Teaching Strategies
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Using Your Reflections to Prepare for the New Year
Every week I want to highlight a teacher’s win. This week I want to take a moment and say thank you to all the ESL teachers who are advocating and standing up to racism.The events that are happening against black people in this country, have made me take a deeper look into my teaching practices. I believe reflection is the key to growth as a teacher and that is what I am planning to do. Many times we rush into the new year without taking the time to reflect on how we can adjust our instruction. During my first year of teaching, my teacher mentor always encouraged me to reflect.…
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Supporting ELLs During School Closures
Welcome educators! Right now we are in the midst of a global pandemic. It appears overnight we are expected to pick up and teach our ELLs online. The problem many of us face is that our ELLs have limited access to technology and the internet. Thursday before our Spring Break our principal got on the intercom and announced we won’t be back until March 31st. I knew in my spirit that it was going to be longer so I rushed and started thinking of options. During this time, I had to console my students and show them how to log on to our low tech options. This is how I plan to…
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Teaching Reading Skills through Read Alouds
Hey everyone! Welcome to My Adventures in ESL! Have you ever done a read aloud in your class and felt the boredom ooze from your students? I honestly wondered what is the benefit of me doing a read aloud when my students are bored out of their minds. Couldn’t I be using this time to teach my ELLs some important reading skills? I would often do read alouds and my students just weren’t into them like I hoped. I knew that there were tons of benefits of students hearing a fluent reader reading a text with expression. It just seemed at the moment that my students weren’t connecting to my…
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Setting up your ESL class for the new school year
My first year of teaching I had a lot of random items all over my room. Posters in my room were not hung, and the who area was in a disarray. I tried “decorating” my room, but I was told by veteran teacher in what’s the point of doing that when you have more important things to be doing. However that view took a drastic turn when my teacher mentor came in and explained to me why the thinking and statement of that teacher was incorrect. My mentor teacher explained that students see the classroom as a safe space. If a teacher has a disorganized classroom and items have no…
