The United States of America have always been one of the most diverse countries of the world. People of all ethnical groups and cultures have been living in this country for generations. Most of them had to face many difficulties related to their ethnicity and their English language proficiency.
The children of various ethnical minorities have been limited in the opportunities to receive proper education because of their lack of language skills. Not so long ago a group of researchers together with Dr. Roland Tharp decided to work on the special teaching programs for the diverse learners.
The results of the work of the scholars showed that there are five universal rules that help to raise the effectiveness of teaching and comprehension for any group of students. These rules were called the CREDE Standards.
The five CREDE standards for effective pedagogy created by Dr. Roland Tharp are directed on the development of the relationships between the teacher and the students, the interactions students can practice with each other in the classroom and the types of the teaching materials.
The standards are designed to gradually reduce the amount of teacher’s assistance needed in the classroom. From the state of total assistance the class will move to the state when no assistance is needed, this process will go through the zone of proximal development.
The strategy that is a great example of the application of the CREDE standards is the strategy of linking the concepts from the lesson to the students’ personal experiences (Wallace 2004). This strategy allows the students to process the learning material through the perspective of their own background and develop a better understanding, interpretation and form personal opinions on the subjects.
The strategy includes three steps. First step has to be performed before the students began working on the new reading. At this stage the teacher will suggest a list of pre-reading questions. The questions will be designed to cover the topic of the reading generally by means of connecting it to the personal experiences of the children.
The first step also includes the post-reading questions that will be directed at finding the connections between the experiences of the students and the stories of the characters. Step two includes the detailed examination of the reading and teacher’s comments, schematic presentations and notes about the contents.
Third step is focused on the discussion of the connections of the students’ examples and the contents of the reading by the children. This strategy is based on the third CREDE standard called “contextualization”, which is designed to connect the learning process to the students’ lives (The CREDE Five Standards of Effective Pedagogy and Learning n. d.). It also includes standard number five, which is “teaching through conversation”.
The second strategy is directed at the work on the vocabulary. It emphasizes the vocabulary adequate for the class in order to remove the barrier created by the lack of literacy.
Within this strategy the teacher will be determined to select the words specifically used for the topic of the lesson, creating non-linguistic explanations of these concepts, encouraging the students to create their own representations of these words using own language skills, making and writing down sentences with the words (Wallace 2004). This helps to increase interaction (Reed & Railsback 2003).
During the class the teacher must revise the students’ knowledge of the new vocabulary. This strategy is designed to widen the students’ vocabulary and deepen the understanding of the new words. It also is focused on development better understanding between the teacher and the students. This strategy is based on the CREDE standard number two – “language” development.
These strategies are helpful during the work with ELLs because they are focused on deeper understanding of the language of the lesson and the contents of the materials through the application of these materials to the personal experiences or perspectives of the students. This approach removes the barrier of detachment of the student from the topic. I recommend that the teacher shows maximum assistance performing these strategies.
Reference list
Reed, B. & Railsback, J. (2003). Strategies and Resources for Mainstream Teachers of English Language Learners. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
The CREDE Five Standards of Effective Pedagogy and Learning. CREDE. Web.
Wallace, S. (2004). Effective Instructional Strategies for English Language Learners in Mainstream Classrooms. Web.