Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the ELL Classroom
"Developmentally Appropriate Practice reduces learning gaps, increases achievement for all children, and allows students to share and engage in the learning process while they solve their own problems as they learn new information" - Compple & Bredekamp, 2009 If that doesn't get your ears wigglin', I don't know what will. One of my goals in teaching is to engage students and I know that keeping the objectives, materials, and curriculum developmentally appropriate helps me do that.
But what does developmentally appropriate practice mean?
Ellen Booth Church gives a good definition for this. She says, "'Developmentally appropriate' describes an approach to teaching that respects both the age and the individual needs of each child. The idea is that the program should fit the child; the child shouldn't have to fit the program!"
To break this down and give an example, it basically means don't spoonfeed your four-year-old English language learners (ELL) grammar on how to navigate a rail system and do transfers. Instead, teach them to talk about trains by comparing and contrasting them according to models, speed, or size. Comparing and contrasting is a kindergarten skill, navigating a subway map and modeling English to ask strangers how to get to the McDonald's at x station is not.
How can I know what's developmentally appropriate for my students?
This is a simple question with a simple answer that a lot of us abroad don't know to do. Most English teachers abroad were never trained in education so they rely on forums and teaching abroad blogs with information from other teachers who are/were also learning on the job. One day I got tired of the same information and being advised to do the "sit down, stand up" game with older elementary students, listening and repeating, and the same old flashcard games. I suddenly had an idea, "Why don't I see what the licensed and trained teachers back home do to teach students?" This is when I hit the gold mine of information and activities.
In most countries that I've seen, there are standards for learning. Let's call these objectives. The objectives tell teachers what they need to teach students based on their age and development. In America, the most used set of standards are called Common Core, but that's mostly for grade school kids and kindergarten kids age 5-6. I found that looking up private preschool programs in various states had their own set of standards.
Another set of standards is through WIDA. These standards are specifically for ELL students. These standards not only tell teachers what the students can do depending on their age and development, but it also gives a chart to gauge where their English skill is between a level of one to six. Please note that children can be at any of these six levels at any age from toddler to high school. So don't think, "This child is five, I should get him started at level five." No. Please. Don't. Start students off at level one. Don't skip steps to get to the top of the ladder.
Teaching developmentally appropriate lessons with standards ensures that we focus on what most children this age can do rather than what we want them to do based on what we think they can do. For example, most Japanese three-year-olds don't learn to read and write in hiragana, but most Japanese English language kindergartens expect them to start reading short stories like lower-level graded readers and writing in English. While this is possible, it's not appropriate. Most of the time, the kids just memorize the stories, or if they can read for themselves, you'll spend the whole year teaching alphabets and phonics. Let me tell you if it takes a whole year to teach one thing and there are still students struggling, that means it's not developmentally appropriate.
If you need some guidance,
I did some of the work for you. In the next few posts, I will provide information that I have gathered during my time looking up developmentally appropriate skills for students for ages one to six years old. I use these same objectives for creating my materials now and can also be used as a guide for when you create your lessons for your young learners.
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