Happy Friday everyone! I hope everyone is having a great week! As you may know, Literacy Connexus hosted a Response 2 Refugee symposium at the beginning of this month. Our symposium was meant to raise awareness about the expected influx of refugees into the metroplex this year, and educate and equip ESL teachers, volunteers, and ministries with some knowledge, insight, and resources that could help them best serve the refugees in their communities.

We had a great assortment of community leaders, ministry members, and ESL educators attend and share their knowledge. Matthew Johnston, an ESOL educator with Dallas Community College in Richland, was one of our featured presenters during the symposium.

While we are still crossing our fingers for a return to “normalcy”, realistically we will still have to serve some of our students virtually. Over the course of the last year I have taught many students, who I don’t believe I would have had the pleasure of teaching if it had not been for out virtual platform. Some of my students have “learning roadblocks”, as I like to call them, like child or elderly caretaking responsibilities or lack of transportation, and our virtual platform has made English lessons more accessible for them. Matthew presented some great tips and tricks for using apps and Zoom to teach ESL, a wonderful bit of knowledge to have in a mid-pandemic virtual world.

Check out the video below for a little sample of this month’s symposium and some great tips and tricks using zoom and other apps for your virtual ESL classroom.

Using Apps and Zoom for Teaching ESL by Matthew Johnston

Stay tuned for more content from the symposium and other teaching resources! For any questions or comments email us at info@literacyconnexus.org. We would love to hear from you! As always, blessings and happy teaching.