ESL Strategies for Literature Response Journals

Tips for Improving English Language Learners' Writing Skills

Jun 30, 2009 Margaret M. Williams

ESL Strategies for Literature Response Journals - Margaret M. Williams

ESL teachers can help English language learners build communication skills while improving reading comprehension as they scaffold literature response journaling.

A literature response journal can be a powerful tool for communicating thoughts and ideas about books, poems, plays, and non-fiction texts. Journaling allows students to experiment with a variety of writing skills and genres. However, writing can be a challenge for English language learners who may still be thinking in their native language and then having to translate their ideas into English.

Discussion a Key Strategy to Improve English Writing Skills

It is important that ESL teachers conduct thorough book discussions with students prior to response journaling. As English language learners engage in listening and speaking about a book or story, group discussions give them opportunities to frame their thoughts, test their words, and try them out. As they listen to other students, they gain new ideas and insights, and they learn to use words in different ways.

Teachers can guide the discussion by focusing on one comprehension strategy at a time. Strategies might include summarizing, making connections, inferring characters’ motives or the author’s meaning, determining importance, predicting plot turns, identifying character traits, or asking probing questions,

Ads by Google

Scholarship Online Offers Online degree programs, partial scholarships available. www.aiu.edu

Teach English Become an ESL teacher TEFL Certification, Apply Online! www.yourgoal.com

Strategies To Scaffold Literature Response Journals for ESL Students

Be explicit in teaching the language and the behaviors expected. For instance, teachers should not assume that young children know they are expected to write an answer in reply to a teacher’s written question. This behavior may need to be explicitly taught.

Allow ESL students to write in their native language first. Often ESL students will have a very good understanding of the themes in the book or the topic being discussed, but not have enough expressive language to write about it in English. Allowing students to write in their primary language until they have developed more English will help them to express their ideas more easily. Another time, if they wish, they can go back and write summaries of the early entries in English.

Listen to the student’s verbal response in English and write the response for the student. This strategy will allow the ESL student to utilize their strength, in this case speaking. As the student becomes more skilled and more confident, the teacher can release the responsibility to the student to do more writing independently.

Read on 

• Literature Response Journals for K-12 Students
• Literature Discussion Prompts for ESL Students
• Anchor Charts Support ESL Literacy Instruction

Permit ESL students to draw. Encourage students to illustrate their ideas to accompany – or even in place of – their written responses to stories and non-fiction text.

Engage the student in a question and response experience. Comment in writing on what the student wrote and ask a probing question requiring further response from the student.

Create anchor charts with open-ended prompts. Encourage students to refer to the anchor charts while they are writing. They can use these prompts in group discussions as well.

ESL students will deepen their reading comprehension, expand their writing skills, and connect reading and speaking to writing through the use of literature response journals. What makes this journal experience especially powerful for English language learners is the potential for teacher feedback and interaction as well as the flexibility of the medium.

Read more at Suite101: ESL Strategies for Literature Response Journals: Tips for Improving English Language Learners' Writing Skills http://www.suite101.com/content/esl-strategies-for-literature-response-journals-a128665#ixzz18zu0u3pg