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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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Black Lives Matter
Welcome everyone, Right now is a painful time for Black Americans in the United States. We are exhausted and many of us feel defeated. There is no in between or gray area. It is not okay to stand by and not take active steps to dismantle racism. This system elected a racist president that it causing harm to communities of color all over this country. Fighting racism is an ongoing fight. It is a fight you have to do EVERY SINGLE DAY! Here are some things you can do everyday to help: Educate yourself about what is happening. It is not the job of Black people to teach you about…
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Assessing ELLs during Distance Learning
Welcome all-star teachers! As we jump into today’s topic, I would like you to reflect on your wins for the week. Before we dive in I want to explain the difference between a formative and summative assessment. A formative assessment is part of your daily instruction. For example, teacher observations, quizzes, classwork, and exit tickets are examples of formative assessments. Your student blank stares can be a formative assessment. A summative assessment is used (typically at the end of a unit or year) to determine what the students learned and did not learn throughout the unit or year. There are some similarities in both such as both are used to assess…
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Negativity Can Impact Your Distance Learning
Welcome all-star teachers! As we jump into today’s topic, I would like you to reflect on your wins for the week. I also want to encourage you to take a moment and reflect on your thoughts and actions for the week. It’s so easy to go down a rabbit hole of everything that is going wrong right now. Students not having access to technology, being stuck at home, and the feeling like we are living in the twilight zone. With this a negative mindset can slowly start to creep in your daily actions. I understand a lot of us are frustrated, overwhelmed, and overworked due to the sudden switch to remote…
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Using Anchor Charts during Distance Learning
Welcome all-star teachers! As we jump into today’s topic, I would like you to reflect on your wins for the week. This will allow you some for growth and celebrate some of your highlights for the week. Many of our ELLs are struggling with remote learning because of the lack of technology or internet access. This pandemic is highlighting the growing problem many students in poverty are facing daily. To help combat this inequality a lot of ESL teachers are sending work packets and booklets home to provide their students with some learning during remote learning. Sending these work packets home will provide the students some exposure, however some English…
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Selecting Engaging Topics for Your Virtual Lessons
Welcome back educators! Thank you so much stopping by to get all the details on how you create engaging virtual lessons for your ELLs. If you haven’t already please take a moment to subscribe and share this website with other ESL teachers. This helps spread the word about the strategies and tips. You are also helping other ESL teachers make their classroom streamlined. Most of us are distant learning and have the same problem. We are searching and wondering what we are going to teach our students? A lot of us know how we are going to teach our ELLs. Rather that is through a lesson on Nearpod or Quizlet.…
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Why You Need Language Goals While Teaching Remotely
Welcome back educators and superheroes! Before we jump into today’s topic, I would like you to reflect on your wins for the week. This past week has been a rollercoaster with virtual learning and I like to think of some of the highlights of the week. A personal win for me was successfully switching over to Teams. This week I will actually be teaching my first lesson on Teams. Every week I want to highlight a teacher’s win. A win can be big or small. I want you to celebrate your wins, and we want to celebrate with you! If you have a win you want to share email me…
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Teaching during a Pandemic: Your Questions Answered
These last few weeks feel as if I have been on a complete rollercoaster. One things I have learned is how important it is to be flexible and open-minded. I always knew technology was important, but now more than ever I strongly feel it is a necessity for many of our ELLs. A lot of you feel the exact same way, and I enjoyed talking with everyone during our Live Q & A sessions. Here are some of the questions that we talked about during our live sessions: What are some tech tools that my ELLs can use? I do not speak the home language of my students. How can…
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Virtual Learning Strategies for ELLs
Welcome all-star teachers! These past few weeks have been a journey. I want you to take a moment and think about your wins for the past week. Share your wins with me at millie@myadventuresinesl.com The problem many of us are having is that we are in the midst of a pandemic. Our ELLs are having to switch to virtual learning with little technology. As ESL educators, this has caused us to become creative in how we are supporting our ELLs. A lot of my ELLs have very limited technology in their homes. Therefore the only way they can assess the internet is by using their cell phones. Many of them…
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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…
