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Engaging Vocabulary Activities
We are going to start off today’s blog with your reflection question. How are you including vocabulary activities in your current lessons? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. Vocabulary building is such an important part of supporting our Language Learners. An obstacle that many of us face is finding engaging ways to include this in our daily lesson planning. We want to take time for building vocabulary, but the activities seem repetitive and dull to our students. As I was teaching a writing activity, I noticed the students were stuck on the vocabulary “good” and “bad”.…
- Classroom Strategies, Curriculum, Planning Strategies, Reading Strategies, Teaching Strategies, Writing Strategies
Finding a Curriculum: Tips & Strategies
We are going to start off today’s blog with your reflection question. How are you planning to plan for your Language Learners this school year? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. One of the biggest obstacles that many professionals who support Language Learners face is the lack of a curriculum. This is the biggest question that educators are asking themselves and others. The most frustrating part of this is that searching and looking for a curriculum can take so much of a teacher’s time. I know this because I have been there, and I am still…
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Bringing Student Interests into your ESL Classroom
We are going to start off today’s blog with your reflection question. Are you including your student interests in your lessons? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. There are so many times when we are looking for lessons to teach that we are so worried about simply finding a lesson. Often we forget to ask ourselves, will the students find this lesson engaging? Not including the students interests and strengths in your lessons can lead to some of the lessons falling flat. This will result in the students being disengaged. Bored students will not connect to…
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Spending More Time Relationship Building
We are going to start off today’s blog with your weekly reflection question. How are you currently building relationships with your Language Learners? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. Building relationships with your Language Learners requires a lot of planning. There are many educators out there who overlook this and start casually planning for relationship building. Relationship building should have just as much attention as planning for your Language Learners. Last year my school switched to hybrid learning suddenly. In the beginning of the school year, I was trying to prepare for my students. I spent…
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Encouraging Collaboration in your ESL Classroom
We are going to start off today’s blog post with your reflection question. How are you encouraging collaboration with your Language Learners? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. I think a lot of us have been there or experienced the dread that can come over students when we ask them to work together. You can hear the collective sighs and eye rolls. Every year of my teaching career, I have truly wanted my students to have an authentic collaboration experience. One where they are eager to work with each other on assignments and tasks. A lot…
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Strategies to Reduce Your Planning Time this School Year
We are going to start off today’s blog with your reflection question. How much time are you currently spending on your planning? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer to yourself honestly where you stand. This school year I have already found that my time planning for my Language Learners is slowly creeping up. I wanted to tackle this and get down to the core of the problem before the school year progresses any further. I know a lot of you out there are in the same exact situation. The beginning of the school year I have been loaded up with compliance paperwork.…
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Setting Your Language Learners Up for Success this School Year (and Beyond)
Welcome educators! Before we get started I want to share with you an amazing free tool I have available to you. It is “The Ultimate Guide to a Successful School Year”. In this guide I walk you through how you can take those nervous jitters to have an undeniable confidence throughout the school year. All because you started with these basic steps in the guide. To download the guide go to myadventuresinesl.com/ultimateguide. We are going to start the blog off with your reflection question. How are you preparing your Language Learners for success in your classroom? Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer…
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My Favorite Planning Tools
Welcome all-star teachers! I would still like you to take five minutes and reflect. This can have a huge impact on your teaching. Here is our weekly reflection question: What are some tools that you use every class period that you find effective? The problem a lot of educators encounter is really simple. Sometimes there are WAY too many resources out there for us. They can range from dozens of subscription sites, flashcards, printables and so much more. A lot of us want to minimize our tools and maximize how we are using those tools. At the beginning of every school year, I am always overly excited about the new…
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Getting Ready for the Upcoming School Year
Welcome all-star teachers! Here is our weekly reflection question: Reflecting on the upcoming school year, do you feel you are prepared? This past school year has been hard on a lot of us. I completely understand if you don’t want to even think about the new year that is upon us. Many of us have tried to juggle in-person learning/virtual learning and all the struggles that come with both. On top of that we have our daily compliance and advocating we have to do on behalf of our Language Learners. This year for me was personally tough to navigate. I had so many various students with varying needs that I…
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How to Quickly Write Language & Content Objectives
Welcome all-star teachers! Here is our weekly reflection question: How consistent are you in writing language and content objectives? Writing language objectives and content objectives can be overwhelming and time consuming for any teacher. When learning how to write content objectives and learning objectives, there are way too many resources available. This can lead to you feeling confused and in some cases frustrated. Before I started teaching, I faintly heard of content and language objectives. The first struggle was understanding what is a content objective and what is a language objective. A content objective identifies what the students will be able to know and what to do by the end…
