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    • Annual Voices Journal Submission Guidelines
  • Annual Voices Journal 2025
    • Journal 2025 Picture Word Indicative Model (PWIM)
    • Journal 2025 Creating ESL Bilingual Units
    • Journal 2025 Creating Lessons for All through Picture Books
    • Journal 2025 Faculty Resources for ML Student Success
    • Journal 2025 Fostering Inclusive Environments
  • 2025 Spring Weekly Voices
    • Teaching Newcomers? Effective Writing Strategies for ELL Newcomers
    • Proposed Changes of HS Requirements for Districts and Students
    • Congratulations to April’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Daryl Perkins
    • Preserving Family Culture and Language: A Parent Workshop in Irvington’s Early Childhood Department
    • Trauma Informed Considerations and Strategies for Multilingual Learners
    • Addressing Student Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression
    • Free Resources to Explore and Use ChatGPT and AI
  • 2025 Winter Weekly Voices
    • Professional Development Opportunities in 2025
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarships and Awards for your students and you!
    • Congratulations to January’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Brittany Fuentes
    • English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules Schools Have to Follow
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • Resources for Educators Pertaining to Immigrant Students, Families, and Preparation for Response
    • How to Identify and Serve English Learners with Disabilities
    • 2024 Raquel Sinai Newcomer Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • How to Connect With English-Language Newcomers: Teachers Share Their Favorite Lessons
    • Congratulations to March’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Juliana Neno
    • 2024 Pedro J. Rodriguez High School Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Invited Speakers
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • Executive Board
    • Membership Information
    • The Hotlist
    • W25 January 21

Contact Us by Email

webmaster@njtesol-njbe.org
njtesol-njbe-voicesnjtesol-njbe-voices
  • Home
    • Annual Voices Journal Submission Guidelines
  • Annual Voices Journal 2025
    • Journal 2025 Picture Word Indicative Model (PWIM)
    • Journal 2025 Creating ESL Bilingual Units
    • Journal 2025 Creating Lessons for All through Picture Books
    • Journal 2025 Faculty Resources for ML Student Success
    • Journal 2025 Fostering Inclusive Environments
  • 2025 Spring Weekly Voices
    • Teaching Newcomers? Effective Writing Strategies for ELL Newcomers
    • Proposed Changes of HS Requirements for Districts and Students
    • Congratulations to April’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Daryl Perkins
    • Preserving Family Culture and Language: A Parent Workshop in Irvington’s Early Childhood Department
    • Trauma Informed Considerations and Strategies for Multilingual Learners
    • Addressing Student Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression
    • Free Resources to Explore and Use ChatGPT and AI
  • 2025 Winter Weekly Voices
    • Professional Development Opportunities in 2025
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarships and Awards for your students and you!
    • Congratulations to January’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Brittany Fuentes
    • English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules Schools Have to Follow
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • Resources for Educators Pertaining to Immigrant Students, Families, and Preparation for Response
    • How to Identify and Serve English Learners with Disabilities
    • 2024 Raquel Sinai Newcomer Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • How to Connect With English-Language Newcomers: Teachers Share Their Favorite Lessons
    • Congratulations to March’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Juliana Neno
    • 2024 Pedro J. Rodriguez High School Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Invited Speakers
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • Executive Board
    • Membership Information
    • The Hotlist
    • W25 January 21

Congratulations to November’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month Mrs. Singh

Mrs. Singh teaches in Neptune Middle School. Beyond creating a safe haven for her students, she utilizes multiple mediums and supports to help her students achieve high expectations. She creates and provides professional development for staff in her school and has organized ESL Parent nights, College and Career Fairs for ESL families, and encourages and helps her students to participate in district activities such as extracurriculars and athletics.

In her words: “It is an honor to be recognized as NJTESOL/NJBE member of the month. Teaching ESL can be an island and I think that it is amazing that NJTESOL/NJBE takes time to recognize the amazing teachers we have here in New Jersey. I love teaching my multilingual learners and watching them grow and develop throughout their time in middle school with me. I work with an amazing group of staff and administrators who help me support the needs of all of my students and their families. I am honored to be recognized and to share this honor with those I work with.”

Please join us in congratulating Ashley Singh!

Nominate the member of the month!

NJTESOL/NJBE has so many amazing teachers throughout our state that it would be fitting to highlight some of them. Nominees could be colleagues who are available to answer questions about ELLs or the Bilingual Education code; educators who support students and their families beyond the classroom with projects, college applications, and extracurricular activities; someone who joins committees in support of ELLS or to implement positive change for the community. The nominee must be a member of NJTESOL/NJBE. Nomination Link

Announcements

We are so excited to inform you that our next Morris/Sussex Chapter meeting will be on Tuesday, November 12th at 4:15 online. Our fabulous WIDA rep, Maggie Churchill, will be presenting. Register here.

