I had two class meeting days left with our newcomers, and I wanted to do something productive. As an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, when I think of rich lessons, I think of activities that will make my students think critically, move around, use all language domains (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), and learn!
At first, I thought about showing movie clips about mystery or suspense movies. I could have had them identify story elements like characters, settings, problems, solutions, and describing the plot - which is what we did using text. But, I didn't want my newcomers to get the idea that I wanted them to watch movies as we end our school year. I also didn't want my colleges to see my newcomers watching movies instead of doing productive work. So, what better than End-of-School Year reflection questions?!? Most of my students were face-to-face, but I had four student who were learning virtually. Hybrid teaching is challenging when you are trying to have an interactive and engaging lesson. But, technology comes to the rescue in times like this! I've taught my newcomers how to use google slides, Jamboard, and how to navigate our course Canvas page.
For the most part, I agree when people say - "don't reinvent the wheel..." - Not reinventing the wheel has saved me so much time. I've learned a lot from other educators. However, when it comes to working with newcomers, you can't just use the wheels you find -- somehow, you must reinvent it to make it fit with the group of students you're teaching. You know - personalizing your lesson for a better outcome.
So, if I wanted my students to answers great end-of-year reflection questions, I quickly began searching for what other educators have created. These were the two web pages I found useful to do what I needed.
I created a google slides presentation so it'd look presentable and colorful. Each slide had a question in big font to emphasize its importance. You can access the slides below!
Two reasons why google slides are useful with this activity:
My face-to-face students received colorful sticky-note pads to answer each question.They placed their answers on a chart paper that had all the questions. My virtual students received a link to a Jamboard where they answered on a sticky note for each question. Here is the Jamboard if you'd like to make a copy and use it with your students.
Students were all engaged. Not only were the questions open-ended so they could share their thoughts openly, but it created a stress-free time for students to share their voices.
Several of their answers will serve to make some adjustments as the support they need for the next school year. A great educator should ALWAYS make room for improvements - especially when students are giving feedback. I also learned a few new things about each student - especially the two newcomers who had only been with us for a week or two. The activity outcome made me happy. I almost cried when I saw a few of them mentioning me in their answers. Needless to say, we wrapped our last day with a group picture and selfies. See pictures HERE. What feels like the end
Thank you for reading!
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As our newcomers' course comes to an end, I began thinking of ways to make time and space for students to demonstrate their full potential. One way students, regardless of their English proficiency, can be by creating something to demonstrate their ability to put together all the skills and elements we've learned for several weeks. When I think about students creating something, the first resource & platform that comes to mind is WriteReader. I've used WriteReader for years. I've used it with elementary students and now with high school students. It's a student-friendly platform and easy to use for teachers. Once you create your teacher account, you add students to your class list. So, as a culminating course project, my newcomers were to write their own mystery/suspense story after reading a couple of stories from Saddleback - To read about the lessons that lead to this final project. You can read blog post #1 HERE and blog post #2 HERE. Lesson #3 - End-of-Course ProjectThe idea for this project was to provide an opportunity for students to show understanding of the story elements we had learned over several lessons. Elements such as characters, settings, problems, solutions, character development, and plot. These elements may seem like a simple list for students to learn, but the key here is to use the elements in English. To be able to understand and respond using the English language. I didn't want to overwhelm my students with so many instructions and/or rubrics for this project; though I believe a rubric would've been great to hold them accountable with all the required elements. Instead, I gave students a list of elements to include in their story. All the elements listed were items we had analyzed in previously read stories, so I knew they would have not struggled to understand and following the list. Click HERE for a copy of the elements checklist for students' story Each student received a copy of the checklist to use as self-check for what they needed to include in their story. I showed students my own suspense story and highlighted every element in the checklist. Because the platform is student-friendly, it didn't take long to show them and explain how to create their book. Several students shared their excitement to invent their own stories. Some talked about writing a suspense story based on a personal event. I thought this idea was fantastic. Using funds of knowledge is a great thing in our classrooms. It's just what we want our students to do - to use background and personal experiences to demonstrate their full potential. Publishing Our Stories: It didn't take long for students to begin writing their stories. I even had a student complete her story in 24 hours! The day our project was due, I read aloud each story. As I finished reading each of their stories, I complimented them and praised them for their hard work. We went through each student's checklist to ensure they had all the required elements. It was so much fun reading their stories. If you'd like to read their mystery/suspense stories, please do so and share your thoughts. Yocnaly's story: Amelia's Last Night Yaquelin: What's Behind that Door Abi: The Cabin Citlali: What's in that Room Guadalupe: What Happened to Everyone Luis: The Mysterious Parota Dixon: Mente Yousef: Missing Money Samantha: Abigail's Reality Leslie: Mikey's Graduation Athalia: Fear in the Dream Students were encouraged to use an electronic translator or write in their home language. As I read each story, I provided feedback edit ideas. All students published their work in English. I even had a couple of students whose stories were so long - They shared with me how excited they were about publishing their own stories and that once they started writing, they couldn't stop.
