The ESL Teaching Podcast

In today’s episode, I share a coaching session I had with a ESL Teaching Roadmap member. She teaches 9th grade ELA and ELD in a district that is just getting their ESL program off the ground. She explains that there is no curriculum for her to work from, so she feels like she is making everything up as she goes. 

We begin by discussing one student, in particular, who is a newcomer in one of her mixed proficiency support classes. She also asks how to assess this new student to see what he is actually capable of understanding and producing. The WIDA just doesn’t give the information she needs to see where he is. I recommend an informal assessment tool so that she can decide on a starting point for working with this student.

Next we discuss how to teach research to English Learners. I recommend starting with a lesson on note taking, followed by a lesson on paraphrasing, a lesson on plagiarism, and a lesson on citations and why they are important.

Listen next week for part 2 of this coaching session.

What you will hear about in today’s coaching session:

• Resources and strategies for  teaching newcomers in a mixed proficiency classroom
• Informal assessment tools that can be used to see what newcomers actually know
• Lessons to teach EL students before and during research projects

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 -  membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join
• 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

You may also be interested in:

• Episode 36: How to set up your mixed-proficiency classroom for success
• Episode 37: 3 Activities That Work Fantastically Well in Mixed-Proficiency Classroom
• Writing Vocabulary Posters
• Romeo and Juliet meets West Side story lesson
• Inside th USA textbook (Affiliate link)
• I Want to Learn English (Affiliate link)

Support the show

In today’s episode, I speak with my friend, Amber Harper about teacher burnout. Amber is a full time kindergarten teacher and teacher burnout coach. After struggling with burnout for most of her teaching career, in 2016 she created Burned In Teacher. Now she uses her podcast, book, and online course and community to coach teachers through her 8 step burned in process to help them use burnout for an opportunity for growth so they can live a more fulfilled career and life.

She shares about her own journey in education and burnout and that of people she has worked with. When someone is burned out, she explains, the first step is to admit it - “I'm burned out.” To say it is to own it and take responsibility for it. Next is to identify your teacher burnout type, which she has a quiz for this on her website. Not everyone’s burnout is alike and knowing what is causing you to feel burned out will help you understand what steps to take next.

The second step is to understand your teacher brand. In other words, learn to be self aware and check your own ego and bias before you enter situations. Amber suggests that seeking to understand before seeking to be understood is key if you need to confront negative situations with colleagues. She describes a situation where she had to do this in a planning meeting that had turned toxic over time.

Overall, Amber explains that when dealing with burnout, you either have to change yourself or your environment, or sometimes both. We discuss how no one is doing things to you, you are allowing them to happen in most cases. She gives the example of setting time boundaries so that you can leave by your contract hours. Learn from the times that you feel frustrated about leaving late and adjust your boundaries for the next time. 

Life is messy. There will never be a perfect system for balancing a teacher career and all of the other things in your life. Things will always need to be flexible. As a rule of thumb, Amber recommends asking yourself - what is one gift you can give yourself in the future? How can you set future-you up for success?

What you will hear about Teacher Burnout:

• Different forms of Teacher Burnout
• Tips for collaborating and building rapport with colleagues when you are frustrated
• How to reflect on yourself and your environment when experiencing burnout
• Ways to set “future you” up for success

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

You may also be interested in:

• Amber’s website - Burned In Teacher  
• Connect with Amber on Instagram - @burnedinteacher 

Support the show

In today’s episode, I discuss academic connections in response to a question from one of my listeners about teaching English Content.

Why is traditional English Language Arts content inferencing, finding metaphors and similes, and identifying literary elements,  so difficult for English Learners? It is a higher order thinking skill that requires a deep understanding of the language and having background in it. 

The first thing to consider is that English Learners need to understand. In order to do any of the higher order thinking activities in ELA class, they must understand the content. To support with this, you could try finding books from the class in the students’ first language. There are many classic, western books that are commonly translated. You could also bring the content to them by creating summaries or storyboards. Reading the entire book might be frustrating for English Learners. One strategy I’ve used is to select a few stories from a book and create a google slide summary of those stories. Take important quotes and insert them into the summary. These can be used to highlight an event, a theme, or a character in the story. You can also look for graphic novels or story boards of the book you are reading.

Next, consider how to present the content. Remember to scaffold, scaffold, scaffold. Pre Teach vocabulary, use visuals like representations of characters, and use repetition.

Finally, teach literary elements using something other than text. Ideas like characters, setting, conflict, climax, and resolution can be found in movies, short videos, and real life.

