SLA and Affective Filter

Blog post on ESL Strategies Course: Session #3

Our 4th ESL pd was part two of our second language acquisition (SLA)  lesson. We were on our EOC week so not everyone attended but information was emailed out so teachers can still learn about this content. 

• Activating Prior Knowledge - PowToon on affective filter

Teachers watched the short Powtoon and affective filter and were asked to reflect on their own experiences as second language learners. When did you have to learn the 2nd language? How was your 2nd language learning experience? Do you still use the 2nd language learned?
Teachers were asked to share their thoughts and the conversation led into a deeper conversation on learning vs acquiring the language. 
The Wakelet below has a great presentation that explains the difference on learning and acquiring a second language. 
This learning led us to dig deeper on one of the most important theories known on SLA - The AFFECTIVE FILTER! This theory is researched and supported by studies and its founder, Steven Krashen, is who you want to read about if you want to learn more about this topic. 
We talked about how important it is for students to use academic language in the classroom to help them acquire the language. One way we recommended for students to use academic language consistency is posting sentence starters and model for all students to use. 

This chart on sentence starters is just an example of what you can post for all students to use. 

• Content learning: Factors that lowers or increases the affective filter 

We only had two teachers but these two educators were very engaged in our topic and were very creative to show their learning. 
The article we read was "To Help English Learners, You Need Ways to Reduce Their Affective Filter" by Kara Wyman, MEd   and you can read it here ​

As a homework assignment, teachers were to share a flipgrid video on their affective filter learning and how this learning can help them support their students. 
Also, to learn more on this week's topic, we provided a great article on Krashen's 6 hypothesis on SLA. 

I hope you find these resources helpful. If you choose to use these resources, please let us know!

Thank you so much reading.