It was amazing to see how into writing they all were. Even my virtual students were super engaged! I appreciate platforms like WriteReader that allow students to discover their love for reading and writing. I also love having books like Saddleback books that not only helped developed my students' reading skills. Have you used any of these resources? If so, share with me how you've used it. I'd love to add tools to my toolbox. I cannot wait to show these books to my students next school year. I'm so proud of their hard work. Thank you for reading! I was thrilled to see how well our newcomers did while learning character development. But more so, I was excited to hear how much they enjoyed reading the stories and how well they understood them. I have so much faith in the hard work Saddleback puts into each and every book that makes it to our classrooms. I enjoy using these books to teach our newcomers. This blog post is a continuation of a previous post - to read about lesson #1, click HERE. Lesson #2![]()
After our prediction, I read the story out loud while students followed along and tracking the text. There were some comprehension checks while reading just to make sure students were following along. After reading the story we identified a list of characters and settings and used this list to create complete sentences - Our sentences were simple but they were able to create them themselves and read aloud on their own. See Jamboard slides 7-11 to see students' independent work. Comparing and contrasting stories: To teach the concept and the language of compare and contrast, I used this image of an orange and an apple. Students were able to tell me how these two items compare (similar/same) & how these items contrast (different/not the same) - It was a fun activity and students were engaged blurting out answers. Once students understood the concept of comparing and contrasting, we were ready to begin tackling our stories. I began by showing students the stories side by side just like the fruits in the example above and shared one similarity and one difference between the stories. We made sure that anything we added was found in the text and not just our inferences. Once I modeled, I let students help me out by sharing one more similarity and difference. This gave an idea of their understanding of the assignment. See students' independent work completed on pages 14th - 19th. To see the entire Jamboard, click HERE. This activity gave me a good idea of their text comprehension. By providing text evidence and placing them in the correct box, I can tell that comprehension took place therefore language acquisition happened too!
Be sure to check our next lesson when we create our own stories using the elements we learned in these two stories we read. If you have a different way to teach compare and contrast, please, share it in the comments. I'd love to learn from you and add tools to my toolbox. Click HERE to read Part 3 Thank you for reading! I cannot believe I am sharing our end-of-course lessons and project! This year, though like no other, went by so fast. So, here we are admiring how far our newcomers had come. This school year, I had a couple of ESL student teachers so I didn't plan as many lessons for our newcomers as I usually do. Though there were so many challenges this school year - teaching with masks, social distancing, balancing hybrid teaching and learning, and so much more; I'm glad we made it through successfully. ~~~~~~~~~~ I started taking over my newcomers class in mid-April and I was so excited to do so. Since one of my student teachers was still teaching my class, I'd one day teach students on campus and another day I'd teach students online. Of course, my first go-to resource as I began planning was Saddleback books! We read two books that lead to our end-of-year project. Lessons #1
![]() We started by reading aloud "New Girl" - a mystery story part of the Engage Saddleback kit. Halfway through the reading, students did a drag & drop activity identifying the characters (names) and settings (places) in our story. Once we completed the story, we played a scratch and text-match activity. Newcomers need to see and hear the text and be able to find it within the book. I gave them a list of sentences that describe the conflict (problem) & the clues in the story. We read them out loud and practice reading by ourselves. This was a great reading practice for all. For accountability, each student had their page to show work and engagement. See Jamboard pages 3-7. Character development: To explain character development, we discussed how characters change throughout the story. To identify these changes, we look at how the characters' feelings (emotions) change from the beginning of the story to the end. We look at the characters' words (what he says) that show change in character. And we look closely at the characters' actions (what they do). I thought the images would help them understand what I was explaining. Together we worked on identifying how our character Cole developed throughout the story. Our focus was:
One way to help our students become strong readers and writers is by providing them with books to read. We cannot expect our students to embrace reading and grow academically and linguistically if they do not have the resources to do it.
