1 cover issue fall:cover redesign - TESOL International Association

Art InstitutionWeb Sites forEnglish Teaching

Time forScience Fair

Piercing a Wall of Silence

by Judie Haynes

by Orsolya Molnár

by Marlene Friis

Comic Life

TESOL Goes toCapitol Hill

Reviewed by Joy Egbert

by Raquel C. Sanchez

ConfrontingIssues of Race and Class inthe ESLClassroom

e s l / e f l . r e f l e c t i o n . p r a c t i c e

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Volume 3 Issue 3 September 2006

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TESOL 2007: Tides of Change

March 21–24, 2007Washington State Convention Center

Seattle, Washington USA

Network with and learn from more than6,500 of your peers from 100 countries.More than 700 sessions provide tips, ideas,reflections, and research to help you helpthe students in your classrooms.

Preregistration begins December 1, 2006.For more information

TESOL Conference Services Department700 South Washington Street, Suite 200

Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USATel 703-836-0774 Fax 703-836-7864

[email protected]

The 41st Annual TESOL Convention and Exhibit

Teachers of English to Speakers

of Other Languages, Inc.

A Science Fair HandbookTo help students complete a successfulscience fair project, break the projectdown into a series of manageable chunks,suggests Sandy Lautz.

Recharge, Reduce, Reconnect, RecycleThe good news: there are solutions toproblems related to teacher burnout.Read Dorothy Zemach’s suggestions here.

Confronting Issues of Race and Class inthe ESL ClassroomRaquel C. Sanchez offers useful resourceson sociocultural issues that U.S. K–12teachers may confront in the ESLclassroom.

Class Projects with Comic LifeDana Persson-Zora shares severalprojects for students using the softwareComic Life.

Grammatically SpeakingRichard Firsten explains the grammar ofWanted posters and the origin of the ruleagainst using postposed prepositions, andchallenges you with a new Brain Teaser.

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compleatlinksis the online component ofEssential Teacher. Look for thenext to titles in the table ofcontents. Then go to the Essential Teacher section ofhttp://www.tesol.org/, click onCompleat Links, and read theseextensions of the themes andtopics in this issue:

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SEPTEMBER 2006


VOL. 3 ISSUE 3S e p t e m b e r

FROM THE EDITOR 2

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 5

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Circle Time 6Time for Science Fairby Judie Haynes

Home Room 8Braking for Whalesby Jim Hughes

The Road Taken 10The [Im]possibilities of Social Services by Debbie Zacarian

Multilingual Momentum 12From Reader to Authorby Ke Xu

In-Service 14Learning about Your Teachingby Andy Curtis

From A to Z 16Burnout from Teachingby Dorothy Zemach

PORTAL

A Multimedia Lab on Your Desktop 34by Greg Kessler

Creating a Space for Virtual Democracy 38by Joel Bloch and Cathryn Crosby

Using Art Institution Web Sites for English Teaching 42by Marlene Friis

Self-Assessment, CDs, and Videotape 46by Carolyn Samuel

HOME AND OTHER PAGES

Words in PrintThe Elements of International English Style(Edmond H. Weiss) 50Reviewed by Marilyn Kupetz

Language and Creativity: The Art of CommonTalk (Ronald Carter) 50Reviewed by Francisco Gomes de Matos

Cybersights 51MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resourcesfor Learning and Online TeachingReviewed by Carla Meskill

Soundbites 51The Story of Human Language (JohnMcWhorter)Reviewed by Christine Meloni

Software Thumbnails 52Comic Life (Plasq)Reviewed by Joy Egbert

ASSOCIATION NEWS

TESOL Goes to Capitol Hill 54

OUT OF THE BOX

Stranded on the Roof 18by Julie Whitlow

Piercing a Wall of Silence 22by Orsolya Molnár

What Does It Mean When StudentsDon’t Participate? 26by Jennifer Graham

Adding Problem-Solving Fuel to theWriting Fire 30by Fang Ying

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http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/secetdoc.asp?CID=1342&DID=6869





From the

The ET team is always glad to hear from members of

TESOL about what they would like to see in Essential

Teacher. Thanks to your feedback, ET has been

constantly evolving since its inception three years ago.

As part of that evolution, the Portal section is undergoing a significant

change. The section has broadened to become a portal of discovery

through experimentation in the classroom. Portal is now a place for

sharing stories of classroom-based experiences and research that do not

necessarily include issues related to technology in teaching. The expanded

description of Portal says that it “seeks to share experiences that occur in

the classroom when unexpected learning takes place as a result of

teaching or learning exploration.” If you have tried a variation in your

teaching that worked, or risked using new techniques or technologies in

your classroom, we’d like to hear from you. Send your article to the Portal

editor, Mercedes Rossetti ([email protected]).

This issue contains many articles about encouraging more active

student participation in the classroom. Authors describe ways to help

students accept more responsibility for their own learning through the

use of projects, props, and pedagogical experimentation.

� Communities of Practice: Judie Haynes (Circle Time) gives

teachers a clear sense of the excitement that content-based

projects can generate in the language classroom. Jim Hughes

(Home Room) then bursts this bubble of learning excitement:

instead of doing projects that fascinate learners, teachers may need

to spend more time dealing with standards assessments and

bubble sheets. Debbie Zacarian (The Road Taken) takes you along

on the painful journey one learner and his immigrant family had

to endure to secure health insurance and receive medical

treatment. Ke Xu (Multilingual Momentum) shows you how

publishing student work can transform learning and learners.

