Month: January 2020

9 Ways to Create Accessible Educator Office Spaces

Have you ever stopped to think about your office space? What items do you see? Is this space accessible to everyone who comes to see you? Who is this space designed for? What barriers prevent students from coming to meet with you or accessing the space?

Following, you will find nine questions that ask you to reflect on your office in order to reduce student barriers and increase accessibility—for English language learners specifically and for all students in general.

1. Is your office accessible to students who are from other cultures?

As ESL teachers, we are constantly learning from our students and viewing the world from their eyes. We learn about their experiences, languages, cultures, and more. Our offices—as safe spaces for them—need to reflect different cultural perspectives. This needs to be more than just items from around the world that we might collect on vacation; these items and cognitive framing must authentically and mindfully reflect our students.

Pro Tip: One great way to have an office that reflects different cultures is to hang student work, share student quotes on the walls, and share other artifacts from our students and classrooms. Bringing student perspectives and cultures into your office allows for the space to seem more accessible and more like home. 

2. Is your office accessible to families?

Depending on your teaching context, you either see lots of parents and families or you seldom see parents and families. However, an office should be a space where parents, families, friends, and advocates are welcome. The people we work with are more than just language learners; they are people. Our offices need to be accessible to them.

Pro Tip: It is good to assume that students are not coming alone. Have extra resources for students and any guests that they might bring. Have additional seating in your office or in a nearby space for students and their guests.

3. Is your office accessible to students who speak other languages?

Your office is probably full of materials for students. These could be written materials, campus/school materials, or even community resources. But what percentages of these materials are written in a language other than English? If these resources are important enough to share or hang in an office, they should be accessible to all who visit the office space.

Pro Tip: Having more bilingual and multilingual materials in your office is easier said than done. Sometimes, these resources do not exist. However, if your campus or school has someone to translate resources, seek them out to have resources translated. If translation is not possible, urge your school or campus to provide this service. Ultimately, all resources should be offered in multiple languages.

4. Is your office accessible to students experiencing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?

Our students come to us, our classrooms, and our offices carrying their many lived experiences. This is something that they cannot and should not be expected to leave at the door, and something that we have to think about when welcoming students into our office space.

Pro Tip: There are many things that can be done to support students who are experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, there are a few simple places to start. Make sure that students have easy access to an exit, giving them some control over their surroundings. Stay in a horizontal space with the students, and avoid standing up and talking down to them. Lastly, allow for seating where you never find yourself behind the student; consider putting the chair against the wall so that they know what is behind them.

5. Is your office accessible to students with physical disabilities?

If a current or potential student was in a wheelchair, would they be able to freely move around your office? Would they be able to comfortably enter and exit the room? Though you might not have a say over how big your office is, you probably have some control over the organization and accessibility of the room. Keep in mind, the optimal turning radius of a wheelchair is between 48–60 inches.

Pro Tip: Clear the doorway and entrance area to your office. Have an accessible chair nearby; however, make sure that it doesn’t interfere with entering and exiting the room.

6. Is your office accessible to students with sensory processing disorders?

Think about your office from the perspective of each of the five senses. Does your room have lots of background noise playing when you are talking with students? Do you have a computer screen that is constantly flashing photos from your trip to Italy? Is your office still filled with the smell of your leftover Indian food? All of these can impact a student’s ability to access this space and thereby access support from you.

Pro Tip: When your office is open to meet with students, be mindful of the sensory stimulation in the room. If there are senses that are overpowering in the room, try to reduce the stimulation to allow all students to focus on being present in conversation.

7. Is your office accessible to students who are feeling stressed or anxious?

While your office is filled with teaching materials and supplies, is it organized and clean for incoming students? Is there an open seat for a student to sit down, is the table cleared off, and are student resources in a clear spot? These might seem like small details, but they can make or break a student’s experience when they are meeting with you. If they are stressed about an exam or organizing their schedule, your piles of paper could psychologically add to their anxiety.

