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A series of six videos showing teachers who are utilizing research-based practices to best engage ELLs in constructive and meaningful learning. Specifically, it covers ELA, but can be utilized across all content areas.

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We're excited to present a six-part video series showcasing an exemplar unit focused on ELA instruction for middle school English Language Learners. These videos were produced in conjunction with Stanford University's Understanding Languageinitiative and examine the key shifts found in the Common Core. The videos highlight opportunities to grow students' disciplinary knowledge and English language skills in heterogeneous classrooms. Watch how two teachers bring this unit to life, then dig deeper into the five key strategies used in the series with this blog from Stanford researcher Rebecca Green.

Videos in this Series:

1. Persuasion Across Time and Space: Unit Overview: Learn how this five-week lesson plan on persuasive language was developed, how it challenges students to interact with increasingly complex texts, and connects those readings to present day ideas.

2. Preparing Learners: Activating Prior Knowledge: In this lesson, Emily Park-Friend takes her students through a three-step interview activity. Watch as Emily's students gain a deeper understanding of a particular concept as they practice their listening and speaking skills.

3. Interacting with Complex Texts: Scaffolding Reading: Katie Langlois prepares her students for a lesson by building their background knowledge. Notice how Katie uses groups throughout her lesson, which gives all of her students equal opportunities to speak and listen.

4. Extending Understanding: Vocabulary Development: Ms. Langlois uses a fun jigsaw method to teach vocabulary at the END of the unit, providing reinforcement for her students while helping her to assess their understanding.

5. Preparing Learners: Ethos, Pathos & Logos for Persuasion: In this lesson, students interact with complex texts by analyzing rhetorical devices used to persuade a reader or audience.

6. Interacting with Complex Texts: Jigsaw Project: Watch as students analyze speeches and share expertise with their groups.

We hope you enjoy this video series! And please share with us how you would integrate these practices in your classroom.

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Video Playlist: English Language Learners

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We're excited to present a six-part video series showcasing an exemplar unit focused on ELA instruction for middle school English Language Learners. These videos were produced in conjunction with Stanford University's Understanding Languageinitiative and examine the key shifts found in the Common Core.

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Tips for working with ELLs in all contents.

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The role of the ESL teacher is changing. According to the TESOL's Implementing the Common Core State Standards for English Learners: The Changing Role of the ESL Teacher, "ESL teachers should be recognized as experts, consultants, and trainers well versed in teaching rigorous academic content to ELs." What can you do to share your expertise with the classroom teachers in your school?

Here are six strategies that classroom teachers need to learn:

1. Determine content and language objectives for each lesson. Teachers need to learn how to write a content objective for every lesson in language that ELLs can understand. At the end of the lesson, students should be asked if the objective was met. Classroom teachers also need to set language objectives for the ELLs for each lesson. A language objective specifically outlines the language that ELLs will need in order to meet the content objective. For example, if your content objective is for ELLs to provide examples of solids, liquids, and gas, the language objective could be to write simple sentences about the stages of matter.

2. Connect content to ELLs' background knowledge. Teachers need to consider the schema that ELLs bring to the classroom and to link instruction to the students' personal, cultural, and world experiences. They also need to identify what their students do not know. They must understand how the cultures of their ELLs impact learning in the classroom.

3. Provide comprehensible input for ELLs. Language is not "soaked up." The learner must understand the message that is conveyed. Comprehensible input is a hypothesis first proposed by Krashen (1981). He purports that ELLs acquire language by hearing and understanding messages that are slightly above their current English language level. When ELLs are assigned to a general education classroom and spend most of their day in this environment, it is especially critical for them to receive comprehensible input from their content area teachers and classmates.

4. Make lessons auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Use visual representations to introduce new concepts and vocabulary. Find graphs, maps, photographs, drawings, and charts. Create story maps and graphic organizers to teach ELLs how to organize information. ELLs will benefit from hands-on activities. Have them learn by doing. Investigate project-based learning and Makerspaces.

5. Use cooperative learning strategies. Lecture-style teaching excludes ELLs from the learning in a classroom. We don't want to relegate them to the fringes of the classroom, doing a separate lesson with a classroom aide or ESL teacher. Working in small groups is especially beneficial to ELLs who have an authentic reason to use academic vocabulary and real reasons to discuss key concepts. ELLs benefit from cooperative learning structures. Give students a job in a group, and monitor that they are participating.

6. Modify vocabulary instruction for ELLs. ELLs do not usually learn new vocabulary indirectly. It needs to be explicitly taught in order for them to understand texts that they are reading. ELLs need many more exposures to new words than native-English speakers. They need to learn cognates, prefixes, suffixes, and root words to enhance their ability to make sense of new vocabulary . Understanding context clues such as embedded definitions, pictures, and charts builds ELLs' schema. They should actively engage in holistic activities to practice new vocabulary because learning words out of context is difficult for them.
Don't overwhelm students with too many new words. Pick vocabulary that is absolutely essential in each unit. Introduce the vocabulary in a familiar and meaningful context and then again in a content-specific setting. For example, in a unit on tornadoes, the word "front" needs to be reviewed in a familiar context and then taught in the context of the unit.

Have you tried to share any of these strategies with classroom teachers? I invite your comments.

Haynes, J., & Zacarian, D. (2010). Teaching English language learners across the content areas. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervisors and Curriculum Developers.

About Judie Haynes

Judie Haynes taught elementary ESL for 28 years and is the author and coauthor of eight books for teachers of ELs , the most recent being "Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress" with Debbie Zacarian and Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz. She was a columnist for the TESOL publication "Essential Teacher" and is also cofounder and comoderator of the Twitter Chat for teachers of English learners #ELLCHAT.

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| Six Strategies for Teaching ELLs Across the Content Areas

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The role of the ESL teacher is changing. According to the TESOL's Implementing the Common Core State Standards for English Learners: The Changing Role of the ESL Teacher, "ESL teachers should be recognized as experts, consultants, and trainers well versed in teaching rigorous academic content to ELs."

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Top Ten Tips for Working with ESL Students

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Top Ten Tips for Working with ESL Students

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10 strategies you can use immediately to help your ESL kids!

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TeachersFirst: Top Ten Tips for Working With ESL/ELL Student

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TeachersFirst's ESL/ELL resources provide guidance, tips, and strategies for teachers accommodating ESL/ELL students in the regular classroom.

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Great idea for vocabulary!

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Quick, Draw! with Google may not seem like a great tool for ESL students. But learn how it can be used for innovative learning in this blog post.

At the recent TCEA Convention and Exposition, I learned about an experiment from Google called Quick, Draw!. Quick, Draw!, which launched last November, is a game built with machine learning. Players are prompted to sketch an object on a 20-second clock using the mouse or touchscreen. While the player doodles, the neural network throws out its best guesses of the subject, stopping mid-sketch if it guesses correctly.

How Quick, Draw Works

I gave it a try on my laptop and my iPhone. However, I have to admit, I'm not very good at it. My first time playing on the laptop, I only got two out of six. My iPhone try went a bit better, but that's probably because the objects were fairly simple.

An interesting feature of Quick, Draw! is the insight players can gain about how the network works. After you complete a game, just select one of the drawings and you'll see two sets of results. Let's use my pathetic attempt at a bee as an example (try not to laugh). First, you see what kind of object the computer thought you were going to draw.

Scroll down and you'll see the images that the neural network thinks a bee looks like.

Give it a try and see how many of your doodles can be recognized.

Classroom Uses of Quick, Draw!

So, I asked myself, how can this be used in the classroom? I was quickly reminded of the Quick Draw strategy, where students are asked to respond to a piece of text (literary or expository) through illustrations. Students are encouraged to quickly draw as many simple sketches as possible. The notion is for students to capture as many details as they can during the time period.

I can easily see Quick, Draw! being used with English Language Learners, especially those who are at the low-beginning to mid-beginning levels in writing English as their second language.

Some ideas for classroom application include:

Have students summarize one of their illustrations, describing what they just drew through a voluntary share aloud or a Timed RoundRobin.

Ask students to screen capture one of their images and write a story about it.

Have students listen to the words the computer is guessing to see how many they recognize.

For images that weren't recognized, have students identify and define the images the machine thought they were drawing.

During whole-class sharing, allow students to speak about one of their illustrations that couldn't be guessed and have the entire class share details of how they would have drawn the image.

