ESL-TCP Program Reflections

In this final blog, I have commented on the diversity of an EAL instructor’s role and responsibilities, re-visited my professional growth plan (from the second ESL-TCP course) and listed things that I found valuable to learn during the ESL-TCP program.

The Role of an EAL Teacher

EAL teachers have many roles and responsibilities to carry out as part of their job. These may include planning curriculum and lessons, assessing needs and skills, monitoring and evaluating progress, encouraging risk-taking, motivating students to work actively, providing feedback and positive reinforcement, teaching multi-level students, guiding decision-making, correcting errors, organizing for instruction, facilitating project and group work, referring students for other services, reducing learning barriers, leading by example (role model), and learning new skills for teaching and communicating effectively. Having worked as an educator for many years, most tasks on this extensive and diverse list were familiar. There were, however, a few unexpected, but welcome responsibilities for EAL instructors. I like the importance placed on using a needs assessment and the flexibility the instructor has when planning a curriculum. I think being able to develop, administer, and use the results from a needs assessment to plan a course and lessons for a specific group of students is a powerful way to meet all students’ needs and keep them motivated.

Professional Growth Plan

The four skill areas that I identified to develop earlier in ESL-TCP program were: 1) Planning learning activities for multi-leveled students when some students are literate in the L1 and other students are learning numeracy and literacy as well as English; 2) Using the CLB documents to plan course and lesson objectives and assess the students’ progress; 3) Locating teaching materials, particularly interesting reading materials at various reading levels; and 4) Becoming more familiar with electronic portfolios e.g. e-pearl. These are still areas that I would like to develop; however, I will expand two of the above skill development areas.
I will add to #2 so it reads, “Using the CLB documents and other resources to plan course and lesson objectives and assess students’ progress.” The second change is in number four. Electronic portfolios will be replaced with technology since there are other technological devices such as iPads, iPhones and Smartboards in addition to electronic portfolios that I would like to learn more about and use in EAL classes.

Most Valuable Things Learned During the ESL-TCP Program

1) The various EAL resources available for instructors: The Canadian Language Benchmarks, Companion Tables, and ESL Literacy Learners documents, on-line sites, and print resources (textbooks, dictionaries, etc.), and how to use them for course and lesson planning.
2) The importance of a needs assessment, how to design and administer one and use the results to plan appropriately-leveled and relevant learning activities for a specific group of students.
3) How to integrate the language competence areas (discourse, grammar, functional, socio-cultural & strategic) in communicative language learning activities.
4) How to plan communicative lessons that develop fluency and accuracy and use realia, visuals, and technology.
5) How to plan a ten week course outline and a three-day project.

Autonomous Language Use

I think autonomous language use is being able to convey a message effectively. Autonomous language would vary depending on the level needed to communicate effectively and the environment the message is being used. For example, language autonomy for carrying out daily tasks would be different than that required for working in a busy office. Most daily tasks do not require a high level of language and the situation is usually not stressful and demanding in terms of response time. On the other hand, an office worker would need to be able to listen and comprehend phone messages and respond appropriately to clients and co-workers’ comments and questions with a higher level of accuracy and speed.

Thornbury, in "How to Teach Speaking" (pages 89-91), states that skilled performers (speakers) are fast, economical, reliable, accurate, anticipate and plan ahead. Skilled speakers have the vocabulary and grammar to communicate their thoughts with a minimal number of words quickly and accurately, and perform well in stressful situations.

Thornbury emphasizes the importance of automatizing the mechanical elements of a task so attention can focus on higher level activities. Speakers with language autonomy no longer have to focus on how to form a grammatically comprehensible response; instead, they focus on the content of the response. Speakers’ self-confidence is also a key factor in achieving language autonomy.

Reflecting on Learning a Second Language with Low Literacy Skills

When looking at a page of text written in Nepalese, I could not decode it without any knowledge of the symbols. My undeveloped reading and writing skills in Nepalese resulted in using only the pictures to guess at what the text may be trying to explain. Attempting to decode and comprehend this text was time consuming and exhausting. The material was incomprehensible and overwhelming leading me to become disengaged quickly.

