my efl scholar experiences

I can understand the general position of the class regarding google scholar and I appreciate the input. In fact, I rarely use google scholar due the resources the university provides, but this discussion has given me the motivation to look into possible pedagogical methods in which to use google scholar.
Nonetheless, I am reminded of my experience in the EFL environment I was in, where numerous times the student one was speaking to might have been famous or fairly often a scholar with high merits or credentials (of course classes were expensive so that sometimes set your audience). In such cases of scholars, I usually think of the individual who might appreciate a statement such as this is a good research tool but scholars often use …. (a statement that is fairly simple if they have studied habitual actions). Even if their conversational ability places them at a lower intermediate level. Therefore, I sometimes consider not only what gives the student the most bang for their time but also what gives them the most sense of value for their dollar (not always the same in ESL I suppose). (mixing the idea of being principled with also being product orientated).
On one side to this, one observation I had made was that if sometimes a student appeared particularly happy at the end of a lesson to have someone as a teacher, that might be indicative of the student not being satisfied with the lesson (not that I had many complaints, but everyone got a few after several years and that was generally agreed upon as a good indicator). Looking back, I wonder if this is due to ‘focus on emotion’ similar to when we as speakers are focusing on form. That is, I don’t want my emotion of being highly dissatisfied to show through so I am focusing so much on that emotion that it displays as an over exaggeration. Sometimes I want to give them tidbits they will enjoy (such as above) and might learn from if their background is appropriate even if their displayed English is not.

A “nuts and bolts” article for a technology-based ESL writing course

Click on the title for a “quick read” which provides a starting point for effectively implementing the use of computers in the ESL writing classroom. It’s short, to the point and includes an outline of activities including preparing students to use computers, having them conduct interviews via e-mail, monitoring progress, peer editing, using student papers projected on the screen to teach various compositional points. Native speakers are paired with ESL students. The study finds that the students writing improved, with the greatest improvement in those who corresponded regularly with their partners. Electronic copies of all correspondence were forwarded to the instructor (that could be burdensome) who was able to track their progress.

Cassidy, J. A. (1996). Computer-assisted language arts instruction for the ESL learner. The English Journal, 85(8), 55-57.

Reporting your service learning hours

Hi all -

As you finish up your service learning, please make sure that you turn your form in to me indicating your total number of hours. In addition, please click on the title to this post, which will take you to http://www.uta.edu/ccsl/students where you can log your hours through UT Arlington's Service Learning Center.

A couple notes on reporting your hours:
(1) For class, you should have separate forms for different agencies.
(2) Please report total hours if you exceeded the required number.
(3) The exception to (2) is if you are taking more than one class that requires service learning hours. In that case, please do not double-dip; separate the hours by class, rather than reporting the same total for both. For instance, if you taught a total of 40 hours, and you were taking both 5302 and 5110, don't report 40 for both, or we will think that you taught 80 hours total. Instead, split them somehow, so that when we add the totals for the two classes, we get 40. If you are still unclear on this, please talk to me!

Reliability & Validity- by Ruby

Have you even encountered teachers who ask for one thing before you write and turn in your reports and require for another thing which has never been mentioned before? How do you feel about that? Have you even taken any exam which have nothing to do with what your teachers have been teaching you? How do you think about that?

Recently, in Arlington Reads, they gave the students a post-learning test which was similar to the one they took as the placement assessment three months ago. However, what we have been teaching them during the past several months really had very little to do with the English proficiency test. Guess what? Only two of the test takers got improved. Two of them even stepped backwards. My supervisor felt very frustrated and disappointed about that. She showed us the results and asked for our opinions. None of the co-workers said anything. I asked my supervisor, "Was the test relevant to what we have been teaching them?" She pondered and she replied, "No." Then, I said, "Then, this test is not valid to measure the efficiency and result of our teaching." She thought about it for a while and then she agreed with me.

The other possible reason for students not making obvious progress might be: my supervisor and co-workers seldom correct students' errors. Although I raised that issue for several times in our teaching meetings, they did not see eye to eye with me on that issue. They believe we should just let things (language learning) happen naturally and automatically. However, the students are adults; some of them are over 50!! I guess we do not agree with each other on the differences between language acquisition vs. language learning.

