Category: English Language Learners

Online Learning When Coronavirus Threatens

Denise Krebs

Larry Ferlazzo has created several posts with ideas for online learning when schools have to be closed because of the Coronavirus outbreak. Visit his latest post:  “ONLINE LEARNING TOOLS IF SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED BECAUSE OF THE CORONAVIRUS – PART FOUR” I’m working through the links today.

Our school is closed because of the Coronavirus scare, and I’m learning to teach online on the fly. Today I sent out my first lesson to grade 5 ELL students. I sent way too much and the instructions were too complicated! What was I thinking? I only get to send two lessons a week. Normally I have seven lessons with each group of scholars each week. I’m sure subconsciously I tried to pack three-and-a-half periods into one at-home lesson.

Basically we have been instructed to give something to read or view, and then have them produce something. That sounds wise and simple. Comprehensible input and comprehensible output–these make sense. They are what I’ve been working through with Nation’s books Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking and Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing.

I have been trying to do all four strands mentioned in these books in my weekly lessons:

  1. Meaning-focused Input
  2. Meaning-focused Output
  3. Language-focused Learning
  4. Building Fluency

I think today’s lesson was OK. They had a picture book to read with a simple message. It was an audiobook, which helped the ones who needed that support. There was language learning on pronunciation and usage of the new vocabulary. My favorite part was the real-life application where I asked students to go on a vocabulary hunt for these words around their homes–smidgen, glinting, scuttle, intricate, delicate, wilted, and clog.

I had a definite fail in the long and detailed list of instructions I sent. With a world made up of people who prefer to learn orally, I overloaded them on text. For a 98% ELL crowd, I failed to provide comprehensible directions for them. Yikes! Here’s what my email looked like:

I should have known. Now I have learned a lesson. When I send work online, I am not able to rely on the obvious and subtle cues of being in a room full of questioning children. I didn’t hear anyone say, “Huh?” or “What do you mean?” I couldn’t see the faces of those not with me. I hated being unavailable personally as they worked through those instructions. If I was there, I might have even needed to say, “OK, let’s not do this part. We’ll save that for tomorrow.”

There are some definite downsides to teaching from a distance. We are attempting it in K-12 too. It will be a challenge. I will have to work on the instructions–meaningful brevity–cut every unneeded word and phrase. And then cut the word count some more. That’s my goal for my second lesson.

However, there have been some rewarding and rich experiences even in just one day. I’ve given more feedback and individualized instruction today than I am able to do in the classroom when I have 25 students at a time. I was able to explain to individuals about the mistakes they made–in writing or with a voice message when needed.

Here is an example of a item from the vocab hunt. (Check out the hashtag #arsvocab to see more of their sweet vocabulary hunt.)

A delicate glass dish that is glinting in the light.

“I Am” Metaphor Poems

Denise Krebs2 Comments

In the summer I read the blog of Sara Kiffe, with the lovely name of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Teaching Under the Big Sky).  On July 2, she wrote this post, “First Day I Am Poems.” Sara didn’t stop there. Check out Sara’s super summer posts for lessons on Fibonacci Poetry, Color Poems and Saving Things Poetry.

I decided to try writing metaphors the first day of school too. I teach English to native Arabic speakers, and I had them only 45 minutes a day the first two days of school. After a mini lesson on metaphors and figurative language, each student wrote one metaphor using one of their senses, a metaphor about themselves. Most of them were able to understand and created their own metaphors.

We hung their first metaphors on a bulletin board in the hallway.

We are learners!

A post shared by arsgrade5 (@arsgrade5) on

The next day they wrote a whole poem about themselves using metaphors of all kinds. The images were so sweet and some were just beautiful.

I don’t know much about the Arabic language, but from what others tell me and what I’ve experienced, it is rich in figurative language. In previous years, I’ve noticed my students have always been good at similes and metaphors, and they use them spontaneously in their writing and speaking.

Thanks, Sara, for the inspiration.

First day of school metaphor slides
Student Samples
Templates – Students chose from these to help scaffold their writing

Pink Prepositional Pandemonium

Denise Krebs2 Comments

On Thursday I wore a pink top because I like alliteration and I had lots of pink paper.

