Tracy Salzer | ED 537 Goal 13 |

Guided Language
Acquisition Design
Strategies
USING PICTORAL INPUT IN EARTH SCIENCE
Background
After learning about Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) in my preliminary
credential training program I was eager for the opportunity to use pictoral input in my
teaching. Science is an area that I find lends itself easily to this type of instructional
design, and provides language learners at all stages with an engaging and
comprehensive way of acquiring new concepts, vocabulary, and background
knowledge to support in-depth critical thinking.

Pictoral input is a strategy in which vocabulary and key concept words are introduced
with a corresponding pictoral image. Not only does the brain have an unlimited
capacity for images, but this also provides a multi-modal approach to language. The
students are viewing, hearing, writing, and drawing, which all build simultaneous
neural pathways to language development and comprehension.

The Lesson
In this lesson, I used pictoral input strategies to teach a lesson on the rock cycle to
my sixth grade class. I have one designated ELD student, who is in the emerging
phase of language development. My learning objective was for the students to be
able to view the process of the rock cycle, and be able to explain how rocks are
changed by various forces as they travel through the cycle. Students were able to
demonstrate their comprehension in the next activity by viewing rock samples,
reading descriptions of the samples, drawing the samples, and placing their drawings
in the appropriate place in the rock cycle diagram that was created during the whole-
class GLAD lesson.

This is a topic I am familiar with, and so it was a good choice for using this strategy
and allowed me to engage my students with physical input (gestures, role play) as
well during the lesson.

Assessment and analysis of teaching

My students enjoyed seeing the images unfold before them, and were much more
attentive to the vocabulary attached to the imagery overall as a class. My ELD
student was able to take effective notes and follow the lesson smoothly, with regular
check-ins and prompting. Having seen the various processes diagramed for them
already (erosion, compaction, burial, pressure, etc.) all students were able to ask
more critical questions about the samples, and were observing them much more
closely for evidence of these processes. I also noticed that there were fewer
clarifying questions among my native English speakers, and more evaluative type
questions.

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