Arvind Gupta: Turning trash into toys for learning

Brilliant, simple, and inexpensive hands-on toys that will help students understand concrete math and science concepts. I first watched this video a year ago and I continue to love watching his creativity.

Learn your roots

I love learning about the history of the English language...

Anglophile, revisited

A monster encouraged me to major in English.

Beowulf was my gateway drug into loving linguistics, the English language, and teaching English.  I'm still unclear about why I loved reading that text, learning a little Old English, and getting an introductory to the OED (all standard procedure for exploring the creepy underworld of the famous story). It fueled the fire of my Anglophilia, already growing in my teenage brain. It sealed my decision to major in English and spend all day reading books and discussing complex literary topics in college.

Image courtesy of papaija2008 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After a stint using my English degree to write tweets and Facebook posts all day for a living, I returned to the academic world to learn how to teach tiny people. I met the monster again in the pages of the textbooks for literacy and teaching English Language Learners. "Muhahahaha!" he growled, "Sárcwide mec þín brægen" {give me your brain}. I love this so much that I'm reminded of how reading about the foundation of our Modern English inspired me to dig deeper into literary themes.

My chronic curiosity inspires me to learn more about how to teach these kiddos. Today I realized that this chronic curiosity might land me in Great Britain again in the future. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to visit Ireland or England for one of the many conferences and seminars they hold on the topic of teaching English as a second language. Check it out!

• M.Phil. in English Language Teaching at Trinity College Dublin


• British Council's "English Agenda" seminars (some online webcasts here)


• International Association of Multilingualism conferences of interest


• International Association of Multilingualism L3 conference


• International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca

Classroom Routines, Vol. 1

Pinterest has both helped and overwhelmed my brain. I have more than 2,100 pins that I truly believe I will look through. Good grief, I'm a nutcase.

Image courtesy of [KROMKRATHOG] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I read my SIOP book by Jana Echevarria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short, I realize there are so many in-classroom techniques that I will simply never remember to implement or try in my future classroom if I don't make a list! Lists, lists! My kingdom for a list!

These routines and techniques come from "Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model." In paraphrasing their words, I intend only to make note of the great ideas and not to infringe on any copyrights. These are the ideas of the lovely ladies listed above, not my own (unless otherwise noted):

• More than jotting down objectives:
  
  
  
  • Get students to practice (and to make emotional connections) by asking them to find and circle the nouns and verbs (or --Elizabeth's idea-- words that rhyme with another word they've already heard today, like "journal" and "infernal" -- :-P )
  
  
  • Students paraphrase steps
  
  
  • Timed Pair-Share to predict what they might do in the lesson


• Self-Assess:
  
  
  
  • 1, 2, 3 - How well do you know what's going on? "1. I understand this concept, 2. I have studied something like this before, 3. I don't know this"
    
    
    
    • At the end, follow it up with a "How well did you meet the objective today?" self-assessment


• Jigsaw it:
  
  
  
  • This is an instructional model that encourages students to become "experts" about a given vocabulary word, topic, person of importance, etc. Students have to teach each other about what they learned, as they're all experts about different things. Many hands/brains make light work.


• Outline it:
  
  
  
  • If you're a general education teacher (as opposed to an ESOL teacher), consider giving your ELLs a breakdown outline of what you're teaching for each lesson or for each day. You're probably already creating this outline for yourself, so print off another one and give it to your ELL. He or she will be able to better understand what is going on if they have a map of it!


• Let them hear it:
  
  
  
  • Many sites have audio or video support tools for their content. Let students hear or watch supplementary tools to support their learning. No, I don't think technology is always the answer, especially if your students are easily distracted, but if you can show them you trust them to stay on task while scaffolding their learning, this is a good option.