Question 1

What are ELL Student Plans?

Accepted Answer

The ELL Student Plans are a great way to share detailed information about your ELLs with colleages, admin, or parents.

The plans include:

Student Background Information
Can Dos Based on Assessment Results
Recommended/Required Instructional Accommodations
Recommended/Required Testing Accommodations
Goals in Different Language Domains
Notes

Not all information needs to be filled in if it is unecessary for your situation. If you have a Student Plan template that you'd like to see added, contact support and we will see if we can make it possible.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Create Student Plans
Filter the Table to Show the Student Plans You want to Download
Click the Download Student Plans Button in the Reports Toggle at the bottom of the page.

Question 2

How do I download Progress Reports?

Accepted Answer

INSTRUCTIONS for Downloading ELL Student Progress Reports:

Create Student Progress Reports
Filter the Table to Show the Progress Reports You want to Download
Click the Download Progress Reports Button in the Reports Toggle at the bottom of the page.

**Note: **The Download Reports button will only download records that are showing in the table. If records are on the second page, they will not be included. You can choose All in the Show # entries above the table to download all at once or download the results page by page.

Question 3

How do I download ELL Student Plans?

Accepted Answer

INSTRUCTIONS for Downloading ELL Student Plans:

Create Student Plans
Filter the Table to Show the Student Plans You want to Download
Click the Download Student Plans Button in the Reports Toggle at the bottom of the page.

**Note: **The Download Reports button will only download records that are showing in the table. If records are on the second page, they will not be included. You can choose All in the Show # entries above the table to download all at once or download the results page by page.

Question 4

Setup Wizard Video Walkthrough

Accepted Answer

Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of setting up your account with the setup wizard to help with any questions you might have. You can skip around in the video to find the section you need.

Question 5

How secure is the platform and how is data managed?

Accepted Answer

All data is hosted securely on servers in the United States and protected with enterprise-level firewall and DDOS protection. On account closure, all data is completely removed after 90 days. All data can be completely removed at any time on request.

The platform also avoids requesting any identifying sensitive data like addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. except where absolutely necessary.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact support.

Question 6

How do standards and scoring work with the assessments?

Accepted Answer

Here is the formula used in the portal to get a score for a language domain on an assessment:

(Number Correct / Standard ) * 100 = Score

The standard gives us a little more flexibility in what we expect students should accomplish on an assessment.

How do standards work and why do we have it set up this way?

Most teachers grade assessments with the following formula: Number Correct / Total Number of Questions. This means that the standard they are expecting students to meet is 100%, to get all of the answers correct. If there are 10 questions on the assessment, I am expecting students to get all 10 correct.

But what if a student gets 8 correct and has shown a good grasp of the content? Did they meet your expectations still? If so, then we can consider setting the standard at 8. Any students who score 8 out of 10 will then get a score of 100%. Students who get 9 or 10 out of 10 will get 110% or 120% accordingly.

It's a little like grading on a bell curve only we are not setting the standard based on the strongest and weakest students results on an assessment, but instead on a goal we would like to see students achieve that shows they have sufficiently grasped the content.

There are a lot of benefits to setting it up this way.

This lets us use a variety of assessment types and map them in the same way on a chart.

This strategy allows us to have assessments where there is no upper limit on the number they can achieve. For example, if our assessment is to see how many sentences a student can say in a minute, or how many words a student can read in a minute. We only need a goal or standard in this situation to get a score and then we will see that same range of ability. This also works for assessments where there is a specific number of questions to be answered, but students do not necessarily need to answer all of the questions correctly in order to show that they have grasped the content well. This is particularly helpful when it comes to something like writing paragraphs or essays. When you're grading student writing with a rubric, there is usually a total number of possible points, but that represents exceptional work. We don't need all of our students to achieve that level of writing to prove competency.

**The data we receive can be more helpful. **

We get to see a spread of data around the goal we have set. We can see which students have exceeded the goal and probably need some more challenging work, which students have met the goal, and which students are still in need of extra practice in that area. If most students are under the standard, we know that is likely an issue with how we have taught the material, whereas if most students have met the standard, we know that certain students may need to use a different kind of strategy to reach the standards.

The ultimate goal of assessments is...

to get actionable data on how students are doing in each area so that we can make better decisions about what will be most helpful for them.

If students are consistenly scoring well above 100%, then we know that the content may be too easy and we may want to step it up a notch.
If we notice students are consistenly scoring below 80% in an area such as reading while doing well in other areas, we know that we should focus extra time on reading and less time on other areas.

For WIDA scoring...

...the suggested standard is 4.5 since that is usually what is required for students to exit the ELL program. Then formula for an assessment then would be, for example, listening 3.3/4.5=73%. This means the student is 73% of the way to the goal for listening of exiting the ELL program.

Basically, when you see a percentage score for an assessment, it means that they are that far along to the goal!

Question 7

What do the codes (i.e. B1.03) at the beginning of the resources mean?

Accepted Answer

Resource Codes

Q: How do I download Progress Reports?

