Edited: SMART Reading Presentation

Hello,

Hopefully you guys enjoyed the presentation on SMART reading and found it somewhat helpful!!

I just wanted to post some links for you:

www.smartreading.ca has basic information and has information about upcoming conferences. The next one is in Spring 2007.

The Knowledge Network has some info as well. That is where the movie is, so if you'd like to watch it again go right ahead! It's at http://www.knowledgenetwork.ca/literacy/index.html under Success In Literacy: Schools.

See you on Friday (if not before!).

Marin.

practicum

Hello all,

I really enjoyed hearing about the different methods and practices being used in our schools today. I remembered a few things that I forgot to mention. At my school, there is ESL 1 and ESL 2, but instead of ESL 3 and 4, there's Transitional English Junior and Senior. Transitional English Junior follows the grade eight and nine English curriculums and Transitional Senior follows the grade ten English curriculum. The school also offers ESL Socials 1 and 2. Transitional Junior and Senior Social Studies offer the same texts as Socials 9 and 10. ELC (English Learning Centre) 1 and 2 are supplementary courses which are designed to assist ESL students who have completed the ESL program. Primary resources for ELC are the workbook Wordly Wise 3000 (levels 2-4) and selected worksheets from TOEFL and LPI preparation books. Of the workbooks that I saw, I thought that Wordly Wise 3000 was one of the better series. It teaches vocabulary in a format that includes a variety of activities and reading comprehension. The students seemed to especially enjoy using this particular workbook.

Another thing I observed was ESL placement testing. ESL testing takes place two or three times a week because students seem to still be registering at the school and quite often students are shuffling from different levels. The standardized testing consists of a timed reading comprehension test and a timed written composition. Each student is given thirty minutes for each test.

A resource that I would like to look into further is the Rosetta Stone Language Lab CD-ROM. Did anyone see this in their schools? It was being tested by one of my teachers just as I ended my two weeks, and I'm really looking forward to finding out how that program worked with the students. If it was successful, it was going to be installed on all of the computers in the library and in the computer labs so that all ESL students could access it. A computer-based language lab would be an excellent opportunity for ESL students to have additional practice outside the classroom.

this coming week

Good day, all!

hope you are resting after a stimulating practicum!

I've posted my plan for the coming week below. As you can see, I intend to give you as much time as you need to debrief the practica. Now, if your other classes are doing the same thing and you have had enough, let me know and we can change things around.

Now that you have been in the classroom in your new role as a teacher, I thought that we might do some 'body language' practice (ie. conveying authority through proxemics, and the like). Often this practice is more meaningful after you've had a taste of the concrete context. I've been told previously that student teachers haven't had enough practice in this important area; but tell me if you think that this is unnecessary.

And, I've gathered some info on the ESL levels and some concrete applications. I've also found a resource on Smart Learning that we can look at while we are inj LERC on Wednesday.

possible field-trips I would like to discuss with you:
KEC ESL bookstore
teachers' resource store
Oakridge ESL assessment centre

see you tomorrow,
Doug



day 17 (Mon Oct 30)

1) warm-up: murder of teacher in Surrey

2) debriefing the practica: triplets
a) how were the ESL classes organized in your school?
b) how were the IRP’s applied?
c) how did theory inform practice?
d) other issues: classroom management/ relations within the school/ relations between your sponsors/
e) what do you need to know/ do for a successful long practicum?

3) shared reading: provincial ESL documents
a) provincial standards (ESL levels)
b) examples of applications
c) policy frameworks

4) teacher ‘body language’ practice

assigned reading: Brown excerpts (variation across ages/ variation across levels)


day 18 (Wed Nov 1) in LERC (option)

1) warm-up: how should a school deal with Halloween?

2) discuss reading assignment

3) Nicoletta (materials): Picture books and children’s stories for ESL

4) Smart Learning/ Reading demo (from the web)

assigned reading: Bell excerpt: teaching multi-level classes


day 19 (Friday Nov 3)

1) warm-up:

2) discuss assigned reading

3) Jillian and Marin (issue): examining the pros and cons of English Only

4) Nicoletta and Madelaine (issue): culture shock

assigned reading: Gunderson excerpt: teaching ESL literacy skills to teenagers

Lesson Plans

Hello All!