Pro Tip: Keep your office organized, but do not do it just for yourself and your productivity. Think about how clutter and organization will impact your students when they meet with you. Find ways to reduce clutter and items in your office.

8. Is your office accessible to students who are depressed?

Think about the energy in your office. If a student came to you and discussed their feelings of depression or other mental health experiences, would they find your office to be a place of support, comfort, and knowledge? Think about adding mental health resources to the outside of your office door. This is a great way to share resources without vulnerable students having to reach out. You might also consider the verbiage used on signs in your room and even the lighting in the office space.

Pro Tip: Think about the décor in your office. Find an authentic space in the room to have inspirational materials, photos, and tools for students to see as they enter. Also, be sure to have school, campus, and community tools to share with students.

9. Are your office and the resources in your office accessible to students who are hard of hearing?

We live in a society that assumes everyone is able to hear everything. Our restaurants are full of chatter and background music. Even offices have radios playing in the background. In our office spaces, we need to be mindful of how people hear. We need to think about what sounds are present and what sounds could be amplified.

Pro Tip: Be sure to turn down or turn off music when a student comes in to speak with you. Be mindful of students if they say they are unable to hear you or need you to repeat. Think about the speed and loudness of your voice in your office. Be sure that all electronic materials shared in class in your office have closed captioning. You might even provide students with the ability to record your meeting on their phone or SmartPen.

In sum, there are only a handful of considerations that we need to make when we are reflecting on and creating our office spaces. In order to best support our students, we need to make sure that they are able to fully access our support. We need to be mindful of our language, space, and all other items that might create unforeseen barriers.

I would argue that as faculty and staff members, our office is not our own. Though our office might hold our books and lunch, it is truly a space for students. As we engage with the space, decorate the space, and maintain the space, we must think about the intended audience. Our work is to support our students, and our offices are a space to complete that work. Therefore, our office is for our students.

We must find ways to create more inclusive and accessible spaces to increase mentoring, advising, and students support. The best place to start is your office.

If you have more ideas on how to make our offices more welcoming and accessible to our culturally and linguistically diverse students, please share in the comments, below!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/9-ways-to-create-accessible-educator-office-spaces/

🌹Monday’s Quote! 🌹

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Here is your quote for today!

from Fun To Teach – Grammar, Language, Math, ESL/ELD, Spanish, Reading, Writing, Centers and more! https://esleld.blogspot.com/2020/01/mondays-quote_27.html

Reasons for Becoming a TESOL Ambassador

TESOL’s Convention motto, “Where the World Comes Together,” has tremendously affected the presentation I’m giving in Denver. It is a 30-minute practice/pedagogy-oriented session, “Building Transnational Classrooms: From a Testimony to Classroom Practices,” where I invited my former students to present with me.

Ethan Trinh, Doctoral Student

This presentation explores a testimony of a transnational adult English language learner and how he overcame his class struggles as he migrated to the United States. In addition, I invited a Vietnamese teacher who teaches ESL students in Vietnam to join the symposium.

We will come together to discuss the concept of living between two worlds and raise questions of how to open dialogues with students about multicultural identities in an ESOL classroom. Through this presentation, I want to

  1. highlight the beauty of the storytelling, the powerful message of community, and the strong, critical, meaningful collaboration between the teacher and students in classrooms; and
  2. emphasize the importance of an ESOL teacher in the classroom who understands, values, and incorporates students’ funds of knowledge when designing a curriculum.

The conference theme is perfect for my students, in particular, and for ESOL students, in general, to tell their stories to the world. I want to use this session to remind all of us, ESOL teachers and practitioners, about this beautiful aspect and then exchange ideas with the participants, including teachers, educators, researchers, policy makers, stakeholders, and those who are interested in critical storytelling. I want to tell the world that my ESL community is beautiful, critical, thriving, and welcoming to all identities and ethnicities in the world. Most importantly, I want to honor individual voices inside of my community to create a global community after the conference.

