Prepositions of Place (Where is...?) In Indonesian and Italian!

For those teaching world languages and finding it hard to get good quality resources, I'd like to announce new Preposition of Place flashcards in Italian

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Gatti-Sui-Mobili-Italian-Prepositions-of-Place-Flashcards-2588393

and in Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia)

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kucing-Kucing-Di-Atas-Mebel-Indonesian-Prepositions-of-Place-2605672

A fun way to engage students to teach them where things are. Each card has the word, the word in a sentence and a cute cartoon explaining the word.

These are in addition to my versions in English, Spanish and French which have been really popular. I am excited to get more languages out there at last. It takes a while as I usually get a native speaker to check them for me (:

Persuasive Text Scaffolds

As I sat scratching my head as to how to teach my daughter the structure she needed for persuasive writing, I realised that what she was missing was a scaffold - a structure that she could learn and attach her ideas to so that her arguments were easier to understand. That way, she could easily check that she had all the elements she needed and she could separate and expand on her ideas. So, this was born:

This breaks down the structure of a persuasive text and explains the function of it part. It gives examples and leads the student through the writing process. It then gives them the opportunity to rewrite the text without assistance, to see how it comes together.

Scaffolding is often recommended by teachers and those assessing tests such as NAPLAN. It is a great way to guide students through and even to slow down those students, like my daughter, who have a great rush of ideas but down slow down enough to expand on them.

It is for sale on my TPT store for $3.00 and is great for all sort of exam and writing preparation.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Persuasive-Writing-Scaffolds-Expositions-and-Discussions-2556412

Assessors

Workplace Bullying and Harassment Poster - Assess and Express

Ok, so this is a much more serious issue but I am going to write about it here because I hope that this can be of some help to people.

A snippet...

I have had a lot of casual positions, which works in well with other aspects of my life. In a few of these I have come across bullying and harassment, particularly in more stressful workplaces or those that have an obvious hierarchy.

My last position became so stressful that I didn't want to go to work. I couldn't sleep, I got stressed and anxious. My supervisor worked away and seemed unaware of what was going on and it was difficult to articulate the incidents without sounding petty. I had run into some of the same behaviours or culture before and could see patterns, so I started to try and group the behaviours. This is where a degree in Psychology came to the fore.

The result has been this poster which I hope will be helpful to others to recognise and articulate what they are experiencing or witnessing (assess and express). In this way, I hope to give people a tool to assess and express the behaviors that may be leading to workplace stress, unease, inequality or dissatisfaction. 

It can be hard to articulate or report subtle behaviours or incidents that seem like a 'one off'. This poster is set out to explain that each incident is not alone, but part of a bigger pattern. The effect on the victim is not any one incident but the pervasive pattern overall.

This poster is intended for use by employees, colleagues and supervisors, to complement workplace training programs, assist HR or wellness and support staff and/or provide useful information around the workplace. For more information, please see:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/megenglish/works/21670756-workplace-bullying-and-harassment-poster-us-version?grid_pos=2&p=poster

for a poster with American spelling, and:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/megenglish/works/21671068-workplace-bullying-and-harassment-poster-uk-aus-version?grid_pos=3&p=poster

for a poster with British/ Australian spelling.

These people can print and send you as many as you need (:

Please feel free to contact me with any inquiries or requests at meg@megenglish.com or leave me a comment (:

Copyright 2016, Meg. English. All rights reserved. may not be distributed in whole or part without permission from the author/ artist.

Fun Ways to Teach Vocabulary - Rooms and Furniture

One thing I found learning other languages was just how many words you need just to function - just to live with people, navigate around a room, do the shopping. And just how hard it is to learn a long, disjointed list of words, especially for kids.

As a teacher of English, I know just how necessary and yet potentially boring vocabulary lessons can be, so I have made a set of room cards in a cartoon style to make learning this sort of vocabulary fun, relevant and engaging.

I have one set of all rooms and common furniture with labels, and one without to test them.

I made the set resizable so they can be made into posters, worksheets or flashcards. Cool, huh? Great for ESL or early literacy/ reading recovery. More information and to buy them can be found here:
 
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cartoon-Rooms-Vocab-Cards-and-Posters-2463383

Pretty darn good for $5 I think! (:

Fun Ways to Teach Everyday Vocabulary

One thing I found teaching English overseas was that it can be hard to find interesting ways to teach vocabulary, especially for kids. When included in textbooks, pictures were usually black and white and quite dark. Sometimes students would just sit and try and learn vocabulary from dictionaries, which obviously doesn't have a lot of relevance as well as being super boring!

So, I have made two resources that are intended to go hand-in-hand. The first is a set of flashcards which shows everyday objects, which has been featured in this blog before.

 Each target word is drawn as a bright cartoon, shown on one card with the word and another by itself. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Everyday-Objects-Noun-Vocabulary-Flashcards-ESL-LOTE-Literacy-2370229.



To go alongside this, I have also made resizeable images of cartoon-style rooms. Each room, (and the outside of a house), comes in a pair - one image by itself and one labelled with the words for that piece of furniture, furnishing or object in English. more languages will follow and I'll certainly take requests on that!

They also make awesome posters to decorate the classroom with or in your kit as an English language tutor (always looks impressive!). They are also a great stimulus for assessing students. They are bright and have a professional finish, as well as being bright and engaging (who doesn't love cartoons! (; )

These rooms can be found at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cartoon-Rooms-Vocab-Cards-and-Posters-2463383.

As these two resources complement each other so well, I'm going to bundle them as well, so check out my store for this and future ESL/ English/ reading recovery resources (:

Cartoon Figures - Kid Clipart!

A lot of people have asked me about buying cartoon figures, especially after I released Smart Girls. They find it hard to buy anything appropriate, fun-looking, child-friendly or bright at a reasonable price. So I made this:

These are designed to be added to teaching resources, flyers, newsletters and so on to catch people's attention and add some interest. there are also alternate clothing colours to match different colour schemes (:

These can be bought from TPT at:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Clip-Art-Kid-Pictures-for-Your-TPT-Resources-2434714

There are also free cartoon images to be found at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Smart-Girls-1770479.  These were designed to give people more positive rolemodel images for women in science and in academic fields.