I just had a quick question... what are you guys putting under objectives for your lesson plans? I only know to pull things out of the IRPs. I am thinking about following the guidelines for the different levels for ESL that are defined by the Richmond SD, but I am not sure if that is right or not. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Marin.

ESL-Hill Highschool

Hi guys,

I am enjoying my practicum so far at UHILL, although UBC does not prepare you for the fact that there may be some juggling of classes happening when you arrive. My sponsor teacher is going on Pat leave in 2 weeks while trying to wrap up 7 courses, do a halloween drama production and prep for the temp teacher in the midst of interm reports! arghhhh so I offered to do some ESL marking for him today and was at school until 5 (poor guy, he is there until 9:45pm each night this week). When I was marking I remembered to not go too crazy with the red pen, although these kids are at the top of the city in terms of exams etc, so it is pretty competitive. I have been told to watch for cheating, because many parents send their kids to this school because it was rated #1 by the Fraser Institute, so they send them from Korea or China to live with a relative near the area, or they move into the area just so that their kids can go to this school. 1/5 students is ESL which is the highest rate in Vancouver, according to the vice principal, but I have only seen about 20% caucasian students, so I assume that the other students began as ESL and then moved into regular classes. Another problem, besides cheating (most of which is take home work done by tutors they believe) is, how do you designate kids as ADD or ADHD when they are ESL? most of their parents are so competitive, that they do not want to admit there is a problem. I watched the SN teacher give a severely ADHD caucasian student Riddlyn (spell) out of the filing cabinet today because he cannot focus without it! (wow, I didn't realize that drugs are so important in working with kids who have this disorder).

SO, I am busy, but really enjoying my classes and will teach some ESL and English next week for observation. I am looking fwd to the Literacy without Borders conference this Friday in Richmond. And I have a staff meeting tomorrow am at 8:00 where they are teaching the staff about how to work with autistic kids. Should be neat. Hope you are all happy sponges!
maddie

practicum!

holy moly i'm going to be a teacher...

Hello fellow practicum goers and Doug!

Well the first two days were not nearly as bad as I thought. I figured out that teachers are JUST PEOPLE! My sponsor teachers are awesome - I am actually more excited now than nervous. The only bad part was going into a life skills class and being asked for math help... after the initial shock wore off I realized I can do percentages... :)

I thought I would share what I have learned so far from my ESL sponsor teacher. I only met her today, but I had a whirlwind intro to the ESL program at Palmer.

She started teaching at Palmer 15 years ago using the knowledge framework. She has now adapted her strategy to incorporate "Smart Learning". It was developed through the New West School district, and has a pretty good layout. I think it will help me develop lesson plans, as it is very well laid out. The "smart reading" section is very comprehensive. The students use their prior knowledge of the subject, they make predictions on what will happen in the text they are reading, they "chunk" things up so paragraphs/sections are easier to understand, and they respond to all of this in writing. (Sorry if that is hard to follow in text). I get copies of everything tomorrow (my sponsor teacher has so many resources in her room it is unbelievable) so I will bring some things back to class. Anyways, that's my ramble for today.

Hope you are all happy with your placements!! I haven't actually started teaching yet... I'm a bit nervous to start, but I will at latest be up in front of the class by Monday.

Marin.

parents

Well done on the presentations today Lea, Alana and Sheena. They were organized, engaging, informative and had a balanced mixture of student-led and teacher-led activities. I'm sorry I had to leave a bit early because the issue of outreaching to parents of ESL students is so important and one that isn't discussed much in any of my other courses. It was quite funny when I found out my practicum placement since our class had just been discussing how intimidating some parents could be. I'm going to a particular school that seems to have developed a reputation for parents monitoring their children's teachers extremely closely. It's definitely a positive thing for parents to be concerned and actively involved with their childrens' education but I'm a little nervous because I've had quite a few people react with "ooohh" after I told them what school I was going to. Now let's just hope I don't do anything that will cause any parents to be concerned...
It was really beneficial to think about the challenges that come with outreaching to parents of ESL students. I wonder how the Ministry finalized what to include in their very short brochure and if the bulleted points under the section "How is school different in BC?" are the most typical issues that we will have to deal with (like noting that attendance is mandatory and that leaving the school for learning experiences is important). I thought their 2nd point in that category (learning occurs in many different ways, including: playing games, singing, music, drama, etc.) was especially important to note. It's a practical 'tough-love' brochure that points out the basics that parents should be aware of in a simplified, easy to read format. What I worry about is what to do when you've met with the parent(s) on several occasions but their children still aren't doing assignments because of conflicting cultural practices.