INSTRUCTIONS for Downloading ELL Student Progress Reports: Create Student Progress Reports Filter the Table to Show the Progress Reports You want to Download Click the Download Progress Reports Button in the Reports Toggle at the bottom of the page. **Note: **The Download Reports button will only download records that are showing in the table. If records are on the second page, they will not be included. You can choose All in the Show # entries above the table to download all at once or download the results page by page.

Q: How do I download ELL Student Plans?

INSTRUCTIONS for Downloading ELL Student Plans: Create Student Plans Filter the Table to Show the Student Plans You want to Download Click the Download Student Plans Button in the Reports Toggle at the bottom of the page. **Note: **The Download Reports button will only download records that are showing in the table. If records are on the second page, they will not be included. You can choose All in the Show # entries above the table to download all at once or download the results page by page.

Many of the resources have a little code in the title. For example, B1.03.

This is a very special, insider code that is only for members of the Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum.

.

Alright, here is the top secret meaning of the codes:

B1 = Beginners Level 1 (B2 would be Beginners Level 2)

.03 = This is the unit number that the lesson comes from, in this case Unit 3.

Other codes:

Now...

This message will self-destruct in 20 seconds.

Question 8

How do I use NearPod to teach with the materials online?

Accepted Answer

The Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum includes NearPod files!

NearPod is a really fun, free platform where you can create interactive slides.

You can teach one-on-one or get whole groups engaging with the lessons at the same time.

Lessons can be synchronous or asynchronous. Check out the video to learn more!

Live example (from one of our Independent Teachers Membership get togethers)

To get access to the curriculum, you can choose from one of the following memberships:

Kid-Inpspired ESL Curriculum Membership ->

Includes the entire curriculum and all supplementary teaching resources.

Independent Teachers Membership ->

Includes the entire **Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum Membership **
Also includes your own website, payment processing, scheduling, course-building software, community of other teachers going independent, training courses on topics such as finding students, desigining your site, marketing, etc.

Question 9

What is a "tense" and why is it important?

Accepted Answer

As native speakers, we were never really taught formal English tenses.

We just learned them naturally, by speaking a lot.

If you ever took Spanish or French though, you'll know all about tenses.

The verbs in a sentence change based on the time frame in which they occurred. That is a tense.

And there are six major tenses in the English language. (There are lots more than that, but the others aren't as common and they are fairly easy considering they are just variations of the six major tenses.)

Here they are:

Present Simple
Present Continuous
Future ("will" & "going to")
Past Simple
Past Continuous
Present Perfect

I've had people argue with me that there is no such thing as a future tense, just a heads up.

In our case, considering we speak about the future using a particular grammar structure, for all effective purposes, it is a future tense, and our students need to know it in order to communicate effectively.

Now...

The next issue is how to teach these tenses.

Well, don't over-explain them.

Children learn English tenses just fine by interacting with their parents without their parents needing to give long, drawn-out grammar explanations.

Kids repeat everything they hear. Over and over.

Parents correct them at times by telling them how to say it correctly.

That's how we want to teach as well.

Tell the students what they need for a tense - a quick grammar explanation.

Then get them practicing it by hearing, speaking, reading and writing it A LOT.

That's it!

And that is exactly how the materials in the ESL Curriculum Membership are set up.

You'll find speaking pages with sentence starters that you can use with your students.

Start by using the example sentences, repeating them until the students have become familiar with the structure.
Then they can start changing words in the sentences to make them their own.
Then they can start making their own sentences in little back-and-forth Q&A activities with partners.
By the end of a class period, they will have said so many sentences in a particular tense that they will be doing it without thinking about it!!

Question 10

How long does a level in the ESL Curriculum Membership generally take to complete?

Accepted Answer

How long does a level in the ESL Curriculum Membership take to complete?

The time it takes to complete a level varies based on a number of factors.

Number of Classes a Week - with classes every day you would move significantly faster through the material than only having classes 2-3 times a week.
Length of Classes - 1/2 hour, 1 hour, 1 and 1/2 hour classes, the length of classes affects how long a level takes.
Homework - How much practice your students would be doing outside of class on their own.
Goals - How quickly you and your students want to make progress. If you skip certain pages or even certain units, you can progress more quickly but with not as much depth. If you work through all of the materials and take your time with it, you can get a lot of depth but progress much more slowly. One option is to discuss with students what goals they’d like to set for themselves each week or month.
Motivation - Every class of students is different, just as how every teacher teaches is different. If you have an energetic, focused and motivated class, you will likely be able to work quickly through the materials. If you have a group of students who are discouraged, unmotivated and drag their feet, you will likely need to spend as much time on relationship and trust building as you do on the curriculum which would slow you down significantly.

At the school where we developed the curriculum, we generally take a semester (about 4 months) to go through a level with a group of 10-12 students, 2 days a week each, class being 2 hours and 15 minutes.

In the summer, we sometimes do more concentrated versions of a level where students come to class every day for 2 hours and finish a level in a month.

If you'd like to discuss your particular needs, contact John at john.carlson@kid-inspired.com