Sites that Help Classroom Teachers

1. Best Practices - Explore resources to help identify and discuss best practices.
2. Critical Thinking Sites and Activities - Ideas for exercises and activities to use in the classroom,and a field guide to critical thinking can be found here.
3. Curriculum & DI - Here are resources that discuss brainstorming, energizers for the classroom, learning differences and other differentiated instruction resources.
4. Discipline/Classroom Management - Find on this page resources that address discipline plans, suggestions, managment, models, rewards, and articles to help classroom teachers.
5. General Teacher Resources - Bloom's Taxonomy, Articles, Teaching Tips, Grants and other resources for teachers can be found on this page.
6. Online Workshops for Teachers - A collaboration between Thirteen Ed Online (WNET New York) and Disney Learning Partnership bring to teachers these free online workshops.
7. Parent/Teacher Relationship - These sites offer resources to help bring closer relationships between families and teachers.
8. Reading/Lexile Resources - Lexile resources along with information on reading instruction information and questioning strategies can be found here.
9. Technology Ideas for the Classroom - You will find many resources here to help you integrate technology into your daily lessons, which include tips, Thinkquest links, thematic units and articles.
10. Video Resources - Here are resources that are in video format to help teachers see what is working in other schools, along with a video series designed to help teachers integrate the Internet into their classrooms. 

10 creative ways to teach English that deliver outstanding results.

As a creative school, with a track record in fantastic English results, we are often asked what our specific approach is: how do we teach through the arts yet manage to maintain such high expectations from all our pupils? I'd like to share some of these approaches with you:

Immersion activities

How can children access stories, poems and other texts if their minds and imaginations not fully engaged? We have found that immersing children in a range of creative activities before reading the text means that they are fully prepared, and excited, about the reading journey ahead of them. Through painting, music composition, a film project, in role drama or sculpture, the kids have had a chance to share vocabulary, ideas and concepts which gives their reading fresh meaning and purpose.

Clear purpose

What's the point of reading and writing anything if you don't know why you're doing it? We aim to provide children with a clear purpose to all reading, and especially writing tasks. Whether it's an invitation to the headteacher to attend a class assembly, an email to an author or an article for a school newspaper, our children know why the quality of their writing matters: because there will be a real audience for their published work.

Professional publishing

One effective way of valuing children's work as well as providing a real incentive, is to plan for a range of ways to publish their writing. Recent examples include a whole school bookmaking project. Following a whole school Inset on bookbinding techniques, every class published their own shared book; one example being an anthology of short spooky stories composed by year 6. Their stories were mounted on handmade paper, accompanied with each child's art work (lino cut style prints on metallic paper) with a dramatic paper cut out front cover. The effort the children put into their work was immense, and the results were stunning as a result. The anthology has been enjoyed by parents and other pupils and the children's pride in their work is clear to see.

Meaningful planning

Where possible, learning in English is linked with subjects within the creative curriculum we follow: the international primary curriculum (IPC). Well in advance of teaching, teachers collaborate and share their ideas for planning through a mind mapping process. Meaningful, creative activities are planned for, ensuring that all staff members know exactly what the children will be learning and why.

Focused on strategies

The teaching of reading is not easy. As children's fluency in reading increases, it's hard to know what reading skills need to be taught, and when. We ensure that specific reading strategies are modelled explicitly to the class; this provides children with a holistic bank of skills to draw upon. This could include scanning a text, making an inference, predicting or creating a mental image. Our teachers use 'think aloud' statements to model to the children how these skills are used, and how they can help them become better readers. These strategies are then shared as a class, and then assessed in follow up guided reading activities.

Inspirational learning environment

Take a trip to our school and you'll find classroom environments that inspire adults and children alike. Not only is the children's work displayed creatively, but there is a range of learning prompts to inspire and support all pupils. We want to encourage our children to discover new texts, genres and authors, so our reading areas are inviting, well resourced and highly organised. Pupils can choose from an exciting array of reading material: newspapers, classic texts, reference books as well as the children's own published stories are just some examples of what book corners might offer.

Drama to engage and inspire

The use of drama is such a powerful tool. Taking the lead from our drama specialist, all teaching staff use a range of techniques to promote the exploration of characters, situations and historical events. This process expands the pupils' imaginations, and provides them with the ideas they need to give their writing that extra spark and flair.

Rigorous teaching of spelling and phonics

In the infants, phonics is streamed, so all children can benefit from tailored teaching, making maximum progress as a result. All phonics and spelling activities are fun, multi sensory and as physical possible, the aim being to meet all learning styles in the class. In the juniors, we try to make homework lists as personalised to the child as possible to ensure that the spelling patterns stick in a meaningful way.

Grammar concepts taught creatively

Grammar cannot be taught as a stand alone activity. What's the point of that? Children begin to understand grammar concepts, and start to apply them in their own writing, when they start to read with a writer's mind. Punctuation rules and techniques are drawn from shared texts; texts which the children have already been immersed in and have a good understanding of. Exploring these, and embedding them creatively is how the learning takes place.

