Month: September 2018

Online and Hybrid Classroom Education

The latest book in the TESOL Voices series (insider accounts of classroom life) is Online and Hybrid Classroom Education. As the editor of this book, I am very excited to share information about it with others in the TESOL profession. This book, along with others in the series, provide novel and varied perspectives of teachers and students.

This format provides readers with an inside account of life within an array of online and hybrid learning contexts. The authors in this collection present a diversity of authentic TESOL teaching and learning contexts utilizing online and hybrid instructional approaches. Each chapter is illustrated with a rich description of participant inquiry. The chapters are personal and engaging in a way that should inspire many other TESOL professionals.

This book begins with an introduction of current practices in online and hybrid classrooms, including a description of the variety included in these domains. As the introduction explains: Online and hybrid learning have been around for some time and many of us across educational domains have had experience teaching and learning in these contexts. However, not all online environments and practices are created equal. The breadth of these contexts today requires us to carefully reflect upon our practices to better understand the various ways that we can interact with one another in the pursuit of effective teaching and learning.

There is evidence that many factors may influence how technologies are implemented, including cultural norms and expectations. Similarly, the educational backgrounds of teachers and learners and their attitudes toward these approaches, and technology in general, can determine if a given technological intervention will have any chance of success. As we learn more about these online and hybrid contexts, we continue to develop a richer and more sophisticated understanding. The chapters in this volume have much to contribute to this discussion. This volume in the TESOL Voices series addresses reflective teaching practices and participant inquiry in online and hybrid teaching contexts.

This is a collection of insider perspectives that is geographically, culturally, and contextually diverse. The collection is divided into three sections:

  1. voices of participants in online and hybrid TESOL teacher preparation contexts,
  2. voices of participants in online ESL and EFL contexts, and
  3. voices of participants in hybrid ESL and EFL contexts.

1. Voices of Participants in Online and Hybrid TESOL Teacher Preparation Contexts
This section is addressed by four chapters. These include different approaches to designing, delivering and reflecting upon innovative approaches to TESOL teacher preparation. These include the participative inquiry of both TESOL teacher educators and the graduate students in these courses. These are situated in the United States and as collaborations between the United States and Russia and the United States and Romania. Each chapter includes valuable recommendations for others interested in teaching TESOL courses online.

2. Voices of Participants in Online ESL and EFL Contexts
This section is addressed through three chapters. These include creative instructional designs to assist learners with their discourse writing and pronunciation through two very innovative online tutoring systems. They are situated in the United States and Japan. The voices of instructors and students present a rich reflection on the use of these systems in a manner that supports the creation of similar systems for our own teaching contexts. This section also includes reflection on the use of a learning management system at the center of an online English for Academic Purposes course, which concludes with recommendations for a framework for the design of such courses.

3. Voices of Participants in Hybrid ESL and EFL Contexts
This section is addressed through four chapters. These include two flipped learning classes: a videoconference-based class teaching English as an international language in Japan and an experiential reading and writing class in the United Arab Emirates. This section also includes two courses designed to reduce student anxiety around English use: a social network–based peer mentoring experience among students in Malaysia and a mobile video–based public speaking/presentation skills course designed to lower the anxiety students face in the unique context of Japan.

The book concludes with a final chapter in which I reflect upon the various voices throughout the book and explore current and emerging trends and opportunities related to technological and pedagogical developments. I consider the changing nature of teaching and learning across educational domains, including a dramatically changing nature of how we think about, integrate, and rely on technology. I offer suggestions for how we might contextualize emerging technologies in our teaching, including automated tools, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and other emerging technologies that are certain to influence the classrooms of our future. I am so grateful for the authors and their contributions that I want to be sure to share that information. Here is the table of contents:

You can purchase the book at the TESOL Bookstore, and please read a sample chapter, “Collaborative Practice to Improve How ELLs Are Characterized in Online TESOL Methods Courses.”

