Summer Professional Development for ESL Teachers

Teachers deserve a break over the summer, and especially after the last couple of years. However, a lot of us got into teaching for the love our students and the craft, and we are always looking to grow our teaching practice! 

I try not to do too much in the summer and let myself recharge, but I do like to have a PD book or two around when inspiration hits, or a nice podcast or virtual learning session I can listen to while cleaning or doing other chores.

Here are some opportunities for this summer in case you feel like continuing your learning. And if not, that is okay too! There are tons of other great books and learning opportunities- these are just a few that are recent. I encourage you to hop on Teacher Twitter or the Teachergram if you are looking for more.

Virtual Learning Opportunities
​I love all of the virtual opportunities at our fingertips now! Here are some of my favorites:

• The Confident ESL Teacher  Summit
• Multilingual Learner Summit (formerly VirtuEL and you can watch past sessions from these too!)
• Saddleback Educational Publishing's Webinar Series- a wide and amazing variety of webinars great for ESL teachers!
• SIOP 2022 Virtual Conference

Books for Multilingual Learners 

• Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: Innovative Supports for Linguistically Diverse Students- a super easy read by Carly Spina!
• 7 Steps to a Language-Rich, Interactive Classroom 2nd Edition- this is a follow-up edition to their 2010 release. 

Books for Professional Development
As ESL teachers, it's likely that we are giving professional learning for our staff. It's also likely that we may not be getting the best support and learning from our districts since we are a very specialized group of educators! Both of these books are great for these situations, and if you feel like you need more and you teach high school, check out our high school teacher membership!

• DIY PD a Guide to Self-Directed Learning for Educators of Multilingual Learners
• The PD Book: 7 Habits that Transform Professional Development

Books for Foundational Skills 
As a trained high school ESL teacher, I was not offered professional learning in teaching foundational skills. Honestly, they are kind of a mystery to me! It is something I have always wanted to know how to do and I feel that it is definitely a missed opportunity for my students, although a lot of them were just fine without them and still showed growth on the WIDA assessment. But for those who came to me with little literacy skills, I could have supported them much better I am sure.

That's why I am super excited this summer to learn how to support our newly arrived students better and students in upper grades who may have interrupted learning due to covid-19 with the following book:

• Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom

Books for Embracing Other Languages and Communities in the Classroom

• Rooted in Strength: Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers
• ​If You Only Knew: Letters From An Immigrant Teacher- I can't wait to check out this new book by Emily Francis. I have a feeling this might be a must for high school ESL students.

My MLL Mentor High School Teacher Membership
My list just wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention more about our monthly membership! I've got some great guest speakers coming up to the membership this summer and some great resources for planning for next year. In addition, you'll get monthly lesson plans during the school year to use with your Multilingual Learners in ESL class or ELD class. If you are interested in checking it out, try our 7-day free trial!

Have anything to add to the list? Comment below!