Building Bilingual/Bicultural Teachers

Bilingual Books

http://www.bilingualbooks.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=21

A great site for primary bilingual Ed teachers to find books in Spanish for their students. The public library can be a resource but oftentimes the books are checked out. If the teacher has a grant from her/his school or decides to invest in these out of her own budget, these books will be sure to offer students classic stories in their native tongue.

Paso Partners

http://www.sedl.org/scimath/pasopartners/

This site is a bit different in that it’s not necessarily for primary bilingual Ed teachers in a self-contained classroom. Rather, it’s appropriate for teachers who offer Math and Science instruction to ELLs during ancillary time. As the population that I worked with – and hope to work with again, have this set-up during their academic day, I included this link as a frame of reference.

Homeroom Teacher

http://www.homeroomteacher.com/spanish.aspx

A good place to find bilingual/Spanish-language materials for the classroom. Incorporating accurate and compelling materials in Spanish can sometimes be hard as they are difficult to find all teacher supply stores. This is a good one-stop shop.

Teaching Diverse Learners

http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/be-resources.shtml

Offers literature for teachers to reference when instructing a diverse population. From standards to centers to culturally responsive teaching – the site touches on a wide range of topics.

TABE – Texas Association of Bilingual Education

http://tabe.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=116

A wonderful professional development website for bilingual teachers in the state of Texas. Part of the larger, national organization, NABE.

Let's Talk!

ESL Young Learners – The Beatles Page

http://younglearners.eslreading.org/beatles/beatles/speaking.html

These speaking and listening activities are definitely not for the age group in my context (2^nd – 3^rd graders), but when I came across this page I just couldn’t resist putting it on my blog. I’m a big fan of The Beatles so if I were teaching ESL to middle or high school students, I’d introduce a unit on The Beatles with their music and would play it throughout the unit as well. We’d enter into these activities with a good amount of background knowledge on this group – how many/which people made up the band, where they’re from, the songs that made them popular, how their popularity skyrocketed exponentially, etc. As one of the activities deals with the topic of immigration and the paperwork that comes along with this, I’d discuss this topic with my students and ask them for their own experiences with immigration. They could thus enter into this activity with their previous experiences in mind, making it more personal and meaningful.

eslflow.com

http://www.eslflow.com/speakingandcommunicativeicebreakeractivities.html

This site is full of activity ideas that ESL teachers can integrate into her/his classroom. From icebreakers to interviews to paired speaking exercises, this page has it all! The ideas are a great way to get instructors thinking about how to get their students orally engaged in the classroom. Speaking can be one of the toughest things for a language learner as they are very much putting all of who they are on the line for others. This can be very anxiety-ridden process. If the instructor modifies these activities for her/his context and has the students participate in them once s/he has established a sense of trust, the students have the potential of not only developing their speaking proficiency, but of really enjoying it as well!

eslgold.com

http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/low_beginning.html

This page has a variety of dialogues that provide students with opportunities to practice basic skills – from answering the phone to describing people. What I like the most about this site is that it divides up the activities into beginning, intermediate and high – and then breaks them up even within those groups. It’s a wonderful page for instructors to move their students along in English language learning with a good framework.

Easy Conversations for ESL/EFL Beginners

http://www.eslfast.com/robot/

This site offers a variety of conversations that an adult might encounter in their daily life. While some of the conversations are more appropriate for an older student population (e.g. applying for a driver’s license), there are some that are appropriate for young beginners (applying for a library card/checking out a book). Inclusively, it might behoove the ESL instructor of a young beginner ESL population to go over some of the more mature conversations as s/he might have students who language broker for their parents. As language and cultural brokers these students constantly find themselves in the thick of mature situations at a very young age.

Children’s Lit and ESL instruction – Academic Paper

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Wu-TeachingFolktales.html

I decided to include this paper as it contains information on the value of using children’s literature in ESL instruction. The researcher reports that the repetitive features of these stories, along with a variety of techniques (from presenting the pictures, using sentence strips and puppets, reading aloud, etc.) can aid in the development of students’ English language skills – especially listening and speaking. This variety helps them remain interested in the story as well as develop a deeper understanding of the content.