As a teacher of young learners, the most important job for me was to keep students motivated and actively engaged in their learning. This meant that students should be excited to learn. This also meant that I needed to make learning student-centered – the content should be relevant to students and the activities should be led by students. We can make content relevant to students by giving students opportunities to connect their learning to themselves, their communities, and their lives. For example, after reading and discussing Steve Metzger’s We’re Going on a Nature Hunt with my Grade 4 students, we took the classroom outdoors into our own school field and garden to hold a nature hunt of our own. Students scavenged for the different objects listed throughout the storybook as well as discovered new ones on their own. Students were not only excited to be outdoors for class but to also bring their learning to their lives. Another example of this practice is teaching students about a broader topic, like environmental protection, and then following this learning with action steps that students can take. In the past year, my co-teachers and I designed and taught a five-week long curriculum based on Melanie Walsh’s 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World. Directly relevant to the content being introduced in the storybook, my Grade 4 students brainstormed things they could do to help the school (ie. throwing out trash, helping recycle, turning off the water, switching off the light, protecting the animals on campus, etc.) together and they followed this idea-mapping up by creating personified posters that reminded students and faculty to take these steps to help the school. Students were not only excited to design their own posters but also excited to post them around campus for their classmates to see and read. By providing students with the opportunities to create and make their ideas come to life – we are not only supporting their learning but also helping them take agency and become active participants in their learning.

Learning a foreign language can be intimidating and challenging for young learners – in fact for learners of any age. Thus, it is important for us, as teachers of the language, to make the process as approachable and accessible as we can. We can do this by using and teaching “appropriate” vocabulary. When determining “appropriate” vocabulary, it is helpful to refer to the framework of tiered vocabulary – a method of organization that categorizes words into tiers based on the word’s frequency of use, complexity, and meaning(s). Tier 1 consists of basic sight words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives that typically have one direct meaning (ie. dog, run, sad, boy). Tier 2 consists of high-frequency words that have multiple meanings and occur across domains (ie. measure, predict, parallel). Tier 3 consists of low-frequency, domain-specific words, often referred to as a jargon (ie. isotope, mitosis, revolution). While teaching my elementary-level students, my objective was to help them master the Tier 1 words. These words are the foundation to building up to Tier 2 and Tier 3 words. By mastering Tier 1 words, students would become better equipped to learn and discuss more complex words and concepts. While teaching my Grade 1 bilingual physical education class, I would be very specific in the words I chose to use – choosing to use words like “throw” and “catch” before introducing words like “dodgeball.” This was to ensure that the students understood the actions and goals of the game before introducing them to more specific terminology. In reality, they already knew how to play the game before even hearing its name. By first familiarizing themselves with the basic vocabulary, students can draw connections more easily and better grasp the more complex words and concepts.

When learning a new language, we will often come across the terms input (listening, reading) and output (writing, speaking). Input is the learning that takes place through exposure to the language. A student would be inputting knowledge by either reading a passage or listening to a storybook. Output is the learning that occurs through verbal or non-verbal production. A student would be outputting knowledge by either speaking during a presentation or writing down a response. Throughout my year teaching English language learners, I was reminded that for full language acquisition to occur, a combination of all four of these means of learning should be practiced. I also quickly earned the importance of a sequenced order of the four for them to be efficiently used in the classroom. While teaching my Grade 6 students about countries around the world – my co-teacher Jamie and I ensured that students would be able to practice reading, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. To scaffold this learning sequence, we started off with listening and reading activities before having students attempt speaking and writing activities. Students first listened to our presentation on the flags and backgrounds of various countries before supplementing this knowledge with a wall search activity in which they read informational posters. After gaining basic knowledge about the countries, the students were instructed to do research on a country of their choice to create a presentation on before taking turns to share it with the class. By including listening, reading, writing, and speaking in the project sequence, students were able to engage in activities that allowed them to practice various comprehension skills.