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!

Snap It Up Saturday! Chalking Up Another Week!

Howdy ya'll! Another week back in school and I'm beat! The nerves are a little frazzled due to a bunch of new things that I have taken on but I feel like it may all straighten out pretty soon. I guess I need to drop that procrastination off somewhere and start jumping in as soon as something new strikes. We've been SOOO busy at school I thought I would share a few things that we've been doing this week, along with this week's Snap It Up Saturday! Giveaway.

First off, in math we've been working on remembering our addition with regrouping skills. It seems like those disappear during the summer between second and third grade. Most of my class jumped right in and had no difficulty pulling those old skills back into their repertoires. I still have a couple that need some intervention, but we'll get to that during our flex math block. This week, we grabbed up our iPods and went to work with some QR codes. I have a lively class and they aren't quiet for very long but the iPods held attention like a dream and they worked diligently. All you could hear was the random YES!!! when they solved a problem correctly.

I also pulled out an old Science lesson that I did last year with my kids to show them how water pollution affects animals and how difficult it is to clean up.You can read that post here. The different this year was that I had them put feathers in their pond to represent birds. We polluted our water with cooking oil and the kids had to rescue their "ducks" and attempt to clean them off with paper towels and cotton rounds. Needless to say, the kids realized that their "ducks" died from being covered with oil and that it was next to impossible to get all of the oil out of their pond. Here we are having a bit of messy fun in the classroom!

 It was a good week! We had a field trip to our local recycling center on Friday morning. The kids loved seeing how everything gets sorted (by our state prisoners) and remade into other products. But, even with all of that educational loveliness, their most favorite part...The flocks of vultures that seem to love the area so much.  

Now on to today's Snap It Up Saturday! giveaway. I whipped up a little set of chalk-esque frames for you today. There are nine and they have transparent backgrounds so they can be layered over just about anything. I think they look pretty cute against black and green backgrounds. Maybe you'll find some use for them!

As always, have a great weekend and thank you for following. And just so you know how happy I am to have a 3 day weekend, here's how I feel...

See you next week!

Snap It Up Saturday! Super Shape Sort and an Exciting Event!

Hey ya'll! It's me again. I made it through the first week of school and I'm just about to get my groove back! My ADD-ness doesn't like not having a structured day in place in the classroom and I have been uber-stressed! It's starting to fade but I have a feeling it will be back soon!...I have a lot on my plate. I'm a wife, mother, teacher, gymnastics chauffeur, TPT author, blogger, and now I'm enrolled in courses for my Gifted certification and am piloting our new teacher evaluation system at my school. Maybe I should go back for my six-year just to top off my leaning tower of sanity! Not really...I'm not a glutton for punishment.

Anyway, I thought I would stop in and share this week's Snap it Up Saturday with you and let you know about a MASSIVE event that is happening this weekend. Drumroll Please.......

Surprise! It's not a clipart collection! But I hope you'll enjoy it just the same. I just haven't had the time to draw like I did over the summer, so I thought I would share one of my math games that I created for my classroom. It's a fun little shape sorting game for grades 2-3, maybe even some upper level firsties as well! Click on the image below to download the file.

And on to a little more pressing news! This weekend, August 18th and 19th, there is a ginormous (yep...according to my daughter..that is a word) Back to School Sale event happening over on Teachers Pay Teachers! My entire store will be on sale for 20% off, and if you use the coupon code from TPT, you get an additional 8% off your purchase as well! If you've got a wishlist going like I do, now is a great time to stock up! Especially if you have some higher priced goodies in your cart. I know my credit card will be screaming at me on Sunday evening, but I can't wait! There are so many high quality teaching resources available on TPT that it's like being privy to a specialized publisher who creates things specifically for you. Make sure you stop in during the big event and snatch up some back to school awesomeness! 

If you're on the hunt for some fun back to school activities, make sure you swing by my store. I have a whole category of BTS materials and they'll all be available at a fantastic discount! And third grade teachers, there are definitely some deals for you! Click below to visit my store.

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!

Closing Out The School Year..With some fun!

I thought the day would never come. Here in North Georgia, we finally made it through the last day of school. We attend for half a day on the last day of school and I absolutely LOVE it. Something about knowing that there are only four hours to go when I get to work in the morning makes the day seem a bit sweeter. There were tears and sadness that quickly turned into cheers and happiness as the kids boarded those buses on the way home today. Teachers were crying, kids were crying and then it happened...silence. The race was on...who could hit the door first? It was me!!.