Andy Curtis (In-Service) offers advice on how to engage in

professional development without spending too much time or

money. Dorothy Zemach (From A to Z) describes teacher burnout

and (in Compleat Links) offers some suggestions for avoiding it.

2

� Out of the Box: Disturbed by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

in her native New Orleans, Julie Whitlow presses teachers to

confront issues of race and class evident in that tragedy. While

new to teaching, Orsolya Molnár devises a novel way to help her

students open up in a writing class. Jennifer Graham observes

deliberate acts of nonparticipation by learners and searches for

explanations that may help you react effectively. Fang Ying works

to find the sparks of authenticity in writing tasks that can

motivate students in China to want to write more in English.

� Portal: Greg Kessler shows how to easily record digital audio

files to share with students and create interactive materials. Joel

Bloch and Cathryn Crosby hold up blogging in courses as an

example of virtual democracy in action. Marlene Friis highlights

some of the features of museum and art gallery Web sites that

you can adapt for classes. Carolyn Samuel illustrates how her

switch from VHS to digital recordings of student presentations

encouraged students to do more self-study and feel more

invested in the assessment process.

� Home and Other Pages: Marilyn Kupetz reviews a new English

style manual that raises issues of concern to TESOL members.

Francisco Gomes de Matos explains how a new book by Ronald

Carter fills a gap in the literature regarding the concept of

linguistic creativity. The MERLOT university consortium Web site

is introduced by Carla Meskill. Christine Meloni reviews a video

course called The Story of Human Language, and Joy Egbert

explains how to use the software Comic Life to create

professional-looking projects simply.

� Compleat Links: Don’t forget to check out all of the online extras

for this issue. First, Sandy Lautz leads you through the potential

trials and tribulations of science fair projects. Dorothy Zemach

follows up on her column about teacher burnout with a number

of practical suggestions on how to avoid it. Raquel Sanchez

suggests ways you can prepare yourself to deal with the highly

charged social issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender in

lessons. Richard Firsten explains the grammar of Wanted posters

and the origin of the rule against using postposed prepositions.

Go online and try his new Brain Teaser.

Editor

3SEPTEMBER 2006

[email protected]

4

EditorTim StewartKumamoto UniversityKumamoto, Japan

Compleat Links EditorShannon SauroUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, PA, USA

Home and Other Pages EditorChristine MeloniGeorge Washington UniversityWashington, DC, USA

Out of the Box EditorPhil QuirkeAbu Dhabi Men’s CollegeAbu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Portal EditorMercedes RossettiProgramas Educativos en Multimedia,

SA de CVToluca, Mexico

ColumnistsAndy CurtisQueen’s University School of EnglishKingston, Ontario, Canada

Richard FirstenMiami–Dade County Public SchoolsMiami, FL, USA

Judie HaynesRiver Edge Public SchoolsRiver Edge, NJ, USA

Jim HughesWest Contra Costa Unified

School DistrictRichmond, CA, USA

Ke XuBorough of Manhattan Community College

City University of New YorkNew York City, NY, USA

Debbie ZacarianCenter for English Language EducationHampshire Education CollaborativeNorthampton, MA, USA

Dorothy ZemachCambridge University PressEugene, OR, USA

Staff EditorEllen GarshickAlexandria, VA, USA

Editorial AdministrationTomiko ChapmanAlexandria, VA, USA

AdvertisingCindy FlynnAlexandria, VA, [email protected]

PrintingUnited Litho, Inc.Ashburn, VA, USA

Essential Teacher (ISSN 1545-6501) is published four times a year by Teachers of English toSpeakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL).

For submission guidelines, see http://www.tesol.org/. Send correspondence [email protected] or

Essential TeacherTESOL700 South Washington Street, Suite 200Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USA

Essential Teacher is copyrighted to TESOL. All requests for permission to reprint should bemade through Copyright Clearance Center http://www.copyright.com

Names of teachers and students are pseudonyms or are used with permission.

Cover: Photos of Sarah Moon (Moon Sung-Yi), Herbert Shin (Shin Hyun Ho), Julia Kim, andHarry Shin (Shin Hyun Wook), Cherry Hill School, River Edge, New Jersey, USA, used withpermission. Screen shot from Comic Life reprinted with permission of Plasq(http://www.plasq.com/).

Member ServicesPlease direct all membership queries toTESOL Membership Department700 South Washington Street, Suite 200Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USAor [email protected]

Current issues are a benefit of membership in TESOL. Requests for back issues of previous volume years, asthey become available, should be made to [email protected]

Officers

Jun Liu, PresidentUniversity of ArizonaTucson, AZ, USA

Elliot L. Judd, Past PresidentUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoChicago, IL, USA

Sandra J. (Sandy) Briggs,President-ElectEducational ConsultantSan Francisco, CA, USA

Directors

Brock BradyAmerican UniversityWashington, DC, USA

Christine CoombeDubai Men’s CollegeDubai, United Arab Emirates

Gabriel Díaz MaggioliThe British SchoolsMontevideo, Uruguay

Lynne Díaz-RicoCalifornia StateUniversitySan Bernardino, CA, USA

Liz EnglandHong Kong Institute of EducationHong Kong SAR, China

Lía D. Kamhi-SteinCalifornia State UniversityLos Angeles, CA, USA

Joyce KlingCopenhagen BusinessSchoolFrederiksberg, Denmark

Penny McKayQueensland University of TechnologyBrisbane, Queensland,Australia

Suchada NimmannitChulalangkorn UniversityLanguage InstituteBangkok, Thailand

John SchmidtTexas InternationalEducation ConsortiumAustin, TX, USA

Jim StackSan Francisco UnifiedSchool DistrictSan Francisco, CA, USA

Stephen StoynoffMinnesota StateUniversityMankato, MN, USA

Charles S. Amorosino, Jr.Executive Director/CEOAlexandria, VA, USA


TESOL’s mission is to ensure excellence in Englishlanguage teaching to speakers of other languages.