This is why I am always trying out different ways to get books in my students' hands! Through Donor's Choose, Amazon wish list, and asking for donations, I've obtained books for students to read. And not just books, but compelling books, authentic books, and text that my newcomers CAN access, especially when they are attending school in a hybrid model (synchronous and Asynchronous). So, when Saddleback Education Publishing reached out to me and invited me to try out their new digital books platform with my students, I was super excited. Not only because it's material I am familiar with, but because these are books my students are familiar with too. We've used these books pre-COVID, and they knew how helpful this resource can be. I knew they were going to be as excited as I was. Navigating the New Saddleback Digital Platform
Once I was familiar with their easy-to-navigate platform, I began creating our first lessons for my newcomers. I couldn't wait to introduce the Saddleback Digital platform to them as a new resource to read and learn. To get my students comfortable with the platform, before sharing our lesson, I gave them the link to the digital platform and provided them with a class login and code I had created.
Students logged in and clicked around looking at all the books available to read. As students clicked around, I was able to help students who needed a little more guidance getting into the platform. It is not complicated to get in, but if students attend school virtually, this might be a little more challenging to see if they are entering the correct information. Once students were all logged in, we played a game. The game consisted of a scavenger hunt. This was just to get students used to navigating the platform without any issues. Our First Lesson Using Saddleback Digital Platform
Our first lesson was all about school language since we had students who had never been to a USA school and or not familiar with a specific USA school structure.
Since we had students who were new to a USA school and were unfamiliar with our USA school's structure, our first lesson was about school language. Slide one: To explain the difference between one and the other, I had one slide where I explained how some books are stories made up by the author and how some books are research teaching us about a topic. Using images of books, I had students access the slides and sorted the book covers based on the category we thought they should be placed. We used sentences like: I think the book ___________ is fiction because _______________. I think the book ___________ is nonfiction because _____________. After modeling one or two books, students were all able to take turns and share a sentence. Slide two: I introduced the two books we were focusing on for the following days and had them find each book on their own and scanned the book to get an idea about the content. Slide three: I took this idea straight from the teacher's manual but because students were not on campus, I couldn't use the worksheet (and I don't like worksheets). As we read the text, we completed our informational web with all the details from the text. I'd read the text aloud first, then I'd have students read after me a couple of sentences at a time. The slides were completed by students with my guidance while sharing my screen and supporting them in finding the information. It was a great way for me to see who was paying attention and who was understanding what the text was teaching us. DEVELOPING ALL LANGUAGE DOMAINS WITH WRITEREADERWriteReader is a wonderful platform I've used with elementary and High school students. It's student-friendly & teacher-friendly. In this webinar I share how & why I use it. Shared Points Confirming Existence – Choosing Compelling Text
You can find more information and several other helpful webinars to support you and your students CLICK HERE
Thank you for reading and watching the presentation. If you have any comments, please share below. I'd love to hear your thoughts. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. I feel like if I begin reflecting and writing about 2020 - it would make for a very long and sad post. 2020 was just a year we will never forget. The battles and struggles were real - But we made it through! As I began thinking about my #OneWord for 2021 - I found myself going back to 2020's OneWord and asking myself whether I needed to keep the same word, or have a new one. You see, 2020 was a year where MANY - MANY things were put on hold. Because of COVID-19, schools were closed, parks, were closed, outdoor events were canceled, etc. Life seemed to have paused. So, as I read my post about my OneWord 2019, I couldn't help but think how this too needed to unpaused. I knew I didn't want to use the same word for 2020 so I thought about a word that would take my 2019 word to the next level. In 2019, I wrote: You see, we are meant to be great! We are not to settle for just "good"...If I get comfortable with just being "good" - then I've failed myself and those around me. There's nothing wrong with wanting more.
That's why my #OneWord2021 is TENACITY! --Tenacity says "I can" even though the impossibilities are bigger than our capabilities. Do you have a #OneWord2021?!? I know many people who like doing New Year's resolutions. I don't have anything against resolutions - If that's what works for you, great. I actually prefer one word. One word that will ignite a fresh new start & new year. Share in the comments your #OneWord or your New Year's goals! I'd love to hear from ya! Previous years' OneWordThere is no doubt that co-teaching is an effective practice to better serve English language learners. Co-teaching is defined as two educators who team-teach by providing simultaneous instruction to a group of students. Through this model, students receive content-based language learning which means that students receive content learning as well as language acquisition support. Co-teaching or team teaching is an opportunity to create a culture of shared experiences and shared responsibilities among two teachers. This, of course, increases the opportunity to provide a focus and intentional differentiation support students may need. But as easy and as effective as it may sound - co-teaching can be challenging for many of us!
