Everything ESL: More Tips and Resources for Working with ESL Students.

As many of my followers know I spent the last 10 years of my teaching career as an Elementary ESL Resource Teacher/Specialist for the Anchorage School District. I taught the most limited English Proficient students at my home Elementary school 5 mornings a week in my Learning Center and worked with other limited ELLs in the afternoon at my home school and 4 other schools in our district. This past January I found out that 3 new to the country Korean girls had entered my grandson's school and 2 were in his 4th grade class. You can see the 3 of them in the picture above. I was so excited and offered to come in and work with them several mornings a week. Their teachers were so happy and since they knew my background I was able to work with them in a small room with my own materials. There are very few ELL students at my grandson's school so resources were very limited. At that time their teachers were doing a lot of test prep for state assessments and their teacher's had a very limited time to work with them. They had access to Rosetta Stone and were able to read 1st grade level books on AR (Accelerated Reader). The girls were so happy to find out that I had lived in Seoul, Korea and new a little bit of Korean. At first they were really shy and quiet, especially the twins. I found out that they had only studied English with a private tutor for a few months before coming to Tallahassee.

One day the guidance counselor came to talk with me. She was new to working with ELLs and was trained to give them the IPT Oral English Language Proficiency Test. It is one that I administered more than 1,000 times over 10 years. All 3 girls were Non-English Speakers. You can find out more about this test by clicking on the image below.

Tips about Placement Tests:

• They are usually given within the first few weeks of entering school. 
• Students who are very limited or non-English speaking are usually very shy and may be experiencing "culture shock."
• They must be reliable and valid. (ex: IPT Test of English Language Proficiency)
• Administrators must be "trained"!

I have found that throughout my years of administrating these tests that after a month or so of being in school, many who test as Non-English Speaking start to feel more comfortable and safe to take risks. If the test were administered again they would probably be at the Limited English Proficiency Level and not Non- English Proficient. I found this to be true with the 3 Korean girls I began to work with as well. As I worked with them, they started talking more and more. It truly helped that I knew so much about their country and culture so we could talk about Korean food, holidays, customs, and school. Here is a picture of me with the girls after we played the Korean game of Yut which they play on Lunar New Year. They were so surprised that I had the game and knew how to play it.

In just a few short months their teachers were amazed at how much more they were talking and progressing. Soon they were able to read and answer questions in complete sentences and even sequence a story. Here are a few samples of their work.

Here are the twins with their biography report.

If I can share one important tip with all of you who have students in your classrooms like these 3 girls try to speak slower  especially when you are talking with them. They need lots of wait time to process what you say and when you speak at the same pace as you do to the whole class they probably only hear the first few words and the rest goes right over their heads. The girls told me over and over again that they could understand the material when I taught them because I spoke slower and gave them "think time." It may not seem like much but it is.  

Since my last Everything ESL Post I have added 3 New Beginning Speaking Lessons to my store.

You can check them out by clicking on each image below.

I finally bundled up my 1st 5 ESL Lessons which you can check out by clicking on the image below. You can save more than 20% on this bundle!

You can get a free ESL Beginner Speaking Lesson and get more tips and resources by clicking on the image below:

I have one more free resource for you. I just added this Free ESL Reading and Writing Lesson to my TpT Store. It is a great companion to my ESL Beginning Speaking Lesson: The Four Seasons. I hope you will leave feedback. 

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

Don't forget to follow me on Pinterest by clicking HERE You may also like my Everything ESL Pinterest Board.

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Spring Fluency Tips and Activities

I hope that spring has finally sprung where you are. Here in northern Florida it is in full swing! There are so many things happening in spring and the perfect theme for reading and building fluency.

Fluency is one of the 5 skills necessary to achieve reading proficiency. For students to comprehend what they read they need to become fluent. They need to:

• recognize words automatically
• group words into meaningful phrases
• apply rapid phonic,morphemic, and contextual analyses to identify unknown words

The only way that students become fluent readers is to read. Over the past 20 years research has identified repeated reading as the key strategy for improving students' fluency skills.  Since accuracy and automaticity are a fundamental principals of fluency, teachers who work with beginning readers need to spend a significant amount of time on basic word recognition and word analysis skills. To be effective, teachers need to provide daily opportunities for students to learn to read words accurately. I believe that one of the best ways to achieve this is to use themes and spring is a great theme for building not only word fluency but also phrase, sentence, and text fluency. This is especially important for struggling readers and ESL students. What we do know is that struggling readers don't like to read but if they become fluent with the words, then phrases and sentences first they will begin to build confidence as they become more proficient. Then they can read short passages, poems, and readers theater.