We have spent our last week together as third graders having as much fun as possible. I wanted the kids to remember their third grade years with some fond memories so I planned out a week full of fun activities. I thought here would be a great place to share some of those ideas. Maybe you can bring some fun into your last weeks as well.

Day One- Creative Classroom Crafts

Since this was a Monday, I decided to start with something low key and easy to prep. A while back ago, I was trolling TPT for some fun ideas when I ran across the neatest end-of-year memory project I have ever seen! Mr. Hughes, a fantastic seller on TPT has created a series of projects called 3-D Dodecahedrons. He has them for all sorts of applications and they run about five bucks a set. I couldn't pass up the project so I snapped it up as fast as I could key in my password. I did splurge and print the sets on cardstock, which I would recommend because it helps with assembly. We took all day on Monday to create these awesome projects and display them in our classroom. You can find the link to the product here.

The kids LOVED them and they were so fun to make! Here are a few shots of how they turned out.

Pardon the clutter...I was packing up stuff for the floor crew to come in. :-)

Day Two-Outdoor Sports Day

Bring on the sunblock because we set our sights on being outdoors ALL day long. We made it most of the day but the temps got a little too high and my little girls started sweating and it was just terrible. They were like wilted flowers. My kids all brought in their sports equipment/outdoor games/etc and we headed for the ball field out back. Bubbles, soccer, football, kickball, and several other sports were represented. We even held a kickball tourney against one of the other classes. By the end of the day, we were all worn out and my classroom smelled like a men's locker room but it was fun!

After the wilting girls decided we just had to go inside, we set out to make a fun little craftivity to decorate our desks during our class party..and we ended up with Perry the Platypus! And friends! I drew out the template and the kids went to town with paper bags. We also used all the junk paper from our desks to stuff them. Score! Two tasks in one!

 Day Three-Game Day

This day was the easiest and by far the quietest. On this day, the kids got to bring in their games (electronic or board games) and play ALL day. Well, maybe not all day. We had our school talent show in the afternoon. I was actually really surprised at the number of kids that had multiple portable gaming systems at their disposal. I never had one as a child...and my own daughter doesn't have one. Personally, I'm not a fan of video games myself, I find more value in a good book. But overall, this day was a HUGE hit with the kids.

Day Four- Classroom Competition Day

We spent an entire day competing against each other in all sorts of competitions. Many of them were academic games with a Jeopardy theme, going through some of our curriculum highlights from the year. You can find some of what we used here. We also headed outside for relay games and other races. The highlight of the day was when we had a Minute to Win It competition. If you are not familiar with the game, you must check out NBC's website and see all of the awesomeness that you can bring in with nominal materials.

There are even videos on the site for directions. We just played them in class!

These are a few that we did together..the kids worked in teams to compete for small prizes from the prize bin.

Chocolate Unicorn- (requires 21 cookies/snack cakes for 3 teams) Hilarious!

Face the Cookie- Kids have to move a cookie from their forehead to their mouth using only facial muscles. Again...HILARIOUS!

Hanky Race- Requires 3 boxes of tissues and masking tape if you are running 3 teams. Tissue boxes are taped around students waists.

Junk in Your Trunk- Reuses empty tissue boxes from Hanky race and ping pong balls.Students have to try to bounce the ping pong balls out of the tissue boxes using their backsides. The kids rolled with laughter.

Nose Dive- Requires cotton balls, vaseline and three containers. Kids have vaselined noses and have to transport cotton balls into their container the fastest. Here we are playing!

Dizzy Mummy- Requires three rolls of toilet paper. They loved this one!

Day Five- Movie Day

It was a long week...it was a half day. We also scheduled our classroom party for today as well. To rest up for our imminent summer vacation, we settled in with blankets and pillows and watched a good movie. But not before we celebrated with our Red Carpet Celebration. Each month, two students from each class get chosen for good deeds, attitudes, etc. and they get to walk the red carpet in front of the whole school whilst being cheered for. 

Overall, the week was a success. My kids and I had a blast together and they will most definitely remember being wrapped in toilet paper and trying to eat a cookie off of their forehead in the third grade. As a teacher, it is times like these that I remember. Not benchmarking, not behavior problems, not even state testing. Making memories is what really matters and I feel like we might have made a few this week. For those of you still in the swing of things, take the time to have some fun with your kids. Before too long, you'll be getting graduation invitations from them.

Have a great summer!

Randi