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/online-and-hybrid-classroom-education/

💕Friday freebie!💕 Multiplying by 11

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiplication-5-Minute-Timed-Test-Multiplying-by-11-602086Freebie! Multiplication 5-Minute Timed Test – Multiplying by 11

This package for Multiplication 5-minute Timed Tests for the factor 11 is everything you need to assess your students’ basic skills in multiplying by 11.

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There is a one-page test with 100 problems multiplying by 11. We also have included a one-page graph with a range covering 0-145. There is a space to include the date and what type of test you are recording. This is a visual way for students to see their progress over time. Students can color as a bar graph or connect the dots for a line graph. Students can see how many they have mastered and how many more to go! A one-page pictograph is included that you or your students can use. You can use the pictograph to record one item at a time or employ the key and have the happy face equal 10 items at a time.

This is a great introduction to pictographs for students and a visual way for students to see their progress over time. Students see how many they have mastered and how many more to go! We included a basic multiplication table to help your students with the basic skill of multiplication. Copy this one page form for each of your students. Use this table as a visual progress report for your class. Have your students color in the facts they have learned. Students can see how many they have mastered and how many more to go! All of these graphs and the chart are great to use with parents at conference time.

Buy the Multiplication 5-Minute Timed Tests Factors 0-12 Bundle – Copy and Go!
and Save!
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Related Products
Multiplying by 3
Multiplication Vocabulary Cards
Multiplying by 6
Multiplying by 9
Multiplying by 0 & 1
Multiplication 5-Minute Timed Test Package Factors 0-12

Check out some of our best sellers
Kinder & 1st Grade Punctuation
Kinder & 1st Grade Sentence Starters
Irregular Past Tense Verb Game
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50 Sentence Starters Back to School
Addition with Numbers 0-19
Learning Centers Made Simple – Literacy Centers for Reading and Math
Multiplying by 7
Three Sounds of ‘ED’ Past Tense Verb Games
Past Tense Verb Games – Past Participle
Multiplication 5 Minute Timed Tests Packages – Factors 0-12
Addition with Numbers 0-19

Happy Teaching
Lori Wolfe
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/09/friday-freebie-multiplying-by-11.html

The 6 Principles’ Book Club

One of the biggest challenges for educators is keeping abreast of current research. Empirical studies can inform and improve our practice, but it can be difficult to find time to decipher and stay up-to-date with the literature.

This past summer, as a way of engaging in a culture of shared responsibility for refreshing our evidence-based practices, a few of my colleagues and I formed a book club. Rather than reading a bunch of primary sources, we instead chose to use The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners by Deborah Short and her TESOL team as a framework for our discussions. Although the authors wrote the book for a K–12 audience, we found the general concepts applicable to our university-based Intensive English Program.

In our first meeting, we discussed our goals for the book club and how might divide the reading. We decided we would meet four times over the summer. We then consolidated Chapters 1 and 2 into our reading for the second meeting, which left us extra time to discuss Chapter 3 in the third. Chapter 3 goes into the specifics of the 6 Principles for exemplary teaching of English learners, and we wanted time to reflect on how we could extend these principles more regularly into our everyday pedagogy. We concluded our book club with Chapters 4 and 5, but our general consensus was that we should continue our conversations throughout the fall.

As members of the book club, we decided to try applying the 6 Principles in the following, ongoing ways (in both our department and around campus):