ˇç

Officers and Board of Directors 2006–2007

SEND

What observation

How can we help teachers become reflective practitioners?

teachers in an ongoing process of professional development?

What are the main characteristics of constructive feedback?

When can feedback be considered effective?

5SEPTEMBER 2006

For full articles on TESOL’s Advocacy Day and the newPreK–12 English Language Proficiency Standards, seeAssociation News, p. 54.

Among TESOL’s responsibilities to its members is educatingthem on important advocacy issues worldwide and stimulatinginterchange among members and policy makers on these keyissues. To meet this responsibility, TESOL’s strategic planincludes public policy and understanding among its goals.

As a clear sign of its commitment to both advocacy andeducation, TESOL sponsored its first Advocacy Day. On June21, 2006, twenty-two TESOL members representing nineteenU.S.-based affiliates met in Washington, DC. This event, thefirst of its kind for TESOL, featured a day of issues briefingsand workshops, capped by members visiting congressionaloffices on Capitol Hill.

In addition to learning about key issues, such as adulteducation and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,attendees had the chance to role-play presenting an issue to aCapitol Hill representative. Armed with talking points and afresh perspective, the participants were able to educatevarious representatives on critical issues confronting the ESL profession.

From my perspective as TESOL president, what made thisactivity so rewarding were the connections that theparticipants made. It reinforced for me the notion thatTESOL is a community of diverse professionals: each personhad a unique perspective to contribute to this beautifultapestry. The evening dinner brought everyone together toreflect on the day’s learning and talk about next steps.

Another of TESOL’s strategic goals—standards—focuses onproviding guidelines to help preK–12 teachers succeed inteaching ESL. The new PreK–12 English LanguageProficiency Standards is a good example of the professionalknowledge TESOL makes available to its members.

PreK–12 English Language Proficiency Standards shows ahigh level of sophistication and moves beyond Englishlanguage communication for social and interactive purposes.The new standards embrace the importance of academicsuccess in mathematics, science, language arts, and socialstudies. In addition, this publication integrates multiple levelsof information in user-friendly matrices organized by gradelevel cluster, domain of learning, and level of proficiency.

The new standards, which were developed by and for TESOLprofessionals, will increase TESOL’s visibility amongpractitioners and administrators in the United States. Asmore U.S. school districts adopt the standards, TESOL willtake a step toward fulfilling its ongoing mission: To ensureexcellence in English language teaching to speakers of otherlanguages worldwide.

Enjoy this issue of Essential Teacher!

Jun LiuPresident, 2006–07

President’s Message

Advocacy and Professional Development: Key Issues in TESOL’s Strategic Plan

This event helps English languagelearners and their families become partof the school community. All of theclasses in the school visit the fair duringthe day, and participants come back inthe evening to view projects with theirparents. The fifth- and sixth-gradestudents were enthusiastic about theirparticipation. “I really liked how myboard turned out, and it was cool towatch my flowers change color,“ sighedSarah. Helen loved conducting herexperiment, during which she askedclassmates to test different kinds ofhand lotions. “It was really fun,” sheexclaimed. “I felt like the teacher.”

The benefits of having English languagelearners participate in a science fair arenumerous. This project is an excellentopportunity to teach students thescientific method and help them acquirecontent-area vocabulary. They develop apositive attitude toward science. Theycan practice the nonfiction writing skillspreviously taught to them. In fact, thescientific method provides a naturalgraphic organizer for their writing.

Students also practice research skills andgain experience with hands-on learning.

Participating in a science fair also hasaffective benefits. It helps students buildself-confidence and offers themauthentic reasons to interact withclassmates. They engage with a realaudience for their work when the wholeschool community views the projects.

For all of these reasons, several yearsago I made the science fair project partof my ESL curriculum. The Englishlanguage learners choose their topicsand complete their projects during myESL lessons.

One of the most difficult tasks for me ishelping students pick a topic. I find thatI need to consult continuously with thescience teachers. But topic selectionprovides me with an easy way todifferentiate instruction. I encouragemore advanced-level students to choosemore difficult experiments. They arealso required to summarize the researchthat led to their hypothesis.

COMMUNITIESCOMMUNITIES ofof practicepractice

Iam so excited,” murmured Hyun Wook as he stapled the last picture onhis science display board. Every year my school holds a science fair, andthis was Hyun Wook’s first.

Circle Time

Time for Science Fair by Judie Haynes

I am generally

frenetic as I

guide students

toward project

completion, but

their enthusiasm

makes it all

worthwhile.

6

“

Here are some of the criteria I use fortopic selection.

Is the topic uncomplicated? In elementaryschool, the goal of the science fair is toteach the scientific method. The subjectof the project is of secondary importance.Students are encouraged to choose froma wide range of science topics. Iencourage my students to pick astraightforward one.

Is the topic at an appropriate grade andEnglish language level for the student?Before students finalize a topic, they mustfind research that they can read andunderstand. Much of the relevant materialon the Internet is written at a high school

or university level, so finding researchthat is suitable for the younger students Iteach is a real challenge. An experimentthat looks interesting to a student mightinvolve a concept that is too difficult forthe student to comprehend. For example,I have found that many students want tochoose topics involving the density ofliquids but do not have the backgroundin science to understand the concept.

