Positive and collaborative Education

  Oral language lays the foundation for the reading and writing skills children will develop as they enter and progress through school. They will use oral language in all aspects of their education, in the classroom as they connect with their peers and teachers, and throughout their lives as they grow into adulthood. A student with a well developed oral language easily makes connections between what is written and what he uses to use on a daily basis according to the topic. For example a given student that has a particular word in his vocabulary reads it more successfully than a student that sees it for the first time; even though he can be mindful of the spelling for another time.  As an information-intensive environment is rich in terms of information, that impacts students reading and writing. In reading, students serve it as a reference or a live dictionary. I notice that with class discussions with my students.  In writing, the impact is huge. For example, students u...

  A classroom environment should be rich in terms of information. This information should be categorized as all of them don’t have the same goals. From classroom norms and expectations to students' works, they target the classroom users and have specific impact on them. I used to display students' work in my classroom for two reasons. The first reason is to enable students to reflect throughout their own work and the second one is to decorate the classroom. For example, after exploring a novel (reading), the students make a giant poster on the characters (the genealogy tree) showcasing the relationship among them. At any time they step in, they face their work, and are constantly learning from their own work and praising their creativity. Through that reflection, they can also realize their potential because at the beginning, they were not quite sure they could make it. Another benefit of that is with parents. Parents who come to my classroom learn something about their kids...

  One day in my class, I asked students if it was possible to speak without words. The answer was yes, sign language. I rephrased “ apart from sign language, is it possible to speak without words? The answer was just NO.  Language is for use, as a Linguist used to say. We use it as a tool of communication. How can we enhance student vocabulary?  Enhancing student vocabulary works in diverse ways and aims at enabling students with the necessary skills to effectively communicate in both writing and speaking. Reading is a very important way of developing student vocabulary. We read what is written, and what is written is a message which is a combination of words. For example when reading, students get familiar with words in their morphology as well as in how they sound. At any level, reading is very important. It also nurtures the student’s curiosity as he can be asking questions on words. Another strategy that looks similar is word detective . This consists of reading and t...