  1. Know your learners: We will aim to enhance our roles as cultural mediators by providing training for students on our campus that extends beyond just American culture to include the international students’ various cultural backgrounds too. Our hope is that we can use such orientations as a way to build relationships and enhance intercultural communication between domestic and international students.
  2. Create conditions for language learning: We will try to rethink how we can cultivate the ecology of our classrooms to be more educationally friendly (e.g., the use of memory aides, the modification of our physical space by using u-shape rather than traditional desk formations).
  3. Design high-quality lessons for language development: We will post highlights from the book, such as the one-page overview of “The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners and Recommended Classroom Practices” (p. 36) in high profile areas, such as the copy room for teachers, to use as a quick reference when preparing for classes. We imagine this will be a user-friendly way to refresh our copy room rhetoric and lesson plan concepts.
  4. Adapt lesson delivery as needed: We will use the highlights from the book as a tool to reflect on our applied pedagogy in preparation for our annual reviews. Through this cyclical, reflective practice, we anticipate that we will better monitor our students’ ongoing needs and adjust accordingly.
  5. Monitor and assess student language development: We will continue to reflect on ways we can reuse and share our assessments and rubrics so we are giving consistent and regular feedback to our students. We value dynamic assessments and will continue to monitor and offer strategic student feedback.
  6. Engage and collaborate within a community of practice: We have created an informal space in our lunchroom for teachers to drop by and share some of their best practices (and challenges) in relation to the six principles. We will also continue to revisit how we build our relationships both departmentally and interdepartmentally.

In sum, our summer book club served as a practical way to involve experienced in-service teachers in a refreshing form of professional development that was effective, fluid, and collaborative.

Read more about the 6 Principles and download the 6 Principles Quick Guide.

How have you used the 6 Principles in your professional development?

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/the-6-principles-book-club/

10 Resources for Pre-K–5 Educators of ELs

Hello everyone. I’m happy to come back as a blogger for TESOL specializing in pre-K–5 education for English learners (ELs). To kick off the 2018–2019 school year, I have compiled many really good resources that I came across this summer. I’d like to share links to the best of what I’ve read over the past few months.

1. Several Ways to Get the New School Year Off to a Good Start–Part One
This article is from Larry Ferlazzo’s Education Week column, Classroom Q & A. The responses are from classroom teachers and writers in the field of education. This column has an excellent response by Rick Wormeli, the author of One Day and Beyond. Also, there are links in Larry’s article to Part Two  and Part Three.

2. Getting it Right: Reference Guide for Registering Students with Non-English Names
We all want our school districts to get our ELs’ names right, but that can be difficult for the school staff that is charged with registering students. This handy guide has examples of naming conventions in 11 languages.

3. English Learners and ESSA: A Resource Kit
This is an extensive report on how new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) regulations affect ELs in school. This mandate started September 2017 and is a must for teachers of ELs to have in their classrooms so that they are familiar with the ESSA regulations for ELs. TESOL has a lot of information on their website.

4. 4 Practical Steps to Help Immigrant Families in your School Community
According to this article on Colorín Colorado, 7% of K–12 students in the United States have at least one undocumented parent.  It is imperative for schools to know what their legal obligations are toward these students.

5. How Much Can Schools Protect Undocumented Students?
This is an article from Education Week on what schools can do to protect undocumented students. Schools may have less power to do this than we think. One way that might work is for schools to limit immigration officials’ access to school grounds.

6. Why Immigrant Families May Have Unique Needs Before, During, and After Natural Disasters
This is excellent information from Colorín Colorado about what unique needs immigrant families may have during a natural disaster and what schools can do to help communicate with these families. These needs include communication, preparation for an imminent disaster, and how to evacuate.

7. Refugee
This book by Alan Gratz is a brilliant novel that presents three stories of survival. The book centers on children and their families when they are driven from their home by war and violence. This book is a must read for teachers.

8. 18 Ways to Support Your English Learners 
This article has advice from ESL teacher Valentina Gonzalez on strategies for teachers so that they can level the playing field for ELs in content-area learning. I recommend adding Valentina’s blog to your list of articles and books to read so that you can keep up with the field of ESL education.

9. ESL/ELD Resource Group of Ontario 
This website allows you to download guided reading books for ELs and includes a lesson plan. The books are practical, everyday topics that help older students navigate the ins and outs of their life. Although some of the books are distinctly for Canadian audiences, there is plenty to download for U.S. teachers.