Participation in this international conference allows me to build a professional bridge with different strands in order to enhance my research and teaching interests working with ESOL students and teachers of color upon returning home. I’m interested in looking at how ESOL teachers of color who identify themselves as LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) use critical writing instruction in the classroom to create a critical inclusive curriculum. I want to understand the barriers of these teachers so that I can design a research study that can give back to the community of color.

As an online mediator of TESOL’s International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Friends (ILGBTQF) Professional Learning Network (PLN) and as a 2019–2020 Social Responsibility Interest Section newsletter coeditor, I want to expand glocal conversations with other educators, researchers, and policy makers at this conference to further explore my research interests. I want to build a bridge between theory, research, and praxis in ESOL classrooms. The complexity of issues surrounding identities, including but not limited to gender spectrum, learning and cultural experiences, and lived experiences of marginality needs to be examined, studied, and promoted to enhance the inclusiveness in the ESOL classrooms, regardless of borders, linguistics, cultures, religions, or gender orientations.

Author Bio
Ethan Trinh (pronouns: he/they) is a doctoral student at Georgia State University, USA. He is inspired to do research about queers of color, ESOL, critical writing instruction through the lens of Chicana feminism. Ethan is a coeditor of the Social Responsibility Interest Section newsletter for TESOL International Association and membership co-chair of American Education Research Association Queer Studies SIG. Cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese iced coffee with milk) is their favorite.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/reasons-for-becoming-a-tesol-ambassador/

The Best 2019 Resources for Teachers of ELs

Happy New Year! In this blog, I’d like to share blogs and articles that mention resources and practices for teachers of English learners (ELs) as well as suggestions from EL educators on what we can do to improve the instruction of ELs in 2020. I’ll start with some of the most popular resources I myself have shared in the past year, and then provide resources from other excellent individuals and organizations.

My 5 Most Popular TESOL Blogs From 2019

I’d first like to share with you my five most popular blogs for 2019.

  1. 10 Scaffolds to Support EL Learning -Part 1
    My goal with this two-part blog is to talk about ways that teachers of ELs can support the reading, writing, or oral comprehension of elementary level ELs. You can read Part 2 here.
  2. 11 Back-to-School Strategies for Teachers of ELs 
    Think of the newly arrived ELs in our classrooms who must learn to speak, read, and write in English, but also must become acclimated to a new culture and learning environment. In August, I went back over the list of blogs that I had written for TESOL to find 11 back-to-school strategies for teachers of ELs.
  3. Overly Cluttered Classrooms and EL Learning  Research
    This post shows that an overly cluttered classroom can be more of a distraction than an aid to learning. It’s my opinion that children, particularly those are learning a new language, are easily distracted by a cluttered classroom.
  4. Do Children Learn English More Easily Than Adults?
    This post is based on my experiences in the classroom and research that I have read. I think the idea that children learn English more easily than teenagers and adults depends on whether you’re talking Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICs) or Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
  5. Should ELs Be Able to Speak Their L1 in School?
    According to Fred Genesee, home language is an ELs’ most valuable resource, and there is indisputable evidence that the L1, or home language, of ELs is of considerable benefit to their academic success.

Top 2019 Resources From Other Education Sources

New Resources from Colorín Colorado: Best of 2019
This resource guide includes information on supporting ELs and their families who have been impacted by immigration raids. I’d like to give kudos to Colorín Colorado for the outstanding articles they have published on supporting ELs during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and natural disasters. This information is invaluable for families of ELs and their teachers.

Larry Ferlazzo’s The Best Resources, Articles and Blog Posts for Teachers of ELLs in 2019
This is a list of Larry’s favorite resources and blog posts from 2019. His list is very broad, with ideas ranging from “Dos and Don’ts of working with an aide in the classroom” to “My favorite tech tool for ELLs to practice speaking.”

