by Diane Kue

When I was an elementary classroom teacher, I was often told that my students needed to read in every subject because “there is reading in every content area.” I could see how reading research could have a place in instruction when my students navigated scientific practices, but what about when the class period was looking at data instead of reading an article? Furthermore, the “there is reading in every content area” statement was especially hard to wrap my head around in my math class. Why did I have to give literacy so much clout in my instruction when my objective was teaching equivalent fractions? 

Continue reading “Finding Literacy in Math” →

by Nancy Motley

February can be a hard month for educators. It’s that point in the year when accountability measures seem to multiply, and the renewed energy we might have felt at the beginning of the semester has faded. This is also the time when many of us are doubling down in our efforts to support students, looking for anything that might create the spark that will ignite some momentum. We feel the grind, and so do our students.

Because of this, it might seem crazy to suggest that February is a great time to think about improving our craft, but hear me out. Two weeks ago, I was presenting a session to a group of teachers on a Saturday. Yes, a Saturday. While they were polite and compliant, there was a thick layer of second-semester exhaustion that permeated the room. They even vocalized that the idea of adding one more thing to their plates felt impossible. I’m sure you can relate…I know I can (and it doesn’t even have to be February).

After sharing my simple, two-part message with this audience, however, their overwhelming feedback was that they found that elusive spark and, more importantly, felt an injection of hope for both themselves and their students as they finished up this school year. My wish is the same for you. 

Continue reading “Two Steps to Improvement (even in February)” →

by Stephen Fleenor, PhD

Decades of research (Wright, 2016), and the experience of millions of educators, make one thing abundantly clear about the modern classroom: students need to talk about their learning. Engaging students in small-group, academic conversations is one of the most effective ways to:

• enhance comprehension
• reduce misbehavior
• build academic language proficiency
• support literacy
• develop socioemotional skills
• promote question-asking and deep thinking, and
• create a sense of community within the classroom

So why don’t all lessons have all students talking about their learning, all the time? Unfortunately, asking students to “turn and talk” to their partners has proven frustrating for many educators, who see students not talking, or students talking about non-academic subjects, or gregarious students dominating conversations while shier students are voiceless.

Continue reading “QSSSA: The Secret Ingredient to Language-Rich, Interactive Classrooms” →

by Natalia Heckman

To those who expect language acquisition to be entirely effortless, I say, “Good luck with that!” Effortless is not the same as joyful. I absolutely believe that language learning has to bring joy, but it may also require some effort on the part of the learner and some carefully crafted linguistic opportunities on the part of the teacher because the language acquisition process at the age of fourteen simply does not look the same as it does at the age of three. 

Continue reading “Oral Corrective Feedback in Secondary Classrooms “ →

Algunas reflexiones sobre mi viaje a Puebla

Aloise Miller

¿Sabes esos momentos cuando la vida te ofrece experiencias que te impactan positivamente? ¿Aquellos eventos que te ayudan a comprender algo más allá de lo que creías y generan en tí una amplitud de miras? Eso es exactamente lo que me ocurrió a principios de junio, cuando tuve la oportunidad de enriquecer mis conocimientos sobre la docencia y el alfabetismo en español. 

Continue reading “Un instituto de verano: Una visión transformada” →

How Can We Meet the Needs of Newcomers in Math?

by Jim Ewing

Who Are Newcomers, and What Is “Positioning“?

When we refer to newcomers, we are referring to students who have recently moved from another country. The focus of this article is to offer strategies for students who are learning a new language and culture.

Continue reading “Positioning Newcomers to be Successful in Math” →

by Valentina Gonzalez

I dare to say that working alongside colleagues had and still has the greatest effect on my professional growth and, therefore, my multilingual learners’ success. 

Continue reading “Collaborating Across Departments to Serve Multilingual Learners” →

by Carolyn Bracksieck

Your words matter. The environment you create for your classroom matters. As a language teacher, you have the ability to create an environment that is engulfed in the language and culture from the very first moment of class to the last. Greeting your students every day in the language and teaching them how to respond to instructions in the target language are both important parts of this environment. As an immersive learner myself, it was the constant repetition (input) and the constant opportunity to give output that really helped my proficiency grow. It was repetition that became habitual—especially when the repeated phrases had a usefulness and meaning for me.

Continue reading “Purposeful Phrases in the LOTE Classroom” →