Common Core and ESL = thin ice

I am watching the Presidential Inauguration 2013, on Martin Luther King Day, and I hope my ESL students are watching this historic event.  But, I know that it is not the same for them.  This is not their home country, and many do not even know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance.  Most are grateful for what the U.S. has given them and their families, but they still do not fully accept the U.S. as home. Would you?

In Teacherland these days we are being inundated with the Common Core.  Students must be College ready and read more rigorous texts...  When I hear this, I agree that students should be held to high standards, but then I think of my students and how hard they struggle with their work now and that sometimes they are happy to get a D because at least it is not an F.  So now, they will be expected to read harder texts and make arguments and claims and so on and so on, and I hope my students can stay afloat. What can I do, in an ESL class, that will give them skills to help them walk over this Common Core thin ice without falling in?

My first thought is reading, the more they read the more they get comfortable with reading different texts.  Their motivation often wanes second semester so I introduced - The Amazing Reading Race - to my classes that I hope will motivate them to read different types of books independently.  I did not make this, I got this from the following website, Unique Teaching Resources.  http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/reading-passports.html.
This resource has some great projects and are very affordable.

 

Students are to read and report on 7 different genres and when finished with a book they can color in a continent.  I have seen it motivate even the most reluctant reader and as of now they all are reading!  Here is the display in my room.

 





The second thing I thought would be difficult for my students was research and using the internet.  I always have technologically-driven projects going on because I believe students need to be able to use technology to help their learning.  But, the major difficulty is finding reliable information on the internet and how to cite sources.  I decided to move slowly and create small projects throughout the year that would give them skills for research. 

 

We use an online program called Noodletools, that students use to cite their sources.  As long as my students know what information they need to cite a source it should be easy, right?  Not so much.  Here is a simple task that helps them find facts and cite sources - Wacky Winter Facts.

 

Wacky Winter Facts

 

 

 

Students had to find two interesting facts about winter on the internet, write down the source information from the web page, enter it into NoodleTools, and make a poster to display the fact with the source citation.  This was the first time many students even knew where to look for copyright dates, how to make a text box, or what a citation should look like.  I think they learned alot and it introduced them to some skills they would need in the future.

 

This is a page I made to guide them as they found information.  The second page had more specific instructions about NoodleTools Citing and making the poster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next step is being able to decipher all those informational texts they will be flooded with and already are flooded with.  I have yet to plan this out but I have found a great website that gives many links to websites with non-fiction articles.  http://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/02/sources-of-short-web-based-text.html#  Check it out!  I will post my projects as soon as they are completed!

 

 

 "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Amy

 

 



The Final Countdown

There are about two more weeks until Winter break and they can be the hardest two weeks of the year.  It is difficult to keep the students excited about reading, writing, and learning exciting things like subject and predicate, helping verbs, etc.  Over the years I have found that key motivating factors for middle school students is making the activities relative to their lives and giving them choices.  Now, more than ever, it is easier to create interesting and multimodal activities using IPads or anything digital.  Here are a few activities I have done recently that the students really got into and seemed to enjoy.  They are all inspired by other teachers' activities that I have found on Pinterest, so I cannot take credit for the ideas.

ANGRY VERBS

Students had to choose 3 different birds or pigs and on each write a sentence - 1 with an action verb, 1 with a helping verb, and 1 with a linking verb. 

 

 

HAUNTED HOUSE FOR SALE

After students learned about adjectives and paragraph form, they then wrote a two paragraph persuasive report trying to sell a haunted house.  They used a graphic organizer first and then wrote a rough draft. They described the inside and then the outside of the house and why someone should buy their house using lots of spooky adjectives.  Then they made their own house out of construction paper.  October was the best month to do this activity!

 

 

 COMIC SENTENCES

My students are studying different types of sentences, simple and compound, run-on, and fragments, etc.  They reviewed the four types of sentences - Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, and Exclamatory - by using the app, Comic Book, on the IPads.  They had to take pictures of themselves with different expressions and in the speech bubbles they had to use each kind of sentence.  Check out the app, they had a lot of fun with this project and loved being able to put their own pictures in and create something digital.
 

   

 

 The next projects in the next two weeks are a creative writing project, "If I lived in a snowglobe...", and Story Elements drawn as apps on an ipod.  We are reading a novel, A Wrinkle in Time, and when we are finished they will complete a project that is presented as a menu, so they have different choices of activities.  Pictures to come soon... 

