 I'm hoping good. And now we're recording. So I am Nancy Newzeekat, and I am an ESL consultant. I've done this job for about 10 years. And before that, I had about 20 years working as a school counselor. And I ran an ESL program at a large elementary school for many years, and also taught adults at night. So I've been in the ESL world for a really long time. And currently, my job as a consultant, I work in or support 28 schools with Edmonton Public. And we have a pretty large school system. So that's about 1 eighth of the schools that I work in. But luckily for me, my schools have very high numbers of ESL students. And I'm very, very busy. And these schools tend to receive extremely high numbers of ESL students because of the location in the city and the housing. And last year, we welcomed into our school district about 267 Syrian newcomers and all within a month or two. And so that was kind of unprecedented in our history. And we really had to work fast to welcome so many newcomers. And most of these students did not speak English. So this is kind of timely for me to talk about welcoming. And I hope it's useful for you. I tend to do in my PowerPoints a lot of text and a lot of information. And that's good because I'm not going to read it all, but you have it there. And you can refer to it in the future. The PowerPoint is in a couple of sections. So I'm going to spend a couple of minutes on an introduction and building some context. And then we're going to talk about welcoming ideas to use in schools. And then we're going to go into some key messages and beliefs that I think are critical for becoming very welcoming or improving our ways of welcoming. And then I have a whole bunch of resources at the end that I'll just zip through really fast. And then if you guys have questions since there aren't a ton of people here, please use your chat box and write in questions. And the moderator will help me because I may not be paying attention, but she'll jump in and remind me if there's a question. And then also at the end it would be cool if we could have a little time for questions too. So I'm going to go fairly quickly. And I will try not to bore you by reading too much, but give you some context. So we're going to move on. And that first slide just has some little welcoming bulletin boards that I've seen in some of our schools. And there's so many great ideas for that. So this first slide, when I was thinking about overall what is working in my schools and what I've seen, I was actually thinking of one of the schools that actually because of the housing situation around had 67 newcomers in a couple of weeks. But some of my other schools had 37, 13 in the 20s. So this was pretty new. We are used to ESL students and probably 25% of our students speak a second language in our district, but this was unprecedented what happened last year. And we're coming up on the one year anniversary of students. And it's very exciting to see how their English is developing. So basically I've seen people truly welcome the students and be very excited to meet them and find out about all about them. One of the most useful things I've seen is the use or hiring new staff that could speak Arabic, but also our staff that speak other languages to help ESL students from all over the world. And we're very lucky at Edmonton Public because we have intercultural consultants that work for us on salary and also we have hourly people so we can meet the needs of translation for about 40 languages. But that being said we have probably over 100 languages represented by our students. We really believe in having the ELL students included in regular classes as much as possible, but also we like to pull them out in some situations for sheltered ESL classes where they get help at their level. We've also had some schools hire support coaches and have agency workers on site to work with the families, provide translation and support the students in a variety of ways. And the kids have been very excited about that. And I know the support coaches really enjoy the work. I also have helped quite a bit with all the newcomers on ordering ESL resources, making sure teachers have really good resources to support the language development. We've done parent information nights. Usually we invite parents to all information nights but we've had special information nights for newcomer families and also on topics like how to help a student who's learning English be successful academically, that kind of thing. And then of course we want the kids and the families to participate as much as possible in school-wide events. And we do have the success coaches and people who can translate sometimes making personal phone calls to let the parents know about these events. And then field trips in the community like to the public library have been really helpful. As many of our families, the parents were going to ESL school during the day and not home after school. So the older kids are able to take the younger kids to the rec centers in the neighborhood or to the library. And then also offering lots of PD opportunities for the staff members so that they can learn as much as possible. So that is a lot, but honestly a lot of my schools are doing all of these things. And then also for one of the parent nights I was really wanting to kind of sum up what's important for kids to feel welcome and also to provide an environment where they're going to learn English and be successful. And so yes, in the beginning, having students know that they can use translation to get their ideas across has been very helpful. And we have many, many staff members who speak all kinds of different languages which really helped the students. And also the families. We really work hard on making sure the kids have friends and that they're actively involved with the other students and also especially with the English speaking students but also students who speak their language. And then participation in school events of course and being included in the classroom with the other English speakers will really help develop their conversational skills in the beginning. And also we want that special English language help at their level to help them. And in small group support we find that that really helps them build confidence in speaking. And then for reading instruction really important to get them reading and writing and doing as many academic things as possible with lots of scaffolds and supports. One of my youngest daughter had a student come from a Middle Eastern country. This was years ago and he was causing all kinds of behavior problems and he was the only one who could speak Arabic in the class. And the teacher just