Member Moment: Ethan Trinh

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

Ethan Trinh
TESOL New Professional Member
Ph.D. student at Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Why are you a TESOL member?
Being a TESOL member in Vietnam and the United States is a privilege for me. I have never imagined that I could have learned and grown so much since I started involving myself with service, research, and writing with/for/by/about TESOL members. I am interested in expanding global conversations with teachers, students, and educators regarding the issues of race and gender in TESOL. While serving in TESOL, I have learned that I need to unlearn fixed knowledges from the textbooks so that I am able to continue this work, aimed toward decolonizing and queering mindsets in my teaching, research, and service. In addition, I found joy in serving TESOL because I have learned so much from great scholars that I only read in peer-reviewed journals. The scholars in the TESOL field are so welcoming, supportive, and critical, which motivates and pushes me to think beyond my deficit lens.

I appreciate TESOL for creating a global platform for me to continue learning, growing, and rethinking my research and teaching trajectory. I can continue to serve marginalized populations from this platform, especially the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, among other sexualities) community, moving forward. Further, I particularly love the community of practice in TESOL where each member has taught me to think differently, especially a special thanks to Dr. Gertrude Tinker Sachs, Dr. Luis Javier Pentón Herrera, friends in TESOL’s Social Responsibility Interest Section (SRIS), TESOL’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Trans (LGBT) Professional Learning Network (PLN), and GATESOL. That is the beauty of the community of practice in TESOL, for which I am eternally grateful.

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

During my service at TESOL, one of the most important contributions was to cocreate a critical, accepting, and equitable space for all voices and identities to be heard, seen, and visible. As a 2020 TESOL Convention ambassador, I was able to connect with different scholars to engage in online discussion, despite the global pandemic. As an SRIS co-chair and an LGBT PLN chair, wonderful colleagues and I were able to cobuild a dialogic space across disciplines and interest sections and PLNs in TESOL.

For example, we had two panels presenting the topics of identities, gender, and sexuality at the 2021 TESOL Convention. As an invited speaker, I have used the power of public speaking to connect and empower a community of scholars locally and internationally (e.g., Harvard University, Georgia State University, Podcast with Brill/Sense). Recently, I am honored to continue to share my work with queer students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) in the 2021 TESOL ELevate event so that we all can support this overlooked population. I am excited, humbled, and willing to be part of the historical moment to work with TESOL to build a better world for all.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/member-moment-ethan-trinh/

The Personal and the Professional: 4 Steps to a Life Audit

 Link to podcast of this blog.

What do you think of when you hear the expression “to perform an audit”? The Merriam-Webster dictionary’s first definition is what usually comes to mind: “a formal examination of an organization’s or individual’s accounts or financial situation.” However, in this blog I use the term not to consider our financial well-being, but rather the state of our personal and professional lives. Merriam-Webster’s second definition describes an audit as “a methodical examination and review,” and that is the sort of inventory from which we can all periodically benefit.

In your “life audit,” set aside some time to consider where you want to go in your personal and professional development. Honor both your personal and professional identities by reviewing what matters most to you, what you currently spend time on, and what you wish to change or enhance in both the personal and professional spheres. You might even ask yourself (whatever your age!), the classic question: “What do I want to be when I grow up?” or “Who do I want to be when I grow up?” Here are four steps to get you started.

“reflected” by d26b73 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Step 1. Identify Which Categories of Your Life You Wish to Audit

In her inspirational blog, Fabrega points to numerous aspects of our lives that we might wish to focus on, from how we spend our time to our education level to our physical fitness to our relationships with friends. These categories can help you decide where you want to focus and to see how interconnected they are across the personal and professional realms. You could even draw a visual to connect aspects of your life that matter most to you that give you satisfaction in both the personal and professional spheres.

Step 2. Decide How You Will Audit These Categories

To have a “methodical examination,” you need a method! Will it be a satisfaction rating scale? Amount of time spent on each area? Crafting questions you will ask yourself? Find an approach that interests you and that can be done systematically, perhaps creating a chart or using a premade template to organize your categories and your ratings.

Step 3. Step Back and Review Your Data

Yes, that’s right, data! Without judging yourself, try to simply see what your audit is telling you. Perhaps you have low ratings on the amount of time you spend on your own professional learning—and it’s something you really want to change. Or, you notice you are spending regular amounts of time on cooking and that is something you don’t want to change.

