Month: January 2019

✅ ✅ ESL/ELD K-5 Curriculum Map a year long pacing guide!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/ESL-ELD-K-5-Curriculum-Map-a-year-long-pacing-guide-3967021

ESL/ELD K-5 Curriculum Map

a year long pacing guide!

Planning for the year can be overwhelming. Many of you have been asking me for my ESL/ELD curriculum map so here it is!

This year-long ESL/ELD curriculum map, broken down by week, will help you plan your year for all 3 language levels.

✅ Beginner/early intermediate
✅ Intermediate
✅ Early Advanced/Advanced

Each month, under each language level there are language components that I teach during that month. You more than likely have your own resources, activities and curriculum to teach these components. ♥If I have a product that contains all or parts of the language I teach during that month I have listed it. All resource images are click-able links for your convenience. Just click on the image you want to see and it will take you to my TPT store.♥

Each month has a combination of ELD units and/or grammar components essential for English learners. Again choose some or all of what I have here. Feel free to mix it up to suit you!

Click Here to download from TPT!

Every classroom is different! Every teacher teaches differently, and I tried to create this year curriculum map with many different types of classrooms and teachers in mind. I know you may need to tweak this to the needs of your students, classroom, and administration. That’s OK! For example, March is testing month for me. If you need to switch months around to meet your testing time, that is just fine. Do what is best for your students in your classroom.

There is even a column for holidays, which you can use or not use, your choice. How awesome is that people? I mean the whole year is planned out for you.

Click here to download!

Happy Teaching!

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2019/01/esleld-k-5-curriculum-map-year-long.html

The Unapologetic Advocate: Know Your Roots

The word grassroots gets thrown around a lot these days. Whether speaking about advocacy or political campaigns, it’s important to know what grassroots means for TESOL advocates and how you can get involved at the local, state, and federal levels.

What Is Grassroots Advocacy?

Now, the last time I grew a plant, it was in a Styrofoam cup and I was in the third grade—but if memory serves, I put seeds in that cup, added some water, put it in the sunlight, and after a few weeks, voila! I was halfway toward a degree in botany at the tender age of 8. When we talk about grassroots advocacy, the idea is the same, just with slightly less Styrofoam. Issues of concern are planted within the general public, we engage them, spread messaging and information throughout communities, and watch as actions are taken at various levels of government.

When thinking about scope, sometimes advocates hear “grassroots” and automatically think of a small group of people advocating for local change. While that can be the case, grassroots issues and campaigns can vary wildly. Some address issues at a very local level and might only affect a select few, while other grassroots campaigns address national issues impacting millions. Some are over within a few weeks or months, while others can take years, or even decades to be successful at creating change. One other key aspect of grassroots advocacy to remember is that advocates are not paid to speak with their representatives, like professional lobbyists are, although resources are sometimes spent on materials, travel, and so on.

How Can You Get Involved?

Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably already taken part in grassroots advocacy efforts. If you’ve ever promoted an issue you care about on social media, followed my expertly crafted advice and met with your members of Congress, or simply sent an email in support of an issue to your lawmakers, you’ve taken part in grassroots advocacy. Overall, there is a wide variety of actions you can take as a grassroots advocate, which generally depends on the size of the issue you’re addressing and your time commitment.

Some smaller grassroots efforts include social media posts, emails, and phone calls, while some more time-consuming efforts include writing an opinion piece for your local newspaper on issues impacting TESOL or setting up a site-visit to your program or school by a member of Congress. Regardless of the issue and your availability, the most important thing to remember is that all grassroots advocacy efforts are important and can create real, meaningful change.

Why You Should Get Involved in Grassroots Advocacy

If you don’t know the answer to this one, you clearly glanced over my first blog post. It’s okay, though; it can never be said enough that TESOL professionals have a responsibility to advocate on behalf of their students and the issues that impact the field. Perhaps the strongest and most powerful method of advocacy that TESOL professionals can take part in is at the grassroots level, where advocates have the greatest number of opportunities and variety of means to influence change.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/the-unapologetic-advocate-know-your-roots/

I am having a SALE on TPT!

Hi everyone,
Get ready to save!

Just wanted everyone to know that I am having a sale at my Teachers Pay Teachers store!  

Click here to go to my store!

Here is what you need to know!

Discount Percentage: 20%
Start Date: 01/24/2019
End Date: 01/27/2019
Products Selected: All

Click here to go to my store!

Happy shopping!


Click here to go to my store!


Click here to go to my store!



Click here to go to my store!

Happy Teaching! 
Lori
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2019/01/i-am-having-sale-on-tpt.html

💕FREEBIE Formative Assessment Graphic Organizer for Reading💕

Formative Assessment Graphic Organizer for Reading

 

Hello everyone!  Here is a great freebie to add precision to your instruction!  Enjoy!

 

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
………………………………………………………………
………………..

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Formative-Assessment-Graphic-Organizer-for-Reading-4215049#show-price-updateFormative assessments are used during instruction to support the learning process. This student feedback helps us adjust and differentiate ongoing instruction to improve student achievement. 

Most formative assessments are quick and easy and do not take an excessive amount of time. They are easy to use on a daily basis. 
   

