Whether you're thinking about using Speak Agent, just getting started, or you’re a Speak Agent pro, you may be wondering how you can use Speak Agent to engage students in your classroom. Check out these proven strategies to incorporate Academic Language acquisition into your classroom, curated by former educator and partnership success specialist Lauren Umbehauer from our implementation and content team!
I recently transitioned into a Partner Success role with Speak Agent. Before that, I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade science in New Jersey. I know firsthand how difficult it can be to grab students' attention in the classroom. I’d continuously strive to ensure my lessons engaged students in science content and practices. Students carried out investigations, built engineering projects, asked meaningful questions, communicated information, and so much more. These hands-on and higher-level activities were fun for my students and provided them with real-world science experiences. However, I came up against one major obstacle: Many of my students had never heard of or used the science terms we were using in the classroom. It was all new for them, and they needed more support. How could they perform an investigation on the electromagnetic spectrum if they had never been exposed to that academic language before? It meant I had to find and create resources to provide that extra support. As a former educator, I know that equipping students with the necessary tools for academic language acquisition can be challenging for teachers to tackle on their own. Speak Agent provides ready-made activities where students can practice acquiring and using academic language vocabulary!
How can teachers use Speak Agent with their students?
As an educator, I had a wide range of diverse students in my classroom. It was essential to find support for my learners who needed extra practice. Speak Agent has you covered! There are many differentiation tools to support individual student needs.
Speak Agent provides visual representations and aids for the academic language terms in your lessons, making it a valuable tool for whole group instruction. One strategy I find particularly helpful is to use our Word Gallery activity to introduce new concepts or review past topics. Students also find it to be a valuable reference tool during class assignments. Speak Agent is versatile, so use it however you find it useful for your unique students!
In my classroom, I found that repetition is critical to achieving proficiency. Speak Agent provides students opportunities to read, write, and speak using the scientific vocabulary terms with the units you’re teaching while ensuring the words provided are in context with real-world and relatable scenarios. Students gain the confidence to use these new terms in classroom activities, assessments, and discussions and can relate them to their own lives and the world around them.
I have always loved science and wanted to ensure my classroom encouraged that same passion in my students by sincerely engaging them in the scientific process. Speak Agent makes this accessible for students by providing them with the foundational language they need to communicate with their classmates and teacher using complex academic vocabulary. Through my transition into EdTech, I’m honored to be able to use Speak Agent to help teachers support their students in finding a love for science. If you’d like to learn more about Speak Agent’s classroom use or my transition from the classroom, let’s chat! I would love to discuss the importance of content language acquisition in our science classrooms.
"My favorite thing about Speak Agent is the level of engagement and excitement it generates in my students. Many of them literally ask me if they can do their lessons, as soon as we transition to Science!" - Mr. Conticelli, Lee County Schools, FL.