GRADE 3 EAL IN CLASS SUPPORT

In Miss Erika's classroom this week we practiced three digit numbers addition and subtraction.
The children moved through various stations with maths activities. It was exciting to observe the choice of strategies that our students made as well as their well-developed collaborative skills.

All the children enjoyed their maths lesson.

Miss Lisa's Grade 3 students had a session with Miss Alison - our counselor. The children were offered to make a decision in a real-life situation, discuss consequences and share reasons for their opinions and choices. I supported our English learners and they all managed to understand the subject of the discussion and share their ideas. The moral values were discussed and the children made the connections between their values and the decisions they make.

All the student had to share their values with the rest of the class.

As Miss Anita continued working on her assessment of reading, our Grade 3 students and I explored the six various ways to start a story in an unusual way. First, the children shared their ideas of sizzling story starters. After the discussion, I taught our students how to start a story in six different ways. The children practiced starting the story with a dialogue, sound effects (onomatopoeia), a question, action lead, snapshot of a small moment and a flashback.
The next day Miss Anita's class had a session with our librarian Miss Rachel about sizzling story starters they were able to make connections to what they already knew.

All the children enjoyed listening to the book Miss Rachel read.

Grade 3 EFL Class

Summary Writing

In English as a Foreign language class, we read a story "The  Clever Monkey" and practiced writing a summary. First, we thought about the definition of summary and the purpose of summarising stories. The students shared their opinion on what was important in the story and what details they could skip. All the children were engaged in the word choice process. Our goal was to find the right words and construct 3 or 4 clear sentences about the story. 
During the discussion, all my students were successful in creating 3 - 4 essential sentences about the story. However, when I offered them to write the sentences down, several students produced a really detailed description of events.
I will start our next class with a sharing session and will guide my students towards the correct conclusions. We will have one more practice lesson, giving a chance to all my students to experience success.

G3 EAL In Class Support

This week our Grade 3 students began to create their stories.
In Miss Erika's and Miss Anita'sclassrooms, the children learned how to generate lists of characters and draw mindmaps of places for the stories. Our students enjoyed exploring their memories of long and not so long ago and discovering the special moments that triggered natural story flow. 

Colorful mindmaps helped our students to draft their stories.

Rich discussions in Miss Erika's classrooms.

Listening and reading various stories in Miss Anita's room.

All our students listened to various wonderful stories and had rich discussions about the features and elements that they can use in their own writing.

Several strategies were modeled for the students to upgrade their editing skills. A lesson about paragraphs took place in Miss Lisa's classroom. The children listened to the story The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!". After the students had a discussion about paragraphs, they had to assemble the story that was cut into paragraph strips and shared the results with a partner. When all the children completed the activity the reflection session took place. Our students had to share what they noticed and what they wondered about the story and while assembling the text. We also had a chance to remind our students about the story structure.

Vincent and his partner assembling the story.

All the mention above learning engagements had a common goal of unpacking the writing process for our students. Next week we will continue developing the writing skills of our Grade 3 English learners.

EAL FL CLASSES THIS WEEK

Hello everyone! We are glad to welcome back to school our students and their parents! We have a great year ahead!

ISPP if growing and we have a new Building E with several EAL classrooms! How exciting!

My Grade 3 students came to our brand new classrooms for their English as Foreign Language classes this week. We had a good start talking about our summer holidays, watching a video about summer fun and finally writing a short narrative or recount about our summer experiences. The colorful illustrations ranged from blue and yellow beaches to silver jets and tall hotel buildings!

All my students enjoyed the task and the support provided by several teaching assistants. Mr Puy, Miss Theary, Miss Boramey and Miss Mom are the four TAs that help me to meet the individual language needs of each child during this class.

Miss Boramey and her happy team.

Mr. Puy supported Nao Nao and Quintas.

Miss Mom always knows how to keep the boys focused!

I WONDER

In Miss Lisa's classroom, our students have just completed their I Wonder projects and the presentations began. For several weeks every Thursday, the children could follow their passions and learn about their area or subject of interest. 
After choosing the topic our students carried out their research and had weekly sessions with a teacher to discuss the findings and next steps.
The interests varied, and our young learners became more knowledgeable about butterflies and elephants, lotus plants and Sakura trees.
The research took a while but when the presentations started everyone was excited to see wonderful colorful posters, slideshows and informative booklets. Our young researchers collected the information and images from reliable sources online and in the library, citing the sources accurately. Finally, our students focused on editing and proofreading their materials.
This Thursday many children successfully presented their project and received valuable feedback from their teachers and peers.

Miss Mom and the students practise presenting.

Reading Group

After completing WIDA test with all my 27 students I analyzed and thought over the data. It became obvious that a group of my EAL beginners have similar needs in reading. Their comprehension was low due to the insufficient vocabulary.

Having in mind that we still had five weeks before the end of the school year, I came up with a proposal for my team of classroom teachers. I offered to change our timetable to meet the language needs of our students in a most effective way.

My idea was to group the students with similar reading needs and provide intensive reading instruction with the focus on comprehension. The first morning period suited all the three classroom teachers and the last Monday we started.

I have five students in my reading group. We use leveled multi-copied books from our library. Daily we read a fiction or factual book. My students are engaged in rich discussions of the story plot or facts. With five students in a group, it is easy to make sure that every child participates making comments, asking and answering questions, etc.

In the 45 minutes of the lesson, we do pre-reading activities including predicting, discussing fiction or non-fiction features, reading illustrations and vocabulary check. Next, we read the text, discussing vocabulary, unpacking concepts, highlighting main ideas and drawing conclusions. At the end of the session, we retell stories and make connections.

Shintaro is always the first one to choose the most amazing fact.

Running Dictation

The girls presented a limerick about a man with a flute.

The highlight of this week was the running dictation collaborative activity in Miss Lisa's classroom.
Five limericks were chosen for this activity. Our students had to work in pairs (a writer + a reader).
The children could choose their role. The limericks were placed in the corridor out of the classroom and the readers had to run to the text, read it and then run back and dictate it to the writer.
When this job was done, the students had to learn the limerick by heart and then perform it in front of the class. Our students enjoyed this activity and enthusiastically participated in all tasks.
The performances were entertaining and the children in the audience practiced giving feedback to their peers. 

Limericks outside Miss Lisa's classroom.

Constanza had a role of a reader and a runner.

The girls are practicing their performance.