10. Creating a Welcoming Environment for English Learners in Your School and Classroom
and Five Elements of a Positive Classroom Environment for Students Living With Adversity
This past summer, I coauthored two articles for ASCD Inservice. The first (“Creating a Welcoming Environment”), I coauthored with Debbie Zacarian, and the other (“Five Elements”), I coauthored with Debbie Zacarian and Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz.

If you’ve read something interesting this summer, please share it in the comment box below.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/10-resources-for-prek-5-educators-of-els/

💕Friday freebie!💕

Hi Teachers!
Check out this free math geometry vocabulary resource. It is free for this weekend only!
Please don’t forget to rate it!

Click here to download

Geometry Vocabulary Trading Cards

Math Activities And Lesson Plans

This 26-page unit has essential math words to build a foundation of math understanding. Use whole class, with second language learners or struggling math students.

The 15 carefully selected words integrates kid friendly definitions with rich information about the concept. Words included are: polygon, congruent figures, symmetry, array, diameter, parallel lines, perpendicular lines, area, angles, cylinder, perimeter, rhombus, cube, sphere, and cone.

This Math Game packet includes black line masters to reproduce and use as games and activities.

This package includes: 7 Math Games

Match It Up!
I Know the Word
Tic Tac Go!
And the Answer Is…
Word Association
A Game of 20 Questions
Concentration

Also included:

Flashcard Mania
Math Games as Homework

Reproducible black lines included in this package:
-assessment
-activities to send home
-easy to use teacher
-teacher’s guides
-easy game assembly
-variety of games
-complete game boards and game cards
-activity black line masters

Thank you,

Happy Teaching!
Lori

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/09/friday-freebie_14.html

On Campus and Beyond: From Speaking to Writing, Part 1

I have just finished teaching a summer ESL course entitled “Cross-Cultural Talk”—a speaking class that focuses on language fluency at a low-intermediate level of language proficiency. Because I always try to help my students to become more familiar with the campus environment and use resources available on it (as all of them will be “regular” university students soon after they finish their intensive English course), I designed my syllabus around cross-cultural topics that could be explored both on campus and beyond.

That is, for each unit of the course, I spent one day discussing the target topic in its relation to our local campus and one day discussing the same topic on a broader scale—in its relation to American society/culture. In both days, students were also expected to share experiences from their own cultures.

Here are the units that I used in this course:

  • Everyday interactions
  • Social life and entertainment
  • Health and well-being
  • Cultures and diversity

Although this course focused on speaking, I kept thinking about how a similar approach could be applied to a writing class. Following, I will provide examples of a few activities and assignments used in two units, “Everyday interactions” and “Social life and entertainment,” by trying to make connections with writing. In my next blog (Part 2), I will provide suggestions for the other two units of the course: “Health and well-being” and “Cultures and diversity.”

Everyday Interactions

On campus

  • Students discuss appropriate and inappropriate classroom behavior and language.
    Suggestion for writing: Students can analyze in written form both appropriate and inappropriate classroom behavior both in American culture and their own.
  • Students perform a few role-plays on the topic of “talking to a professor” (e.g., negotiating time for an office visit, unplanned office visit, planned office visit, discussing a course grade).
    Suggestion for writing: Students themselves can write and perform several role-plays for similar situations.

Beyond

  • Discussing small talks: “good” and “bad” small talk topics; suggestions for making small talk; appropriate phrases based on situations/places.
    Suggestion for writing: Students can write a paragraph/short response on how small talk in the United States might be different from (or similar to) the way people make small talk in their own culture.
  • Students analyze critical incidents in which body language was a source of misunderstanding.
    Suggestions for writing:
    1. Students can create their own critical incidents by writing them and reading them in front of the class—this could be followed by the discussion of the incident
    2. Students can pick one feature of nonverbal communication (e.g., gaze, head nod) and describe its function in interpersonal communication in American culture and their own
    3. Students can write a short text describing possible problems that can be caused by body language in interpersonal communication and propose ways to avoid these problems.

