Discussion Post Required With 2 Responses - Urgent A+ Work Required. 10 Hours

One of the teaching suggestions at the end of chapter 7 suggests for ELL students, is to play the the game of Concentration. In this game students will learn the irregular past tense and past participle forms. The game is played first by, "each group of four or five students will need a set of 30 cards. On 15 of them, write the base form of the verb; on the other 15, write the past tense or past participle" (Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016, p. 127-128). The students will then go on to shuffling the cards and placing them face-down while putting them in grid-like fashion. With each player taking a turn by turning over two cards at a time, and if the student finds the base word that matches the past tense or past participle, they can then keep their match. Then, the student has to use the past tense or past participle word in a sentence correctly. The student with the most cards wins. I believe my ELL students would benefit from playing this game, not only because they are used to playing word matching games with me, but also because it is hands-on, which is engaging for ELL students, or any students at that. 

Also, not only is learning nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. difficult for students in general, especially ELLs, the past tense can be even more frustrating. I have found it helpful that, "It may be more important for you to help your students gain an understanding of the core meanings of the tenses and aspects before going on to work on the wider application of these forms" (Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016, p.127). With this, we come to understand that students first have to know the basic or the present tense form before getting confused with learning the past tense.  Games, such as, the one mentioned above, are great suggestions for ELL students to learn a variety of different aspects of the English language. 

Furthermore, I believe implementing visuals or even gestures with card games would be beneficial for ELLs. Newcomers can learn best when given information with gestures and visuals. Reader's theater is also a great way for ELLs to learn about the English language. With acting out scenarios within a small group, they not only get more comfortable reading and speaking, but also have the chance to interact with their peers. A case study discussed that, "Teacher interviews revealed several strategies and resources used in the classroom to help ELL students' reading development. Teachers identified guided reading, visual aides, reader's theater, and modeling/oral reading fluency as strategies that contribute to ELLs reading proficiency" (Mendoza, 2016, p. 34). These are some great ways for students to learn and study the syntax of English. 

References 

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2016). The Grammar Book (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage. 

Mendoza, S. (2016). Reading strategies to support home-to-school connections used by teachers of english language learners. i-manager’s Journal on English Language Teaching, 6(4), 33-38. Retrieved from:   https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1133199.pdf