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!