What's up for the coming week

Back from Seattle with a few stories to tell; good conference over all; if you want, I can give you an abbreviated version of my presentation; I think my stuff went over well;

here's what I plan to cover in the coming week; since it is the last one before your short practicum, I think it would be good to devote some time to classroom management (or whatever else you feel you need before going out there: let me know)


day 15 (Wed. Oct 11)

1) classroom management (walking into the classroom)

2) discussion: Cognitive Approaches to ESL Methodology

3) Lea (R/R): Oxford. Language learning styles and strategies (p.359).

4) Sheena and Alana (issue): Outreaching to parents when teachers and parents don't have a lingua franca



day 16 (Fri. Oct 13 )

1) Marin (R/R): TBA

2) a bad Spanish/ Italian (?) lesson

3) IRP's

preserving your teacher's voice

Lea asked me on Friday to look into how one preserves one's teacher's voice, poiting out that
a lot of our colleagues eventually sustain real damage to their vocal chords.

I couldn't find much in Communication for the Classroom Teacher (or anything else among the rest of my stuff; I am not the best role model in this regard).

The thing to remember is the importance of limiting your talking in the first place; do lots of group work and don't try to talk over a group of boistrious teenagers.

other then that, check out this article in Teacher.Net about breathing techniques:
for http://teachers.net/gazette/MAY02/marshall.html

incidentally, Teacher.Net is an on-line teacher magazine with highly practical content (albeit U.S. based)
http://teachers.net/gazette

and while you're at it, you might want to check out the list of on-line teacher resources at:
http://www.cambridgeforum.org/ltt/ltt1.html

or the Canadian teacher resources site:
http://www.schoolnet.ca/

Best,
Doug

Heart to Heart Idiom Worksheet

Well, here's the worksheet that I showed during my vocabulary presentation. It's taken from an English workbook made for Japanese people that I got from someone.

The link is indirect. . . .

Accents, Parents, Getting Ready for Practicum

Hi everybody,

Marin, I found your story about working with Hannah on "accent reduction" really fascinating. It almost encouraged me (and it certainly surprised me) to hear that young Hannah would object to your pronunciation because it didn't sound like her mother's. I think that in a high school context, most students have probably long since lost that unconditional respect for their parents' knowledge and ways of communicating. (If anything, I think a lot of adolescents may feel self-conscious or embarrassed about their parents' so-called accents--or maybe I'm making an assumption based on stereotypes about teenagers?) Right now, Sheena and I are working on a presentation about outreaching to the parents of ESL students, and we are finding that in many cases, interactions with schools can undermine parents' authority, particularly when they don't feel as linguistically or culturally adept as their own children. As teachers, what can we do to foster our students' pride in their families and communities of origin in the face of racism and linguistic elitism? (Okay, maybe I should rephrase that: it's not up to us to ensure that students are proud of their families or have good relationships with their parents, but I WOULD hope that whatever tensions there are within families are not exacerbated by linguistic or cultural doctrines kids are exposed to in the classroom...)

Speaking of parents, I have just learned that my practicum placement is at Lord Byng Secondary in West Point Grey. According to an online profile of the school, Byng enrolls about 200 ESL students, about one-third of whom are International Visa students who attend the school on a fee paying basis. From what I understand, this means that these students' parents may not be living in Canada... is that right? The students might be living in residences, homestays or with relatives? This makes me wonder what additional supports these students might need (although my expectation that they would need additional supports is probably rooted in an ethnocentric assumption that adolescents should normally live with their families, which might not be true at all in many communities. Still, the fact that living with parents is the Canadian norm for teens probably means that some International Visa students might feel different from their peers, even if the fact of living away from their parents poses no problems in and of itself.) Any thoughts?

