ESOL in Every Minute of the School Day

Childhood Education, Winter 2004/2005 by Szecsi, Tunde, Giambo, Debra A

Movement and music, which are important pieces of a developmentally appropriate early childhood program (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997), can be beneficial for second language learners. Songs with movement, nursery rhymes, and fingerplay (e.g., "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes"; "Shake, Shake Your Sillies Out"; "Reach the Ceiling"; and "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear") can help young children learn vocabulary and grammatical forms and structures. For example, the song of "Let's Go on a Bear Hunt" includes a vast array of prepositions, such as "around," "under," "through," "over," and "across." Along with movement, visuals can help children construct the meaning of prepositions. In line with this, Lozanov (1982) advocates that music enhances language learning and activates memory.

To help children learn intonation and pronunciation of the new language, jazz chants (Graham, 2001) can be accompanied with clapping, marching, and drumming. Because of the relatively easy vocabulary and repetitiveness, these chants can provide a basis for literacy activities, such as reading and writing words and sharing more rhyming words to make up new chants.

Art

Art activities are usually carried out in relaxed situations. Such informal activities are good times to promote second language learning. ESOL children involved in art activities learn the colors, shapes, names of tools (e.g., "scissors," "glue," "tape," "brushes," "paint"), and verbs (e.g., "draw," "paint," "cut," "match"). Through their drawings, children can express feelings and thoughts for which they do not yet have the vocabulary in the second language. During the silent period, when children absorb the new language but do not yet speak, the teacher can use art for assessing children's comprehension. For example, children can be asked to draw the settings or characters from a story or to sequence a series of pictures as a means of retelling the story.

During art activities, teachers model the language in authentic situations while explaining the task and introducing the new materials and techniques. Thus, the wide variety of art techniques and processes (e.g., collage, crayon drawings, easel painting, potato art, tile painting) initiate new vocabulary learning, especially when less traditional and more common materials are used, such as sand, peas, tinfoil pans, or paper plates. Teachers also model and encourage proper social language at the art table, such as, "May I use your glue?" and "Do you still need the crayon?"

Open-ended art activities create a natural situation for talking about artwork. These discussions can be adjusted to the students' level of language. For a child with emerging speech, yes/no questions could be asked; later, open-ended questions are more appropriate, encouraging use of longer sentences. These discussions can incorporate language to express opinions and reasoning, such as "I like Tom's picture because..." and "I prefer...to...," and gradually children will learn the appropriate language to describe, analyze, and make judgments about works of art.