Katie Doyle

EDUC 359
Reflection 2
1. Five stages of language acquisition:
1. Pre-production: Students dont speak much, they repeat
what they hear and gestures they see (parroting), and they
may only respond nonverbally (pointing, gesturing, drawing,
etc.). An effective strategy to use with students in this stage is
to use visuals and have students act out or point to a picture
of vocabulary words.
2. Early production: Students will give 1 or 2 word answers,
they will mimic your words, and they can produce a few short
phrases. An effective strategy to use with students in this
stage is to ask yes/no questions.
3. Speech emergence: Students in this phase can now speak
in simple sentences, they may make pronunciation errors, and
they still rely on context clues and familiar subjects. An
effective strategy to use with these students is to ask short
answer questions that are open ended.
4. Intermediate fluency: Students can answer why
questions, they may make minor grammatical errors, and they
are able to express their opinions, thoughts, and feelings.
Using graphic organizers and making sure that students are
filling them in thoroughly is an effective strategy for students
in this stage.
5. Advanced fluency: Students can write, they can
communicate comfortably, and although they may still have
some difficulty with idiomatic expressions, they are essentially
fluent. Challenging the students vocabularies by having them
identify synonyms and antonyms can be an effective strategy
for teaching students in this stage.
2. Four methods of co-teaching:
1. Supportive: One teacher teaches the students while the
other floats around the room and offers help to students in
need. This would be especially effective in an ELL classroom
because the teacher floating around the room is able to offer
individual help to students who are not understanding what
the teacher who is teaching is saying.
2. Parallel: Students are broken into groups and one teacher
goes to each group to teach the same lesson. This lessens the
student:teacher ratio and could be used effectively in an ELL
classroom because it is easier for teachers to assess students
levels of need and to give more individualized instruction.
3. Complementary: One teacher communicates verbally while
the other demonstrates what is being taught. This strategy

could be used effectively in an ELL classroom in that the

teacher who is demonstrating is offering another means of
communication for the students who do not completely
understand what the teacher who is speaking is saying. It
provides a visual aid.
4. Team teaching: Each teacher gets a turn to teach a part of
the lesson. This could be effective in an ELL classroom
because if a student does not understand something the way
one teacher is teaching it, he or she may understand better
the way a different teacher teaches the lesson.