Have you ever taught a group of first graders how to retell stories? If you have, then you know it is one of those units of study that requires patience and practice. But it’s really gratifying when you hear children sharing books with one another and telling about them. The truth is that retelling stories is a skill for life and one they’ll use over and over. But here’s another truth: retelling stories with strong beginnings, middles, and endings is one of the hardest language and literacy skills for a first grader who is also learning English as a second language.
Every English learner is different when it comes to how they learn and process language. Some students have older siblings who can support them at home; others have one parent who speaks English, and others don’t have any other person who can help them learn English. So it becomes challenging to tell a family during a parent-teacher conference to “please continue practice retelling at home” when in fact the only real time a child might be able to “practice” this skill is while they are at school. Keeping this in mind, it may be time to rethink how we are teaching some students how to retell, especially our English learners. My guiding question became, “Am I teaching English learners in a way that fosters independence?”
I watched closely as one of my beginning English learners tried retelling a story:
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He was able to remember the sequence of events (this wasn’t the challenge for him).
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He remembered and used the characters’ names as he tried to retell.
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Since his second language was still developing, he had a harder time putting words together to make a complete sentence.
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Many key words were new vocabulary words to him. He was trying to learn those words at the same time as he was retelling a story.
I asked him if he could tell me which words were “new” to him. We went through this together the first time, page by page. I watched as he was able to easily identify key words from the book. Knowing these words would certainly help him “tell” the story. I asked him if it might help to put those words on a sticky note to help him use them in his retelling. He nodded and was willing to give it a try. I watched him make a list of the words he considered “new and important” and write them down on a sticky note.
The next steps consisted of trying out this new strategy and evaluating whether it worked. I kept these questions in mind as we were doing this:
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Who is owning this learning process? Is he in charge of choosing the words? How does he know what he needs?
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Is he referring to his notes as he retells the story?
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Is it helping him acquire vocabulary?
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How will I know when he no longer needs this tool?
I observed, listened, and took notes for the next three weeks as my student made sense of this strategy, applied it, stumbled, and practiced again and again. As with any new learning, I would walk him through the process. I would remind him to take out his sticky notes, and every time, I would ask him these two questions:
“Is this a new word for you in English?”
“Would knowing these words help you retell the story?”
After several guided practice sessions, identifying new words became easier for him. He took out the sticky notes by himself, without being reminded. He was starting to internalize the learning process.
Let’s look back and peel off the learning layers and the process that this beginning English learner just went through for several weeks to be able to retell stories with strong beginnings, middles, and ends.
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To retell stories, he would need to learn key vocabulary words from the story. This process requires children to be metacognitively aware of their knowledge of language. He was in charge of choosing those words. That was his responsibility.
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He needed several guided practice sessions at the beginning of the unit. At first, I needed to provide opportunities for rehearsal, but later, he owned this learning process by practicing with partners.
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Internalizing language takes time. It’s a slow process that requires many opportunities for practice and repetition. He did use those sticky notes to help him remember the language or words he needed to use.
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He needed to understand and remember the events of the story in chronological order.
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Learning American characters’ names often requires explicit instruction for English learners.
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He was able to practice this only at school because he didn’t have any siblings or other language partners.
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As he grew confident with his retelling skills, he no longer needed to use this strategy.
Often, we are so worried about the content of the lessons we must teach that we forget that for English learners, content learning is just one part of the equation. They are learning language as they are learning content. This is hard work.
I went back to the guiding question, “Am I teaching English learners in a way that fosters independence?” When I ask myself this question, it encourages me to think through all the parts of learning: from providing several guiding practices, through asking specific questions, creating tools that allow the learner to “look back” as often as necessary, and having systems in place for the child to do this work independently over and over again. Lucy Calkins reminds us that “It takes a lot of slow to grow,” which is an important truth for all English learners.
