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A Look Back: English Language Learners Tell Us What Helps Them LearnFor the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2018.
Last month, I posted Do You Want To Use This Survey With Your Intermediate & Advanced ELLs? It shared a hand-out I was giving to several of my classes in preparation for a training I’m giving to teachers at my school. The workshop will include twelve ELLs participating in student panels. I thought readers might be interested in some of the responses (about forty-five in total) I received to the questions on the survey. If you give it to your students, I”d love to hear their responses, too! By the way, the student who wrote the comment at the top of this post was talking about Pam Buric, one of my talented colleagues…. 1. What do teacher do that helps you understand what they are teaching, even though you may not know English that well? For example, do they show pictures that help you understand the content? Please try to write about specific lessons and experiences. Show me pictures and subtitles in the videos. She lets me use Google Translate on my phone. Explain something with clear examples and pictures that help us understand what they are. When you do not understand English, the teacher uses action to help me understand. He will let people who understand your language help you. What teachers have done that helped me was giving me a Spanish translating partner. She talk very slowly to help me understand. If I don’t understand, she show me a picture or use Translate. He helped me to understand what he teach me when he speak Spanish and show pictures and act. It helps when we fact our classmates and share what we stand about the lesson. Teachers help me learn better to understand English is having a connection towards the students, making them feel comfortable. 2. What are specific actions teachers have taken to help you become motivated to learn different subjects and the English language? Please try to write about specific lessons and experiences. I remember was to tell me, “You can do it, do not give up.” That motivated me. I have one teacher that motivated me every day telling me that his expectations of me are very high. He motivated me because I can believe in me. I think that I am very smart and can do all things. Learning on the computer and phone helps me want to learn more English. The teacher helps because he is not yelling at me. They motivated me by actually teaching me stuff that I am interested in. She not just works to teach us but she also show some love to us. They show that they are proud of us. My teacher went to my home and tell my sisters about my progress. She don’t let me give up on my class and she never tell me I can’t do something. They tell me “You’re smart. I know you can do this.” 3. What have teachers done to help you not feel bad about making mistakes and, instead, learn from them? In other words, what are the best actions teachers have taken to correct English errors you have made in writing or in speaking? I remember my teacher will always say “Everyone make mistakes even me and I’m the teacher.” My teacher tell me, “You can do it. Don’t feel bad. You can do it right the next time.” He motivate me and tells me to try again and don’t give up. They tell us that what we learn from the mistakes is more important to us, especially when I pronounced something wrong. They always say its okay. He will read aloud my writing to me and will take every word seriously to teach you how to correct it. What teachers have done to make me feel better was even though it was a mistake she explained it to me more clearly. She also said it was okay and always gave me this quote that said, “An expert was once a beginner.” She will read my text and edit my mistakes. They don’t make fun of me. They talk to me and help me to improve and correct me in a calm way. One of the things I like about the teachers in U.S.A. is that they never make fun of the student who makes mistakes. All my teachers told me that it’s okay to make mistakes because we learn from mistakes.      Today Is The Anniversary Of The Terrible Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources
Photo from National Archives
The terrible Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire took place on this date in 1911. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.  This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom geralt / Pixabay
At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM. Here are the latest: Qzzr is a quiz maker with lots of free options. GSong is an AI music generator. Talk to Dai is a language-learning tool. Picord is a picture-based language learning tool. MusicMaker lets you create…music. ConnectLink looks like an interesting chatbot designed by a school to theoretically help students become better writers. You can read more about it here. I’m adding it to THE “BEST” IDEAS FOR USING CHATGPT, BARD, & OTHER FORMS OF AI WITH STUDENTS. ChatGPT Glossary: 55 AI Terms Everyone Should Know is from CNET. Simulate AI looks interesting – it’s a site to help students learn about AI ethics. I’m adding it to A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Teaching About Artificial Intelligence. Meta rolls out AI-powered translations to creators globally, starting with English and Spanish is from TechCrunch. This could be helpful to teachers once it’s available to everyone. 
Fast AI Summarizer is a Chrome extension that summarizes any webpage. I’m wondering if this tool, or any of the many similar ones out there, could be useful for the “Review” section of the ELL teaching strategy, “Preview, View, Review”?
 Video: Bruce Springsteen Teams Up With ACLU To Support Birthright Citizenship Antonio_Cansino / Pixabay
Bruce Springsteen teamed up with the ACLU to make this great add to support birthright citizenship. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About The 14th Amendment. You might be interested in previous posts about Springsteen: Amazing Bruce Springsteen Video On The Importance Of Practice   We’ve Begun Work On A Third Edition Of “The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide”
We recently finished reviewing the galley proofs for out upcoming book, The Better Teacher’s Toolbox, and that will be out in July. And, now, we’ve just signed a contract to write a third edition of The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide! It’s going to be chockful of new and useful resources and ideas. The second edition came out before Artificial Intelligence, so you can be sure we’ll have a lot to say about that in this edition, and most of those who contributed guest chapters in that edition (some of the best minds in English Learner teaching today) have committed to revise them. We’ll also certainly be talking about the impact of Trump administration policies, and what that means practically for schools, teachers, districts, and, of course, students going forward. Of course, we’ll be talking about what the science of reading means for ELLs, too, along with lots of other things. Over 35,000 copies of the first two editions have been purchased, so it’s been pretty popular. We’re confident that educators will be pleased with the third edition!
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