Conference Highlights

Five Interactive Activities to Debrief a Text

February 24, 2019

Reading is an excellent way for students to grow their language skills. Having just the right activity to help students access the text on an even deeper level can not only expand your students’ learning...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / California Community Colleges / Class Routines / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Critical Thinking / Vocabulary

CATESOL Conference Reflections: Part I

December 9, 2018

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...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Conference Highlights / Reading

Close Reading Folders

November 19, 2018

Get your students to work together to unpack and better understand key passages from a text you’re working on in class with this close reading group activity. ...

Class Routines / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Education / Teacher Tips

The Parking Lot: A Place for Untimely Questions

July 11, 2018

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....

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Writing

A Dinner Party: Creative Analysis Activity

June 19, 2018

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

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Education

The Accelerated Instructional Cycle

June 15, 2018

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....

Acceleration / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Education / Teacher Tips

Learning is Confusion Figured Out

June 14, 2018

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

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Discussion / Group Activity / Reading / Writing

5 Collaborative Class Routines

June 12, 2018

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....

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Graphic Organizers / Reading

Creative Reading Responses

May 22, 2018

Engage your class with these great idea for using various genres as reading responses. ...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Writing

Three Strategies to Improve Student Writing

May 14, 2018

Learn about three valuable writing tools you can use to help students improve their writing and overall reflection and metacognition skills. ...

Activity Ideas / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Teacher Tips / Writing

Writing Partners: Contextualizing Written Communication

May 13, 2018

Add this collaborative activity to your class to give your students engaging and authentic writing practice. ...

Acceleration / Classroom Ideas / Community Building / Conference Highlights

The Affective Side of Things

April 25, 2018

Learn about effective classroom routines to support students' affective needs and promote retention and success. ...