TEACHER CREATED TIPS

Salvador, Imad, Jonathan, Rita, Loi, Pierre, Ana, and Cruz. These are the names of just a handful of my ELL students. These are the names I think about often—the names of students who challenged, humored, and taught me in the classroom each day while I taught English as a Second Language at CSU Pomona. For five years I learned some of the ins and outs of teaching ELLs. For you seasoned teachers reading this, many of these tips will sound familiar. But for those just entering the teaching field, I hope to impart the little bit of wisdom I have learned from my multicultural classroom ventures.

A General Tip:
It’s true when people tell you that “Every day is a new adventure.” My mentor warned me of this prior to my first day of teaching, but of course I shrugged it off as nonsense. However, after the first five minutes of class, I realized how true it was, and I clung to the sentence the rest of my time as a teacher. I think what’s most important about this advice is that if your teaching isn’t adventurous (and if you’re not having fun), then your students won’t be on the safari with you. And what fun (for you and the students) is that?

The Specifics:
—Try to add cultural elements into your lessons as often as possible. Your students will love this! First of all, it shows that you respect their culture. Second of all, it’s automatically a topic of interest for them. And, finally, students in the class who aren’t of the culture you’re studying will become more culturally aware. I once talked about Chinese New Year after spending a summer in China. I brought in red envelopes and talked about how children receive these from their parents and relatives during this holiday. They are filled with money, and they represent a wish for a happy and healthy new year. This “lesson” only took five minutes, but it made my students’ eyes light up in appreciation.

—Try to speak slowly, but avoid speaking loudly. I used to always hear the “Speak slowly and loudly” tip before I started teaching. It’s rather insulting if you think about it. Your students aren’t hard of hearing, but chances are, they are taking notes. This is why speaking slowly is a good idea.

—Try not to assume that your ELLs don’t know the grammar rules. If they don’t know them, you’ll know because they’ll have questions, be taking notes, or do poorly on quizzes and/or tests. Instead, do a diagnostic paragraph (or request sample sentences) during the first class to see what the majority of your students have already learned. Then you don’t have to waste class time going over that material.

—Try not to give them too much drill work. If you can recall being in school, then I’m sure you remember how boring drill work was for you. And it still is! Instead, try giving them practical practice. For example, you can ask them to attend a baseball game (preferably a Padres game—they’re my favorite!), listen to some of the language used, and write down the sayings they hear (especially anything that has an unclear meaning). Then you can go over some of the sayings in class. You never know—some of them may be idiomatic (a perfect addition to a lesson)!

—Try to share some catchy tips with them, like mnemonic devices (e.g., FANBOYS). My mentor created a list of “31 Flavors of Instructional Verbs.” On this list, definitions and examples were given for thirty-one verbs. These really helped my ELLs whenever they were instructed to write paragraphs.

Remember to enjoy your journey in the land of ELLs, and if you happen to have a round-trip ticket, I hope you’ll pay me a visit and share with me your experiences and tips. In the meantime, enjoy the adventure!

The spring and fall of 2009 have been trying times for California teachers. Even those with several years of experience entered the month of March on an anxious note, with their jobs in jeopardy amidst news of statewide budget cuts. As the temperatures of summer rose, so, too, did the number of pink slips handed out. And while some teachers who lost their positions were eventually rehired in the fall, many weren’t. The result: a lot of highly qualified teachers who are now sleeping nearer to their cell phones, waiting for an early-morning employment opportunity. This is the life of a substitute teacher.

As the husband of one such teacher, I get to experience the daily uncertainty firsthand. And the intrigue only begins when my wife (let’s call her “Mrs. M”) gets that 6:00 a.m. phone call. What school? What time? What grade level? Will she be singing and teaching sight words to excitable kindergarteners, or will she be multiplying fractions and discussing ancient civilizations with sassy sixth-graders? Either way, her workbag has to be packed and her clothes have to be hanging on the door, ready to go. That 6:00 a.m. phone call sometimes doesn’t come until 7:15.

