Remember One Thing

I know.
The time for trainings is upon us. The time to be sitting somewhere for a day? 3 days? A week? and doing the split personality teacher persona: wanting to focus on the present professional development, questioning how it is supposed to fit into our instructional day and how it doesn't conflict with what you sat through a year ago.

Believe me, I know.

And here we are. It's August 2009. You are signing-in groggy-eyed, taking in the venue, sizing up your presenters, welcoming the next flavor-of-the-month, district initiative, state mandated curriculum/program or AB blah blah blah. In any case, it is always the same constraint- it is a foreign agenda that once again will consume our time, detract us from forging important relationships between staff members and allow us to talk about something that once was in the hands of schools...

Instruction.

Yes. Instruction.
When was the last time you talked about it with colleagues?

And I don't mean necessarily just about ELLs. Instruction in general. Wait time. Checking for understanding. Information processing theory, etc.

So remember one thing as you sit through the pain: Good instruction for ELLs is good instruction for all . It is simply put (but not so simply implemented, it seems) good differentiated instruction.

In solidarity,

- W