 

 

 

 Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!

 

 

 Amy

Culture Shock and the ESL Student

 

          

CULTURE SHOCK!  

 

Everyone has felt out of their element at some point in their life, whether it is going to spend some time in another country or to another part of your own country. Some of my students have come from a completely different culture and some have come meeting their parents for the first time!  Middle school is hard enough!  Some won't talk for awhile and seem depressed while others will be angry and refuse to follow the rules.  Teachers ask things like "Is he normal?" "Why can't she follow the rules?" Yes, they are normal and sometimes they just don't understand the rules and social cues.  I recently wrote a newsletter to my teachers about culture shock and the different stages some students may go through and what we as educators can do to help them with the transition.

 

Below is a picture of typical stages some students may go through after they arrive.
 

The Hostility stage is when they need our understanding the most.  Keep in mind these stages may take a few months for a student that comes with a base of language, but when they are emergent students the whole process takes much longer.

What can we do?

1. Take some time to explain certain procedures

Here’s a list of some things that may need extra explanation to a newcomer:

Class rules                                 Fire Drills                        Tests and quizzes – scantron may be very foreign
Morning and lunch rituals        Holidays                          Report Cards and grading systems
Assemblies                               Substitute teachers      School conduct – lockers, bathroom passes
Gym routines                           Hierarchy in schools       Schedules – ACE, BDF, 1^st semester, 1^st nine weeks

2.  Assign them a buddy – have a responsible student be their guide

3.  Celebrate small successes – Build their confidence!  Give lots of encouragement and praise for the things they CAN do! 

4.  Empathize – have patience with the student and scaffold their assignments so they don’t feel overwhelmed at first. 

5.  Involve them– Give them small tasks like passing out papers or erasing the board to make them feel part of the group.

6.  Careful questioning – Don’t put them on the spot and ask a difficult question in front of the whole class.  Give them a question ahead of time so they will participate with confidence.  Ask them to show you what they know – If you ask “Do you understand?”  they will most likely say yes even if they do not understand.

 

 

HELPFUL LINKS THAT GIVE INSIGHT INTO CULTURES AND CULTURE SHOCK:

                                

                                    Portrait of Classrooms around the World 

 

   

           Culture Crossing - Gain some insight on cultural differences with this site

 

 A clip from "Lost Boys of Sudan" which shows their struggles with understanding the U.S. culture.

 

 

 

"Strangers in a new culture see only what they know." -Unknown

 

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Amy

Word of the year - Sky- crapper!

One of my students was trying to read the word skyscraper and it came out as sky-crapper.  Needless to say, the rest of the class cracked up and now whenever we see that word or even if they just need a laugh, they will say sky-crapper.  Can't wait for the day my principal comes in and my students are saying sky-crapper over and over again.  Secretly it makes me laugh, but I hope we get a new word soon!  I'm just glad my students feel comfortable enough in my classroom to make mistakes, laugh at themselves, and support each other.

As promised here is a picture of the Tagxedo project the students did at the beginning of the year.  They made a tagxedo word cloud in any shape they wanted, then put the shape onto a T-shirt.  Then I took a picture of them and blew up the head.  The students loved the finished project.  You can also see my vocabulary tree beside some of the students.  The tree gets more leaves everytime they learn new vocabulary words so it is constantly growing.

 



To study spelling words and vocabulary I have the students use the website Spelling Vocabulary City.  www.spellingcity.com     It has tests and fun games they can use to practice from any computer.  We are in the process of buying the premium services so I will let you know if that is a necessity or not.  There are a few games free.  They also have a free IPAD app and the students had a ball using the IPADS to study their words.  Below is a couple of pictures of the students using the IPADS.

 

   

Next up is a couple of weeks of adjectives activities.  English language learners come with a limited amount of vocabulary so identifying adjectives is difficult and using interesting adjectives in their writing is also difficult for these students.  I love lists, so I am arming them with a list of adjectives that I found from another blog.  http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/2011/10/lots-lots-of-lists-11-freebies.html

 

 

 To get into the holiday spirit I am going to adapt a descriptive writing lesson called "Haunted House for Sale" from the clutter free classroom blog.  Students describe their haunted house using tons of spooky adjectives and create their own haunted house.  Should be a fun way to incorporate adjectives into their writing.