To improve my literacy skills in Nepalese, I would first need to hear and speak simple sentences. After practicing listening and speaking common phrases and vocabulary; the next step would be to learn the sound symbol relationships and how they are written. In order to ensure the input remains comprehensible when beginning to read and write the new language, the text should be short with visual support. My motivation to learn would be heightened if topics meaningful and relevant to my work and daily living were used to teach the language. Since I have developed reading and writing skills in English, I could transfer knowledge of these strategies and meta-cognitive strategies when learning Nepalese. Learners who have undeveloped reading, writing and meta-cognitive strategies in their first language may need to be taught and/or reminded to transfer these skills when acquiring a second language.

Reading and Writing Activities

Following are reading and writing considerations that promote language development.

Reading:
Selecting text that students view as meaningful and authentic encourages engagement in reading. Choosing text that is at the students’ approximate independent or instructional reading level and on topics that they have some prior schema will enhance interest and comprehension. Activating prior knowledge by brainstorming for known vocabulary and information about the topic enables students to expand their understanding by listening to other students’ ideas. The ideas can be recorded on a semantic map, a K-W-L chart or any structural framework that works well with the text to be read. Students can then re-visit the ideas during and after reading. A word splash which consists of words and/or phrases taken from the text and written in random order on chart paper will introduce readers to new vocabulary and can be used to make predictions about the text. This activity can be done with pictures too (picture splash) to add a visual component to pre-reading. I find that a word splash works well when there is vocabulary from non-fiction text that the students may struggle to decode and comprehend. Previewing visuals and text features such as contents, index, headings, labels, diagrams and charts in the text helps with understanding the material. Students can ask questions prior to reading a text. These questions can be recorded and re-visited during and after reading. This engages the learner in the topic and provides a meaning purpose for reading. Another pre-reading strategy is to make connections to self, other text and/or world events and issues. Providing students with an overview of the writing structure (description, sequential, cause and effect, comparison, problem and solution, manuals, news articles, etc.) and a graphic organizer to record ideas from the text as they read can increase comprehension and language development. Setting a purpose for reading during the pre-reading gives students a focus while reading.

Just as the pre-reading activities can vary so can the while- and after-reading. Students will often be continuing with a pre-reading activity such as a semantic map or graphic organizer. Learners may be answering pre-reading questions they generated or some the teacher assigned. Students can be asked to write interesting and/or unknown vocabulary on post-it notes and place them in the text where the word is written or write them in their notebooks. If a post-it is placed in the text beside the vocabulary, the student can then refer back to the word in context when discussing it with peers or the teacher. New and interesting words and phrases recorded in learners’ notebooks can be practiced and memorized and used in writing. New questions can be added while reading the text and answered as the reading progresses. After students have read the text, they can summarize it; use the ideas to complete a hands-on task; complete a graphic organizer; use the information for a project, debate or discussion; apply the ideas to solve a real-life problem; and study the vocabulary and/or grammatical structures. Information from the text can be used to create a graph, collage, model or a different form or reading genre such a play or comic strip.

Writing:
Choosing an authentic writing task and one that students will find meaningful and relevant will promote engagement in writing. Showing students examples of the writing genre and explaining the format provides a visual of the final product. Completing an example of the writing task with the students takes them step-by-step through the writing process. This breaks the larger task into more manageable pieces. Brainstorming writing ideas and commonly used words and phrases for a particular genre activates prior knowledge, builds schemata and gives students specific language needed to complete their writing. This will help reluctant writers build confidence and be more willing to attempt the writing task. Providing students with a variety of writing assignments will keep them motivated. Students can be asked to write poems, descriptions of portraits, sequence events of a hands-on task, describe a picture sequence, and write to pen pals. Using the computer to complete writing tasks may be more encouraging for some learners. Students may be more relaxed about writing if they know how their piece will be graded before they begin. Frequent and timely feedback from the teachers and peers throughout the writing process lets writers know they are on the right track and/or if they need to, or may want to consider revising something.