said to me, I am gonna teach him to read. And it was fantastic because as soon as he learned to read he really felt like he belonged and he could do what the other kids were doing and all that behavior stuff went away right away. And she was such a good grade one teacher she just got him into reading as fast as possible. And also I like this open door policy for parents and families knowing if there's any kind of issue that they are welcome to come in and talk about it. So your first question, so you get to answer yes or no, is your school welcoming? But I don't know if you guys are from school so you could maybe type in your box what your context is of where you work. And also this is kind of a dumb question because I would think most people would say their school is welcoming. So I should have really thought that out better. But if you think the school could or your context could be more welcoming, I would think that's what you think so that you're gathering ideas here at this webinar tonight. Anyway, there's an idea here of as families come into the school that they could write a word like hello or welcome, some kind of greeting in their language and make a bulletin board out of that. So it's just kind of a cool idea that I've seen. And then I just wanna talk a little bit about just super simple. Lots of times at conferences and different situations I've met people who have come to speak about being a newcomer and how it felt moving to Canada. And such a simple question or such a simple answer, usually people will ask what really helped you when you first came to Canada? And they just often, I've heard many people say, it just was so helpful when people smiled at them or smiled on the street or in the community or in stores or in schools that really helped them. And also I've noticed with many students, usually high school students, I am active in greeting students and welcoming them and testing them to see how much English they know. And often they talk about how can they help other newcomers? And they wanna volunteer and they wanna help. And they have a very strong focus on the future. And I'm so impressed when I see students who have gone through so much wanting to give back. And I think that's a really important piece because many of our students are experiencing trauma and that strength-based, what can I do and resilience is very impressive. So I'm just gonna talk a little bit about culture and cultural competency. And I have noticed sometimes this is true, educators can be frustrated because they don't always understand what's going on with families or what's happening at home. So for instance, if parents don't come for the designated parent conference, sometimes educators are thinking, well, maybe they don't care about school and I've actually never met a family that didn't care about school. So it's often work schedules, child care, there's other issues. So it's good to talk about things with parents to find out when the best times they could meet are and when they're ready to come because sometimes when they're settling, so much is happening. And also parents need to know a little bit about the rules and regulations around education, special needs, all the things we do in Western kind of or North American schools because lots of what we do is based on traditional, middle class kind of assumptions and that doesn't always match with the background knowledge and the newcomers. And so cultural competency is just being able to teach children from diverse backgrounds and kind of understanding them and doing your best to learn as much as you can to understand their culture and to share this new culture that they've come into. And I like this, a lifelong interest and commitment to learning how to respect and respond to cultural differences. And it really helps all of us to appreciate the diversity and it's definitely a strength that we have in our schools. So sometimes we have some behavior issues and I was sitting in a school one day and one of my friends had just become principal there and I was just sitting in the library testing and I just saw her running back and forth and putting out all kinds of fires on behavior and kids that were new to the school and she definitely was super busy that we're getting to know her students. So there are kind of some behaviors that will happen but it doesn't necessarily mean that the kids are being bad or it could be just that they're doing something that, well, they've never been in school sometimes or they're doing some things that were acceptable in their country. One example is I was testing some high school students and I had to work in a really tiny room so they were all kind of sitting close together and in the middle they started all helping each other and asking each other the answers and I wasn't used to high school kids at that time and I thought they were cheating in front of me but actually in some cultures there's so much of a helping way and they didn't really realize that it was a test where you weren't supposed to talk so it was just kind of a weird experience for me where I felt a little lack of control. So teachers definitely if you can find out about the backgrounds of the students and more about their culture and the ways that the family discipline, the expectations the family has of school and teachers, that kind of thing, it's very helpful. There's just some ideas there about informal conversations, looking at family pictures or having the kids bring something that's important from home, meeting the family and also if people in the community can give presentations on culture, I know I've learned a ton and I love going to those presentations on different cultures because it just helps you understand so much more your students and the families. And just that your assumptions, you just have to be careful sometimes because what's going on might not be what's really going on and there's an awesome story or a TED talk called It's Not a Single Story that you may have seen and it's about an African woman talking about her experience moving to North America and how people reacted when she said she was from Africa and they would say ridiculous things like what kind of tribal chants do you know? And she would say, I like Mariah Carey. So yeah, it's definitely worth watching. So that's kind of the introduction. So now we're gonna whip through some slides on welcoming and preparation and I think it's really important to think about these things as far as what we can do ahead of time so that we're ready when families are coming. And I know all the principles I've talked to in the last little while, we're kind of going through another time where we're getting a lot