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” →

by Valentina Gonzalez

The class is approaching a unit on life cycles. Ms. Prasad finds three images of living beings and their life cycles: a butterfly, a chicken, and a plant. She sends the three images home with each student for families to pick one and discuss. Families are asked to talk with their children about the image in the languages they are most comfortable with. They can share facts and vocabulary, and even make up stories about the picture. 

When students come to class the following week, Ms. Prasad has all three pictures up on the screen, and students are asked to discuss them with their partners. They talk about the one their families picked and what they learned. Ms. Prasad walks around the room, listening and gathering information about students’ prior knowledge before she begins the unit. 

Continue reading “Sending Pictures Home: Engaging Families, Building Language, & Helping MLs Learn Content” →

by Dr. Mónica Lara

There is something magical about Puebla that keeps me coming back year after year. As I journey home from my fourth time there, I find myself reflecting on the invaluable experience that this city and its teachers bring to my life as an educator. For a little background, the Bueno Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder has hosted the Literacy Squared Conference for the past four times in this picturesque town about 200 miles from Mexico City. The conference is not just informational, but it inspires and teaches me to stay humble and focused on the greater cause: Supporting emergent bilingual students in the United States. I would like to briefly share the highlights that resurface time after time during this week-long event. Indulge me as I describe them the PUEBLA way.

Continue reading “Literacy Squared® Conference: ¡Regresamos a Puebla!” →