In today’s episode, I discuss test prep with a dear friend and business bestie of mine, Laura Kebart. Laura serves busy middle school English Language Arts teachers who actively choose family time over prepping for class. Through her website, lesson plan resources, and annual virtual conferences, she helps teachers go home earlier each day so they can teach with confidence and enjoy life outside the classroom. She wanted to be a teacher since she was a second grader and spent 17 years in the classroom. English Language Learners have always been a part of her classes at various grade levels and she shares about doing everything she could to make them feel welcome and safe, while learning from any and all mistakes along the way.

Our conversation is focused on Test Prep Strategies because standardized test season is right around the corner for most districts. All of the standards that students need to know to be successful on tests can be overwhelming, so Laura explains that she prefers to step back and focus on the big strategies of academic vocabulary, making logical inferences, and understanding what rigorous questions are actually asking. These skills apply to all students at all grade levels and can start as early as day one of the school year.

Laura shares a number of test prep activities she uses that don’t feel like test prep. Her first suggestion, play around with sentence frames using reading, writing, speaking, and listening -  Roll paper cubes with a sentence stem on each side, write sentence stems on beach balls, number 6 sentence frames on the board and have students roll dice in groups to practice reading and completing the sentence out loud.  Another idea is to give students a practice test with answer choices randomly circled. Tell them, “I already took the test and you need to grade it.” Have students read the passage and decide if the teacher's answers are correct or incorrect.

Finally, spend time paraphrasing the question. Don’t read the passage, don’t answer the questions, just paraphrase. This skill, alone, will help students be successful.

What you will hear about building background knowledge for your ESL students:

• How to review without burning out or feeling like its a review
• Ideas for resources, where to find them and what to do with them
• Ways to engage your students and what skills to focus on

Resources

As mentioned in the episode, I am linking some useful resources!

• ESL Teacher Support - 1:1 coaching session with Ieva Grauslys (©Simply Ieva) 
• ESL Teaching Roadmap - podcast birthday sale 20% ALL plans. 
• 25 Authentic Speaking Activities for Your ESL Classroom
• Simply Ieva ESL Teachers Pay Teachers Store
• Teachable Platform - Courses and Workshops
• Follow me on Instagram 
• Join the Simply Ieva Facebook Group 
• Simply Ieva Youtube Channel

Laura’s website and training

• Language Arts Teachers
• MSELA Su

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