Allow the students to explain some of their illustrations that might have special connections in their lives.

Let students make predictions or inferences about their illustrations.

In Conclusion

Quick, Draw! by Google is a fun and quick way for students to learn. If you are looking for more ways to incorporate drawing into your classroom, check out Drawing to Learn on the iPad for more lesson ideas.

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Quick, Draw! with Google - TechNotes Blog - TCEA

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Quick, Draw! with Google may not seem like a great tool for ESL students. But learn how it can be used for innovative learning in this blog post. At the recent TCEA Convention and Exposition, I learned about an experiment from Google called Quick, Draw! .

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Collaborative writing! Like telephone, but writing! Super cool!

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I have used this activity with children and adults from pre-intermediate level and up. At the end of this activity, students usually get a funny story written by at least seven students or pairs of students from their class.
Preparation

Make copies of the worksheet (or you could use a blank piece of paper, lined if possible).

Prepare questions for the story (see procedure below).

Procedure

Tell the students that they are going to write a story together. They can write in pairs or individually.

Give out the worksheet or blank paper. Make sure the students write their names at the top.

Tell the students what their story is going to be about and ask them a question. They have to write their answer on the worksheet. The questions should be who/what/when/where/how questions.

I usually use this activity when I cover the topic of aliens with a class, but you can use this activity for most topics. I tell the students that they have seen an alien and they are going to write a story about what happened. Then I read out or write on the board the first question:

When did you see the alien and where were you?

After the students have completed the answer for the first question they fold the worksheet over so that their answer cannot be seen and then they pass it to the student/s on their right. Then you ask the second question and the procedure is repeated with the remaining questions. Here are the rest of the questions I usually ask:

Who were you with?

What were you doing?

What did the alien look like?

What did you do when you saw the alien?

What happened in the end?

The students shouldn't read what the previous student/s have written. This makes the end result even more amusing.

When the students have completed all the questions tell them to open out the worksheet and pass it to the person whose name is written on top.

Tell the students to read their stories. Usually they get a few laughs!

Ask a few students to read their stories to the class.

Alternatives
This activity can be used for many other topics. Here are another few examples:
Meeting someone famous

1. What famous person did you meet?

2. Where did you meet them and who were you with?

3. What was the famous person wearing and how did he/she look (e.g. glamorous/ taller than I thought/ not too beautiful)?

4. What was he/she like? (e.g. friendly/ funny/ annoyed)

5. What did you do when you saw the famous person?

6. What happened next? (e.g. He/she signed an autograph/ walked away)

1. Where and when did you go?

2. Who did you go with?

3. Describe the place you went to.

4. What did you do there? (e.g. snowboarding, trekking, swimming, climbed a mountain)

5. What sights did you see? (e.g. The Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China)

6. What was the weather like?

7. Did you have a good time?

Error correction
If you would like to correct some of the students writing errors take note of the most common errors and write their sentences (or change the sentence so that the student can't be identified) on the board for the students to correct. Alternatively, you could make a worksheet for the next class to correct these errors.

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I have used this activity with children and adults from pre-intermediate level and up. At the end of this activity, students usually get a funny story written by at least seven students or pairs of students from their class. Preparation Make copies of the worksheet (or you could use a blank piece of paper, lined if possible).

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Most assignments we assign in a writing class are created for the sole reader-the teacher. However, there is no reason students should write only for their teacher. Sharing their ideas with a broader audience can increase student motivation, encourage them to further develop their writing skills, help them connect and interact with many people from all over the world, and in some cases, even assist someone. In this post, I'd like to share a few examples of projects that you can implement in your course to help your students write for an audience beyond the classroom.

Review of a Product
Online product reviews are very common. Unbiased and well-written reviews can be very helpful to users, byers, and customers. The purpose of product reviews is simple: to help people decide if the product is effective and worth purchasing. As a teacher, you can create a course assignment in which students would write an online review of a product they are familiar with. To do that, students would have to examine the product carefully, perhaps even take notes on its positive and negative attributes, then think of why they initially bought the product and what they expected to get out of it. They could also consider answering these questions: Did this product satisfy your expectations? Why or why not? Would you recommend that others buy the same product?
To prepare students to write their review, you would develop several classroom activities and tasks helping them become familiar with genre characteristics of product reviews, and organizational and stylistic features. Students would also learn how to express their informed opinion about the selected product and how to contextualize the review within their experience.

Creating a Wikipedia Entry
Creating a Wikipedia entry would be an excellent assignment for an advanced-level writing course in which students are working on academic research skills. In addition to rhetorical, organizational, and research skills, which you would need to cover in class to help students compose their article, you can also use the following (or other available online) materials in order to guide the students through the process:

I also suggest that you encourage students to write on a topic they are familiar with or feel passionate about. This project can also be done as a group assignment.

Blog on English Learning (or Any Other Topic)
Blogs are a very popular writing genre, and hundreds of blogs are being written every day for various reasons, including establishing yourself as a professional; attracting potential customers and clients; exchanging ideas, thoughts, materials, and experiences; and meeting new people. In a writing course, a blog assignment can be a great opportunity for students to practice their writing skills, express themselves in a written form, share their experiences with others, and of course, reach to the readers beyond the classroom.

This assignment can be developed in many different ways, but the main point is blog regularity. In other words, students have to produce a series of entries in order to complete this project. Therefore, you should encourage them to write on something that they deal with on a daily basis. For example, they can write a blog on their English language learning experiences, or intercultural experiences (if applicable), or provide tips to other language learners or students studying abroad, or simply share their thoughts about a certain concept or problem. Options are numerous! You can also ask all students in the class to respond to each other's blogs to establish a sense of interaction and further motivate the writers.

Writing an Analysis of a YouTube Video
You can also ask students to write a constructive and detailed analysis of a YouTube video and post it as a comment. Students would learn how to objectively evaluate a video by considering its positive and negative features. They would also learn about various rhetorical skills, including summarizing, forming, and supporting an argument; providing counterclaims and supporting them with examples; analyzing and evaluating; and proposing.

Responding to a Comment on a Video/Article
Instead of writing a detailed evaluation of a video, students can respond to a comment that other people provided on a video, article, or blog entry. Because students' responses would probably be less detailed than full-fledged analyses, you can require several responses on various pieces (all of the same genre or various genres). Students would learn such rhetorical skills as arguing, providing counterclaims and supporting them with evidence, and expressing their opinion.

Sharing a Recipe on a Cooking Website
There are lots of cooking websites out there, where people share their favorite recipes and exchange culinary skills. This could be a great opportunity for students to share with the whole world something that they enjoy cooking or/and eating. From a rhetorical perspective, sharing a recipe is a chance for students to learn how to describe a process in a succinct yet clear manner. You can also encourage students to take pictures to supplement their step-by-step descriptions.

Alternatively, as a class, you can create a class cooking blog, where all students would post their favorite recipes. Finally, students can also create their own cooking blogs if they wish. They can be also thematic, for example, how to cook Chinese food from local ingredients (if you are teaching a class outside of China). Options are numerous! One important thing to remember, though: The descriptions of the recipes have to be students' own, not copied from other websites or other electronic or materials.

School Newsletter
Finally, if your students don't feel comfortable sharing their writing with the entire world, there are certainly other options of a smaller scale, for example, a school newsletter. Students could describe their intercultural or language-learning experiences, for example, or share thoughts about current events or report on participating in events and activities sponsored by the local community.

What Are Your Ideas?
Please feel free to share your ideas about projects teachers can implement in their writing classes to help students write for an audience beyond the classroom.

About Elena Shvidko

Elena Shvidko is an assistant professor at Utah State University. She received her doctorate in second language studies from Purdue University and her master's degree in TESOL from Brigham Young University. Her work appears in TESOL Journal, System, Journal on Response to Writing, TESOL interest section newsletters, and TESOL's New Ways series. Her research interests include second language writing, multimodal interaction, interpersonal aspects of language teaching, and teacher professional development.

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7 Projects to Help Students Write for Audience Beyond the Classroom | TESOL Blog

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Most assignments we assign in a writing class are created for the sole reader-the teacher. However, there is no reason students should write only for their teacher. Sharing their ideas with a broader audience can increase student motivation, encourage them to further develop their writing skills, help them connect and interact with many people from all over the world, and in some cases, even assist someone.

