English Language Art Teachers

                                                                     

The eWorkshops available for English Language Arts Teachers explore various aspects of language and literacy suitable for consideration in English Language Arts classrooms with multilingual learners. We also recommend that English Language Arts Teachers utilize the eWorkshops available for All Teachers here.

These are the available eWorkshops:

Scroll down to see more details about each eWorkshop

*If you are located outside of Nebraska, this eWorkshop is available through the WIDA Consortium.  Nebraska residents may contact ICMEE to enroll in this course.

Getting Kids to Talk About Writing (Grades 3-6)

Essential Question:  How do you support your linguistically diverse students in listening, speaking, reading, and writing?

Guiding Questions:

  • Unit 1: How do I get my bilingual students to talk about what they already know about the writing process?
  • Unit 2:  How I use my bilingual students’ oral language skills to help plan their writing?
  • Unit 3: How can I use conferencing as a tool to support my students’ writing?
  • Unit 4:  How can I make connections for my bilingual students and their writing through the use of read aloud texts?
  • Unit 5: How can I ensure that my bilingual students have productive conversations about their writings?
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
 Download a flyer for this eWorkshop

Reading Supports for Multilingual Learners (Grades 2-8)*

Essential Question: How can I support bilingual students who are struggling with reading in English?

Guiding Questions:

  • Unit 1: What is different about teaching reading in English to bilingual students
  • Unit 2: How can I use co-constructed texts to help my bilingual learners read texts with confidence?
  • Unit 3: How can Shared Reading help bilingual learners read and comprehend texts in English?
  • Unit 4: How do patterned texts help bilingual learners read and produce sophisticated, fluent text?
  • Unit 5: How can I help my bilingual learners develop a deep curiosity for the way language works?
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
 Download a flyer for this eWorkshop

Scaffolding ELA instruction For Emergent Bilinguals (EBLs)

Essential question: How can I scaffold ELA instruction to better serve my Emergent Bilingual Learners (EBLs)?

Guiding questions:

  • Unit 1: How can getting to know my EBLs help me teach them?
  • Unit 2: How can I activate and build my EBL students’ background knowledge in order to connect what we are learning to what they already know?
  • Unit 3: How can I make my reading process visible for my EBLs?
  • Unit 4: How can I teach vocabulary in a way that both leverages and builds on my EBLs’ knowledge and experience?
  • Unit 5: How can I help leverage my students’ home language(s) and experiences to help them become better writers in English.
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
DOWNLOAD HERE THE FLYER

Spanish Language and Literacy Development (Grades PreK-5)

Essential Question: In early childhood, how do Spanish speaking children acquire language and literacy?  How does that differ from English?

Guiding Questions:

  • Unit 1:  What’s involved in oral language development?
  • Unit 2: How do adults ensure that young children comprehend language?
  • Unit 3: How does storytelling discourse differ among languages? How does this discourse influence language to literacy?
  • Unit 4: What is different about teaching reading in Spanish? Why is Spanish reading taught differently from English reading?
  • Unit 5: How is grammar different between the two languages? And why does this matter for my students?
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
Download a flyer for this eWorkshop

What is Language? (Grades K-12)

Essential Question:  How does my understanding of what language is and how it functions guide me to be a more effective teacher for all students but especially for bilingual students who are in the developmental stages of learning English?

Guiding Questions:

  • Unit 1: What are ways to think about language when it is not or is in addition to English
  • Unit 2: What are the possibilities for the forms, sounds, and functions of language? How do they work?
  • Unit 3: How does language function for learning in the classroom?
  • Unit 4: What is the role of English in schools and classrooms when it is not the only or not the first language of many of the students?
  • Unit 5: What ways of using languages can lead to success in my content area classroom?
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
Download a flyer for this eWorkshop

Writing (Grades 3-6)

Essential Question: What does writing look like in a linguistically and culturally responsive classroom?

Guiding Questions:

  • Unit 1: How can I use resources to learn more about my bilingual learners?
  • Unit 2: What is considered good writing in the intermediate grades?
  • Unit 3: What does a demonstration look like for all of my writers?
  • Unit 4: How do I support my bilingual learners after the writing demonstration?
  • Unit 5: How can the oral language approach support your bilingual learners?
  • Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
Download a flyer for this eWorkshop

“I don't know that my perspective really changed so much as it was enhanced.  I have always valued the differences a MLL population brings and have tried to honor my students.  The enhancement was in providing more and better tools for working with those students as a classroom (rather than the typical focus on individual needs).”

(eWorkshop Completer)