Kelsey Sabo

Over 9 years as a teacher and English Language Development Instructional Coach, focusing on instructional adaptation and design for English Language Learners in Core Content classes. I've designed curriculum at the district level, been a facilitator for Margot Gottleib's CoCoMo (Common Core and WIDA) staff development, participated in the Common Core Task Project, and hosted four Fullbright TEA Global International teachers from developing countries in my classroom. I've been a middle school ELL teacher for 6 years in Title 1 and SIG schools where I have focused on teaching at-risk populations and ELLs. My favorite part of my job is working with core teachers to design instruction and develop materials for long-term and short-term English Language Learners. During my career, I have had the opportunity to teach: - Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Emergent Bilinguals (MS) - Academic English 1 and Academic English 2 (MS) - ELL-specific staff development (MS and ES) - 7th and 8th grade advanced and mainstream English Language Arts - fourth grade (all subjects).

I am always working toward three goals in my classroom: student confidence, independent creative thinking, and purposeful application of linguistic skills. I like to create tools that can be used across content areas and applied throughout the school year so that English Learners can eventually produce above grade-level work. I believe in the WIDA philosophy that instruction should be based on what students CAN DO at each language level, and that content is the medium through which language skills should be developed. The goal of my lessons is to teach content, language, and higher-level thinking skills simultaneously and cohesively. I design lessons in core content areas based on WIDA and SIOP that encourage even the less-confident students to use academic language and content-area vocabulary. As an ELL teacher, I include reading, writing, listening, and speaking in every lesson I teach. I am constantly working on finding ways for students to discover knowledge through activities and games, and developing detailed and useful tools for measuring student progress. My personal teacher-heroes are Jeff Zwiers (Academic Conversations), Dr. Donald Bear (Words Their Way), Dr. Margo Gottleib (WIDA's Lead Developer and author of amazing books about assessing ELLs and teaching Academic English), Jennifer Gonzalez (Cult of Pedagogy Podcast), and Ron Clark (End of Molasses Classes).

Yet to be added

M.A., English Language Learning (PreK-12); B.S. Elementary Education; Minor, Teaching Secondary English; Licensed K-8 with endorsements in Middle School Language Arts and TESL; Presenter at WIDA 2016 National Conference; SIOP and Student Learning Facilitator (SLF) trained; Participant and facilitator in multiple CoCoMo Institutes. Highly Qualified in K-6 all subjects, PreK-12 ELL, and 6-8 English Language Arts.

When I'm not teaching, planning, grading, listening to Education or language Podcasts, or creating instructional materials, I train and compete in equestrian sports. I also love the outdoors and traveling around the world, and watching Netflix with my husband and my dog.