 

 

Also, here's a catchy song to use when studying adjectives.

  

 

 

 

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand." Chinese Proverb

 

Happy Teaching!!

 

Amy

It's not as easy as you think!

I am having fun teaching my giggly 6th graders and swaggering 8th graders.  One boy said to me the other day, "I have learned something new every day in your class!"  Wow!  What a compliment!  But the pressure is on and I've got to keep that momentum up for the rest of the year. 

Being an ESL teacher is not as easy as it looks.  We cannot just pull out the textbook and teach a concept as is, there are countless modifications to make and I find myself pulling from many different sources.  I have become an expert in making my own worksheets and figuring out what would work for my students.  This takes lots of  - TIME!   Time is a luxury most teachers do not have and with some teachers having well over 100 students, modifying and figuring out how to help their ESL students can be a daunting task.

My job is not just to help the students in my class but also to help teachers with ESL students and help them find simple and effective ways to help their students.  Here's how I used to give them information - I would copy lots of information about student levels and lists of modifications, staple it all together, and put it in the teacher's mailboxes.  Guess where those papers went - on the pile with all the rest of beginning of the year correspondence, and eventually ending up somewhere on the bottom or lost. Then two weeks later I would get questions about things that were answered in that packet and it became apparent that it was not the best way to get information to the teachers.

So now I send a newsletter every month by e-mail, and I give them all the necessary information they need at different times of the year.  It also serves as a reminder to the teachers that yes, they still have ESL students in their classroom and they shouldn't forget to give them support.  Here are pictures of my first newsletter (names have been taken out for privacy).

 

I also put in names of any new ESL students who enroll in our school, strategies and interesting links for teachers.  So far, I've gotten very positive feedback!


My next venture is using something I saw on Pinterest , ANGRY VERBS!  I think my students will love it, I will keep you posted.


Amy

Finally get to use my Russian Dictionaries!

So the first week is over and I was hoping that everything out of my control, such as scheduling and move ins and move outs would be settled, but alas, that is not the case.  I think after another week my 6th graders will know where they are going and my 7th and 8th graders will start losing their first week politeness. 

First post on my new blog!

What should I blog about?  That is the first question you ask yourself, right?  Now, I am a very humble person by nature, so I will not say that I am an expert in something, but there has to be something I'm good at, right?  Besides my family and pets, my life seems to revolve around teaching ESL and writing. I am starting my twelfth year of teaching ESL in the United States and my mind is full of experiences and ideas, so now you get to hear them, because that is what I am going to blog about!

I chose the title - The ESL Experience - because I feel that my ESL students have impacted me in so many ways over the years, probably just as much as I have impacted them.  The world of teaching ESL in America is so multi-faceted and challenging - it takes alot of flexibility and passion to teach in this field.   I have been an ESL (English as a second Language) middle school teacher for twelve years and prior to that I was an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher in the spectacular country of Spain.  Over these years I have experienced so many different and unique cultures and attitudes.  I have had students from countries that I didn 't really even know how to find on a map! I know, embarrassing for a teacher! 

The one question I get the most from people who ask about my profession is this one - So, do you need to speak all those languages in order to teach those students?  I always smile at this question.  How could I possible learn 10 or 15 different languages?  Because I have taught students with at least that many different languages.  I speak Spanish, but it is very rare that I have a class full of students that speak Spanish.  Where I live, I may get one or two.  Does it help for a newcomer to have a teacher who speaks his or her language? Of course!  Wouldn't you be more at ease if you knew at least one person could understand you in a classroom of a new school in a new country?  Well, the answer to the question is - No, you do not have to know the language of every student, but you do have to smile at them and find at least one thing you can do to communicate with them. The first impression they get from you will stick with them for a long time. Newcomers learn from observing and listening, so give them time to listen and when you least expect it they will come up to you with a full sentence in English and surprise you.

I have a new set of students to prepare for now, so I will have to stop the blogging for now.  Stay tuned for posts about ideas for the ESL classroom that I have found to be successful and my experiences with new ideas I plan to implement this year.  The first step is the hardest, scheduling the students and getting them into classes where they will receive the support they need.  If I could just go in and teach, it would be a dream.  But, no matter how messed up the schedule gets, I will be there with a smile for the students and make them feel welcome because they don't understand all that goes on behind the scenes.  All they know is that they have a paper that says I am their teacher and that they are scared to death.


Amy