What you will hear about Teaching English Content to ELs:

• Why traditional ELA content is so challenging for English Learners
• How to make english content accessible to English Learners
• Tips and Strategies for how to teach complex academic terms like literary elements

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
• Short story The Last Leaf
• Short story Lamb to the Slaughter
• Short film One Man Band
• The ESL Teaching Roadmap - short film After The Rain 
• Episode 3 - 5 Steps to Teaching Mixed Proficiency Class

Support the show

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 Summit

Support the show

In order for students to reach an optimal level of learning, they need to know what we’re talking about and that involves not only language, but background knowledge of the subject area concepts. In today’s episode, I will share 5 ways to build background knowledge for your ESL students.

Being immersed in the language is so important, but this can’t be completely effective without background knowledge. A warm up or background building activity is pretty standard in most lessons, but are essential for our English Language Learners. Because they are from all different cultures, they are not all familiar with well known things we may take for granted.

There are 5 strategies I like to use when building background knowledge with my ESL students. First, I like to use pictures and images, keeping in mind that these not all created equal. Images must support students at their level of understanding. Next, I like to preview Vocabulary. Choose target words for your lesson and teach them in a way that your students can access them. Several images, Space to translate, sentences using the word in context, space for students to create their own sentence

Third is relating to personal experiences.The  FIFA world cup helped me explain the word, “appeal” (Hear the full story in Episode 49). If you have beginners, utilize first language strategically, which is strategy #4.  Usually as students progress, they no longer need the translation. Finally, take field trips  and allow students to do some experiential learning in order to build background or solidify understanding.

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

• 5 ways to build background knowledge
• Examples of lessons I’ve taught with students
• Reasons why building background knowledge is so important

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

Support the show

Happy New Year, 2023! I quite enjoy having a routine but I am also a huge fan of the energy of new beginnings.
And speaking about new beginnings and embracing what works, in today’s episode, I want to share with you something that I have not talked about yet! And that is ESL instructional coaching, educational coaching especially for teachers who work with English learners. I have come to realize that frequently as teachers we need someone to talk to, someone to bounce ideas off and realize that we, in fact, are doing great - but that requires another person to hear you out! In this episode, I will share with you what instructional coaching is, types of instructional coaching, the benefits of it as well as how you can get started right here with Simply Ieva. 

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• ESL Teacher Support - 1:1 coaching session with Ieva Grauslys (©Simply Ieva) - only 5 spots available
• The ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join. 
• 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

Other resources you might be interested in:
Bright Morning 

Diane Sweeney Consulting

How Coaching Can Impact Teachers, Principals, and Students

Support the show

 In today’s episode, I will share with you 5 ways you can reset your classroom anytime of year.

The first one is to revisit classroom expectations. It is okay, when the classroom starts to feel out of control, you can stop and ask yourself and your students questions like these to make sure expectations are present and clear.

• How do we begin a class. Show me what the students do and what the teacher does.
• When do we talk in class?
• When do we go to the bathroom?
• How to we ask for help?
• What is your responsibility if you are absent?
• What does group/individual work look like?

Next is goal setting - I talked about this in Episode 46. Ask students to think of one word to encapsulate their focus for the rest of the school year or the entire year. Another way is to make them more tangible by creating  a weekly goal tracker where students can reflect regularly on their progress and process. 

Number 3 is to be honest with your students. I want to know that I’m human and can often relate to things they are going through. 

Number 4 is make activities easy to manage.  One of my favorite classroom strategies is a choice board that includes one “must do activity” and a few other optional activities. Another strategy is to break down lessons into manageable pieces. With any strategy, it is essential to explain and model as often as you need.

The final tip for a classroom reset  is to “clean up and change up” your space. Classrooms can get cluttered and messy during the business of the day to day. Taking the time to pick up, organize, and give your space a little makeover can really refresh the room and change the energy.

Do you do a classroom reset? If so, what do you do?

What you will hear about resetting your ESL classroom in this episode:

• Revisiting expectations and the questions you can ask yourself and the students
• Activities you can do to check for understanding
• The importance of setting goal and being honest with your students
• Tips for how to make assignments simpler and easier to understand
• How resetting your physical space can reset the energy of your classroom

Resources

• The ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join. 
• 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

You may also be interested in: 

• Link to episode 46 - How to Set Intentional Goals with your EL Students
• Link to episode 4 - Choice Boards for ESL Students: How to Use Them in the Classroom

Support the show

With the new year right around the corner, we tend to reflect on the things we accomplished and what we can do to improve on the quality of our lives, both personally and professionally in the next year. So setting goals is especially popular this time of year, and often, as life keeps going, those goals fall by the wayside. It has been proven that the small, consistent habits are what will actually make the biggest difference in your life. So in this episode I wanted to share my thoughts on goal setting with our EL students and what better time to do that than at the start of a year.

