Friday, March 15, 2013

Live Scribe

I recently went to a technology conference in Louisville and learned about a really neat website. The website is called live scribe. If you purchase a pen from them online, the device can record the voice of the person speaking while you are taking notes. Plus while you are taking notes on their notepad, the pen stores it and once signed into the website you can see your notes online as well as on your paper. I think this is a great resource for our students!

Friday, March 8, 2013

iTranslate

want to work on speaking with your student? try iTranslate on the iPad. It translates whatever you type into to the language that you choose and it says the phrase out loud. A fun way to work on speaking and writing phrases!

Vocabulario App

Another great app for the Ipad is VOCABULARIO. It has flshcards with the English and Spanish vocabulary on each one along with a picture of what the word means. Students learning with technology!!!

Words frequently Confused

Working with your ESL student on vocabulary can sometimes be confusing for them. "Words Frequently Confused" is a great app that has combined words and definitions of words that are frequently confused when learning English!

Great way to work on VOCABULARY!!!!

Apps for the Ipad that can be used in the classroom!

looking for some apps to use with your ESL students?

Try one of these:

 Say Hi

Translate

HH Spanish

Salade de mots

HH world

and they are FREE!!!

My first experience with Assessing an ESL student with the W-APT

             Being a private school teacher, I have not had the opportunity to witness or apply a placement test with any of our ESL students.The process of testing my student with the placement assessment, or W-APT, was an interesting adventure into uncharted waters for me. This was my first time testing a student with this test and I learned a lot about the assessment, as well as, information on how to administer the assessment to an ESL student who hasn’t taken a test of this nature. Since this was my first time working with this material, I made sure I went through every page of every section to ensure I had the correct instructions and I knew what to expect before I worked with my student.

      In my opinion, this test was very informative and helpful in understanding the ability level of my student and what she needs more help on in the classroom. Having this opportunity has been a life changing experience because up until this time it has been a guessing game and I have had to try to understand what everyone has been discussing in class on what test giving has been like. Through the assessment scores, I was able to find out what her CAN DO descriptors were right on track with her abilities, and understand her level of ability through a description and explanation given through the WIDA standards.

            I believe this is the area that private schools can improve for their students. If we start testing

 our students and start using the resources that we have to help the education of our ESL students,

then I think we can see our students excel. The guessing game for placing these students into classes

needs to stop and we need to advocate for these students that can benefit greatly from a little extra

help. I think we, as a school, could be more appealing to incoming families and students if they knew

that we had a program like the one I hope we strive to achieve.

working on words with multiple meanings

Having trouble working on vocabulary and multiple meaning words with your student?

Try these websites!! :)

http://esl.yourdictionary.com/lesson-plans/Teaching-Spelling-Strategies-to-ESL-Students.html

http://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com/2010/12/multiple-meanings-theory-research-and.html