of people, newcomers coming and it just seems to be how it is in our schools. We're always registering new students and it's great to be ready for them and we know more are coming and the more structures we put in place, the more ready we are. So we'll just talk a little bit about intake and information that you wanna give parents and ways of welcoming and how we need to train staff. So the front line, the first place people will go is the office and actually the front door. So if you look at your school and you see what's posted on the doors, that can kind of give you an idea of what people are thinking when they walk into the building. And I talk to all kinds of friends and families and people who are trying to choose schools. And sometimes I say, you know, walk into the school and you will definitely get a feel. And in Edmonton Public, we do have some choice in which schools kids can go to and there's other programs and options. So I feel like when parents go into the school, they'll get a feel for the school. And so that's why you want your office staff to be very friendly and warm and welcoming. So they may need training and resources so they can create that atmosphere. And we need registration forms and help with translation. We use intercultural consultants sometimes to help assist with this and that idea of the welcome bulletin board. So you can have staff photos, a map of the school, a package to give the parents, some schools have a little video to watch and welcoming committees. And then I think if you happen to be an administrator or kind of setting the tone in your school, you want to have very clear expectations about welcoming and that that is kind of a school policy and belief system. It really is a state of mind and it's hard to make people be welcoming but I think most people working in schools know that's kind of part of the job. And sometimes what we do isn't as welcoming as we think. So it's always good to try to really examine practices and try to put yourself in the foot of another outsider coming in. So welcoming procedures, follow up strategies because sometimes kids are quite excited when they come in and it's always good to check in with them a week or two later when the honeymoon stage kind of wears off to make sure they are making friends and feeling a part of the school system. And so there's support groups, staff members, volunteer parents who can help out and student learners that can help with this. So a little bit of organization. Often in a school, if you talk to a staff, there's a couple people who would just love to work on a committee, to work on welcoming and they could put some things into play and present that to the staff. There's also things you can do to make sure that you're not making anxiety worse. Coming to a new school is gonna be anxiety provoking anyway and we're gonna have students of all personalities. So some kids come in and they're super excited and they start talking right away and other kids are shy or worried or have other issues going on and we just really need to kind of explain things up front sometimes if possible. So noisy bells can be a problem for some kids especially if they've had trauma in the past. A Canadian buddy or a friend they can talk to who can show them around. Group work, peer connections. Sometimes no matter how welcoming you are as a teacher it is more comfortable for a student to explain an answer to a friend or a partner rather than speak in front of everyone in the class to the teacher. Also some kids have never had to speak in front of a group in their school that there's not a lot of oral conversation and practice in their school so they may never have done that. Whereas in our culture we get kids up and speaking and show and tell in kindergarten and they are quite used to that format but kids having to do an oral report sometimes they tell me they're terrified and I don't think the teachers always know and they don't always tell their teacher how they're feeling. A tour of the school, a map, all those things even helping out in the neighborhood would be fantastic if they can meet other families that can help. For high school kids you may try to look at their schedule and make sure they're not in all giant classes but some smaller classes so they can kind of make more connections and also to make sure that they feel included in all school events or clubs. And then there's just a little idea here from the ESL guide to implementation on creating a kit for your school that you could hand out when people come to register as students and this wouldn't necessarily have to be for all or for just ESL students, it could be for anyone. So I was just thinking you could type in your text box do you have someone in your work setting that would be able to do this? Create a newcomer kit, is this possible? And what's, because it does take a bit of time so I'll let you guys type and I'll just keep going. And so here's another idea of just having a one pager to help parents and sometimes we do have shorter things translated we have access to some people who can help us so it's fantastic if you can get some translation done but that does again assume that the parents are able to read in their first language and that isn't always the way. So it's good to delicately find out what would help parents if a translated note would help them you could ask and that would be great. And it looks like Karina says she has a staff that would be willing to collaborate so that's fantastic. I think people get really excited when they start brainstorming and people will come up with their own ideas. So this is kind of interesting too is when that child walks in and you greet them how you set that up and what you model for the students in the class really is modeling and they will go with the teacher's direction. So I like this idea of just saying a little bit about the student what language they speak where they're from and then wow like he might be able to teach us some words in his language and we're gonna just have him sit with this group for a little while and let's see some ways that we can help him. And if you know the students coming ahead of time it's nice to prep the class as well. I was in a grade three, four class the other day and they'd been working on welcoming and I walked in the room to talk to the teacher and three kids came up, shook my hand, welcomed me, said their name, it was quite adorable. So the teacher was definitely working on those skills. More ideas from the guide to implementation I won't go on and on with the slides because the information is there but all these are great ideas and also just a few things on introduction so at the K to six