VIP (Principles)

Question 0

Researched Based Best Practices in the Classroom

Answer 0

1. Use scaffolding strategies with ELLs to facilitate comprehension of the specialized academic language of content classrooms.
2. Use scaffolding strategies to challenge ELLs to advance beyond their present state of independent activity, into the areas of potential learning in which content is learnable with the assistance of teachers and peers.
3. Use scaffolding strategies that embed the oral and written language of content material in a context-rich environment to facilitate learning for ELLs.
4. Use scaffolding strategies that maintain a high level of cognitive challenge, but lower the language demand by embedding it in context.
5. Maintain a high level of cognitive challenge for ELLS by selecting content material that is meaningful, interesting, and relevant.
6. Actively teach learning strategies to give students a “menu” of ways to process and learn new information.
7. Be aware that cultural differences may affect ELLs’ models of classroom behavior and interpretation of specific content material.
8. Activate and develop background knowledge to make new content meaningful and to form a foundation upon which new learning can be built.
9. Provide opportunities for ELLs to negotiate conceptual understandings and to explore language usage through classroom interaction.
10. Lower learner anxiety in the classroom to create students who are more willing to participate in class, to become risk takers in the learning process, and ultimately to become more successful learners.
11. Use scaffolding strategies to assess content knowledge separately from English language knowledge so students can show what they know.
12. Provide opportunities for students to experience success in the classroom: Success in learning promotes more success by increasing learner motivation, interest, and self-confidence.

Question 1

What is the difference between comprehensible input and the zone of proximal development?

Answer 1

i +1 deals with adjusting speech or writing to the learner’s linguistic competence; view of learner as autonomous: input is processed in the brain (if the input is mostly comprehensible, the LAD will figure out the rest). Some argue that Krashen was influenced by Vygotsky.

ZPD deals with adjusting teaching (scaffolding) to help the learner reach a new competence; view of learner as a social being and learning as social process

Dunn and Lantolf (1998) argue that the two are so distinct as to be incommensurable. [Incommensurable–“the impossibility of translating from the language of one scientific theory or conceptual framework into the language of another, rival theory or framework” (Pearce, 1987).]

“The i+1formula, then, represents what will be acquired next, not what is in the course of maturing. Acquisition for all intents and purposes involves moving from one actual developmental stage to the next, with no attention given to the ripening process, which plays a central role in Vygotsky’s thinking (see Aljaafreh &Lantolf, 1994). Krashen saw move-ment from one stage of interlanguage competence to the next as ultimately a fixed and predictable process, independent of cultural and historical influences. Thus, for Krashen, an individual’s linguistic future is certain; for Vygotsky, the future is open, uncertain and depends on the material and interactional (i. e., cultural and historical) circumstances in which the individual is situated” (Dunn and Lantolf, 1998).

Question 2

Research that supports the Interaction Hypothesis

Answer 2

Pica, Young & Doughty (1987)
Izumi (2002)
Mackey (1999)

Question 3

Research that supports the Output Hypothesis

Answer 3

Izumi (2002)

Swain & Lapkin (1994)

Question 4

These studies support the ZPD.

Answer 4

Nassaji & Swain (2000)
Hosada (2006)
Mackey & Philp (1998) [recasts work when within the ZPD]

Question 5

These studies support Explicit Metalinguistic Feedback

Answer 5

Lyster & Ranta (1997)

Ellis, Loewen & Erlam (2006)

Question 6

“instructed second language acquisition”

Answer 6

R. Ellis, 1990
Spada, 1997
Norris & Ortega, 2000
Cook, 2001
Lyster, 2001
Robinson, 2001
Doughty, 2003

Question 7

“instructed second language acquisition”

Answer 7

R. Ellis, 1990
Spada, 1997
Norris & Ortega, 2000
Cook, 2001
Lyster, 2001
Robinson, 2001
Doughty, 2003