I have been guilty in the past of making new years resolutions with no strong why attatched, no quantitative measure of success, and were ultimately unsuccessful. After doing some research I have found that it is actually the small, consistent habits you build day after day that make the biggest changes in your life.

So, when is the best time to set goal with your students? There are 4 good times I recommend: At the beginning of the school year, at the beginning of the new year in January, at the start of a new trimester or semester, and after receiving your ACCESS or other standardized test scores. 

How does it work? As teachers, we are good at breaking things down into manageable chunks. The goal needs to be somewhat tangible. Ask questions to help students get more specific with the goal they have set. Asking questions like “what steps can you take?” or “how will you know if you’re successful?” can help students develop their ideas into SMART goals. SMART Goals are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely. 

I created an ESL goal setting packet that you can use with EL students in goal setting and reflecting on their progress toward their goal. This activity has 4 parts that you will hear described in the episode. 

• Part 1: My word of the year. 
• Part 2: My vision board. 
• Part 3: My weekly goal and reflection. 
• Part 4: My celebrations. 

What you will hear about in this episode

• The anatomy of a goal
• The 4 times during the school year when its good to set goals
• A 4 part activity you can use to set goals with your students.

Resources

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

• The ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join. 
• 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

You may also be interested in: 

• The Goal Setting Packet 
• Blog Post - How to Help your ESL Students with Goal Setting Worksheets

Support the show

In this episode, I do another ESL question and answer session with my dear friend Susan Patterson, aka My MLL Mentor.

Our first ESL question was from a teacher who was advised to work with elementary students more than older students in middle and high school. She doesn't feel right about this recommendation and asked us to weigh in. 

ESL Question 2 was, “How do you create an inclusive holiday environment for your students?”

The choices seem to be to not celebrate any holidays or to celebrate all of them. We like to be able to let all students celebrate. We share ways that we learn about each other's’ holidays and ways to look for connections between the different holidays across the world.

The next ESL question Susan and I discuss is around students struggling with motivation and ability to focus, post pandemic followed by questions about newcomers: How do you ensure newcomer students understand you and you understand them? What are some practical tips for supporting newcomers in the mainstream classroom? 

What you will hear about in this episode

• Creating an inclusive holiday environment
• Which age group teachers should work with more
• Some of the ways and resources to motivate students
• How to ensure newcomer students understand you and you them
• Practical tips on how to help newcomers in the mainstream classroom

Resources

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

• The ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join. 
• 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

You may also be interested in: 

• December holidays around the world lesson
• Books for student motivation (some are affiliate links)
  • Tackling the Motivation Crisis by Mike Anderson
  • Responsive Classroom books

Ask your questions - connect with us!

• Ieva - Facebook group, Instagram, www.simplyieva.com 
• Susan - Facebook group, Instagram , website

Support the show

In this episode, I discuss different December holidays that are celebrated around the world and by many English Learners. Last year I started sharing cultural tidbits with my colleagues about different holidays our students celebrate and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. 

All of this started with a staff email about how to know what foods are kosher and Halal approved. This came up originally because we had a considerable population of Muslim students and my school who were going to have issues with certain foods that might be shared. 

Since not all of my students celebrate Christmas, I decided to do some research about some other holidays that are celebrated around the world in December and share what I learned with my students and colleagues.

When thinking about what to incorporate in the holiday unit for your ESL students can be overwhelming.  But there are many ways to practice all of the language domains in the context of December holidays. Since it's a busy time of year. I have created a few ready made lesson plans that you can use.

What you will hear about teaching December Holidays

• Why I started researching and sharing about December holidays around the world.
• A little about the different December holidays that your English Learners may celebrate.
• Some of the overlapping traditions that different December holidays share.
• Ideas for activities that you can use to teach the different language domains in the context of December holidays

Resources

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

• The ESL Teaching Roadmap – membership community for middle and high school ESL/ELL teachers. As a thank you for listening, use code ESLPODCAST for 10% off when you join. 
• 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

You may also be interested in: 

• Article - Kosher, Halal, Pareve: Get to Know the Labels
• Article - Why Americans call turkey “turkey”
• Blog post - December Holidays Around the World 
• Done-for-you lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers
  • December Holidays Around the World
  • Short story Gift of the Magi lesson

Support the show