Supporting Learners to Transition to ABE and Beyond

Hello colleagues, I want to invite you to join Erin Vobornik (LINCS Moderator for the Teaching & Learning group) and me for an upcoming LINCS Coffee Break on November 16 at 3:00 ET which will focus on ways to effectively support English learners to achieve their goals whether that is to earn a high school diploma, enter training, reclaim their profession in the US, or go to college.  

 What are the goals of the learners you serve? What can teachers do to effectively support these learners to achieve their ultimate goals?

You are welcome to share your ideas in the ELA community both before and after our live event.

You can REGISTER for the live event HERE!

Erin and I are looking forward to a lively discussion on this important topic!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition Group

Comments

Hello colleagues, Erin Vobornik, moderator for the LINCS Teaching and Learning group, and I hosted a great Coffee Break this afternoon. I want to thank all the participants who attended and shared their ideas for ways we can support learners to achieve their important goals. 

During the Coffee Break, we made the point that it's important that we teachers not make assumptions about learners' knowledge and experience. Participants shared some great ideas for how teachers can get information about learners' prior knowledge. Then Erin and I shared a couple of instructional routines that can help us get information about what learners already know and understand. We can then build the background knowledge learners need to be successful with the content of the lesson.  

A couple of tools we shared for unearthing learners' background knowledge using Jamboard were:

These are examples from my classroom with advanced learners. The learners worked together to complete these activities. Please let me know if you have any questions about how these activities work.

We then engaged in a discussion about how to support learners to build the academic language that is so essential to achieving their goals. The instructional routines and resources we shared can be found on this handout.  

Participants shared some great resources, too -- including:

  • The EAP Highlighters
    • An amazing free tool that highlights a variety of academic words including general words as well as words relevant to different careers, such as academic words for medical careers or economics, etc. There are also highlighters for the New General Service List, which are the most common words in English. There's a ton of other stuff on this site including quizzes and infographics and MORE!
  • Magic School
    • This app features a lot of fantastic time-saving tools for teachers such as for generating rubrics, sentence starters, text dependent questions, etc. etc. It does require registration, but it's free.

I'm eager to hear your thoughts on these important topics and about any resources you have found valuable in supporting learners to achieve their goals. This is what I LOVE about LINCS. We have the amazing opportunity to learn so much together!

Cheers, Susan