Questions and Answers for ESL Teachers with Simply Ieva

I had the pleasure of doing a Q and A with Ieva Grauslys, aka Simply Ieva, on her podcast. This was my second time on The ESL Teaching Podcast- catch the first episode with me on text engineering here! Or you can read about text engineering on my blog.

We decided to do the episode on questions that educators asked in Ieva's Facebook group and my Facebook group as well. We gathered a nice mix of questions and chatted about some possible answers. Maybe you are wondering about some of these too!

Classroom Decor
Ieva and I both have a secondary grade level background, so anything that is too little kid-ish is usually a no thanks from us. Ieva recommended Carson Dellosa Publishing and just from doing a quick browse, there are definitely classroom decor options that are more neutral and simple. 

My pick is using Amplifier by browsing some of their free posters by the many artists they showcase. A bonus is that you can filter their artwork by language! Right now, they have 23 languages to choose from. There are subjects that are not educational, and some may be inappropriate for kids; I wouldn't condone students to browse alone in my classroom. However, there are many free downloads that promote inclusiveness and equity, which we all strive for our multilingual learners! See some examples below.

Scheduling for Newcomers
For us secondary educators, scheduling for Newcomers is totally different. In our episode, we discussed scheduling at the elementary level. If you are serving Newcomer ESL students, it is perfectly fine to pull-out these students to really dig into language and foundational skills and give them the scaffolding and support they need.

When does this happen? If you have a high number of Newcomers, this could be challenging and pushing in might be more feasible. If you can pull-out, you do so by grade-level cohorts. In our district, we discuss only pulling out students in grades 2-5 since kindergarten and first graders are most likely getting the foundational skills they need in the mainstream classroom. When you are pulling out, make sure your Newcomers don't miss out on things that are happening in core instruction because they deserve access to the same content as their peers!

Listening Resources
Some of the listening resources we discussed were Voice of America for English learners, Listenwise, Online voice recorder, Flip, and Padlet. Flip (formerly FlipGrid) and Padlet allows students to engage in prompts and posts by teachers and add in their voice recordings so that others can listen and then respond. Listenwise has high-interest topics in podcast form as well as an ESL /ELD section. And Voice of America focuses on current events and news. If you want to get fancy and you have the time, you can easily make your own voice recordings to texts or assignments with Online Voice Recorder.

ESL Books and Websites for All Proficiency Levels
Some of our very favorite websites and books are ones you just might already be using! They are:

• Newsela
• Saddleback Educational Publishing (high interest, low level books- take a peek at their awesome covers!)
• News in levels
• Readworks

Preparing for an ESL Teacher Interview
When preparing for an ESL Teacher interview, there are some things you should make sure you have in your back pocket in case they are asked. Also, there are some questions you should ask to make sure that it is a school you'd like to work at.

Questions to prepare for:

• How do you integrate language into a lesson? Do you use language objectives?
• How do you support other teachers at your school in supporting their Multilingual Learners? What about your Newcomers?
• Are you comfortable with delivering whole faculty professional learning? 
• How do you support different department and grade-level PLCs?

Questions to ask:

• How many Multilingual Learners does your school have? How many Newcomers?
• What languages are spoken? What countries are represented?
• How confident does faculty feel supporting Multilingual Learners? Are they open to learning supports and scaffolds for their MLs?

We hope you enjoyed the Q and A! If you'd like us to review your question, head to one of our Facebook groups to ask! We will be doing these possibly monthly, so ask away. You can also leave a comment below.