Formative assessments include:

✅ exit tickets
✅ lists
✅ bell ringers
✅ summaries
✅ quick write
✅ check lists: interview and observation
✅ journal your learning reflections
✅ graphic organizers 
✅ lists on sticky notes 
✅ anecdotal notes 

Click here for this great freebie!
 

Questions to ask:
💕What did we do in class? 
💕Why did we do it? 
💕What did I learn today?
💕How can I apply it?
💕What questions do I have about it? 

Adjust and differentiate ongoing instruction and improve student achievement with this easy to use graphic organizer.

 

Click here for this great freebie!

 

Happy Teaching! 

 

 

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2019/01/freebie-formative-assessment-graphic.html

Do Children Learn English More Easily Than Adults?

If you Google the title of this blog, you will find a plethora of articles that extol the ability of children to learn a second language. You’ll  read time and time again that children’s brains are like sponges, and they will soak up a new language easily. I want to emphasize that I am not a researcher or a linguist. I’m an ESL professional with 28 years of classroom experience, and I’m basing my opinion on my experiences in the classroom and research that I have read. I think the idea that children learn English more easily than teenagers and adults depends on whether you’re talking Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICs) or Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). To learn the difference, please go here.

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills

Children

I think we all recognize that most young English learners (ELs) in U.S. schools rapidly acquire the language required for social interaction in school. I think these children probably outperform adults in the area of pronunciation, because I never had to teach pronunciation to students in Grades K–5. Most ELs are more highly motivated to communicate socially with their peers than adults are.

They have many opportunities each school day to interact with others. These interactions can happen at the bus stop, on the school bus, on the playground, in the cafeteria, or in the classroom. These ELs spend 6–7 hours a day in a setting where people are speaking English. It must also be noted, however, that children do not have to learn English at the same level as adults to achieve communicative competence in the second language. A child’s constructions are shorter and simpler, and the vocabulary needed to be understood is more limited than it is for an adult.

Adults

It’s possible that adults may not learn social language as quickly as children. Adults aren’t usually exposed to the target language for as long as children, who spend their days in a classroom. Some research shows that it’s not necessarily harder for older learners to acquire English; adults are not necessarily less capable  language learners than children, but they may just not have the same opportunities to learn social language. Also, learning social language is much more complex for adults than it is for children. Adults must also be concerned about how they are perceived by those with whom they are speaking.

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency

Children

For children who arrive in a U.S. school speaking little or no English, learning subject area academic language can be quite difficult. For many young children, it’s extremely distressing to be put into a school where they can’t understand what is being said or communicate with teachers and peers.  Elementary teachers know from their classroom experience that young ELs do not soak up academic language. According to research in the field, it takes children 4–7 years to attain CALP at grade level. Any teacher who works with ELs will tell you that it’s exceptional for these students to learn academic language quickly and easily.

Adults

Older students and adults have access to the memory techniques and other strategies that more experienced learners use in acquiring vocabulary and in learning grammatical rules. They usually have a strong foundation in their first language to fall back on. If they’re learning language through methods that rely on grammar, they are more skilled in dealing with this approach and hence might do better and learn languages faster than children.

Studies that compare children and adults exposed to comparable material in the lab or during the initial months of an immersion program show that adults perform better, not worse, than children (Chacon, 2018; “Do children really learn languages,” 2016; Krashen, Scarcella, & Long, 1979). This may be because they deploy conscious strategies and transfer what they know about their first language. In a recent study at MIT, scientists proved that adults who begin learning a language before 18 years of age can become fluent in that language nearly as well as children.

I think that it is important for educators to examine this question and not automatically assume that children soak up second languages—especially in the case of academic language. We need to educate our schools to the idea that many young ELs struggle to learn the academic English of content-area instruction.

References

Chacon, S. (2018). MIT Scientists prove adults learn a language to fluency almost as well as children. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@chacon/mit-scientists-prove-adults-learn-language-to-fluency-nearly-as-well-as-children-1de888d1d45f

Do children really learn languages faster than adults? (2016). TELC Language Tests. Retrieved from https://www.telc.net/en/about-telc/news/detail/do-children-really-learn-languages-faster-than-adults.html

Krashen, S. D., Scarcella R. C., & Long, M. A. (Eds.). (1982).
Child-adult differences in second language acquisition Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/do-children-learn-english-more-easily-than-adults/

4 Reasons Teachers Should Attend the TESOL Convention

The annual TESOL Convention is a 4-day celebration of the birth of TESOL as a professional organization, so anyone in the field of English language teaching should witness this momentous event. This special gathering of language teaching professionals and scholars from around the world features various engaging activities that promote professional development and advancement. Here are a few reasons you should attend this important annual convention.

Glen Ryan Alejandro, ESL Teacher

1. Exchange Ideas With International Educators

At the TESOL convention, educators and scholars from more than 100 countries exchange ideas and practices, giving attendees the great opportunity to learn different ways to teach based on various cultural perspectives. This exchange of teaching ideas and practices will benefit specially the attendees who teach students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

2. Strengthen Your Professional Network

Attendees expand their professional networks. This means these networks can help extend attendees’ professional resources and job opportunities, both local and international. At the TESOL Convention, attendees may just be chatting with their future colleagues, employers, business partners, or even copresenters at the next TESOL conference.