Variety and Spice: Our Top 10 Posts of 2019
MiddleWeb lists the 10 most-read posts published on their website in 2019. The posts are geared toward the general education school population and are all written by classroom teachers. Of the 10 posts, two are by teachers of ELs: Valentina Gonzalez and Tan Huynh.

On Bilingualism, Bias, and Immigration: Our Top English-Learner Stories of 2019
This blog was published by Education Week and contains their top EL stories of 2019. It  explores why there is an increase in the number of U.S. schools that are embracing bilingualism and explains how the current administration’s immigration policies affect educators and their students.

Blogs and Articles Looking Ahead to 2020

To see what is happening in 2020, I’ve included some blogs with suggestions for teachers on working with ELs in 2020.

2020 | A CLEAR Vision for Equitable Instruction: 20 Moves to Make This School Year The Best One YET!
This blog is a two-part post by Valentina Gonzalez. She has listed 20 Ways that Teachers Can Provide Equitable Instruction in 2020. 
The second part is here.

Five Things Teachers Can do to improve Learning for ELLs in the New Year
This article by  Kristina Robertson on the Colorin Colorado website. This article is meant to be shared with general education grade level and content area teachers. The 5 strategies named have all been featured on the Colorin Colorado website.

These Authors Don’t Like Immigration Stories They’re Hearing From Washington. So They’re Writing Their Own.
This is a group of  of books about new arrivals and new Americans. According to the article, from 2000-2006 there were not many children’s books published about immigration In 2016, there were a dozen books and by 2018 there were more than 100. New authors are writing children’s books about their own immigration experiences to counter the information that comes out of Washington.

Do you have any go-to resources from 2019, or ideas for improving English language teaching in 2020? Please share in the comments, below!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/the-best-2019-resources-for-teachers-of-els/

Sale at Fun To Teach!

Hello and Happy January,

Fun To Teach is having a sale on January 20 through the 23rd!
If you teach English learners, I have a great bundle for you! 

Intermediate English Language Learner Bundle!


Click here to save $$

This engaging intermediate K-5 English language level bundle is packed with essential EFL, ESL and ELD activities for your English Language Learners (ELLs). 

The 26 resources in this K-5 bundle will take you through the school year assured that you are teaching the essential foundation of English grammar and vocabulary to your intermediate second language learners. 
✅To make things even better it will be on sale January 20th through 23rd along with all the resources in my TPT store.  You can save another 20% during this sale! 

Click here to go to the sale  $$

 Mark your calendar and get ready to save!  Happy January! 
Warm regards,

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Lori 

from Fun To Teach – Grammar, Language, Math, ESL/ELD, Spanish, Reading, Writing, Centers and more! https://esleld.blogspot.com/2020/01/sale-at-fun-to-teach.html

Developing Reflective Writing With L2 Learners

As we enter a new year, many people look back over the previous year and set goals for the coming one. This process is called reflection and is a deeply human trait—but how we express our thoughts may be different across cultures, and our students may not be familiar with the ways we as teachers expect them to write about their personal perspectives.

What Is Reflection?

Commonly defined as the process of thinking carefully about ideas, reflection has also received considerable attention in the education literature. Nearly a century ago, Dewey (1933) defined reflection as “an active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that supports it and the conclusion to which it tends” (p. 9). Reflection on one’s own writing is an important step in the development of autonomy and self-editing processes (Hyland, 2019). When writers learn to think about their texts from a reader’s perspective, they can revise and edit without depending on teachers for feedback.

In a previous post, I noted the importance of reflection in the portfolio process, where students need to think about why they’ve selected each piece and what that piece shows about their growth as writers.Reflection is also tied to the development of critical consciousness, or the ability of people to recognize and act on forms of oppression in their lives and societies—a concept developed by Freire (1974/2005). The reflection in critical consciousness pushes us beyond merely thinking about our own lives to seeing how our experiences connect to larger social issues and what we can do to effect change in the world.

What these all have in common is an awareness that in order to reflect, we need to take a step back from our daily activities and consider how what we do and what we think connects to the bigger picture of our lives and society.

