TESL WW

Undeniably this year has been off to a busy start. Please take a moment to read through this edition of the TESL WW newsletter to find updates on some of the happenings of the committee in terms of changes to your executive team, excerpts from the most recent TESL WW professional development event, “Roundtable—Your Turn To Talk,” (which 91% of attendees seemed to enjoy according to the feedback surveys) as well notes on upcoming events. Please feel free to get in touch with any of the Executive Committee members to voice your needs, concerns, or interests in terms of what you would like to see in the future for various events and PD. As well, please do not hesitate to contact your newsletter editor if you wish to make a contribution to the next edition. A big thank you to our photographer Serena Reis for snapping some great shots from our ‘Your Turn to Talk’ event in October! Good luck with the remainder of the term, and look for another edition of the TESL WW Newsletter in the New Year! Your TESL WW Newsletter Editor: Kimberly Burrell burrellk@rogers.com

In This Issue

• A Message from the President Message
• Your 2008-2009 Executive Committee
• A Message from the Affiliate Director
• Information from ‘Your Turn to Talk’
• Book Award Nominations
• Up-Coming Events

Dear WW TESL Members:
It is hard to believe that on this brilliantly sunny day that Halloween has come and gone, the clocks have changed and we are marching towards winter.  Many of us are at the height of the semester with marking assignments and tests and thinking ahead to a bit of a break at Christmas!
As most of you know, a couple of weeks ago, we had our first WW TESL event of this year:  “Your turn: Listen and share – Roundtable discussions.”  This was a new format where we thought that rather than having an expert lecturer describe the latest research, we would turn to the expertise of our members and ask you share your day to day experiences in the classroom.  The smaller, intimate group setting allowed for sharing of valuable professional ideas. 

Your WW TESL executive has many new faces this year. With new faces, come new fresh ideas.  We welcome to the executive Serena Reis, Lisa Vielma, Pauline Shore, Nancy Oczkowski, and Allah-Ditta Malik. We are already thinking ahead to February when we will have our next conference, and we look forward to seeing you there!

We always welcome ideas for presenters, contributions to our newsletters and your voice as a member of WW TESL.  Please do not hesitate to contact me or any member of the executive.

Have a very wonderful rest of the semester and see you in February

Maggie Heeney
WW TESL President 2008-2009

Name

Position

E-mail

Deb Andre

Membership Secretary

deborah.andre@sympatico.ca

Carrie Baumken

Secretary

baum351@rogers.com

Kathryn Brillinger

Affiliate Director

Kbrillinger@conestogac.on.ca

Kim Burrell

Newsletter Editor

burrellk@rogers.com

Maggie Heeney

President

mheeney@rogers.com

Dara Lane

Past President

daralane112@yahoo.ca

Allah-Ditta Malik

Member-at-large

amalik586@hotmail.com

Elizabeth Mathews

Friend of Affiliate

ematthew@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca

Lisa Mitchell

Treasurer

lisa.mitchell@wcdsb.ca

Nancy Oczkowski

President-Elect

nmo@rogers.com

Serena Reis

Member-at-large

sreis@rogers.com

Pauline Shore

Member-at-large

Pshore@conestogac.on.ca

Lisa Vielma

Member-at-large

lisavielma@hotmail.com

Dear TESL WW Affiliate Members;

I hope you enjoyed our lovely, wet Ontario summer whether you were working, travelling, gardening, studying, etc. I’m sure, like myself, you were as busy as ever. The rain has brought us into a beautiful, lush autumn with the joys of brightly coloured trees and cooler nights. 

As your Affiliate Representative, my role is to facilitate information back and forth between TESL Ontario members and the TESL Ontario Board which represent the members. There are a few changes that I would like to point out at this time. TESL Ontario certification and certification renewal fees will be increasing. Starting in 2010, the membership fee will remain at $86.00, and the re-certification fee will be $86.00. TESL Ontario members will pay a total of $166.00 per year.  Furthermore, the total cost for new certification will include a $100.00 administration fee, plus the membership and certification fees. The total for new certified members will be $266.00. This is a substantial increase in yearly cost. Please email me any questions or concerns regarding the increases, and I can bring them to the board meeting on Saturday, November 7, 2009. 

