NON-LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS

Classroom Recommendations

Classroom Instruction That Works offers five recommendations for using nonlinguistic representations in the classroom.

1. Use graphic organizers to represent knowledge. Graphic organizers, which include Venn diagrams, charts, webs, and time lines, can be designed to make complex content more understandable for ELLs. Textbooks can often be too complicated for these students. Graphic organizers help them understand knowledge and store it in another way. There are five commonly used types of graphic organizers (see Appendix A): vocabulary terms and phrases, time sequence, cause/effect sequence, episodes, and generalizations/principles.

Do not, however, automatically assume that your students know how to use graphic organizers. A study by Tang (1994) found that intermediate social studies textbooks in Hong Kong, Japan, and Mexico contain few graphic organizers, meaning you will need to model their use for ELLs from those countries and possibly others.

2. Use symbolic representations, such as pictures, pictographs, maps, and diagrams. In order for ELLs to understand text, they must make connections between what they already know and the new information presented. As they make these connections, they construct meaning and begin to comprehend the material. Figures 1 and 2 are examples of pictographs, which help students visualize information, recognize patterns, and remember new content, such as vocabulary.

Because ELLs enter the U.S. school system with background knowledge in their primary language, pictures and pictographs related to this knowledge can help bridge the language gap. (Tang’s 1994 study found that most of the illustrations in Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican intermediate social studies textbooks were representational pictures—common, everyday photographs and drawings of how things look.)

3. Teachers should help students generate mental pictures. When ELLs listen or read, creating a “movie in the mind” helps them to understand and store knowledge. Using all five senses can help produce rich mental images. For example, when studying the Ming dynasty, a teacher asked her class to close their eyes and relate what they heard when she said the words “Ming dynasty.” Responses included “Ping” and “Chinese music.” Next, the teacher asked what they smelled. Students described such aromas as “old and mildewy,” “musty,” and “Chinese food.” When asked what they felt, student responses included “cold like a vase” and “spicy.” Finally, when the teacher asked what they saw, the students produced many images, including “an antique vase” and “an emperor in a beautiful robe.”

4. Make physical models. Physical models are concrete representations of what is being learned. When students use manipulatives, they are making a physical model to represent knowledge. Manipulatives are commonly associated with math (e.g., shapes, cubes, money) but can actually be incorporated in all content areas through such items as puzzles, maps, word sorts, and Legos. For example, instead of labeling the 50 states, assembling a puzzle made up of pieces representing each state would be a good way to use a physical model during a geography lesson.

Any three-dimensional form can be a physical model. For ELLs, the very act of constructing a concrete representation establishes an “image” of the knowledge, so they do not have to depend solely on words.

5. Engage students in kinesthetic activities in which they represent knowledge using physical movement. Total Physical Response (TPR) has been a popular ESL approach over the years. Developed by James Asher (1977), TPR uses kinesthetic activities to teach English. Students engage in active language learning by demonstrating their comprehension through body movements. In early lessons, students are directed to stand up, turn around, sit down, or clap their hands. More complex commands follow, with participants eventually verbalizing commands to the instructor and their classmates.

Berty Segal popularized the TPR approach in his book Teaching English Through Action (1983). Based on the framework of normal first language development, Segal’s methodology centered on the belief that reading and writing skills would be acquired after a firm foundation in listening and speaking was established. Students enjoy the game-like qualities of TPR and value the opportunity to develop their listening skills before being required to verbally produce the new language.

Kinesthetic activities can also be used to improve content knowledge. How do you think a Preproduction student will most easily understand a lesson on how an electric circuit works: by hearing a lecture, reading a text, or acting it out? Would students at other stages of language development also benefit from acting things out (the planets rotating around the sun, for example)? Geometry is another content area where kinesthetic activities work well: ELLs will have a greater chance of learning and recalling terms if they use their arms to represent the radius, diameter, and circumference of circles or the right, acute, and obtuse angles of polygons. In history, drama, or English language arts, acting out an event or a story helps generate a mental image of the knowledge in the mind of the learner.

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