level just do a brief introduction don't shine the spotlight on the student it's hard enough to walk in and be new and everyone looking at you so make sure that you do know how to pronounce the students names. I find kids will tell you over and over again how to say it until you get it right. I found teaching adults was tough because if you didn't get their name right they actually would get kind of frustrated and you only had a couple chances to ask them before he started to kind of look awkward and look incompetent basically. So I feel that students are very forgiving and you will get their names eventually. So just find out what language they speak and how long they've been in Canada and where they're from and show interest in where they're from and I love learning about kids and what their experiences were in school and I love to have them compare what their school was like with the new school. So also grades seven to nine you really just want to let those kids blend in and not shine a spotlight on them at all and just kind of make them as comfortable as possible. And then for little kindergarten students I did teach kindergarten for about eight years to Chinese bilingual kids and they sometimes cried for two weeks. I had the parents come sometimes they had the parents not come because the kids were actually crying more when the parents were around. So it was tricky and often these were kids who had been born in Edmonton but had never been in an English speaking setting before and they were really scared of me and I didn't think I was scary so it's really good to put yourself in their position. And nice to find someone in the building who can speak their language that's very important especially a safety factor as well. And also if you're gonna take kids who don't speak English on field trips you really need to keep an eye on them so that they don't get lost or wander off or have any trouble. Yeah, first language support, very important. There's a few ideas here on welcome ambassadors and peer ambassadors and you could train them and this is an awesome leadership opportunity for kids who would want to try these things and there's certain kids you know would love to do this. And we can even have some parents in the school who are active maybe on the parent council or active in the community, acting as welcome ambassadors and being helpful with the parents especially if they speak the language they can guide the parents and the families. And so just a little information on working with families here. Some staff really love home visits and set them up. I feel like sometimes that could be uncomfortable for parents having someone come into their home. I know that the kindergarten teacher for my littlest one wanted to come do a home visit and I was very worried about cleaning the house which sounds ridiculous but yeah, so sometimes that could be something that you have to think about carefully. Speaking to the students about their activities at home, sharing family artifacts and even having students interview their family about different experiences and building that family component into open houses and parent teacher nights and even involving the parents. One year, I didn't always have great parents. I had pretty good parent volunteers in kindergarten but I taught Chinese bilingual and one year I decided to do a big cooking unit where we cooked every day around Chinese New Year. We cooked Chinese food and I had so many parents wanting to come and cook and teach me and they were so excited. So I had like three parents a day that month so I thought, wow, it really depends on what you invite them in to do, how actively involved and confident they feel. And then we're very lucky in Edmonton Public because we have all these intercultural consultants who are wonderful and really do a great job of welcoming families, finding out their stories, having conversations about background and then they share information in a report for the teachers so that we really have a great record of their background. And then if there are some learning problems or some things going on a couple years down the road, we have kind of a baseline and information about their background as well. So here's another question in red that you could answer. Do you have access to staff who can do this kind of work in your setting? And then we are now at part two and I wanted to be here at 855 and so we're not doing too badly. So this part is not so much about welcoming in the first week but kind of key foundational beliefs and messages that are really, really important when working with students that have cultural and linguistic diversity. So we talked a bit about cultural competence and I've even done workshops on this and I really love all the activities and different things we do on that but we kind of covered that already. I'm gonna talk in this section a little bit about working with parents and also how you want that message to your staff and the teachers and the parents about how important it is to maintain those first language skills and not only maintain them but grow them as well because there's so many reasons why that will help their kids. We do know that many of the newcomers from Syria that we received were very much beginners for English. Many of them did not have a word of English and we also have kids coming from all over the world with different kinds of background where they have had some English in school or a little bit of oral English or some reading and writing so it's really good to find out where they're at and I'm gonna talk a little bit about some beginner issues and then a little bit about reading and then just how important it is to respect the diversity and see this as a strength in our schools of having all kinds of diversity and learning from each other and valuing each other's backgrounds and cultures. So what can educators do? So yes, we try to understand, build their self-confidence, support them and I really feel that sense of belonging is critical. I always, when I meet kids, ask if they've made friends, ask how they like the school, do they know the name of their teacher, those kind of things and then just assisting the parents as much as possible, it's a huge adjustment. One of the agency settlement workers spoke to our ESL cohort and reminded us that actually settlement, moving to a new country is very anxiety provoking and can be trauma in itself, not to mention that some families are coming from very traumatic backgrounds so it's something to continually think of. Making sure the environment feels safe and keeping an eye on issues and taking problems that are reported to you seriously that could involve bullying