It's a Wonderful Vacation :)

It's the holiday season. We'll all be taking breaks (some longer than others!), go home and refresh hopefully to return in January with a reenergized spirit.

What will our kids be doing over that break? Probably not a lot of language learning....

Now's a great time to send home a vacation packet. Compile some fun worksheets, literacy games and fun reading passages. Check out our list of resources to get some free printables. Try adding an incentive for all those students who do the work and bring it back in January.

Do you work with older/more responsible students? Why not consider letting them "check-out" a classroom book.

Did you start a class blog? Now would be a perfect time to test out if that kind of communication works for your kids. Assign them some special projects, or begin a discussion to be worked on over break.

Want to do a hands-on project before heading out the door? Have your kids write a holiday postcard to another student/friend. You can address and post them over the break for a special surprise.

Want to talk about Santa? Describe the wish-list that many children write and send to St. Nick. Want to get his real address, see some holiday traditions from around the world?
http://www.santatelevision.com/
*having lived in Finland for a period of time, I loved explaining to my ELL students about Santa's home in Lapland!

Happy Holidays and New Year!

Thanks for all you do and for all your wonderful ideas! 

Engaging Your Students with Technology!

Technology! If you're not embracing it, what are you waiting for?! Don't let budget restraints get in the way of tapping into resources that are readily available. Whether you're fortunate enough to have a whole classroom of Ipads or not, there are ways to be creative and engaging.

We know our ELL students benefit from repetition, and we also know we sometimes can get frustrated by having to repeat the same lesson over and over! So why not let someone else teach that lesson a 2nd, 3rd or 24th time?

http://www.schooltube.com/

Has a wealth of lessons that are filmed, uploaded and viewed by schools from all over. Check out their Oral Histories- beautiful research projects done by students on their family's history.

http://esl-lab.com/

Let them listen to someone else talk. This site has an assortment of pre-recorded discussions, complete with multiple choice questions to test your student's listening skills (all without making you lose your voice!)

http://matteson317.blogspot.com/

Love blogs? (you know I do!) Create your very own one for your group of kids. Here's an example of one I used with a group of ELL students in New York.

Other tried and true options:

Take pictures of your students demonstrating verbs- create a personal picture dictionary.

Grab a hand-held camera and record your kids reading or acting.

Sign out the computer lab for extra research time/English interactives

Do read alounds with books on CD

Making Vocabulary Comprehensible

Vocabulary is at the heart of learning a language. Here are some ideas for making vocabulary more comprehensible to our students.

The first step is to acknowledge that each content area comes with its own set of vocabulary. Understand that your students might be hearing/reading this vocabulary for the first time. Have a list of vocab that you know is important to the topic. Write it down, keep it posted to refer back to over the course of your teaching. Be prepared with examples, diagrams, pictures, etc. anything that will help connect that vocabulary to the student.

Build a schema, which simply means gradually introduce the new topic with prior knowledge. Ask questions of your group to activate some memories that you can then use to bridge into your topic.

Plan a shared experience like doing an experiment together or do a craft that can be applicable to introducing your topic.

Display your academic vocabulary in an easy to see space in your room. Refer back to it, take the time to review the words. 

Get your class moving with vocab aerobics for your physical learners! Get your kids up and acting out your words with an agreed upon movement. This is especially fun with younger grades.

 

 Thanks to South Pointe and Eagle Crest for these great examples!

Celebrate Diversity

Like any student, the English Language Learner wants to feel connected to their school. Challenges such as language comprehension, social norms, religious differences, and different background experiences can sometimes be so great that it blocks a student from feeling that connection. When a child becomes too overwhelmed with all these differences they really wont be thinking 'how can I improve my reading level?'

One simple way to ease that is to show interest in them and their culture. Find out where they are from. Show them you want to know more. Also, make sure your classroom teachers are aware of their background. Take a classroom/school census. Acknowledge and celebrate the many cultures.

If you do not have a space dedicated to cultural awareness you might want to consider finding a wall in your building! Take a look at Excel's great representation of their school's cultural make up!

Don't worry if you have a small population of ELLs! We live in a nation of immigrants, many of us came from elsewhere. Open it up to include your staff, or maybe the entire school! What a fun opportunity to teach about a census?!

Welcome!

If you have never read or written a blog I hope you learn to love them as much as I do! What better way to share our knowledge, strategies, challenges and success! All without overwhelming your Inbox. As I said in my email, this is by no means a mandatory read for you. It is here for you as a resource. And if you know a classroom teacher who might like it, please pass it along!

Many of you participated in my survey last week, thank you! The more I know about you the better I can serve your needs.

And the survey shows* -

56% of you say your ELL parents

are infrequently involved at your school

52% of you have

never received an ELL PD

62% of you want

on-site training

95% of your schools

offer tutoring for your ELLs

And the top 3 challenges you face as a teacher of ELL students are

Time

Lack of Resources

Space

I don't think anyone is surprised by those common challenges. Many of us spend a lot of time creating or finding our own materials. Let's ease some of that by creating a list of helpful links which you can access from here. If you have another great link please comment and share it with us!

Take a moment to look under the tab 'Student Interactives' on the right hand side of your page. I will add to the current list of Starfall, ReadWriteThink, Dave's ESL Cafe and the ESL Lab. I've used these effectively with one-on-one and with partners.

I'm currently travelling to West Michigan schools and gleaning some of their best activities to share with you. 

The activity that I most loved comes from one of our new NHA schools, River City Scholars. Take a blank BINGO board, fill in with vocabulary (the sky's the limit here!), illustrate them, make copies. The students then color in the illustrations as they review the words, cut out the squares and paste them in different spots on colored paper. Voila! Content and vocabulary specific BINGO. Awesome job River City!

-Laura

Special Population Consultant

*percentages are calculated based on number of survey respondents