Strategies for Improving Instruction for English Language Learners

Ways to Help ELL Students in the Classroom 

Helping ESL students build vocabulary and become accustomed to the U.S. education system can be a challenging task for teachers, but it is essential for the success and integration of these students in their new academic environment. English as a Second Language (ESL) students may have various difficulties, such as limited exposure to English, difficulties in understanding colloquial expressions and idioms, and difficulties in understanding academic language. Here are some strategies that teachers can use to support the vocabulary development and cultural adaptation of ESL students in the U.S. education system.

Use visual aids and realia: 

Visual aids, such as pictures, diagrams, and real objects, can be very helpful in supporting vocabulary development, especially for younger students or those with limited exposure to the language. By showing a picture of a new vocabulary word, for example, you can help the students make connections between the word and its meaning. Realia, or real objects, can also be used to introduce new vocabulary in a concrete and meaningful way. For example, if you teach the word "quilt," you can bring in a quilt for the students to see and touch. Posters using real images like these are better for ELL students because they depict objects in their true settings.

Use context clues:

 Context clues are hints in the text or the surroundings that help the reader or listener infer the meaning of a new word. For example, if a student comes across the word "flabbergasted" in a passage, the context clues "shocked" and "stunned" might help them understand the meaning of the word. Teachers can help ESL students develop their vocabulary by providing them with context clues and teaching them how to use them to infer the meaning of new words.

Teach word parts: 

Word parts, such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots, can be very helpful in helping students understand the meaning of new words. For example, by teaching the prefix "anti-" (meaning "against"), a student might be able to guess the meaning of the word "antipathy" (a feeling of strong dislike). Teaching word parts can also help students understand the relationships between words and build their vocabulary more effectively.

A good place to start in upper elementary is with Greek and Latin roots. Building in daily lessons and displaying print-rich resources around the room will give your students constant exposure to words. Currently, I have these posters in my classroom and my students are CONSTANTLY referencing them.

Get your posters from Teach Starter

Use graphic organizers: 

Graphic organizers are visual tools that help students organize and understand new information. They can be particularly helpful for ESL students because they visually represent the relationship between words and concepts. Some examples of graphic organizers that can be used to support vocabulary development include concept maps, Venn diagrams, and mind maps.

Provide opportunities for oral and written practice: 

Providing opportunities for oral and written practice is essential for vocabulary development. Oral practice can be in class discussions, debates, presentations, and other activities requiring students to speak and listen to English. Written practice can be in the form of writing assignments, such as paragraphs, essays, or reports. Both oral and written practice can help students become more comfortable with using new vocabulary in different contexts and improve their overall language skills.

For more ideas, check out Teach Starter's blog, 13 Speaking and Listening Activities to Boost Your Students' Skills

Encourage the use of English outside of the classroom: 

Encouraging the use of English outside of the classroom is an important way to support the language development of ESL students. This can be as simple as encouraging students to speak English with their classmates during lunch or recess or encouraging them to watch English-language movies or TV shows. The more opportunities students have to use English in a natural and authentic setting, the more comfortable they will become with the language.

Provide cultural support: 

Adjusting to a new education system can be challenging for any student, but it can be particularly difficult for ESL students who may also be adjusting to a new culture. Teachers can help these students by providing cultural support and education. This can include teaching students about the customs and traditions of the U.S., as well as including activities highlighting students' own cultures and traditions.

Veterans Day in the Classroom

Every year, I spend a little time celebrating Veterans Day in my classroom to showcase veterans' sacrifices for our country. I want our children to truly understand what that means and how much it impacts their everyday lives. If you're looking to do something similar in your classroom, here are a few ways to celebrate Veterans Day.

With limited time to create, I've come across a literal gold mine regarding classroom resources. Teach Starter...just. go. check. it. out!

1. Invite veterans to speak to your students. If possible, invite the veterans in your students' lives to come to school on Veterans Day itself. It's always fun to put up a Veterans Day bulletin board to show them how much they mean. 

2. Have your students write letters to veterans thanking them for their service. Teachers can make copies of letters that have been written by students in the past or create new ones based on what they know about the veteran they are writing to. We used this card template two years in a row to send letters to the Wounded Warrior Project.

3. Have your class read books about veterans or people who served in the military so that they understand what it means to serve our country and how much it means to those who do so!

The Funniest Gift Exchange Ever!

Hello Friends! Just dropping in on a quiet evening before Christmas to share a fun little activity that I did with my class this past week. Feel trree to pin any images and save this idea for next year. It is definitely one that I will do again!

For a little background, I work in a Title I School in a very low income area. My students struggle to have the necessities, and it is even harder this time of year for them to come up with anything extra. On my teacher budget, I didn't have much extra to get them myself!

I always love doing a gift exchange. However, this year it wasn't in the cards for my sweet kids, and I still wanted them to have some fun before our party. So instead of doing a traditional gift exchange, we decided to have the "Worst Christmas Gift Ever! Exchange. Students had a few rules to follow in order to participate.