Key Ideas From EAL Courses

As I re-read the materials from the first three EAL courses, I made note of the following key ideas that I thought were important:

-the principles of adult learning (autonomous, self-directed, goal-oriented, practical, relevancy-oriented)
-the various types of language competence (grammatical, discourse, functional, socio-cultural and strategic)
-the concept of comprehensible input and the zone of proximal development
-the different teaching and learning styles and their affect on students’ ability to learn
-balancing teacher-centered and learner-centered instruction
-characteristics of communicative activities and lessons
-inclusion of authenticity in lessons
-the inclusion of task-based learning
-the effects schematic knowledge and language knowledge have on comprehension
-including a balance of activities in lessons that foster accuracy and fluency
-the role of a needs assessment
-including self-assessment, formal and informal assessment throughout a course
-including the Elements of Flow in lesson planning
-including grammar instruction in lessons
-using deductive and inductive approaches when teaching grammar

My Reflections of ESL Course #3 – Teaching ESL Grammar & Vocabulary

This course introduced Csikszentmihalyi’s elements of flow and how they can be applied to lesson planning and teaching in order to keep students engaged in learning. Teachers can increase the likelihood of students being “in the flow” by informing them of the lesson’s goals; designing meaningful, fun and relevant learning experiences within students’ zone of proximal development; creating a comfortable learning environment where students are encouraged to take risks with new language; viewing mistakes as part of the learning process in order to decrease the fear of failure; and providing formative feedback.

Planning lessons was an important part of this course. Lesson objectives focused on developing grammar points and vocabulary while integrating the four language skills; receptive and productive practice; different learning styles and grouping strategies; inductive and deductive learning; ideas to consolidate learning; and multi-levelled student practice within the context of the communicative approach. Developing lesson plans provided opportunities to incorporate a variety of planning and teaching aspects into ESL learning activities.

Error correction techniques and guidelines were interesting and informative. I currently teach elementary school aged children and often reflect upon and discuss with colleagues when and how we should correct students’ reading, speaking, and writing errors; and how many errors and which ones should be corrected. I like to limit the number of errors corrected, and focus on errors related to the lesson objectives. Providing feedback on one or two errors is not overwhelming and the students are more likely to remember those corrections, thus eliminating the errors in the future.

The most challenging part of this course for me was selecting and sequencing grammar points for a particular group of students and then matching those points with themes and topics. Information from the Canadian Language Benchmarks: ESL for Adults document and the scope and sequence of grammar points from textbooks was used as a guide; however, the large number of grammar points made this task difficult.
In the later part of this course I had the opportunity to review materials from two ESL textbook series (Side by Side and Interchange) and two ESL dictionaries (Collins COBUILD Student’s Dictionary Plus Grammar and Oxford ESL Dictionary). I was surprised to learn that these well-developed materials existed. I like the idea of using a textbook and its supplementary materials in an ESL course, especially if they are similar to the Side by Side or Interchange series. Some units may need to be supplemented with vocabulary, grammar points or communicative activities in order to meet the needs of a particular group of students. One or both of the dictionaries stated above would be helpful resources in an ESL classroom. Besides the regular dictionary features, they also have “usage” or “note” charts which state how to use the entry words and when not to use them; and a section of labelled pictures organized by themes. The Collins COBUILD dictionary has an extensive, but concise grammar reference section.

For the final assignment, I reviewed a unit from Grammar Dimension 2 (4th ed.). Many learning activities in this textbook could be used as described while some may require changes and/or supplements. I especially like the organization and contents of the focus charts, the variety of learning tasks and the inclusion of communicative activities. In my opinion, the lack of explicit vocabulary instruction is the greatest weakness. Overall, this is a text that could be well-used in an intermediate ESL classroom.

Teaching Grammar Deductively and Inductively

My teaching experiences have been in elementary schools. I have used deductive and inductive teaching strategies and am comfortable using either. My decision to use a particular strategy is usually based on factors such as the ability of the students to discover the skill or strategy within a reasonable amount of time, the attention span of the students (what learning activity will keep students motivated and engaged in the task), inclusion of a variety of learning styles and modalities, the skill or strategy being taught, resources available and the time allotted for the lesson. I will probably use these same factors when deciding which strategy (deductive or inductive) to use when teaching grammar rules to ESL adult learners.

ESL beginners may not have enough language to express a rule when they recognize it or they may not feel confident enough with English to offer suggestions. Therefore, teaching a grammar point such as using pronouns with the correct form of the BE verb may be taught more efficiently with an explicit explanation along with examples related to students’ lives. The majority of class time could then be spent with the students working in groups completing an information gap activity.

