esol - language levels

I apologize. I thought I would be home in time yesterday to make a new post - I wasn't.  all day conferences got the best of me!

I've had many questions about ESOL recently, which is GREAT!! questions about what it is, what pull-outs are, what the collaborating looks like, how teachers can supports ELL's in the classroom, and plainly, what people in my position are suppose to be doing for you as a homeroom teacher.  I honestly had an incomplete understanding of an ESOL teacher's role when I was a homeroom teacher as well.

**DISCLAIMER** I am just one ESOL teacher and these are MY understanding of my position and my program. it might not be the same for your ESOL teacher in your school district.

ESOL

ESOL is a program for students whose first language learned was not English. any time a parent fills out an entrance form for their child to enter our district, they have to indicate the language spoken at home. if they put anything other than English, I have to test them for ESOL.

Testing

in my district, we use the WIDA and ACCESS tests for assessing a student's level of English acquisition in the areas of Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing.  The levels range from a 1 (brand new English learner) to a 6 (comparable to a native English speaker). the closer a student gets to a 5 or a 6, the less direct support they end in terms of English.

{here} is a quick understanding of what each level looks like.

I use these scores to help my teachers understand what their students are capable of doing in ENGLISH. the scores are not tied to intelligence in any way, they are just a measure of a student's language ability. and let me tell you, these tests are HARD.

{here} is what each domain (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) look like for each level.


if you are unsure of a student's level, look at each descriptor and figure out where they rank.  it will give you an idea of how close they are to becoming accomplished in the English language.


up soon (I won't say tomorrow) - how to use these levels when looking at content and standards directly.

water bottle biographies

coming tomorrow - a freebie for teachers to help support their ELL's in the mainstream classroom.

in GA, there are nine famous Americans that the third graders have to learn about in social studies. the people are very interesting and VERY important in our country's history, I will not argue that.

BUT... what I will argue is this - these nine people come with A LOT of standards tagged to them. we split social studies with science - so hypothetically, I have 90 days to teach these people AND the rest of the unrelated social studies standards. realistically, I end up with about 18 days. 18 days - 9 people = 2 days per person.

AND these people come from different time periods in American History - so there is little to no time to teach context.

Paul Revere is very interesting and fun to learn about. But if you don't know anything about the colonies and Britain and everything leading up to the American Revolution, his importance is lost...

Ay! I digress..

my third grade mini-scholars each took a person, researched the person, and became an "expert historian" (after we spent 18 days learning about them). 

then, we made a water bottle representation of that person (good lesson in recycling those accumulating water bottles). teachers donated a few pieces of old clothes and we were ready.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - oh yea, he's wearing leather :)

and the army men on the lean cuisine boxes (more recycling) represent World War II

Eleanor Roosevelt - she is so fancy and bug eyed wide eyed.

and apparently Eleanor was balding too.

Frederick Douglass - he's upset because this is a pre-Freedom portrait (I think).

Cesar Chavez - check out those overalls and sunglasses ("for when he worked in the field!" says expert Selina)

Susan B. Anthony - I have a feeling she is rolling over in her grave knowing that Juliana, the classroom SBA expert, thought she might wear this outfit.

Lyndon B. Johnson - oh yea, I have NO doubt LBJ sported the Ray-Bans back in the day.

Paul Revere - (tie is coming) has to have his miniature horse :)

**coming tomorrow - additions of Mary McLeod Bethune and Thurgood Marshall

{HERE} is the modified research guide my mini-locos used to support their learning. they wrote a newspaper article to accompany their water bottle people.

GA Teachers! - {HERE} is the research guide my mini-locos used. this is different then above because it uses those standard based terms of diligence, cooperation, leadership, and courage.

my students really did learn about these famous Americans, more then I thought they would!

like a south bound train

so it took me a week to get over a week off of school. I'm afraid to admit it, but I think I've turned into a creature of schedule. once I lose my schedule, I'm all sorts of off!

also - I've had a couple of people emailing me some questions about ESOL and their ELL's and all that goodness. please know I'm happy to help if you have ANY questions (not promising I'll have awesome answers to all of them), so keep them coming.

second grade

I added pictures to my previous post about syllables. click on the pictures to check it out if you haven't already!

science

in science, we are working on sound and the energy of sound. so, why not throw in the idea of INFERRING? I like to illustrate any language arts concepts that I can for my language learners.

I filled 10 old coffee containers with different objects (I make sure to use all the same containers so that the only variable is the objects themselves). I used

1) beans

2) nails

3) pennies

4) beads

5) dried noodles

6) jelly beans

7) m&ms

8) gummy bears

9) tic-tacs

10) bottle tops

my mini-locos worked their way through all ten cans, shook the can, and drew what they thought was inside on THIS worksheet.

try it out. I think talking through why my students made the guesses that they did really helped some understand inferring means and how to use that during reading.

writing

do y'all use storyboards as a prewriting strategy?