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Valentina Gonzalez's fantastic 3 1/2 minute demo of comprehensible input.

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Comprehensible Input Demo for Language Rich Classrooms Training

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I love this. It's a great piece from Cult of Pedagogy that discusses the power of teaching to our ELLs' strengths.

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This guest post was contributed by Laura Lenz. It first appeared on her blog,
Teaching with an Open Heart.
Close your eyes.
Imagine a school where we focused on the strengths of English language learners. What if these students' cultures, languages, countries of origin, unique skills, and life experiences were held up as assets?

Let's decide this school year to focus more on these strengths and assets and the unique potential of our English learners. What brilliance might be unleashed? What confidence might be built? What might non-ESL* students learn from the ESLs?

This would be a change in the way we view our English learners as well as a shift in how we view the very nature of teaching. The basis of teaching is to teach students what they don't know. We're trained to look for gaps in knowledge. We're the teachers, the experts, the givers of information.

At the beginning of the school year, most teachers will be asked to look at data from state tests. Tests that focus on who is proficient and who is not proficient. We will identify gaps and deficiencies. Of course, this analysis has its place, and we need to know where students are struggling. However, we can also stimulate growth by capitalizing on existing strengths.

A few years ago, I was on an interview committee for the ESL coordinator in our district. The individual who eventually got the job kept talking about the very principles I have outlined in this article. He believed that the English learners could be the stars of the school district. I had never heard anyone express this sentiment quite that passionately and forcefully, and I immediately knew that what he was saying held enormous value. I believe in his vision, and it's my vision too.

Here are some suggestions for making this shift in how we work with our English learners this year.

1. Make it clear that your students' first languages and cultures are a tremendous strength and asset.

These students are the newest bilingual or multilingual members of our community. They are also learning to be bicultural or multicultural, figuring out how to navigate the tricky ins and outs of living in a diverse society. Our country will continue to become more diverse, and knowing more than one language and being able to navigate multiple cultures will be highly prized skills in our community. Make sure you explicitly share this information with parents as well. They need to know that their culture and language needs to be preserved and it will only strengthen their child's future.

2. Uncover students' unique strengths and funds of knowledge.

Some strengths will be easy to see, like how expert a student is at playing soccer or the great artistic talent some students possess. Some might be a little more difficult to uncover. Make it your job to find the hidden gems that each student has. Sometimes you discover these assets through conversation and questioning, and sometimes you might stumble upon them. By observing carefully, here are a few things I found in my students:

Our art teacher decided to do a sewing project one week. I walked into the room and the African boys were already amazingly adept with that needle and thread. There they were, heads bent over in concentration, sewing like nobody's business. It was amazing.

On one of our field trips we took the class ice skating; most had never done this before. The handful who already knew how to skate took off and skated together, except our Japanese student, who already knew how to skate. I noticed that one by one and with great patience, kindness, and encouragement, she was teaching all the other girls how to ice skate. They trusted her and took risks they may not have taken with their teachers. This kind of interaction among students is something teachers love seeing. This student told us later in the year that she wants to be a teacher.

3. Once you've discovered some of their brilliance, make sure you tell them what you see.

Be specific in your praise. Acknowledge students' strengths in front of the whole class and have conversations with kids privately.

We had to rely on one student sometimes for interpreting when students had conflicts and a bilingual specialist wasn't available. He was a refugee from Africa, already fairly proficient in oral English and also spoke the two most dominant languages in the classroom. The unexpected joy was realizing that he was also a natural peacemaker with a very keen sensibility for justice and fairness, also possessing a charming sense of humor and sweetness that would make kids laugh and get over things quickly.

My teaching partner and I made sure to tell him that he had something special-the three languages, of course, but even more than that, his natural diplomacy skills. I told him he was going to do something great in his life-be a diplomat or a community organizer. He'd always say, "Thank you, Miss," while looking slightly embarrassed, yet with a huge smile spread from ear to ear.

Then he told us one day that he wants to be a police officer. I can just imagine the impact he could make, a black police officer who speaks three languages, understands many cultures, and is a natural peacemaker. We should do everything we can to build on this young man's strengths and help him reach his full potential.

4. Teach your students to validate each other.

One year we did an activity every Friday called "Fill the Bucket," which comes from a popular children's book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud. We drew a different name each week and focused on that person, or if a student was moving, going back to their country, or exiting our program, we would choose them for the activity. The student would sit in the teacher chair at the front of the class and receive praise and compliments from their classmates. We encouraged the kids to be as specific with their praise as possible.

One Friday, it was a particular student's turn. He was from Saudi Arabia, and we were exiting him from the program because he was proficient enough to transition to mainstream classes in the school. When he sat in front of the class, every hand shot up.

"You're a great friend."

"You helped me with my locker on the first day."

"You're always so nice to everyone."

"You make me laugh when I'm worried about things."

I watched this sweet boy absolutely dissolve into tears. Nobody laughed at his crying. It was incredibly moving and I wondered if he had ever been told how amazing he was. We all need validation.

5. Highlight and elevate the English learners in big and small ways in your classroom, in your school, in your community.

Work on integrating the English learners into the greater school community. Have native English speakers help with the language and academics, but then make sure the English learners have a chance to share their talents and knowledge as well.

We teach all of our kids to play chess and they get really good at it. There are always a few who become especially skilled and competitive. They go to tournaments and compete, including the state tournament. We reached out to the local newspaper and made sure this great story was told to the community.

6. Never forget that refugees and immigrants are doing a tremendously difficult thing simply by trying to make their way in this country.

It takes courage and strength to move to a new country and adapt to a new culture, language, and way of life. Most refugees have already endured unimaginable hardships and are forging ahead despite experiencing loss, grief, danger, and trauma. There is a resilience in refugees and immigrants that is just unbelievable and which they will ultimately use to contribute to their new home and community.

When you point out kids' strengths to them and to others, they grow in confidence. They know you see them. You see the whole individual, not just an empty vessel that needs to be filled with your knowledge. Not just a kid who doesn't know English. But a human who already has many unique strengths and assets. Your belief in their value and potential will help their confidence grow. This confidence will enable them to build upon the skills they already have and to be brave enough to learn all the essential things they need to know in this country in order to succeed.

Now, open your eyes.

Decide your model of teaching and working with English learners this year will be a strengths-based one.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying.

The brilliance and possibilities you uncover might just amaze you. ♦

*Editor's note: The term ESL is used in several places in this post because it would make the post easier to find when people searched for it. In the English language teaching community, it is more appropriate to describe these learners as English language learners (ELL) or simply English learners, and the process of teaching them as TESOL (Teaching English as a Second or Other Language). These terms more accurately reflect the fact that many of these students come to us already knowing several languages, and the use of "second" does not recognize this asset.

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A Strength-Based Approach to Teaching English Learners

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Instead of focusing on the deficits of English language learners, what if we held up their cultures, languages, unique skills, and life experiences as assets?

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Ideas for finishing the year strong!

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First Person
This is an adapted excerpt from the authors' new book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds Of Practical Ideas To Support Your Students, which comes out this month.
Teachers and students may feel like they are limping across the finish line at the end of the school year. During the last quarter, when testing is finished and spring is in the air, teachers and students can be tempted to go on cruise control. However, this attitude can result in a loss of valuable learning and practice time, especially for English-language learners who benefit from as many language-learning opportunities as possible.

While the last several weeks definitely present challenges, they also provide opportunities for students to consider what it means to "finish strong," to set goals and plans to make them happen, and to experience success.
'Finishing Strong' Goal-Setting Activity
Here are some ideas for encouraging English-learners to finish strong and boost their learning during the last few months-and final days-of school.

Activities for the Last Two Months of School

We can teach English-learners the concept of a strong finish by using simple sports metaphors to illustrate pushing through fatigue in order to "play" their best until the end of the school year. Runners don't slow down at the end of a race. Basketball teams don't stop shooting the ball in the last quarter. However, understanding this concept is easier than actually applying it. One of the ways we help students do so is through a goal-setting activity.
Visual Displays of Learning
Ask students to think about what they would like to accomplish before the end of the year. This might be a goal related to learning English, academic skills, or behavior. We pass out goal sheets and work with students to complete them. Then, every Friday for the last several weeks of school, we give students time to reflect on their progress and fill out a weekly check-in chart. The chart prompts them to think about what changes they might need to make the next week to stay on track.

