-speaking abilities, I made it clear that I would be OK with simple words or phrases to answer the questions. As for students with higher language-speaking abilities, I expected them to respond using simple to more complex sentences.
When deciding what the expectations for each individual student were, I considered different factors. The first factor was the speaking score that they received on their English language proficiency assessments (WIDA Screener for Kindergarten, etc.). I met with students in level two and below for one-on-one meetings during small group rotations. We discussed their tasks and practiced using recently learned words before they went back to work independently. The second factor I considered was my students’ ability to speak in front of others.
I took many anecdotal notes about how my students responded to the questions I asked. This gave me insight into how to design lessons that would encourage their development. Throughout this process, none of the students knew what their other peers’ expectations were, which allowed them to focus on their own goals.
Next, I created a video for both students and families that showed them how to access Flip and use the program, including all of its logistical pieces. Each student had experience with using their Google accounts, so logging in to Flip wasn’t a problem for the most part. When all the students gained access to their account, I showed them a video I had made with a practice question.
Once we viewed my initial video post, I showed my students, step-by-step, how to record a response video to my question. We practiced making multiple responses to that video to ensure that all students were comfortable with making a video on their own.
Create Prompts That Encourage Engagement and Support Growth
In the early days of using Flip in my class, I created questions around topics that students could relate to on a personal level. For example, we started by talking about favorite colors, favorite foods, family, and “would you rather” questions. As the year progressed, I created content-related questions.
When developing the questions for student responses, I embedded scaffolds that would help students who needed them. For instance, for each question that was stated orally in the video, I also provided written directions, as well as sentence stems and word banks to help students develop their response. These important tools are essential for English language learners and other students because they offer differentiation that can help them craft oral responses.
Throughout the course of the school year, I saw improvement from all of my students in the area of language development. The biggest success I saw was in my students’ comfort in communicating with their peers and with me as their teacher. Many of my students felt more comfortable using academic language that they encountered in class texts, tests, lessons, etc., to effectively ask and answer questions in person during class after practicing their language skills on Flip.
Scaffolding Needs Will Decrease Over Time
I had students who went from using only gestures to communicate to progressing to answer questions with words or simple phrases. Many of my ELL students who had higher speaking abilities started to use more complex sentences. For example, when asked a question, the students would restate part of the question and then give their reasoning using words such as “because.” As time passed, I also noticed that I was able to cut back on the sentence starters as a scaffold on Flip for many of my students because they had become comfortable with using their own language to answer questions.
I encourage all teachers who have the opportunity to teach native English speakers as well as English language learners to incorporate programs such as Flip into their daily or weekly instruction to give all students an accessible way to practice their language skills in order to improve their communication in and outside of the classroom.