This was true for Mrs. Eudy and me during the 2019-2020 school year. However, we both faced our fears by putting our students' needs FIRST and the outcome was very effective. We now recognize that co-teaching draws on the strengths of both - the content area teacher who understands the structure, the content, pacing of the curriculum - and the special area teacher who can identify unique challenges and individual needs students may have to fully access the content.
This post is featured on the Re-Imagening Migration website. Find article here: Did you know that students are NEVER too old to enjoy a picture book? This article here tells you more. Even adults can learn from picture books - I do! The book Dreamers, written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales, is a stunning picture book with an amazing story about an immigrant mother and her baby immigrating to the US. While discussing it with our newcomer students, I began placing sticky-notes everywhere with all the ideas and thoughts that were rushing through my mind. Here is what I was thinking: Packing Our Culture![]() I was 15 years old when I was asked to pack-up a backpack with a couple of outfits and whatever else I could fit in and carry with me on a journey from Guatemala to the USA. I remember looking around the room and packing a few photographs and recuerditos (keepsakes) I didn't want to leave behind. I do not doubt that many immigrants experience this moment when they have to decide what to pack and bring along their migration journey. Besides packing the essentials, many of us pack something that will remind us of the world we are leaving behind, representing our country, homeland, and believes. Just like we pack-up objects, we also pack-up our identity within us and hold on to it as tight as possible because we know it is what makes us who we are. The things we pack-up within us are experiences, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, family, foods, music, culture, heritage, and more. All this builds our individuality. Yuyi Morales narrates this personal experience perfectly in this image. We see how her backpack includes a jatana, a pencil, nature items, and Señor Calavera. If you follow Yuyi's Instagram account, you'd see how these objects represent her identity. Objects that she carried with her as she crossed over the Mexican border to come to the USA. And just like we see in her book, the objects that represented her identity were kept safe and packed up because they were being protected or perhaps they stayed packed up because she didn't feel like her individuality would fit in the new culture. In Dreamers, we see the characters trying to blend in and function in a new country and culture but with a substantial struggle to be who they are. I experienced this as well, and so do many immigrant students and individuals who come to the United States. While many of us love our home culture, our language, and everything about our heritage, society tells us that to function successfully, we must keep our background packed up and blend in the American culture and master the English language to be successful. For many of us, it'll be years and years till we realize that our culture, language, and heritage are valuable and core to who we are. For others, this realization will never happen - and heritage, language, and culture will be lost. To me, this is a sad reality that will hinder many generations. Opportunities to Unpack![]() As an immigrant myself, I can tell you how intimidating it is to be yourself and unpack our background for all to see. You look around, and everything is new and different. You listen around, you and all you hear is the new language -- a language you don't yet understand. However, there are ways to embrace the differences while still appreciating what is packed within us and show them to the world. Here are a few of them:
Unpacked CultureHaving our culture and heritage unpacked is just the most wonderful feeling. How do you know your culture, language, and heritage is unpacked? - When you celebrate it, appreciate it, and embrace it. When you do not fear what others will say about who you are, how you speak, or what you're wearing. When you begin to find a place in your new home, you understand that we have more similarities than differences and contribute to society to create a beautifully diverse culture. As we were reading this book with my student, we both had different takeaways from the text. Yousef here was able to draw what he understood what was happening in the story, then retell the story using his own words. He was able to personally connect with several parts in the story and was very confident understanding it because the images speak so much. I am encouraged to write my takeaways because he did the same! If you have read this book and would like to share your takeaways with me, please share them with me. I'd love to hear about your experience with this amazing book. Or if there is another book that would share these same ideas, I'd love to know of it.