Secondly, there is a new registry as of October 2009 on which all TESL Ontario members will be listed unless members opt out. The registry will list members’ names, certification renewal dates, and city or region where members reside or work. The purpose of the registry is to “legitimate ESL teaching” and provides potential employers with contact information. You can opt out of the list by going to the TESL Ontario website and clicking on the certification link. Both the yearly certification renewal and the registry are meant to define professional status; boost the image of TESL Ontario; show a public sign of professionalism and accountability to the profession; recognize unique qualifications, specialized training, distinct skills and knowledge of ESL instructors; and, finally, demonstrate competency of TESL Ontario certified instructors.

Please email me any questions or concerns regarding the certification fee increases or the registry, and I can bring them to the board meeting on Saturday, November 7, 2009. 

I would like to take the time to thank all of you who are dedicated and inspiring ESL instructors for the time and energy needed to work in our profession. You are valued.

One final issue, for personal reasons, I will need to give up my position as TESL WW Affiliate Representative at the end of November. If you are interested in filling the position please contact either me or Nancy Oczkowski, the TESL WW President. The position involves going to meetings approximately five times a year at the Toronto Catholic School Board in Toronto to meet with Affiliate Representatives from various parts of Ontario. Travel expenses and one night stay in a hotel are paid. It is an interesting opportunity to learn about TESL Ontario. Food for thought, as they say.

Enjoy the autumn season, Lisa Mitchell   

TESL WW kicked off the academic year with an innovative Professional Development morning held at Conestoga College Saturday, October 18, 2008.  During this event, members came out to meet and connect with their colleagues and participate and share their ideas and concerns related to ESL teaching experiences.  There were 5 various options offered which members could select to attend based on their personal interests.  Each section offered a facilitator who guided the participants through some interesting topics related to:

• Teaching in the Multi-level Classroom
• Literacy
• Building vocabulary
• Feedback on writing: to edit or not?
• Adding music to the classroom

• In a multi-level classroom, students look after each other
• The lower/weaker students learn from the stronger students
• Higher level students can feel good about themselves
• Students are motivated by others who are lower
• It’s never boring!

• Covering grammar for all levels is a challenge.
• Teaching to both levels so no one gets bored is challenging.
• Students tend to be strong in some language aspects and weak other aspects; for example, they may be strong in reading and writing but weak in speaking and listening.
• How to keep students from getting discouraged is a challenge.
• It is difficult to deal with high students who find their comfort zone and don’t want to go higher
• Smoothly integrating a latecomer into an established classroom is difficult.
• Weak students are often intimidated by strong students.
• As a teacher, attending to everyone’s need is a huge challenge.

• The range of levels in the class is too wide.
• Attendance of adults is often spotty making teaching any subject a challenge.
• Higher-level students always answer for the lower levels!

• Use the same exercise but design the handout so it works at different levels. For example, for the comparative structures, the lower levels would get a more controlled paragraph (cloze items) while the advanced students can deal with the same reading with more complex items to work on.

• Grouping by level; each group would work on an aspect of a reading; the readings would be different, but everyone would be learning the same language point, but at their own level
• Give a different picture to each student and let him/her work on that picture at his/her own level while targeting the intended language point.
• Group people by their L1 and allow them to use L1 as a starting point.
• In some settings, husband/wife teams can help each other
• Have students compare L1 and English in the context of writing a paragraph or telling a story; it stimulates the more timid students to speak up; it can be a confidence builder.
• Allow planning in their first language.
• The use of board games allows students to mix the different levels and different L1s.
• Do not group husbands and wives or same-language students. It makes the class environment too relaxed.
• In a multi-level class, following class rules is imperative; when class rules are arrived at through consensus, peers will keep the more gregarious classmates in line.
• Establish a problem-solving procedure.