3. Advance Issues That Matter to You

Attendees share about advocacy efforts in their own communities and learn about others’ as well. In other words, the TESOL Convention is a forum that provides attendees with an opportunity to voice their own views and also to listen to others’ perspectives or to initiate actions on issues that matter the most to them. When I first attended the TESOL convention held in Maryland, USA, in 2003, I had the great opportunity to represent my nonnative-English-speaking community and voice my opinion as a nonnative-English-speaking language teacher.

4. Unite (and Reunite) With TESOLers From Around the World

The TESOL Convention is a reunion of past attendees. It is sometimes unimaginable how these more than 6,000 attendees from around the globe can meet each other again. Thanks to this annual convention that makes it possible, the big world becomes small.

Author Bio
Glen Ryan Alejandro is an ESL teacher in California, USA, and TESOL 2019 Ambassador. He has been a teacher for 23 years and attended 7 TESOL Conventions. Originally from the Philippines, Glen is an advocate for the nonnative English speakers in TESOL community. Glen is a teacher trainer and recipient of 2002–2003 TESOL Professional Development Scholarship and 2011–2012 TESOL Professional Development Travel Grant for Practicing ESL/ EFL Teachers.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/4-reasons-teachers-should-attend-the-tesol-convention/

Welcome to the TESOL Games and Learning Blog

Hello! Welcome to a new year and the new TESOL Games and Learning blog series. I’m thrilled to lead this new TESOL expedition into the world of games. As both a language learning educator and lifelong gamer, it’s exciting to have a new TESOL forum to discuss the rich landscape of games. I hope you will join me each month as we explore games and gamification and examine how each can be leveraged to enhance our classroom practice.

Language learning and games have been a natural fit for decades (see Lee, 1979; Susser, 1979) and it’s easy to see why: Both are inherently social, communicative activities. In the metaanalysis around games and learning, the strongest correlations between games and learning occurs in language (Young, et al., 2012). Yet, uptake among language educators in the use of games, specifically video games, could be described as lagging. In my experience, it’s not a lack of interest or enthusiasm, but an uncertainty on where to start within the diverse landscape of games. After all, the word game describes activities as varied as cricket, Overwatch, and Apples to Apples.

That’s why I would like to begin by covering some foundational aspects of games and work toward a holistic understanding of them before we venture into direct lesson plan ideas for games in the classroom. To start off our gaming adventure, I would like to outline the topics I am eager to cover in the coming months:

  • Games: A definition
  • Gaming vs. gamification
  • What are game mechanics?
  • Making classroom activities more “gamey”
  • Games for the classroom: Choices for beginners
  • eSports, Twitch, and Fortnite—Oh, my!
  • Games and learning: A report from the research

My goal for this blog is to chart the landscape of games and gamification to lower the barriers of entry for educators who are interested in games but unsure where to begin in using them in the classroom. Over the coming months, we will map the mechanics, the concepts, and the communities of practice around games. Understanding these broader aspects is crucial to incorporating games successfully into classroom practice and can inform how we understand them as a literacy practice. Along the way, I will provide links and resources that can help level up your gaming literacy.

Developing a games literacy is perhaps the crucial step in the ultimate effectiveness of games for learning. Colombi and Schleppegrell (2002) asserted that as technology changes it creates new forms of literacy, and these changes require educators to envision literacy as existing beyond reading and writing. All of us are literate in the traditional media literacies: music, books, movies, and television. To this list we must now add games. Unlike traditional forms of media, games do more than describe experiences—games model these experiences (Bogost, 2011), allowing the player choices and agency in ways traditional, linear media do not. Games “create events people can experience and then tell a story about” (crtl500.com, 2015), and it is in this storytelling that games can best serve the language learning classroom.

For those of you already working with games and gamification in the classroom, I look forward to you sharing how in the comments. For those who are gaming novices eager to learn more, please use the comments as a way to reach out, ask questions, and foster connections to enrich your understanding of games. TESOL also offers a fantastic resource in the Electronic Village Online, which offers a session on using Minecraft for the classroom.

Until next month, play more games!

References

Bogost, I. (2011). How to do things with videogames. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Colombi, M. C., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2002). Theory and practice in the development of advanced literacy. In M. J. Schleppegrell & M. C. Colombi, Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages: Meaning with power (pp. 1–19). New York, NY: Routledge.

ctrl500.com. (2015, October 9). 33 on Metacritic: Why my game failed – Control Conference 2015 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbqMjCPmaa8

Lee, W. R. (1979). Language teaching games and contests. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Susser, B. (1979). The noisy way: Teaching English with games. The JALT Journal, 1, 57–70.

Young, M. F., Slota, S., Cutter, A. B., Jalette, G., Mullin, G., Lai, B., Simeoni, Z., Tran, M., & Yukhymenko, M. (2012). Our princess is in another castle: A review of trends in serious gaming for education. Review of Educational Research, 82(1), 61–89.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/welcome-to-the-tesol-games-and-learning-blog/