or racism and also just valuing and respecting the belief systems of the newcomers and also teaching them a little bit about our culture. So one of the things they did with the kindergarten kids and they loved me after this was I took them sledding and so many of them had never gone sledding and boy did they love me after that. And just how important that parental involvement is and to give that message and thank parents for their support and then we've done quite a few really successful parent nights at the school. At the end of these parent nights, the parents will line up with questions and they're so happy that they came and I often am a part of it, like the staff will speak but I talk a little bit about language acquisition or how to read with their kids at home and I also talk about the importance of first language. So they're really, they can be really, really fun. We like to sometimes involve the students, invite the students to come and have the parents actually read with them. We usually have a babysitting component or something for the kids to do for part of it. We always have food. Is this something you guys have done at your schools? Do you do parent nights and do you do a separate parent night for newcomers? I kind of wrestle with this because I want all the parents to feel that they're at parent nights and getting good information but I do think having a night for newcomers where we bring in people who can translate and we talk about the specific needs of English language learners, I find that can be very helpful because parents have many worries about their kids when they're learning English. They also have concerns sometimes when we pull the kids out to help them with their English, they feel that they're missing things in the class. They also typically think that kids, their kids will learn English way faster than they will and that it's not traumatic. So anyway, yeah, so Carol, if you are interested, I do have more to share on parent nights and some of our school staffs, one school, Glengary did a great job with parent reading nights. They did a whole series so I could share some bones of presentations and ideas if you're interested. So yeah, you can contact me about that with your email or anyone else who's interested. And so now the next couple of slides are based on an article that I read that's excellent and I think that you can Google it and all you need to do is put the authors and they're in one of the next slides and it's just action on working with parents. So it just goes through about seven things and I'm not gonna kind of read all these, you can look at them, but I really like the first two. Like I would say that is an order of importance. Really need to address the direct needs of the families as far as communication and how do we communicate in their language and if we ask them to come to the school, are we providing childcare? Are we making it easy and are the meeting times convenient and do they have transportation? So these are all important to talk about and find out about. Some people, and even I made this mistake, I was thinking newcomers, okay maybe they don't have cars, so we'll help them, we'll tell them to take the bus. Well newcomers don't know how to take the bus, like this is a really hard thing and I don't think I would know how to take a bus in a country where I didn't know the language. So sometimes we think we're helping and we're not really helping. And then number two I think is super important. So just making those personal connections, it goes back to that simple idea of smiling and just the idea of being truly welcoming and what that looks like. So personal invitations, we have our intercultural consultant phoning home to invite parents. One principal had every single parent in the school got a personal invitation to come to a parent night. I've never seen so many parents show up. So you can do a lot to encourage attendance and also don't give up. If a lot of parents don't come, the word spreads. And if it's a good parent night, the next time more people will try to come. And so really paying attention to the personal situations, not probing into private matters too much, but sharing and being open to them sharing if possible and being very appreciative of the good qualities of their kids, going with a strength-based approach and being able to tell the parents when they're able to contact you. And then there's a few more. You can talk about student achievement and how important parent involvement is and demystifying the school system, that's a big E. And then showing the parents different things and concrete kind of practical ideas on how to support their children with school and also expectations around homework and that kind of thing. Your school may have a policy, those are things you could talk about and just that sense of community collaboration and a peer support network. And so the next couple of slides are just a little bit on that foundation of the first language. Most families feel very strongly that they want to keep their home language but occasionally I have families that say, well, we're telling our kids to speak English, we'll speak English with them. That actually isn't as great an idea. It depends on the family and how strong their English is but we really encourage the families to continue growing the first language, speaking in the first language and our public library has books in different languages so they can continue to read if they like to read at home in the first language. There's so many positives. There's a couple websites there that have more information and here's just a list and the list is much longer than this but all the positives that come around a strong first language. I work closely on my team with speech language pathologists and when kids don't have a firm foundation in their first language, it's very difficult when they switch to a new language or they start to learn a new language in school. So it's a good thing to talk about with families and sometimes students decide for whatever reason and I think they're very motivated when they come to Canada to speak English. Sometimes the parents will speak to them and the kids will answer back in English and the parents have come to me to say, you know, what are some ideas? How can I keep them developing their first language skills? So I love this information and I think I included that in a handout too to share on different ideas if parents are asking you ways that they can encourage their kids to continue growing their first language. So there's just a bunch of ideas there that I like and it goes on a couple of slides. The next couple of slides are just a little bit about what