Inside Bell's Brain

So we're off to a fresh start in the 2014-2015 school year, and I just posted a new classroom project on Donors Choose.  I'm very interested and involved in incorporating technology with our language learning and in pursuing project-based learning approaches whenever possible.  To that end, we would really like to add a MacBook Air and a Google Chromebook to our classroom technology.  We need more experience with various forms of technology and with these two tools, we could create just about anything!  Continue reading for more info and visit this link when you're ready to give:  http://bit.ly/VMIHEA . What We Need: Amazon partners with Donors Choose to bring a wonderful shopping experience and variety of products for teacher projects.  These are the Amazon items we have our eyes on for this project. How You Can Help: We're in the first week of our project, so all donations are DOUBLED when you enter code INSPIRE.  It takes just 3 minut...

Hello, friends & followers!  I stumbled upon an awesome "Meet the Teacher" linky , and I've finally found the time to jot a few thoughts down.  I've been so busy in the back-to-school swing that it seems like a long time since I've blogged.  I thought this was a great way to get to know some new friends with common interests.   My name is Erika, and I am proud to be from Sweet Home Alabama.  (Roll Tide Roll!)  My undergraduate degree was in business, but then I realized my true purpose the semester before graduation.  That's when I went back to pursue teaching.  I earned my Masters degree in English as a Second Language.  I absolutely love my job and everything about education.  (In fact, sometimes I wonder what I was thinking when I detoured from that path in my undergrad years.  But I still learned important things along the way, so it was a great opportunity to build knowledge and experience.) So the directions...

Welcome back to Inside Bell's Brain!  This week's back-to-school linky is about classroom decor, so not only do you get the glimpse "inside Bell's brain," but you also get a glimpse inside Bell's room this week!  Keep in mind that I'm still frantically working to get my room ready for back to school this year, so there are a lot of projects in progress!  I hope to revisit this post with a few more pictures in the days to come, but here's what I have so far!  (I will be returning to this post tonight to add some additional photos after I visit my classroom today, so please come back again tomorrow to check out the updates.) My Welcome Board There is a bulletin board just outside my classroom that I use as a welcome board.  Leadership is a strong value at the school where I teach, so my catchphrase is "'Owl' grow up to be a leader!"  I originally had the idea from a similar tree I saw on Pinteres...

Good.  It's such a simple word...one that we probably use 100 times in a single day.  "Be a good girl."  "You're a good boy."  "Do a good job."  "Did you have a good day?"  "This food is good."  When there are seemingly an infinite number of adjectives we could choose, we stick with the word "good."  It's a word I've been trying to eliminate from my vocabulary for quite some time, but probably not for the reason that you think.   I see so many signs, products, and instructional tools that talk about "good" readers and writers.  I think so many of them are wonderful products and great resources for our classes, so I don't want my message to be misconstrued.  But if we tell students that there are "good" readers and writers, what is the implication?  That there are also BAD readers and writers.  That's what concerns me the most.   Some students, and some teachers alike, struggle w...

Whew!  This week has flown by, and I missed the opportunity to post and link up this morning!  But I'm here now to share my thoughts with you on considerations for assessment, specifically when working with English learners.  (Please forgive me for my lack of graphics this week!  I'm trying to post and link up as quickly as possible!)  1. Change your lenses!  Before ever giving a formal assessment, you should view that assessment through the eyes of your EL students.  Ask yourself the following questions to gain some insight into your assessments. Are there complex syntactical structures that will confuse language learners?   Think of how much we overthink those true/false questions that have a negative word in them.  "If I say true, am I agreeing that it's true or not true?  But it has the word not, or never, or none!"  Those same questions can be very misleading for ELs because they're hyperfocused on the language and struct...