This same group of ESL beginner students may benefit more from learning some grammar points inductively. An example is teaching how and when to use simple present verbs with a learning activity such as the ‘lost bag’ collection of objects. In this activity students need to identify the items in the bag and state the information each article provides about the owner of lost the bag. Items in the bag include commonly used things such bus tickets and a novel which would prompt students to say, “He rides the bus. He reads.” As students say a statement the teacher writes it on the board so students have a visual representation of the simple present verb along with the aural and oral examples. When this activity is finished, the teacher leads students to the discover a rule about the simple present; that is, it ends in a ‘s’ and the activity is one that usually or always exists. This activity is interesting and authentic which encourages students to complete it to identify the owner, not to learn more about simple present verbs. Time may be a factor in how often inductive approaches are used since they tend to be more time consuming than using the deductive strategy.

The above examples of deductive and inductive lessons include a variety of learning styles (visual, oral and aural) and language modalities (listening, speaking and reading). Resources for the learning activities are readily available, minimizing preparation time for the lessons.

The anticipated level of student motivation and their cognitive engagement in various learning activities are factors that I consider when determining which teaching-learning strategies and activities to use with a particular group of students. Students’ motivation and engagement are often heightened by using a variety of learning activities within a unit and designing lessons so students can connect the learning to their own lives. Variety and authenticity can be incorporated into a unit by including realia, (as in the inductive activity above), situational learning, as well as oral and written examples that relate to students’ goals.

Grammar points taught inductively using a situational approach can be tailored for each particular group of students. If the students are agriculture workers, then the topic could be related to tasks and problems they will encounter on the farm. This approach can include pictures, graphics or other sources of realia. Situational learning is cognitively engaging because students have a need to learn the grammar point when it is presented in a context that is connected directly to situations in their lives.

To conclude this discussion, I think using both inductive and deductive teaching strategies in each unit provides variety and enables the teacher to incorporate the most appropriate and efficient strategies and creative learning activities in the lessons while keeping in mind the students’ language levels, goals, and learning styles; as well as the grammar points being addressed, and the available resources and time constraints.

Elements of ‘Flow’ and EAL Lesson Plans

This post is a discussion of how Csikszentmihalyi’s elements of ‘flow’ apply to EAL lesson plans.

Clearly stated goals/objectives provide a focus to lessons and inform the teacher’s decisions when planning learning activities, when to give students feedback, the best assessment tools to use and when to assess students’ performance. Clear objectives lets students know the skills they will learn and be assessed on. Students can also monitor and assess their own progress when they know the skills that need to be learned. When students are in the process of monitoring their learning against the lesson objectives, they will be focused and in the ‘flow’.

Immediate feedback from the teacher about the use of the new skills lets students know if are using them correctly. If a student is incorrect, he has an opportunity to restructure the response with the teacher’s assistance. A feeling of accomplishment and success is encouraging to students and keeps them engaged in the learning and in the ‘flow’.
Students’ interest will be elevated when the learning is meaningful and relevant and serves a purpose outside the classroom. They will be able to connect the learning to some aspect of their lives. It may be a grammar skill and/or vocabulary they can use for a hobby, at work, in their daily activities or to improve social relationships. For example, if lesson objectives are to learn how to ask questions about someone’s activities, and answer in complete sentences, students will be able to apply these skills to most daily activities. Planning lessons objectives around skills students can use outside the classroom will keep them interested and focused on the task at hand.

Good planning can minimize the fear of failure by designing lessons that are within the students’ zone of proximal development and by scaffolding the difficulty level from one learning activity to the next. Students will be engaged in the lessons when there is a balance between challenges and skills.

A safe and comfortable learning environment and atmosphere reduces stress and self-conscientiousness and promotes engagement in the learning activities. Students feel comfortable speaking to others in class and taking risks with new skills and vocabulary.

Fun and enjoyable learning experiences will keep students interested and the activities are more likely to be enjoyed for their own sake. Using a variety of learning strategies and resources such as role playing, songs, games, pictures, realia and graphics adds variety and interest to lessons. For example, if students are trying to figure out who has lost a bag of items by identifying the items; they will complete the activity for the sake of trying to identify the owner of the bag and won’t realize the grammar skills and vocabulary they are practicing.