1. Nothing stinky. If it smells, it goes in the trash.
2. Nothing that could spread disease. (We had a big discussion on this!)
3. Nothing wet or sticky.
4. No bodily fluids. (including spit, poop, earwax, boogers, etc) Fun discussion.
5. It has to be a terrible gift to receive, and its wrapping must be bad as well.

To tie this into the curriculum, students were notified that they would be writing an opinion paper discussing the worst gift, and the characteristics that qualified it as the worst gift ever. And I have to tell you.... some of them were horrid! And the kids absolutely loved it! It was hilarious, all in good fun, and a creative way to tie in a piece of boring writing that last week before Christmas break. I will be sharing links to some resources below that you can use, as well as a few photographs of our horrendous Christmas gifts! Enjoy!

 Priceless.... A lovely potato makes a terrible Christmas gift... It was wrapped in wrapping that looked to have been shredded by a small animal. This one got a few laughs from the kids.









Pretty gross one here... A bag of old candy wrappers, enveloped in cat hair trimmings. It was pretty gross, when you got up close. Twas also wrapped in a lovely sheathing of old aluminum foil.

Lovely mustachioed Barbie doll... at one point she was decapitated and her head was being passed around. She wasn't wrapped at all!

 This one was pretty creepy. The hairy blob you see was once a Barbie Head. She was given a haircut, covered in glue, and dipped in her own hair clippings and paint. She was also given a pencil neck, a bed of broken bracelets, and a lovely wrapping of brown paper bag. The gift that keeps on giving.... you the creeps....

 Sad...Sad...Sad.... iPad Mini box. The kid who got this one was really excited... and then opened it to find a measly little bookmark. I think this one got the biggest round of giggles.

And a final entry into the foray of horrible gifts.... Here we have a teddy bear made from toilet paper and tape, then covered in dryer lint. It smelled of hairspray, so I'm guessing that was the adhesive for the lint. Honestly, it was a little creepy looking. And it was wrapped in a Doc McStuffins Pull-Up.... Definitely a terrible thing to wrap a gift in.

All in all, the activity was a big hit with my kiddoes. They went straight to their desks after the present passing, and started jotting down characteristics and ideas for the gift that they felt was the worst. Once their ideas were in place, they were able to jump online and start a rough draft essay using the document linked below. Feel free to click the link and make yourself a copy. If you use Google Classroom, and Google Slides, you will find that it may be useful for your students.

Google Slides Essay Template

Another fun activity we did this week was the Funky Reindeer craft that I found over on Teach Starter. They turned out beautifully! Head over to check them out!

I Have Returned!! A Reintroduction and a Classroom Tour

Holy smokes, Folks!! It has been a long time since my last post here. Between life, school, and a toddler who is wide open pretty much 24 hours a day, there hasn't been an inkling of time for me to get in here and start sharing again.

As an update, many of you know that I made the move two years ago to middle school. While I really enjoyed the kids, and the fun literature that I got to teach to my 6, 7, and 8th grade kids, the environment that I walked into was not a good one. I stayed for two years, and couldn't do it anymore. I loved my kids, my coworkers, and my curriculum. However, administration made it very difficult to love my job.  So this year... I was lucky enough to voyage my way back into elementary school!!

I left the middle school, and walked right back into the same elementary school that I left two years ago. This time, I was happy to accept a fifth grade position that specialized in Mathematics. So currently, I am teaching three segments of Math each day, one Advanced Content Reading Block, and a Block of Language arts. So far, I'm really enjoying it! The math is brutal, and has a huge learning curve...but I'm readjusting once again. I feel like I am back where I needed to be, and I couldn't be more happy. 

So as a reintroduction, I am sharing my classroom this year. I'm two doors down from my old classroom, and the layout is pretty much the same. But my love for Harry Potter reared its head and made its way into my classroom. Below are all of the photos of my Harry Potter Classroom this year! Hope you enjoy them!

The far wall of my room. Bookshelves hold my materials.. Students are allowed to sit in the black chairs. I brought in my personal collection of Harry Potter stuff to decorate this space. The Hogwarts banners are from Amazon, and the rules posters are free ones that I found online and printed!

Red bins are file crates that my students use to store their interactive notebooks and other materials in. Each bin is labeled with a class period. Place value line is one that I made, along with the math alphabet line at the top. Classroom library is down on the end in the multicolored crates. 

Another shot of that back corner. Class rules poster is one that I made and had printed on Vistaprint. File hanger on bulletin board is for absent work.  There are also flying keys hanging from the ceiling as well!

Monday Made It! Classroom Reveal!

Hello everyone!! This week I'm linking up once again with Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It! And since I'm all finished with my classroom, I thought I would share my classroom reveal at the same time! All of my decor this year was made by me and I can't be more excited about how it all turned out!! Get ready, because this might be a lengthy post!!