Peer and self assessment

What child doesn't love marking somebody else's work? With a clear marking key, success criteria and purpose in mind, children set about assessing either their own, or a partner's piece of writing. Modelled through the teacher's own formative marking, pupils know what the expectations are. They are well trained in searching for successful examples of the learning intention, articulating their responses to the work, checking the writing matches any targets and giving constructive feedback. Seeing the children learn from each other in this way is hugely positive; you know you've done your job well.

Supporting English Language Learners with Technology

ELL students are the fastest-growing K–12 population in the country, yet professional development for educators has not yet caught up. Fortunately, technology offers some easy ways to help these students build vocabulary, achieve reading fluency, improve comprehension, access curriculum content, and strengthen their home-school connections.

1. Image Galleries
To assist students who are learning English, preview each of your lessons and support the text you are reading with suitable images from the Internet. Images will provide contextual clues and help ELL students determine meaning. Google's image searches, for example, allow you to search via key words for photographs and illustrations, which can be easily downloaded and printed. For students needing additional vocabulary support, picture dictionaries are available at Enchanted Learning.

2. Multilingual Books
Research shows that if students have literacy in their primary language, they are able to transfer those skills to reading in English (Snow, Burns, Griffin, 1998). But locating multilingual books can be a challenge - and buying them can be very expensive. Instead, invite students to publish their own multilingual books using Microsoft Word, as in the Toronto-based Thornwood Public Schools' Dual Language Showcase. Students in this district — which is home to 40 languages — create their own books and post them online. These ELL students also receive kits with corresponding multilingual books and audio tapes to share with their families. Another option for building fluency: one of the many integrated audio and software programs available, such as Wiggleworks.

3. Multimedia Projects
In the upper-elementary and middle-school grades, students study content areas in greater depth and are exposed to more complex vocabulary and complicated concepts. With just a textbook, ELL students may experience enormous difficulty. Multimedia projects offer students hands-on, engaging ways to explore the scientific content and concepts presented. For example, the Jason Project guides students through an experience-based science curriculum with video, live satellite broadcasts, and online activities including digital labs and electronic journals.

                                                       

Proposed strategies for Teaching - Learning English teachers
Teaching Strategies

In each classroom where he developed the process of learning English , it performs a joint construction between teacher and learners , which in turn is unique and unrepeatable. For this and other reasons it is concluded that it is difficult to consider that there is only one way to teach or a foolproof method to be effective and valid for all teaching and learning situations .

In fact it can be said that even with or counting with recommendations on how to carry out a proposal or English teaching method either, the way this or these are concretized or operate will always be different and unique every time . Teaching strategies are procedures that the teacher uses in a reflective and flexible to promote the achievement of significant learning in students, are means or resources to provide educational support .

Some of the strategies that we can include in the teaching-learning process of English we can mention the following , which in one way or another have shown some effectiveness , to be introduced either as support academic texts or in the dynamics of teaching-learning process .

     Reading

It is the skill that develops over because everything is provided for students to be in the ability to understand English texts , hence the introduction of strategies such as:

Reading for specific information or Scanning. It consists of performing a cursory reading , in which specific information is sought , and once you find it with the naked eye you start reading more carefully, to take the most interesting elements of it.

Reading for gist or skimming . It consists of a generally quick read to get a general idea of the text.

Reading for details : Consists of a slow and detailed reading in order to understand the meaning of each word , this applies mainly to reading complex issues such as poetry or highly technical issues of a specific workplace .

     Listening

Through this skill is achieved the student to understand the language that is expressed verbally without reading . The most used strategies are:

Listening for gist : It consists of listening to a segment complete either a conversation , reading , etc. , so that the student understands generally what the speaker means .

Listening for specific information: the student is asked to listen to a recording or teacher in order to locate specific information so requested .

Listening for detail : consists mainly listen to a recording to detect similarities and diferentas between the pronunciation of the words and how they are pronounced the same . As used for the identification of accents .

Listening for attitude: The student listens to a recording to help on how to be the intonation and even to determine the speaker's emotions .

     Speaking

Develops the student's ability to express themselves orally easily in a foreign language . Hence the use of strategies such as :

Role play and dialogues : Help the student practice the language in a safe for them , since they are allowed to write fictional situations that subsequently have to present in public.

Speech : It consists of writing and presenting speeches on specific topics that you want to develop the student. This practice helps not only fluency but their ability to express themselves in public in formal situations .

Discussions : We present controversial topics that motivate students to talk without restrictions and free one way in which you can express your ideas and defend their views .

Group work: small activities are conducted in the classroom that require students to exchange ideas using the language. This helps with the practice of it improving your fluency and even given the opportunity to correct within themselves or answer your questions without help from the teacher.

Choral Drill : The strategy used for word repetition in order to improve pronunciation and intonation .

     Writing

Help the student develop the way they express in writing in the language. The most used strategies are:

Simple Completing texts : The student completes either a text with the correct form of the verb , or some other word to help give coherence to the text.

Writing post cards and Letters : The student can write their experiences and emotions or even can learn how to write a formal letter and so practicing grammar and other aspects of writing .

Writing compositions and essays : This is a strategy of more formal writing allows students to develop a freely chosen topic while other resource documents to argue their work. It is used with advanced students , as not only their level of difficulty but also the need to write coherently .