Remember YOU matter! Your culture matters, your language matters, your heritage matters. So, showcase it...display for all to see and appreciate it. Thank you for reading! How to support immigrant students in challenging times?Just wanted to make sure you knew about this fantastic (and FREE) webinar opportunity to learn how to support our immigrant and refugee students. This free webinar is hosted by Re-imagining Migration and The Immigrant Learning Center's (ILC) Public Education Institute. It is a two-day online workshop featuring researchers, teacher trainers and pedagogical experts. Participants will learn:
You can register HERE for the 2020 Immigrant Student Success: Strategies and Tools for K-12 and Adult Educators on July 8 and 9, 12:00 to 3:00 PM EDT, three hours each day I am honored and humbled to present on July 9th - My topic is: Personal Stories to Build Strong relationships. I also will also be part of a discussion panelist sharing our thoughts on Immigrant StoryTelling. I hope you can join us but if you can't, I will be providing links to the recordings if you cannot join us live.
Thank you for reading!
The Bilingual/ESL Department at Region 10 ESC in North TX holds an annual symposium for their 500+ educators. This year, due to the COVID pandemic, the event was help virtually.
I was honored and humbled to be invited as their 2020 Symposium 'Power Of Unity' keynote speaker. I was so excited to connect and meet so many passionate educators who are working hard to provide their very best for all students. Day 1Keynote Presentation
The keynote presentation was on June 23rd and it was a way to kick-off the symposium - teachers had a long day of sessions to attend right after the keynote.
My presentation title was 'Shifting from Statistics to Stories' The presentation was streamed LIVE so you can find the recorded version on my YouTube channel below. March 13th was the last day students attended class on campus here in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. As soon as we started discussing going to online learning, our county began to provide resources and ideas to support our students through a new norm. Our county schools provided computers and local internet services provided services to those who needed it. Teachers began receiving instructions on how and when yo provide remote lessons and student online engagement. What I started noticing though was that my HS students were finding themselves having to go to work since they were not attending school. The financial need families began to experience led to students having to get up early and spend all day working or staying at home taking care of their siblings. I began to share these observations on social media and the comments were notices. Below you'll find a couple of press releases that highlight what our ESL students are going through this pandemic time. Ruben Jones - COVID-19's IMPACT ON STUDENTS: High Schoolers Find Jobs While Balancing Virtual Learning Here is a fantastic article published by Alex Granados - Senior Reporter for EducationNC. Thank you for reading!
I wanted to share a great conversation I had with Adam Strong, director of Re-Imagining Migration, on how to build effective and lasting relationships with newcomers. You'll notice who this is a very simple conversation but loaded with practical and effective ways to create and maintain strong relationships with newcomers. I have no doubt that all students need and deserve a teacher who takes his/her time to get to know them and care for them. However, newcomers, students who not only left their country behind but could've experienced a lot to be here in the USA, have an urgent need to be heard and understood. Our conversation was first posted on Re-Imagining website on March 3rd, 2020 - and you can read it here. On March 13th, 2020 - Share My Lesson website shared it too!! I am so excited to see how a simple conversation about supporting newcomers is so very well accepted by these platforms that work hard to provide effective lessons to educators. You can find the same post here: "Building Relationships with ELL Students and Newcomers: A Conversation with Emily Francis". Thank you for reading!
Hello friends! Just in case you don't know yet, I wanted to post here about our current bilingual Twitter book study on Integrando Lenguage, Lectura, Escritura y Contenidos en español e inglés ~ Integrating Language, Reading, Writing, and Content in English and Spanish. This book is not available on Amazon. You can get your copy through Velázquez Press following this link. This book study is through the very well known hashtag #ELLchat_bkClub by Katie Toppel and Tan Huynh. Katie allowed us to include this book study to the reading rounds so it is round 24.0! This book study is bilingual (Spanish and English) because the book is written in both languages (side-by-side). A list of questions will be posted every Sunday just to guide out conversation but you're welcome to post anything. Some ideas to post are: Favorite quotes, own questions, #BookSnaps, own thoughts, etc! This book has great content and support for all teachers who are:
We started on March 15th and we'll be following the schedule on the image above. We'd love to have you join us if you can. Check out all the awesome participants we have so far! Katie Toppel has more information on her website if you're looking for all the questions and for more information on how this chats work.
Her Website is: http://ellchatbkclub.blogspot.com/ Thank you for reading! High-Impact Literacy Instruction for ELL StudentsI wanted to share with you this amazing opportunity to learn ways to support your English language learners. Bret Gosselin from TX and I will be joining literacy expert Shaelynn Farnsworth on a webinar to share effective practices to support students with reading and writing. Here's what you'll learn: Participants will learn creative ways to build relationships and community, specific literacy instructional practices and strategies to implement in the classroom, and advice on how to measure achievement growth in EL learners. We’ll also be sharing tools and tech that you can use in your classroom, inclusive to EL learners, along with writing assignments designed to grow great writers. The webinar will be on Wednesday, March 18th at 5:00 pm ET. *Updated 3/23/20 To register and to watch the recorded webinar follow this link! I hope you join us! Please comment below if you registered and share your thoughts after attending our webinar.