I was struggling last year with a few of my mini-locos, trying to discover a prewriting method that stuck for them. then it hit me - HELLO MAXEY - use what you know.

when I worked for fashion magazines, we brainstormed and "prewrote" using storyboards. so, now that is what my group uses. up this week - ANGRY BIRDS!

remember - my EL's are on ALL different levels of English Acquisition. 

as you can see, my students' work is not 100 correct when it is published. I try not to overwhelm them with being perfect. I truly believe it starts to kill the joy of writing if you demand perfection. I try to focus in on a few main skills at a time, and usually it is spelling that I let slide.

storyboard process -
1. draw out the story. storyboards allow for short stories or long stories. when I use these with my older students, they draw on small post-it notes and place them in the square (JUST like we did at the magazine).
2. add transition words where the arrows are placed between the squares.
3. write down any important vocabulary needed to write about the picture.
4. title
5. draft the sentences using the picture and vocabulary.

Grab a copy of the graphic organizer HERE.

back to life, back to reality

ahh.... why does spring break have to be over?  spring break being over means that i have four weeks to THE TESTS and eight total weeks of school left. sheesh....


syllables
my kiddos worked on syllables today. I know they have worked with syllables before, but it became quite apparent last week they had forgotten all about those fun little things. I decided this would also be a great time to incorporate some rich vocabulary for my mini-locos. so, I broke out the tap-lights and off we went. 


we worked on this in a small group. I printed and laminated the words. as a small group, we worked through three (I tried to grab a 2, 3, and 4 syllable word for illustration). then I would give one student the four tap lights and a word.

these are BIG and I love it. it is about the size of my mini-locos hand width.

I purchased 12 from the Dollar Store, 3 groups of 4 lights.

they would sound out the word while turning a light on for each syllable. at first, they kept trying to do the phonetic sounds of the words, but they quickly caught on. 

we worked through all the words as a small group and then they completed the worksheet individually while I worked with the next small group.

the words on the cards and the worksheet are the same, but since we worked through the words in a small group, the kiddos did not work with each card individually. so the worksheet allows them reinforcement of the concept. it was so great to see them tap the table as if turning on imaginary tap-lights. 

click HERE to grab the cards and worksheet.

analogies

does anyone else still teach their mini's about analogies? I love analogies. I believe that being able to make those relationship connections is very helpful.  my mini-locos can often tell the antonym of a given word, but I find it way more beneficial for them to recognize that relationship on their own and then APPLY it to another word. but it doesn't just end at antonyms! analogies are great for ela AND math concepts. 

i've started to combine analogies and daily oral language into daily practice for my third graders. click HERE to grab an example.

three 2-digit addition

three 2-digit addition is not a specific standard of ours, but it is something my mini-scholars need some practice working with. so I whipped up these addition sandwiches. they place a tomato number, a cheese number, and a ham number on their sandwich. then the mini's add up the numbers to see the total of the sandwich. everyone likes food, right? click HERE to grab this.

awkward silence

new student quote for today:


verbal barf baby - "maxey, did you know that every time a wolf howls, it means someone is going to die?"
maxey - "nope. every time a bell rings, an angel gets it's wings."
love of my life wild child whom i would adopt tomorrow - "no, you're both wrong. every time there is an awkward silence, a gay baby is being born."


spring break cannot come soon enough!


second grade science


today we kept working on more experiments on matter from our matter book. we were trying to identify the four main ways (main being what the standard tells us) that we can change matter.


1. we grated/shredded cheese and talked about how it changed, but not really.


2. we cut and orange and then squeezed out the liquid.

3. we made mystery substance by adding a solid (pudding mix) with a liquid (milk) and made a new liquid (pudding!)

you can check out our matter book we use HERE at TpT.

second grade intervention

we did some contraction surgery today. my kiddos were ALL about this activity.

we watched this cute rap from a first grade classroom.

And then we were off, becoming Contraction Doctors.

 Here are the contraction cards we used for the activity.

i have nine second grade mini-locos for science and social studies for 45 minutes a day. but I also have eight for 45 minutes of "intervention" time. this is just a grab bag of goodness, but it is also not a lot of time to work on the MOUNTAINS of skills we need to practice. so I whipped up this game working with money and sight words so that they can practice both skills at once.

I used Fountas and Pinnell's 100 high frequency words and printed them on a quarter, dime, nickel, or penny. the students take a turn reading and saying the sight word on a coin. if they read it correctly, they get to put their coin into....

their on piggy bank. at the end, they count up to see how much money is in their piggy bank. the person with the most money wins.  this way they are practicing their sight words AND counting money.

click HERE to grab it from TpT.

does any one else combine skills this way? any great ideas or skills to combine that you'd like to share?

hold up! currently matching awards

hold up!
wait wait wait... you mean to tell me when i follow blogs through google reader, it doesn't show up as if i am a "follower" on their blog? well I apologize to the 175 blogs I follow on reader. I will slowly make sure I officially "follow" your blog.  I wasn't try to cheat you, swear!


award
Shannon has awarded me this lovely award:

thanks Shannon! It is my first blogging away, how awesome is that! Check out her awesome blog here:

I am suppose to pass this award on to 15 fellow blogs, but as far as I can tell, most of the ones I follow have already been awarded!! that just goes to show you how awesome these blogging peeps are.

currently
i am linking up for:

check out the rest at:

matching
second grade science


my mini-locos will be working on THIS matter matching tomorrow for science.  they are going to complete it in small groups of three tomorrow and then independently on friday.  it just has a picture card for the molecules of a solid, liquid, and gas, 29 different descriptive sentences, and a recording sheet. when the minis are completing it in small groups, they will not have to do the recording sheet. i'd rather them talk about their learning first, then show it second (remember, we are esol here!)

thanks for all the support out there. yall rock!