I think good lesson planning and ‘flow’ go hand-in-hand.

Teaching Grammar – Is It Good or Bad?

Task: A student in your class approaches you and tells you she is very bored with the grammar lessons, and that she feels she can learn English without learning grammar separately. Write a script explaining what you would tell this student. Also write what you may do differently in your instruction as a result of the conversation.

Student: I think grammar is boring to learn and I can learn to speak English without learning grammar.

Teacher: It is possible to learn to speak a certain amount of English without learning grammar rules. However, you will reach a certain point where memorizing words and phrases may not be enough for you to express the message you want to say or write. When you learn a rule you can use it make your own sentences using any vocabulary you know. This helps you in many different situations. You will also know if the phrases you are saying are correct. For example, learning rules about when and how and to use pronouns will help you be able to use them correctly in many different places without memorizing a phrase for each situation. People will better understand your message.

Student: I will know if people understand me by what they say.

Teacher: They may be able to understand the main point in your message, but it may not be spoken correctly. Learning grammar rules will help you speak and write English with fewer or no errors.

Student: I don’t care if I’m not saying or writing everything correctly. I can say the message in another way if people don’t understand me.

Teacher: Learning grammar rules will help you organize a correct sentence in your mind so when you speak to someone, they will understand you the first time. Knowing rules will also help you notice how other people use them correctly or maybe use them incorrectly. Do you have any suggestions about what we could do in class to make learning grammar more interesting?

As a result of this conversation I would do the following:

-Ensure this student is not more advanced than the others. Maybe she isn’t being challenged enough.

-Strive to make the grammar lessons authentic and meaningful for students.

-Ensure there are a variety of teacher- and student-centered activities, and the activities are meeting a variety of learning styles. Include some presentations by the teacher followed individual practice as well as task-based learning and information-gap activities. These latter activities would involve the use of all language modalities and authentic learning activities which would facilitate learning and memory of the rules.

-Reread the students’ needs assessments. Have the students review and make changes to the goals they stated at the beginning of the course. If necessary, adjust the lessons’ content and activities to accommodate the students’ goal changes.

Memories of Grammar Classes

Most of the grammar that I learned was taught by the teacher presenting rules along with a few examples written on the chalkboard or reading the examples that were presented in the textbook. Then the class was assigned practice exercises. This involved either copying sentences from a textbook using the correct word(s) to fill in the blank or rewriting a sentence and incorporating the newly learned grammatical concept. These practice exercises were corrected the following day in class. Most of the grammar rules were fairly easy to learn and apply to the exercises that we were assigned. However, the practice exercises were seldom directly followed up with writing our own examples or applying the grammatical rules to a written composition. When the class was assigned to write a story, we were not provided with a rubric or suggestions on how to use specific grammatical concepts to improve our written compositions. I think this would have facilitated my learning of and ability to apply grammatical concepts.

Adding partner and group learning activities that involved all four language modalities would have facilitated learning and made it more enjoyable. I find that learning a rule is easier if I can associate it with a meaningful event or situation and have opportunities to verbalize it as well as write it.

Grammar and Vocabulary ESL Course

I have never taken a university course that focused on grammar and vocabulary and look forward to this one. I anticipate learning meaningful and interesting ways to teach grammar rules at the same time as learning the rules myself.

I think grammar has had a bad reputation in the past because it has often been taught in isolated situations where memorization of rules has been the primary way to learn them. Applying the rules to relevant and authentic situations has often been missing in the learning process which results in forgetting the rule.

As an elementary school teacher, I have thought of learning vocabulary as acquiring new concepts. However, this would not necessarily be the case for many ESL students. They already have a vast amount of knowledge in their first language. Therefore, learning vocabulary would involve associating the English word with the corresponding concept in their first language.

My Reflections - ESL Course #2 (An Introduction to Second Language Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening)

The role and value of the Canadian Language Benchmarks for Adults in assessment and program planning was an important part of this course. Other CLB documents that I became aware of and/or used during this course are Additional Sample Task Ideas, A Guide to Implementation, Companion Tables, “Can Do” Checklists and ESL for Literacy Learners. These documents are informative and will be used extensively.

