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My Days As A High School Language Teacher
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Mainstream ELLs in Bible class?

11/12/2016

3 Comments

 
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As the population of ELLs in private Christian schools increases, a question arises in regards to Bible class:  Should we have our international students take Bible class?  My school requires all students to take a Bible class each year that they attend our school.  This includes our international students.  They, however have no experience with the Bible or Christianity for that matter.
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Our first international student was plugged into a mainstream Bible class designed for his grade level.  It was a disaster.  The kid had no idea which end was up.  The teacher, who understandably, taught the class for the experience level of the majority and this left our international student in a daze.

By second semester we had a second international student and I began designing an introduction to Christianity specifically for E.L.L.s.  They were so relieved.  They could understand the content, ask questions without feeling stupid, and were in a "safe"  environment with other non-Christian kids.

Our school has continued the class and added an introduction to world religions.  The aim is to allow our international students 2 years of ELL Bible classes before we try plunking them into our mainstream classes (although one of my students asked if she could do Intro to Christianity a second time.  For her it was a good choice.)
3 Comments

Cursive!

11/7/2016

1 Comment

 
I had a beautiful EFL lesson plan ready to go: vocabulary, reading samples, practice activities, conversational practice...

Somehow, I can't explain how,  there was a coup.  They refused to do the lesson.  All they wanted to do was learn how to write in cursive!  It looks so much more beautiful than print, they all argued.

From a practical standpoint, I believe there is a lot of value in teaching ELLs cursive.  Many teachers still write in cursive, or a half-breed of cursive and print.  This can be almost impossible for my students to read.  (All caps is also a great challenge.)  

​So I threw out the lesson for the day and we learned cursive.  (A moment of silence, please, for the death of my beautiful lesson plan.)
1 Comment

And So It Begins

11/6/2016

0 Comments

 
My first day as an online blogger!  

I have been teaching foreign language for 12 years.  In the last three I have developed and International Student Program at my private school in St. Petersburg, FL.
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I hope to share my day to day experiences and connect with some of you out there.
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    Mary Kate Newberry
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    Teaching ELLs, Spanish Learners and Spanish for Heritage Learners



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