Hi! I love teaching ESL at Kennedy Montessori Elementary! I am please to be invited to do KRP with 6 of my colleagues. I have taught ESL for 9 years and before that I taught high school biology for 8 years in Malawi.
Our family lives on a 66 acre farm in Shelby county. We grow blueberries (they are ripening as I write!) and in the winter make maple syrup. My husband, Doug and I have four children and call ourselves a multicultural family. We love embracing other cultures. This was further developed when we lived in different parts of Africa for over 14 years. There I worked with my husband in community development and education.
This year I have focused on providing extra reading for my students and have had several fourth grade students go from a beginning first grade level to a fourth grade level. As an ESL teacher, we provide a "reading intervention" in the form of guided reading. I believe I have skills at adapting the guided reading format to ESL students. We also work specifically on developing more extensive vocabulary, but am always looking for more creative ways to do this.
It is sometimes hard for me to help my students understand the writing process of introductions and conclusions - they sometimes don't understand what they are supposed to do: I don't seem to have the right vocabulary to help them understand - or the right model. It takes soooo long to get them to write...
During the school year I don't always find enough time to read. It is my summer when I relax more with books. During the summer I make sure to read books about teaching, other nonfiction about farming or the sustainable earth , or poems, novel and also books that feed my soul. Recently I read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, and Clay's Quilt. I also read Blue Like Jazz.
When I think about these first three books, they all have a common thread (although they are vastly different). Our backgrounds and families are within us - even if we think that we have put them aside. I chose to read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, because I love the Mennonite and because my father was raised very fundamentally. Even though he had put that part of his life away, as he neared the last years of his life, he fondly reminisced about so many good people and good times and wanted to listen to the old hymns that were so important to him. I think the author, by going back to her roots, realized how immensely valuable was her upbringing, while being able to poke fun at it.
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