Why Teach Reflection in a Writing Class?

Everyone reflects, but not everyone knows how to verbalize that reflection. Learners may never have been asked to explain their thinking to anyone else, particularly in a second language (L2). Students may need an introduction to both processes of reflection and the language for expressing their reflections.

We don’t always reflect on what we do, either, so consciously focusing on our actions and decisions can develop problem solving and writing skills (Avarzamani et al., 2019). Reflection can support critical thinking, helping students see connections among ideas and present suitable arguments for a given context and audience.

Learning to reflect can also help with language development. Dzekoe (2017) connects reflection on one’s writing to noticing (Schmidt, 1990), the concept in second language acquisition of becoming aware of a gap between a particular linguistic structure and what one is currently able to do with language. The majority of students in Dzekoe’s (2017) study found that working in multiple modes (including representing their ideas visually in a promotional poster and using a text-to-speech tool to hear their written work read aloud) while writing helped them notice not only linguistic but also rhetorical problems that they were then able to address in revisions.

How Can We Teach Students to Write Reflectively?

Quick Writes and Exit Tickets

Build reflective habits with frequent in-class writing activities. Many teachers incorporate a daily “exit ticket” in which students think back over the day’s lesson and quickly write answers to the following questions (or something similar):

  • What is one new thing that you learned today?
  • What is something you don’t understand from today’s lesson?
  • What do you want to learn tomorrow?

With regular quickwrites that ask students to think about the day’s lesson and connect to their own goals for learning, students can develop an awareness of what they are doing and how they might approach their writing in the future. The Auburn University Office of University Writing (2019) points out that starting with prompts that access what students already know and keeping the stakes low (or ungraded) can help writers develop their reflective abilities toward more complex reflection activities. They also argue for the benefit of teacher feedback on students’ reflective writing as an essential element of pushing students toward more complex thinking.

Reflective Prompts

Ayres (2015) provides an extensive set of reflective prompts that can be incorporated into a writing class to support students’ development of reflection on both their past experiences and their future/plans. Many of these topics are useful for supporting learners who claim they don’t know how to reflect or don’t have the language to do so.

For example, one task directs writers to make lists of words or phrases that make them happy or angry and then to put the words in order from most to least important. This task could easily be done by learners with limited language proficiency, particularly if they had access to a dictionary. The process of making the list and putting it in order is reflection.

Another activity directs learners to think about themselves from the perspective of another person, thinking about what observations that person might make about them and what questions that person might have for them. Putting themselves in another person’s shoes can help learners start to take a step back from their immediate experiences and see how others might perceive their actions.

Reflection on Writing and Language

In a writing class, learners also benefit from reflection about writing and language. In Dzekoe’s (2017) study, for example, students first wrote a text in a traditional word processor, then created a visual poster to represent the main ideas of their text. At that point, they wrote reflections on how the process of creating the poster helped them see what the main points were of their written texts. After revising the texts, they then listened to what they had written using a text-to-speech app that allowed them to notice grammatical errors and other problems with the language of their texts. The majority of students found that this process helped them improve their texts and better understand the writing process.

The language of reflection, however, can be a potential limitation in its incorporation in a second language writing program. Avarzamani et al. (2019) found that both teachers and students in Iran attributed their limited reflective writing in English to their overall lack of language proficiency, which prevented them from fully expressing their perspectives. Though it is certainly important to help learners (and teachers) develop their abilities to write reflectively in English, I would suggest that we also support translanguaging and multimodal reflection so that students do not have to wait until they have sufficient English to explain what they are thinking. Learners can use all the resources they have to express their views, writing in multiple languages and incorporating visual and auditory elements as well.