Designing needs assessments and administering one to a student was a great learning experience. This initial assessment is useful for determining students’ approximate benchmark levels, interests, goals, and learning preferences. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing samples completed at the needs assessment session can be used to measure students’ progress throughout the course. Interviewing students individually may be time consuming; however I felt that I had learned things that I would not have known about the student had the assessments been completed in a group setting.

Another part of this course was developing a professional development plan. This was interesting and will be useful in providing a focus for future PD. The first step in making this plan was to research various ESL job descriptions. The next step was to list the key knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to do the job well. After that I highlighted all the skill areas that I already possessed. Anything not highlighted were skills that could become part of my professional development plan. After selecting fours skills, a plan was made to develop each which included the specific skill to be developed, actions that will be undertaken to learn the skill, resources that may be accessed, target completion date and how I will know when I have learned the skill.

This course continued with on-line viewing of ESL lessons. I enjoy watching and learning from these videos.

The Role of Learning Objectives in Planning Instruction

Learning objectives state what a student, course or program will achieve or do when provided with certain resources by the end of a specified period of time. A widely used guide to writing learning objectives is the acronym SMART which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-related. Learning objectives need to be specific enough and written in clear language so they accurately describe the purpose of the activity, lesson or course, and guide the planning and development of future lessons; measureable so students’ achievement can be described, assessed and evaluated; achievable for the students’ skill and knowledge levels; relevant and meaningful for the students; and can be accomplished within the available time period.

SMART objectives guide the teacher when planning learning activities. Measureable objectives provide the teacher and students with information needed to plan formative and summative assessment tools to measure the amount of progress that students have made for one or more lesson objectives. This information helps the teacher determine if new learning objectives should be introduced or is re-teaching is needed. Unachievable objectives could result in frustration for the students because the learning activities are beyond their zone of proximal development. Relevant and meaningful objectives and activities that are achievable in the allotted time will be highly motivating and could increase students’ participation and learning.

Clearly stated learning objectives allow the teacher to state why the activities are necessary to advance skills. This reason can then be articulated to the students and other people of interest such as the program co-ordinator.

Program objectives provide necessary information for students when selecting an appropriate course to advance their skills. The objectives guide institutions in developing courses to meet the needs of students at all levels that they intend to serve. Course objectives give teachers information about the approximate level of the students enrolled in the program as well as the expected level of skills and knowledge by the end of the course. Program objectives can be used by teachers to plan specific learning activities, gather resources for the lessons, and plan a timeline in order to ensure all objectives are covered by the end of the program.

Language Skill Modules - My Reflections

Studying the language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) separately has enabled me to focus on the terminology and importance of developing each skill in a language learner in order to achieve communicative competence.

I can’t help but notice the overlap in the language aspects from one modality to the next. For example, activating prior knowledge before a learning activity enhances students’ ability to apply known ideas, integrate new ideas and participate in listening, speaking, reading and writing tasks. Expanding learners’ syntactic, world, socio-cultural, topic and genre knowledge improves students’ language learning in all four skill areas. A student’s reason for engaging in a language activity is also common across modalities. For instance, a student’s goal may be to get information by listening and/or reading; or to convey information by writing and speaking.

Although teachers may set lesson and assessment objectives that focus on one language skill, there is almost always another modality involved. For example, the activity of interviewing a partner with a list of questions and then introducing each other to the rest of the class may have a speaking skill objective as the focus for development and/or assessment; however, reading the questions, listening for answers, and writing the answers on the paper are also involved.

I think integrating more than one language skill in learning activities makes the activities more authentic, interesting and provides more opportunities for students to expand their language development.

Listening Skills - How Important Are They?

Listening is perhaps the most neglected of the language skills. Reading and writing are associated with academics and therefore many exercises are built around them. Speaking is a necessary part of communicating with others in the classroom, and so that too, becomes an obvious teaching choice. Both writing and speaking are ways of assessing progress, because they result in particular ‘products’. But what about listening, without which meaning could not be communicated? How much teaching time should we be spending on explicitly developing listening skills? How are good listening skills linked to independent learning? Justify your answer.