I am also wondering about what special expectations these students or their families might have... the fee-paying part makes me nervous! I guess I associate paying for service with an expectation of documented 'results' (certification, standardized test scores, picking up the mythical 'neutral' Vancouver accent, whatever) that might place limitations on how or what I can teach. Again, I'm making a huge number of assumptions. Clearly, there are a whole range of possible motivations for studying abroad. I know that some students come to study in Canada precisely because they prefer a more constructivist or student-centred educational approach, or because they want to travel and experience a cultural exchange, or because they want to spend time with family who lives here... whatever. It's hard NOT to want to speculate in advance about what types of students I will be working with, but thinking in 'types' (especially before meeting the individuals involved) is probably never wise.

Produce, Produce. Contest, Contest. Object, Object. Bass, Bass.

So I am a genius and just saved my response to Nicoletta’s presentation on my computer instead of posting it… so I’ve added more to it. **good work me**

Where’s the emphasis? What do they mean? How does one know?

Over the summer I was hired as an ESL tutor to “perfect” Hannah’s, one of my Mandarin students, English pronunciation. She asked me because I speak what she considers Standard English.

The value of having an English speaker work with Hannah was something I still don’t fully comprehend. I felt worshiped at times. She was willing to pay me a lot of money to read with her daughter just because I sound like American movie stars. I don’t believe my English degree or being most way through my TESOL certificate mattered much… I just sounded like a Native English speaker to her.

I only had a few nights to work with her daughter to help her with her pronunciation. I don’t think I got that far. It was hard at times because she would say I was wrong, because I “didn’t say things like her mum.” Her mum’s English was not fluent and I had to listen very hard in order to understand most things.

Our discussion about Native English speakers in Nicoletta’s presentation really struck me. Native to me was without accent (I am speaking of standard North American English). This has been problematised for me now that I have learned that this is not a universal definition. Who really is a Native speaker, and why didn’t Hannah’s mum want someone who had a British accent (that’s what I consider “proper” English, personally).

Brenda’s presentation was useful to me because it addressed a lot of issues I have face with just the few amount of kids I have worked with. I had a hard time teaching words to Hannah that had different syllabic emphasis but were written the same (I believe heteronyms?). Produce came up a few times – either to produce something, or to go buy produce. The difference was so minimal that Hannah could not quite get it. Also, as David experienced as well, I had a hard time teaching articles and words with –th. I would over emphasize things with her and now I can only hope she’s not walking around school sounding very silly.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that I got a lot out of Brenda and Nicoletta’s presentations. It’s great for me to be able to relate my own experiences with things that you guys are presenting on. I’m sure eventually everyone’s presentation will have more direct relevance to me as I gain more experience in the next few months.

lecture notes for the weekend

Hello all!

Just wanted to tell you that I have just posted your Thanksgiving homework, my lecture notes on

Cognitive Approaches to ESL Methodology
cognitive approaches.htm

There are only two sets of notes yet to be posted and covered in class (Language and Culture; Language policy and Planning in the Canadian context)

Thus, I have posted the following notes to date:

What is Language?
Elements of Linguistic Analysis
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/language.htm

A Review of Trends in Linguistic Theory
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/trends.htm

The Brain and Psycholinguistic Speech Production Models
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/speech.htm

First Language Acquisition
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/first.htm

Second Language Acquisition
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/second.htm

Historic and Current Trends in ESL Teaching Methodology
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/methods.htm

Colonialism, Globalization and Second Language Education
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/colonialismandglobalization.htm

Background to Content-based Instruction and the Knowledge Framework
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/CBI.htm

Experiential Learning, Task Design, Learner Autonomy and Teacher Professionalism
http://www.members.shaw.ca/douglasfleming/experientialtaskdesign.htm

Blogflog

Hello,
I apologize for the never-ending rhyming titles- but it's just so darn fun!
I guess I'm a poet and I didn't even know it? haha.

O.k down to real business here. Let's talk theory. No, I don't know a lot of linguistic theory. Well, I can't remember most of it anyway...but Doug has given us a really nice background on it, and Sophia tried her best to convey a great deal of knowledge to us, that she has so nicely collected over years of working on it. Thank-you so Sophia, and don't be too hard on yourself, we all know that you are fun and engaging, it's just a hard topic to teach.

