Teaching Online

Supporting EL Students’ Vocabulary Development While Schools Are Closed

By Katharine Davies Samway, author and Professor Emerita at San José State University in California

Having an extensive vocabulary is very helpful in order to understand, enjoy, and appreciate oral and written language, as well as to succeed in school and the outside world. Vocabulary is often taught in isolation in a rather boring, uninspiring way for many students—being given ten words to define is one example. However, vocabulary development can be a very engaging and exciting experience. Word Consciousness is one such approach—it focuses on language in context and an awareness of and love for language (e.g., Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2008; Samway & Taylor, 2009; Scott & Nagy, 2004).

The following word consciousness/vocabulary development activities are very helpful for English learners (ELs), as well as for non-ELs. Importantly, students who do not have access to a computer and/or the Internet can complete these activities. I mention this because there has been a lot of talk about the importance of online teaching while students are likely to be out of school for weeks, if not months, during the coronavirus epidemic. However, many students who are immigrants and/or come from low-income homes do not have access to the Internet or computers that are necessary for online learning to occur.

Teaching in the Time of Corona: Supporting Newcomer Students During School Closures

By Laura Alvarez, author, teacher, researcher, and professional development provider

As educators, we currently face an unprecedented challenge: continuing to provide rich learning opportunities when our physical school sites are closed. While most schools are going online, many students do not have internet access or computers at home. These inequities threaten to further exacerbate equity gaps for our students who have historically not been well-served by U.S. schools and who must rely on our educational institutions, including recently arrived immigrant students, or newcomers.

Do Your Homework: Write Alongside your Students

As we enter a new age of education in the world of COVID 19, I am thinking about how to help my students not only continue with their English literature education, but also to process what they, and we as a nation and a world, are going through right now. Isn’t that why we teach literature and history? To make sense of ourselves and our world? To that end, I assigned a time capsule project. (Thanks here to Karli Hart who generously shared her project worksheet with me and many others through an English teachers Facebook page. I made some changes to her original document to suit my particular students, but it is largely hers.) My students will now write three times per week either about the virus, what’s happening in the world, what’s happening in their homes, how they feel, or what they do to escape thinking about the virus.