ESOL Monday Message
September 19, 2016
What's New!!
We have established an ESOL Advisory Team made up of 8 ESOL teachers representing ES/MS/HS and school locations across the county. The purpose of the advisory team is to support ESOL teachers and EL students. We had our first meeting this past Friday and established a focus for the team.
- Support reguar ed teachers with best practices
- Examine support for new students with little or no English
- Review and revise paper work as needed
- Review and revise FCS practices and procedures as needed
- Connect content curriculum with EL best practices
- Share ideas...
More information to come as we move forward with the work.
Community/Parent Involvement
As we quickly come to the end of September, hopefully everyone has had or has scheduled the Title III Parent Information Meeting. This can count as one of the two required parent involvement programs fo EL parents at your school. If you need help, give Michelle or I a call.
Professional Development (revised)
NEW!
Sentence Frames
There is additional information on pages 169-170 in Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model with some ideas for using and makeing examples of sentence frames.
NEW!
SIOP video of the week (5 minutes):
This quick video clip explains the SQP2RS "Squeepers" which is astrategy for reading expository/informational text.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOulq0IkRSk
Review!
Snap Word Apps
There are apps available to purchase from Snapwords. Here is the link to one of the levels. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapwordsa/id501753275?mt=8 The cost is $4.99 and you are able to assign up to 24 students. Just wanted to make you aware of this resource.
SIOP and Sight Word Resources in itsLearning
Many resources have been added to the ESOL teacher course. Although the quality is not stellar, I uploaded the power points I made for my Matt students that allows them to hear the Dolch words being read to them and a pdf file to send home for your Spanish speaking parents (Dolch list 1 to be uploaded soon).
I hope everyone has been using some SIOP strategies in the classroom. Remember at the end of training, the goal set was 1-1-1: one timeframe, one component, one subject. Everyone will share their 1-1-1 during our time together on October 21st.
Several of you have asked for a brief description of the PL I can come out and deliver.Please make sure you go through the correct protocol at your school when inviting me (Please discuss this with your principal and seek their approval as the first step). Dr. Rife sent out to administrators through Friday notes the following description of my role.
Title III (English Learners) Professional Learning Opportunity
With the implementation of the new Teaching and Learning position, the Title III Resource Specialist, we are excited to be able to support your school’s staff in the instruction of English Learners. In order to address the recommendation we received from the DOE to provide Professional Learning related to ELs of sufficient intensity and duration, we have a new option for you this year. Should you choose to invite her, Michelle Slaton is available to deliver the required trainings that, in the past, have been the responsibility of your ESOL team. We are delighted that many of our schools have already scheduled with Michelle to deliver PL throughout this school year. If you would like to discuss what PL she might be able to provide your staff as it relates to supporting ELs, please contact her directly at mslaton@forsyth.k12.ga.us . (Jamie Rife)
1. From Seatwork to Feetwork:
We’ve all heard the saying, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” (I believe it is probably more accurate to say, “I see, and I might remember.) This is true for all learners- including adults.
Although we’ve adopted the theme “From Seatwork to Feetwork,” for our Professional Learning this year related to English Learners, the strategies that will be modeled and explained are applicable for all teachers to use with all students. Quite simply, these strategies are best practices. The goal of the PL is to show teachers ideas, and hopefully spark their creativity to create their own ways (as applicable to their specific content), for giving students opportunities to interact and process learning throughout lessons.
2. Let Them Talk: K-12 All learners need the opportunity to engage in academic discourse as a step in the learning process. This 30-40 minute session will show general ed, content, and ESOL teachers how to guide their students in conducting their own conversations about their learning (gradual release) while using question prompts at higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
3. Say It, Write It: K-12 If students can say it, they can write it. This 30 minute session demonstrates an easy to implement strategy that will lead to better writing in any content area. It is an effective technique for all language proficiency levels.
I can spend the allotted time on a combination of the three (which is what I did for Shiloh Point), or I can present a longer version of any of these. All three address the Interaction component of the SIOP model, which correlates with our PL goal this year. I look forward to seeing you at your schools.
DCD Day- October 21st is our first DCD day for the county. We will all meet as a group to share SIOP implementation stories (1 time frame, 1 component, 1 subject/class period) and develop our Forsyth County SIOP implementation plan. More information will be forthcoming!
Monthly Responsibilities (revised)
Bilingual/ESL Program Type and State-Support Delivery Model tabs
Please make sure you have completed the tabs for consult and parent waived, as well as your currently served ESOL students. Having your data clerk run a report to show all EL-Y students with the tab information is an effective and quick way to check if you've missed any of them.
September Timeline
- Coordinate with testing coordinator at school to assure accommodations.
ESOL schedule (with administrator assistance), class ID’s, student ID’s, scaled scores.
Parent Info Meeting.
Complete staff ESOL training. Go over ACCESS test scores with teachers.
Begin placing uploading digital copy of Test Participation Form for 2016-2017 in IC. Place copy with signature in student’s blue ESOL folder in permanent record. Assure students are receiving these accommodations in their classroom on a consistent basis.