Step 4. Plan for Just One Month

This image by Laura Baecher is licensed under CC by 4.0 | Created in CANVA

Don’t try to change everything at once—instead, take an area that has revealed itself to be important and in need of more attention and time in the weeks to come. Decide on a concrete goal, set aside time in your calendar, and find the support you need to begin to work toward either a personal or a professional ambition. You can even look at your calendar entries from the prior month to assess where you are spending your time, and then use an approach called “time-blocking” to intentionally create time for goals in different ways in your month to come.

One of my favorite quotes, from a favorite author (Parker J. Palmer), is a simple truth: “We teach who we are.” As educators, we bring who we are to all of our work, and in turn, our personal lives are also shaped by our professional commitments and passions. Put simply, we cannot separate personal development from professional development, nor should we. The idea of keeping our personal lives and professional lives completely separate is not realistic nor always desirable, especially as educators who bring our social, emotional, and psychic energies to all of our workplace interactions (Malm, 2009). Considering both our personal and professional dimensions is essential for a holistic self-appraisal.

In the comments, please share an approach you take to “auditing” your personal and professional growth!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/the-personal-and-the-professional-4-steps-to-a-life-audit/

Win $100. Amazon Gift Card! It is easy to win!

Hello everyone and happy summer!

Out of school and so very happy about that!  
To celebrate summer here is a chance to win an Amazon Gift Card! Yahoo!

Okay ready to win?  Here is what you do:

Click here to go to Fun To Teach’s Teachers pay Teachers store by clicking here.
Once you are at the store:

1. Follow Fun To Teach TpT Store

1. To earn one entry, click the FOLLOW ME button.  If you are already following this TpT Store, write the number of followers this TpT Store has in the box. 

1. Complete the Rafflecopter Contest Application at the bottom of this post to enter to win a $100 Amazon Gift Card! 

Click on the link, a Rafflecopter giveaway
 to earn the raffle ticket entries.  (You may have to wait a minute for it to appear on your computer.)  The $100 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway will end at 12:00 A.M. on July 23, 2021 Pacific Time.

The winner will be announced at our blog, The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs – http://www.thebestofteacherentrepreneurs.net.
Oh by the way did I mention I am having a sale? 🙂
Happy Teaching!
Lori 
xoxo

from Fun To Teach – Grammar, Language, Math, ESL/ELD, Spanish, Reading, Writing, Centers and more! https://esleld.blogspot.com/2021/06/win-100-amazon-gift-card-it-is-easy-to.html

4 Steps to Becoming a Culturally Sustaining Teacher

In this unprecedented time of a global pandemic and increased tensions that have arisen as a result of racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences between groups in diverse societies around the world, education has been upended for millions of students and families. These events have compounded disparities in learning and achievement, and have been particularly challenging for students who are minoritized because of their race, ethnicity, language, religion, or socioeconomic status.

While an educator cannot singlehandedly transform schools into equitable places, they can be agents of positive change. By adopting culturally sustaining approaches, teachers can

• make students feel valued,
• help them to affirm positive identities by sustaining cultural practices,
• connect learning to students’ backgrounds and funds of knowledge,
• call attention to inequities that exist within schools and societies,
• and bolster opportunities for all students.

Why Is a Culturally Sustaining Approach Necessary?

When a child experiences a disconnect between the language and culture of the home environment and that of their school, they may feel alienated and consequently disengage from learning. This is particularly the case when deficit approaches to schooling are adopted.

Classrooms today are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of the cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds of the students. This makes it more necessary to foster inclusive practices that will validate the values, knowledge, and practices of all our students. A culturally sustaining approach to teaching views knowledge as being multifaceted by acknowledging multiple perspectives and incorporating various ways of knowing. It is a pedagogy that recognises the importance of including students’ cultural values, practices, and knowledge in all aspects of learning, and regards their cultures, languages, and ways of being as assets to be promoted and sustained.

What Can You Do?

So, what can we do to adopt more culturally sustaining pedagogical practices? I would like to suggest four steps we can take to get started on our journey toward cultural responsiveness.

1. Reflect on Our Own Cultural Lens

The first step in adopting culturally sustaining practices is to do an internal audit of our own life experiences and identities that influence our beliefs, behaviour, and biases. Biases and prejudices can be unwillingly internalised. So, it is important to take some time to ask ourselves hard questions and reflect on past and current practices.

• Are there assumptions you may hold about people from other cultures?
• Do you make an effort to learn about other cultures and their practices?
• Do you see cultural difference as a problem for teaching and learning to be solved, or do you approach it as a valuable resource for your teaching and the learning of the whole class?

To dismantle stereotypes, an open mind and a willingness to view cultural differences as a learning opportunity rather than to pass judgment are crucial. Through regular critical reflection, we can develop cultural competence to understand, appreciate, and be sensitive toward the histories, values, experiences, and practices of others.

