Not a Winner

I appreciate all of your encouraging words the other night and I know you were all anxious to find out if I won the Arizona ELL Teacher of the Year Award, so I wanted to let you know the results. I did not win, although I am told I was in the Top 10!!!
The winner was a very deserving teacher, that some of you may know, Jennifer Stults.  She taught at Madison Rose Lane for awhile before leaving us to go to the Paradise Valley School District. Losing to a fellow Madison teacher does not make me feel bad at all and after hearing about all of her accomplishments at the award ceremony, I definitely agree that she is very deserving of the award.
If you know Jennifer, please give her your congratulations and thank you again for your support of me-maybe next time : )

Our Last Class

We can't thank all of you enough for your enthusiasm and willingness to learn and try out all of the new strategies that we shared with you over the last five weeks. You were a great group and you made teaching the class a real joy!
This is the first time that we have taught a series of classes like this and we would really appreciate any feedback that you can give us-good and bad. Please let us know:

• what things you liked, 
• what things you didn't like, 
• any changes or suggestions you have for us to improve the class, if it is taught again
• the one biggest thing that you will remember or take with you from any of the 5 classes

Remember that this blog will remain here for you. Please check in with us every once in awhile and share your celebrations and ideas. Post questions and respond to the questions of others when you can. You also have our email addresses if you have a specific question that you would like for Linda or I to answer for you. So please feel free to let us know if we can help you in anyway. As I tell my kids: once a student of mine, always a student of mine-all you have to do is ask if you ever need anything!

Thanks again for a great class experience and we wish you all the best of luck for the rest of the school year!

Week 4

Linda and I shared quite a few strategies with you this week, I hope that we didn't overwhelm you!
Please keep in mind that these strategies are excellent ways to help build your students vocabulary and understanding of morphology.
To refresh your memory, the strategies we discussed were:

• Noun Study
• Antonym Study
• Vocabulary Frames
• Vertical Sentences
• Morph House

We would like for you to try out at least two or more of these strategies in your room and reflect on the process, any celebrations, and any difficulties that you encounter. How will these strategies effect your students in areas other than oral language, such as reading and writing?


Our next class will be our last class, so please take a little time to reflect on everything that we have shared with you and come to class prepared to ask any questions or offer any suggestions that you have uncovered over the course of our classes. We would also like to invite you to bring examples of student work from your classroom. We would all love to see what your kids are doing with these strategies.  
I have included a new page to our blog which provides an illustration of how the strategies that we have discussed fit into the Language Star, look for the tab at the top of the blog. This illustration will help you to see how these activities will help your students to meet the needs found within the Language Star.  
Have a great week and I am looking forward to our last session together!

Week 3

We were once again impressed with your enthusiasm and participation last night, we had some pretty heavy information to share with you and you all did a great job!  Linda and I realize that next week we have only 2 days of school and you will probably be doing some special Thanksgiving activities, so you may not have the time needed to prepare for and tackle a Collaborative Story Retell. So....

Please try some of the Language Warmup activities that we shared with you in your class and let us know how it goes.  Perhaps you will want to start with the ABCs and Numbers and see how that goes at first, then move on to other activities as you and your students become more comfortable with it.  

We would also like to ask you to reflect on the Collaborative Story Retell process and compare it to what you currently do in your classroom. 

• How are the two processes similar and how are they different? Student roles and Teacher roles?
• Does your current practice offer the same vocabulary and sentence support as the method we showed you?  
• If not, do you believe that these extra supports will help your students to be more successful? Why?

Please plan on trying a Collaborative Story Retell after the break!  Enjoy your time off and we will see you in two weeks!!

Week 2

Thanks for another wonderful class!
I really have to applaud all of you for your enthusiasm and willingness to participate, especially tonight when I know you were all anxious to get home and begin enjoying your extra day off tomorrow.
It is obvious from your questions, responses, and the ideas that you contribute, that you are really focused and are taking the time to really think about what we are trying to share with you, for this we Thank You!

Please plan on teaching a Verb Tense Study with your students next week. Even if your students are still learning what a noun and a verb are, you can use the simple present tense lesson to reinforce those two concepts while teaching them of what a sentence looks like. These students may require a lot of support at first, but they CAN do it! Let us all know how it went and any celebrations or suggestions you may have discovered.

**If you need help finding pictures, check out these websites:
http://compfight.com/
http://www.iconfinder.com/

or my favorite:
Google Images

Week 1 Question

We discussed the SEI Strategies and why they are important for all of your students, not just your ELLs.
Please reflect on your own current classroom practices and assess which of these strategies you feel you are already doing a good job of using with your students. 
Then think about the strategies that you may want to make a conscious effort to increase the use of in your classroom and how you will make sure that you are reminded to do that.
Please share your thoughts with us.
Again, Thank you for a great class last night!

First Class

Wow, what a great night! Thank you all so much for coming.
I am looking forward to our next meeting, I believe that we are all going to learn a lot from each other!

Introductions and Expectations

This blog was created as a way for all of us to share and reflect on our learning during this class. We hope that you will use it to share ideas, advice, celebrations, frustrations, questions, and answers. In addition, Linda and I will be posting a question each week to help us deepen our understanding of the concepts we are learning.  
As part of our class requirements, you will be required to respond to the question each week. 
Our hope is that you will use this blog to do more than just answer the question each week, but also as a free discussion and line of communication amongst all of us.

Your First Assignment:


Introduce yourself to each other. Who are you and what experience, if any, have you had with second language learners. Then share with us what your expectations are for this class. Do you have any specific needs or questions that you would like to have addressed?

Welcome!

Welcome to everyone who has come to join us in learning some highly effective methodologies that can be used to increase our students English language skills. We are excited to be a part of this learning community and hope that all of us will walk away with new ideas and new insights in how best to help our students be successful!