Weekly Update 10-13-15
#BooneEL
How different is your students home language (L1) from English (L2)?
To follow up on the resource from last week on a lengthy discussion of how each language is the same and different from English (Learner English by Swan & Smith). TESOL published this blog with incredible resources:
http://blog.tesol.org/how-different-is-english-from-my-students-l1/
Included is the: Speech Accent Archive, Index of language by writing system and writing direction index, cognate/phrase connections between languages. Another resource shows if word order is the same between L1 and L2.
http://languageexpert.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/0/4/11049906/swan-learnerenglish.pdf
Interfaith celebrations!
OCTOBER
- 13-21
- Navaratri ** - Hindu
- 14
- Hijra - New Year * - Islam (begins sundownon 13)
- 20
- Birth of the Báb - Baha'i (begins sundown on 19)
- Installation of Scriptures as Guru Granth - Sikh
How can mainstream teachers help ELLs?
1. Students should read a book of choice every day.
Research shows that reading daily improves a student's fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, analytical skills, and memory.
2. Your lessons should be multimodal.
Teachers need to present material in various ways to reach all types of learners. You can easily prepare ahead of time by adding visuals that will help the students gain access to the content.
3. Shorten your lecture.
When students are engaged daily in structured conversations, they are learning. The teacher should facilitate that learning. Structure your class so that you're giving five- to seven-minute lectures and then allowing the students to discuss the subject with guided questions and prompts that use academic vocabulary.
4. The students must be writing.
The only way students are going to improve at writing ideas and conventions is to actually write. They should practice writing what they are passionate about -- and that doesn't come from worksheets and drills. After writing sentences and essays, they should learn how to edit and revise their own errors. We should not be correcting their essays for them.
For full article with examples of how to accomplish these four strategies - click the full link below
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/strategies-help-ells-mainstream-classroom-joylynn-nesbittVirtual PD opportunity - looking ahead.
18 November 2015, 10:30 am-12:00 pm ET
FREE for Members, US$45 for Nonmembers
A great blog about idioms of time. How timely! :)
Best websites for learning about Halloween
He has a wealth of information and resources for EL teachers :)
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/10/05/the-best-websites-for-learning-about-halloween/
KYTESOL Recap
I know I got a lot out of the sessions - how about you? To collectively reflect on the sessions, please use the google doc (I emailed it out with permission to edit) - and we'll revisit again using this doc to talk about next steps.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14_vjB53mjlepAZkhD-ypDpw9rHG-an6SioxFtIWw8As/edit?usp=sharing