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When I was in 5th grade, my math teacher showed the class how to write the number 7 in a different way from what I was used to. She told us that was how people in France wrote it. I was learning French at the time so ever since, I’ve
It’s Spring so I’d like to discuss school gardens. I always wanted to have a school garden, and I found the perfect place for it, but it never happened, mainly because I just didn’t have the time to add such an undertaking to my schedule of teaching more than five
What are your Favorite Technology Tools that you use with English Language Learners? That’s the topic of the next #ELLEdTech Twitter chat with Laurah and me on Sunday, March 19th, at 7:00pm Eastern. We’d love to hear which tech tools — for any subject and for any skill — you
Just as English Language Learners in general don’t fit into one neat package, Muslim students who are ELLs come from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds. Most Muslim boys and girls dress the same as typical American students, although some Muslim girls may wear a hijab (headscarf), and it
Did you know that International Women’s Day actually began in the U.S? I sure didn’t! The first time I ever heard of it was a few weeks after my arrival in China in the early 1990s, when the university I worked at took the female foreign teachers to dinner at
A National Monument devoted to the Reconstruction period after the Civil War opened in 2016. It’s located in the area surrounding Beaufort, South Carolina, and reading about it reminded me of the two months I spent at nearby Penn Center on St. Helena Island as a Peace Corps trainer many
The next #ELLEdTech Twitter chat will be on Sunday, February 19th. Laurah and I will be talking about Tools for Teaching Listening. Listening and speaking are often taught together and when that happens, listening often gets short shrift. It’s not enough to just have ELLs hear what’s being said —
Staying in the Southern hemisphere this month, I am delighted to present Olivia, from TpT store Olivia Walker, as January’s guest blogger in my Education Around the World series. Olivia is a teacher at a public school in a semi-rural area of New Zealand. Map of New Zealand; source: The
(This post has been updated for 2025.) Happy Year of the Snake! Let’s learn how to write Happy New Year in Chinese. Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it’s known in China, begins soon and traditionally lasts for 15 days. Rabbits are smart, funny, and caring. However, they don’t
I hope you have found some great resources this past weekend onTeachersPayTeachers using the #KindnessNation and #WeHoldTheseTruths hashtags. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as being too empathetic or knowing too much about how the U.S government works! So in that spirit, I’d like to showcase a few of
Eight years ago I got permission from my principal to watch the first African-American president in U.S. history take the oath of office, instead of doing recess duty out on the school playground. I supervised a slew of middle school students in my classroom who also wanted to see history
Just want to wish you a wonderful 2017! May your students be appropriately inquisitive and be active but well-behaved participants in your class. May all your administrators give you all the support and materials you need whenever you need it. May all your meetings go quickly and uneventfully, all your