As ESL/EFL teachers, if we want to measure our students' progress as well as our own teaching efficiency, maybe we should consider more about validity beforehand. I think if we keep on giving students not-so-valid tests, students will consider us not reliable gradually, which is not what we expect or want. In addition, language-focused learning, recast and error treatment are also very important. Communicative approach is very good, but communicative approach without error correction at all can be very risky.

Technology in ESL classrooms

There is no doubt that the use of technology in ESL classrooms does not only facilitate and updates the learning process but makes it more lucrative, beneficial and interesting. The use of technology is so common almost in every career and profession e.g PowerPoint, projector, Internet, cassette player and so on, so in a way it can prepare students to handle the technology in their future professions and serves like a bonus knowledge besides their ESL learning.
The use of technology e.g Internet, in this age when people are studying, working and taking care of their families brings ease and comfort as assignment could be submitted electronically in no time.
On the other hand like any other neutral device, technology could also be misused and cause distraction especially in the use of Internet, as it becomes difficult to resist your curiosity when you have a window open to almost all the universe in front of you and you only focus on one thing. Another problem which I personally experienced when I was doing my masters in Pakistan, where we have severe power shortage and often people are without electricity for twelve to fifteen hours in a day and we were required to type and submit assignments on computer, you can imagine how frustrating the situation was. Same was the case when trying to use cassette player for my students listening practice, Even for this blog sometimes you type a long answer and try to post it vanishes, so I think when using any kind of technology one should always have a plan B, which could be used if technology does not work.

Response to ‘Penmanship becoming a lost art?’

I think that’s an interesting video clip, Clint. Thanks for sharing. We’ve talked a bit about this issue in class, and while I see the importance of learning to use a keyboard, I highly value the ability to hand write in general. I think it’s still important to teach our ESL students how to hand write their letters and words and sentences and essays. There are still numerous uses for having good hand-writing, including applications, medical forms/paperwork, and even the joy of journaling. This is a tough issue, though, because there are many applications online and doctor’s offices going to computer use but I’ll be honest, I keep a journal about Cason typed up and saved in my computer.

Does anyone know if ESL computer/keyboard classes are offered or required? I might be way behind the times in asking that question. Didn’t most of you have a keyboarding class in junior high or high school? My ideas on the issue boil down to the fact that I think we need to keep hand writing around, but I also think students should be taught how to type as well.

Response to ‘Manners as a Part of our Methods and Materials’

I’m with Sean…I don’t remember the in-class discussion, so maybe it was the day we were both absent.

As far as the article goes, I’m not totally sure yet what I think about it. I agree that respecting your teacher and peers inside (and out of) the classroom is extremely important, but I don’t, however, see the importance of teaching general etiquette to a group of college students. My idea of correct etiquette (as a girl) is using the right fork or spoon and making sure you send those personal hand-written ‘thank you’ cards when you get wedding gifts, but I’m also one to somewhat rebel (or at least cross the line) when it comes to ‘correct’ etiquette. I don’t know which fork to use and frankly, I don’t care J.

So, maybe this sociology teacher’s definition of etiquette in this context is simply teaching or reminding college kids to respect their authority as well as each other. If this is the case, then I’m totally fine with that. Kids do need to learn to respect their teachers and their classmates.

There is one more thing that I want to mention in the article. The article quotes, “Ideally, parents and family should be responsible for teaching good habits in early childhood, Moon said. What a child learns at the dinner table, the supermarket and during holiday visits will translate into the classroom and the world at large, she said. “ She does say ideally here, but come on….How many kids these days are really learning manners from their parents? I’m guessing the percentage is quite low. So, she makes a valid point in wanting to teach respect in her sociology classroom.

And I completely agree with Sean that cultural manners should be taught in an ESL classroom. I also think that manners can be addressed as they come up as well. If a student does or says something that is offensive (inadvertently), I think it should be ‘coached.’ As a shift manager at Starbucks, we are taught to coach in the moment, meaning when something happens that shouldn’t happen, try to address it (maturely) sooner rather than later b/c people will learn a better lesson this way. I think this can also transfer to the classroom as well. We as teachers might be able to pull a student aside and give them a little ‘mini lesson’ on manners.

Penmanship becoming a lost art?

Another real-world story related to our course--this time from CNN.

Approaches to scoring in writing.