T-Shirt Design Contest – All NJTESOL/NJBE members and their students are invited to participate in this first-ever competition. The winning design will be featured on the 2025 Spring Conference t-shirts sold to raise funds for the NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarship Fund. Submissions are due by Nov. 15, 2024. See more information here.

Spring Conference Call For Proposals
Presenters play a key role in our Spring Conference. We invite proposals that will strengthen systems of support for students, their families, educators, support staff, and the communities in which we work and live. Proposals may focus on any educational level, from Pre-Kindergarten to university, as well as on adult school and workplace literacy settings. Proposals can be submitted for an in-person presentation, a pre-recorded presentation for the Video Library, or a combination of both. You can submit your proposal here. The deadline is Nov. 17, 2024.

4 Ways to Support Long-Term
English Learners

By Sarah Said

In this article, Sarah Said offers four simple strategies for helping students who have remained in an ESL program for more than five years.

  1. Use Oracy for Reading Comprehension and Writing – Students’ oral abilities can be utilized to improve comprehension and literacy by having them work in teams to talk about the subject content for reading and writing. She suggests starting with “Turn and Talk” to build confidence to participate in class discussions. Three other ways that the author lists to use oracy are Fishbowl described as “Socratic seminars about texts”, Inside Outside Circles in which students question each other for reading comprehension, and Back to Back, Front to Front which offers students time to think about their answers.
  2. Create Activities Requiring Students to Mindfully Listen – Said bases these listening activities on “empathy interviews” starting with the game, “What’s Wrong with Grownups?” A follow-up activity requires students to listen to each other without interrupting and only asking questions to clarify meaning.
  3. Utilize Small Group Reading Structures – Working in groups of three or four, students read out loud to each other, usually alternating paragraphs.
  4. Deconstruct and Reconstruct Sentences for Meaning – Rather than simplifying a text, choose a sentence that exemplifies the main idea, and then dissect it for comprehension. Afterwards, it can be reproduced in students’ own words and used for writing.

 

In 2019-2020, the graduation rate for MLs was 15% below the national average. According to the author, “With many of those learners being long-term ELLs, rethinking how we teach our students is critical to filling in the gaps.”

You can watch the videos and read the explanations of these strategies here.

Announcing the 2025 Spring Conference Keynote Speakers!

Left to Right:
Tuesday: Alisha de Lorenzo
Wednesday: Dr. Patriann Smith
Thursday: Missy Testerman

ARTICLES:

Meet Our New Executive Board Members

Science of Reading Podcast 3:
Diagnosing Dyslexia in Multilingual Learners
– with Francisco Usero-González
and
Science of Reading Podcast 4:
Practical Strategies for Multilingual Learning
– with Diane August, Ph.D.

Communication is KEY!
and
Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Has Consequences. What Schools Can Do to Help

Congratulations to October’s
NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month Kellie Cuccaro

and
Every Teacher Is a Language Teacher: Strategies for Supporting Multilingual Learners of English in the Mainstream Classroom– Naashia Mohamed

3 Ways to Ensure English Learners Benefit from the Science of Reading
-Leslie Villegas
and
Supporting Multilingual Learners in Developing Reading Fluency across the School Day– Kate Kinsella

Announcing the 2025 Spring Conference Keynote Speakers!

Congratulations to November’s
NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month Mrs. Singh

and
4 Ways to Support Long-Term English Learners – Sarah Said

Word Analyzer Vocabulary Tool
and
Online Dictionaries

Notebook LM
-Jessica Duran
and
5 Ways to Use AI-Generated Images in Your Classroom -Brent Warner

Inspirational Quotations
and
A Chorus of Reasons Why We Teach

Invitation to Write an Article for the Yearly Voices Journal
and
Padres con Poder/Parent Power Parent Expo

5 Ways to Bring Cultural Diversity into Your Classroom -Carol Higho
and
Defying Labels at Tables -Joyce Farr

Season’s Greetings from the NJTESOL/NJBE Executive Board

NJTESOL/NJBE Voices Editorial Board

Executive Director
Kathleen Fernandez

President
LeighAnn Matthews, Bridgewater-Raritan Public Schools

Past-President
Michelle Land, Randolph Township Schools

Layout
Dale Egan, Bergen Community College

Technology
Marilyn Pongracz, Bergen Community College

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