Does the experiment involve a testablequestion? Having a testable question is arequirement set by the science teachers. Iusually keep successful experiments fromprevious years as models. Examples oftestable questions are “What brand ofwater tastes best?” “How does watertravel through a plant to the leaves?”“What brand of battery lasts thelongest?” Projects such as volcanomodels do not provide testable questionsand are therefore not allowed as sciencefair projects.

Students research their questions inbooks and on the Internet and then forma hypothesis. Question formation teachesstudents to focus their project. Studentsmust also be able to put their findingsinto chart or table form.

Do students have enough time to completethe experiment? This question is especiallyimportant in experiments with plants. Ifstudents want to show which liquid helpsa plant grow best, there must be enoughtime for a plant to grow. If they areshowing how sunlight affects the growthof plants, there must be sufficient time forthe plant to be exposed to the sunlight.

Can the experiment be conducted in school?Is there enough space in the ESL classroomto keep the materials for several weeks? Fora variety of reasons, students completetheir experiments in ESL class. I’ve foundthat some parents may not have thelanguage to understand the requirementsor to give the necessary help. They maynot have a digital camera to take picturesof the procedure or a computer toresearch and word-process the work.

Can students easily find the materialsnecessary to complete the experiment? Howexpensive will the materials be? Somematerials, such as glass jars and bottles ofdifferent shapes, are becoming moredifficult to find. For example, I have haddifficulty finding suitable glass jars forgrowing sugar crystals, as many large,wide-necked bottles are made of plasticnow. Experiments involving batteries canbe expensive. For these reasons, I alwayssend home a list of materials for parentsto approve.

Does the experiment involve a visualexample or a product that can be shownat the fair? Students with limitedEnglish can prepare a board and takepictures of the steps in theirexperiments. I find, however, that theycan explain their project best if theyhave something concrete to show.Although the science teachers at myschool do not require this, projects withvisual examples are more meaningful tobeginning- and intermediate-levelEnglish language learners.

I begin the science fair unit byintroducing the vocabulary needed as Imodel a simple experiment for the group.During the demonstration, students learnand practice the language of the scientificmethod, including hypothesis, materials,constant, variables, and procedure.Students then apply their knowledge of the scientific method to their own experiments.

During the weeks leading up to thescience fair, my classroom is chaotic.Plants and containers with sugar crystalsline the windowsills. White flowers inglasses of colored water turn a variety ofcolors. Display boards are propped onevery available surface, and paper bagsfilled with materials spill off chairs. I amgenerally frenetic as I guide studentstoward project completion, but theirenthusiasm as they proudly present theirwork makes it all worthwhile.

7SEPTEMBER 2006

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Science fair projects

are an excellent

opportunity to teach

students the

scientific method

and help them

acquire content-area

vocabulary.


8

“My sister still has hers,” said Gisela.

“That was three years ago!” Iexclaimed. “It’s held up that long?”

She looked puzzled. “We got strongwires to hold it to the ceiling.”

I explained that held up also meant thewhale hadn’t fallen apart. “Vicente,” Isaid, “I’d love to make whales.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Oh, if only it were so simple! Publicschool teachers in my state had lostwhat little control they had over thecurriculum, especially in schools suchas mine that were not measuring up onthe California Standards Test. We wereone of the schools designated program-improvement, a euphemism for failing.Of 290 instructional minutes per day,third-grade teachers were required toteach 180 minutes of literacy, 60minutes of math, 30 minutes of Englishlanguage development, and 20 minutesof physical education, which equaled—

you guessed it!—290 minutes. Wetaught science, health, safety, socialstudies, art, and music during literacy,we were told, by our use of thelanguage arts adoption. When wasthere time for whales?

My first thought (I tend to begin withthe ridiculous) was to institute whalesightings. Whenever a whale came upduring a lesson in any content area, thestudents and I would break for whales,a pun based on a popular bumpersticker declaring I brake for whales. Wewould disperse into our various teamsfor twenty minutes of whale work.

I quickly had second thoughts.Sightings would become frequent. “Theword what reminds me of a whale, Mr.Hughes, because it begins with wh.”

“Teacher, it says ocean. That’s wherewhales live.”

“Whale sighting!” the children wouldscream at each opportunity.

We gonna make whales?” Vicente asked in September. I wasknown at my school for a whale study project. These gentle,cooperative, and intelligent creatures gave me reason to believein the future of mammals.

Home Room

Braking for Whalesby Jim Hughes

I valued my

whale unit

because the

concepts and

vocabulary in it

had wide social

and academic

applications.

“

9SEPTEMBER 2006

Also, an edict from the superintendent’scabinet stipulated that under nocircumstances was morning literacy to beinterrupted, except in cases of fire, flood,earthquake, or terrorist attack (or at thepleasure of the site administrator). If theprincipal, a district official, or a literacyconsultant walked in, what would I say?

Good fortune struck. In the scriptedadoption’s first unit, one on friendship,the teacher read-aloud was Amos & Boris(Steig 1971). Amos was a mouse, butBoris was a whale!

Even so, how could I sneak in such anenormous project? A sperm whale’s actuallength divided by ten equaled six feet.The children had to stuff its two poster-paper sides with wads of newspaper whilethey stapled it together. Then they had topaint it. Twenty students couldn’t workon one whale; they’d need to make fouror five. As a follow-up activity to a read-aloud, it would take too much timebecause we teachers had to follow apacing schedule. Besides, we were notsupposed to deviate from the script.