• How can we get the weaker students feel at ease?
• How can we make the different levels work together?
• How can we find the balance between the different levels in one classroom? How can we take care of them all in a balanced way?
• Should I prepare for different levels every day?
• How do I do justice to everyone?

• Use of L1 in the classroom
• How to create opportunities for students to shine
• How to deal with prejudice as it manifests itself in multi-cultural classes
• Histories of other cultures: to raise awareness of in-class racial tensions and clashes
• A workshop on the strengths of multi-level classroom

In the sessions concerning feedback and editing, there seemed to be two kinds of feedback discussed: correction of grammar and spelling mistakes at the sentence level and editing of student work with the focus on content. To answer the question why we edit, we explored: -student expectations that teachers correct spelling and grammar mistakes -institution requirements that teachers correct spelling and grammar mistakes -teacher desires to help students avoid ‘fossilization’ of errors through non-correction Pauline presented an article by Ronald Gray, Beijing Language and Culture University (Beijing, China) that suggests a number of reasons why time and effort spent by numerous teachers every day in the correction of student work may not be worth the effort. His paper says that both direct and indirect correction methods do little to actually improve the student’s spelling and grammar skills, but may actually discourage students in their writing efforts and be harmful to their writing ability. Some in the sessions indicated their feeling that hours were spent correcting student writing without producing worthwhile results.

Best Practices:

• include the students in the editing process and include a rubric to explain what you are looking for in the piece
• give credit for organization and ideas in the writing piece, not just grammar and spelling
• look at general errors made by the group and gear lessons to those errors in class
• group correction - collect sentences to put on the board and correct them as a class - involve the students
• regard errors not as a bad thing, but as ‘arrows’ to improvement. Some mistakes are indicators that the student is moving forward in their writing
• peer editing is good if the class is ready - it has to be voluntary and people have to trust their classmates
• dictogloss - students listen to the dictation and write what they can catch, going to classmates to help fill in what they missed
• work on a quiz as a group - each member of the group has to arrive at the same answer and must check each other’s work. They can ask anyone in the class except the teacher for answers.
• remember the impact of reading on writing. Most of what we write has been written before.
• the best way to learn to write is to write - journal entries every day - be positive and encouraging
• use different media - chart paper, white boards, computers

• 2000 words will give basic understanding where the learner can perhaps read simple newspaper articles
• 5000 words will give the learner about 85% comprehension of general texts
• 14,000 - 17,000 vocabulary words is the number estimated that first year undergraduate English speakers know.

The word bank above works well for higher levels, but can certainly be adapted to lower levels. Ways to use the word bank are to add words from readings, from class activities, and students can also add words they discover every day and create a “Personal Word Bank.” Practice for word banks or any kind of vocabulary learning should be relevant to the students’ life such as having a specific topic to write about to use the words. It is very important to teach the words in a context as this helps the learners remember the word.

• Label everything in the room for low level or literacy learners
• Use realia such as objects or even actual forms (medical, insurance etc) to become familiar with vocabulary
• Use newspapers as a way to build vocabulary or word banks. However, idiomatic language can be difficult and the level must be considered.
• Use words from areas of interest for students such as specific professions (You could build this into personal word banks)
• Have collaborative learning so peers can explain word meaning rather than using a dictionary
• Address different learning styles so use pictures, charts, music etc to teach vocabulary

• Snakes and ladders for vocabulary - Have cards with words, give a task for the word, roll the dice and move if learner gets the task correct.
• Bingo – call out the definitions. As students guess, they mark the word
• Charades – act the word
• Write, Act, Draw – Have cards with words, and cards that say ‘write’ ‘act’ and ‘draw’. Pull one of each and do what the cards say.
• Pictionary – draw the word
• Crosswords
• Concentration – matching definition to word (You could also do this with collocations)
• 100 questions – pull a card and answer the question
• Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Password, Scavenger hunts: all of these can be creatively adapted into team game