2. Get to Know and Involve Learners’ Families and Communities

We cannot create a culturally sustaining classroom if we do not take the time to get to know our students and their families. At the start of the academic year, it may be helpful to meet with students one-on-one and find out about them, their families, their cultural practices, the languages used at home, and their preferred ways of learning and communicating. Alternatively, students could be asked to write about themselves and their families. It may also be possible to ask parents to fill out a questionnaire about their children, and also about their background. Another way to initiate this may be to arrange a meeting with the family at a mutually convenient time and location.

Engaging with the family early on in the academic year will help to establish good relationships with them, and pave the way to involve them in the school lives of students. Clear communication in culturally and linguistically appropriate ways is necessary to reach out to and build a partnership with families. When parents understand what their child needs to do to succeed in their learning and how to support them, there is likely to be a positive impact on student achievement.

3. Incorporate Learners’ Funds of Knowledge

Research has shown that students are more engaged in learning and learn more effectively when the knowledge and skills taught are presented within the context of their own experiences and cultural frames of reference. Funds of knowledge refer to the knowledge and skills that are acquired during everyday familial experiences that are historically and culturally unique. Funds of knowledge are an essential aspect of identity and, when used as a resource in our teaching, can help to establish stronger connections to students’ prior knowledge.

Students will be more excited and energised to participate in classroom discourse if they see their traditions and values embedded in the lessons. Cultural scaffolding provides links between new academic concepts and learners’ funds of knowledge. It also helps students value their own and others’ cultures and show respect to differences in society. We can invite student input into our teaching and complement our existing curriculum with examples, stories, experiences, and traditions from cultures represented in our classrooms.

4. Model High Expectations

All students, given equitable access to curriculum and resources, can achieve high levels of learning and success. As teachers who adopt culturally sustaining pedagogical practices, we need to understand that students marginalised because of their race, culture, language, or socioeconomic status are vulnerable to negative stereotypes about their intelligence, academic ability, and behaviour.

By modelling high expectations for all students, we can combat deficit approaches and work toward restoring justice and equity. High expectation can be conveyed to students through encouragement and by providing them with opportunities to contribute in class. Tailoring our feedback to be specific, consistent, and individualised also helps learners to achieve their potential.

Making any kind of change is a slow and challenging process. But these four steps can help to make our classrooms spaces in which students of all cultures and backgrounds feel supported to learn and succeed. By embracing culturally sustaining approaches to teaching and ensuring that our classrooms are spaces of inclusivity where everyone feels safe, valued, and heard, we can help students to feel a sense of belonging in school.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/4-steps-to-becoming-a-culturally-sustaining-teacher/

4 Fast and Fun Forms of Feedback

Teachers across the globe know the research: Timely and specific feedback is one of the best ways to ensure understanding, improvement, and retention of skills. Still, we all struggle with making the time for feedback, and it can be tempting to plop in a score for an assignment or make selections on a scale in a rubric and assume that students will take the score, consider the implications and reasoning, and make improvements the next time around.

The reality is not so ideal. Typically, students will look at the score, shrug, and try again the next time. Without clear feedback, students don’t have a focal point to dig into or specific objectives they can work on fixing the next time around. But tech is making it easier and easier for us to get back to the true joy of teaching when we see those “ah-ha” moments. Let’s look at a few ways to give some fast feedback that’s fun for us and fruitful for our students.

1. mote

mote is an outstanding tool that blew me away the first time I saw it, and if you’re using any kind of Google tool (Docs, Slides, etc.), it’s a no-brainer. Once it’s installed in your Chrome browser, you simply click on the “Add comment” feature in your document and you’ll see a little purple M show up in your comment field. One click turns on the microphone, and you can speak your comment, and one more click turns it off.

As soon as you post your comment, you’ll see mote start work on loading a little recording of your comment right into the document. And not only that, if you upgrade to the premium version, it will also transcribe your words, so students can listen to and/or read what you said. I love motes because students can hear my tone and better understand what I’m getting at than they could with the sometimes impersonal written word.

Mote in action on a Google Doc

Pricing for mote: Free to US$39/year.

2. e-Comments

Continuing with quick feedback in documents, e-Comments is a great tool that lets you select from a large library of predefined comments or customize your own library based on your own teaching and areas of focus. You can also leave links right in the comments, so if you know of a good YouTube video that helps students learn the difference between possessives and plurals, you can share it right there!

