June is an opportunity for me to answer that eternal question - "What does a multi-level, mixed age, learning center for teaching English as a foreign language really look like"?! So now you can join this teacher of English for Deaf and hard of hearing students for a morning at work!

1. June
is
“Take your Camera to Class”
Month!
By
Naomi Ganin Epstein
Yehud Comprehensive High-School
Israel

2. If
you were joining me one
fine morning in June,
our journey to class would
begin by…

3. …taking
the
road
that
leads to
the
parking
lot.

4. We would park by the fence and check on
the status of the field on the other side.

5. I promise to point out the weird, tall cactus on
the way to the front gate.

6. Yes, you are right. we sometimes have
school assemblies under the sun-sails.

7. Let’s walk slowly down the corridor (and a half) to
the English Room, because...

8. I’d like
you to
see the
bell ring.
Lights
flash in
every
corridor.
B.T.W – That musical ring you hear? Its genre is
changed every two months or so.

9. Welcome to the
English Room
for
Deaf &
hard of hearing
students!
Let me give you
the grand tour!

10. It’s a multi – level
learning center for
three grades. Kids
get up, move
between stations. No
scraping chairs for
us!
Yup, tennis balls on the chairs.

11. Oh, so you like the closet? Thanks!

12. Sneaking in
prepositions, with a
nod to Robert Frost.

13. Books & notebooks go into a box…
(bottom part of the closet) worksheets go into the binders.

14. Go ahead, open a literature binder. We have
charts to keep track of the different pieces we
work on at the same time.

15. Our class library
is small…
But the school
library has a nice
selection of
readers.

16. No, no, those boxes aren’t games.
They are writing prompts. We keep the games over here.

17. The curtains are bunched up like that to
protect the computers from baking in the
sun.
Though we have some lovely trees
outside the window. Birds stop by.

18. There, you must be feeling the A/C by now,
it takes a minute to kick in.
Getting the map under the A/C to stay put was a bit
challenging…

19. Cool,
Huh?

20. “Breaking News” is for latest praise. When we run out of
space…
… notes are moved to individual pockets on the left.

21. Ah, I see you did notice the extra doors
(was it the forgotten umbrella?).
The room used to be one of three connected laboratories.

22. The height of the whiteboard is also a
remnant of the laboratory days.
No frontal teaching, mainly
used as a giant notepad.
Still organizing the teacher’s
desk…

23. Believe me, I’d be delighted if I could get a hold
of a world map that was actually in English. Any
suggestions?

24. Well, that’s the grand tour!
Please come again when
the students are here,
and see learning in
action!
Or….
Do you think you can find
your way back to the
parking lot?

25. Follow us virtually at…
Thank you for coming!
http://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/