I love using pictures in class, and I've been trying out some new activities recently with pictures. Here are two of the ideas I've been using: "Find the Object" Pictures Someone recently posted this picture online and challenged people to try to find the cat hidden in the picture: If you can't find it, you …
Singular “They” & Latinx: Talking to Students About Gender-Inclusive Language
I try to use gender-inclusive language when possible in my own speech (though I'm definitely still working on it!), but, until recently, I had never talked with my students very directly about the topic or taught an entire lesson about it. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been more intentional about using gender-inclusive language …
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Calendar Talk with Adult ESL Students
Do you remember when you were in elementary school and you got to sit down on the floor with your classmates and gather around your teacher while they talked to you about the calendar and dates? Photo from Wikimedia Commons That's what Calendar Talk is based on, but it's adapted to the cognitive level of …
Book Recommendation: “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You”
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests, I’m trying to do more to explore how I can become more anti-racist in my teaching. I’m hoping to write more about this topic in future posts, but I wanted to start off with a book recommendation. I recently read the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by …
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4 Key Lessons I’ve Learned About Online Teaching
Like many others, I've been teaching online for about three months now. I'm definitely not an expert, but I'm slowly learning how to adapt to distance learning. These are four of the big things I've learned in teaching my adult ESL classes online: Simplify I learned pretty quickly how important it is to simplify things …
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