A recording will be posted the day after. A link to the recorded webinar will be posted here as well. Thank you for reading! Blog post on ESL Strategies Course: Session #5![]()
During our 5th session on Effective strategies for ELs (click here to read about session 1-4), we took most of the time to dig deeper into our ELLevation Instructional Framework activities.
We started our session reviewing the 6 effective practices we learned about during session 4. We used Kahoot to not only have a little fun but also to review our learning. The game consisted of answering reflective questions that teachers were to analyze and assign to the corresponding practice. For example, a question was..."Am I considering non-traditional experiences as well as mainstream experiences when I discuss and teach something in class?" is this Building Background Practice or Developing Academic Language Practice?!?!? Of course, this question is referring to "Building Background". You can play the game here if you'd like. We notice how teachers are as competitive as students are! Congratulations to Mrs. Pierce for getting 1st place. An Activity in Your Pocket Chart
We made our 5th session centered on ELLevation activities because these classroom activities are effective to use during instruction and are research-supported to help improve language acquisition and content learning. These activities are non-content specific and they can be used in any core content classroom.
We thought that a fun and creative way to show our learning was to create a chart containing activities for each practice. So, we created an "An Activity in Your Pocket" chart. This is an idea taken from the popular "a Poem in Your Pocket" chart. Since there are 85+ activities available for teachers, I thought each teacher could find a classroom activity for each practice learned, write it on a strip of paper provided, and place it in the corresponding practice pocket. Teachers shared their favorite activity as they placed them in the practice pocket.
You can see the picture below - our chart is filled with amazing and effective classroom activities to share with your colleagues.
A couple of great observations was pointed out by our math teacher and our Spanish as a foreign language teacher. Our math teacher expressed how it was a challenge to find activities she could apply while teaching Math III but she had a few that she will definitely be using in class. The same was addressed by our Spanish teacher, however, she said how she will be able to twist these activities to use them as she teaches Spanish.
Overall, we were really excited about our teachers' excitement as they shared their favorite activities. You can't hide passion...and passion was what they were sharing as they told us how they'll be using the activities in class.
These are some of the activities we were finding interesting:
Thank you so much for reading!
Blog post on ESL Strategies Course: Session #4
Cabarrus County Schools use ELLevation as a platform to house and store our ELLs' data information. I know there are several counties who use this platform.
ELLevation also provides ELLEvation InClass platform section that teachers can use to improve instruction for ELLs. The instructional platform is an additional license counties can purchase to support with academic and language instruction. We are so lucky to be able to have the data and the instructional platform for ALL teachers in our county. This ESL pd session was understanding the instructional framework that ELLevation provides for educators. The resources learned here can really be applied in any county whether you have ELLevation system or not. It is a teaching framework with effective practices that can make you just a better teacher.
To Review, we practiced and activity called "Inside-Outside Circle" where teachers had the opportunity to share what they've learned so far in out ESL sessions. We modeled this activity hoping that teachers will take this activity and use in their classroom and foster interactions among their students. 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.
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.
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 Blog post on ESL Strategies Course: Session #2
This were the amazing posters they created to show their learning.
For homework assignment, teachers were to read the provided articles and power point presentation and share thoughts on our padlet.
Everything you need and more for this pd is in the Wakelet below! Blog post on ESL Strategies Course: Session #1
We kicked off our ESL PD for teachers highlighting students background - learning who our ELs are, seeing them for who they are, and for what they CAN accomplish.
All the resources used are in the Wakelet below.
