Category: Classroom Ideas

20

Dec'18

CATESOL Reflections Part 2: Tech

Jessica Aggrey

Check out this list of interesting websites/apps I heard about at the CATESOL conference.

09

Dec'18

CATESOL Conference Reflections: Part I

Jessica Aggrey

The annual CATESOL conference is a professional development event for ESL educators in California and Nevada. I attended this weekend and will summarize some tidbits I learned about critical thinking and also vocabulary strategies.

15

Nov'18

Participation Stations

Jessica Aggrey

This activity structure is a great way to get all students in your class engaged and working, even the shy ones. I piloted it in my class today, and my students enjoyed it. I used it for a post-reading activity, but it could also work well for other topics as well.

09

Sep'18

A Lesson on Topic Sentences

Jessica Aggrey

If you teach a class where writing is a focus, then you’ll most likely be covering topic sentences at some point. This post has a slide presentation that can help you introduce and your students learn all about writing clear topic sentences.

30

Aug'18

Book Group Roles

Jessica Aggrey

Group work is a wonderful way to get students to collaborate and learn together. The best way to assure that everyone actively participates is to assign everyone in the group a specific task to be responsible for. If you put your students into book groups, check out these roles.

22

Aug'18

Vocabulary Knowledge Share

Jessica Aggrey

Here’s an activity to help you introduce a new topic and get students to grow their vocabulary on it. It will get your students to activate their own schema about the topic and then share what they know with their classmates, helping everyone to expand their knowledge.

12

Aug'18

Save Time with a Master Google Slide Template

Jessica Aggrey

Do you use Google Slides to create your lesson plans? If so, you should definitely have a Google Slide document where you keep templates of slides you really like and want to use again. It will cut down on your prep time.

10

Aug'18

Collaborative Knowledge Base with Google Sheets

Jessica Aggrey

Yesterday at my college’s convocation, we did a group discussion activity that had us using Google Sheets as a place …

08

Aug'18

Poster Presentations: A Scaffold to Public Speaking

Jessica Aggrey

Speaking is an essential part of learning a language, and public speaking is a needed skill in school and life. Check out this poster presentation format to help scaffold academic presentations skills for your students.

13

Jul'18

Annotating Together: An Activity for Building Reading Strategies

Jessica Aggrey

Do you have students who are hesitant to write on a text? Use this classroom activity to help emphasize the importance of annotating while reading and help students build a repertoire of annotation strategies.

11

Jul'18

The Parking Lot: A Place for Untimely Questions

Jessica Aggrey

As teachers, we need to stay on task for the sake of the whole class while still making sure all of our students feel that they’re heard and their questions, unrelated as they may be, are important. Check out this simple, yet effective, way to put unrelated questions on hold without forgetting them.

05

Jul'18

Student Feedback Form: Class Norm

Jessica Aggrey

Getting feedback from our students during the semester is very helpful. It also gives students a chance to express their feelings or possible concerns about a class. Check out this idea for an open form where students can submit feedback anytime they feel the need.

19

Jun'18

A Dinner Party: Creative Analysis Activity

Jessica Aggrey

Help your students build analysis of multiple sources with this engaging activity that uses art to help students draw connections between multiple readings.

15

Jun'18

The Accelerated Instructional Cycle

Jessica Aggrey

The accelerated instructional cycle is a way to approach an integrated reading and writing course to help students gain a deep understanding of texts and work to write complex and rich writing assignments.

14

Jun'18

Learning is Confusion Figured Out

Jessica Aggrey

How can we design ESL curriculum that is relevant and engaging to students? Check out this post for some ideas.

12

Jun'18

5 Collaborative Class Routines

Jessica Aggrey

Are you looking for some engaging ways to get your ESL students to work collaboratively? Check out these five ways to get students working and talking together.

22

May'18