I finally finished my Spring Fluency Activities Packet. It is my biggest packet so far and loaded with lots of great activities beginning with word and phrase activities. These activities are differentiated with just word cards or picture/word cards like the one below.

Once students are fluent with spring vocabulary words they can begin to read sentences like the ones below.

Students will then build sentences with differentiated cards like the ones below.

       

Finally they will read differentiated passages, poems, and partner readers theater like the ones below.

There are assessments for word fluency, phrase fluency, sentence fluency, and reading passages. There are also repeated reading activities like this one below.

To read the description and see sample pages of the differentiated activities in this packet just click on the image below to download the Preview file.

Don't forget to check out all my Pinterest Boards by clicking HERE. Would love to have you follow.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

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Back to School: Tips, Free Resources, and Activities

Summer is flying by and many of you will be heading back to your classrooms in late July and early August. Whether you are  a seasoned teacher, a brand new teacher or changing grade levels, getting ready for the first week of school can be very stressful. I know as I have moved so many times and started so many new teaching jobs and I always had those butterflies in my stomach wondering if the staff would be welcoming and whether I would fit in. Moving from one to state to another I never knew what the students would be like and of course there was always new textbooks and programs to learn. I thought I would put together some of my tips for the 1st week of school and some resources and activities to help you to build a sense of community while organizing and managing your classroom.

Tip #1: Decide what your vision is for your classroom. 

• What do you want it to look like, sound like and feel like?

For me, I wanted my classroom to be like a family, where there was a lot of interaction and it felt warm-a feeling of belonging. Once you have a vision you can decide what you want it to look like. 

Tip #2: Make a plan for the first week of school. 

• What will you do before school starts? Many teachers like to call their students' parents and introduce themselves or send a letter.

Tip #3: First impressions are critical so plan how you will greet your students (and  parents) and get the day started.

• Be yourself! 
• Make the day fun.
• Spend time getting to know your students.
• Spend time for your students to get to know each other.

Tip #4: Decide what your behavior expectations are and how to manage your students during  class time, moving to different activities, lining up, walking in the hall, bathroom, etc. 

• Read alouds are fun for primary grades- I love David Goes to School  by David Shannon for establishing class rules. Let students be a part of the rule setting.
• Chants and songs work well for changing activities for primary grades.
• Choose a quiet signal- and teach it to your students.
• Post the rules so they are visible for students.

Tip #5: Practice behavior expectations.

• Practice walking in the hall, moving to centers or changing activities. If you don't get this under control during the first few weeks of school it will be a long, difficult year. This is critical in Title I schools or those that have students with lots of discipline issues.  

Tip #6: Be consistent with your behavior expectations and consequences.

Tip #7: Take a tour of the school and introduce key staff to your students such as the principal, secretary, nurse, cafeteria staff etc. Make sure your students know all the different areas of your classroom.  

I have put together a few websites with great tips that you also might want to check out. They have wonderful tips and great activities for the first day and week of school Just click on the  pictures below:                                          
                                                   Scholastic    

                                                  TeachHub

                                                NEA

  I also have 2 Activity Packets for the 1st weeks of school that you might want to check out. The 1st is for K-1 called "Hopping into School" It has 17 activities to help build your class community, a fun chant and poem. It has been revised and updated! You can see most of the activities (Sample pages) by downloading the Preview. Just click on the picture below.

 The 2nd one is for grades 2-4 called "Slide into School" It is also new and revised from last year so if you purchased it you can download this one. It also includes 17 activities to help build your class community including a fun activity called "Let's Have a Ball." You can see sample pages of all the activities by downloading the Preview file. Just click on the image below.

Of course I have 2 fun freebies for all my followers and viewers. Below are 2 original raps to use when you are setting up your class rules and behavior expectations. These are great for grades 2-5. I hope you will enjoy them. Just click on the image below.

For the K-1 teachers I have this "Getting Along at School" Poem and Writing Activities. Just click on the image below.

I have lots of new Pinterest boards for you to follow. Just click HERE.

Here are a few you may like. Would love to have you follow. Just click on the images below.

   

I hope your first day of school is everything you hoped for. Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

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What are some of your best BTS tips?