Between the two major types of scoring in ESL writing, Holistic and Analytic, I prefer the Analytic scoring, because in my experience as a student our writings were assessed using Holistic approach, where usually students were unable to find out the specific areas of their weaknesses and usually the students got impression that they have some problem with the linguistic features such as grammar, structure and vocabulary.
If Analytic scoring approach is used the learners and the teachers both get a pattern where they can analyze all the features involved in writing, e.g content, idea, format and grammar, which will also make clear that writing is not only about grammar but there are many elements involved, like the audience it is written for, how are the ideas presented, clarity, cohesion, and argument.

Manners as part of our Methods and Materials

You may recall our recent in-class discussion regarding the things we should (or should not) teach as instructors of English as a Second Language.

If you click on the title of this post, it should take you to a relevant article.

Any other further comments or observations?

Portfolio Grading Solutions

I am intrigued by the use of portfolios. I decided to explore further methods of solving the grading dilemma. There are numerous articles in publication. I explored three from the National Council of Teachers of English from 1990, 1997 and 2005. There are great suggestions in each article and all are accessible through the UTA Library JSTOR database.

• Krest (1990) outlines a system by which, based on the level of the class you are teaching, you can adapt the grading system. There are two grades, one for the portfolio itself and one is a paper grade for the quality of the compositions. The portfolio grade can be weighted more heavily to encourage fluency through risk taking and serious revision attempts, normally in lower level situations. In a higher level classroom, where accuracy is the emphasis, the paper grade for the quality of the individual components is stressed. A sample of a portfolio grade sheet is included in the article.
• Burch (1997) provides detailed information on creating a rubric for a portfolio. She provides a sample of two-tied rubric where one tier grades on the contents of the portfolio and the second on the quality. Again, the weight can be adjusted depending on the rationale behind the portfolio and goals of the students. She stresses the fact that the rubric should be constantly reviewed and revised. It should be continually evolving.
• Finally, White (2005) finds fault with the typical holistic portfolio rubric and recommends a phase 2 of grading, namely the addition of two items: a goals statement and a reflective letter. The goals statement is developed by the instructor or the department to outline the purposes for which the portfolio is being compiled. What is the expectation of the collection? What should it reflect? What is its purpose? The reflective letter is written by the student. The student presents his/her case for why the items included in the portfolio were selected and how they fulfill the goals as outlined in the goals statement. Samples of goals statements are provided in the appendix. I was disappointed in the lack of a sample of a reflective letter.
  
  Burch, C. B. (1997). Creating a two-tiered portfolio rubric. The English Journal, 86(1), 55-58. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uta.edu:2055/stable/820782
  
  Krest, M. (1990). Adapting the portfolio to meet student needs. The English Journal, 79(2), 29-34. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uta.edu:2055/stable/819095
  
  White, E. M. (2005). The scoring of writing portfolios: Phase 2. College Composition and Communication, 56(4), 581-600. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uta.edu:2055/stable/30037887

Taking a class out of the room and into the day to day world

My AR! conversation did two classes on food and shopping.  One student works in the prepared foods department at Whole Foods Market in Arlington.  Another two students had several questions about how to shop in an American grocery store, so agreed to meet at WFM in Arlington for and intro to one type of food store, what & where things were, and how to locate items, ask questions of staff (do you have?  where can I find?  and, most importantly, May I have a sample of that, please? - this one was a big hit).

Ever trying to slip a reading/writing component into the class, I asked them to prepare a shopping list of items they needed to purchase or that they had questions about.  I also prepared a pretty standard shopping list - giving items and quantities - with spaces for them to add info, questions, notes, etc.

Our WFM student had to work that day, but it proved to be a benefit:  she took some time  to come out of the kitchen and give a 'tour' of the prepared foods case (and got to point out which items she had made), and the other students got to ask questions, ask for samples from the counterman, and make notes about the food on their sheets.

It was a great conversation class ... but I found that I could give a short answer to a question about a product, and then, depending on student level and product container prose, let them read the product label or info card.  They made notes on their lists, and could ask questions about words they did not understand, or things they were not familiar with (organic cat food was high on that list, as were the prices on some items).  WFM also has an array of brochures and recipe cards available for customers, and placed by the entrance for easy reach.  These materials provided provided more on the spot reading exercises, and, since many of WFM's customers appear to be neophyte cooks, these materials are written in simple phrases with a rather limited vocabulary.  That makes them easy for ESL learners to understand.

