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"Supporting English language learners: A practical guide for Ontario educators Grades 1 to 8 Supporting English language learners: A practical guide for Ontario educators Grades 1 to 8, 2008, is designed to support and help teachers, principals, and other education professionals in elementary schools work effectively with English language learners. This resource guide provides a rich source of practical techniques, research findings, and strategies that can be put to immediate use in the classroom and in the school. It also contains valuable information on working with families and communities, and as a whole school, to enable English language learners achieve curriculum expectations while they learn English."

In classrooms around the country, teachers need to teach reading to children who don't speak English, and they haven't been trained. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education convened a panel of scholars to determine the best research-based practices for teaching English language learners. The panel hopes to release its report in 2004. For this teleconference, we brought you three members of the panel who shared their expertise as independent researchers in the area of second language acquisition.

In classrooms around the country, teachers need to teach reading to children who don't speak English, and they haven't been trained. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education convened a panel of scholars to determine the best research-based practices for teaching English language learners. The panel hopes to release its report in 2004. For this teleconference, we brought you three members of the panel who shared their expertise as independent researchers in the area of second language acquisition.

Teaching English Language Learners to Read Featuring Diane August, Margarita Calderón, and Fred Genesee discussing best practices for teaching English language learners."

"English powerpoints page Free English Powerpoint presentations. Great for KS1 KS2 KS3 KS4 and post 16 A level lessonplans, K-12 and more. Use and alter these presentations freely or any power point template used in this presentations site for other teachers. If you have any powerpoints then please consider submitting them for other teachers to download too. It's all about sharing and helping others. Powerpoints and whiteboards are likely to increase in popularity year by year as more and more schools adopt them."

This web site provides an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and improving student writing based on the Six Traits Writing model. The links below provide an overview of the model along with the scoring rubrics for each trait. Exercises provided here will give students and teachers a chance to read sample writings, rate them, and compare their ratings with ratings made by English teachers. This will provide a valuable opportunity for both students and teachers to improve their understanding of the Six Traits and, in the end, improve their own writing.

Recommended Literature Search Reading and Language Arts To search the list, choose from these options: * Press the Submit button at the bottom of the page to view all titles in English. * Choose All Languages from the pull-down menu in the Language category and press the Submit button to view titles in all languages. * Enter the author's last name or first name and press Submit. * Enter a title or keyword in the appropriate box and press Submit.

Teach grammar. It provides a metalanguage - a language to describe, use and craft our language. For many of our students Standard Australian English is a foreign dialect. Students need to hear and see correct models of language in use. Provide real reasons for students to speak and write formally. Provide daily opportunties to express complexity of thought, in all subject areas. Insist that the 'click and go' generation ask and respond to both oral and written questions in whole sentences.

"While many discussions about learning a second language focus on teaching methodologies, little emphasis is given to the contextual factors -- individual, social, and societal -- that affect students' learning. These contextual factors can be considered from the perspective of the language, the learner, and the learning process. This digest discusses these perspectives as they relate to learning any second language, with a particular focus on how they affect adolescent learners of English as a second language."

Language Proficiency Test Overview for English Language Learners Pre-K-12

Argument & Persuasive Writing Lesson plans and teaching resources

The National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced writing project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques.

Teaching that makes sense: fantastic downloads!

In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel.

Curious about how complex your documents or Web pages are to read? You don't have to get a team of experts to generate your readability score: you can just use readability.info to analyze the characteristics of your writing and ascertain a multitude of readability scores. By comparing the readability score of different documents (or Web pages) you can better hone your writing and make sure that you aren't creating overly complex sentences and paragraphs for your audience.

Use this tool to map out your argument for a persuasive essay or debate.

lements toward building a good persuasive essay include * establishing facts to support an argument * clarifying relevant values for your audience (perspective) * prioritizing, editing, and/or sequencing the facts and values in importance to build the argument * forming and stating conclusions * "persuading" your audience that your conclusions are based upon the agreed-upon facts and shared values * having the confidence to communicate your "persuasion" in writing

Evaluating Student Portfolios At the end of the term/semester/year when the portfolio is submitted for summative evaluation, it is useful to review the contents as a whole and record data using the previously set criteria. One method of recording data is to prepare a grid with the criteria listed down one side and the checklist or rating scale across the top. If there is need to assign a numerical grade, designate numbers to each set of criteria on the checklist/rating scale and convert the evaluation into a number grade. Some examples of portfolio assessment and recording forms follow. The teacher can adapt these sample forms or create new ones.

This pack of text samples is designed to help children learn the essence of each text type. Please note that these texts have been specially written so that they do conform to the same rules. They should be seen simply as a basis. Once children have assimilated these and are regularly using them in their writing, they should be encouraged to look at variations and more sophisticated models. It is assumed that the order of teaching is as follows: * Teacher reads texts and encourages the class to suggest what the framework is (shared reading) * Teacher shows more texts and encourages children to see if their framework still applies (shared reading) * Teacher uses framework to model their own writing (modelled writing) * Teacher and children write a text between them using the framework (shared writing) * Groups of children write texts with teacher support (guided writing) * Children write texts independently (independent work/extended writing)

This is so cool! You type in (or paste) text and this shows a visual representation. I tried it with text from a science books and it made the info. so much more comprehensible to students. (WW)