Beyond Fronteras
A Celebration of our ESC1 Bilingual Community: November 2020
On the Spotlight
We would like to thank the hundreds of people who accessed our first ever newsletter last month. Your responses have been amazing! Thank you so much for your support! This is exactly the fuel we need to continue putting Region One on the map!
And what a better way to highlight the wonderful things that take place in our beautiful border area than highlighting students, teachers, and administrators who make this region "la región número uno, en todo el sentido de la palabra" como dijera nuestra querida Connie Guerra, former Bilingual/ESL Director in Region One ESC :)
Let's get started by recognizing our 2020 Texas Superintendent of the Year, Dr. J.A. Gonzalez! Dr. Gonzalez has lead McAllen ISD for the past 4 years, doing an incredible job transitioning the district into full virtual learning mode after COVID-19 hit in March. In October 2, he was recognized as the 2020 Texas Superintendent of the Year by the Texas Association of School Boards. Click here to watch this special moment. Dr. Gonzalez is a testament to the resilience, perseverance, and strength that our superintendents in Region One offer to each one of our students and families. ¡Mil felicidades, Dr. Gonzalez and McAllen ISD for this great honor!
We would also like to highlight a former student from Hidalgo Early College High School, Karen Gracia, who is now a Floor Director at Fox News San Antonio! Karen exemplifies the tenacity, dedication, and passion that our students in our region bring to the table. To learn more about Karen's story, click here. ¡Felicidades Karen y que sigan los éxitos!
¿Y qué tal los chiquitos de la primaria Delia G. García Elementary en Roma ISD que crearon hermosos altares de muertos en honor a sus seres queridos y los compartieron con sus maestros y compañeros en Zoom? Or what about those little ones who read "libritos" about the life of many Latinos and about Hispanic heritage, culture, and traditions during the Hispanic Appreciation Month in September and October? They even danced to La Bamba, Celia Cruz, and their very own Selina! They also watched El Chapulín Colorado and El Chavo! Way to go Roma ISD for fostering the love of the Hispanic culture in our students!
We are so very proud of all the administrators, teachers, students, and families who make this region the best in the nation. Let's keep highlighting these wonderful stories and share with the world what makes Region One such a special place to live and to learn!
¡Mil gracias y esperamos que disfruten este boletín!
KChapa :)
Enrich Your Lesson Plans with Jamboard, by Claudia Coronado
Enrich your lesson plans and open up new ways for your students by using Jamboard. Jamboard is a smart display that makes learning visible and accessible to all collaborators on the jam session. Jamboard provides a shared platform for team brainstorming and planning, supports learning in subjects that benefit from more flexibility and enables differentiated literacy challenges. The following are some of Jamboard’s features that can be used in the classroom:
1. Draw: Use a pen, marker, highlighter or brush. You can draw from pre-determined colors.
2. Eraser: Erase something you've drawn.
3. Select: Choose and adjust a shape, sticky note, image, text box.
4. Sticky note: Add a sticky note with text. You can choose from several colors.
5. Image: Add an image from your device, image search, Google Drive or Photos.
6. Shapes: Add a circle, square, triangle, diamond, rounded rectangle, half circle, bar or arrow.
7. Text box: Add a box where you can type and format text.
8. Laser: Use a pointer to emphasize and highlight certain items on the screen when presenting ideas to others.
9. Background: Choose from dots, lines, graphs, or dark colors.
Multicultural Book Spotlight, by Dr. Lileana Ríos-Ledezma
Hairs Pelitos, by Sandra Cisneros
A jewel from Sandra Cisneros’s best-selling book, The House on Mango Street, Hairs Pelitos is an extraordinary bilingual picture book with eye-catching illustrations and a strong message of embracing diversity!
A young girl describes how each person in the family has hair that looks and acts differently. Purple-faced Papá has hair “like a broom, all up in the air,” while Mama’s hair: “sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you”. This book is highly recommended for grades PK-1st; however, it is MUST read in our world where we celebrate individuality, unique identities, and the special bonds beyond what our eyes can see that tie us together.
~ ESL CORNER ~
Tips for ESL teachers, by Claudia Coronado
The native language is often seen as a complex feature of the ESL classroom and there are many dilemmas whether to use native language in class. The importance of the native language is emphasized by the fact that the students’ language is part of their culture and by neglecting their language, the teacher, in a monolingual classroom, neglects their culture which leads to the danger of neglecting their identity as well. A strategy that can be used in the ESL classroom to value the native language is called “preview, view, review,” which leverages a student’s native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. The teacher introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language; the teacher then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language. This strategy allows students to activate prior knowledge, allowing for cross language connections.
~ LA ESQUINA BILINGÜE ~
Tips for Bilingual Teachers, by Niranda Flores
Developing oral language is one of the most critical components to becoming a skilled reader. If getting your language learners to take ownership over their conversations is one of the challenges you face as a bilingual teacher, then below is an instructional strategy designed to help foster academic discussions. In addition, the strategy has also been modified to fit the virtual world. Let’s allow our students to develop oral language at a cognitive level by talking about relevant content!
