Page 10 - English OLC Literacy Course 12 (2003)

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THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM: ENGLISH – THE OSSLC, GRADE 12
Teaching Approaches
As in other courses, teachers will use their professional judgement to decide which instructional methods will be most effective in promoting the learning of core knowledge and skills described in the expectations. However, because students in this course will have significant gaps in their literacy skills, direct instruction, support, and practice are necessary for student success.
No single instructional approach can address all the curriculum expectations or meet all the needs of each learner. Teachers should therefore select instructional strategies and classroom activities that are based on an assessment of students’ needs, proven learning theory, and best practices. In this course, teachers should introduce a rich variety of activities that integrate reading and writing expectations and provide for the explicit teaching of knowledge and skills.
The ability to work both independently and collaboratively is important for success in the workplace and postsecondary education and is equally relevant in the context of family and community. It is therefore important for students to have opportunities to develop their lan- guage skills and knowledge in a variety of ways: individually and cooperatively; independently and with teacher direction; and through the study of examples followed by practice. Students must be able to demonstrate that they have acquired the specified knowledge and skills.
Building Confidence
Students taking this course may be doubtful that they can acquire the literacy skills they need to function effectively at school, at work, and in other everyday contexts. In seeking to meet the needs of these students, teachers should try to create a positive classroom environment that gives students the confidence to take risks as they learn and that continually encourages them to persist and improve.
To help students build confidence and to promote learning, teachers should use the approach of grouping students for purposes of instruction and support. Groupings should be flexible and should change as students’ literacy skills improve. Students may be grouped in a variety of ways, including the following:
• byinstructionalneed(e.g.,groupstudentswhoneedtopractiseaspecificreadingorwriting strategy);
• byabilitytoreadtextsatacomparablelevelofchallenge(e.g.,selecttextsonthesametopic but at different levels of difficulty, and group students to read the texts that are appropriate to their skills);
• bysharedinterestinparticulartopicsorissues(e.g.,groupstudentstogenerateideasasa team before they write on a topic of shared interest);
• forpurposesofeffectivecollaboration(e.g.,groupstudentswhocanprovidesupportfor one another as they learn).
Building on Oral Language Skills
An important way to build reading and writing skills is to recognize and build on the strengths in oral language, in English or a first language, that many students bring to the course. When students discuss their prior knowledge of a topic or type of text before they read, they build a foundation for understanding that gives them the confidence to read a variety of texts. Similarly, the quality of students’ writing improves and they become more competent as writers when they talk about their ideas at all stages of the writing process (e.g., discuss writing topics before they write; read and share their works in progress; offer suggestions to other writers for revision and editing).