As teachers, we also complete the weekly check-in for our own goals. Students love holding us accountable.

The final quarter of the school year is a great time to ask English-learners to reflect on the progress they've made throughout the year. In our experience, asking them to create visual displays of their learning makes this process even more creative and engaging.

Here are a few ways for students to visually represent what they've learned:

● Divide students into groups, assign each one a topic the class has studied, and have students create posters containing the five most important things they learned about a given topic, along with an image to represent each one.

● Have students individually draw a picture or create a storyboard of their best moment in class during the year. They can use it as a springboard for writing about the experience.

● Have students create a map or timeline of the school year on a large sheet of paper, including important learning topics, memorable activities, school events, field trips, and holidays.
Advice for Future Students
● Have students design a visual representation of their reading journey, such as a chart, a timeline, a map, or a bookshelf, which contains the titles of the books they've read independently and as a class.

Activities for the Last Two Days of School
Class and Teacher Evaluations
During the last week of school, we often ask students to reflect on the class, including the routines, topics of study, learning strategies, and projects, and think about what would be helpful information to share with new students the following year. Students can work in small groups to brainstorm ideas and can then choose from a menu of options, such as writing a letter to new students, making a list of advice for how to be successful, or creating a handbook for the class.

Teachers can share these projects with incoming students during the first week of the new school year-and we've found that students really pay attention to what their peers have to say.

Asking English-learners to evaluate the class can offer valuable feedback for teachers while prompting students to consider their own learning strengths and challenges. Over the years, we have given students anonymous surveys about our class and our teaching, which give students a chance to offer honest feedback.

Teachers can consider which areas they'd like feedback on and then work backwards to design the questions. For example, if we want feedback on our relationship-building efforts, we might include the following fill-in-the-blank question on a survey: "My teacher cares about what is happening in my life ___ (a lot, some, a little, not at all). If we are interested in how students felt about the level of challenge in our class, we might ask: "The work in this class was ___(too hard, just right, too easy)."

Some of the questions can also be designed to prompt students' reflection on their learning processes, such as "Which activities helped you learn English the most this year and why?" or "What could you do differently or better to help yourself in this class?"

What Not to Do

It's difficult for students to finish strong when their learning environment doesn't reflect a spirit of strength. Don't take work off the walls early and pack all your books away when you are expecting students to engage. Nothing says "School's out!" like bare walls and bookshelves.

Don't do a countdown of the number of days left in the school year on your board. For some of our students, the summer doesn't represent a carefree time of rest and rejuvenation. They may already be experiencing feelings of anxiety, which can be heightened by the constant reminder of how the school year is quickly coming to an end. We also want students to know that we want to be there with them, even if we have momentary dreams of the vacation to come.
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Helping English-Learners End the School Year Strong

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First Person This is an adapted excerpt from the authors' new book, The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds Of Practical Ideas To Support Your Students, which comes out this month. Teachers and students may feel like they are limping across the finish line at the end of the school year.

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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing 

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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing 

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"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine."

- Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii

"Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom. I was a student teacher in a Massachusetts elementary school, and it took me awhile to figure out the correlation between the pencil and hallway behavior. If I replied, "Yes, you should bring a pencil," the walk to my classroom took 15 minutes and involved a lot of disruptions, student squabbles, drifting students and other various misbehaviors. As a student teacher, I was very focused on keeping order and creating a challenging learning environment. If I replied, "No, you don't need a pencil today," the walk to my classroom took about five minutes, even with a stop at the drinking fountain.

So, what was the correlation? Writing. The students knew that if they had to bring a pencil they would have to do writing in the class, and they dreaded it. If they didn't need a pencil, we would be working on projects or doing more verbal work, and they liked that. What they weren't expecting was that half-way through my student teaching, I bought 10 boxes of pencils and kept them in my classroom, so they never had to bring a pencil to class - I had plenty to go around. This improved the hallway behavior, but still left me with the question of how to improve ESL student writing when they were frustrated by the practice and went to great lengths to avoid it.

I have been teaching ESL for many years and there is no perfect solution to this problem; however, I do believe I have added quite a few writing activities to my bag of tricks and improved my ability to differentiate writing tasks based on student ability. As I improved my ability to ensure that each student would be successful in the writing activity, their confidence increased, and they were less likely to engage in disruptive behavior. You know what I'm talking about - the long, dramatic search for a pencilâ€¦ and then paperâ€¦ or the meandering walk about the room to get yesterday's writing draft, or the ever popular, "15 minute pencil sharpening" session. I hope some of the writing activities I share with you will help you to reduce anxiety in your ESL students and increase their language and writing skills.

There is a very important correlation between writing and language development. As students develop language skills, they often develop listening skills first (lots of input they can understand), then speaking (they begin to formulate their ideas in the second language), then reading (they can understand the sound/symbol correspondence of the new language and make sense of the words) and finally writing (they have enough language to express their own ideas in writing). This is not true for 100% of language learners, but it is true for the majority of them. Why is writing often the last skill to emerge? It almost seems that reading would be more difficult because the student needs to sound out words and understand the author's message. It would seem writing might be easier because students are sharing their own ideas already in their heads and simply putting them on paper. However, writing requires a lot more processing of language in order to produce a message.

First the student must have an idea, then think of the appropriate way to say it, then start to write it and spell it correctly, and then create another sentence to continue to communicate the idea. If we add the students' worry that they are making huge, embarrassing errors or that their ideas aren't very good in the first place, then we begin to understand the complexity involved in writing in a second language. In fact, the way we communicate, or the way students put their ideas on paper, is largely influenced by their culture. In some of my classes, my Asian students were very confused when I told them to revise their writing because this was a "first draft." In their experience they had always written an item once and submitted it as "the final," and then the teacher would correct it. The idea that they had to write it over again didn't make sense to them. Students from other cultures may have developed a storytelling style that involves laying out a lot of background information and detail and takes quite a while to get to the point. In most western writing, we expect a topic sentence or a lead paragraph that will tell us what the point is, and then everything written after that leads to a direct conclusion. Many of my students had great difficulty connecting their ideas this way.

With that said, teachers have a big task in improving ESL student writing skills, but the payoff for instructional dedication can be great. A researcher on adolescent literacy at the University of Minnesota, David O'Brien, did a study on improving the reading skills of adolescent students. All of the students were involved in a six week study and during that time they were responsible for creating brochures and other types of communication on computers. They had criteria to input a certain amount of text and graphics to create a final project. This required lots of thought and revisions to achieve the final result. At the end of the six weeks the students took a reading test and the majority of them had improved their reading skills significantly. This was a very interesting result, considering that the teachers had not focused on teaching reading skills. The conclusion was that students used meta-cognition to process language and work with it in a more meaningful way, so that consequently their reading skills improved even though they were mostly working on writing.

Additional positive academic results have been seen in the "90 90 90 Schools." These are schools that researchers have identified as 90% poverty, 90% students of color and 90% achieving standards. This is a most remarkable combination in the educational world. The researchers examined these schools and found one common denominator among them - they all focused on developing writing skills. Each school had an agreed upon writing curriculum and methodology that was used at all grade levels, and student writing was prominently displayed throughout the building and in classrooms. Students used writing in all content areas to demonstrate academic concepts learned. In the end, 90% of the students in these schools were able to pass state grade-level tests based on the academic standards.

Now that I have hopefully convinced you that all your hard work will pay off, I would like to introduce some effective writing activities. I would like to acknowledge that there are many types of effective writing instruction used in classrooms today, including process writing, graphic organizers as writing planning tools, vocabulary stretchers, etcâ€¦ and all of those are beneficial to ELL students. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on a few writing activities that I think are particularly useful when working with students with a wide-range of English language skills.

How to differentiate writing activities:

With some pre-planning, a teacher can create a writing assignment that will allow every student to be successful. For example, the teacher may give a writing assignment that has A, B and C levels (or they can be number or color-coded).

ELL students at Level A copy a sentence or short passage exactly as it is written. This helps beginning-level students who are not very familiar with the language, but may be able to interpret some of the information as they copy it.

Level B students receive a paragraph or two that has blank spaces in the text. The students write the word or phrase that completes the sentence. This allows the student to write an amount that is not overwhelming and helps them comprehend the information.

