Welcome to episode 1 of The ESL Teaching Podcast!
In this episode, I am sharing a little bit about myself – who I am, where I am coming from and why I decided to create Simply Ieva, a place where ESL teachers can find resources and support.
You’ll hear:
- My linguistic background and education
- two huge events that brought me to where I’m now
- why I started Simply Ieva
- who I am serving
- what to expect on the podcast
- two action steps!
Make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you can find it easily and be informed when new episodes are released!
To celebrate the launch of the ESL Teaching Podcast, we are hosting a giveaway!
We are giving away three $25 TpT gift cards and a grand prize of one one year membership to The ESL Teaching Roadmap membership community.
To enter, follow these steps:
- Follow, rate and write a review of your favorite episode on Apple Podcasts.
- Screenshot it before you submit (as it takes some time for it to appear in the feed) and email the screenshot to simplyieva@gmail.com or Direct Message me on Instagram @simplyievaesl.
- As a bonus entry, share the screenshot of my podcast or your favorite episode on instagram stories and tag me!
- The giveaway ends on January 25th, 2022.
Transcript below:
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of The ESL Teaching Podcast! I am your host, Ieva Grauslys, otherwise known as Simply Ieva, and I am so thankful that you tuned in. I am looking forward to sharing both my knowledge and experience on this podcast as well as that of my fellow teachers.
Today I wanted to share a little bit of my story – who I am, where I am coming from and why I decided to create Simply Ieva, a place where ESL teachers can find resources and support.
Before I dive in, I wanted to talk about the acronym ESL. In our field, there are many acronyms such as EL, ELL, ENL, EAL, ESOL, ELD, MLL, etc. Some of them are more accurate than others, and my personal preference in everyday life is to use EL – English learners. Since ESL is the most recognizable, I am using ESL as a blanket acronym that involves all English learners and language learning aspects. All right, let’s get into the show.
Where are you from again?
If you have been following me for some time, you probably know this but I myself am a former English learner. My first language is Lithuanian, and in fact, I only moved to the U.S. 17 years ago.
I started learning English as a foreign language in 5th grade. It came easy to me, and after several years, when I was in high school, I won an English language competition, the grand prize of which was traveling to the U.S. as an exchange student.
This experience literally rocked my life and outlook and everything else in between. Just to give you a historical context for when this was happening. Lithuania had been a part of the Soviet Union for almost 50 years, and regained its independence in 1990. There was no international travel for pleasure for any simple folk before. The first group of exchange students – including me – left for an educational experience in the West in 1993.
I was 15. I landed in Florida in 95 degree weather in August. Me, a girl from Northeastern Europe, where 75 degrees in the summer was considered a heatwave. And that was just one aspect of this experience that left me speechless. Needless to say, the culture shock was so profound that it probably was the first seed of what I am doing today – teaching English learners, learning and sharing cultures, and helping other teachers.
I have to admit, teaching was not in my life plan, at least not when I lived in Lithuania. I loved English, got my Bachelor’s in English language and Literature in Vilnius University, and started working as a translator at a media company. I thought this would last for some time, if not forever.
But then another big event happened – I met my husband, who is from the U.S. and he convinced me to move to this side of the Atlantic.
Here I was again, in the UNited States. My second chance. Going through a culture shock again, but somewhat more tame because I had already had some experience of what to expect.
Enter ESL Teaching
When I decided to look for a job, I was not very keen on going back to translations. I thought this was my chance to reinvent myself, to start something new. And as I had mentioned earlier, while teaching was no part of my life plan before, I decided to try it out because at the time it seemed like an obvious choice for someone with a Bachelor’s degree in English in an English speaking country.
I went to a couple of interviews. Nothing. Then one day, I had an interview scheduled for a teacher’s aide position at an elementary school. Half way through our conversation, the principal said: I bet you’d be a great fit for the ESL program, let me check if they are still in need of a tutor. The rest is literally history. I knew I had the job before I left the interview. The woman who hired me became my fantastic mentor, who saw my passion and helped me become a teacher and is still a friend. And I felt like teaching English learners was my path all along, I just hadn’t known it before.
As an immigrant myself, I feel a deep connection with my students, no matter where they are from. Whether they are a complete newcomer with zero English, or someone who took English as a foreign language for 5 years prior to coming to the U.S. and experiencing a total shock because for some reason they cannot understand anything here, or anyone in between – I know the feeling, on a personal level. And that is why I feel like I have found my calling – teaching, connecting, laughing and hopefully inspiring both them and my fellow teachers.
I have been an ESL teacher for over 14 years now, and I have worked with students at all age groups and language proficiency levels. During my first years of teaching, I earned my Master’s in teaching English as a foreign language, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
However I soon realized that academic theory does not always have an easy practical application in the actual classroom.
Working in a district with fewer English learners, I encountered all kinds of challenges. From having to build my own curriculum to trying to break through the wall of misunderstandings about what it takes to learn the English language. From having a group of mixed proficiency (and sometimes grade) level students in one class, to working one-on-one with complete newcomers in both middle and high school. It was not so much a lack of materials, as a lack of a clear path on where to begin and how to proceed in teaching English learners.
I have since moved on to a district that I am very happy in, feel heard, seen and appreciated. But the underlying challenges that I mentioned earlier were still there. We kept getting complete newcomers in all grade levels for several years, until I sat down and said to myself; there has got to be a better way to do this.
There has got to be a pattern that we can follow, topics we can cover when the students are just starting out, and ways to bring academic grade-level English once they have mastered the basics.
Simply Ieva – Helping ESL Teachers
That’s when I created Simply Ieva. I have always loved to write, for a simple reason – to slow down and clarify my own thoughts to myself. So starting a blog was the first natural step.
I began sharing simple tips and ideas of what I did in the classroom. I started creating materials. But I think the biggest sign that I was not alone, was creating the Newcomer Teaching Checklist – where I listed the topics that should be covered with absolute beginner English learners. Thousands of teachers downloaded it and have reached out to let me know how helpful it was.
From there, a curriculum guide was born, which then led to my biggest project yet – creating a curriculum membership The ESL Teaching Roadmap that helps teachers of English learners with exactly what I needed a few years back – what to do first, then next and then after – or step 1, step 2 and step 3.
The ESL Teaching Podcast is yet another way to empower you, the teacher, with actionable tips, teaching strategies and ideas. I receive so many questions about teaching English learners – and the resources I mentioned above are the answer to by far the most frequent inquiries. I will be sharing more about them in other podcast episodes.
You can expect a new episode of The ESL Teaching Podcast every Tuesday. Just to wet your appetite, here are some of the topics I have prepared for you:
- All about newcomers – where to start when they are completely new? How to help newcomers in the mainstream classroom? Where to find materials,and how to lesson plan
- Main steps in teaching English learners
- Collaboration with classroom teachers
- How to use choice boards in your ELL classroom
- Writing activities that inspire
Before I go, I’d love to leave you with two things that I hope will help you today.
First, my newcomer teaching checklist – if you haven’t downloaded it yet, the link is below this episode.
And second, one of the best ways to keep connections with your English learners is to learn something in their language. You can ask them, or you can surprise them, but the quality of your communication and lessons will increase tenfold after you’ve said hello or what’s that in their language. Try it, and I want to hear from you how it went! Tag me on Instagram or twitter and let me know – what language did you learn to say hello in?
That is all for today! I hope you have found this informative and valuable, and I look forward to having you hop on here every Tuesday. Before you go, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss an episode, and know when new ones come out!
Thanks for listening, and we’ll chat next week!