Exploring Campus Through Writing: A Course Project

Many institutions of higher education offer various types of resources to facilitate English language learners’ success at the university. However, the lack of awareness of these resources, among both faculty and the students, may significantly undermine their value. I believe that teachers are well positioned to help students become familiar with these support services, resources, and programs, so they can become more socialized into the academic community. A writing class, in particular, provides an excellent venue for integrating these resources in course projects and activities. Let me share an example of a project that could be implemented in a writing course.

Project title: Report on Resources

Overview: University campuses offer a great deal of resources to help students develop their academic, professional, and social skills, as well as staying healthy–both physically and emotionally. It is important for students to utilize these resources to get the most out of their college experience. This project will help familiarize students with the variety of resources, including clubs, organizations, programs, events, and services, that a local campus offers to students, and in some cases, to international students in particular.

Rhetorical Purpose: The rhetorical purpose of this project is to learn how to compose a report.

Project Description: Students will be working in research teams. Each team will gather information according to the research task (see the descriptions of the tasks below). When I do this project in my class, I encourage my students to start with the university website, and then decide which specific resources they would want to examine in more depth. For example, they can meet with a representative of a club, attend an event offered by a campus organization, or collect more specific information, such as flyers and calendars of events. As a team, students will help each other organize the information; however, each of them will write an individual report of their findings.

Objectives: While working on this project, students will

• become familiar with one of the following types of campus resources: (1) academic and professional, (2) social and cultural, (3) athletic and recreational, and (4) student services
• collect, synthesize, and summarize information
• write a report

Research Tasks

Social and Cultural Resources

For this task, students will be required to investigate a variety of social and cultural resources offered at the local institution. Social and cultural resources help students have a rich social life on campus and in the community. These resources may include, but are not be limited to, student organizations and clubs, volunteering opportunities, services and programs offered by the international student office, and other social activities.

Academic and Professional Resources

For this task, students will be required to investigate a variety of academic and professional resources offered on campus. Academic and professional resources help students succeed academically and prepare for their future professional careers. These resources may include, but are not be limited to the libraries, writing centers, career and academic workshops, academic seminars, special lectures, etc. (students can check the university event calendar).

Athletic and Recreational Resources

For this task, students will be required to investigate a variety of athletic and recreational resources offered on campus. Athletic and recreational resources help students stay physically healthy, have outdoor opportunities, as well as experience a rich sports culture on campus. These resources include athletic games and competitions, sports and recreational facilities, and outdoor programs.

Students Services

For this task, students will be required to investigate a variety of student services offered by a local institution. Student services on campus support students by meeting their special needs and resolving their problems and concerns. These resources include, but are not limited to, psychological services, IT support, programs, and services offered by Disability Resource Center, as well as services offered for international students.

To help students become familiar with the genre conventions, you can also provide students with examples of reports.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/exploring-campus-through-writing-a-course-project/

💕Friday freebie!💕

Hello everyone,

Today click here and get this great freebie that students love!

This 18-page Skip Count By 2 Flipbook has interactive flipbooks for students to create and practice counting by 2s. These are engaging books to make as a center activity, or as an extension to your math lesson.

Get your students counting by 2s with this great Skip Count By 2 Flipbook. Students simply color, cut and assemble. Watch your young learners take off counting.

Skip Count By 2 Flipbook can be used during guided math as openers, small group time and math work stations

How to use this book:
Assembly:
• Print on cardstock.
• Cut at the dotted line to separate the base of the flipbook from the picture pages.
• Cut around each rectangle picture box.
• Arrange the number cards one on top of the other and staple or bind the top of all pages to the flipbook base.

This is an engaging way for students to practice their numbers and share their knowledge with family and friends.

Happy teaching!💕

Click here to get this great freebie!

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/educents-images/links/affiliates/funtoteach/38246.html
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/04/friday-freebie.html

Very varied voices

Happy day to everyone! 
Using songs to open a lesson is a great strategy to get students to practice the language you are teaching.  Don’t let your songs get boring.  Change the way you sing your songs using a variety of “voices”.  Here are a few of my favorites.  What are some of yours?

 Mouse squeak

Opera singing

Robot

Whisper

Deep/High

Hold your nose

Growling voice

Happy Teaching!

Lori

Check out our great ESL & ELD Songs and Chants Volume ISING IT LOUD! SING IT CLEAR!

This 51-page collection of ELD and ESL songs and black lines are perfect for every classroom with second language learners. Open every lesson with a song or chant from this rich collection of ELD based lyrics and watch your students’ fluency grow. Volume I includes 22 songs/ chants, lesson ideas and activities that will raise the oral academic language of your students to new heights. The songs and chants are sung to familiar popular songs or the lyrics are used in call backs or chant style tunes. These lyrics provide a compelling way to begin your ELD lesson while targeting complex English Structures. You and your students will enjoy these engaging and memorable lyrics.