beginners do and what's normal and one of the things kids kind of go through predictable stages of English development and this pre-production stage may seem like it's going on for a long time and it can go on for a long time but kids are actually learning a lot at this stage so we don't necessarily wanna push them to speak. They're gonna be self-conscious. Not always, it depends on the personality of the kids but if you have a particularly shy child or someone who has a little bit of anxiety, this silent period or them being quite quiet in the beginning will be a little more pronounced. So there's information here on what the students are doing at this stage of language development and what teachers can practice and there's a neat kind of method. Coral reading is awesome. I love something called Jazz Chance that you can Google. There's books of Jazz Chance that are really fun for all the kids English speaking to and this total physical response where you're having them do some tasks and movement where they don't necessarily have to speak. So that would be like, go get me the red pencil and those kind of things. And a little more information, the silent period, it was a term coined by Crashing way back in the 80s and basically the younger the child sometimes, the longer the silent parent period tends to be, it's quite common in young children and actually making conclusions about how long it should be is difficult because it really just depends on the kids but if you provide a very safe environment where they feel welcomed and they have friends, they will start to talk. And there are some tips there for when kids are in that silent stage where you're not putting a ton of pressure but you're setting up for success. And if a child doesn't speak after about six months, that may be a sign that there's something else going on that you may need help with around anxiety or trauma or other things. So I kind of have this rule of thumb that I do start to pay attention and worry about kids around the six month mark and I might talk to the parents and call in some other specialists like a site school psychologist to talk about perhaps what's going on. And some things to do in the classroom right away as kids are coming in with very little English and things you can have ready before they even come is a picture dictionary. And there's picture dictionaries of just all the A words, all the B words, but I like the picture dictionaries that set up vocab and themes. Like here's a page with all the clothing. Here's a page with animals. And we just kind of work through and start to build some basic vocab. There's some awesome dictionaries out there. I love word by word for older kids, but the Longman Children's Dictionary is great for little children. There's a Longman Online Dictionary that I show kids when they have a bit of English because the definitions in this Online Dictionary are so much easier than traditional dictionaries. Google Translate, I'm so impressed. I see so many teachers and staff members and administrators helping kids with Google Translate. I do have to have a word of warning that when you put some sentences in or a paragraph in, it will not come out the way that you like. I think the technology is getting better every year, but it may be better for translating words than long paragraphs. And also having message pictures, sign language, visuals, and teaching kids what I call survival English. May I go to the washroom? Please pass the crayons, like kind of daily English that they need, and getting them to work right away. I don't like to give the kids, we wanna be really nice and kind to these kids and not put pressure on, but if they don't have to do work like the other kids, sometimes they think, oh, school is really easy in Canada, I don't really have to work that hard. So I get them working, drawing, copying, doing as much as they can, having little notebooks to do things in, accountability, just so that they feel like a part of the class and that they have to do work just like everyone else. And this is just a slide. I did a little display with a whole bunch of ESL resources and I think I put that in your handouts as well to look at. If you can see it very well, but I have a lot of visuals there and great flashcards and books and picture dictionaries and all kinds of things. When I started out in ESL 30 years ago, there was almost nothing for kids and now it's almost too much and you have to wade through a lot of stuff to find really good resources. We talked a bit about buddies and setting kids up with a buddy. There's a couple slides here on peer support. I tell teachers sometimes to ask the kids to volunteer. Are there any kids in the class who wanna be working and helping ESL students? And if you have a little group, you can rotate them so that it's not all on the shoulders of one student and also that you're not making everyone do it because not everyone maybe would be really good at this. So it's nice to pick the kids that are very caring individuals that would be kind and want to help. And then some other buddying considerations that, I like these because I hadn't thought of all these and I think that yeah, sometimes girls aren't comfortable working with boys and just because kids are from the same country does not mean that they're gonna be friends. I have two junior high girls who we wanted to pair up and it just isn't working and I'm not quite sure why but it is not working. So yeah, we have to reconsider that one. And then just knowing that many of our newcomers, especially when they come in as refugees may have had significant trauma or problems. Now we also can reverse this and assume all refugees have trauma, I've seen that too and that is not true. So just being very sensitive and looking for, these are some behaviors that you might notice. Tiredness is sometimes just tiredness from all this new language and I have kids kind of trying to lie down in their desk partway through the day and that's from just over, it's hard work listening in another language. So it may not be trauma, it's just the hard work of getting used to a new language as well but these are definitely good things to watch for. There's tons of information on trauma and lots of workshops and information you can learn more about. And there's some triggers that can really upset children and that's another thing that you should be aware of and just check and watch these students to make sure that nothing odd happens and if something odd does happen, it could be that that child was triggered. And then these are just a couple of slides I have from that parent night on reading. So just some ideas for parents on books and how to choose