Yay for May!

With the cold weather days behind us we can look forward to enjoying the sun, warmer weather, and the new growth of spring! Also, we are almost in our final stretch of teaching before the summer – yay! There are some fun things to talk about this month with your students. With cherry blossoms in season, why not have your students read about the best places to catch the picture worthy blooms:

Where to see cherry blossoms | Destination Ontario Add some questions and turn it into a reading skill using activity!

A favourite topic in May is, of course, Mother’s Day. Moms don’t have it easy, and this topic can definitely lead to discussions about gender roles and parenting.  Here’s a great lesson for the intermediate level for this topic: Microsoft Word - 05 Mother's Day Lesson.docx (website-files.com) If you haven’t seen this video, especially if you teach the higher levels the following video is a must watch! Be sure to check it out: Worlds Toughest Job - for our moms - unofficial (youtube.com) For the lower level students here are some worksheets for beginners: Mother's Day (eslkidz.com)

There is also Victoria Day, which is of course the unofficial start of summer.  As well, those with a green thumb will start to get their yards summer ready and gardening is a great topic to teach your students.

Here are some other observance days:

May 6 – Mental Health Week begins

May 12 – Police Week begins

May 15 – National Chocolate Chip Day

May 20 – National Dog Rescue Day

Remember to check our Google Classroom and Avenue pages for updates from Danielle.

Remember to reach out to Danielle for anything Avenue. Reach out to Marina or myself with PBLA related questions. Finally, as we are approaching reporting time, be sure to keep your logs up to date. Keep track of all the skill-using activities and assessments you’ve done to use as artifacts when you make those CLB changes. Marina and I will be hosting a HARTS refresher closer to reporting time, TBD so stay tuned!

Thank you again for being the best team of instructors, and we hope you have a wonderful May.

Haleema and Marina

Spring Has Sprung!

Welcome to April! We have officially made it to Spring even though it seems Winter may have other ideas mid-week.

Spring is a great time to talk about spring cleaning and even gardening. I have a few students who have actually started working in their gardens. It may be a good time to remind them not to plant until after the May long weekend. 

This April, we have a Solar Eclipse (April 8th),  Eid (April 9th) and Earth Day (April 22nd). April is also Poetry month as well as English Language month - it could be fun to explore both these themes with your classes. Let's not forget about 4/20 on April 20th and  Earth Day on April 22nd. Ellii (formerly ESL Library) has lessons on all these topics at various levels. 

Here is a link to a lesson about April:

https://pocketpassport.com/blog/conversation-about-april-esl-small-talk-printable-lesson/

Here are some Spring idioms to share with your students:

https://www.oysterenglish.com/spring-idioms.html

A big ‘THANK YOU’ to teachers for sharing your lesson material. Keep them coming! 

Check out Tania’s PowerPoint on Gestures and Body Language. 

Don’t forget to check out Danielle’s Avenue post.

Please feel free to reach out to either Haleema or myself for any PBLA related questions or concerns.

Have a great month!

Marina and Haleema

Marching Forward!

We made it through another month, and hopefully through the last of winter! In just a few days, you can look forward to a much deserved March Break.

Though it is a short month with the break, there are many topics to teach and talk about with our students. Some important days to talk about with your students this month: March 8th International Women’s Day, this can lend well to a discussion on how women’s roles have changed throughout the years, and gender roles. I always like to have students practice different phrases for introducing opinions, agreeing and disagreeing: Expressions for Agreeing and Disagreeing.pdf (colegiosanbuenaventura.es)  Here is a link to conversation questions on gender roles: ESL Conversation Questions - Gender Roles (I-TESL-J) (iteslj.org) Here is a link to notable women in Canadian history: Women in Canadian History: A Timeline - Women and Gender Equality Canada

 March 10th Daylight Savings Time starts, and in addition to talking about losing sleep (remember to use the listening templates during Ingrid’s Importance of Sleep presentation.) to enjoy the daylight, you can talk about time in general. With lower levels you can practice time by talking about daily routines: Daily Routine Activity | ESL Game (youtube.com) and with higher levels you can talk about different idioms using “time.” 15 Idioms About Time, With Explanations | Grammarly

March 11th is the start of Ramadan, March 17th St. Patrick’s Day, Nowruz is on March 19th and March 20th is the first day of spring! At the end of March, we have Good Friday on March 29th and Easter on March 31st. You can also check out some more ideas for special dates here: Holidays and observances in Canada in 2024 (timeanddate.com)

Please be sure to check out the Avenue updates from Danielle and feel free to ask her any Avenue related questions. Thank you to all of you who continue to share any good links and activities you’ve created or come across. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Marina or I with any PBLA related queries. 

See you all at the updates meeting on March 8th, Carolyn will be sending the zoom link for it soon.

Have a great month everyone,

Haleema & Marina

Welcome to February!

If Wiarton Willie is correct, we should expect an early spring. How exciting if he actually gets it right this year! Whether it’s another 6 weeks of winter or an early spring, February offers a great month of fun lessons.

This year the Chinese Lunar New Year is on February 10th. This is a great opportunity to cover adjectives used to describe personality associated with the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Pocketpassort has a fun lesson: https://pocketpassport.com/blog/esl-learn-english-chinese-new-year/. Of course, Elli has this topic covered.

On February 19 we have Family Day - a great time to talk about families and gender roles.

We can’t forget about Valentine’s Day or Galentine’s Day or even Anti-Valentine’s Day 🙂. You can incorporate the history of chocolate and ethical chocolate into this topic.

This February is a leap year and ELLI has a fun intermediate lesson on this.

February is also Black History month which is observed not only in Canada, but also in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. It is a special month to honour the experiences and legacies of those who became an important part of black history.

I’m sure you have been busy working on your progress reports and conference summaries. Hopefully you haven’t experienced too many headaches with HARTs. Please reach out to either myself or Haleema if you have any questions.

Big thanks to the instructors who shared resources in January. Keep them coming!

Don’t forget to check out Danielle’s Avenue updates.

Your PBLA Leads - Marina and Haleema

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2024 and welcome back!  Whether you travelled, spent time with friends and family, or just caught up on some much-needed rest, we hope you had a wonderful holiday. We hope the new year will bring health, happiness and peace for all!

If you are looking for some popular teaching ideas for the this month, here are some topics you may want to teach in January: 

Winter season - 55 Winter English ESL powerpoints (islcollective.com)

New Years - New Year's Around the World Reading Comprehension - Twinkl

The history of the Polar Bear Dip - Who started the Polar Bear dip every Jan. 1, anyway? | CBC

Winterlude - Winterlude | ESL CANADA (wordpress.com)

Of course, talking about resolutions (or not making any) is a popular topic in January. Pair this topic with using future tenses for a beginner level grammar lesson. Future Tense - A Complete ESL Lesson Plan | Games4esl

We know that everyone will be busy trying to get in as many assessments and skill-using activities as possible, with reporting period around the corner.  There are a lot of resources out there, but make sure to check out the “PBLA” tab above and look through the “Recommended PBLA Links.”

Try to fill out the assessment tracking log to keep proof of the 6-8 artefacts needed per skill to change a CLB level. Keep an eye out for instructions from Carolyn on the reporting procedures.  Marina and I will have a refresher workshop on January 19th for anyone who needs help with using HARTS to complete progress reports, the time and Zoom link to come!

Remember to check out the “Avenue” tab on our blog to see updates from Danielle, and also drop by our Google Classroom. 

Thanks to everyone who continues to share with our team, you are all awesome!

H & M ☺