September 10, 2012 Dr.

Pierce

Room 013 Heritage

Welcome to the second ESL newsletter and the third week of school! This newsletter
will keep you informed about all our different classes and special activities. I hope you
find it informative and helpful. I will be describing the weekly activities we hope to
accomplish each week, starting with my first ESL class and finishing with the last class
of the day. Classes that have two numbers for the periods correspond to the periods in
the Senior High and then the periods in the Middle School.

ESL English Period 2/1- We have been learning vocabulary concerning First
Impressions of the USA. This week students are synthesizing what they have learned in
a project observing the Americans in their everyday life. They will have a test on Friday
on the vocabulary and concepts covered in the first chapter of their book- Contact USA.

ESL History and Science Period 3/2- We are continuing to learn vocabulary and
classification of living organisms in our world and our habitats so that we can prepare to
better understand the world in which the Native Americans of the USA lived and worked
this year. Students will have a vocabulary and concept Test on the 3 Kingdoms of Living
organisms and their attributes on Thursday.

ESL Literacy Period 4 and Grades 4and 5- We are learning vocabulary to describe the
people, their languages and nationalities in our world, as well as action words to
describe the activities in our classroom. In this class, we practice listening and
speaking, as well as reading and writing English vocabulary.

Grade 4 & 5 ESL- We are learning grammar through reading short stories and literacy
exercises to help us better communicate and practice good reading and listening and
speaking and writing skills. On Monday we have a test on the countries, nationalities
and languages we have charted and examined in our ESL class. We also are learning
to ask questions and provide answers about people and activities using our books and
the various activity centers in the classroom.

Grades K-1- Right now the kindergarteners have not joined our class. They will next
month. So far we have been reviewing vocabulary and practicing speaking, listening
and copying skills as we talk about items in the room and how to use them, our daily
activities and the weather. We are also learning the singular and plural forms of some
nouns in the game Go Fish as well as opposites in the Opposite Game and simple
spelling of words in sentences for Hangman.
Grades 2 & 3- We are using the Visions Basic book to help us learn good sentence
writing, to reinforce our reading and speaking and listening skills to describe the
activities we do in our ESL classroom and in school. We will be making a chart of the
names of different countries and the peoples languages in those countries. We
continue to work on blending letter and spelling and writing words and forming
sentences to describe what we see and do.

I hope you have found this informative. You can also check out our website:
http://www.franklinregional.k12.pa.us/teachers/jpierce/
Have a great week!
Dr. Pierce