Communication Quiz #1

During a lesson on adjectives, a teacher uses the Language Experience Approach (LEA) and individually asks students about their favorite animal. The teacher writes down the students' thoughts while they speak. In order to help the students focus on adjectives but still maintain the LEA teaching approach, the teacher should:

• volunteer adjectives to insert to the student's writing.

• stop the student mid-thought to correct misuse or exclusion of adjectives.

• encourage the student to include more detail by asking guiding questions.

• provide students with a list of adjectives to include while they speak.

Answer explanation

Asking guiding questions and then writing the student's response would fit with the LEA ideology, which emphasizes 100% learner-generated content.

A fifth-grade teacher is working on improving her students' abilities to accurately follow multi-step directions. She provides students with a set of materials and begins giving oral instructions to the class. After a few steps, she sees that the majority of the class is struggling to complete each step. What is one strategy the teacher could use to help the students complete the task and develop their oral language skills?

• Say each instruction again more slowly.

• Provide a written copy of the instructions to the struggling students.

• Ask students to repeat the step back to the teacher after she says it.

• Complete the step with the students so they can see what the teacher does.

Answer explanation

According to the TEKS benchmarks for oral language development, fifth-grade students are expected to "follow, restate, and give oral instructions that include multiple action steps." Asking students to repeat the directions will help them complete the activity and improve their oral language abilitie

A small group of ELL students is struggling with recognizing how printed words and spoken language are related. Which activity below would best help the students develop this skill?

• Having the students read aloud to each other while the teacher listens and corrects.

• The teacher reading aloud a familiar story to the group and pointing out the text and punctuation marks as she reads.

• Asking students comprehension questions during reading.

• In turns, one student will say a word and the rest of the group will write it on paper.

Answer explanation

By choosing a familiar story to read, the students will be able to focus on how the words they hear match the words they see on the page, rather than focus on the content of the story. This enables the group to focus on the connection between speech and text.

A kindergarten student is reading the following sentence aloud.

"The dog ran to the porch."

When the student gets to the word "porch," he pauses to sound out each individual sound in the word. The student is using which processing system while reading this word?

• semantic

• phonological

• orthographic

• morphological

Answer explanation

The student is using phonological processing to sound out the word in the example.

When ELL students hear phrases such as, "It's raining cats and dogs outside," or "This is just a drop in the bucket," they may be confused, as they probably need to have specific instruction in:

• phonetic strategies.

• scaffolding.

• semantics.

• segmentation.

Answer explanation

Semantics is the study of word or symbol meaning. It is important because one word or sentence might have multiple meanings or have a meaning that is figurative rather than a literal meaning.

A first-grade class has recently finished reading the story The Three Little Pigs. After reading, the teacher asks students to complete the organizer below with their table partners.

After completing the organizer, the teacher asks several students to share the sentence they wrote.

One student shares the following sentence: "The pigs wanted to build houses but the wolf wanted to blow them down."

The teacher then says, "So, then what happened?"

The teacher brings in several building materials (toothpicks, marshmallows, tape, toilet paper rolls) for the students to use to construct their own mini-houses. Students then put their mini-houses in front of a fan to see how they would hold up against a "big bad wolf." After their house goes in front of the fan, students use a chart to record what they used to build their house and how the materials behaved in front of the fan. After every student has participated, the teacher holds a class discussion comparing and contrasting which materials built the best house and why. These class activities help the students:

• develop their listening skills as they take questions from other students.

• develop their interpersonal skills as they use the guidelines set forth for class discussions.

• develop their oral language skills as they discuss the results of the experiment.

• develop their metacognitive skills as they think about their own thinking during the activity.

Answer explanation

Students are developing their oral language skills while comparing and contrasting the materials used and why or why not they were effective in the experiment.

Mr. Lubrano teaches eighth-grade social studies. He begins an economics lesson by organizing students into heterogeneous groups. He assigns each group a prereading activity to be used with the textbook. As they read in their groups, the students are instructed to create a list of target words. Later in the lesson, they will define the words and discuss as a group.This activity fulfills a language objective because it gives the ELLs the opportunity to:

• interact socially with peers.

• practice English as a means of expressing their ideas.

• experience motivation that results from teamwork.

• self-monitor their English proficiency.

Answer explanation

The collaborative activity reflects a language objective because it involves students choosing the words to discuss and expressing their ideas about the vocabulary.

While reading a new short story, a teacher incorporates the think-pair-share discussion strategy to engage students in the story. In which way does this strategy promote oral language development?

• Think-pair-shares encourage students to use metacognitive skills while interacting with the text.

• Think-pair-shares give students the opportunity to write an answer before speaking it to a partner.

• Think-pair-shares give all students an opportunity to participate in an oral discussion of the text.

• Think-pair-shares encourage students to engage in meaningful, authentic discussions with a partner.

Answer explanation

By asking students to discuss first with a partner, a think-pair-share gives every student the opportunity to speak about the text. Not every student could engage orally with the text if the teacher chooses only one person to answer each question in a whole group discussion. Think-pair-shares also encourage oral language development by providing students with a low-stakes activity to practice speaking about a text.

How does oral language development affect reading comprehension?

• A large oral vocabulary has no impact on reading comprehension.

• Reading comprehension is enhanced by promoting oral language.

• Reading comprehension must be developed prior to fluency in oral language being achieved.

• Development of phonological awareness does not impact reading comprehension.

Answer explanation

The better an individual understands oral language skills, the better they understand reading comprehension skills.

The following activity is designed by an ESL teacher for introducing the present continuous tense.

Step 1. The teacher acts out a series of actions that demonstrate present continuous actions in the first person, while saying the action aloud (e.g. "I am running. I am jumping.")

Step 2. The teacher asks the students to repeat the statements she is making after she says them.

Step 3. The teacher shows the students a series of images that demonstrate the present continuous in the second person. (e.g., You are studying. You are driving a car. You are eating lunch.) As she talks about each image, she writes sentences on the board that demonstrate the grammar structure of the present continuous tense.

Step 4. The teacher and students act out a series of gestures together while saying what they are doing aloud together as a class. Then, the teacher gives each student a verb to act out in front of the class. (e.g. read, watch TV, play soccer)

In step 2, what language-learning activity is the teacher modeling?

• think, pair, share

• dialogue

• total physical response

• drilling

Answer explanation

A drill usually involves verbatim oral repetition of words and phrases, which is what is happening during this step.