Communication is Not a 2-Way Street; It's a Highway Interchange

Many times, folks will say that communication is a two-way street. I think nowadays, it's more of a highway interchange. We have so many different ways to communicate with each other and receive information!

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

As an adult, how do you prefer to get your information? Do you listen to the radio, watch the news, or read the newspaper? Do you log on to your social media accounts and scroll through your feed? Do you have a designated phone call with a family member each week? Do you text message with your friends throughout the day? How many times per day do you check an email account- and how many email accounts do you have?

Everyone has different communication styles, depending on purpose or even timing. For example, there are certain seasons of life where I'm only available through cell phone because I simply can't get to my email quickly enough.

As we prep for the school year, we discuss fun and innovative ways to get to know our students. Let's also do a brainstorm of how we can get to know the families we serve! One simple way to do this is to ask the families & caregivers that we serve how they'd like to get their information this school year. 

By clicking here, you will have access to a few sample templates, as well as a few letters you may wish to send home with students. Simply Make a Copy so that you can edit the template to better meet your needs as well as your communication styles & preferences, etc. 



I think it's really important to also give families a starting point of conversation entry points. For example, instead of saying "Contact me for anything you need," be more specific and give them examples of WHY they may wish to contact you and/or the school. Again, feel free to Make a Copy/Edit to better meet your needs. 



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Language Proficiency Tool for Teachers

Image
 One of the most popular posts from my former blog (Innovative EL) was this- so I knew I had to get it back up and available for folks on my new blog!  This tool is based on WIDA performance descriptors. It is meant to serve as a starting place for educators who may not be as familiar with supports and scaffolds for multilingual learners. Each page features one proficiency level (printed twice: so page one has Level 1 at the top and also at the bottom for easy printing). Please note that these are based on general composite scores, and not on language domain scores. Ready to access the tool? Click here!  A deeper look into each individual students' scores (which I absolutely recommend providing to anyone who supports multilingual learners) can be found in the WIDA Name Charts (available on the WIDA website).   These charts are a fantastic resource that I'd recommend printing and giving to each classroom teacher, content teacher, social worker, psychologist, teaching assistant,
Read more

"I Need" Cards: Printables for Newcomers

Image
At the beginning of the school year, I always encourage folks to prep a ton of these in anticipation of newcomer students that will arrive throughout the school year. Please note that this is one example of a template. You can open the templates, go to FILE and MAKE A COPY so that you can customize these to better fit your needs! This sample template I have ready is for English/Spanish newcomers . I Need Cards - please note that this template has the same tool but presented a few different ways. These are a tool that I reference in my proficiency snapshot tool for classoom & content teachers (a scaffold I'd recommend for level 1 students). As students are beginning their language journeys in English, they may just feel comfortable raising their hand and pointing. As they grow in confidence and have had ample time to practice, they may say these sentences out loud. Here's a quick TikTok that walks through these. **I recently (9/10/23) used AI and digital translation resour
Read more

TableTop Tools (Inspired by TikTok)

Image
Create mini anchor charts and display them on small hanging rings. I first saw this idea from  TikTok user @teachwithheath_ . I love how these look and also how easy it is have multiple tools ready for students! I'm thinking this would be great for each content area, for example, so that all of the math tools for that unit are available to students in one spot.  Check out my first round of design . Please go to File and Make a Copy so that you can tweak these to fit your needs! I included specific sentence stems/frames for collaboration. These are laid out so that each page has two of the same, so that you could print two tools at a time. The size is set to match the Party City frames (these were only $2.50 each, but I'm sure local dollar stores have something similar). I also had a workshop participant share this set from Amazon !  I used a 2-inch binder ring, but I wish I would have purchased smaller rings.  I love how they turned out! By making these language tools availabl
Read more