Program Overview. This guide discusses Language Central for Math s program components, instructional design, and lesson features.

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1 Program Overview Introduction This guide discusses Language Central for Math s program components, instructional design, and lesson features. What is Language Central for Math? Program Components Language Central for Math is a supplemental program that helps English language learners (ELLs) develop the academic vocabulary necessary to learn math. Often, it is the math vocabulary, not the mathematical concepts, that hinders student mastery. Language Central for Math is designed to directly address this issue and to reinforce the core instruction that teachers teach in the math classroom. Language Central for Math consists of only two components the grade-level student edition and the Teacher s Edition. This simplicity allows for easy and effective instruction. The program is designed for students in Grades 3 8. This guide uses Grade 6 materials as an example, but teachers can apply what they learn to their grade levels. Turn to any lesson in the Teacher s Edition and follow along with this guide. 1

2 Teacher s Edition The Teacher s Edition provides flexible teach-what-you-need lessons for targeting content and language needs. Notice that the Scope and Sequence is designed to supplement topics in the core math class. This means that teachers can use lessons from Language Central for Math in conjunction with any math curriculum. Implementation Models Language Central for Math also has a flexible implementation model. Each grade level has twenty to twenty-five lessons that are organized by math topic. Each lesson consists of four pages and is broken up into an easy-to-read four-part lesson plan. Teachers have the option of either teaching a one-hour lesson every week or breaking up the lesson into fifteen minutes per day, four times per week. These lessons can be part of the ELL classroom instruction or integrated into the regular math instruction. Find the section titled Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners in the Program Overview section of the Teacher s Edition. 2

3 Differentiated Instruction Strategies for Teaching ELLs Language Central for Math provides a list of teaching strategies that can help teachers differentiate the content for ELLs. While the Teachers Edition has identified places where these strategies are useful, teachers will also find other opportunities to apply them in the classroom. There are five basic types of strategies. Reading Support Strategies provide support for students as they interact with the text and lesson concepts. Vocabulary Strategies help students who are struggling to learn and comprehend lesson vocabulary terms. Peer Learning Strategies promote cooperative learning. Beginning and intermediate speakers are able to hear and see concepts presented in different ways, while more advanced speakers benefit by explaining lesson concepts to their peers. Organizing Information Strategies provide students with a scaffolded way to organize lesson information. Often, the strategies involve using a graphic organizer. Comprehension Check Strategies allow teachers to monitor student understanding in an ongoing manner. At a glance, they can see how many students understand the lesson concepts and how many do not. Student Edition The student edition contains instruction and skills practice in a convenient workbook format. It modifies the math content so that students gain access to the language they need to learn the math. In each lesson, students engage in reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities so that they can practice and apply academic vocabulary. 3

4 Instructional Design Both the student edition and the Teacher s Edition provide a unique instructional design. Dr. Jim Cummins from the University of Toronto and a team of ELL educators have collaborated with Pearson to outline a five-principle framework of instruction for teaching content-area subjects to ELLs. Lesson Suppport Features Content and Language Support Next, take a look at some of the lesson features that apply these five essential principles. Turn to any lesson in the Teacher s Edition and examine how Language Central for Math integrates these principles. The Content and Language support on the first page of every lesson helps put Principle 1 into practice, which is to identify and communicate content and language objectives. During this part of the lesson, teachers read the objectives out loud to their students and model how to explain them in their own words. The Your Turn activity that follows provides sentence starters that scaffold speaking activities. Students learn to speak about the objectives in a meaningful way. 4

5 Frontload the Lesson On this page teachers will also find a lesson support for the second principle, which has them frontload the lesson. Each lesson starts out with an Essential Question that communicates and clarifies the math concepts that students will learn. Look for the Talk About It activity in the blue box on the student page. With this activity, students connect what they know with what they will learn by talking, thinking, and writing about the key terms and ideas that will be part of the lesson. Comprehensible Input Providing comprehensible input, the third principle, is important for guiding students to an understanding of the language and content. Comprehensible Input is a support feature that helps teachers make written and oral content accessible to ELLs. They can do this through visuals, demonstrations, and handson experiences. Look at the red box on the student page labeled Vocabulary in Context Picture It! Here teachers will find vocabulary terms with highly visual support for math language, skills, and concepts. 5

6 Throughout each lesson, students see icons that give them clues to help them know when to write an answer and when to speak an answer. Language Production Enabling language production is the fourth principle that Language Central for Math uses to support ELLs. Students can find opportunities to demonstrate their language and skill comprehension in the Do You Understand? feature. Assess Understanding Pair and group activities, which are also in this section, help students talk about math and build language confidence. This systematic instructional plan moves students from receptive to productive language. The fifth principle used in the program s instructional plan is to assess for content and language understanding. Language Central for Math uses informal assessments and written responses to support this principle. The last part of the lesson lets students practice the skills they learned with problems and activities for all language domains. The Leveled Language Proficiency charts target the lesson goals for Listening/Speaking and Reading/Writing at each proficiency level. These charts will help teachers evaluate their students progress and proficiency in the students language development. The last support feature that this guide discusses is Table Talk in the Wrap Up section. Students look back at the lesson s objectives and reflect on what they have learned. Then they answer the Essential Question, which gives teachers the ultimate opportunity to assess their students understanding of the math concept and their academic language proficiency to support it. 6

7 Review This guide introduced the components, instructional design, and program features of Language Central for Math. It also described that the student edition and the Teacher s Edition make up the two program components for simple and effective instruction. It talked about how the core math topics and flexible implementation model makes it possible to use Language Central for Math with any math curriculum. This guide also introduced the research-based instructional design that outlines the five principles for teaching ELLs. Finally, it examined how Language Central for Math s unique program features and lesson support help teachers deliver effective instruction to their ELLs. For more information, view the other tutorials on this Web site. 7