Level C students write on their own, but perhaps they receive paragraph prompts or are allowed to look in a book, but must put the idea in their own words. After some practice with this system and getting to know your students' English language skills, you will be able to create a system that works best for your class.

Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach draws on instructional techniques used with younger children who have not yet developed literacy skills. In this approach, the teacher presents information to the students, or they have an "experience" of some sort - for example, a field trip, or acting out a scene in a book. Then the students tell the teacher what to write on the board to explain the experience. This may be useful as an activity for a volunteer or teacher's aide to use with a small group of ESL students during literacy time. Here are the steps.

1. Experience something - for example, the students have listened to the story, "The Little Red Hen" and then acted it out.

2. The teacher stands by the board or a large sheet of paper and says to the students, "Tell me the story of the Little Red Hen."

3. As each student tells a part of the story, the teacher writes it down on the board, just as it was stated. For example, a student might say, "The Little Red Hen work so hard and nobody want help her." This continues until each student has spoken or the story is finished.

4. Then the teacher tells the students, "Let's read the story together and listen to see if the story makes sense and if there is anything we want to change."

5. After reading the story, the teacher asks students if they want to change anything. For example, one student may raise her hand and say, "I think it should say, "worked" not "work." The teacher may ask other students if they agree or disagree.

6. If the suggested change is correct, the teacher offers praise and moves on to the next suggestion. If the suggested change is not correct, the teacher should help the student analyze the suggested change. For example, if the student says, "I think it should say, â€˜The Little Red Hen she worked so hardâ€¦." The teacher would ask if others agree and see if there is discussion, then the teacher could point out that the Little Red Hen is the pronoun or "name," so in English we don't need to put it in twice. We can say "She worked so hard." Or "The Little Red Hen worked so hard."

7. When students have analyzed and corrected the whole text, the teacher may either circle a few more spots where students missed corrections and they can be challenged to figure out what the change should be, or the students can be instructed to copy the text with the corrections included.

8. As a final activity, students are instructed to take the story home and read it to three people and bring it back with signatures.

After this activity, usually even beginning-level ELL students are able to read the story to others because it was their experience, it is in their own words, and they have worked with the text in a meaningful way.

Sentence Auction

This activity helps students analyze common writing errors through a personalized activity since they are trying to buy their own sentences. Once a week or once a month, a teacher can hold a "Sentence Auction." The teacher takes sentence examples from student writing - some of which have errors and some that don't, and writes them on a handout or overhead projector. The identity of the student who wrote each sentence is not revealed. To begin the sentence auction, each student is given an "account" of perhaps $300. The students are told to "bid" on the good sentences. The winner is the student with the highest number of "good" sentences.

1. The teacher takes on the persona of an "Auctioneer" and opens the bidding at $10.

2. The teacher reads out the sentence confidently exactly as it is written. "Him want to go to school very bad." Who will give me $10?"

3. The students take turns bidding until the teacher decides who has "won" the bid.

4. Some sentences will not sell because students will know they are "bad." Just leave those sentences and move to the next one.

5. After all the sentences have been sold, the teacher goes through the list and the students say whether the sentence was good or bad. If they agree that it was a bad sentence, then the teacher asks them to explain how they can make it a "good" sentence.

6. Finally the students can count how many "good" sentences they have (since they may have bought some bad ones) and a winner is declared.

7. The teacher may want to give a little prize or certificate to the student. In a variation of this activity students can work in pairs or groups to buy the sentences.

Error correction

I have never "corrected" my students' writing mistakes, at least not in the traditional way. I have always told my students, "If I correct your English, I improve my English; if you correct your English, you improve yours." I handled corrections in one of two ways: either I identified what errors I would be looking for in the writing submission or I told them I would only circle five errors in the whole paper. If I pre-set the errors I would look for, for example correct use of past tense, I would only correct past tense errors, even if I saw other glaring errors in the paper. Sometimes this was hard to do, but I wanted to maintain the students' focus on the writing improvement we were working on. If I set a number of errors I would circle, for example, five, then I carefully chose those five and ignored the rest. When I returned the papers, the students were responsible for correcting their own mistakes. If they weren't sure how to do it, they could check with a classmate, and if no one knew, then I would assist. Invariably the students would ask, "Are these the only errors in the paper?" and I would tell them no. They might be disappointed, but they came to understand the value of correcting their own errors when they submitted a piece of writing.

Quick Write

One of the challenges for ELL students when they approach writing is their anxiety about writing their ideas correctly and writing a lot of information in English. This may feel overwhelming when a student is assigned an essay. In order to get students comfortable with the idea of just putting ideas on paper and not worrying about mistakes, we do regular "quick writes." For "quick writes" I give the students a topic and then tell them to write as much as they can for five minutes. They need to keep their pencils on the paper and even if they can't think of anything to write or they are worried about how to spell things, they are supposed to keep writing. At the end of five minutes, the students count how many words they were able to write and they keep track in a log. The objective is that they will see progress in the amount of writing they are able to do in five minutes' time and hopefully apply this fluency to their essay writing.

Cinquain poems

Cinquain poems offer great flexibility in working with ELL students of a variety of language levels. The basic Cinquain formula is as follows, but teachers can modify it as needed according to the student language level.

One noun
Two adjectives
Three gerunds (words + ing)
A short sentence.
A one-word summary
An example of a Cinquain a student might write:
Home
Warm, happy
Loving, welcoming, helping
People you love.
Family

There really is no wrong way to do a Cinquain, students can put key vocabulary words together any way they like to create the message they desire. Teachers may want to use Cinquains to reinforce new content vocabulary and concepts as well.

With these writing activities to try in your classroom, the only thing left is to buy a few boxes of pencils, hand them out to your ELL students and help them discover the possibility of joy in writing. Teachers who use a variety of activities and strategies to help ELL students become comfortable with expressing their ideas in a new language and finding success with small writing tasks, will give their students' confidence for a lifetime of self-expression. I offer this Cinquain poem to sum it up.

Writing
Fun, creative
Thinking, sharing, revising
Lots of ideas.
Proud
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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing

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"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine." - Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii "Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom.

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6 Surefire Ways to Get ESL Kids to Write

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6 Surefire Ways to Get ESL Kids to Write

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by Claudia Pesce 71,681 views

Anyone - whether they are an ESL teacher or student - will tell you the four main skills you need to develop when learning a second language are speaking, listening, reading and...writing. Naturally, learning to speak the second language is often the priority. Listening is essential for speaking, and students easily practice listening skills through movies and songs. Reading is also a skill they may develop easily with the vast amount of material available on the Internet. But writing is usually the skill that is most poorly developed, nowadays only practiced in short emails or abbreviated chat messages.

It is very easy to work on the first three skills in the ESL classroom, but improving writing takes a real conscious effort both on your part and your students'. Need to beat their reluctance to write? Here are some sure-fire ways to do it:

How to Help Your ESL Students Improve Their Writing: 6 Effective Ways

1. Give them a good reason
Say the words " writing assignment ", and you'll most likely hear students groan. Writing is a chore. It's hard work. And you shouldn't deceive them by saying it'll be fun. Writing is a skill that must be honed through practice. But why would they put in the hard work? What's their motivation?

It's easy to find it in Business English students. Most need to write business emails and texts. But what about teens and young learners? In these cases, you'll need to convey the importance of good writing skills. It is essential for them to know how to communicate, not only in speaking, but in writing. And you must make it clear that sending a text message in English does not constitute good writing. Writing is a skill that will prove to be tremendously helpful in the future and they must understand that.

2. Schedule regular writing assignments
Teachers often also prioritize the other skills above writing. It is harder to teach and more time-consuming to correct. Make sure you schedule regular writing assignments every month - you may choose to make it once a week, once a month, or at the end of a unit. Business English students may have more frequent, but shorter assignments. But make sure they are assigned in regular intervals. Students will soon learn to expect them and will be less reluctant to complete them.

3. Guide them
Needless to say, in most ESL classrooms, simply saying, " Write a story of 200 words " won't suffice. The extent of your guidance should be proportional to your students' level. The lower the level, the greater the guidance. As they advance in their English studies they will need less and less guidance, till one day they become more independent writers.