When she arrives at the school, there are more questions in need of answering: Where is the classroom? Does she have bus duty? breakfast duty? recess duty? lunch duty? And, most importantly, of course, just who are these 30 small people with big personalities who are about to walk through the door?

A clue to how the day will go usually comes in the form of the notes the teacher has left. Are the lesson plans for the day included? Do copies need to be made? Did the teacher leave instructions about the classroom policies for bathroom breaks and pencil sharpening? (Maybe. Probably. Almost never.) And will the activities scheduled for that day actually take up the allotted time? Here’s where being the wife of an editor of educational materials can be a real bonus.

Two series of books that Mrs. M swears by are the Mind Twisters series and the Mastering Skills series. The Mind Twisters books give her plenty of ready-to-use, content-based time-fillers that get students to use their critical-thinking skills. Best of all, the students like doing these puzzles, riddles, and mazes so much that Mrs. M can use them as rewards for good behavior. The Mastering Skills books are handy because they’re great for reviewing grade-specific, standards-based skills.

The single most valuable resource Mrs. M has at her disposal, though, could be the Substitute Teacher Handbook. This one-stop guide is brimming with teaching strategies, classroom-management tips, and emergency curriculum, and it includes entire sections on working with special populations and being a professional substitute teacher (including FAQs and legal responsibilities).

While there is nothing that can make a substitute teacher’s job easy, there are resources like these that can make the substitute teacher more prepared. And you don’t have to be an expert in fractions or the Peloponnesian War to know that being prepared is at least half the battle.

“So Many Books, So Little Time” is the saying emblazoned on my favorite sweatshirt. I feel this way about all the books I’d like to read. Being a voracious reader and belonging to a book group hardly slakes my thirst for books. Either reading a novel to or with my class was always the highlight of my teaching day.

Often I would choose a novel to read aloud to seventh graders. You’d be amazed at how attentive they were as they listened for about 10 minutes at the end of the hour. I’d usually choose something that had some action in it and something they could relate to. Hatchet was one of my favorites. One time I read James and the Giant Peach to them. They were truly mesmerized as they tried to visualize the giant peach flying through the sky.

Literature was my favorite thing to teach. I could get all kinds of fascinating conversations going when we read books like The Cay, Anne Frank, The Twenty-One Balloons, and A Wrinkle in Time. Activities that linked the books made them all the more interesting to the kids. They’d weave a place mat while blindfolded when we read The Cay and create their own tesseract for A Wrinkle in Time. I’d have them keep reading response journals and I’d read them periodically. It was gratifying to see how they enjoyed the books.

Right now I have Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book on my desk waiting for me to read, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is in my briefcase. These are two books teachers tell me I need to read. I wonder if I were in a classroom if I would be teaching these. What else would I need to read? What are kids favorites as opposed to what is required? And is there a required book these days? So what do you think I should read? What about your students reading? What do you want them to read and what must they read? With so many books out there, maybe I’ll get a new sweatshirt that says “So Many Books, So Many Questions.”

Halloween is our favorite holiday here at Teacher Created Resources. As many of us were previously teachers, we still remember the fun and whimsy of the annual Halloween parade held at our schools. We continue that tradition at TCR each year by having our own parade through the buildings, picking up fellow costumed employees as we go. The parade ends at the front of the main office, where we take a group picture.

We then proceed to the banquet hall next door, where we enjoy a wonderfully spooky potluck lunch.

Nowadays, many schools don’t observe or celebrate Halloween. Many adjustments have been made over the last few years, not only to respect the belief systems of our multicultural student populations, but also to accommodate the need for more time to spend on curriculum. What are some other changes that you have noticed in recent years that have affected how celebrations are viewed in schools? What do think these changes are driven by? Do you agree with the stand your district takes on celebrations in school?