I valued my whale unit, especially forEnglish language learners, because suchproject-based learning required thatchildren use language to plan andnegotiate as well as to comprehend andexpress content knowledge. Theconcepts and vocabulary had wide socialand academic applications.

“What kind of whale is Boris?” I askedthe students.

“A killer?” suggested Isbeth.

I showed a picture of a killer whale.

“Boris, he’s just a regular whale,” said Maurice.

“There are many types of whales,” Isaid, showing the white beluga andgiant blue. “I don’t think one of themis called regular. We need to do some investigating.”

At recess Maurice and Vicente searchedmy pictures and discovered that Boriswas a sperm whale. “Can we makehim?” asked Vicente.

The year before, my students had builtwhales after the spring standards tests.This year, however, we would be givingthe last unit exam during the final weekof school. To enforce compliance, theLiteracy Department had ordered thatall test results be sent to it. Theintention was to make teachers useevery minute to teach readingrelentlessly—the district motto.

“Maybe we could make him and otherkinds during math,” I said.

“Math?”

“Building whales involves calculatingproportions. A fifty-foot humpbackwould be five feet long. You want tolearn about that?”

“Sure!”

Proportion, however, was a minor partof third-grade math and was notassessed on the California StandardsTest, whose results had become thelifeblood of our existence, though mostof us wanted a transfusion.

A unit on conservation in the Englishlanguage development (ELD) programprovided an opening. I knew that itmight be my last chance for flexible andcreative ELD because a standards-basedadoption had been approved for the nextyear, and English Language Services wasbeing subsumed under the LiteracyDepartment, likely producing an ELDpacing schedule, district assessments,and monitoring. Although I had togroup English learners separately, workprimarily with them, and assignindependent and collaborative activitiesfor the other students, the whole classmanaged thirty minutes a day ofspeaking, listening, reading, and writingabout whales. Over several weeks, the

children memorized and recited a whalechant, listened to humpbacks’ singing,wrote haiku, and constructed five whalesthat we hung from the ceiling.

“Whales don’t fly,” said Maurice.

“Pretend we’re underwater,” I said, butimmediately regretted I had as childafter child dropped to the floor,feigning drowning.

On the last day of school, eachconstruction group drew lots to seewhich lucky person would get to keepits whale. Sarn Sio won Boris, the six-foot sperm. He slung him over hisshoulder and headed home. Later thatafternoon, I drove out of the parkinglot onto 12th Street, and there in themiddle of the road was Boris, broken inhalf. Sarn Sio had run into trouble withschoolmates, or the whale hadsuccumbed to skeletal weakness. Ibraked for the whale, aware that Imight be the only person ever to havereally done so. I stuffed Boris into my’71 Volkswagen and drove him to arecycling shop. I hoped he wouldreturn next year but feared he wouldreincarnate as standards assessmentsand bubble sheets.

Reference

Steig, W. 1971. Amos & Boris. New York:Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.


10

As time went on, Juan’s teethcontinued to bother him terribly. Hisparents calculated that it would takethem several months to save themoney they believed they needed tocare for their son’s dental problems.With their housing, food, andclothing expenses, they knew theydid not have money to pay formedical or dental care, and theystruggled to figure out ways to helptheir son.

Hoping that efforts at school wouldbe a distraction from his pain, theytold Juan to concentrate on hisstudies. They also told him not tocomplain about his teeth to histeachers. They believed that it wasimportant for Juan to show histeachers respect by paying attentionto them and devoting all of hisenergies to his schoolwork. Theycould not see a solution for their sonbeyond working to accumulateenough funds for the dental care he needed.

Heeding his parents’ wishes, Juanwent to school planning to attend tohis schoolwork and pay as littleattention as he could to his painfulteeth. One day during class, however,he experienced a sudden shootingpain and grabbed his mouth in agony.His teacher saw that Juan was in painand brought him to the school nurse.The nurse contacted the school’sbilingual outreach worker to helpJuan access the dental care he waseligible for.

For Juan to see a dentist, his familywould have to complete a series offorms. The bilingual outreach workertold Juan that she would be happy toexplain the process to him and hisfamily and help them complete theforms. When she found out thatJuan’s family did not have atelephone and that his parentsworked in the same fast-foodrestaurant, she asked Juan if shecould go to his home, after school, tospeak with his parents.

Shortly after arriving from Central America with his family, Juan, a highschool student in my district, began experiencing a lot of pain in threeof his teeth. The problem was, the family had no health care insurance.

While Juan qualified for the Massachusetts state health insurance programfor children, he and his family did not know how to access it.

The Road Taken

The [Im]possibilities of Social Servicesby Debbie Zacarian

The realities of

students’ health

care, housing,

and other core

life needs can

have a deep

impact in the

classroom.

11SEPTEMBER 2006

That evening, she went to Juan’s home.Within a few short minutes, she hadexplained how the family could secureinsurance payments for their son’sdental and medical needs. Juan’sparents would have to travel to ahospital in a nearby city and completethe necessary forms. Juan’s father wasuncertain about the process: he fearedthat taking time away from work forthis would cost him his job, and,having no car or driver’s license, hecould not drive to the city.

