Middle School.. Oh My

I taught at the Middle School for five years and raised five children, I am quite aware of the struggles that come with Middle School. Add to those struggles the fact that you don't speak English, or don't speak English well, and you find the struggle is real.

There are several strategies that teachers can adopt to support English language learners in the middle grades.  Valentina Gonzalez, a professional development specialist for ELs in Texas, wrote this blog post where she suggests using more visual tools and focusing on small groups.  I follow Valentina on Twitter.  As a language learner herself, she always has great ideas to share.  Her post reinforces many of the ideas I have shared in the past. There is also a link to a post by Tan Huynh. You should read this too.  Tan has many wonderful ideas and strategies for ELs.  He is a must follow on social media. Enjoy!

Promoting Language Development in the Mainstream Classroom

Another Hat

Zipping in and out of different buildings makes it challenging for me to find time to meaningfully connect with the classroom teachers of students in our English Language Development program. 

I plan to share a weekly post featuring a handful of ideas for increasing our students' opportunities to engage in reading, writing, listening, or speaking. Not all of the ideas shared in this post will be designed for your grade level or content area and some of these ideas may not be new to you. It is my hope that the suggestions will inspire you to try new approaches that will enrich your instruction and promote language development in your classroom.

Classroom teachers wear many hats: content specialist, nurse, coach, referee, nutritionist, reading teacher, counselor, cheerleader, surrogate parent, and several other roles that are too many in number to list here. Even though you're already balancing so many identities, I hope you have a little more room on your head to wear one of my favorite hats. Not only are you a teacher, but you are also an academic language acquisition specialist!

An Idea to Teach Listening

Listenwise!

Listenwise is a website that contains listening passages from podcasts and public radio stories. These passages and questions are designed for students in middle school through high school. Watch the videos below for a brief review of Listenwise and follow this link to create a free account.

An Idea to Teach Reading

Non-fiction Strategy: Rewriting an Author's Words

Cleverly written headings and titles are a great way to grab the attention of your audience. The practice of manipulating the English language for literary effect, however, leaves ELs scratching their heads (see what I did there?). Teaching students to rewrite titles, headings, and subheadings so that they truly reflect the content of the passage will increase their inferencing skills and also clarify their understanding of the text.  

• Discuss how some titles/headings/ subheadings are written very clearly to state exactly what is written in the section whereas others are written less clearly.
• Show examples of both, emphasizing how you must make inferences to make meaning from the cleverly written text.
• Provide students with an informal text that contains titles/subtitles/headings that do not explicitly state the meaning of the passage.
• Model filling in the chart. 
• Take time to discuss the nuances of English that allow the author to use the chosen terms to catch your attention.
• Allow the students to work in partners or small groups to complete the chart.

Follow this link to make a copy of the chart and use it with your own lesson!

This idea was modified from Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers with 300 strategies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

An Idea to Teach Speaking

Hippo Video

My current favorite tool for providing opportunities for our students to record themselves speaking is Flipgrid.  Flipgrid is a simple tool used by several teachers across the district.  There is an excellent tutorial on Canvas on how to use Flipgrid if you are interested in learning more.

Another tool for teaching speaking is the website and Chrome Extension Hippo Video.  There are several uses for Hippo Video from flipped lessons to screen recordings and sharing.  What the video below created by my friend Katy for a brief review of Hippo Video and follow this link to create a free account.

An Idea to Teach Writing

Old Fashioned Word Banks

For our students still developing their writing proficiencies, I cannot emphasize enough how helpful they find an old-fashioned word bank. Whether you expect your students to write one-word answers, brief phrases, complete sentences, or multiple paragraphs, the word bank provides a scaffold to support ELs and other struggling writers.

The immediate benefit of offering a word bank is that having the words on hand reduces the anxiety they harbor regarding their ability to write academic text. The long-term benefit is that by having repeated exposure to the printed term, they make stronger connections to the term when used orally and begin to use the term independently.