What have you done to support your students’ reflective writing? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

References

Auburn University Office of University Writing. (2019). Reflective writing. http://wp.auburn.edu/writing/writebites/teaching-writing-library/reflective-writing/

Avarzamani, F., Farahian, M., & Qian, M. (2019). An investigation into EFL learners’ reflection in writing and the inhibitors to their reflection. Cogent Psychology, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2019.1690817

Ayres, D. (2015) Reflective writing exercises. Learning & Teaching. http://danieljayres.blogspot.com/p/reflective-writing-exercises.html

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Houghton Mifflin.

Dzekoe, R. (2017). Computer-based multimodal composing activities, self-revision, and L2 acquisition through writing. Language Learning & Technology, 21(2), 73–95.

Freire, P. (1974/2005). Education for critical consciousness (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.). Continuum.

Hyland, K. (2019). Second language writing (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Schmidt, R. W. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129–158.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/developing-reflective-writing-with-l2-learners/

Increasing Immersion: VR Becomes Classroom Ready

Virtual reality (VR) has been at the cutting edge of entertainment and education for more than thirty years. The technology has promised to revolutionize training and education by placing users in computer-generated environments where they can move around, interact with the environment, and feel as if they are really there. The exceptional cost of the technology however, has meant VR has only been used in highly specialized educational contexts, such as military and industrial training.

This cost limitation finally began to break in the early 2010s as mobile phone advances pushed much needed VR technology to become smaller, lighter, and more cost effective. Smaller motion sensors and cheaper mobile phone LCD screens prompted new investment and invention in the area of VR, and it has experienced something of a renaissance over the last decade.

VR fosters immersion by captivating the users’ senses. Small LCD screens cover each eye, so the user does not see the real world. Headphones provide an auditory experience which can be designed to mimic the environment—echoes for large spaces or sounds programmed to originate from exact locations in the environment. Controllers allow the user to interact with the environment, such as by picking up objects or moving through the virtual space.


Google Tilt Brush allows users to paint in a virtual 3D space.
(Google YouTube Channel)

In the world of VR, there are notable hardware options to choose from, depending on budget and classroom context. Generally, three variants of VR hardware exist: connected devices, standalone devices, and phone-based devices.

Connected Devices: High Cost but High Performance

The HTC Vive a high performance VR headset (cc-by-2.0)

The new wave of modern VR headsets began in 2016 when both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive became commercially available. These headsets provide the highest level of immersive experience through a cabled connection to a computer capable of high-end graphics. Their capabilities come with a high cost, with the headsets priced around US$600, and require a computer with robust graphics capabilities, which typically start at around US$1,200, making these headsets a solid choice for specialized use in a higher education setting.

Standalone Headsets: Lower Cost and Midrange Performance

The Oculus Quest requires no computer, but a WiFi connection is necessary (CC0 1.0)

Recently, the world of VR has experienced a new wave of standalone headsets. These have less computing power than their connected counterparts and do not require an expensive computer to run. Facebook-owned Oculus Quest and the HTC Vive Focus are at the forefront of the push for standalone VR. These headsets are priced around US$299, making them a more viable option for the classroom. These headsets also feature a wide assortment of educational-focused VR experiences, such as Mission: ISS or National Geographic Explore VR.

Phone-Based VR: Low-End Performance for Low-End Price

The Samsung Gear VR uses mobile tech for introductory VR (cc-by-2.0)

On the low end of the performance spectrum, VR options are still available and continue to see sharp improvements in graphics and interactivity. These phone-based headsets are largely limited to watching 360 degree videos and playing simple games with limited interactivity. Headsets such as the Samsung Gear VR and the Oculus Go are viable options for educators looking to bring VR experiences into larger classrooms.

If VR is something you would like to bring into your classroom, check out the links provided in this post and decide which hardware best fits your classroom context.

Finally, I wanted to remind everyone that TESOL’s Electronic Village Online has begun! Among the wide array of professional development opportunities being offered is the EVO Minecraft MOOC. If you are keen to learn more about games in the classroom and specifically how to use Minecraft, I encourage you to check it out.

