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?

TESOL is this week!

The 2010 TESOL Conference begins this week in Boston, Massachusetts. We'll be at booth #922, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

The 44th annual convention boasts the world's largest gathering of TESOL professionals. This year's theme is Re-imagining TESOL.

Students with Disabilities Find Independence with ILE

Students with disabilities at Bryce Valley High School are now using Imagine Learning English with great success. Behavior problems are decreasing, scores are soaring, and confidence is on the rise. Special education teacher Phoebe Wiseman believes Imagine Learning English has helped her students gain greater confidence.

“They’ve found a place,” says Wiseman. “They’ve got something where they can put on earphones, and they can have this independent time where they’re learning at their own level--and they’re succeeding at their own level. They don’t have to be like the child next to them; they don’t have to be like the students in the other classes. They can just spend that time gaining for themselves. And because of that, they’re doing overall better in school."

Click here to see what high school special education teachers and coordinators are saying about Imagine Learning English.

April Fool's Day!

What other day of the year do major websites, newspapers, and corporations have the excuse to spread laughable hoaxes? (One of my favorites was a few years ago when Google announced a new service: Gmail Paper, because, as they said, “Whatever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman?”) What other day can coworkers, kids, students, and parents get away with playing harmless pranks on each other? Though no one’s exactly sure how April Fool’s Day started, now it’s a holiday celebrated in many parts of the world with the aim to trick, fool, and get a few good laughs.

Are you looking for a good way to celebrate April Fool’s day in your classroom? We've got some ideas.

Adapting Instruction for Cognitive Disabilities

How can you help meet the needs of your students with disabilities without neglecting their peers in the same class? We referred to the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) for some answers.

Teachers often make adaptations to their instruction when the content or the method of delivery proves a barrier to learning. But ideally, as Keith Lenz and Jean Schumaker in a 2003 edition of CEC Today say, these adaptations would be “designed into curricular materials by the developers” to relieve teachers of this complex and time-consuming task. Imagine Learning English was developed with an adaptive curriculum that automatically assesses and provides appropriate instruction and feedback. This is great for one-on-one instruction, but what about when you meet as a group? Adaptation strategies make it easier to include students with varying abilities.

Thank You, Mrs. Pritchard

I’ve always had an active imagination. I used to make up games and friends and stories to keep myself occupied as a little girl. But when I was in third grade, my teacher Mrs. Pritchard taught me that a good imagination and creativity could be used for so much more than playing (though playing is good, too).

Mrs. Pritchard gave everyone in my class a spiral notebook. As a regular class exercise, we would each bring our notebook up to Mrs. Pritchard, who would open it to a clean page and draw random squiggles and designs with her marker. Our assignment was to turn the squiggles into a picture and write a story about it.

CABE is this week!

The 2010 CABE Conference is this week in San Jose, California. We'll be at booth #820, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

This statewide conference is sponsored by the California Association for Bilingual Education. 

ASCD is this weekend!

This weekend marks the beginning of the 2010 ASCD Conference and Exhibition Show in San Antonio, Texas. We'll be at booth #854, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

The 2010 Annual Conference and Exhibition Show is sponsored by ASCD and is titled Critical Transformations. 

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.