Thankfully, a few days later, theoutreach worker drove Juan’s father tothe hospital and helped him completethe forms. When the forms wereapproved, the family received a healthcard. Using the card, the outreachworker made an appointment for Juanto see the dentist. But how couldJuan’s family take him to the dentist?His father had already taken time fromwork to complete the health insuranceforms. He again feared losing his job,and again faced his lack oftransportation. In addition, the onlydentist who accepted the healthcoverage that they were allocated wasin a neighboring city fifteen miles fromJuan’s home.

Several more days elapsed. Eventhough the outreach worker was intouch with Juan throughout this time,he did not receive the treatment heneeded because his parents were tooashamed to ask the bilingual outreachworker or anyone else for assistance.Finally, the bilingual outreach workerdrove to his parents’ workplace,obtained their permission to drive Juanto the dentist, and then brought himto his appointment.

By that time, Juan had been in agonyfor two weeks, his schoolwork hadsuffered greatly, and he had no energyfor much more than trying to copewith the pain. When he arrived at hisfirst dental appointment, he learned

that the three teeth needed to beremoved. He also learned that thisdentist did not remove teeth. And thespecialist he would need to see wouldnot be available to see him for a few days.

In the end, the outreach worker droveJuan to the specialist. At the end of hisfirst month in school, Juan had thethree teeth removed and was finallypain free and ready to learn. A monthlater, the outreach worker took him tothe dentist to begin a series ofappointments for a dental bridge thatwould replace his extracted teeth.

The experience of Juan and his familyis a common one in my community.While the town has many socialservice agencies, English languagelearners who cannot communicate inEnglish, who are new to thecommunity, and who are living inpoverty have a difficult time navigatingthe services that are available. Whilebeing an “essential teacher” involvesbeing responsive to students’ learningneeds, the realities of their health care,housing, and other core life needs canhave a deep impact in the classroomand, therefore, cannot be ignored.

English language learners like Juan and his

family may have a difficult time navigating

the social services available to them.


12

Since April, one of my ESL classes hasbeen writing a book for newimmigrants in New York City. Theproject was inspired by students’complaints about the frustration theyhad experienced in trying to helpnewly arrived relatives. Since so manyimmigrants need help, the studentsand I decided to do something aboutit: write a book titled Living in NewYork City, a project that the studentswere immediately enthusiastic about.The class elected a five-member panel,including a managing editor and foursection editors, to plan the book andimplement the plan. At the firstmeeting, we decided that the bookshould include three parts: “Survivingin New York City,” “Living in NewYork City,” and “Working in New YorkCity.” The deadline we set was tofinish the book by the end of 2007.

Then the work began. What does anew immigrant need to learn onarrival in order to survive in this city?First, small groups brainstormed, thenthe whole class decided on the

learning tasks to include in the book.The ones we agreed on included thosethat taught a new immigrant to readstreet signs, ask directions, ask forhelp, and report emergencies; readprice tags and ask for prices; and callthe building superintendent to fix agas or sink leak, among others. Thestudents grouped the learning tasksroughly into four categories:health/emergencies, housing/food,shopping/banking, and getting aroundtown. Each category was managed byone team, led by one of the foursection editors. The managing editor’sjob was to coordinate the overalloperation of the project.

The next step was to collect materials.Students brought into the classroomalmost everything a new immigrantmight need to read to survive in NewYork City: maps, Yellow Pages,registration forms, bank deposit andwithdrawal slips, restaurant menus,medical labels, catalogues, drivingdirections, letters from schools andinsurance companies, telephone bills,

For many years I believed that it takes time for ESL students’ writingcompetency to grow and that any effort to rush them into writingbefore they were ready would result in failure. Now, however, I take a

different view on this issue, mostly as a result of a student book project I havebeen involved in.

Multilingual Momentum

From Reader to Authorby Ke Xu

I know now that,

instead of waiting

for writing skills

to mature, I

should tap

students’

potential,

challenge them,

and help them

generate ideas

and language.

13SEPTEMBER 2006

utility bills, subway and bus servicenotices, apartment lease and rental ads,help-wanted ads, job descriptions,instruction manuals, parking tickets,court summons, parcel service pickupnotices, and so on.

Then came the third step: evaluating allthe materials the students hadcollected. The students met twice aweek to go through everything theyhad gathered in order to select suitablematerial for the book. I gave them achecklist to use in deciding whether anitem was worth keeping. Was thecontent relevant to the book? Was thelanguage used clear and easy to follow?Were the vocabulary and grammarstructures used simple and easyenough for beginners to understand?Was the picture or photo of goodquality? Did it contain anyinappropriate content that might causeracial or other controversies?

The fourth step was to compose the text,which included two parts: situationaldialogues and cultural tips introducingthe targeted aspects of life in New YorkCity or providing a minicontext inwhich a conversation took place. Eachteam met to discuss and decide whichtopics to include and how manydialogues and introductory passageswere needed. To make sure what theywrote was as authentic as possible, somestudents made several visits to placeswhere the targeted dialogue might takeplace. Some even audio- or videotapedactual conversations.

As the first drafts were completed, pairsof students brought each one to theteam meeting and asked other pairs forrevision suggestions. Then the pairsmade the necessary revisions andproduced a second draft, which wasagain peer reviewed. They also showedthe drafts to family members, relatives,friends, and colleagues for comment.Further revision followed.

At this point, to expand their vision, Irecommended that the students look at

some ESL textbook series that werepopular among new immigrants, suchas Prentice Hall’s ExpressWays, PearsonESL’s Side by Side, and CambridgeUniversity Press’s Let’s Talk, so that theycould see how these textbooks weredesigned and written. Students seemedinvested in what they were doing andstarted to pay closer attention to boththe content and the form of thelanguage, including spelling, subject-verb agreement, idiomatic usage,punctuation and capitalization, andeven the page format, font, line spacing,and alignment.

