by Sally Barnes

• “Stay in the target language 90% of the time.”
• “Take attendance every day.”
• “Refer back to your daily objective throughout the lesson.” 
• “Conduct formative assessments throughout the day to check for student understanding.”

There are so many expectations that we have of ourselves and that others hold us to daily in our professional lives. How can we set ourselves up for success without becoming overwhelmed? The planning begins now, before the students walk into the classroom, in order to start the year strong. Here are some ideas to prepare for the upcoming school year! 

Continue reading “Start The Year Strong: Procedures and Expectations for World Language Classrooms” →

Sin querer queriendo…El Chavo del Ocho

Aloise Miller

Siempre he sido multilingüe. Me es realmente imposible contestar, “¿cuál es tu primer idioma?” Con mi mamá, hasta la fecha, me comunico en español y con mi papá, en inglés. Durante los primeros siete años de mi vida viví en CINCO países y estuve expuesta a más de cuatro idiomas aparte del inglés y español, y desde el segundo grado de primaria, toda mi educación fue bilingüe. Sólo sé lo que es ser multilingüe y agradezco la fortuna de la vida por haberme dado la oportunidad de crecer hablando más de un idioma y de ser educada en dos idiomas.

Continue reading “Conexiones metalingüísticas: A propósito—no de chiripa” →

by Dr. Stephen Fleenor

When I became an educator ten years ago, it was in the wake of a concerted push within the education community to shift away from deficit-minded language toward more asset-based language, particularly in the service of students acquiring English proficiency. I felt a sense of pride and optimism that we had almost completely shifted away from the deficit-based label, “Limited English Proficiency” (LEP), toward the more asset-based label, “English Language Learner” (ELL). 

Continue reading “ELL? EL? EB? MLL? CLD? How Labels Help — and Hurt — Students” →

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 “ →