning. Going along with this standard, manipulatives can be used showing the size variations. Students can use manipulatives to represent 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and etc. This is specifically good for ESOL students because it not only gives them a hands-on aid but also a visual aid. They can be used for measuring, counting, calculating and graph representation. ESOL students can also acquire new vocabulary when using manipulatives. They will be able to connect abstract concepts with concrete experiences providing suggestions for the manipulatives.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Manipulatives Strategies: Using Objects to Connect Concepts. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 5:

MAFS.2.MD.1.2 Describe the inverse relationship between the size of a unit and number of units needed to measure a given object.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Communication Games: Creating Opportunities for Verbal Interaction.

Communication games are vital for ESOL learners. They can be used for a variety of subjects as well. For example in mathematics communication games can be used for a lot of activities and lessons. They create opportunites and purpose for listening and verbal communication practices. The main idea of communication games is to get the main idea, concept, or information as a result of the activity. Math communication games require students to work together and communicate to sove a problem. For example this can be done at their tables. The teacher can present the class with a question and the student's will need to communicate to come up with a answer and present it to the teacher. Overall this strategy is to improve the communication skills of the ESOL students.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Communication Games: Creating Opportunities for Verbal Interaction. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 6:

MAFS.2.MD.1.4 Measure to determine how much longer one object is than another, expressing the length difference in terms of a standard length unit.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Multiple Intelligence Strategies: Teaching and Testing to Student-Preferred learning Models.

This activity/strategy is used to teach the nine different intelligences throughout the classroom setting. It is important to demonstrate the students' understanding of content in a format as well as being consistent with their intelligences. This is basically getting to know the strengths of each student and how they each individually learn. If we as teachers can know and understand how our student's learn then we can teach them better. For ESOL students this can greatly be effected in the planning process. They need to be taught using mulitple intelligences. For example in math when the students are trying to figure out the length of an object they need to know that the answer can be expressed in differnt units. They need to have hands-on experience, visual aids, listening aids, partners and more. This will build their strentgth and give them mulitple opportunites ti experience new concepts and vocabulary.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Multiple Intelligence Strategies: Teaching and Testing to Student-Preferred learning Models. . In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 7:

MAFS.2.MD.1.1Measure the length of an object to the nearest inch, foot, centimeter, or meter by selecting and using appropriate tools such as rulers, yardsticks, meter sticks, and measuring tapes.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Small Groups and Partners: Interactions to Enhance Instruction.

Small group activity and interactions is perfect for a math setting. Small groups can be used for multiple activities for math and group interaction. Group interaction should only last for a short amount of time and be based off of the teacher's knowledge of the lesson being taught. The groups need to contain a variety of reading levels, skills, and ESOL students. Peer tutoring is also a good strategy to use with math and ESOL students. Students can work together to solve a problem. The ESOL student's will also be able to be involved and improve their oral communication skills. For example with this standard the students can measure their feet, hands, and heads using different tools and compare the sizes within the group.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Small Groups and Partners: Interactions to Enhance Instruction. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 8:

MAFS.2.OA.2.2 Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Tutorials: Closing the Achievement Gap

Tutorials are used to make sure that everyone in the class is meeting the standards. They keep the class together as a whole and on the same topic/subject. Tutorials cover the warm-up, lesson for the day, independent practice, and a daily quiz. It is all involved. For this I would teach a lesson about adding and subtracting, then have them work independently solving problems, review, and give a quiz. This way every is able to see and hear the whole lesson. Research shows it improves the practice and enrichment activities for the ESOL students.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Tutorials: Closing the Achievement Gap. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 9:

MAFS.2.MD.1.3 Estimate lengths using units of inches, feet, yards, centimeters, and meters.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Combining and Scheduling Strategies: Supporting Learning through Differentiation.

This strategy involves using a variety of learning styles of meet the needs of all student's. For example: learning centers, technology, speakers of different forms, and different uses of teacher instruction. All students learn different and therefore need to be presented with different opportunities to do so. For this activity the students will need to estimate the lengths using units. I will use a variety of instruction to go about doing this. I will show the students pictures of objects on the board, in the classroom, and well as them researching their own objects and estimating their own body parts. This encourages ESOL students to be interactive and integrated with total physical response.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Combining and Scheduling Strategies: Supporting Learning through Differentiation. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strategy 10:

MAFS.2.MD.1.2 Describe the inverse relationship between the size of a unit and number of units needed to measure a given object.

ELD.K12.ELL.MA.1 English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.

Language Framework Planning: Supporting Academic Language and Content Acquisiton.

This strategy is the simple act of the teacher using academic language necessary for teachers to be successful in a lesson and plans activities that support the use of the language using multiple functions. In math this could be used with teaching math terms. The students can sort blocks by their shape and use words such as classifying and describing to explain it. They can also use vocabulary such as traingle, circle, square and rectangle to describe the shapes. More vocabulary can be found by describing the size. This helps the ESOL students integrate the English language into math using oral development and new vocabulary.

Source: Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2012) Language Framework Planning: Supporting Academic Language and Content Acquisiton. In 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.