ESL Chat

I have recently discovered that I love working with students who are learning English as a second language.  It is such a challenge!  My brain is constantly working on how to best communicate with my ESL friends and also how to help them learn.

Actually I minored in Spanish, but they always say if you don't use it, you lose it.  "They" are right, unfortunately.  My Spanish is pretty rusty and I'm certain that everything I say is in present tense among other terrible mistakes.  Many of my friends are so helpful and I find collaboration so valuable with ESL students.  

And, when teamwork or my simple knowledge of Spanish fails, we rely on the Google Translate app.  It is free and so handy!  It took a week or two until I discovered that you can scan and translate.  This has been so helpful!

I did have an embarrassing moment this week when communication broke down, though.  We were reading a passage where a boy got nuts on his ice cream.  I did accidentally read out loud an inappropriate word in Spanish!  A language barrier can be difficult to navigate sometimes!

 As always, a sense of humor is a must in the classroom.  I'm so glad to have this experience and I love seeing how kind and welcoming my students have been.  It has been a new experience for us all.