Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Listening Progress Monitoring
For months, I have been quietly creating Listening Progress Monitoring/Practice for grades 6-8. I noticed there were very few options available at an affordable price for schools and teachers, so I created my own. However, it has taken me a long time, as I wanted to be sure I was delivering quality and quantity. Each…
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Favorite Speaking Games
Why speaking games? Have you ever wished your multilingual learners would speak more? My students, especially in high school, did not want to speak to me, each other, and certainly not into a microphone for a standardized test like the WIDA ACCESS. I needed IDEAS, and fast. So, I explored the web and by doing…
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SASHES Strategy for Academic Speaking
You may not have heard of SASHES Strategy for Academic Speaking yet, but that’s because I’m the one who created it and I’m not famous. However, I think you’ll love this strategy. Teaching English Learners (ELs) how to speak in an academic discourse is much more difficult than English Language Development (ELD) teachers think will…
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Compare and Contrast in an ELD Curriculum
Today, I want to discuss one of my favorite language functions- compare and contrast and its use in an ELD curriculum. Understanding language functions and their place in both an English language development and general curriculum is key to teaching multilingual learners. Language functions are the purpose for which language is used. They are what…
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Language Forms in an ELD Curriculum
I previously wrote about high-yield language functions, but if language functions are the verbs used to learn language, what are language forms and how do we use language forms in an ELD curriculum? Typically when we talk about language forms, we are referring to three levels of language, the discourse level, sentence, and word levels.…
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High-Yield Language Functions
Every ELD Curriculum should include the 11 High-Yield Language Functions. In a previous blog post about ELD Curricula, I discuss why programs for multilingual learners do not generally have curricula specifically for them. In my free 10 Steps to Creating an ELD Curriculum, I briefly mention how important it is to start with the language…
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Writing Advice for the WIDA ACCESS test
I had a new-to-ELD teacher email me recently asking for advice about the Writing portion of the WIDA ACCESS test for grades 9-12. This is what I told her: If you do not have that much time to actually prepare for writing, then you will need to model good test taking skills for the writing…
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My MLs need help passing the WIDA Speaking!
Do your MLS need help with WIDA speaking? Every year when WIDA ACCESS speaking scores come in, your anticipation for raised scores are high, but inevitably, your hopes are dashed. Year after year you notice your students’ scores are not getting any higher. I know I have pulled my hair out in the past because…
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Relevant Short Stories for MLs
Why should we use relevant short stories for MLs? Multilingual Learners in grades 6-12 need practice reading fiction, however, they rarely have the stamina to read novels like in a typical ELA/English class. Therefore, short stories for MLS are the perfect text to use to help with reading strategies, literary elements, and other objectives of…
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Do you have an ELD Curriculum?
If the number one question I get asked as an EL/ML teacher is, “Do you speak Spanish?” [answer: no, how would that help my Arabic-speaking students], the other question is, “Do you have an ELD curriculum?” That answer is not as pat. Some Reasons for No ELD Curriculum At no time during my 22 years…
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