Inside Outside Circles

Here's a short video I made (my first one!!) describing one of my favorite cooperative learning activities. I've used it many times in my high school Spanish classroom, and students always love it and it's a great way to formatively assess because you have the chance to hear all students working with the content, as well as practicing listening and speaking skills. I hope you're able to try it soon and that you love it as much as I do!

Connecting with Parents

Here is a short video where a teacher shares some ideas she has used to successfully connect with parents. Enjoy!

Viewing Your ESL Students as an Asset

As mainstream teachers, it is sometimes easy to fall into the trap of thinking of all of the things our ESL students do NOT have, rather than considering all they DO bring to the classroom. This is called a deficit mentality versus an asset mentality.

I follow a blog (here) that posted this video, and it is a short but powerful description of an asset mentality and shows how we as educators can determine to have a paradigm shift, where the focus becomes all our students possess rather than what they lack. I hope you'll watch and be impacted as I was!