A warm welcome and authentic engagement builds trust, community and capacity! Support Teams and low stakes team practice are some main elements of acceleration. As teachers, we need to help create trust and unity. It is our by our lead that students feel safe and know how and when to let their guard down and lower their effective filter enough so input becomes fluency. Authentic and early engagement, like writing a letter to students before […]
Level 1 Writing about Pictures Activity
Recently, I have developed a new strategy for level 1 students to write about a picture. The students are asked to separate their ideas into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is a description of the people in the picture (who is it, where are they from, what do they do for a living). The second paragraph is about what is happening in the picture at the moment. The attachments below have additional questions for students […]
Revisiting World English Intro
I recently noticed that a few videos from the World English Intro could be used at higher levels for discussion. During my level 3 course I have students read, “What is Ellis Island?” Students encounter a chapter on child labor. I have them watch a video from World English Intro and ask them whether this situation is right or wrong? This video could also be used in a video talking about cultural differences and problems […]
Reading Vocabulary Log
I created a new vocabulary log where students would write down their words they didn’t understand while reading and make an education guess. They will later define the word after reading the chapter or page. Students discuss vocabulary and I usually use the most frequent vocabulary on a test. >>>Vocabulary Log<<<
Invitations Gap Activity
Students are taught ways to accept invitations, create preinvitations, create invitations, and decline invitations. After these methods are taught, students will perform this activity. The invitations gap activity has various scheduled events in which students are attempting to invite each other to fill up their schedules. Directions: Pass out the schedules. Advise students if they have an event on their schedule, they must invite other students to their event. Model an example with a student. […]
Level 1 Writing about Pictures (Verbal to Writing)
Recently, I have developed a new strategy for level 1 students to write about a picture. The students are asked to separate their ideas into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is a description of the people in the picture (who is it, where are they from, what do they do for a living). The second paragraph is about what is happening in the picture at the moment. The attachments below have additional questions for students […]
Spelling Word Bingo
In some classes I like to include spelling words, and have a spelling bee at the end of the semester. I choose words from the most common lists (everyday for beg-int classes, and academic for int-adv classes) or based on key words from class texts. One way to help students review vocabulary in a new way is to have bingo. I have them fill out the blank cards with words from their lists and then […]
Q Skills Essay Checklist
This is an assessment checklist I used for the Cause/Effect essay based on Q Skills 3 “Unit 7”. It is based on the checklist in the book, but adapted to include both self-assessment and peer feedback. Having the checklist and assignment helps students give more effective feedback by providing some vocabulary and angles they may otherwise not know how to communicate. It’s the first time I’ve taught the class, and this time I did not […]
Practice Final (High-Int Writing)
This is a Practice Final I’m using in ESL 268/568: High Intermediate Writing. It’s my first semester teaching the class, so I’m not sure how it will go. Most of the semester we’ve been working from Q Skills 3: Reading and Writing, but I wanted to use a reading and prompt more based on composition classes.
Run-on Sentences!
Students can struggle with run-on sentences for the entire semester. I created this PP to help students see the different ways you can fix a run-on sentence. At the start of a semester, I always go over the basics of sentence structure. I review it for the midterm and again for the final. I start the first writing assignment by focusing on sentence structure and do selective correction on only run-on sentences. This focus on […]