Social Life and Entertainment

On campus

  • Students discuss dos and don’ts for balancing social and academic life.
    Suggestion for writing: Students write a “recommendation” piece describing several tips on how to balance social and academic life as a student.
  • Students read about “wild” college traditions in several U.S. universities (the examples can be found online) and create a tradition for their local university.
    Suggestion for writing: Students write a “proposal” piece describing a tradition that a local university should implement: They will describe the tradition in detail, provide a rationale for implementing this tradition, and offer some practical suggestions on how this tradition could be executed in an effective way.

Beyond

  • Students discuss statistical data that represent how working parents in the United States spend their average weekday, and how Americans spend their leisure time (the data can be found line).
    Suggestions for writing:
    1. Students write a comparative piece analyzing this phenomenon with respect to American culture and their own
    2. Students can write an opinion paper discussing the question: “What do these data tell us about American society?”
  • Students research and present about some of the most popular types of entertainment in American culture: amusement parks; summer festivals and fairs; and concerts, shows, and performances.
    Suggestions for writing:
    1. Students pick one type of entertainment and write a short piece discussing the following questions:
      • What do people do for this type of entertainment?
      • Why do you think it’s attractive to people?
      • Whom is it mostly attractive for?
      • Is it family friendly?
      • How much does it cost (generally speaking)?
      • What are some specific customs/behaviors related to this particular type of entertainment?
    2. Alternatively, students can write an “advertisement” piece describing one of these types of entertainment.

As you can see, these activities can be adapted to your local environment, the proficiency level of your students, and your course learning objectives. I hope these examples can inspire some ideas for your own writing class.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/on-campus-and-beyond-from-speaking-to-writing-part-1/

ESP Project Leader Profile: Marcelo Concario

Hello, ESPers worldwide!

In this ESP project leader profile, we travel to Brazil to meet Dr. Marcelo Concario at São Paulo State University, who was introduced to me by ESP project leader, Dr. Gina Mikel Petrie. Marcelo’s research and teaching in the areas of content-based instruction (CBI) and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) include strands of ESP as students learn the language they need to know for other courses and are prepared for specific activities that involve communication in English. Please read Marcelo’s bio :

Marcelo Concario earned his PhD from Unicamp (Brazil) and has been a visiting researcher at Eastern Washington University (Cheney, USA), and Universität Wien (Vienna, Austria). He is assistant professor at São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Architecture, Arts and Communication, Bauru (www.faac.unesp.br).

Leaders in the TESOL ESP Interest Section have written that ESP is not synonymous with CBI, which can be considered one approach to ESP (e.g., Abrar-ul-Hassan, 2012; Knight, Lomperis, van Naerssen, & Westerfield, 2010). In Marcelo’s interview responses, he shares his experience of using CBI  (and strands of ESP training if you look carefully) to motivate learners and faculty and lead them to seek ESP solutions to the communication challenges that they face.

Dr. Marcelo Concario
São Paulo State University
São Paulo, Brazi

Define leadership in your own words.

In my experience, leadership has to do with an ability to mediate relations among people and the use of resources. A good leader will help individuals in a group focus on what they can do best, and this can be extremely challenging. I have seen excellent professionals become frustrated in their jobs as a lot of their time and enthusiasm was taken by activities they were not cut out for. Leadership, therefore, involves an interest in understanding and supporting individuals in a group. It is a strategic and managerial skill that facilitates the execution of tasks. This does not mean that leadership is more important than other competencies; in fact, it is one factor among many that can affect the result of teamwork.

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?