Some final thoughts about vocabulary learning: Focus on teaching collocations as students want to know how to use the words. Remember to teach words the students need and will use. Teach unusual spelling and tell them to they have to learn and remember. Vocabulary learning means independent learning and practice in order to reinforce the words. Last but not least: do we teach slang and swear words? Well… they may bring words to class – tell them what is appropriate – it is a great opportunity to teach register!

October 21, 2008

Thank you for organizing such great workshops that took place on October 18th. I really enjoyed mine and learned so much. I was even able to try some of the things out today that I learned from Jonay at the Music workshop with my LINC 3 / 4 class and it worked great!!!! She was right: the students love music. I used "You Needed Me" - the version that Anne Murray sings with Shania Twain. I chose this song because they sing it very clearly and I knew that the students would understand it and perhaps could even relate to it. They enjoyed listening to the song. I cut the lines of the song into strips, gave it to them and they worked in pairs and had fun putting the strips in order. They listened to it at least 6 or 8 times before they were able to get the order correct. I know that they really enjoyed it because they all even sang the song together at the end. It was quite a sight and nice to listen to. I called our site coordinator (Barb) to listen to it and she was impressed. When I got to St. Louis this afternoon, I told Jonay (who teaches there) how the music class went this morning and she was happy that it was a success. I tried it there also with the ESL 3 / 4 class, but they seemed not quite as receptive as the Conestoga students. (I think it's because there are more men in the late afternoon class, whereas the Conestoga class has only one man and the rest are all women.) I hope that you will have more of these sessions. They are very useful to us, especially to us newer teachers who have been teaching for just a few months and can use all the help that we can get. Any wisdom or tips that we can get from teachers with more experience is greatly appreciated (at least by me). Besides, it was also nice to see our former fellow classmates and to hear their news.

Helen Szymkiw

• Primary School ESL Student - $25 book certificate
• Secondary School ESL Student - $50 book certificate
• Adult ESL Student - $75 book certificate
• ESL Volunteer - $75 book certificate
• ESL Teacher - $75 book certificate

• Professional Development Event March 7, 2009
• AGM May 2009

1. The nominee must have at least one year of ESL support or ESL classes within the past two years. This can be full or part time study.
2. The nominee must have an excellent attendance record.
3. The nominee must have greatly improved in their use of English.
4. The nominee must have served as a role model for other students (offering peers help, ESL buddy, showing tolerance and community building etc.)
5. The nominee must have displayed a sense of community involvement (supporting school activities, fund-raising, volunteering, helping others etc.)
6. The nominee must be able to clearly articulate how advancing English will help them with their future goals.

Nominee Name: ________________________________________________________________

Category (circle one): A Primary School ESL Student            A Secondary School ESL Student An Adult ESL Student

Nominating Teacher’s Information Nominating Teacher’s Name:________________________________________

Teacher’s Workplace: ____________________________________________________________

E-mail address: _________________________________________________________________

Why is this student deserving of a book award? (Please write a short explanation.)

1. The nominee must have at least five years of ESL teaching or ESL volunteering within the past seven years. This can be full or part time work.
2. The nominee must have served as a role model for other teachers (mentoring, offering peers help, showing community building etc.)
3. The nominee must have displayed a sense of community involvement (supporting school activities, fund-raising, volunteering, helping others etc.).

Nominee Name: ________________________________________________________________

Category (circle one): An ESL Teacher                        An ESL Volunteer

Nominating Teacher’s Information Nominating Teacher’s Name:________________________________________

Teacher’s Workplace: ____________________________________________________________

E-mail address: _________________________________________________________________

Why is this teacher/volunteer deserving of a book award? (Please write a short explanation.)