Once you get more advanced, e-Comments also allows you to add in voice notes (similar to mote, above), video comments, and even screen recordings. After you’ve made these recordings, you can choose to leave the feedback only for the one student, or add them into your library to pull from in the future.

A small sample of e-Comments’ extensive library

Pricing for e-Comments: $20 for a single license

3. Emoji

Though not every teacher is comfortable with using emojis in their daily life, they’re a great way to leave meaningful feedback that students can understand and connect with. A few years ago, after I pushed past my own reluctance to use emojis, I found that it opened up a world of quick and accessible feedback.

Regardless of whether you’re using a learning management system, social media, word processors, or text messaging with your students, if it’s digital, you can pretty much use an emoji. If you develop a system of feedback loops with your students, it’s easy to set up the expectation that when you leave an emoji, the student’s job is to respond to you, telling you what they think it means and why. This puts the “heavy lifting” back on the students to show an understanding of their work and your response to it. Additionally, this leaves a lot more room for positive reinforcement. Many teachers fall in the trap of only “correcting errors,” which gives students the sense that they’re doing everything wrong. Since adopting emojis as feedback, my most common feedback choice has become the “thumbs up” .

Using an Emoji to leave feedback in Keynote

Pricing for Emoji: Free!

4. Quizzes

Sample of how a quiz might show up on a student’s device. This sample is from Quizizz.

Quizzing platforms have built up their own little cottage industry over the last several years, and there are many excellent choices to look over. Most teachers are familiar with Kahoot at this point, but it’s worth checking out some of the other popular choices, like Quizlet, Quizizz, and Gimkit.

Using quizzing platforms is a powerful way to get a sense of the whole class’s strengths and weaknesses all at once, and because most have a “teacher paced” mode, you can create a low-stakes warm-up activity with ease. Simply run the quiz of your choice with the class and look at their collective answers. If the majority of the students got the answer right, you can move on. If there’s an imbalance, pause to give the whole class some quick feedback on why they might be getting that question wrong. After you’re done, it’s a quick one or two clicks to see if any individual students are outliers who may need additional support after class.

Pricing for Quizzes: Varies by platform; free to premium pricing.

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Giving feedback doesn’t have to be a drag. Looking at the tools in this post as examples, we can see how tech can support quick and fun interactions between students and teachers, all while helping students build their language skills and improve their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses.

Have you used any of the ideas above? I’d love to hear how you’re implementing fast and fun feedback in your classroom. Share your thoughts below and we can build our tech toolboxes together!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/4-fast-and-fun-forms-of-feedback/

7 Tips for Doing Read-Alouds the Right Way

Early in my career, when I taught a self-contained class of fourth- and fifth-grade newcomers, I definitely did read-alouds the wrong way. I knew research showed the benefits of reading aloud to students, especially English learners. I knew reading aloud to students models fluency, builds background knowledge, and increases students’ vocabularies. I also knew reading aloud to students can pique their interest in specific books as well as reading in general.

What I didn’t realize, however, was a classroom practice this beneficial needed to be done purposefully. Far too often, I’d just grab a picture book from a stack of possibilities on my desk—sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit, without even reading it first myself. That’s right—no planning, no follow-up. Not good! I put read-aloud time IN my lesson plans, but I didn’t plan FOR it. You can increase the effectiveness of your read-alouds by planning them carefully and integrating them into the curriculum. Here are some tips I’ve learned for doing read alouds the right way:

1. Use Visuals

Turkish-English bilingual read-aloud

With picture books, make sure you hold the book so students can see the pictures as you’re reading. With longer books, you can project the page onto a screen in your classroom. Reading the text and then showing pictures doesn’t count. To be fair, this happens more often with inexperienced guest readers, such as a visiting dignitary or a parent volunteer. Teachers who do effective read-alouds have mastered how to read while holding the book so everybody sees the pages. This photo shows my husband and me as guest readers doing a Turkish-English bilingual read-aloud to a first grade class. It wasn’t perfect, but at least we were making sure everybody could see.

2. Dig Deeper

Read the same picture book several times, but for different purposes: “Yesterday, we talked about how the child felt; today as I read the story, try to think about how the child’s mother felt,” or “Yesterday in this biography, you heard about all of the difficulties the inventor faced. Today as I read it again, think about these difficulties. Which one do you think was the hardest for the inventor to overcome and why?”

3. Extend Your Read-Aloud Session

For example, read several books in the same genre, by the same author, or on the same theme. Then have students compare and contrast or pick their favorite and explain why.

