EP 139 Tips for Creating Your Back-to-School Curriculum

Welcome educators! Before we get started,  I want to share the amazing resources I have available. 

To learn more and download some engaging resources go to myadventuresinesl.com/store.

You are an amazing and hard-working educator. The work that you are doing for your students is appreciated. Thank you for your dedication and the time you put in to ensure your students succeed. 

In this week’s episode, I will share the structure you need to build your back-to-school lessons. These will include the core basics to help you plan for those first two weeks of school. 

One of the many struggles we as ESL teachers have when planning our back-to-school lessons is that we are not sure what to plan. This is due to not being sure what our population will look like until the very beginning of the school year. 

A solution to this common struggle is to strategically plan what you are going to teach the first 2 weeks of school. This will look like pre-planning your relationship-building activities, classroom procedures, and data gathering. These do not have to be student-specific, however, this will lay the necessary groundwork. 

Relationship Building Activities

Step one is to brainstorm 2 weeks’ worth of ideas for building relationships. They can be very simple activities. For example, I do a daily message with a question posed at the end to the students. The goal of this question is to share something about myself with students and learn something about them in return. 

You can also plan more elaborate activities during this time as well. This could look like games, students creating about-me posters, and more. I also encourage you to include a student survey. This will be beneficial throughout the school year when identifying books, prizes, and other ways to connect with the students. 

Classroom Procedures & Routines

I am always advocating for preparing and brainstorming your classroom procedures and routines. You are probably thinking about how I can tie this into the four language domains (reading, listening, speaking, and writing). 

First, you can use your procedure and routine introduction to support listening and speaking with students. For example, you can explain and model a procedure. Students can then turn and talk about the procedure. You can even have them turn and talk about the procedure then write a sentence explaining it. 

Pre-assessments/Data

The first two weeks are also beneficial for collecting data. During this time, you can do assessments to determine students’ areas of weakness and strengths. This will be beneficial for helping you determine groups and how to support your students throughout the year. I try to make these assessments very low-stakes. 

I genuinely hope these strategies and tips help you plan for the upcoming school year. 

If you found value in today’s episode, go to myadventuresinesl.com/store to get the full detailed lesson plan which includes 2 full weeks of lesson plans and activities.