Also, I agree that a focus on more practical things is what we need right now, considering that we have our practicums soon.

Although I feel that we should NOT be nervous about our practicums. I think we need to have confidence, and should bring what little joy is left in the world into our classrooms. A practicum is not the end of the world (not that you suggested it was, but some of us maybe worried that it is right now) rather, it is a wonderful learning opportunity. In two weeks we can gather important information, and observe carefully in preparation for the big practicum (the real test) in January. Let's try to remember we were all teens once!

In terms of presentations, I really appreciate everything thus far, and look forward to more of them. Initially, I wanted to red pen all of those errors like a flogging school marm from Hard Times. Alas, thanks to Dave, Brenda, and Doug, I now know better.

I will try to write something more intelligent or based on the readings next time.

toodleloo,
Madelaine

Hello!

The first day of a new month is coming to an end, and a new school week is just around the corner--time goes by so quickly. Maybe if I blink it'll be December, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

This week was filled with presentations; all of them good. There was Madelaine's presentation (which I can't remember if it happened last week or this week) which demonstrated how effective literature and pictures could be in an EAL class. David and Brenda's touched the ever difficult task of error-correction. The replies on Dave's ESL Cafe were interesting, and showed how there are so many different ways to go about correcting students. Then Doug went over a student's writing sample and showed us how and what he would correct, which was very insightful. If possible, more practical hands-on demonstrations would be great in class. Sophia's reading response was filled with information. She even said that it not very enjoyable reading, but she did an excellent job organizing and presenting the information. She sounded very professional.

Bernie's Boxes, Mohan's Knowledge Framework or the Knowledge Framework, was a bit confusing, although this is my second time going over it. Mohan studied under Halliday, and before that Halliday studied under Firth, right? So would that make Mohan a Hallidain, and Halliday a Firthian? Doesn't Firthian sound like something out of a sci-fi novel?

knowledge framework

Hello everyone,

Hope you're enjoying the weekend and that it hasn't been too busy. I just came back from a Chinatown field trip with my Social Issues class and if you haven't visited there lately, I highly encourage everyone to go - what a nice place to spend the afternoon.

I've been meaning to post about the Knowledge Framework - I'm finding it a bit difficult to understand. I was introduced to the KF briefly in LLED 478 last year, but my particular teacher didn't encourage us to use it (because she didn't like it). I know that this method may or may not be used by our secondary school teachers so I'm wondering how familar we should be with it. What I don't understand is how and when to teach the content and language of the KF (is it limited to one or two knowledge structures per lesson or can we focus on more structures?) Can we teach principles/sequence and evaluation/choice in one lesson? I assume that the overall goal is to teach all six structures within a unit. I like how key thinking skills and language, as well as key visuals, are layed out for each structure but I'm not sure how many structures each activity/lesson should have.

I agree that it was so useful and practical learning about error correction this week - thanks Brenda and Dave for your presentation. I liked your idea of posting on Dave's ESL cafe - what an excellent way to receive feedback - I'd like to try that in the future. Sophia - I really appreciated your presentation on syllabus design (although the topic was too complex for me to understand most of it) You showed how much experience you have in this field by tackling such a difficult chapter and I admire that a lot!

See you all tomorrow,

plan for next week

Hello all!
here's what we have lined up for this coming week:

day 12 (Mondy, Oct 2)

1) David (R/R): Larsen-Freeman. Teaching grammar (p. 249).
2) Nicoletta (R/R): Medgyes. When a teacher is a non-native speaker (p. 429)
3) Looking at the IRP’s from an ESL perspective
homework assigned (to be discussed Oct 6th): Jensen. Plannng lessons (p. 403)


day 13 (Wednesday, Oct 4)
in LERC

1) Sheena (R/R): DeCarrico. Vocabulary learning and teaching (p.285).
2) Brenda (R/R): TBA
3) Examples of ESL secondary lesson plans
homework assigned (continued; to be discussed Oct 6th): Jensen. Plannng lessons (p. 403)


day 14 (Oct 6)

1) discussion of homework: Jensen. Planning lessons (p. 401)
2) Jillian (R/R): Hinkel: Building awareness and practical skills to facilitate cross-cultural communication (p.443).
3) Examples of lesson plans continued
homework assigned: Cognitive Approaches to ESL Methodology (from website)

reminder: no class Monday (Thanksgiving)

