Christmas Time!

This past week I have been introducing Christmas to my students.  We read, It Is Christmas, my Christmas emergent reader, and sang the book as we read it.  My students tend to read better when it’s put to music or rhythm.  I wonder if that’s true for all ESL students.

After we read the book, we also matched the Christmas words to the pictures using my Christmas ESL vocabulary cards.  My students can’t read, so what I usually do is read the word while showing the card.  Then I put out maybe 6-8 pictures and have them find the picture that matches the word.  

Of course, we also sang some Christmas songs like Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I am always thinking of how to best teach my students over here.  Not only are they blind or visually impaired, but they also have moderate to severe learning disabilities.  I have students at the middle school level who are learning their ABCs or early sight words.  Then on top of that they are learning a second language.  I have tried using TPR activities in the classroom, but I am struggling to come up with activities that truly work.  Some of the TPR activities I have found require them to stand up when they hear a word that starts with the “P” sound; however, my students have trouble deciphering words that start with certain sounds.

I would LOVE any ideas that you have.  The way that my co-teacher teaches is to say each word extremely slowly and with bad enunciation.  Then she has the students repeat each word after her.  Are they learning English?  No.  Have any great ideas that you could share with me?  Please?