The other unexpected benefits were the array of free samples (go Fridays, about 10-11 am, when they are fresh and plentiful!), and the opportunity to ask counterpeople for tastes, but another unexpected benefit was interaction with other customers.  One student wanted to know why everyone was saying "Excuse me!" and wanted to know why they were saying it.  We got to have a great discussion about how intonation could change meaning - from "I'm sorry if I bumped into you with my cart." and "I am squeezing through here." to  "Would you get out of my way?"

Though this is a conversation class, I asked the students to write their thoughts about the store, the customers, and their shopping experience.  I did find out on Saturday that one student had gone back to WFM with their own shopping list, and bought things for dinner.

I am thinking that a hardware store, or drugstore, or maybe Walmart might be a good choice for a next visit.  I was also pleased to find ways to incorporate reading and writing into the lesson.  

Volunteers needed!

I recently heard from Teresa Sims of the LIFT program at Aldersgate, and they are starting a new round of classes this week, with a strong need for some volunteer teachers. This class would run through the middle of June. If you are interested in volunteer teaching for LIFT, either just cause you love teaching ESL, or because you need some service learning hours, please let me know!

By the way, if you are interested in this for summer practicum purposes, then we will need to discuss that on an individual basis.

Portfolio as a Teacher's Assessment

I wanted to point out something that I thought was interesting when I read it in the chapter on Portfolios. (I know it's hard to believe I didn't point out everything that I thought was interesting in class.) I noticed that one of the benefits that the book gave to having students complete a portfolio is that the instructor has the opportunity to view it as a reflection of how effective the class has been. I guess this could be said of any sort of assessment (although I don't remember ever hearing it about tests or other assignments). I have never been in a class that had a portfolio requirement, so some of you who have (or require portfolios from your students) may have a more insightful comment on this. I am trying to imagine how this might work, and I guess that a teacher grading a portfolio of student-chosen assignments would first of all get to see which writing assignments were most meaningful or interesting to the students. Second, the teacher, like the student, would get to see how far the students have come, partially due to his/her instruction. Can anyone else think of how a portfolio might be informative to the teacher about his/her class?

As I think about portfolios and grading in general, I think it is important to not only think about the grades students get as a reflection of how hard they worked but also how effectively we taught the material. I know that as a teacher, there are times where I realize that I must not have taught something as clearly as I thought since most of my students did not know the correct answer. I have also been on the other side of the equation in a class where the professor assumed that we knew the material because we had "covered" it in class. There is definitely a difference between teaching something and covering it.

What do you think? How might our students grades inform our teaching?

busboy

question to class: a female who cleans tables at restaurants is a busboy? Although a quick search in the internet brought up some results that shows some people recognize the term busgirl. The main question is, if a non-native english speaker who was at a beginning level of confidence, telling her job to a native english speaker, would the term busgirl cause too much confusion in this situation? Or would it be best if the female worker stuck with the term busboy to describe her job?

Response to Wei-Fan...

Way to go, Wei-Fan! I think this is a great activity. I love the idea of you splitting the class into groups and giving them an assignment that is really specific yet subjective as well. Specificity/good instructions lets them know exactly what you're expecting from them (2 sentences each, personal pronouns, about their experience at ELI, etc.), and you allow them creativity at the same time by having them relate the article to/about themselves. The only thing I might do differently if I was teaching the class is use pairs or groups of three. I am more of a fan of smaller group work or pair work in general because I feel like the learners get more communicative practice instead of possibly letting their peers talk for them if they're in a larger group.

A group activity for teaching vocab

I just finished my first teaching session at ELI after 4 hours of observation. This is a reading class of 15 students, under the direction of Nancy Baum, at proficiency level 5 (out of 6 -- the highest). I've learned quite a bit from Nancy, in terms of her teaching style as well as class management. I can tell from the students that she is a well-liked teacher.