What I have learned from the bookproject is that writing involves havingsomething to say and someone to say itto (Reilly and Reilly 2005). Thegenuine need to communicate formsthe heart and soul of the writingprocess, and, as teachers, we shouldn’tforget that this is true for languagelearners, too.

Immigrants come to schools in theirnew country with a wealth ofexperience, knowledge, and ideas. Iknow now that, instead of waiting forwriting skills to mature, I should tapstudents’ potential, challenge them, andhelp them generate ideas and language.Then they can acquire and refine,through constant natural, purposefulpractice, all the writing skills andtechniques they need to becomesuccessful writers. Next, I can evendare them to take the giant step fromreader to author, from surviving to thriving.

Reference

Reilly, J., and V. Reilly. 2005. Writing withchildren. New York: Oxford University Press.

The students met

twice a week to

evaluate the

materials they

had collected for

the book.

Yes No

_ _ Is the content relevant?

_ _ Is the language clear andeasy to follow?

_ _ Are the vocabulary andgrammar structures easyenough for beginners tounderstand?

_ _ Is the item of good quality?

_ _ Does the item contain anyinappropriate content?

�

�

�

�

�


14

In this approach

to professional

development, you

do not need

expensive

textbooks, you

have the freedom

to read when you

have time, and

you are using an

approach that is

probably familiar.

Earlier this year, I was fortunate to beinvited back for a second time tofacilitate three days of workshops onprofessional development with thelargest binational centre in LatinAmerica, the Instituto Cultural PeruanoNorteamericano, located in Lima, Peru,which works with more than 37,000students and more than 400 EFLteachers. For ten hours over three days,I worked with 35 English languageteacher supervisors who asked manychallenging questions on professionaldevelopment. The teacher supervisorswere asked to e-mail me ahead of timethe questions they wanted me toaddress, making this a rare andwonderful opportunity to create a seriesof teacher professional developmentworkshops tailored to the specificquestions, concerns, and needs of aparticular group.

A number of important recurringthemes surfaced during the e-mailexchanges and during my time with the

teachers, one of which was thechallenge of finding the time to engagein professional development—time formany teachers being a currencycomparable in value to money. Thechallenge was, then, to create a series ofactivities that could be completed in onehour per week, with minimal additionalresources. Some of the Peruvian teachersupervisors also asked about activitiesthat could be carried out solo, that is,with little or no involvement by otherteachers. As many English languageteachers, in Peru and elsewhere, areperipatetic, moving among a number ofpart-time positions, it is difficult forthem to spend time together workingon their professional development.

Online resources were one way ofaddressing these conflicting demandswithout adding to already-too-fullteaching and travel schedules. Thisraises the issue of access, especially inrelation to the discussion of thosecommunities that have Internet access

In my March column, I weighed the whys (or wise) and why nots (orknots) of professional development against each other and found thatthe reasons to engage outweighed those not to. In June, I encouraged

you to see your English language lessons as works of art, as a way oflooking differently at your classroom. Now I would like to move from themore general to the more specific and present a project designed to helpthose of you who teach in resource-scarce environments engage inprofessional development with limited time and minimal cost.

In-Service

Learning about Your Teachingby Andy Curtis

15SEPTEMBER 2006

versus those that do not. According to theComputer Industry Almanac (2006), thenumber of people with Internet access in2005 was nearly 1.1 billion, which theAlmanac estimates will rise to 1.8 billionin just four years (2010). These figuresare supported by Internet World Stats(2006), which estimates that the globalgrowth in Internet access was more than180 percent between 2000 and 2005.

Assuming, then, that Internet access willcontinue to grow, I read and reviewedmore than one hundred online articles ona wide range of aspects related tolanguage teacher professionaldevelopment. From these freely available,Web-based articles, I chose my toptwelve. All of the articles are fromestablished and recognized sources, suchas English Teaching Forum, The InternetTESL Journal, and CAL Digest. Thearticles cover a wide time period, from1994 to 2006, with most articlespublished from 2001 onwards. However,the older articles contain as much usefulinformation as the newer ones, as all ofthe articles discuss fundamental principlesand practices that apply over time.

The articles were carefully selected topresent as international a perspective aspossible, with the writers of the twelvearticles based in ten different countries.The articles vary in length, but most arebetween five and ten pages, so they canbe read in relatively little time, with theshortest articles being just four pageslong. The articles are all practicallyfocused, though they were selected partlybecause they clearly connect theory andpractice. However, reading andunderstanding are not the same thing, asany reading teacher will tell you, and asquestions are one of the most effectiveways of getting someone’s attention inany language, I developed a series ofquestions for each article.

Each of the twelve articles wasaccompanied by five main questions: oneprereading focus question and fourpostreading discussion questions.

However, there were many follow-upquestions and a number of small tasks,making a total of nearly one hundredquestions and tasks. The prereading focusquestion was usually based on the overalltheme of the paper or on something inthe introduction to the paper, and the lastpostreading discussion question wasusually based on something in theconclusion to the paper, to encourage theteachers to read the whole paper ratherthan just selectively reading for the

answers to the questions. In addition tothe five main questions, there were twogeneral questions connecting content andcontext that were asked with every article:

�What ideas or approaches in thisarticle are especially relevant to whatyou do in your school?

�What ideas or approaches in thisarticle would not work in yourschool, and why not?

