Leap of Faith.....in My Teaching

Slice of Life #11

At church our pastors have lead us in a sermon series called “Leap of Faith”. Today I thought I would write a post that deals with “Leap of Faith” in my teaching.

I have been teaching about 15 years; Most of the time English Language Learners. I teach both ESL and Sheltered English classes. This means that every year is different. Some years all my students have come from different countries and speak different languages, and other years my students all speak the same native language. 

So, what has been my “Leap of Faith” in teaching? This year I decided that I needed a website for my students. (Yes, I tried it one previous year, but…) I chose to create a WIKI because it is easy (I have no official technology background). My second “Leap of Faith” has nothing to do with technology; I created guided reading groups for our Adventures of Huckleberry Finn unit. My third “Leap of Faith” includes online quizzes. I found http://www.classmarker.com/ and used it during our Huck Finn unit. I created pre-quizzes that students would take online before the actual quizzes in class. The students that did the online quizzes first, did better on the in class quizzes.

What is  my next "Leap of Faith" in teaching going to be? I am reading Kelly Gallaghers' book "Write Like This" which has given me many ideas about writing, and how I could change the way I teach writing. (Check my bookshelf to see the book.) I also have some plans for our Romeo and Juliet unit that we started on Thursday. And let's not forget, I started a blog!!!

I am convinced that I do not want to become one of those teachers who always teaches the same thing in the same way. I WANT TO take a "Leap of Faith" and see if I can find better ways to help my students learn English and English literature.