June 3, 2009

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PRTESOL-Southern Chapter Newsletter

Welcome to all our Southern Puerto Rico TESOL Chapter members! This is our first Chapter Newsletter and we hope to keep in touch with all our members and have you keep in touch with each other too.

The SPRTESOL Board for this year has both old and new faces. The president is Dr. Carmen Celeste Morales who has formed a great team with a new vice-president Dr. Jennifer Alicea Castilo who teaches at UPR-Ponce; Regino Megill director of the English Department at UPR-Ponce and is the secretary; Ana Claudio continues as Treasurer; Frances Torres is our membership secretary and is an education major; Frances Arce is also a student representative and came up with the idea of a newsletter, so she is now Newsletter editor. Our private school representative is Nancy Gonzalez and Esther Gonzalez and Yolanda Torruella are our Public School representatives. All of these educators are energized and ready to work for you this year.

Latest News

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“Give the pupils

something to do,

not something

to learn; and the

doing is of such a

nature as to

demand thinking;

learning naturally

results. –

John Dewey.”

Upcoming Events

Southern Conference “Down to Earth Brain Based

Learning & Teaching Strategies”

September 26, 2009

Pontifical Catholic University-Ponce

Keynote speaker: Dr. José Pons

36th Annual Convention

“Winds of Change; Teaching for Tomorrow”

November 20-21, 2009 Hilton Ponce Golf & Casino Resort

Keynote speakers: *Deborah Short *Esmeralda Santiago

Differentiating Instruction for E.L.L.s It offers various sites for students from 1st-8th grade.

PowerPoint Pointers This link is filled with premade PowerPoints for teachers to download and customize to their specific curriculum needs.

Teaching Tidbits Writing Tip Margie Steinberg, a seventh grade communications teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in Mason City, Iowa Many teachers say they have problems getting students to write. Sometimes students have difficulties coming up with ideas. I tell my students to write about what they know. I find that when they do, their writing is the best because they have made a personal connection. I give my students '5 Line Themes' at the beginning of the class period. On an overhead, I tell students to write five lines using the word you chose as a subject. Then, I list five words such as imagination, success, failure, responsibility, and video. The words do not need any connection with each other. After giving the students a few minutes to write, I ask them to share. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/tools/tips/Writing-Tip.html

Behavior Management This amazing website is definitely worth checking out! It lists hundreds of different misbehavior types (including 'the Animal'(!), 'the Distracter', 'the Hider' and 'the Noisemaker'), then gives detailed descriptions of each type and offers help and advice managing misbehavior. As the website states, the purpose of the site "is to provide you with a resource for handling student misbehavior. It presents a complete step-by-step approach to changing inappropriate student behavior to appropriate behavior". Visit the site here: 'You Can Handle Them All' Retrieved from: http://www.eslkidstuff.com/TipsLibrary.htm

We want you to share your

ideas and strategies. Please send them to

southernprtesol@gmail.com

Newsletter created by: F. Arce