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.