ELD Weekly Bulletin
Title III/ELD Listserv - September 14, 2015
The Power of the Positive Phone Call Home
When I first started teaching and was overwhelmed by the demands and complexity of the job, my survival strategy was simply to take all the advice that came my way and implement it. So when my wise mentor suggested that after the first day of school I call all of my second grader's parents, I did so.
In spite of my exhaustion, I called each family and introduced myself. I asked a few questions about their child. I said that their kid had had a good first day. I said I looked forward to working together.
Throughout that year, and the years that followed, I continued this practice -- I had an intuitive feeling that it was key: The positive phone call home. After the first days, as soon as I'd identified the kids who might be challenging, I made it a goal to call home with positive news every week. I'd share this goal with my students, greeting them at the door with something like: "I'm so excited to see you this morning, Oscar! I am going to be watching you really closely today to find some good news to share with your mom this evening. I can't wait to call her and tell her what a good day you had!"
When I taught middle school, this strategy made the difference between an unmanageable group of kids and an easy group. You'd be surprised, perhaps, how desperately an eighth grade boy wants his mom (or dad or grandma or pastor) to get a positive call home. On the first day of school I'd give students a survey that included this question, "Who would you like me to call when I have good news to share about how you're doing in my class? You're welcome to list up to five people and please let them know I might call -- even tonight or tomorrow!"
Click here to read more about the power of the positive phone call for your ELLs.
Language Line Quick Reference Guide
SIOP Saturday Coming Soon!
OCR Language Map App
Constructive Classroom Conversations: Mastering Language for College and Career Readiness (Fall 2015)
The Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards emphasize improving the quality of student-to-student discourse as a major feature of instruction. The new standards specifically describe the importance of students understanding the reasoning of others and engaging in meaningful conversations using evidence for claims. Yet this type of student-to-student interaction tends to be rare in classrooms. Common classroom teaching activities such as whole class discussions, jigsaws, and think-pair-shares can have the appearance of constructive interactions, but they often do not provide adequate opportunities for all students to engage in back-and-forth dialog. This course looks closely at student-to-student conversations and addresses ways to improve students' abilities to engage in the types of interactions described in the new standards.
This course consists of four main sessions with three weeks between each session in order to provide extra time for application and reflection. The learning in this course relies heavily on participant contributions and comments, especially in the team collaboration setting. Participants will be expected to complete both team and individual assignments for all sessions. The sessions and assignments are designed for participants who teach or have access to classrooms in which they can gather samples of students' conversation during lessons. Finally, we include resources and tasks for instructional coaches and others who support teachers and build school-wide capacity.
Brain Breaks in the Target Language
As I have been reflecting on my class this summer, I decided that I want to use more brain breaks when school starts. However, I would like them to be in the target language. I wanted to come up with a reference list to use while I am lesson planning. I have compiled 12 brain breaks to use that will be effective in a foreign language class. I found the first batch here:
- Nose-ear change: This could easily be explained to beginning students using TPR (Total Physical Response), and it would allow for repetitions of body parts. You could also try to include different ones. The students hold their right ear with their left hand and hold their nose with their right hand. Then, they switch to hold their left ear with their right hand and their nose with their left hand.
- Vocabulary Hot Potato: Students stand in a circle. One student says a vocabulary word and passes the ball to the person next to them. That student has to state the first letter in the word and passes the ball to the next person. That person adds another letter. This continues until the word is spelled completely.
- Snowball: This would be a better ice breaker than brain break, but you could shorten it up by only including one fact or one thing that students did over the weekend. Students write 3-5 facts about themselves in the TL. They then ball up their paper, and students have a “snowball” fight with the papers. Each student retrieves one “snowball.” Students then have to guess who wrote down which facts.
Check out this great teacher resource
Title III/ELD Upcoming Events
September 15, 8:30am - Rosetta Stone Software Training (Secondary)
September 15, 12:30pm - Rosetta Stone Software Training (Secondary)
September 15, 3:30pm - Building an ELD Service Schedule (Elementary)
September 16, 3:30pm - PowerSchool for Veteran ELD Teachers (Elementary)
September 16, 4:30pm - PowerSchool for Veteran ELD Teachers (Secondary)
September 17, 8:30am - Imagine Learning Software Training (Elementary)
September 17, 12:30pm - Imagine Learning Software Training (Elementary)
September 19, 8:30am - SIOP Saturday (Day 1)
Click here to view the Title III/ELD Calendar.
ELD Weekly Bulletins for SY2015-2016
September 7,2015 August 31, 2015 August 24, 2015 August 19, 2015 August 17, 2015 August 10, 2015 August 3, 2015 July 27, 2015