Over the Summer of 2019, I have the opportunity to increase my pedagogy skills by taking several courses. One of the courses I am engaged in is utilizing technology in an EL classroom, called Computer Assisted Language Learning, ESL 509 at
Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. The course has required our class to start a blog, which luckily I already had this one, and use
Google Alerts to keep up to date on ESL Technology for the classroom. Several tags I have added include ESL itself, ESL Blogs, ESL Tech, ESL Math and some other Gaming to Learn Alerts. Although they are limited, I have begun to collect some great resources for my teacher toolbox through the Google Alerts.
Blogging in the EL Classroom:
During my tenure at
William Penn Senior High School, I have taught the full gamut of mathematics courses until I finally landed in my passion, Geometry. I teach a heavily vocabulary centered mathematics course, that has a lot of terminologies to describe the pictures and diagrams my students see every day. One such set is the "undefined terms" of points, lines, and planes. Within my classroom, I have utilized journaling on a weekly basis to help students process, use, and analyze the terms in Geometry. I have a journaling page that students write on, and usually, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and submit each week for a grade. They are asked to describe a process, define terms in their own words, and solve algebraic problems with geometric shapes. I have been toying with the idea for some time, and I think after some much-needed pushes with my research, I want to utilize Blogs in the coming year for students to accomplish much of these written responses.
After researching all of the resources, using
EduBlogs will best help me take my writing assignments to a new level. While looking for information I came across some
Tips and Tricks on how to use blogs with EL students. Suggestions included having students utilize Blogs to keep up with the written practice of the English Language, then to make sure students write comments after at least one other person's written responses. Setting up a good framework of expectations with a grading rubric is a must in this endeavor, as students will need to make sure their responses are thoughtful and appropriate for a school setting. Blogs can be utilized as a writing platform to connect all student learning as well as help EL acquisition of the English Language.
EL Math Course
While reading some more of my Google Alerts one popped up that was interesting to me,
"CSISD Trustees Approve New Math Course for ESL High School Students." While we have been struggling with Algebra Keystones and meeting state proficiency benchmarks, there are very few supports for our EL students. Having an EL Math Course could be a game changer for our district. If we had our students in the right supports we would be able to help students grow even more than in previous years. Some of our students could really benefit from having an EL supported Math class to help with skills and vocabulary that they could encounter in our state exam.
This past school year our Algebra courses were enriched by adding the
Math 180 online course and curriculum. Students are challenged daily to make numerical sense out of the problems that they see. Maybe just taking this course, adding an EL co-teacher or aid might be just enough to make an EL math course with number sense and language support.
Look out next week for my next writing involving more of my thoughts on teaching EL students with technology!