4. Practice Other Domains

Use your read-aloud time to help students get practice in other domains. After students have listened to a picture book, show the pictures again and have individual students retell the story, page by page. When reading a longer book to older students, have them orally retell the events from the previous chapter as a group or, even better, to each other in pairs. After listening to the day’s story, have students respond to a short writing prompt.

5. Read Aloud to Older Students, Too

It’s not just for young children! You can read aloud a short passage from a longer book or even a picture book to set the stage for a lesson taught to older students. It’s a way to build a shared base of knowledge. Picture books are especially good to use with English learners of all ages because of the visuals. Picture books speak to everyone, but in different ways.

The Giving Tree, for example, is an easy picture book that produces quite different responses from students at different stages in their lives. In this article for general education teachers, I describe how one of my general education colleagues uses picture books with older students to prepare them for their science and social studies lessons. You can do this, too.

6. Remember: Reading Aloud at Home Is Also Important

This topic merits a blog post of its own. For now, though, keep reminding parents of your English learners that reading aloud to their children in their native language and/or English is valuable.

7. Be a Read-Aloud Promoter

Assure your general education colleagues they’re not “giving up” instructional time with read-alouds. Read-aloud time IS instructional time, when it’s well planned and integrated into the lesson. Before, I viewed read-alouds as ways teachers could use up unplanned class time when everything else important had been done. Now I know reading aloud to students is important in its own right. You do, too!

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Do you have any other read-aloud tips that have worked well with your English learners? Please share in the comments, below!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/7-tips-for-doing-read-alouds-the-right-way/

Let’s Celebrate the Resilience of ELs During the Pandemic!

Much has been written over the past year about the “learning loss” that many U.S. students are experiencing. The COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected education around the world when face-to-face teaching in schools was suspended. I have noticed how often the term learning loss is mentioned in discussions that I read from experts around the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) analyzed a study from the Netherlands that showed learning losses are up to 60% larger among students from less-educated homes, confirming worries about the uneven toll of the pandemic on children and families.

From my experience in speaking to teachers around the United States and reading frequently about the topic, it is evident to me that educators are really worried about English learners’ (ELs’) learning loss during the pandemic.

Let’s Look at the Challenges That ELs Faced During the Pandemic

English learners have faced a huge number of barriers during the pandemic: food insecurity, fears about losing housing, lack of access to internet and devices, and job loss to name a few—all of which has been well documented.

1. The JAMA Pediatric Journal (April 5, 2021) reports between 37,000 and 43,000 children in the United States have lost at least one parent due to COVID-19. This is a 20% increase in parental loss over a typical year. In addition, many children have lost other close family members, such as aunts, uncles, and grandparents. It follows that if ELs are 12% of the population, they would also suffer at least a 20% increase in the number of losses.
2. Sudden death of a parent or other close family member from COVID-19 can be especially traumatizing for ELs. The loss of loved ones from COVID-19 took place when families were socially isolated. This is especially true of EL families because many immigrant families do not have the backing of an extended family group. Bereaved ELs are often without the supports they need, and children who lost a parent are at an elevated danger of extended trauma, including depression and poor academic performance in school. These consequences can be long term.
3. The learning loss estimated by educators all over the United States is enormous. Another report from the PNAS shows that learning loss due to school closures is severe. The report states that:

children of very low-educated parents (i.e., none of the parents have more than lower-secondary education; in total, 8% of the families) suffer more from school closure than children from more-educated backgrounds.

According to Grantmakers in Education and reported by Latino Literacy, 60% of families of ELs have an income below 185% of the federal poverty line.

Our Kids Are Not Broken

Ron Berger, who wrote an article for the Atlantic, “Our Kids are Not Broken,” says that districts are focusing of remediating learning loss. Students are being categorized and instruction will be focused on remediation. Berger says, “the students who have experienced the most trauma and disconnection during the pandemic may be assigned to the lowest level and most stigmatized groups.” These students will be viewed as deficient, and the inequities in place before and during the pandemic will be further amplified. Children, having been told that they are behind, will internalize the story of their loss.

Debbie Zacarian, coauthor of the book Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress, commented in an email to me that:

Crises, unfortunately, are not new to English learners and their families—many of whom have faced the devastation civil strife, natural disasters, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. All too often, we tend to focus on what we perceive is broken in their lives. We use deficit-based language to describe our feelings, such as “They’ve missed so much schooling and have lost so much as a result.” These types of statements have become such a part of our everyday conversation that the phrase learning loss has become a central theme in our professional dialogue.