First off, my outdoor bulletin board is all Minion-ized. Since I don't have a Cameo or anything, all of those minions and lettering were printed and hand-cut by yours truly.. I have a blister to prove it! I love the way it turned out and can't wait for the kiddoes to come in and see them!

Inside the classroom, I only have one bulletin board--but it runs the entire length of the room. That big thing gets split into all sorts of configurations, and it ended up looking like this!

Our daily schedule is on the far end, and the larger section is where I will post all of our learning objectives. The white sheets are just laminated posterboard. All of the headers and such were printed on cardstock and laminated with my handy at-home laminator.

This is where my students will chart the number of A.R. Points that they earn. Each time they meet a level, they will move their nametag down the wall. Each level earns a small prize until they get to 100 points--and that's when they get to pick the big prize! A free book from the book order!

Our math fact wall--The kids have buttons with their names on them that they will move to the different levels as they pass them. At the end of the year, if they pass them all, they get to have a Fun Day!

And our class rules take up a little space on this display.

Next up are two bulletin boards that we use daily for Flex Math and Guided Reading. I didn't necessarily MAKE these, but I did put them up!

To learn a bit more about how I run my math groups...click HERE.

 Almost done! Here are just a couple more things that I made for my classroom. LABELS! I love organized materials, so I label things for my kids and for myself to keep us in order. First up is my math carts. These carts store the things we need for math stations. Fact cards, our timed tests, and any manipulatives or sheets we need are in this cart. The kids will be responsible for getting their own things ready for the period and it all comes out of this cart.

And all of our folders needed minion labels too, so I made those as well! 

And I was finally able to hang up some of my TPT goodies, like these  Subway Art Synonym Posters that I got from The Brown Bag Teacher.

And that's about it... I also made some yellow curtains for my room as well, but I forgot to take a picture of them... I'm not very proud of those since I used my stapler to make them!! But you can't even tell because they hang at the top of about a 10 foot tall window.  I've got a couple more things in store, but right now I'm going to enjoy being home with my husband and my girls...because work starts again on Tuesday. Where did my summer go??

See you next week!

Click here to head back to Fourth Grade Frolics for more Monday Made Its!

Two for Tuesday! Multiplication and Addition Mosaics

Howdy again! Today I'm linking up with my friend Cyndie again from Chalk One up for Teacher! It is Two For Tuesday, and I thought I would share some BACK TO SCHOOL (those are bad words) goodies with you! The two products you see below are two different versions of my Math Mosaics available in my store. One set is for multiplication, so grades 4-5 would be able to do these at the beginning of the year. The other set is addition, something that I use as morning work on the first days of school when my kiddoes are just getting used to the routine.  I hope you'll check them out and grab them up while they are on sale! They are currently marked down to $1.50 per set, instead of $3.00
.

Make sure you check out the other deals below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Made It! Pacing Guide and 3-D Projects

Hello again, it's Made It Monday! This week I haven't done a lot as far as craftiness, but I have been working on some things for school.. (sad face--I go back in two weeks). I'm usually itching to get my classroom set up, but this year my heart is in another place. You see, I've been home since April with my baby girl, and it breaks my heart to even think of leaving her. The smiles I get when she wakes up in the mornings are priceless, and I'm going to miss those so much when I go back. Luckily, she will be staying home with her daddy so I don't have to worry about her going to daycare.

So here we go with my Monday Made Its! Just a couple of simple things this week.

First of all, I want to share with you a couple of 3-D projects I created for my TPT store. They are aligned with the Georgia Social Studies and Science standards for 3rd grade, so if you know another teacher in Georgia that needs materials, share this post with them!

The first project I finished up was my 3-D Georgia Regions Cube. With this one, students do all of their work throughout the unit on the packet handouts, and at the end, create an awesome 3-D cube. If you are interested, click on the cover image below.

The second one that I created was a bit of a stretch for me. This one covers all of the famous Americans that we study here in Georgia. It is much like the cube project, only it ends up creating a DODECAHEDRON! It is a twelve-sided creation that my kids are sure to love. And they make awesome display pieces. If you are interested, click on the cover picture below.

And last, but not least, I was finally able to sit down and lay out my pacing guide for the year. I am privileged to work with an AMAZING team and we have third grade down to a science! 

We've been together for seven years now, and each year gets a bit better than the last. The next few images are my pacing guide for the year. 

 In case you are wondering, the yellow blocks indicate short weeks, early dismissal days, etc. This way we know to plan around those days.

The next page shows what happens when we get to Spring testing season. At the beginning of March, each of us four teachers departmentalizes and teaches a single subject to all four classes. Our kids rotate through all of the classrooms in the mornings, and we finish up review activities in the afternoons. We find that it works amazingly well, and breaks up some of the humdrum of test review.

Want a copy? Click here for a PDF of my pacing guide.

And that's it folks! My Monday Made Its are in. While they are simple, they are going to be great for the upcoming school year....even though I'm very, very, very, sad about having to go back. I mean, who can resist this sweet face? Am I right?