When I joined my university in 2010, the required English language courses in our Social Communication programs were under attack: program administrators argued that the courses did not contribute to the general education of our students; some faculty members claimed that our students already knew a lot of English and, therefore, other courses could be offered instead; and our students themselves were becoming less and less excited about “English for Specific Purposes.” However, from a specialist’s viewpoint, there were other problems affecting the teaching of English in our programs. For many years, the fact that the courses had been taught by temporary, substitute teachers did not allow for long-term projects to be implemented. In addition, “English for Specific Purposes” back then was understood as the teaching and practice of reading strategies without a clear focus on what our current students need and already know.

As a recently hired faculty committed to classroom research, I started working on a project to investigate the possibilities and challenges associated with the implementation of content-based instruction (CBI) in our English language courses. The different approach involved reviewing the syllabuses of many courses in different programs, buying and studying textbooks in English dedicated to a range of fields pertaining to social communication, and carrying out needs analysis and surveys with students. Between 2011 and 2014, documented data revealed that students became much more motivated in the classrooms, and program administrators noticed a marked change in how the language courses were perceived by students and other faculty members. Between 2013 and 2016, research and extension projects benefited from institutional support, and another permanent faculty with significant experience in ESP was hired.

Despite the more favorable climate at present, continuing classroom research suggests that CBI does not lead to significant gains in terms of the learning of language as forms. Tests, recordings of oral presentations, a corpus of written texts, and journal entries collected with students show that there are persisting errors in their production, such as inadequate use of articles and verb tenses, poor sentence and paragraph structure, lack of planning and editing of texts, among others. However, there is robust evidence that the impact on motivation and satisfaction is very positive. In addition, the new approach has caused many students—and even faculty members—to look for language courses in and outside our college. Other documented benefits of CBI in the words of students are the opportunities to learn new things or remember what they need to know for other courses they take, and the fact that many of them have become less anxious when they need to deal with written or oral material in English. To me, this is indicative of success in the project because progress has been made, especially as far as institutional change has been noticed. Program administrators have understood that classes with fewer students are necessary in language courses, and that IT resources are required to make courses more attractive and efficient.

As I read Marcelo’s account of program development, the following quotation brought to mind the need for ESP training:

“…the new approach has caused many students—and even faculty members—to look for language courses in and outside our college.”

This made me think that they were looking for language training that would help them to meet immediate and specific needs for English language communication skills as a tool in their training or in their work; in other words, they were seeking ESP training.

Dr. Margaret van Naerssen, who is also an ESP Project leader, has worked hard as a TESOL ESP Interest Section former chair to make ESP practitioners and researchers aware of the differences among ESP, CBI, and other acronyms. Recently, she was working for the U.S. Department of State:

[Her] EL Specialist project was prompted by a relatively recent policy change from the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Vietnam calling for institutions of higher education to begin delivering course work through English as a medium of instruction (EMI).  As such, van Naerssen led intensive workshops during a national conference to reflect on current policies and practices in ESP/EMI education, key challenges facing the stakeholders in delivering ESP/EMI education, and the visions and outcomes of ESP/EMI education in different contexts within Vietnam.

Marcelo’s account may reflect this movement toward ESP/EMI education, and ESP teacher-training would be valuable.

Do you have questions or comments for Marcelo?  Please feel free to contact him directly!

All the best,
Kevin

References

Abrar-ul-Hassan, S. (2012). State-of-the-art review: Revisiting the ins and outs of ESP practice. Professional and Academic English, 39, 4–11.

Knight, K., Lomperis, A., van Naerssen, M., & Westerfield, K. (2010). English for specific purposes: An overview for practitioners and clients (academic and corporate). PowerPoint presentation submitted to Alexandria, VA: TESOL Resource Center.

U.S. Department of State. (n.d.). English language specialist conducts workshops on English for specific purposes and English as a medium of instruction in Vietnam and Cambodia. Retrieved from https://elprograms.org/sample-projects/english-language-specialist-conducts-workshops-english-specific-purposes-english-medium-instruction-vietnam-cambodia/

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/esp-project-leader-profile-marcelo-concario/