Edutopia

8 Essentials For Earning Your Students' Respect Every School Year – Bored Teachers This article was written by Adam Hatch - UC Berkeley graduate, son of a teacher, brother of a teacher, and a teacher himself. Adam started a unique English school in Taipei, Taiwan, where kids learn to research and write articles in English. The articles are published on the first ever English newspaper written by kids in Taiwan, called the Taipei Teen Tribune. The first day of class is the hardest day. 1. Some teachers think giving students the freedom to pick their seats is a way of signaling you respect their decisions and want to give them some degree of freedom. This accomplishes a few things. 2. The first day of class should be about getting to know each other and getting to understand the material, as well as hopefully doing some work, but it’s imperative you take the time to explain the basic boundaries of your class. It’s not enough to just tell students what your expectations are, however. 3. Walking around the room has a few benefits. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Free Printable Worksheets for ESL Teachers and Students Most of the free printable worksheets on EnglishHints.com can be used online or downloaded for use whenever you want. This page includes a list of links to the downloadable pdf versions. (Many of these ESL printables are also available on the related pages on English Hints.com.) You may use these ESL printables freely at home or in an ESL classroom as long as you keep the copyright notice on the bottom of each page. (You may not sell these or otherwise use them commercially or on another website, though you may link to the pages.) I hope you find these free printable worksheets helpful. You will need Adobe Reader (the latest version is best) installed on your computer in order to download or print these pdfs. If you want to open the file in your browser window, just click on the link for each pdf. When you are ready to use it, locate the place on your computer where you saved it, and double click to open it. Vocabulary Improvement Worksheets Free Grammar Worksheets ESL Printable Puzzles

Reading Coach: Incidental Vocabulary By Cathy Puett Miller Note: This final article in a series on vocabulary instruction builds upon previous articles. If you missed the earlier articles, you might want to take at least a brief look at them before proceeding. (See sidebar 2 for links to previous articles in this series.) As we already know, incidental learning plays a critical role in vocabulary acquisition. Word knowledge is incremental. (Promoting Students Vocabulary Development: An Overview) Put your students in situations that allow them to experience all three types of learning. Preparation: Quickly read with students the class list of Intriguing Words. The Activity Break students into small teams. Through regular use of this activity, students will become masters at figuring out what words mean. A.

15 Reflection Strategies To Help Students Retain What You Just Taught Them - 15 Reflection Strategies To Help Students Retain What You Just Taught Them by Terry Heick Reflection is a natural part of learning. We all think about new experiences–the camping on the car ride home, the mistakes made in a game, or the emotions felt while finishing a long-term project that’s taken months to complete. Below I’ve shared 15 strategies for students to reflect on their learning. This post pairs nicely with 8 Reflective Questions To Help Any Student Think About Their Learning. 1. Pair-share is a classic learning strategy where students are paired, and then verbally ‘share’ something that will help them learn new content, deepen understanding, or review what they already know. 2. Sentence-stems are great because they’re like training wheels–or to mix a metaphor, tools to coach students into thinking and speaking in certain patterns. You can also see our sentence stems for critical thinking here for other examples (you don’t have to buy the materials to see the samples). 3. 4. 6.

How to Use a Visual Dictionary It's important to know how to use a visual dictionary as an English learner. In fact, I'd say that along with a collocation dictionary, a visual dictionary can be a secret weapon when it comes to learning new vocabulary. Of course, you'll always need a standard learner's dictionary, but using these other types will really help you expand your vocabulary quickly. What's the difference between a Visual Dictionary and a "Normal" Dictionary? A visual dictionary teaches through pictures. Visual Dictionary Differences Using a standard dictionary requires you to look up a word alphabetically. One negative aspect of visual dictionaries is that they do not provide words that are in similar (or opposite) in meaning. Many visual dictionaries do not provide pronunciation for individual words. How Should I Use a Visual Dictionary? Use a visual dictionary when you need to understand a specific situation or topic. The best use of visual dictionaries is to explore the physical world. I'm glad you asked.

Choosing, Chatting, and Collecting: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, videos, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you. More Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals. More Teacher Resources by Grade Your students can save their work with Student Interactives. More Home › Classroom Resources › Lesson Plans Lesson Plan Overview From Theory to Practice The vocabulary self-collection strategy involves having students choose the words they want to learn, chat about their rationale for selecting words, and agree upon words for a classroom collection. back to top Ruddell, M.R., & Shearer, B.A. (2002).

Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It Teachers have long known that rote memorization can lead to a superficial grasp of material that is quickly forgotten. But new research in the field of neuroscience is starting to shed light on the ways that brains are wired to forget—highlighting the importance of strategies to retain knowledge and make learning stick. In a recent article published in the journal Neuron, neurobiologists Blake Richards and Paul Frankland challenge the predominant view of memory, which holds that forgetting is a process of loss—the gradual washing away of critical information despite our best efforts to retain it. “From this perspective, forgetting is not necessarily a failure of memory,” explain Richards and Frankland in the study. The Forgetting Curve We often think of memories as books in a library, filed away and accessed when needed. Forgetting is almost immediately the nemesis of memory, as psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered in the 1880s. The Persistence of Memory 5 Teacher Strategies

Concept Mapping for ELLs Make-a-Map, our IdeaphoraⓇ-powered concept mapping tool, is officially live on BrainPOP ELL! (You’ll find the Make-a-Map button on all BrainPOP ELL lesson pages.) The new tool lets students connect and organize clips from movies, keywords, and other elements as they construct visual representations of their knowledge. To help you get started with concept mapping, we’ve put together some best practices for using it with English language learners. Whether you’ve already explored Make-a-Map or you’re completely new to concept mapping, read on for background and implementation ideas. Visual input. All language domains. Differentiation. Make-a-Map can be especially useful for students who are reluctant to participate in class activities. Prior knowledge. TIPS FOR USING CONCEPT MAPS WITH ELLs Share your concept maps with us!

Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds Student Objectives Day 1 Day 2 Extensions Student Assessment/Reflections Students will Explore the use of the think-aloud strategyVocalize interactions with textsDiscuss connections between texts and previously acquired knowledgeUse various types of responses to interact with textsAssess personal level of comprehension back to top Day 1 Initiation — Present the term "think-aloud" to your students. Modeling — Model a think-aloud by presenting a poem on the overhead. Example — This is a think-aloud for the poem "Dream Variation" by Langston Hughes. To fling my arms wideIn some place of the sun,To whirl and to danceTill the white day is done. [I’m picturing a young girl with bare feet and a summer dress twirling in her front yard with her arms outstretched.] Then rest at cool eveningBeneath a tall tree [I'm picturing a large willow tree and sitting underneath it. While night comes on gently,Dark like me— That is my dream! [I think about how children's lives are so filled with dreams. Day 2

'Teaching isn’t about the delivery of knowledge and information. It's about embracing, exploring and exploiting ignorance' Knowledge. Educators are obsessed with it. Compared to learning, that is. Last year, I undertook some research in the north of Canada, in a small town called Dryden. After this all-too-brief coronation, I then had to break the disappointing news that I was not royalty, but merely a professor from a university. We should cherish this kind of ignorance. Through centuries of scholarship and in a time before Google, it’s always been the moment of wonder and wondering, of mysteries and solutions and then more mysteries beyond them, that has been most special in the process of educating. This is why teaching is so important. Teachers need to have their moments of ignorance, too. Education isn’t about delivering facts, or delivering anything, for that matter. Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College This article was written for imaginationmatters.org and has been shared exclusively with Tes.

Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing "The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine." - Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii "Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom. I was a student teacher in a Massachusetts elementary school, and it took me awhile to figure out the correlation between the pencil and hallway behavior. So, what was the correlation? I have been teaching ESL for many years and there is no perfect solution to this problem; however, I do believe I have added quite a few writing activities to my bag of tricks and improved my ability to differentiate writing tasks based on student ability. There is a very important correlation between writing and language development. With that said, teachers have a big task in improving ESL student writing skills, but the payoff for instructional dedication can be great.

edutopia "What makes me enjoy talking the most," explains Milo, a Year 3 student, "is that everybody’s listened to you, and you’re part of the world, and you feel respected and important." Oracy -- the ability to speak well -- is a core pedagogy at School 21, a London-based public school. "Speaking is a huge priority," stresses Amy Gaunt, a Year 3 teacher. Oracy is taught during assemblies and wellbeing classes, but "it's embedded into every single lesson," says Gaunt. From forming different groupings to using talking points, learn how you can integrate strategies for effective talk in your classroom. Embedding Oracy Into Your Classroom (It's Already Happening) The first step in embedding oracy into your classroom is accepting that it already happens -- your students talk a lot, and you can leverage that, suggests Gaunt. Teaching oracy means putting more intention behind how you guide and organize your students' talk. Create Discussion Guidelines With Your Students © School 21 Create Discussion Roles