Let’s Celebrate the Resilience of ELs During the Pandemic

It is important that teachers move from the deficit view of how ELs fared over the last 15 months and celebrate how they have persevered during the trials of the pandemic. This means that educators need to help ELs deal with the losses and trauma that the pandemic has caused. It’s important to emphasize the assets and the personal growth that these students bring back to school after the pandemic.

We need to focus on their social-emotional needs and celebrate all our students have accomplished during the pandemic. If the families were able to procure devices and Wi-Fi, their children were in school remotely. Childcare often fell to older siblings, who were also charged with helping our students in online classes. According to Colorín Colorado, older children in immigrant families may also have had big responsibilities, including working outside of the home. As a result of the pandemic, they may have been the primary breadwinners in their families.

Even though some of our ELs dropped out of school over the past 15 months, some of them have learned how to juggle family responsibilities with their academic learning. Many have remained committed to school and their additional responsibilities at home. Others went to work to support their family and are now returning to school. They have all shown resilience and resourcefulness. Let’s celebrate their achievements!

Educators of ELs need to band together in their school districts to advocate for their students. Please share with readers how you are advocating for your ELs, or how you are celebrating their resilience, by writing in the comment box below.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/lets-celebrate-the-resilience-of-els-during-the-pandemic/

ELT for Video Games: Language and Video Game Careers

Hello and welcome to another edition of the TESOL Games and Learning Blog. For video gamers, June is a big month as each year the video game industry hosts the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), a 3-day event where the major video game publishers announce their upcoming games. This year, E3 is all digital (12–15 June), and so it is a great time to watch along. It also makes June a great month to highlight just how large the video game industry is and what that means for our students—jobs!

People who are not frequent video game players are often surprised by the size of the video game industry. As educators, we should be aware of just how large the games industry is because it is a frequently multilingual industry with career potential for our students. Estimated to be around US$150 billion a year, the video game industry is 2.5 times the size of the film industry and 5 times larger than the music industry.

Santos (2020) highlights the scale of the games industry in the figure below:

Figure 1. The size of the video game industry compared to other major media industries.

Video Games as a Career

Students interested in making video games a career may find new motivation to study English when they understand how frequently English is a requirement to work at large video game companies. Ubisoft, makers of the Assassin’s Creed series, Rainbow Six Siege, and Rabbids, has offices located around the world, and most job postings, such as quality assurance testing in Kyiv, Ukraine; artist in Chendu, China; and a lead producer in Da Nag, Vietnam all list at least intermediate proficiency in English.

Video Game Localization

Another intersection of video games and language is the area of localization. Localization is the process of contextualizing a game for a specific nation, language, or culture. For example, this would mean taking the Canadian-made game Mass Effect and localizing it for the audience in Brazil. Bondarenko (2018) outlines the following six aspects of localization:

• Translation: the translation of the game’s text and assets from one language into another. It can be performed by one or more people.
• Editing: correcting stylistic and semantic errors, checking translation consistency, and making sure the terminology is correct and consistent.
• Proofreading: correcting spelling errors and other typos. This step often involves working with the text alone rather than within the game.
• Integration: integrating translated materials into the game, changing and adjusting the UI/UX to make sure everything displays correctly, and tweaking the code a little to add the translated materials to the game.
• Regional adaptation: adjusting for regional rules. In China, for example, you can’t show blood, skulls, or any religious symbolism in games. Korea frowns on playing around with religious themes. In Australia, you need to remove all alcohol and drugs from your game.
• Linguistic quality assurance (LQA): testing the quality of the translation and its integration into the game.

Each of the aspects Bondarenko lists require both linguistic and cultural understanding in order to be completed effectively. For many games publishers, this work is outsourced to companies that specialize in localization as the skill set is rather unique.

As educators we should be aware that these specializations exist and consider how we can integrate them into the classroom. In the same way we teach English for tourism or English for business, we should consider how we can offer classes on video game localization.

Until next month, play more games!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/elt-for-video-games-language-and-video-game-careers/

4 Low-Prep Creative Writing Ideas

In need of a quick, low-prep lesson? Here are some creative writing activities that my students and I have enjoyed over the last year. These ideas work whether you are teaching in person, online, or hybrid, and they all allow students to exercise their creative writing skills and senses of humor.

“Speak into the Mic” image from Alan Levine (CC BY 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/5560626994)

1. Travel Radio Dramas

Begin by explaining that before television, radio dramas were a form of entertainment. Radio dramas were performed with interesting voices and sound effects to capture the audience’s attention.

Tell students that they will virtually travel with their groups. As a group, first, they need to decide on a travel destination and a problem that will happen. For example, my group might choose to travel to the Yellow Mountains and the problem is that a huge thunderstorm starts.

