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See all chapters within this online special here.

Bianca is an English and EAL teacher who has been working at an IB school in South Korea for almost two years now. She teaches English Language Acquisition to grade 7 and grade 10, and English Language & Literature to grade 7.  She is also the Grade 7 Level Coordinator and is passionate about student wellbeing. I also had the absolute pleasure of teaching with Bianca in Melbourne, Australia a few years ago.

Edit: Bianca would like to point out that she regretted to mention her teaching load is reduced because she is part of the EAL/Literacy support team.

A special thanks to Bianca for curating an exceptional list of resources, as laid out below 🙂

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Links/resources mentioned in the show

Nuggets of wisdom
  • Less is more – instead of planning an 80 minute lesson for example, plan a 50 minute lesson and set optional challenge activities as what normally takes x minutes in class, takes a decent percentage more online (self regulation as an adolescent is a challenge!)
  • Be patient, be flexible and know that there will be lots of failures and that is okay – be kind to yourself!
  • The comment bank on Google Classroom is a game-changer.
  • Create a standing desk for yourself.
  • Stay connected with colleagues and encourage/facilitate ways for students to stay connected with each other – wellbeing is the number one priority for all 
My favourite tools (and a brief description)
  • Google classroom (total G-suite of products)
  • Flipgrid
  • Zoom over Google Meet (Zoom has breakout rooms)
  • Padlet, blank canvas type of tool… but not offering premium access in goodwill. 
  • Scribl for digital annotations 
  • Go Formative
  • Great (some EAL specific) resources for Online Learning that I didn’t mention: 
    • GrammarFlip (grammar exercises and writing activities – I personally like this more than Quill and NoRedInk, it seems more intuitive)
    • ReadTheory (adaptive reading comprehension activities)
    • ESL Library (EAL resources covering all macro skills)
    • The Writing Revolution (needs no introduction, this book is just everything – many resources have been made available online during the pandemic)
To find out more https://www.linkedin.com/in/biancalirosi/ (not very active on social media unless food is involved)

I’m also a huge fan of the following blogs and have found them to be invaluable (all the time, but even more so now that we’re Online):

  • Alison Yang – a great blog for teachers, especially those who teach MYP Language Acquisition
  • Tan’s, ‘Empowering ELL’s’ blog – a must-follow blog for EAL teachers
  • Thinking Pathwayz – a website dedicate to visible thinking routines that has fantastic templates and different approaches to using VTRs

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.

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