May 2023

In the News

Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo

• 'Celebrating Mistakes' and Other Ways to Help English-Learners


• How to Help Long-Term English-Learners Progress


• Use Practical Strategies to Improve English-Learners' Speaking Skills


• Listening Is the Key to Teaching English-Learners How to Speak


• Tips for Encouraging English-Learners to Practice Speaking

This Month's Highlights

Updated! Asian Pacific / American Islander Booklists

New on Colorín Colorado

How Puppets Are Teaching Kids to "Feel Your Best Self"

Feel Your Best Self (FYBS) is a free bilingual toolkit for kids that teaches 12 simple coping strategies to promote emotion regulation through the use of puppets, videos, and supporting materials. In this Q&A with Colorín Colorado, the FYBS team shares how the idea came about, why they wanted to make the materials available in Spanish, and how schools are using the toolkit to support students.

 

Q&A with Areli Schermerhorn, Peer Evaluator for ENL/Bilingual Education

Learn how Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator whose primary responsibility is to observe ELL and bilingual educators, is thinking about evaluation as a tool for professional growth and what she recommends to both teachers and administrators regarding ELL educator evaluation.

Stay tuned for a new video project from Colorín Colorado that showcases Ms. Schermerhorn walking through a full evaluation cycle with a bilingual teacher!

 

The "bilingual brain" and reading research: Questions about teaching English Learners to read in English

In this commentary, Dr. Claude Goldenberg addresses questions about how multilingual students learn to read and what practitioners can learn from research about effective literacy practices for monolingual students and multilingual students.

 

In the Classroom 

New! Classroom Strategy: Using Sentence Frames with ELLs

Our sentence frames strategy is the first entry in a new ELL strategy library that is currently under construction. We'll let you know when it's live!

Project-Based Learning for ELLs

Project-based learning (PBL) offers many benefits to ELLs, including hands-on activities, peer interaction, rich language use, and a chance to explore personal interests. ELLs may need some additional support or guidance in order to make the most of PBL, and these resources share ideas on how to make it a successful experience for all students.

Family Resources and Outreach

Multilingual Tips for Families

We have compiled our multilingual tip sheets into one resource collection! For more resources, see our multilingual family literacy video series and our bilingual family literacy guide. You can also share these from our new web app, Colorín on the Go.

Colorín on the Go is a free web app from Colorín Colorado and the American Federation of Teachers offering more than 100 strategies for teachers of ELLs, as well as multilingual resources to share with families.

In order to support partnerships with multilingual families, you can:

• Share family engagement strategies with colleagues directly from the app
• Share multilingual resources and videos with families via text or messaging apps

Our new multilingual video series are now also available to share on the app! To access Colorín on the go, visit: https://go.colorincolorado.org or use the QR code below:

You can also share this flyer with your colleagues!

 

Books and Authors

Book of the Month

Troublemaker

By: John Cho
Age Level: Middle Grade (9-14)

In this debut novel from actor John Cho, 12-year-old Jordan feels like he can't live up to the example his older sister set or his parents' expectations. When he returns home from school one day hoping to hide his suspension, Los Angeles has reached a turning point in the wake of the acquittal of the police officers filmed beating Rodney King and the shooting of a young Black teen, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean store owner.  As tensions escalate, Jordan's father leaves to check on the family store, spurring Jordan and his friends to embark on a dangerous journey and come to terms with the racism within and affecting their community. An Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book.

This book is featured in our upcoming new BookFinder tool, in which users will be able to search for books by age, language, topic, awards, and more! Here's a sample of books that have won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Award (including honor books).

Read Across America: Reading Diverse Books All Year Long!