Page 47 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9-12: English As a Second Language and English Literacy Development, 2007

Literature Circles. Also known as literature study groups or book clubs, literature circles provide an opportunity for a group of readers to get together to talk about a book in depth. The literature circle allows students to engage in natural and motivating talk about books while sharing ideas in a small-group setting.
Teachers can structure a variety of activities for the literature circle: for example, a “parking lot” for thoughts and feelings about the book; questions to stimulate thinking about the text and guide discussion; and concluding activities such as book talks, dramatic presentations, or visual art that illustrates or interprets the text.
Literature circles offer an excellent forum for English language learners to become familiar with ways of talking about literature as they share their responses to books and connect characters and themes in books to their own lives.
Personal Dictionaries. This strategy allows individual English language learners to build vocabulary that is significant to them and relevant to their needs. Students can compile their personal dictionaries thematically or alphabetically, and can embellish them with aids such as bilingual translations, visuals, and even accompanying pronunciation tapes made with the aid of a first-language English speaker. A personal environmental print collection is another form of personal dictionary helpful to students at the beginning stages of English literacy development.
Students can be encouraged to extend the personal dictionary into a vocabulary journal in which they jot down associations with words, common accompanying adjectives, and contexts in which they have heard or read the words.
A personal dictionary task for more advanced learners might be to compile a personal thesaurus with lists of different and more specific words to express nuances of very general words: for example, move (crawl, jump, slither) or say (whisper, shout, mumble).
Role Play. Role play allows students to simulate a variety of situations, using different registers of language for different purposes and audiences. Through role plays, English language learners can practise English as it is used in situations outside the classroom, such as in job interviews, meetings, and formal gatherings. The role-play strategy also allows students to take different perspectives on a situation, helping them to develop sensitivity and understanding by putting themselves in the shoes of others.
Even students who are at the beginning stages of English language learning can partici- pate in role-play activities – for example, by choosing a non-verbal role-play format, or by sticking closely to the script of a simple folk tale or story read in class. For students at more advanced levels of English proficiency, a “vocabulary role play”, into which the student must creatively integrate certain vocabulary items, can create an enjoyable challenge.
An important phase in any role-play activity is the follow-up. Debriefing after a role play allows students to analyse the role-play experience and the language used, and to make suggestions for other language choices in future situations.
SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROGRAM PLANNING IN ESL AND ELD
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