books and funny, kind of funny story, I love Dr. Seuss and I found that one of the parents thought these were the dumbest books in the world and then I thought, oh, if you're from a different country probably looking at a Dr. Seuss book it might seem a bit odd, like there's kind of funny creatures there's kind of some odd things going on and some odd words and odd rhymes. So yeah, I love Dr. Seuss but then I realized, oh, maybe this wasn't actually something that the kids appreciated as much as I did. So providing lots of different choices, I guess, is good. And then I really want to urge you guys to look at Unite for Literacy. This is one of the best websites, No Strings Attached, lots of picture books and different themes and a multitude of languages to listen to. So they're not dual language, the text isn't in a variety of languages. The text is in English, you can listen to each page in English and you can also listen to it in the child's language and I'm asking the parents to sometimes, especially the kids where we're worried about their first language development, to work on these at home in their first language and then they listen to them at school in English and their first language. And there's also the International Children's Digital Library which is worth having a look at. And dual language books are really awesome books. Kids get very excited when they see their language and so these are books that have English text and a variety of other texts. So sometimes you can buy the same book but it has English and another language and you can buy a whole bunch of different languages in that book. So there's some really positive things and exciting things you can do with dual language. And so hey, we got to the resources and it isn't even the end yet. So I'm gonna zip through these resources so that you know what's here and then maybe we'll have some time for questions. So, and I'm looking in the text box, there's some stuff here. Those are just the links that were on the page. I was trying to keep up with your links but they are in the handouts as well. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. So some are in the presentation and now we're kind of in this part where we're just gonna talk about resources. Okay, so this one is just a nice guide on engaging ELL families with 20 strategies. And I went to teacher pay teachers as I was doing this because teacher pay teachers is kind of dangerous. You will spend money perhaps and it also is American money, so watch out for that. But you know what? For instant resources that are good and in your hands in five minutes, you cannot beat it. So I found some awesome flashcard bundles of photos for developing simple nouns and some verbs for kids. There's 540 and 10 categories there. I found word cards that say hello in 50 languages. That's like an instant kind of welcoming bulletin board that you could get going in your school. There's a really nice newcomer introduction set and a newcomer welcome set. In the welcome kit, there are some neat little visuals that kids can use to communicate before they are able to speak in English. And then I kind of like these feelings posters because that's important to talk about with the kids as well and how they're adjusting to school, how they're feeling. There's some really cool websites here. I love the Family Treasures Dual Project language project. This is Hedy Rosing, a professor at the University of Calgary and she is amazing. And they did a dual language project that the parents and the students worked and the teachers worked together and university students helped. And you can go and look at the books that the kids made and they used a family treasure from home which is a very nice topic for kids. That's universal. I love these student friendly profiles on many countries that kids can study different countries, look up their countries, share information. I love this one you might have seen from National Geographic. It has a series of family photos and in front of the family is all the food they eat in one week, very interesting. Also, I love this photo book of children from all around the world and their bedrooms. And this would be an awesome springboard for kids writing about their own bedrooms or talking about their rooms that they had in their home country or what they like about their bedroom, et cetera, et cetera. So, and very good for kids who are born in Canada as well. So, and a nice website for intercultural games and activities at the bottom there. This is a welcome video. I'm a little worried that if you use this website address, you won't get it because I tried it last night and all of a sudden it wasn't there. But if you Google new moves, video for newcomers, you'll find it because I did find it that way. And then this is a nice little resource and I think it's free. You just have to kind of scroll around in there but it's about welcoming new kids. And then I love picture dictionaries and these are some great ones that are online that you could share with your kids. And even though one looks like for little kids, look at all of them because some of them are good for all different ages. And then in Alberta, we have a benchmark system where we ask the teachers to do an assessment when they meet their kids. I also do a lot of ESL assessment when I work with kids who are brand new and I write a report on what their level of English is. And this helps teachers know how to program for them appropriately. So this is quite a good website with a lot of information and videos and writing samples so that you can get the feel for different levels of English proficiency. This is the ATA ESL website and now we're going to add in the quick way to get to the website for you because I didn't add this into the slide and so we're just gonna add it and it's short. And I also wanted to tell you that I am the PD Director North, this is my volunteer job with the ESL Council which covers all of Alberta. And so we're trying to get people to go to our website so what we've done or what I've been working on is every month I have a theme and a whole bunch of resources on that theme. And the themes are archived so we started this in September so there's a bunch of themes. And this month, you guessed it, I put videos and resources on welcoming families because this is where my head is right now with this presentation. I also had a colleague give me an awesome book called Two Blankets and it's definitely worth looking at. So if you go to the ATA Council website you'll see the first thing on the right hand side is the two videos on YouTube about Two Blankets and definitely worth watching and beautiful illustrations about a little girl