The activity I would like to share with you is about learning vocab in an ELI class. They use a book named Improving Vocabulary Skills as part of the curriculum to perform vacab drills. This is an excellent book, strongly recommended by Nancy. Basically the book uses tons of examples and blank-filling exercises to help readers internalize the new words, about 10 per chapter. I know most of L2 learners are struggling with this issue, so I'm quite intrigued to explore ways to provide new learning experiences. At the end of each chapter, the book has a section called Final Check which is an article composed of sentences with all 10 news words embedded but leaves them as blanks for students to fill in. Basically I adopted the same idea but went one step further -- I'd like students practice collaborative writing by putting together an article themselves. So, this is the activity: I divided 14 students in the class into 3 groups, and each group is responsible for composing an article entitled My Experience at the ELI. In average, each student is responsible for writing 2 sentences based on 2 different new words, and each sentence has to be subjective, using personal nouns such as I, me, myself, mine, etc. At the end of the given time -- 6 minutes, they can make modifications so that all sentences would fit together well. To illustrate my instruction, I gave them a story which I composed, and read it back to them in a way that new words get emphasized. At the end of the activity, all groups take turns in presenting the short articles, and authors are required to read their own sentences to the entire class. The result was quite positive as far as I can tell and students’ interest-level seems to be high.

My thought behind this activity was that if L2 learners make the new word subjective in writing, it would be easier for them to internalize how the word gets used. Furthermore, the teacher is able to integrate reading (vocab), writing, listening, and speaking -- the four strains of skills -- in a single activity.

How do you think? I'd like your comments on it and ideas to make it better, hopefully this activity would be a step in the right direction in making learning vocab more enjoyable for L2 speakers.

Spanish in class follow up

This week in class, it seemed like there was less Spanish spoken in my class. I think part of the reason might have been that I did the lesson out of order from the textbook significantly (made better sense to me to do this). Because of this, I had to tell them what page numbers to be on so they had to pay attention well. Also, I put stricter time limits on the exercises (so I think there was more focus).

A fun idea....

I was thinking back to my good ole undergrad days this last week...about which teachers I thought were effective (and why) and which ones weren't (and why not) and so on. When I started my first of six Greek classes, I was really excited! My teacher had us get a piece of paper out and write a short paragraph (or just a sentence or two) about why we wanted to take this class. Remember, this was the first day of class, so we were all pretty motivated to be there and learn Greek. Woo!

So, we passed those paragraphs up (not knowing why he made us write them), and continued on with the first day of class. (They were anonymous, by the way). About a month or so into the class, we were all complaining about how hard parsing was and 'this and that' and how we had to spend so much more time studying for this class as opposed to our other classes. The next day, he began class by busting out a few of those paragraphs we had written the first day about why we wanted to take the class. It was so great to hear them. We forgot so fast that we were ever even excited to take the class in the first place....we were so concerned with the 'now' of things being so hard and forgetting what our 'future' goals were for why we were there.

I thought this was a great idea that could be carried over into any class that we teach. I realize that not all (or any) beginning ESL students will be able to write a paragraph, but more advanced students would probably be able to. For the beginners, you could have them (if they were willing) share why they want to learn English or be better readers or writers of English. You could write them out yourself, then when the students become weary and overwhelmed about class, you could read those back to them.

Has anyone else done anything like this with their classes or something similar? I just think, with a bit of adaptation, this could really be useful in helping encourage our students to keep going when they are discouraged...to remember their goals and why they want to learn English.

Immigrant Successes

Interesting article about a special school in New York preparing recent immigrant students for college. Looks as though they could use a some service learning volunteers!

# Ideas and worksheets for Mini-lessons

I used the link function, so the title of this post should take you to a nice list of resources.

Hope this is helpful for you and your students.

Clint T.

Never say "never'!!

Well, thanks to Wei-Fan, my volunteer teaching in Arlington Reads will continue for one more week. Yes, never say never. Seems like I have to sing the "swan song" for more times!!

Today when I announced that I would add four to five more hours on next Tue. and Thur., all the students looked very happy. I asked them to prepare whatever questions they encounter about English learning. I also told them that Thur. will be a grammar lesson since they do not lack the environment of exposing themselves to the target language and practicing speaking the target language in USA, but they really lack formal grammar instructions. Hopefully, that will be the last ESL class I teach in USA.

Never say never!!

No more textbooks for students in Texas?

Pretty interesting story......

(The title should be linked.)

WFAA: "Sun setting on TAKS Exam"

The TAKS exam will soon come to an end for students in Texas' schools.

But if you think that's the end of standardized testing, then the article linked below is a must read!

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Sun-Setting-on-TAKS-Test--89940462.html