History: Learning concepts in a second language
The tasks listed below are simple examples of how a teacher might scaffold students’ learning of new concepts in history. The focus here is integrating language and content goals by analysing a new text from word to discourse level. The three phases coincide with a students’ gradually increasing degree of autonomy in completing tasks.
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Phase 1
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- Student makes a list of the concepts s/he does not understand in the text (word level). Teacher scaffolds students’ understanding of these words/concepts.
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Phase 2
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- Elaborating: students make (alone, with peers, with teacher) sentences, write definitions, make questions based on the words listed (sentence level)
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Phase 3
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- Student starts writing a short text where s/he uses the concepts while focusing on the text structure (discourse level)
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