For beginners, it's a good idea to start with short writing prompts or sentences they have to complete. Then, you make the prompt more of a general idea about what they should write, rather than just a sentence: " What would you do if you won the lottery". Here you'd expect them to write several sentences using the second conditional. Finally, they will be ready for more creative, free writing.

At first, you'll need to provide opening and closing expressions for letters. You'll need to instruct them on structuring their texts into paragraphs: introduction, supporting paragraphs and closing. You may even include some phrases they have to use somewhere in their text.

Hand out templates, bibliography, writing style guides and anything they can use to help them in their writing. Soon enough, they won't need the templates anymore.

4. Use peer correction
In some levels - and particularly in Business English students - you may choose to have students correct each other's writing assignments. This way, you won't have piles of papers to correct, but they will also learn from each other's mistakes. Go around the classroom, supervise and answer questions.

5. Give them the option to revise their work
Did someone misinterpret the task? Did a student make too many mistakes? Ask them to revise their work and give them the chance to submit it again. Make sure they understand this is not punishment for turning in poor quality work, but rather a chance to learn from mistakes and make improvements on their writing.

6. Make it a positive experience
Try to offer two pieces of praise for every negative point: " Maria, you used great vocabulary and your punctuation is excellent. Now you need to work on using the right verb tenses. " By mentioning the things they did right, no matter how small they may seem, you'll be letting them know they're on the right path. Pure criticism and a paper full of red marks will not encourage them to continue practicing!

Show them how useful learning to write in English can be. For speaking they have to think quickly, but in writing they have more time to gather their thoughts and organize ideas. Practicing writing can also do wonders for their speaking!

Don't forget that at BusyTeacher.org we have all of the resources you need to help your students improve their writing skills.

Fresh out of ideas for writing prompts? Try our very own Creative Writing Prompts online or worksheets you can print for your class, or purchase the whole set of 300 creative writing prompts plus 100 graphic prompts (it's only $9.99!). How about note taking strategies? We've got those, too, plus ways to organize writing content. With over 300 writing worksheets and activities all ready for you to download, you have no excuses to not teach writing!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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Easy Ways To Make Reading More Interactive 

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Easy Ways To Make Reading More Interactive 

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How do you deal with reading lessons in your ESL classroom? Do you have your students read silently in class? Do you assign the reading for homework? Many of the ESL-Library lessons have a reading component to them. How can teachers make reading lessons more interactive, communicative, and fun? I wanted to share three methods that have always worked well for me.

1) SUMMARIZE

This method incorporates many skills: reading, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and writing. Students must thoroughly analyze and understand a section of the reading, and only by working together can they understand the entire reading.
Instructions:

First, assign a paragraph of the reading to each student. If you have a lot of students, assign the paragraph to a pair of students instead.

Explain that each student (or pair) will be responsible for relating the information from their paragraph in their own words.

Have students silently read through their paragraphs.

If you want, get them to write out their summaries, but I usually prefer to have them give an oral, and more natural, summary.

To help them and their classmates understand the reading well, have each student (or pair) choose 3-5 vocabulary words that they are unfamiliar with.

Have each student (or pair) define their vocabulary words (via a dictionary: English-to-English is best) and write out each definition in their own words.

Get each student to write down an example sentence for each word; this will ensure that they've truly understood the word.

Once all the students are finished their reading and vocabulary, have each student (or pair) present their vocabulary and their summaries (in the order of the original reading).

Then, in pairs or as a class, answer the comprehension questions and correct them before you let the students see the entire reading.

Many of the ESL-Library lessons are formatted in short paragraphs that are ideal for using this method (for example, in Famous People, Famous Places, Famous Things, Holidays, etc.). I usually have students write their words and definitions on the board for their classmates to see and copy down, but I get students to read their example sentences out loud as it usually takes too long to have them write those out, too.

2) CUT UP & REARRANGE

This works best for short readings or dialogues. This method ensures that students think very carefully about the meaning of each sentence.
Instructions:

Divide students into small groups or pairs.

Hand out a cut-up version of the story or dialogue.

Have students try to arrange the sentences in order. It helps to tell them which sentence is first.

Encourage them to tell each other why they think a particular sentence comes next.

Circle through the groups, pointing out sentences that are not in the correct position. (It helps if you bring the original around with you for easy reference.)

To make it fun, you could have a prize for the team or pair that finishes first.

ESL-Library has a whole section with dialogues that are all ready to cut up! Check out our Traveling in English section.

3) READ OUT LOUD

This technique easily turns a reading exercise into a listening exercise for a bit of variety. Students listen to you, the teacher, read aloud as a class activity.
Instructions:

First, read through the comprehension questions as a class.

Read the story out loud.

Give students a few minutes to answer what questions they can.

Read the story out loud a second time.

Give students a bit more time to answer the questions. Then correct them as a class (and hand out the reading for reference or self-study, if desired).

Alternatively, read the story out loud twice in a row, and have students try to answer questions in pairs before correcting in order to incorporate some speaking. To make it even more communicative, higher-level students can pair up and each read half the story aloud to the other, then try to answer the questions together. If students are reading out loud, you can circulate and correct their pronunciation as needed, or note some common pronunciation errors to go over as a class at the end of the activity.

Share

What are some other ways to make reading lessons interactive that work well for you? It would be great if we could share our preferred methods in the comment section below!

Read on, my friends, read on... Tanya

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3 Ways to Make Reading Lessons More Interactive

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How do you deal with reading lessons in your ESL classroom? Do you have your students read silently in class? Do you assign the reading for homework? Many of the ESL-Library lessons have a reading component to them. How can teachers make reading lessons more interactive, communicative, and fun?

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"Sometimes I don't like the books that I'm reading."

- Charlie Kaufman

Creating reading lessons for your class doesn't always have to be a chore like washing dishes. Reading lessons don't have to be a bore for your students either. Reading can be fun for all ages. It can also create opportunities for more interaction in class.

This article will outline five fun reading activities for ESL students that you can use in most classroom situations. Each activity is quick and easy to create with minimal preparation. Now, let's examine the reading activities.

1. TV Guide Reading Activity

This activity is designed to develop students' scanning skills. Search the internet for a chart or table outlining a TV schedule. Alternatively, this could be a team roster in sports, a sheet with various statistics, or any other genre that has a long list of information organized in a chart-type format. You could also find an infographic online to use instead.

Hand out the TV guide or whichever chart you are using to the class. Ask questions relating to the guide, such as what show is playing at a certain time.

Next, get students to ask each other similar questions in pairs or in small groups. They should scan the chart and find the details as quick as they can.

2. Timed Reading Activity

Find an article online that is appropriate for your students' levels. The article should be something that they are interested in. Topics relating to sports, movies or current events are usually great for most people's preferences. Make sure that the article is divided into many paragraphs and is long enough for the activity.

Give every student in the class a copy of the article. Assign a time limit of approximately 2 minutes to read one paragraph.

Next, after reading a paragraph the students discuss what they read with their partner. They can try to recall main ideas and some detailed information.

Finally, lead feedback and pick a few students to summarize the paragraph for the whole class. Repeat this process for the remainder of the article, paragraph by paragraph.

3. Jigsaw Reading Activity

Jigsaw reading activities for ESL students are generally easy to create. Search the internet for a suitable article for your students' level. Again, it should be long enough so that you have enough material to use. It could be a news article or a short blog article based on a topic that they like.

Divide the article into approximately four sections of equal length. You could split it into more sections depending on the size of the class. Four sections are best if you split the class into four small groups of approximately four students per group.

Next, hand out one section of the article to each group. Each group reads the section silently to themselves for a few minutes.

After they have read their sections, have one member from each group form new groups with members from each of the other groups. The new groups should have a student from every old group so that they can discuss the entire article together.

Finally, in their new groups, each student should summarize their section for their group. Students can ask questions, explain vocabulary and do other critical thinking tasks.

4. Q & A Reading Activity

Questions and answer activities are ideal for most reading classes. These activities can be used with any text or supplementary reading articles that you have access to.

Divide the class into teams. You could split the class in half or into smaller groups of four.

Next, assign one section of the text for each team. Each team should then create questions based on their section of text. It could be a mixture of scanning and skimming questions. They could also be vocabulary-based questions or discussion questions.

After the students have created the questions, each group should ask the other groups their questions. Go in the order of the text, starting with the first group's questions and ending with the last group's questions.

