Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi all, I am currently an elementary ESL teacher in NY, but I think it would be interesting to work with adults as well. I have some experience tutoring graduate students in English so I think I would enjoy teaching TEOFL test prep. I am not very familiar with the TOEFL. Does anyone know of any trai...

I don't know how I feel about leaving them movies to watch. Most of my students are intermediate/advanced. I can't justify pulling them out of their classrooms to come and watch a movie. If they stayed in their classrooms they would be getting some content. Even if they only understood 50%, it's bet...

Thanks Senorita Daniels, I think that's a great idea but I don't know what videos are out there that would apply. I have students in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade who are beginners, intermediate, and advanced. My groups are grouped by grade and English proficiency level. Anyone have any suggestions ab...

I teach ESL in a pull-out setting in a 3rd-6th grade elementary school. I have six different groups all at different levels, most of whom can't do much independent work. My principal asks me to leave sub-plans if I'm going to be absent. I spend hours creating things for the sub to do with my student...

Thanks EH and Lorikeet. You both have been very helpful. Your latest suggestion, EH, is a very good idea. I will see this boy once a week for two hours over the summer in "summer school," so hopefully I'll be able to help him a little more there too.

Thanks for the idea, Lorikeet. I did that and it worked well, but he finished much before the others were finished writing what we did. Any ideas for what he can do after illustrating, for the next time we do something like that? I was also wondering if anyone can tell me what I should expect to be ...

Thanks Lorikeet. I know that I can't really accomplish everything that I want to with him in the last two weeks of school, I guess I'm just in denial. I wish I could spend more time with him during the day to work with him. He's pretty independent though. He's participating in class, especially with...

Thanks massesl for your insight. Any information anyone can give me is helpful. The boy arrived to school yesterday. He seems interested in making friends, and the other children are very interested in learning about him. They all want to be his friend and see what he's doing and the teachers have t...

Sally, Thank you for your reply but I do not believe that we are talking about the same student. My student is moving from Russia to New York to learn English. Regarding the Spanish, I was just mentioning that most of the ESL population in my district have a first language of Spanish, but I am teach...

I teach ESL in a 3rd-6th grade school. I'm finishing my first year right now. Most of my students have Spanish as their first language and I speak Spanish which has proven very helpful, especially for my beginners. I found out that I will be getting a new student from a Russian orphanage who was ado...

I am a new esl teacher in an elementary esl pull-out program in New York. I have no curriculum and the only instructions I was given when I was hired was to teach content-area material. I have been finding this difficult because I have to keep track of the curriculum in all of the content areas in a...