Tips for Overcoming Test Anxiety

Sweaty palms? Check. Racing heart? Check. A bad case of butterflies in the stomach? Check. It must be test time.

Many students struggle with test anxiety, but those feelings of panic and dread can be even worse for your English learners, students with disabilities, and struggling readers who struggle in the classroom. So what can you do to help your students relax and do their best on tests?

Utah Students Love ILE

On February 27, the Daily Herald published an article about how Utah teachers are using Imagine Learning English (ILE) to help their English learner population. Click the picture below for the full article and to see what students are saying about their experiences on Imagine Learning English.

ELs and the Common Core State Standards

With Kentucky’s official acceptance of the forthcoming Common Core State Standards just last week, national curiosity about the standards is rising. Governors and education leaders from every state save the two largest landmasses, Texas and Alaska, have committed to develop common standards for grades K-12.

The committee tasked with creating these standards is made up of education experts from organizations like ACT, the College Board, and the National Association of State Boards of Education. Their goal is to develop standards that will align with current research, international benchmarks, and expectations from universities and the work field.

Though the finals standards are still in revision, we’ve taken a look at the drafts to see what these new standards have in store for English learners. Here's a brief look at some of the resources English learners will need access to under the current draft of the Common Core State Standards:

Reassessing EL Assessments

Federal education leaders gathered with educators and assessment experts from around the country last month in Denver, Colorado, to reassess the way English learners are tested. In addition to mentioning Denver Public Schools' partnership with Imagine Learning, speakers gave recommendations for improving the assessment process. To read the entire 216-page transcript, click here. For a quick, more digestible overview, read on.

New Year's Around the World

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season as much as we are at Imagine Learning! I can’t believe how quickly the holidays came this year. In only a few weeks we'll be starting off a brand new decade!

New Year’s traditions are so interesting to me. It’s amazing how one holiday can be celebrated in so many different ways. Every family, country, and culture has unique traditions and customs, and it's a lot of fun to learn about the different ways people ring in the new year.

Denver's Turnaround Strategy

Imagine Learning English is now an important part of Denver Public School District's turnaround strategy. At Place Bridge Academy, students come from 40 different countries and need intensive language training. The following news clip shows students using Imagine Learning English to help bolster those skills.

Writing with ELs

Writing may seem like the last step in language and literacy development, but according to Katharine Samway’s book When English Language Learners Write, research shows just the opposite. Young children, whether native English speakers or not, can begin to write before being able to read and even before being orally fluent. Of course, children understand more than they are able to write, but even English learners are fully capable of expressing complex thoughts in writing.

With this in mind, we’ve searched for ways to help your ELs get their thoughts out on paper. Whether your students have never before picked up a pen or they’ve already got the basics down, this list of research-based writing activities has something for everyone.

After School at Imagine Learning Academy

Class is in session. No, we’re not a few months behind in our newsletter topics. Although many schools started regular classes a few months ago, students in Washington, Colorado, and Hawaii are starting something new this month — Imagine Learning Academy. So what is Imagine Learning Academy, and why are we all so excited about it?

What's Your Take on Idioms?

We all want to give our English learners a leg up in life, and teaching academic vocabulary helps them get ahead of the game. But if you really want to go the extra mile, breathe new life into the classroom by teaching idioms. Research shows that many languages share similar, if not identical, idioms, and students often need extra help to connect the dots. Read on for our crash course on idioms, complete with classroom tips, and you'll be good to go.

(If you're not yet convinced your English learners need to learn idioms, take a look at how prevalent they are, and you might change your mind. In this article alone, we've already used nine. At a loss? Make that ten.)

Language Mag Meets ILE

Imagine Learning English is making headlines! Language Magazine, the journal of communication and education, featured Imagine Learning English in their TESOL edition.

This four-page spread discusses RTI, its history, downfalls and successes, and how ILE is helping schools nationwide with their struggling readers and English learners. Check out this link and then click "Responding to Intervention" to read the full article.

Letter Shapes and Sounds that Stick

Whether your students are learning letters in pre-K, in kindergarten, or as English learners later on, you know how tricky those letter shapes and sounds can be.