After the students have decided on their destination and problem, they write a script together. Virtually, use a shared document like Google Docs. As students write, they can think about what sound effects they can make with the things around them, like shaking a sheet of paper for thunder.

After they have written the script, finish the activity by asking them to record a performance of their radio drama for their classmates to listen to.

2. Gif-y Sentences

Gifs are like next-level photos when it comes to prompting creative (and funny) student responses. During online teaching, I found that the response rate to my posts was higher when I used gifs to prompt students, especially my middle school–aged students.

For this activity, I typically choose a sentence structure or grammar point as a target, such as simple past and past continuous, but you can skip this step if you are just aiming for creativity. Then find a gif of something silly happening, like this one, and share an example sentence like, “While I was doing my English homework, my silly little cat sat on the keyboard.” Then ask students to find and post some gifs with some sentences using the given sentence structure. If you are teaching in person, you can ask students in class to write their sentences down; with online teaching, you can have students post in a forum.

You can stop at sentence-level creative writing or you can offer an extension where your students choose their best sentence and write a story that incorporates the sentence.

3. Connect the Pictures

Before you say anything about the task, ask students to find and post three random photos to your class chat. If you have groups set up in your online classroom, ask students to post in their small groups.

After they have posted photos, tell them to write a story that incorporates at least three of their classmates’ photos. Emphasize to students that stories must be logical with a beginning, middle, and end. At the end, if you are teaching online, you can ask students to make a dramatic audio recording of their story and post it. The students can then spend time listening to each other’s stories. If you are teaching in person, students can read their stories aloud to the class.

4. Round Robin Stories

You need one copy of a simple template, like this, per student, or you can just use blank paper. For online teaching, you need each student to download their own copy of the template using a platform like Google Docs. Ask each student to think of a setting and a main character and write it as the first sentence in a story. For example, “Once upon a time, in Beijing, there was a strict and terrible English teacher named Mrs. Ascher.”

Ask students to pass the paper one person to the right. Set a time limit, such as 3 minutes, and ask students to write a few sentences to continue the story on this paper. After the 3 minutes is over, ask the students to fold back the first part of the story so that they can only see their own writing. Virtually, ask students to change the color of the first writer’s font to white.

Continue passing and folding several times. Before the last round, announce that they will get 1 extra minute, and this time, they need to write an ending to the story. After the stories are finished, they can enjoy reading the whole story. To extend this task, you can take volunteers to read stories to the class.

For online learning, it is easier if you create a folder that contains one clearly numbered Google Doc for each student. Then, they know that if they are working on Story 3, they should work on Story 4 next.

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What fun creative writing activities do you use in your classroom? Please share in the comment box below!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/4-low-prep-creative-writing-ideas/

STEM in ELT: 3 Ways to Address STEM Inequities

If our goal is to “seal” the leaky STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) pipeline for English learners (ELs), we must first look at the three areas of greatest impact on students’ exposure to STEM courses:

1. Teacher preparation
2. Teacher self-efficacy
3. Community resources in low-income areas

(“Low-income” is defined as communities where over 80% of students are on reduced lunch meal plans at school.) Research on the leaky pipeline from my May 2021 blog stated that students who do not find personal meaning or relevance in STEM-related fields by their middle school years will not pursue anything beyond what is required in school (Lyon et al., 2012).

Let’s dive a little deeper into our three focus areas.

1. Teacher Preparation

Early grade science is a student’s first key STEM opportunity (Will, 2018), and effective teaching in grade school is a make-or-break factor in future STEM success, yet, according to a study conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, only 3% of undergraduate elementary programs require relevant coursework in biology, chemistry, and physical science or physics. Of the 810 programs studied, 66% percent don’t require coursework in any of those core subjects (Will, 2018). So, the question becomes, how can we even begin to address the lack of STEM exposure when teacher education programs and federal agencies do not make it a requirement?

Why Is This a Concern?
STEM has a direct impact on language development for ELs because of its inquiry-based, hands-on instructional practice. During STEM classes, ELs are provided the opportunity to practice the language by working in collaborative and/or small groups. Language development requires active learning, and STEM encourages hearing and speaking, which are necessary to acquire listening and speaking skills (TESOL International Association, 2018).

What Can We Do?
ELs need opportunities to interact with the language to develop their academic vocabulary. But if mainstream teachers do not have the training, confidence, or knowledge to teach STEM courses, it will influence the amount of time elementary science teachers will spend on it (Will, 2012). We need to act on and take advantage of the natural curiosity of young children if we want to see an increase of interest in STEM in the middle grades. To do that, we must address the lack of required STEM training in elementary teacher education programs.

