Teaching With Glad

This past summer I had the pleasure of attending a training for OCDE Project GLAD®
 in the McMinnville School District in Oregon.

OCDE Project GLAD® (Guided Language Acquisition Design) is a model for teaching to all students, specifically students who speak another language other than English in their home.  My favorite motto from OCDE Project GLAD® is "Teach to the ceiling, review to the floor".  In the OCDE Project GLAD® model, the first couple of weeks are teacher driven, using many graphic organizers, whole group input charts, and high academic vocabulary.  After reviewing this language-rich information over and over again, the students eventually take ownership over it and become so independent.
I've taught using OCDE Project GLAD® strategies in my classroom for the past five years, but have not been formally trained until now.  The funny part is that the trainer was my 5th grade teacher, who now is a half time teacher and half time instructional coach in McMinnville.  It was so fun to be her student again!

The training lasted for five days and consisted of classroom observation in the mornings and work time in the afternoon.  We observed a summer school class that was comprised of 16 incoming 3rd grade ELL students and also children of migrant working families.  The entire class was Hispanic and spoke Spanish at home.  The school, Newby Elementary, is a bilingual English/Spanish school.  For each day of instruction the trainer, Erick Herrmann, an independent consultant, taught all of the strategies a regular teacher would use in a week.  The mornings went by very fast and had lots of content shoved in, but the kids did remarkably well.  They were well behaved, worked well together, and really did try their best to learn.  They were excited by the unit, Navigation. 
During the afternoons, I worked on a unit for my class on Scientific Inventions. I made Observation Charts, a Big Book, a Timeline, Picture File Cards, a Narrative Input Chart, and updated the Cognitive Content Dictionary.  Creator Marcia Bechtel's book Bringing It All Together {affiliate link} was really helpful when I wanted to refresh my memory of the strategies.

Another way I stay brushed up on my OCDE Project GLAD® strategies is by joining the Yahoo Group - Project GLAD for Teachers.  If you ever have a question, all you have to do is post it to the group and all the wonderful other teachers who belong to the group will answer.  Even just by reading the questions other people post, I get reminded of little tips and tricks of teaching the strategies.  It's not a group that posts a ton, so it won't clog up your email inbox or anything like that.

I hope this was helpful for you and your students!  How do you teach your English language learners in your classroom?  I'd love to hear about it!

5 comments

  1. GLAD is one of the most powerful models of language development out there! Thanks for blogging about it and spreading the word!

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  2. Thank you for sharing. I am an ESOL teacher and I am really interested in this model. Is there any possible way I could get a copy via email? My email is
    bsamples@jackson.k12.ga.us. I do not have a scribd account.

    Thank you,
    Bea Samples

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  3. I know your post was a while ago.. but I LOVE GLAD! I'll be starting my PD on it next week. I attended Linfield College and completed my student-teaching in the McMinnville School District. So lucky to witness some amazing teachers :) I'm back home in Hawaii now, but I definitely miss Oregon.

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  4. I was introduced and trained in the GLAD program in the Spring of 1994. Of the 26 years in education, this has been the best training ever! I incorporated the philosophy and strategies with my ELL students in second grade for about 8 years and integrated this format of teaching with my Gifted and Talented students for eight years. This program is for ALL students! It's just best teaching practices that with fidelity and consistency will ensure student success. Now, as an administrator, I am trying to train my teachers.

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    Replies
    1. It does work! I only have 1 ELL student this year, but I know that GLAD is just great teaching and best practices, so everyone excels and learns from the strategies! How great that your teachers get to learn from you!

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