Sundry Sunday Reflections

Hi everybody,

Okay, I think we're pretty much unanimous that it was really useful when Doug had us analyse that sample of student writing (a great follow-up to Brenda and Dave's presentation, too!). I think another useful exercise might be to brainstorm some activities to address the problem areas in the student's writing and capitalize on the strengths, perhaps incorporating this student's (imaginary) interests or some of the material from the IRPs that Doug will be bringing in. I suppose in a real classroom setting, it wouldn't be possible to cater lessons to students' individual needs in this way, but it's a good thing to know how to do nonetheless. Of course, the best place to start may simply be to present the grammatical information and gently remind the student to apply what they already know (as we already did), but if the difficulties persist, it might be good to come up with some interactive (and even fun!) practice exercises to assign for homework or introduce to the entire class.

Error correction is a really important and tricky issue, I think--but an important one (since, as Dave and Brenda so insightfully pointed out, errors are not the same as mistakes. They occur repeatedly and systematically, so correcting them has the potential to clear up a lot of problem spots very quickly and relatively easily. That's why it's best to focus on the problems that come up most frequently, as we saw when we looked at the sample of student work.) I know from my own experiences as a language learner that it's most useful to focus on a few areas at a time and keep building. As a tutor, though, my philosophy is usually to ask students how they would like to me corrected, and often they tell me that they want EVERYTHING corrected (like what you used to do, Brenda). This poses problems for me, because I do want to respect that student's preferences, but it can be hard to make all the corrections without 1) being hurtful, 2) being overwhelming, 3) addressing language points that might be too advanced for the student to grasp immediately, 4) having to say "That's just the way it is" a lot, especially for things like idioms and exceptions to general language trends. I suspect that one of the reasons many students want everything corrected is because they have been taught/believe in the idea that they are supposed to emulate the 'ideal' native speaker, and that errors, even when they do not impede clear communication, get in the way of this goal. In my classroom, I would try to encourage an atmosphere where it's okay for students to make mistakes and to express themselves differently from a native English speaker, as long as they are able to reach their communicative goals (which, naturally, evolve as the student's abilities evolve). Still, some students might want to be corrected on everything, and of course I don't want to say no (since I believe they should have some control over the way they learn and that learning can be collaborative). So, in a situation like this, what do you do? My instinct would be to tell the student that I am willing to make all the corrections, but I would prefer to do it in stages (in my experience, students usually agree to this... but maybe that's only because the students who are the most concerned with mistakes also tend to be the ones who are most deferential to teachers and respectful of their 'expertise'... and I would hate to take advantage of that to boss my students around!) The other possibility is to correct everything, but give explicit instruction on a only few points (maybe using some kind of colour-coded pen system where one colour would represent areas to work on actively, and the other colour is just FYI for the time being. Neither pen would be red, of course!). One of the most thought-provoking suggestions in David and Brenda's presentation was the notion that different types of learners may benefit from different types of correction (again, tricky to implement in a classroom setting... seems easier to have a single correction policy... but in one-to-one consultations with students, there may be more room to accomodate that student's needs and preferences).

One last remark: we've had some really great presentations this week. Madelaine, I thought you found some great resources to tackle the problem of reading level/maturity level of content in literature for ESL students. If You're Not From the Prairie may be a children's book, but my parents own and cherish it and I never thought of it as being for kids. The other great thing about it is that it provides a great template for reluctant poets to start getting their ideas on paper... providing a structure really makes the writing process easier. And I think creative writing can be a really empowering way to use and play with a new language, because there's a sense that it's for YOU and you can do whatever you want with it (although I guess this isn't really true in the context of a school assignment. It might be good idea to provide some opportunities for students to do free writing that isn't for handing in... although maybe when we're so short on instructional time, this isn't a great use of it? I'm not sure.) Another good way to bridge the language level/maturity level gap might be with comics or graphic novels; I think maybe somebody already mentioned this in class?

Sophia, I thought your presentation did an amazing job of organizing a lot of really complex information and drawing connections between the various approaches. The cake metaphor was a great one, too... a very engaging way to begin.

Can't wait to hear more of your fabulous ideas, folks!