Adam Chiocca shares and blogs here.

Hello: Is this your first time to my blog?  Welcome!  I don't know if you would be so kind as to revisit in a few weeks or months ... but I'm determined to make this blog better.  I learned from one of my mentors recently, that it's good if your edu-blog can be more than a web log...  and how it might be more exciting if one's blog had resources, links and lots to offer. So... I just learned about curating and collecting resources and sites that one might like, and how your blog can then have more to offer. Ok... so I don't have much more to give tonight, 9/25/14, but I promise ... if you come back soon, I'll be sure to have some resources and links that might help you in your understanding of ELLs and the complex processes behind language acquisition. Thanks, Adam P.S.  Oh, and here's a pic from a recent family vacation destination: the B-ball Hall of Fame! --

Hello Parents/ Guardians/ Families: I hope to see you tonight at our Fall Back to School Night, here at Burlington High (6:30pm - 8:00pm).  Please note that the ELL Classroom is #153, located in the Lower Library.  We are excited to have many new students this year, and I hope to meet many parents tonight. Please also follow me on Twitter; my Twitter Handle (Twitter Name) is @MistaChocka. Kind regards. --

Back to school professional development! August 25 - 27, 2014 -- http://bpscon2014.sched.org/

Good day: There is a lot covered in this week’s video lecture (see below for video), and I think it’s hard to boil it all down to three big points.  Before I start, I want to share that I think we will all have many different synopses, or versions of what we felt were the three biggest points.  You see … I never read what others have posted before I write my own, as the desire to have and share original thoughts is powerful, and so I have not yet looked, but I think it’s going to be interesting to see what others have said. This was a great video/ lecture.  I love what I do, and even though I don’t have a Bachelor’s in linguistics, I feel like an expert in language acquisition, having taught in the ELL classroom for ten years now.  I love this field, and feel so lucky to be able to help my students acquire language.  Did you notice I didn’t say “learn,” as in to “learn a language?”  Yes, well, at the end of the lecture, he shares Chomsky’s idea tha...

Greetings: Oh, how busy life gets in America; perhaps too busy.  I made myself a promise, that when I started this blog, I would try to do at least one post a month, at a minimum.  I got busy, too busy, and unfortunately left my poor blog all alone for too long. In an effort to bring this poor blog back to life, let me write about a topic I've enjoyed revisiting in my current graduate course:  The writing of both language and content objectives.  Let me share some posts from my recent grad work contributions.  Thanks. ~~~ Hello: My biggest take-away so far in this course is the importance of having both content and language objectives in lesson/ unit plans.  I am such a big believer in SIOP now, even more than before, and I see the importance of ensuring that students are getting the language piece in addition to the straight content. I would also be in favor of having both language and content objectives be a part of public school districts’ new...

It's Thursday, March 27th, 2014, and I write this on a solemn day.  As I drove to work this morning, my eyes welled up, with sadness for the victims and the families of yesterday's 9-alarm fire, in the Back Bay (Beacon Street, in Boston). Two brave firefighters lost their lives.  It is believed that the strong winds yesterday might have created a "backdraft."  This is a rare, but dangerous phenomenon in fire fighting. I tried not to cry, as I drove down Route 93, but hearing the replay of the 2-way radio recording, it was hard to hold back tears.  I will go home tonight and hugs my kids, and kiss them on the head, and squeeze them a little tighter.  Life is precious. Amen.

Greetings! The BPS Ed Tech Department, in the Burlington Public Schools released a challenge to teachers.  Make a 2-3 minute video using the iMovie app on your iPad, of a lesson or concept taught in your class. One of the requirements is that it must include graphics, so I decided to go ahead and really learn how to use the Explain Everything app.  In my video here, on Writing with Transition Words, you will see some text and color graphics; that was done with the Explain Everything app. Enjoy!