Before you start speaking or writing, you must consider your audience. We adults understand this and automatically do it without giving it a second thought. Students, on the other hand, sometimes don't realize that there is a formal register and an informal register in English. Therefore, teachers must explicitly teach students how and when to use the two registers. In this post, I'll be giving you some tips and sharing some freebies you can use when you introduce this topic to your students. Introduction to Formal/Informal Language I would begin this lesson by using my document camera to display the posters below. After students have read the two speech bubbles, I'd direct them to compare and contrast the two characters' speech with a partner. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THESE POSTERS FOR FREE! Following this partner discussion, I would state that there are two types of English: formal and informal. After defining formal and informal, I would ask stude......

Modal Auxiliary Verbs ... I have to admit, when I first ran across this term in the 4th grade Common Core language standards, I had no idea what modal auxiliaries were.  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.1.C  Use modal auxiliaries (e.g. can, may, must) to convey various conditions. Other than the three examples, the standard itself didn't provide much information for me, so I had to do an Internet search on the topic... and I quickly became overwhelmed! I knew immediately that it would be difficult to teach the subtle nuances between these words in this special class of helping verbs- especially to my English language learners!  Ultimately, I decided that students will gain proficiency in this area if they are introduced to the modals, and then have plenty opportunities to interact with the modals themselves. Today, I'm going to share my modal auxiliary verbs anchor chart and a followup activity that will help your students understand how to use modal auxiliary verbs. ......

Hello! It's Deb Hanson from  Crafting Connections  today! Today I'm going to share three helpful test-taking strategy that you can teach your students for when they encounter  synonym  and/or  antonym  questions on standardized tests! What is your reaction when you see an ELA test question like this? As an ELL specialist who worked with 3rd-5th grade ELLs for more than ten years, I can tell you that viewing such a question causes me to break out in a sweat! While my ELLs know the difference between a synonym and antonym, they so often don't get to prove  their knowledge because of the advanced vocabulary words, like tenacious, present in multiple-choice questions. After encountering several standardized test questions like this one, I began to teach my ELLs a few test-taking strategies in hopes that I would be giving them the tools that would allow them to be as successful as possible. In my opinion, these strategies are beneficial......

How many of you are familiar with this routine??? You teach a grammar lesson, on verbs, let’s say. You create an anchor chart and discuss different examples. Students complete a worksheet, in which they circle or underline the verbs. They even complete a homework assignment to further practice identifying verbs. At the end of the week or unit, they take a quiz on verbs, and pass with flying colors. Then, the next week you ask them to identify the verb in a sentence, and you get blank stares, and someone who raises his hand and says, “What’s a verb, again?” Sound familiar?!?! For years, I have followed this routine, only to get frustrated when I get those blank stares and uncertain responses. Each year, I try to find a way to make teaching grammar and writing skills more meaningful for my students. This year, I have finally found it.... MENTOR SENTENCES What is a MENTOR SENTENCE? ✪   A mentor sentence is a well-crafted sentence that can be ......