who just doesn't feel comfortable in her new country. And it has a happy ending. And here's where I got a lot of the ideas tonight. Our English is a second language guide to implementation. It's very excellent and you can just Google it or find it online. And then a bunch of resources on culturally responsiveness. Here comes everyone is from our ATA, it's an ATA resource. If you Google the title, you'll find it. This is a good one. It has you kind of examine your own cultural beliefs and understandings and kind of helps you consider what it's like to be from a different culture. And I found it very, very good. I read it cover to cover. And a whole bunch of other excellent websites there. And then this is probably one of the best for teachers and it just covers every single issue and topic around ESL. It's an awesome site. It also has some great supports for parents if they have to speak Spanish. And this is an excellent resource as well that I think is from Alberta and it's on teaching refugees who have had limited formal schooling. And this is a nice little resource guide again for children who have had a refugee background. And another one that just came out on Syrian refugee children. So very timely for right now in Alberta. And then this one is an excellent resource from Alberta Education and it's not about ESL but more about special needs. There's also a section for parents, section for teachers, all kinds of stuff here. But my favorite part is where it has medical conditions because and disabilities because I used to be a school counselor and when a student came in with a special need I would go to workshops and try to learn about it. Now at the touch of a button you can find out strategies and ways to help things that will work with kids who have all kinds of different disabilities or medical conditions. It's really a wealth of information. And then a whole bunch on parent tips and things for parents. So this next section is that this talk box is excellent for showing parents how to help their kids be as best as they can be in their first language. And talking as key is a video available in with different voiceovers and different languages on tips again on how parents can help their children. Their young children learn. And we find that when they have a strong base, when they're young, that will be something that really pays off for the rest of their lives. And then just some websites for students. And a few that are specific to oral language and developing speaking skills. And so we made it to the end and we have five minutes. This is very exciting for me. So I just kind of wanted to ask you to think about these things. So what kind of resonated? I did throw a lot in here with the hope that you would find a few things that might work for you or of interest. And wondering about, is there anything here you would like to incorporate right away? And what do you think? And do you have ideas for me? And more ideas, things I've missed? Questions, comments? My email is there, so please feel free. That's my home email. So I enjoy getting emails from people who are working in this business. And we do have time for some questions. And thank you for coming tonight. Thank you very much Nancy. That was a wonderful presentation. Now does anybody have any questions for us tonight? Maybe you don't have to. I just feel like I talked a lot and I would love other people to talk to or chat. Are we in the chat? No worries, I've got a question for you in. Okay. Karina, you can also use your microphone if you have that available. Yeah, there's not that many of us. I was just typing. I don't actually have any questions but I'm excited to share some of this with my staff. Nancy, I'm Karina from Northmount. So I'm not actually there like. Oh Karina, I know you. I'm so on Matly's, so this is my Wednesday night. Shoot, I should have thought that but I just thought people could be from anywhere in the world and if you're one I know, awesome. So I'm jealous of you because my Matly's days were so awesome. Yeah, and I was looking at PV yesterday just kind of thinking when I go back in April and I saw this and one of the things I'm going to go back and do some support is with the two girls in Diana's class. Oh, okay. And one from Syria and one from Eritrea. And so I will care about this but so I've kind of been talking with her a little bit and yeah. So the beautiful thing about a webinar is they archive it and you can actually go through and target information and go through it very quickly on your own. And I do put a ton of information in the slides as you can see. So anybody can look at this and I don't think they need me talking necessarily like I add in my own little stories and things but yeah, so definitely share the address when I'm told that it will be posted in 24 hours. So yeah, definitely share it with the staff at Northmount and or just your buddies or whatever. And yeah, maybe you guys can form a committee and do some of these ideas. I definitely think it's a lot of fun and makes a difference to the parents and the families in the schools. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's good. I started some of the resources that I'll check out when I have time or when I get back to work or somewhere in between the day. And also like there's a million things here. So just like start with one or two or three like or you'll just feel overwhelmed especially if you're coming back from a mat leave. Yeah. I don't know what I'm actually at though. What's that? I said, and I don't know what I'm going back to yet. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm going to tell everyone you came to my webinar when I go to the teacher, the NCCS meeting because we will talk about you guys. We miss you. Are you having fun with all the other babies too? Yeah. You're hanging out with the other people. Oh, that's great. A whole bunch of people got pregnant in this group at the same time. So it's just really fun to do stuff together. OK, well, I'm glad you told me that you were the queen. I knew. I didn't get that. I should have, yeah, I should have figured that out. I didn't see any last names either. Anyway, OK, so I guess we're kind of getting to the end. And I'm excited that the other person was able to join us all the way from Arkansas. So I hope that was helpful for her as well. And I don't know if she's still here. But thanks very much for participating and do email me if you have anything else that you guys want to add or any feedback for me. All right, that's terrific. Well, thank you very much, Nancy. Karina, enjoy the rest of your mat leave. And everybody have a wonderful night. OK, thanks for helping tonight. Thank you.