Until next month, play more games!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/increasing-immersion-vr-becomes-classroom-ready/

Member Moment: Adeel Khalid

TESOL Member Moment celebrates our members’ achievements and contributions to the field of English language teaching.

Adeel Khalid with his class

Adeel Khalid
TESOL Global Member
Instructor, Forman Christian College (A Chartered University)
Lahore, Pakistan

Why are you a TESOL member?

TESOL membership provides me access to resources, events, webinars, courses, and connections in the field of ESL. TESOL courses are relevant and adequately cater to the needs of a language teacher. TESOL keeps me engaged to pursue my professional goals in this digital era where networking is key.

What has been your most significant achievement in or contribution to the TESOL field?

I have contributed to the field by creatively addressing students’ needs with pedagogically effective solutions to make them enabled, empowered, and informed learners. Working as a lecturer at Forman Christian College, I transform and touch lives of learners by instilling the spirit of “by love, serve one another.”

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/member-moment-adeel-khalid/

Project-Based Learning: Vision Boards for the New Year

“Write the vision, make it plain.” As an ESOL educator, I love being spontaneous in the classroom and finding numerous ways to engage my students in the language learning process. So when I had the opportunity, off the cuff, to encourage my collegiate Saudi students to create vision board projects in January, I could not but applaud their efforts when they managed to construct some wonderful vision boards, either digital or traditional, truly impressing me.

Typically, when I am teaching a specific lesson from the textbook, I try to incorporate an extraneous (in the sense that it’s not included in the curriculum or course book) activity that will supplement my students’ knowledge, awareness, and skills of both the thematic and linguistic content that I want them to master. This project idea emerged after having first touched on the topic of New Year’s resolutions—or goals, as I prefer to call them.

“Has anyone ever heard of a vision board or know what it is?” I asked my intermediate level students upon starting the semester in January 2019. There was silence and looks of bewilderment. I then proceeded to describe a vision board to them, and I capitalized on classroom technology by showing them online samples of vision boards. Here are some examples you can use:

Though celebrating New Year’s Day isn’t a formal holiday in Saudi Arabia, setting and articulating goals for ourselves is or can be a universal custom. As young men (I taught all male students) navigating the challenges of college life and imminent adulthood, I wanted my students to see the value of establishing a vision for their lives, be it for 1 year or 5 years.

During the instruction giving process, I asked them to be as creative as they wanted in constructing their vision boards, which they had a week to complete. When presentation day came, some students made PowerPoint presentations to showcase their 2019 goals while others presented handcrafted posters or notebook displays of their unique ideas. Some of the goals overlapped, which showed their common interests or desires (e.g., traveling, getting high marks, eating healthier).

Example student vision board.

This project was not a required assignment in the course syllabus, so when every student came prepared to “show and tell” their vision boards, I immediately knew that they responded well to the task. They volunteered to present them without me needing to coax them; I was a silent observer while they demonstrated agency in and over this unfamiliar assignment.

The students really thrilled me with the amount of thought and effort they put into an assignment that wasn’t exactly a part of the curriculum but was something that they enjoyed creating because it was a unique product of their imagination and innovation. My greatest hope would be for them to incorporate vision boards into their annual goal planning, a cross-disciplinary life skill that can lead to more successful living and being in the world.

Example student vision board.

Example student vision board.

Other lessons that might connect to implementing a vision board project might include lessons encouraging students to develop themselves personally and professionally; for example, in a business English class, students that are entrepreneurs could create vision boards tailored to their specific industry or company. These individuals would write and choose visuals representing the direction they want their businesses/industries to take in the coming year(s).

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a fun and inventive way to help your students plan for the future by visualizing their dreams in concrete form, then consider implementing a vision board project either during class time or for homework. Students will feel empowered to take charge of their lives when they have a visible representation of those goals in front of them, and all the more so when they publicly verbalize them to their peers in a trusted and safe learning milieu. Here’s one final thought to share with your students: “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Happy New Year 2020!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/project-based-learning-vision-boards-for-the-new-year/