2. Teacher Self-Efficacy

General education teachers play a critical role in the education of ELs (de Haan, 2019). Teachers want their students to be successful, and when they find themselves faced with a lack of success in teaching ELs, they begin to doubt their ability to be an effective teacher for all their students. Without specific coursework relating to the unique learning needs of ELs, general education teachers will not be able to teach these students successfully. When teachers do not understand the linguistic development of student learning a second language, there is a greater likelihood of grave misconceptions of the student’s cognitive abilities (de Haan, 2019).

Why Is This a Concern?
If the teachers are not trained to identify and understand the stages of language acquisition and what the students are capable of doing and understanding at each stage of language acquisition, there is a higher likelihood that the students will not receive the proper scaffolds in their instruction to be successful. This can lead to the teacher’s belief that the students do not possess the knowledge, desire, and aptitude to be successful in STEM or higher level courses, leaving them to remain in remedial classes, reducing their ability to exit the school’s ESL program, or resulting in their being reenrolled in the program. This critically affects students’ opportunities to take STEM courses, and worse, their belief that they are capable of being successful in such careers.

What Can We Do?
One way to avoid this pitfall is for teachers to know their students and create a rich student to teacher relationship. Student achievement is affected by teacher expectations of success. A teacher with high expectations will exhibit positive behaviors toward students, motivating them to perform at a higher level because of their personal relationship (TESOL International Association, 2018).

3. Community Resources in Low-Income Areas

Students who live in low-income communities have pervasive structural barriers to participating in STEM out-of-school opportunities, such as summer STEM camps, because of some of the following reasons:

• the inability to pay program registration fees
• lack of prerequisite knowledge
• competitive application processes
• inability to demonstrate preexisting interest in science
• poor literacy skills
• lack of transportation
• a dearth of accessible opportunities
  (Lyon, 2010)

According to Breiseth (2015), “Nearly 60% of [ELs] nationwide are from low-income families,” which means that many ELs will not have STEM exposure outside of school.

Why Is This a Concern?
This means that schools are the sole source of these students’ exposure to STEM activities and classes. However, if the general education teacher lacks the training to successfully work with ELs, we cannot fix the leaky pipeline, expose our ELs to STEM programs, and get them on the STEM pathway to STEM careers—and those students who live in low-income communities are at the greatest risk.

What Can We Do?
We must turn to providing teachers with embedded professional development on topics such as understanding the language acquisition process and critical introspection of teacher beliefs about ELs and linguistic diversity. According to Dr. Ayanna Cooper in her book And Justice for ELs, to create a catalyst for change, school leaders must first confront their own biases and knowledge gaps about minority student populations. If we do not do these things, our education system will continue to imperil ELs’ academic success and emphasize what they cannot do rather than what they already do well, thereby stifling their learning as a result of low expectations (de Haan, 2019).

We need to begin to look at the science curriculum of our youngest of learners, because that is where the STEM pipeline begins. Teachers and school leaders need to reflect on their perception of their students because it impacts their approach to teaching them. Such reflection is necessary before school leaders will be able to create and sustain inclusive school communities for all students, especially ELs (Cooper, 2021). Districts need to provide their teaching staff with ongoing embedded professional development on how to successfully teach this growing population, because schools may be ELs’ only opportunity for STEM exposure.

Does your school provide ongoing embedded professional development on teaching ELs? What are your thoughts on how to increase teacher self-efficacy in the context of ELs? Please share your responses and your thoughts in the comments, below.

References

Breiseth, L. (2015). What you need to know about ELLs: Fast facts. Colorín Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/what-you-need-know-about-ells-fast-facts

Cooper, A. (2021). And justice for ELs: a leader’s guide to creating and sustaining equitable schools. Corwin.

de Haan, D. C. (2019). Increasing the self-efficacy of general education teachers of ELLs [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Stockton University.

Lyon, G. H., Jafri, J., & St. Louis, K. (2012, Fall). Beyond the pipeline: STEM pathways for youth development. Afterschool Matters. National Institute on Out-of-School Time. https://niost.org/Afterschool-Matters-Fall-2012/beyond-the-pipeline-stem-pathways-for-youth-development

TESOL International Association. (2018). The 6 principles for exemplary teaching of English learners.

Will, M. (2018, May 22). Early-grades science: The first key STEM opportunity. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/early-grades-science-the-first-key-stem-opportunity/2018/05

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/stem-in-elt-3-ways-to-address-stem-inequities/