After reading the above paragraph, I reflected on my teaching experiences which include teaching English language arts (L1) in elementary schools. Most, if not all activities had some listening component to them. Some activities involved students listening to instructions, repeating the steps in their own words, and then proceeding with the activity. Other activities relied on listening in order to learn a strategy. For example, when teaching students to make connections (text to person), they listened to a story and then told how something in the book reminded them of something that happened in their lives. The same was done when teaching text to text and text to world connections. The initial lessons to teach these strategies were listening centered activities. Eventually students apply the strategies to reading comprehension. Writing skills were also taught through listening and speaking related activities. After reviewing a week of lessons that I taught, it was easy to determine that listening was extremely important in all language arts classes.

I think teaching listening strategies to students learning English as a second language is as important as learning to apply the strategies in their first language. Students may or may not have learned listening strategies in their first language and if they did they may not be using them to learn the L2. For example, students may use the strategy of writing down relevant information from a message or text in their L1, however, may need specific instruction on applying that to their L2. Therefore, I think it is important to spend class time explicitly teaching these skills.

Another benefit of teaching listening strategies is that they will eventually be used to advance skills in other language modalities. For example, practicing the strategy of listening for transition points such as ‘on the other hand’ or ‘in conclusion’ will enhance students’ speaking, reading, and writing skills.

Students will become more independent learners as they increase the number and variety of listening strategies that they can use in their daily lives. For example, learning how to ask for clarification and listen for salient points will increase confidence, risk-taking and learning.

It is difficult to determine how much class time should be spent explicitly teaching listening activities since I have never taught English as a second language. However, based on my teaching experiences with English as a first language and the fact that it is one of four language modalities, I would assume approximately one quarter of the time should be allotted to teaching listening skills in an ESL classroom.

Error Tolerance in Oral and Written Communication

We accept different forms of oral communication errors without penalty. Should we do the same with written communication?

For the most part, I don’t think we should increase our acceptance of errors in written communication. I say this mainly because speaking is a more immediate form of communication, whereas someone writing a message has time to re-read and edit. Having said that, there are other factors that need to be considered when determining the error tolerance for both of the above mentioned language modalities.

The purpose of communication needs to be considered before the degree of acceptable errors is determined. If a piece of writing is for one’s own use, such as a list of questions to ask the doctor, the number of errors is unimportant as long as the person can read their writing when the need arises. The purpose of a text message is to send a message in the shortest possible way which involves using untraditional abbreviations. Therefore, the number of grammar and spelling errors should not be a factor. The purpose of a sending all letters is to convey information. A friendly letter sent to a well known acquaintance, will have greater tolerance for errors than a cover letter with a resume to a company requesting a job interview.

The purpose of spoken language also determines the degree of accepable errors. Speech errors during a casual conversation between friends are unimportant and will probably go unnoticed. Error tolerance for a politician making a campaign speech at a convention would be much lower and could have a negative effect for him or her on Election Day.

The affect errors have on the message’s meaning should also be considered when deciding if the errors should or should not be accepted. For example, confusing ‘weather’ and ‘whether’ in writing alters the meaning more than mixing up ‘a’ and ‘an’; therefore, the later error will be less noticeable and more acceptable than the former error. Speech errors are less acceptable when the meaning is changed too. If need be, we usually ask for clarification and/or correct the person’s speech in a subtle way.

Overall, I think we will always be more accepting of speech errors than written errors. However, as discussed above, the degree of acceptance should vary depending on the purpose of communication and the affect on the message’s meaning.

The Role of EAL Needs Assessment

Needs assessment results can be used to develop course goals, lesson objectives, materials and learning activities. It provides information on the students’ four language modality levels. Once this is obtained, the teacher can determine the benchmark level of instruction and plan lessons that are within students’ zone of proximal development. A class of adult EAL students will probably have accumulated diverse personal and work-related experiences, education, family responsibilities, future plans, and learning barriers which will shape their goals for taking the course. A needs assessment can assist the teacher in becoming aware of these goals and plan a program using topics relevant to the students. Knowledge of students preferred learning styles and group formats can be obtained from a needs assessment. This is important in order for the teacher to design teaching activities that will keep anxiety levels low and meet the needs of a variety of learners. A needs assessment can also assist students with learning more about their language levels and learning styles which may help them set goals and become more aware of their own learning.

An important function of a needs assessment is to establish a warm and welcoming environment so students feel respected, that they can take risks, and are comfortable speaking to each other and the teacher.