You could make it even more competitive by giving the teams points for correct answers.

5. Sentence Building Reading Activity

This activity takes more preparation than the others. You can take text from any article that you find online which is appropriate for your class's level. Paste the text into a document and set the font size to something larger than 15-point font.

The next step is a bit more time-consuming. In the document that you have created, you need to cut out all of the sentences from the article. Of course, you could just use a portion of the article since this would take time. This procedure could be something that the students do in class themselves if you have enough scissors.

Next, separate the strips of sentences in different random piles. Then, cut out the individual words and use a paperclip to keep them together. Make sure not to mix up the words with the other sentences or the activity won't work.

In class, give the students the paperclips of attached the words. The students should then try to arrange the words into complete sentences. They can do this in pairs or groups.

After they have successfully completed one sentence, they could re-fasten the words to the paperclip and pass it to another group to try.

Other Reading Activities for ESL Students

If you would like more ideas about improving your students reading skills, visit ESL Expat for more ESL reading activities.

Did you find any of these reading activities for ESL students useful for your language classroom?

Please leave a comment below.

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5 Fun Reading Activities for ESL Students - ESL Expat - Medium

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"Sometimes I don't like the books that I'm reading." - Charlie Kaufman Creating reading lessons for your class doesn't always have to be a chore like washing dishes. Reading lessons don't have to be a bore for your students either. Reading can be fun for all ages.

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by Claudia Pesce 140,626 views

But becoming simply literate is not enough. For academic and professional success, you need to learn how to read well. ESL students, in particular, need to develop the reading skills that will enable them to not only comprehend texts in English, but also obtain what they need to deliver a response, whether this is a written/oral reply or an action they must take. These are the essential reading strategies that you should be teaching your students - at any level.

7 Reading Strategies Your ESL Students Must Know

1. Previewing

Previewing is absolutely essential for students to get a sense of what the text is about. Elements that are usually helpful for previewing are newspaper headlines or titles; images or photos; and signal words or format. For example, if the article has words like first, second, third, etc... at the beginning of each paragraph or is a numbered list, students will get the sense that the text lists steps or is a roundup article.

Reading Exercise: Choose a newspaper article with a great headline. Before reading the article, ask students what they think the article will be about, based on the headline.

2. Contextualizing

It is always helpful for students to learn to place the text within a context. Is the news article centered on something that happens everywhere in the world, or just in one specific location? Is this something that affects you, the reader, or other people in the world? Does the main character in the story go through something you can relate to, or something you have no experience in? These are great questions for students to think about as they read.

Reading Exercise: Before reading this text about Education in Britain, discuss the educational system in the country your students are currently in: How many years of grade school are there? How many years of high school? Students read about what it's like to go to school in Britain and compare it to their country.

3. Visualizing

Some students, especially those who are visual learners, need to "see" the information. Can you see the main character in your mind's eye based on the description? Can you picture the contaminated river as described in the news article? Visualizing also involves organizing the information in a visual way, usually through the use of a mind map or other graphic organizer.

Reading Exercise: Have students read a text like By the Water. After the reading, ask students to record the images that come to mind as they read: I can picture the sun shining on the water and the birds flying above ...

4. Asking and Answering Questions

What questions come to mind when you preview an article? How will the main character solve this problem? Students need to come up with questions they would like answered in the text and pay attention to how they are answered.

Reading Exercise: Read a news article or a piece like this one about the Boston Marathon. After reading the title, ask students to come up with three questions they expect the article will answer and then read to see if they find the answers.

5. Summarizing

After the reading, students should be able to summarize what they've read. This may be a short oral summary or a full paragraph. Summarizing includes a very important skill: getting the gist. What was the main point in the story? Summarizing is not retelling everything that happened as it happened, and students need to not only tell the difference, but also learn to give back information in a clear concise manner.

Reading Exercise: Ask the class to read the story of Helen of Troy. Then, ask them to summarize in just one sentence or two what caused the Troyan War.

6. Skimming

Skimming and scanning are usually considered speed-reading skills because they are not used for intensive reading. They are essential skills nonetheless, and students need to know that sometimes intensive reading is not necessary.

Skimming a text involves running your eyes over it quickly to get the main idea. It also allows you to identify which parts of a long text you might want to read more closely. This skill is particularly useful, for example, for Business English students who have to read long reports that are several pages long. By skimming the report, they can still follow the gist and stop when they find something of particular interest to them.

Reading Exercise: Hand out different magazines or newspapers in English, and tell the class they have five minutes to skim one. After they're done skimming, ask them what stories they remember reading.

7. Scanning

Scanning, on the other hand, allows you to quickly search a text for a particular piece of information. Scanning is ideal when students need to find a phone number in a directory, the date of a historical event or the time their train is leaving.

Reading Exercise: Show the class this PowerPoint slide about Jobs. Divide the class into groups and give each group 2-3 questions to answer. You can use the same questions that appear on the right but in a different order. Each group must scan the text to find the information they need to answer the questions.

Sometimes teaching ESL is more than "teaching English".

We must also teach skills and strategies that will help our students succeed in whatever they choose to do.

What other reading skills do you think are useful for ESL students? Share your thoughts below!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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7 Essential Reading Strategies Your ESL Students Must Know (and YOU Must Teach)

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by Claudia Pesce 140,626 views But becoming simply literate is not enough. For academic and professional success, you need to learn how to read well. ESL students, in particular, need to develop the reading skills that will enable them to not only comprehend texts in English, but also obtain what they need to deliver a response, whether this is a written/oral reply or an action they must take.

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ESL conversation techniques and activities are helpful because talking about something in a different language is more complex and challenging than filling out a worksheet or reading a text and answering questions. You can't just ask your students to "talk to your partner about___". The clearer and more specific a task you can give them, the better the results.

Some good tasks include surveys and interviews, information gaps (each partner has information the other lacks and must request), and sentence starters ("My favorite sport is _____ because...")

All of these can be made easier for beginners by providing the form of the question and the basic structure of the answer, or more challenging for intermediates by making them think up Qs and As.

Most students need constant practice with the 3rd person singular and the auxiliary "do", so it's a much harder exercise to be told "ask your partner how many uncles and aunts she has" (& then convert back: "report to the class-or your group-how many she has") than "Ask: 'How many uncles and aunts do you have?'"

The more advanced your students, the greater variety of tasks they can handle.

Beginning students, for example, can do very simple role plays of everyday activities after practicing a simple dialog on the same subject. Advanced students don't need the dialog, and can take on more complicated situations (see below for some ideas.) Advanced students can also discuss their opinions and preferences much more freely, problem solve, etc.

For extensive lists of ESL conversation topics with suggested questions (mostly Intermediate up) visit iteslj.org, ESL Discussions, or KeepEmTalking (which also has links to related readings. audio, and video including TED talks.) TEFL.net has a set of excellent ESL conversation lesson plans with suggested questions aimed at pre-Intermediate students.

Some ideas for Role Plays:

·Planning a family vacation (with each student in a group taking the role of a different family member-- let your 'contrary' students be the teenagers!)

·Family (or business department) budgeting

·Complaint/returns department

·Resolving problems with a landlord

·Doctor visit

·Job interview

·Receptionist/co-worker: taking & leaving phone messages

Other Good ESL Conversation Starters:

· Corners: Decide on four discussion topics (or points of view on a topic) related to your current lesson or teaching point. Label or designate one corner of the room for students who choose that topic to congregate. This lets each student choose the topic or angle on a subject that interests them most. Students in each corner discuss their topics, then (for an intermediate or advanced class) may choose a representative to present their insights or conclusions to the class.

(If you try this for beginners you might skip the 'reporting back stage.' Beginning topics can also be quite simple: pets, brothers and sisters, favorite foods, etc., and discussions can be quite brief, with possible forms or examples on the board: "I have (a)/ _______." "I have a brother and two sisters." "I like ice cream, but I don't like bananas," "Do you like _______?," etc.)

· Picture activities: finding things in pictures from a list on the board, or describing similar pictures to a partner to discover a certain number of details that are different, or just discussing the pictures. (What's happening here? What do you think they will do next? Why is the man so excited?)

· Line up (partner exchange) for short Q & As: Each student in one line has a question. The student opposite him/her in a second line answers that question (either his personal answer or according to an assigned role), then rotates one student to the left and answers the next student's question. This is similar but shorter (and less open-ended) than a Mingle, below.

