Most recent public comments by Nancy Hammons https://nowcomment.com/users/40528 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1013329 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1013329 To take glossaries a step farther, I can imagine that any time we can provide a content word in their home language it probably adds a little more understanding. That's where school libraries can help. We have several different types of dictionaries that hopefully represent most of the languages spoken at our school. I continue to check and re-check our dictionaries each year to make sure all students are represented, and now, I see a reason to be even more diligent with this. Fri, 11 May 2018 16:47:34 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009234 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009234 Although I am learning and will learn a great deal more about how to "Unlock English Learners' Potential," I feel very vindicated that what I believed to be important about serving ELs is supported here in the text: that we should appreciate their home languages and cultures, learn more about them and what they value, and support academic learning in their home language when appropriate. As a resource at our school, I need to make it an even higher priority to continue building on our world language collection of texts, and perhaps I could collaborate even more with our EL teachers who might need students to read particular texts in their home languages. When I first began to work on collection development and searched for texts in languages other than English, it used to be almost impossible to find anything other than a handful of Spanish books. Now, there is a multitude of texts available. I think it is because there is a paradigm shift in school libraries about supporting not just the learning but the learner--no matter what their background is. Fri, 11 May 2018 16:47:34 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009232 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009232 I agree. Not only is it hard to define American culture, but I think each decade is stretching us into a much broader melting pot of more continents and cultures than just Western Europe. Fri, 11 May 2018 16:47:34 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009231 https://nowcomment.com/documents/101580?scroll_to=1009231 My classroom experience may not be exactly like all of you because I have other teachers' classes. But I do use "I can" statements when teaching information literacy lessons. It makes sense that using student-friendly language helps them, as you said Dee, "see" what they are learning--a little tip of the hat to metacognition. What I need to re-think, though, is how to let the students set goals for their learning, and also to make learning goals visual as well as simplified. Fri, 11 May 2018 16:47:34 -0400