One of my annual Back-to-School traditions involves pulling up the list of my school's ESOL students, going through hundreds of schedules to determine which academic team each student has been assigned to and sending this information out to my colleagues.  The central ESOL office includes the most recent WIDA ACCESS scores on the master list, so I include this information with a review of the Can Do descriptors (including the video below) when I disseminate this information to my colleagues, Truth be told, this annual task takes hours to complete and I often wonder if anyone actually rea ..read more

The Super Bowl always promises some form of entertainment and this year's game was no different.  84 Lumber created a commercial that while deemed to be too controversial for a general audience (in its entirety), mirrors the reality of coming to the United States for many of our students.  The first part of the journey was aired during the Super Bowl, while viewers were directed to go to the company's website for the conclusion.  The website ended up crashing, so I have posted the entire commerical below ..read more

A quick review of my most recent bank statement confirmed that I will most likely not be taking the train to New York City to see Hamilton, the hottest show on Broadway any time soon.  However, several months ago the administration decided to pull me from my math assignment and asked me to co-teach a social studies class.  This is a United States history class and we are currently learning about the founding of our country.  This presents the perfect opportunity to use material from Hamilton in a classroom setting. For those of you unfamiliar with Hamilton, it is a musical ..read more

The WIDA ACCESS 2017 season will be upon us in a few short weeks.  My state adopted WIDA ACCESS 2.0 last year.  While I cannot complain about the results of the test, after administering it to several hundred students, I did notice that many struggled with basic typing as well as speaking into a microphone. In order to better prepare our students, my department created reading and writing exercises via Google Forms and uploaded them to a Google site that we created. We hyper-linked listening exercises from Randall's Cyber ESL Lab to this website as well. Finding speaking exercises ..read more

I know that I have been MIA for a while.  However, while I may not have been blogging about education, I definitely have been advocating for it.  A few weeks ago, I took a friend's advice and attended my state's annual educator convention as a delegate.  This means that I finally had the chance to express my passion for public education in a venue other than this blog, Twitter, and of course, happy hour with fellow educators. The annual representative assembly is where the state association decides which issues to lobby for during the upcoming legislative session.  Educato ..read more

Several recent crises around the world have resulted in an influx of refugees fleeing to friendlier lands, including the United States.  My school is within walking distance of an apartment complex that has been welcoming refugees for years.  During my tenure, I have welcomed students from Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sudan and as of last month, Syria.  While these students come in with boundless enthusiasm for education, they do have a unique set of needs.  Here are some tips for welcoming refugee students: Reach Out to Your Local Agency: Refugees enter the United Stat ..read more

I am always on the hunt for new resources and as I launch into the new school year, I have come across PBS Learning Media.  This website provides lesson ideas, media clips and interactive activities.  Of course, the Election 2016 resources are prominently featured.  Teachers can even set up student accounts and create assignments.  Like the TV version of PBS, this resource is free ..read more

Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to work with a core group of teachers that provide content instruction to the majority of my school's ESOL students.  As this group of teachers have honed their ESOL instructional strategies, they have learned how to utilize WIDA ACCESS data and Can Do descriptors to plan their instruction.  We have now reached the point where the teachers ask me for their students' data before the rosters are officially carved in stone. In past years, I have attempted to create my own WIDA ACCESS score matrix to distribute to my colleagues ..read more

My summer is officially over and the 2016-2017 school year has begun.  One of the biggest changes this school year is that my school has a new principal.  This is the third principal that we have had in five years.  I continue to remain optimistic. My role has also changed a bit.  While I will be handling the logistics of my school's ESOL program, the majority of my day will be spent teaching assigned classes.  When the scheduling chips fell, it left a seventh grade math class without a co-teacher.  Since I needed to fill my schedule, I assigned myself this class ..read more

I hope you are all enjoying your well deserved summer vacation.  I know that it's been a while since I have updated this blog.  My reason for this was that towards the end of the school year, I was dealing with a lot at work and needed some time to de-stress.  So far, I have spent my summer getting some much need rest and relaxation.  My only scheduled professional development activity will take place at the end of the month.  I will be attending Spanish camp in the Midwest.  I am looking forward to this adventure as it will allow me to work on a much needed job-r ..read more