Teaching+Shakespeare+to+ELLs

Porter, Christina. (2009). Words, Words, Words: Reading Shakespeare with English Language Learners. //The English Journal//, 99, 44-49.

Christina Porter (2009), a literacy coach, offered a myriad of activates for immersing ELLs in Shakespeare’s works to develop a full range of English language skills. After attending the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Porter assured her readers that it is “OK” to teach a portion of a play or use an abbreviatedversion of the work. Similar to the prereading activities outlined by Rothenberg, Porter (2009) explained, “I…offer students the option of reading a short summary of a scene…before we read the actual text as a class. This allows students the opportunity to preview what is going to happen” (p. 45). Continuing with the strategy of “chunking” information, Porter (2009) created an activity entitled Beating-Up Shakespeare (p. 45). Inspired by Robert Barton’s (1993) //Acting Onstage and Off//, Porter broke down a scene into smaller parts, or beats, based on changed in emotion or action that naturally occurs in the scene. Beneficial to ELLs and struggling readers, a complicated piece of text was made manageable.

As prereading and during-reading activities, Porter continued with the strategy of breaking down the scenes into words. Porter (2009) noted, “I always spend a considerable amount of time having students experiment with, analyze, and define the words, words, words in the plays” (p. 48). As most students were unfamiliar with Elizabethan English, a vocabulary lesson was useful. Porter created a class dictionary in order to increase students’ exposure to the language of Shakespeare, word recognition, and fluency during reading. As she concludes, Porter (2009) explained, “Using Shakespeare as a means to explore the wonders of language gives ELLS confidence in the acquisition of the second language” (p. 48).