Effective Classroom Activities

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.

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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. 

An Activity in Your Pocket Chart

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. 
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These are some of the activities we were finding interesting:

• Practice #1: Building Background - Brainstorm Walk Activity - Carousel Activity click here for more.
• Practice #2: Clarify Input - 5 and 2 Activity (lecture for 5 minutes then Students discuss for 2) - Similar activity is "Chat stations" click here for more. 
• Practice #3: Inside Outside Circle activity  Click here for more. 
• Practice #4: The Expert and the Novice activity - To see more ways to structure students conversations in classrooms click here. 
• Practice #5: Word Walls activity  - click here for more 
• Practice #6: Exit Tickets activity - Click here to learn more

Thank you so much for reading!