· Mingles: Give each student a subject on which to write a question (to get to know each other better; possibly based on that day's lesson or teaching point, or open-ended if the students are able to talk freely and there is plenty of time.) Students find partners, ask and answer each other's questions, and then exchange questions and find a new partner to ask the new question-- continuing as long as most students are interested or class time lasts. This technique is from ESL flow , which gives lots of ways to use it (as well as a large number of other speaking activities according to language level, with related grammar lessons.)

ESL Lesson Plans for Teachers> ESL Conversation Techniques.

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ESL Conversation Techniques-- Get Your Students Talking

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ESL conversation techniques and activities are helpful because talking about something in a different language is more complex and challenging than filling out a worksheet or reading a text and answering questions. You can't just ask your students to "talk to your partner about___".

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The more kids speak, even if they are repeating what they hear you say, is key to building language fluency.  The more they practice, the more fluent they become.  This piece from Edutopia has some tips for incorporating speech into your lessons

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I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. -- Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
Let's face it -- everyone has something to say some time or another. ESL learners are no different. As a teacher of either online English or classroom ESL instruction, it is important to make your students feel comfortable speaking. They may feel embarrassed about their inability to speak English fluently. Or perhaps they are just shy. As an instructor, you need to ask yourself how you are impacting the learning environment:

Are the students afraid to make mistakes?

Is your instruction on their level?

Do you state clear instructions with examples?

Do your lessons incorporate exciting material and ways to teach?

Are your students motivated and interested to learn?

After you ask yourself these questions and alter your teaching based on honest self-evaluation, you can incorporate more ways to encourage your students to learn English.

1. Build Fluency

The most important thing to remember is that your students need to be speaking English as much as possible. The more they practice, the better they speak. The better they speak, the more confidence they will gain. And this cycle will continue to build fluency. Don't make the grammar lessons the focal point of your instruction. Don't do too much teacher talk and lengthy explanations. Choral responses where the students recite the same "response" -- whether it be a word, phrase, sentence or dialogue -- are an effective tool to build vocabulary skills that lead to comprehension. This method helps to build success for all learners. So get your students to talk, and keep them talking!

2. Focus on Individual Needs

With the current educational journals consumed with such topics as Differentiated Education, Meeting the Needs of All Learners, Maximizing the Disconnect Between the Real World and the Classroom, etc., it is important that you, too, focus on each student. Choose those skills that are the most important for him or her, and tailor your instruction accordingly. While Student A may be struggling with learning the alphabet and initial sounds, Student B might be reading at a fourth-grade level. I'm sure you get the point. Challenge all of your students with material at their own level to ensure language progress. My own teaching mantra is, "All learners can learn if we but know how to teach them." The onus is on you as a teacher. That is the unique skill you have to offer.

3. Provide High-Interest Engagement

We all learn more when we are engaged. Think of times when learning was the most enjoyable for you. Try to emulate those teaching styles. Was it how the teacher interacted with the class and how you were treated with respect, fairness, patience and acceptance? Maybe the teacher planned lessons that involved more than just passive learning. Perhaps there were learning activities with movement, which allowed for maintaining the students' attention levels and increasing their classroom participation. Did you have a creative teacher who used a variety of materials like flashcards, games, magazine and newspaper articles, pictures, photos, fieldtrips, projects, technology, role plays, guest speakers, simulations or question-and-answer sessions? Did they mix it up when it came to working individually and in small groups or whole-class instruction? Did they allow choice in student learning and ask for input as far as needs and interests?

4. Model

How you talk in your lessons, when both focusing on instruction and relating with your students, will increase their language ability. Speak slowly and clearly so that the ESL student will understand. Choose words that are easier for them to grasp. Use visuals whenever possible so that students can also read the directions at the same time. Teaching with two or more modalities heightens understanding and learning. Offer repetition and review until your students have mastery. Always be positive toward them, and continue to praise them for speaking to encourage more speaking. Develop a strong, open and caring relationship toward each of your students, and in turn they will strive to be the best students possible. I guarantee you will have a more successful classroom of ESL students.

5. Allow Time

Learning a language is developmental. There are endless factors in acquiring a language, so it is important that you put this in perspective. When you talk to a student, allow wait time for the response. When they struggle with a certain skill or concept, help them over this hurdle. Everyone learns in different ways, and once you embrace this idea, you and your students will be more apt to enjoy the learning process together.

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Five Tips for Getting the ESL Student Talking | Edutopia

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I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. -- Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares Let's face it -- everyone has something to say some time or another. ESL learners are no different.

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Digital tools for storytelling.  Great for projects and activities where the students tell you what they have learned/know.

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Kids use green screen-like technology to put photos of themselves (or others) into a story template, then add text and voice recording. In-app templates focus on social stories, like visiting a new place, getting a haircut, or holidays. For ELLs, the templates offer a useful foundation for building social language skills. Plus, the app's voice recording feature offers low-stakes speaking practice since kids can record themselves talking, then can listen and re-record as many times as they want.

This versatile pre-writing or publishing tool is easy for young storytellers to use. Dozens of photos sorted into categories including culture, people, family and fun, serve as inspiration for prompts. Kids can tell stories using the in-app recording feature. Teachers can also create custom prompts with their own images and voice. Giving ELLs a safe space to tell stories about their lives and experiences validates their unique contributions to the class community.

Students can create impressive video slideshows using research resources built right into the app. They can capture screengrabs from an interactive map, safely search for images from the Web and access image archives from trusted sources like the Library of Congress. Kids put the slides in order, add text, music and narration, and then export the final project as a video file. Shadow Puppet Edu supports ELLs in developing academic vocabulary in both collaborative groups and independently. Students can use it to review new concepts, present research, track progress, explain their thinking and more.

Just as with the original Toontastic app, Toontastic 3D is a storytelling app that's inspired by puppetry, theater, and animation. It employs a "Story Arc" with five sequential scenes to guide story structure (setup, conflict, challenge, climax and resolution). Kids move characters around each scene as they record narration and dialogue. For ELLs, Toontastic 3D can be an invaluable tool for building writing skills or practicing story analysis. Students can storyboard a piece of original writing or a story they read in class, and then bring it to life with fun settings and quirky characters.

Students or teachers can create and share media projects that incorporate video, image, voice, or even drawings. Once posted, projects can be open to text, voice or video comments from a select group or from all VoiceThread members. It's a natural fit for a range of student presentations and projects such as explaining research or retelling a story with original artwork. Alternately, teachers can create a VoiceThread to solicit student commentary. For ELLs who sometimes are hesitant to speak up in class, VoiceThread gives them a chance to thoughtfully craft their presentations or comments and contribute their ideas with confidence.

This formidable tool is like a superhero version of PowerPoint. Users can import photos, PDF files, movies and more from many sources to use in a presentation. Students can learn how to present information using multiple forms of expression (images, text, video and audio) through digital technology. Students can edit the audio in their presentations, which gives ELLs a chance to self-assess and revise before presenting to their peers and teacher. Plus, allowing students to create multimedia presentations can take some of the focus off the speaking task, and can give creative, tech-savvy students a chance to shine.

Sutori
(Middle/High)

Sutori* is a tool for creating interactive timelines and stories. Students can craft multimedia projects with text, images, videos, "Did You Know" call-out boxes, click-to-reveal text links, and multiple-choice quiz questions. Sutori offers collaboration features, allowing students to co-create stories for group projects as well. Teachers and students can access pre-made stories and view or contribute to a collection of community submitted stories. Sutori is another great option for empowering ELLs to share their stories and knowledge without the stress of an oral presentation.
Erin Wilkey Oh is Executive Editor of Education Content for Common Sense, creator of Graphite, a free service for educators in search of the best apps, games and websites for learning. Tools included here have received high ratings on Graphite by educators and by the editorial staff at Common Sense. Go to Graphite to read full reviews of digital tools and how teachers use them for learning in class. *This post has been updated to include Sutori.

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7 Storytelling Apps That Get English Language Learners Talking

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Kids use green screen-like technology to put photos of themselves (or others) into a story template, then add text and voice recording. In-app templates focus on social stories, like visiting a new place, getting a haircut, or holidays. For ELLs, the templates offer a useful foundation for building social language skills.