Letter charts with coordinating icons, ranging from apples to zebras, teach by association. But, according to Marilyn Adams' book Beginning to Read, this method achieves relatively slow progress. Rather than stick with something slow, try a new method—one that works overtime by incorporating sight, sound, formation, and speech.

Name, or No?
The original battle in teaching letters was whether or not letter names should be taught. Should the first letter in the alphabet be introduced as ‘A’ or as /ă/? Teaching the letter name is convenient, thanks to alphabet songs, but it also adds to the amount of information a student must learn—information that is at times counterintuitive. (If B is “bee” and D is “dee,” why isn’t F “fee,” and where did “aitch” come from?)

Dropping the letter name from curriculum may eliminate this confusion, but it introduces its own problems. Many letters have several sounds associated with it, so which phoneme becomes the identifying sound for each letter? Also, if some letters aren’t given a name or title, addressing them becomes problematic. (How do you refer to ‘Q’ or ‘X’ by sound?) Chances are high that someone—teacher or peer—will refer to letters by name, so students need to learn them or be left in the dark.

New Method
In their study, Pictoral Mnemonics for Phonics, Ehri, Deffner, and Wilce discovered that both beginning and struggling readers made the best progress using the very same method taught in Imagine Learning English. In Level 1, students are introduced to a letter that is formed by an object or animal that begins with the target letter sound. They see turtles in the shape of a ‘T’ and a zipper in the shape of a ‘Z.’ Then students trace the letter, hear the letter name, and say it out loud.

This method incorporates both the letter name and letter sound philosophies while adding another visual and tactile element. As noted by Adams, when students see the letter later, “they will automatically be reminded of its pictured keyword which will, in turn, evoke its sound and reinforce its shape.”

Check out Letter Shapes and Sounds in the Level 1 Review Menu to see this method in action. You’ll start to see those letter shapes and sounds really stick.

Make a Difference with Differentiation

For Halloween, some kids stick to scary, dressing up as goblins or witches. Others try a hand at heroism, becoming Spiderman or their favorite Disney princess. No costume looks quite the same, and that’s because every child is different. Their instruction should be too.

It would be nice if all your students responded the same to each lesson plan, but you don’t teach in a cookie-cutter classroom. When you differentiate instruction, you tailor it to fit the learners’ needs. You react responsively to individuals. It is a powerful tool, but one that teachers struggle to use as they face a classroom full of learners—typically spanning five years in reading ability. In this month’s final recommendation in our six-part series, Sorting Out EL Software, Dr. Paul McCarty reminds us how meaningful differentiated instruction is in the classroom, and how valuable is it in your EL software.

When a teacher differentiates instruction, she tailors it to fit the learners’ needs: she reacts responsively to individuals. She recognizes students’ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning, and interests and responds accordingly.

Differentiation is rooted in educational theory and research many years old. It is grounded in the work of Vygotsky, who described “the zone of proximal development” (ZPD). This is the range where the best learning takes place—the place slightly ahead of the student’s current level of mastery, where the student is able to profit from instruction rather than being either bored or overwhelmed. Researchers believe that in classrooms where students are performing at about 80 percent accuracy, they learn more and feel better about themselves and the subject they are studying.

Assessment can aid differentiation when it is used for more than just merely measuring instruction. It can identify a students’ “ZPD” and, when the assessment is computer-delivered, it can then identify appropriate curriculum. Imagine Learning English differentiates students’ instruction in at least four ways:

1. The placement test determines separate starting points in vocabulary instruction, literacy instruction, and oral language development.
2. It regulates or sequences instruction based on students’ performance. If, for example, a student has mastered a set of vocabulary words, three lessons in a row, the program will accelerate instruction, streamlining activities. On the other hand, if a student is not mastering a concept, the program will re-teach it.
3. The student can receive first language support which is strategically withdrawn as they become more familiar with each activity.
4. Students receive informative feedbacks tailored to their responses.

One way to view how Imagine Learning differentiates instruction is by observing a conversation between Imagine Learning English and an imaginary student named Miguel. Click here to see for yourself.