Songs and Chants for:
Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Present Tense Questions
Regular Past Tense Verbs
Past Tense Questions
Present Perfect
Prepositions

Language levels included:
Beginning
Intermediate
Advanced

click here to go to Teachers Pay Teachers store!

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/04/very-varied-voices.html

ESP Project Leader Profile: Elise Geither

Hello, ESPers worldwide!

The 42nd ESP project leader profile features Elise Geither, who gave a presentation at TESOL 2018 in Chicago in an ESP-EFL (English as a foreign language) intersection session. In addition to being an ESP practitioner, Elise is a multitalented teacher and novelist, who supports students with disabilities:

Elise Geither, PhD, has been teaching for over 20 years. Geither has taught English, ESL, and Education and set up programs for K–12 school districts and universities. She works closely with students in higher education as they transition to university life and navigate their way to success. Geither is the author of a book on academic writing and support for students on the autism spectrum, and her young adult novel, The Deer, was released in 2017. She continues to research how to best support international students, students with disabilities, and specifically students on the spectrum as they make their way to American universities. Geither lives in Ohio.

In her interview, Elise describes her role as leader of an English for legal purposes course related to a Master of Laws (LLM) program at a university in the United States.

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Elise Geither, PhD
Associate Director of Spoken English Programs
Case Western Reserve University

Define leadership in your own words.

I have had many opportunities to engage as a leader and observe leaders in action. In the area of ESP, I have found that observing our graduate instructors, mentors, and supervisors as they work toward becoming better teachers and leaders has been most interesting and educational. Because much of my background is in teaching, I am always looking at the skills that my students and paraprofessionals are developing in terms of educating others.

The areas of Best Practice for ESPs also cross into the areas and skills needed to become a good leader and teacher. For example, identifying and assessing client needs helps any leader become better informed in how to move forward with a project or class. I encourage our ESP instructors to use formative and summative assessment to learn more about their students and clients. Then moving toward a better program design becomes easier.

Leadership, in my eyes, is helping others learn and engage in experiences that will then help them to become better leaders and share their expertise with the next wave of instructors, supervisors, mentors, and leaders.

Tell me an ESP project success story. Focus on your communication as a leader in the project. How did you communicate with stakeholders to make that project successful?

Our most successful ESP project has been an ongoing course that we build on each year. Having the ability to work on this program for a number of years has helped it develop into an engaging course for the students and one that provides the school with the outcomes they require of their students. This is an English for legal purposes course that is part of a summer program for the LLM program at our school.

We are lucky in that our courses are embedded into a larger program that is highly supported by the law school. The overall program includes lectures and classes by instructors from the law school along with our classes in spoken English, which complement what students learn in the law sections.

Over the years, we have been able to develop the pre- and postassessment for the program so that we are gathering the most useful information on student skills and needs in an easy-to-use and easy-to-manage format. This has required numerous attempts and changes over the past few years. In addition, we have developed a highly successful instructor training program, as we use graduate students as well as professionals as instructors.

Much of the success, I believe, comes from the support of the law school and their administration. As they see the importance of language and communication skills as an integral part of the success of their students, we can work together to provide the best program.

Elements that have made this program successful include our assessments, instructor training, unique and flexible materials, a program design that is negotiated by our course instructors and the law school, curriculum that has been tested, and an environment that provides a positive learning experience for the students. Again, we have been lucky to have the time, resources, and support to watch this program develop into one of our best programs on campus.

As the lead in this project, I think that my experience as an educator has enabled me to view this program through a unique lens. Understanding student needs and student “wants” along with what the law school sees as the outcomes for the course has helped me to work with the instructors to develop curriculum that works. However, by also turning leadership over to instructors and periodically student supervisors, we have also gained valuable insight into how to make the program work.

By looking at the current pieces of this successful program, we are able to look at other ESP programs we have on campus and move to make changes that will help those programs become more successful as well. Finding out how the best practices of ESP programs meet the unique needs of each program helps us make important changes as we move toward greater program success.

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Elise provides us with a leadership vision of how ESP practitioners can become “change agents” using ESP “best practices principles” to improve curriculum campus-wide. It was interesting to read how various stakeholders are involved in program development, which means that there are multiple negotiations involved in the creation of what eventually is offered as a course. I also liked the focus on continuous improvement, which is certainly an important part of an ESP program at a university or in the workplace.

Do you have any questions or comments for Elise? Please feel free to contact her directly!

All the best,
Kevin

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/esp-project-leader-profile-elise-geither/