Word banks can be created by you, developed by the individual student, or even created collaboratively as a class. Word banks don't take a lot of time to develop but will pay out heftily in terms of providing students an opportunity to create more robust academic writing. Here is an article about working with students to create a class word bank. If you want your students to use more academic vocabulary in their writing, an easy way to achieve that is by offering word banks.

Care to Collaborate?

Are you interesting in collaborating to integrate more language development strategies into your instruction? Post a comment below.

Thank you to my friend Katy Booher for sharing her videos and ideas.

Edpuzzle

I love Edpuzzle and have presented on it at a couple of conferences.  This tool is great for getting students engaged in learning and can be used for every grade level.  For example, a high school science teacher was struggling with how to accommodate a lesson for his ELLs without losing rigor.  I helped him create a lesson an Edpuzzle which took the video he selected for all students to watch and added in stops for clarification, definition, and questions.  The students were able to listen, rewind, listen again... move at their own pace to complete the activity with understanding.

I have also used Edpuzzle in elementary school to help pace a lesson using a video.  With Edpuzzle I can plug in questions, define or clarify, and add think-alouds to selected spots as we watch the video together.  If a student was absent, they could easily watch the video on their own and have the same information that everyone else did when they return or while still at home.

Here is an example lesson I helped prepare that uses Edpuzzle (last page).

The following is an advertisement from Edpuzzle and a link to where you can sign up for your own free account.

Class Tag

Here is a tool for keeping in contact with parents.  It translates!

Reach every parent with ClassTag

Have you heard of ClassTag? I’m a big fan of this parent communication tool. I even spent time with them at their booth at ISTE a few years ago. ClassTag is a popular family communication tool with lots of special features for teachers and families.

ClassTag is totally free and includes direct messaging using both email and text messages to communicate. Teachers can set up class-wide announcements as well. So you can send a notification to everyone or a special message to just one or a few families. There is the option to share videos and photos too making it perfect for every day sharing or sharing after a field trip or assembly. Teachers can also use ClassTag for meeting signups during parent-teacher conferences.

Parent Features

ClassTag adapts to parent preferences. When you send a message, directly to a parent or to the class, they automatically receive it in the way they choose. For example, there is an automatic translation into over fifty languages. So if a parent signs up with your unique code, they will receive messages from you in their native language. Parents can also decide if they want to receive messages from teachers via email or text. ClassTag is available on any device, so families can read messages and receive updates from their go-to device like a cell phone or laptop.

Teacher Features

In addition to these special features for families, there are lots of perks for teachers too. Teachers using ClassTag can see who is the loop. That’s because ClassTag lets you know who has read a message, and who hasn’t seen a message yet. This information can help you make sure families see all of the critical information you share. Teachers will also receive notifications when a family’s contact details are in need of an update. This way you can send notes home or make a phone call to families who may be hard to reach electronically.

Click here to sign up for a ClassTag account - it's free!

January tips for family engagement

To kick off 2019, a free ClassTag account can give you opportunities to take control of everything on your calendar. In addition to the features mentioned above, I want to spotlight a few activities you can create with ClassTag to try out this month!

1. Create Events: This year, keep your upcoming events organized through ClassTag. You can create an event in ClassTag that lets every family know about the next parent curriculum night, school play, or anything else on this month's schedule.

2. Request Volunteers: Whether you're hosting a car wash or looking for parents to present on career day, ClassTag can help you manage volunteer requests. With a few clicks on your ClassTag teacher dashboard you can request volunteers for anything going on in your classroom this month.

3. Item Requests: If you have a list full of to do items and know that families in your class can help, you can create a "to do item" in ClassTag. This means you have the opportunity to ask for help from families and know who has committed to making sure things run smoothly in your classroom this month.

4. Conference Sign-Ups: Are parent-teacher conferences on your schedule this quarter? You can create a sign up schedule for families using the ClassTag platform.

In the image above, you can see how easy it is to click on the Activities tab and choose which activity you'd like to create for your class.

Another way to use ClassTag this year is for weekly summaries. At the beginning or end of each week - you choose the time - you can send out a weekly summary to families. This way you can keep everyone up-to-date and start 2019 off strong!

Click here to sign up for a ClassTag account - it's free!