On Wednesday, I made up my first Breakout EDU game as I sat in the hospital keeping my post-surgery husband company. Since I was there without my computer, all the game pieces were hand-written. Before I had left school for the hospital on Wednesday, I grabbed a small pile of colored paper from the cabinet. When I got started working, I realized most of the paper I took was pink, so that’s what I used for the puzzles. Thus the pink theme was born, and I added Pink to my Prepositional Pandemonium game.

I’m working on a @breakoutedu game for tomorrow!

A post shared by arsgrade5 (@arsgrade5) on

It had been several months since my class participated in a Breakout game. It was definitely time to do it again, and I wanted to leave for spring break on a high note. I created the game to use and review prepositional phrases–one of our topics this week.

I reached my goal to end on a high note! They all BROKE OUT, and we had lots of fun!

If all didn’t succeed, no one would breakout.

For this game I decided to make five separate puzzles and assign one to each of five small groups. That way the groups wouldn’t be in each other’s way, while trying to solve all the puzzles. The last time we did a Breakout, all the groups were working independently from the others, trying to open all the locks. It seemed half the time was spent in the queue to try out the combinations they were solving. Not this time. Each group was responsible for just one lock. (They weren’t told which one when they started, but as they solved their puzzle, they could figure out which lock their combination could open.)

Here are brief descriptions of the five games:

  1. Team 1 was given a sheet of sentences that they had to mark the prepositional phrases. The students were to circle the letter at the beginning of each sentence that had only one prepositional phrase. They then had to unscramble the letters to come up with something that was in my pocket, the next thing they needed to solve the problem. After they figured out it was a deck of cards, they had to find the cards that were marked with prepositions and turn those into a five-digit directional lock combination. This was the hardest puzzle for both classes.
  2. Team 2 was given a worksheet as well. They marked sentences that had two or more prepositional phrases. The letters that were circled were unscrambled into a preposition. Students then used that word as the combination for the letter combination lock. This was definitely the easiest puzzle.
  3. Team 3 had a difficult task. It had a math problem: Page 4 + Page 8 = the 3-digit lock box. Since it was page 4 and 8, they did a lot of experimenting with the four guided reading books on the ledge.  I didn’t really give them much information before or during, but eventually they found the UV flashlight. They discovered one highlighted preposition on each of pages 4 and 8 in one of the books. It took them another while to discover they needed the code that was hanging on the board. They then had to add all the numbers in each of those words. That gave them the three-digit code to open the lock box, where they found extra hint cards to help the other teams.
  4. Team 4 was given a page with prepositional phrases written all over in four quadrants. They discovered, after some trial and error, that the phrases were found in one of the books. Each quadrant’s phrases were found on a separate page in the book. They then used those page numbers to open the four-digit combination lock.
  5. Finally, Team 5 was given Hint #1 of a prepositional phrase treasure hunt. The first clue said, “in the dialogue journal basket.” They found the second clue in the dialogue journal basket and continued from there through eight not-so-easy hints. My favorites were “inside a tall desk” and “across the hall.” More about those:
  • We have about five desks that are taller than all the others, so it should have been an easy one, but I taped the clue up on top of the inside of the desk. The students in one class just kept giving up and saying it wasn’t there. I would find students falling away and start helping another group. Occasionally, I would remind someone in that group that if they didn’t break out no one would break out because we needed to open all the locks. They got back to trying, and then finally someone found it. He nearly went through the roof jumping with such excitement!
  • “Across the hall” was another good one. I have English language learners, and in one class no one in this group knew the words hall or across. They used Google Translate and the online dictionary to help them. (I had to give them the word hallway since hall was only a large meeting room in Translate.)
  • Finally, the last clue was “under the carpet,” where they found a key to the padlock on the Breakout box.
Getting Ready for the Breakout!

Here is my Google Document with these Breakout Prepositional Phrase papers. (It’s my #edublogsclub giveaway for your own Breakout game!)

I was really pleased with my first attempt at making a Breakout EDU game. I felt pleased that though I gave myself only one evening to create it, I managed to make it and pull it off without too many glitches. The videos below show the last moments for each class as they opened the box!

I had one disappoint, though. As a result of giving myself only one evening, I felt I defaulted too quickly to worksheets. Yikes! I don’t want to make worksheets part of Breakout EDU, so I am looking for any alternatives to those two worksheets.

Any suggestions on how to improve this game?

She persisted!

A post shared by arsgrade5 (@arsgrade5) on

5B figured out how to remove the clasp too!

A post shared by arsgrade5 (@arsgrade5) on