The 5 simple key questions to ask about our ELs came from this article from Barbara Gottschalk. Teachers were asked to work with a partner and each partner was to read one of the key questions and create a poster to share with the rest of us. The 5 key questions are represented here: Mrs. Hatley and I are both ESL teachers at Concord HS. We both provide co-teaching/inclusion services in all content areas. Our teachers are amazing and very open to collaborate and learn new ways to support our English learners. Together we are creating a culture of responsibility to grow our English learners not only academically but also linguistically. During the month of December, we sent our staff an email offering an ELL strategies course where teachers can learn effective practices to support ELs. Participation to our course was not made mandatory and CEUs (content credits) were offered. We were super excited when we heard from over 25 staff members who wanted to participate. Our group meets once a week for 30 minutes with a 30 minute homework assignment to be completed during the week. During the month of January, we met four times and we've had a total of 10 teachers participating with consistency. Among the attendees, we have out MTSS couch, administrators, and core teachers. The session and strategies learned were as follows:
Thank you for reading! It's here...Year 2020 is here!! This time of year is by far the most exciting time of the year for me. This is the time of year when many of us get into deep thought about all the exciting events that we experienced throughout the past year. A time of year to reflect and embrace what we have or have not accomplished as the year comes to an end. This is also a time of the year to think about new beginnings, new goals, new journeys. A new year brings hope and encouragement to perhaps complete what we couldn't accomplish the year before. I don't know about you but I am not very good about making a New Year's resolution or a list of things to accomplish. I just feel like I wouldn't be able to keep up with what I want and I don't want to feel disappointed.
I LOVE to be surprised by life! I don't know what this year has in store for me. I don't know where I'll go. I don't know who I'll be meeting. What I do know is that I need a WORD. One word that will serve as a core focus to what I do, why, and how I do things in life. Whether is personal or professional, this word helps me stay focus on what matters to stay passionate about everything I do. I started choosing an inspirational word for a few years now and the intentionality I put on focusing on this word has been powerful. I blogged about my #OneWord2018 and #OneWord2019 if you'd like to read it. On December 11th, I had the opportunity to host Writable's Twitter chat. If you are interested in learning more about the best strategies and methods to support your students in writing, I recommend you join this weekly chat. All you have to do is follow the hashtag #WritingMatters at 7:00 PM ET and join the fun.
Shaelynn Farnsworth gracefully invited to lead the chat and focus on how to support ELs during writing. I didn't come up with a super catchy title but our focus during the chat was "Writing Instruction for ELs". When I think about supporting ELs in their writing, I think about interactive writing, visual writing, scaffoldings, and their classroom environment. This is why I made my questions around these topics. We had great participation and a lot of great tips and resources were shared. I thought about blogging this with the hope that you'll find a great tip that can help you support your students become the successful writers you want them to become. If you feel like answering these questions, please do so following the hashtag mention above and tag me when posting your answers. I'd love to learn from you. In Stories That Sparkle Powerful Conversations blog post, I shared a lesson I started with our SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Educations) ELs. This lesson led to another wonderful week where students created a wonderful presentation to show the rest of the class. All our newcomer ELs are expected to present their learning in our ESL class, of course, the bar remains high for SIFEs. Just like Kanako Suwa says, "Simplifying is GIVING UP, Scaffolding is BELIEVING. Simplifying is dumbing down/lowering expectations. Scaffold = same expectations and content + supports put in place to help Ss meet the expectations." With the understanding that these students are capable of more - I encouraged them to create their own book using the sentences they had formed from the book Dreamers. My students were very excited when they noticed that they were creating their own book using the information they understood. Both students were able to create and publish their own book but only one student had the strength to record the reading. It does take a lot of courage to do this knowing that your voice is being heard by others and you're not sure of yourself in the targeted language. So the platform I use to publish my students' stories is WriteReader. This platform is student-friendly and it can be used by students K-12. One of my students used the camera to take some pictures of the book that matched his text, another student took photographs of her own illustrations. Here's Yousef's book: DREAMERS (link includes voice/reading) ![]()
Here's Abril's book: DREAMERS ![]()
Both of my students did a great job and they are very proud of the work they accomplished.
You see, it really doesn't take much to help our English learners (and SIFE) to perform at their highest potential. If you choose to use this platform to publish your students' stories, please let me know! I'd live to share them with my students as well. Thank you so much for reading! ![]() I wanted to share with you a couple of lessons my newcomer ELs enjoyed this month. Students had fun finishing up these lessons and they learned a lot. Their final project was amazing and very creative! We started reading a couple of articles. One article was an article we read during small group guided reading, and the other was an article they read as a group. Both articles highlight the journey of teenagers who had to leave their home country to reunite with family in the USA. The two articles we used were: "Running from Danger, Looking for Hope" from Scholastic Action magazines & "15-Year-Old Waiting Months in Shelter to Join Mother in California" from NewsELA.
If you need some ideas as to how to read articles with high-level text with newcomer ELs, check out this post with some scaffolding tips.
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