Socratic Seminar: Students will be given the opportunity to affirm learning and/or address misconceptions by sharing their insights and questions pertaining to content they have previously learned. For this instructional strategy, the classroom setup will consist of two sets of circles, one big outer circle and one small inner one (four to six chairs). Students select where they sit and LET THE DISCUSSION BEGIN!
Inner circle: does all the talking. If needed, the teacher can scaffold the activity by providing each student with the following sentence stems: I feel, I think, I know, My question is.
Outer circle: listens attentively and takes notes. If needed, this can also be scaffolded by helping the students focus on specific topics presented during the discussion. The teacher can either display the list of topics or provide students a graphic organizer, such as a Tree Map, with the specific topics noted.
After five minutes of discussing, the inner circle students will be replaced with students from the outer circle. The best way to select the new inner circle students is through randomization. At first, the focus of this routine is on student participation and building a level of comfort for ALL students. Afterwards, the contributions pertaining more to content will become the main focus. From personal experience, students as young as second graders can successfully participate in a Socratic Seminar.
Virtual Twist: only unmute the students who will be participating in the discussion (inner circle), meanwhile the rest of the students take notes on a Google Doc (outer circle). This will facilitate monitoring of student participation and ensure individual accountability.
~ SELF-CARE CORNER ~
Because CARING begins with YOU! By Niranda Flores
~ Paréntesis Cultural ~
2 de noviembre: Día de Muertos, por Karina Chapa
¿Sabías que...?
The Bridge, por Lileana Ríos-Ledezma, PhD
Regardless of the bilingual education program model your school or school district is currently implementing, educators must consider implementing what Beeman and Urow have named The Bridge, for our emergent bilinguals or two-language learners to make connections across languages. In Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages, the authors explain that The Bridge is an instructional moment teachers utilize to help students connect concepts that they have learned in one language to the other language. It is a two-way tool that facilitates cross-linguistic transfer and develops metalinguistic awareness to encourage students to explore the similarities and differences between the systems of languages.
The Bridge is student-centered; however, it begins with the teacher first placing the two languages side by side and guiding students to communicate what they learned and generating a list of key terms in Spanish, for example. Students and teachers work together to generate the equivalent of those terms in English. Secondly, The Bridge includes a contrastive analysis so that students can visually compare how the two languages work. The findings are captured on an anchor chart so that learners can continue to refer back to them as needed.
More on "The Bridge" on our December newsletter! ¡No te lo pierdas!
~ BILINGUAL DIRECTORS CORNER ~
What a Month!
New Engagement Resources on the EL Portal: https://www.txel.org/titleiii
2020–2021 LPAC Decision-Making Resources
Participation of English learners in State Assessments requires LPACs to make assessment decisions on an individual student basis. TEA has uploaded the latest resources to their webpage to provide LPACs with the information they need to comply with state requirements as they monitor the progress and needs of ELs and make state assessment decisions for the following:
- State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR)
- Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS)
- TELPAS Alternate
REMEMBER! LPACs must meet now for each English Learner who will be taking an assessment in December! Decisions may not be carried from the Spring or the Summer to the Fall. However, they may be carried from the Fall to the Spring and the Summer! Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
Title III Courses Now Available at ESC1
November 7: E3 for ALL! Transforming Education through Effective, Engaging, and Equitable Learning
The 6th Annual Effective Educators Leading Success VIRTUAL Conference presents a full day of informative sessions that will inspire a renewed sense of purpose, commitment to educational excellence, and new skills to transform face-to-face, synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid learning opportunities for ALL learners! If your district is a TEKS Resource System, Option 2 district, you and your staff may attend for free! Check out the flyer for more information!
~ UPCOMING EVENTS ~
- EL Support Division Zoom Meeting with TEA (ESCs and LEAs): 11/06
- Effective Educators Leading Success Conference: 11/07
- Texas Assessment Conference: 11/16-17
- ESC1 Assessment Conference: 12/01
- RGV-TABE Virtual Conference: 01/22-23
Contact Us
Karina E. Zuno-Chapa, M.Ed.
Director of Language Proficiency, Biliteracy, and Cultural Diversity
956-984-6246
Claudia Coronado, M.Ed.
Bilingual/ESL Specialist
956-984-6246
Niranda Flores, M.Ed.
Bilingual/ESL Specialist
956-984-6158
Lileana Ríos-Ledezma, PhD
Bilingual/ESL Specialist
956-984-6153
Diana Gonzalez
Program Assistant
956-984-6238
Email: kchapa@esc1.net
Website: www.esc1.net/bilingual
Location: 1900 West Schunior Street, Edinburg, TX, USA
Phone: 956-984-6246
Facebook: facebook.com/ESC1Bilingual
Twitter: @esc1bilingual