Equipping ELLs

As teachers, we understand the importance of connecting with our students and fostering meaningful relationships. We also recognize the challenges that come with it. We welcome to the show special guest, author Emily Francis. Emily Francis is a nationally recognized ESL teacher, serving students in 9th-12th grade with various English proficiency levels. She is a native Spanish-speaker who is originally from Guatemala and came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor. Her experience as an ELL inspired her to become an ESL teacher and affords her a deep understanding of the challenges her students must overcome to find success. We highly commend Francis' book If You Only Knew: Letters from an Immigrant Teacher. In her book, Francis shares her captivating life story through a series of letters she writes to eight immigrant students in whom she sees pieces of herself.This inspiring conversation with Emily Francis will deepen your understanding and encourage you to make a positive impact in the lives of your students.* Leave a review of the episode for your chance to win a free copy of If You Only Knew: Letters from an Immigrant Teacher by Emily Francis! *Related Resources:⁠⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠If You Only Knew: Letters from an Immigrant Teacher by Emily FrancisEmily Francis' Blog⁠Follow Emily Francis on Twitter⁠Re-imagining MigrationChild Aid--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

As Summer approaches for both students and educators, it's time to reflect on our journey of equipping ELLs for success. Join us as we celebrate the valuable topics covered in the past months and focus on the small steps that make a big difference. We'll guide you through the "Three, Two, One" method of reflection—acknowledging growth, addressing frustrations, and setting a single action step for the summer break. Let's empower ourselves to become better educators for our ELLs and taking small steps that make a big impact!Related Resources:⁠⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠ESL Program SurveySpeaking and Writing Warm-UpsAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

Writing is one of the biggest challenges for ELLs and teachers of ELLs. Too often, writing is viewed as a product, when it should be viewed as a process. A foundational step in the process is understanding and mastering syntax, or sentence structure. We welcome back to the show Sara Marye, from The Stellar Teacher Co. as we delve into the fundamental role of sentence writing in shaping students' future writing abilities. Sara shares 5 practical strategies for integrating sentence-level writing into instruction. This episode is packed with useful writing activities, and may leave you inspired to bring your writing instruction back to the basics: with a sentence. Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠Confident Writer System Series (private podcast from The Stellar Teacher Company)Shop TpT resources for teachers of ELLs⁠--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

We all know that teachers are constantly seeking new ways to enhance their students' reading skills. That's why in today's episode, we have special guest, Susan Patterson (My MLL Mentor) who shares her expertise on reading support for ELLs. With proven reading strategies to add to your teacher toolkit, this conversation will equip you with valuable insights and practical tips to boost your students' reading proficiency!Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠Text Engineering Resource from My MLL Mentor⁠⁠Growing Language and Literacy by Andrea HonigsfieldDe-Mystifying Complex Texts: What are "Complex" Texts and How Can We Ensure ELLs and MLs Can Access Them?--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

Do you find the following statistics alarming? A recent study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that only 27% of U.S. eighth-graders were proficient in writing. In the same year, a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that only 24% of high school seniors were proficient in writing.Writing can be difficult and often frustrating, even in a person's native language. Writing is often one of the biggest challenges for our ELL students.In our final episode in this mini series breaking down the 4 domains of language, Beth shares thoughtful insight into how our students learn writing and valuable, practical strategies to use in your classroom today.Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠⁠Read Alouds activitiesNewcomers BundleWriting Intervention Resources --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

Do you want to know why our episodes centered on reading seem to get the most downloads? Because teaching reading to ELLs is HARD!We've been taking a deeper dive into each of the 4 domains of language. In this episode, we break down the reading domain. Being hooked on phonics may not be the best approach with your ELLs. We hope you'll listen in to research-based support on how to best implement the reading domain into your classroom and how these 4 domains of language work together in the language acquisition process.Remember: If you like the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! If Beth reads your review on-air, you'll win a free month subscription to Equipping ELLs resources!Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠⁠Read Alouds with ScaffoldsHigh Frequency Words ActivityHeggerty Phonemic Awareness2-Part podcast on the Science of ReadingPodcast episode on high frequency words--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

Over the course of 4 weeks, we are breaking down the 4 language domains: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. In today's episode, we'll discuss the 4 stages of development in the speaking domain. You'll learn practical strategies to get your students speaking. We'll share tips for your lesson planning so that you purposefully carve out time for speaking. And you'll leave with a list of student listening expectations for each language stage.Remember: If you like the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! If Beth reads your review on-air, you'll win a free month subscription to Equipping ELLs resources!Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠⁠Shop TpT resources for ELLs--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

It is important to be aware of each of the different areas of the brain that are activated as your students learn English. We need to help our students view their brains as a muscle they are strengthening! Over the next few weeks, we will be breaking down the 4 language domains: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. In my opinion, the listening domain is the most important domain to focus on in the language learning journey. However, it's the most commonly overlooked of the 4 domains! In today's episode, we will discuss what makes the listening domain so critical, how the brain learns a language, and what to expect of your students' listening at each language stage.Related Resources:⁠⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠⁠⁠Shop TpT resources for ELLs--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

At Equipping ELLs, we pride ourselves on giving practical strategies to our listeners in every episode. Along with this, we want to make sure our listeners have the foundational understanding for why these strategies work and how our students learn. In this episode, we go deeper into understanding language theory.The key terms for today are language acquisition and comprehensible input. If you're a teacher of ELLs, you won't want to skip this one. Related Resources:⁠Join the Equipping ELLs membership⁠⁠Shop TpT resources for ELLs--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message

Does the term longterm language learner apply to any of the students in your classroom? What can we do to keep our ELLs moving forward?I am my own humble inspiration for today's episode, simply because I am a longterm Spanish language learner. Having studied Spanish for 10 years, and now having lived in a Spanish-speaking country for 10 more, why am I not fluent?!Listen in for 5 things you can do to keep your ELLs moving forward!Related Resources:Join the Equipping ELLs membershipShop TpT resources for ELLs--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/equippingells/message