Your English language teaching andlearning organization, or your group ofteachers, can compile a set of titles thatrelate to your particular interests andissues, together with questions to bediscussed after (or before, or before andafter) reading articles. If it is difficult toconduct the discussion face-to-face, youcan set up an online discussion board orcommunicate by e-mail.

Just as all approaches to language teachinghave drawbacks as well as opportunities,so it is with all approaches to languageteacher professional development.However, the advantages of this kind ofapproach are that you do not need to buyor borrow expensive professionaldevelopment textbooks, you have thefreedom to read when you have the time,and you are using an approach that isprobably familiar to you: prereadingquestions, reading, and postreadingdiscussion. Approaches to professionaldevelopment that are based on what youdo with your students every day in classgenerally are very successful, as this kindof familiarity can help position you in therole of the learner, in this case, learningabout your own teaching.

References

Computer Industry Almanac. 2006. WorldwideInternet users top 1 billion in 2005. January 4.http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0106.htm.

Internet World Stats. 2006. Internet usagestatistics—the big picture. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

The teacher

supervisors e-mailed

me questions ahead

of time, making this

a rare opportunity to

tailor the workshops

to the questions,

concerns, and needs

of a particular group.

What observation techniques have you found effective?

How can we help teachers become reflective practitioners?

How can we engage our teachers in an ongoing process of professional development?

What are the main characteristics of constructive feedback?

When can feedback be considered effective?


16

To explain why she became a teacher,Amanda said, “Because I love being inthe classroom. I just love helpingpeople.” And she does. Amanda isalways there for her students, evenoutside scheduled office hours.Students have her e-mail address andhome telephone number, and theyknow she responds on weekends. She’ssaved every class photo, every gift, andeven projects and papers from formerstudents. She’s there for the programand her colleagues, too. She nevermisses a faculty meeting and volunteersfor projects and committees. She’s atevery placement and testing session;she’s even been known to get up at5:00 a.m. to bake gingerbread forposttest grading sessions.

Zoe, on the other hand, sees herstudents in class and during officehours, but her office door is closed atother times. Her home telephonenumber is unlisted, and she doesn’tanswer e-mails on weekends. Studentphotos are emptied into the trash at theend of each term, and gifts arediscarded at thrift stores. Zoe serves oncommittees when required, though she

insists on e-mail communicationsinstead of meetings whenever possible.She doesn't bake anything for requiredmeetings but might pick up somethingat the store.

How did I know one of these teacherswas suffering from burnout? She startedcrying unexpectedly at faculty meetings,escalated to weeping in the halls, andfinally quit teaching altogether, whereasZoe is happily continuing in hersixteenth year of ESL teaching, popularwith both students and colleagues.

Psychologist Herbert Freudenberger firstcoined the term burnout in his 1974book, Burnout: The High Cost of HighAchievement, defining it as a state ofphysical and emotional depletionresulting from conditions of work. Longlaundry lists of burnout symptoms canbe found all over the Internet: fatigue orexhaustion; decreased motivation andefficiency; anxiety and depression;headaches; insomnia; a sense ofhelplessness, hopelessness, orworthlessness; a sense of unendingstress; and so on. Victims of burnoutmay either leave the profession or,

As you read the following profiles of two former colleagues, identifythe teacher suffering from burnout.

From A to Z

Burnout from Teachingby Dorothy Zemach

Most teachers

are probably

more Amanda

than Zoe. But

there are

solutions to

burnout from

teaching.

17SEPTEMBER 2006

worse, endure for years, suffering mental,emotional, and physical damage.

In ESL, burnout is triggered by the workof teaching, poor job conditions, or both.This column discusses burnout fromwork; I’ll talk about burnout from jobconditions in my December column.

Teaching leads to burnout because

� It attracts personalities drawn to burnout.

�Most teachers work in isolation.

�The classroom interaction can beemotionally draining.

�There are physical demands.

�There is often a lack of emotional support fromcolleagues and supervisors.

The Indiana University East’s BeginningTeacher Mentor Program describes twomain burnout-prone personality types.The overly conscientious type is moraland dedicated, with a strong desire tohelp. However, excessive empathy andoverly high self-expectations lead thisperson to give too much to others, oftento compensate for hidden feelings ofinadequacy. The guilt-motivated type feelsoverly responsible for other people andfeels the need to continuously give inorder to make up for something. Bothtypes deny their own feelings, have astrong need for approval, need to feelindispensable, and have trouble settingappropriate limits and expectations.They may also feel that they are the onlyones capable of doing the work properlyand may substitute work for elementsmissing in their personal lives.

Unfortunately, the classroom is a poorplace to meet these needs. Most teachersteach alone and for the most partunnoticed. In many U.S. institutions, theESL programs themselves are isolated onthe fringes of campus and given theoldest offices and the smallestclassrooms. People don’t think ofteaching as an isolating professionbecause, after all, there are classrooms

full of students. However, students arenot peers or friends. Teachers may likestudents and be friendly to them—butthey are not friends. However, in asituation where students may be the onlypeople teachers interact with over thecourse of several days, they risk seeingstudents as people from whom to seekapproval, support, and friendship.

The nature of classroom interaction canlead to a blurring of the boundaries ofhealthy student-teacher relationships.Teachers in English-speaking countriesmay be the only resource students have,so they find themselves helping studentswith matters other than English. Theyhear about students’ traffic tickets, theirvisa troubles, their roommate problems,their parents’ pressure to start taking“real” classes next term, or their worrythat they’ll have to go home and join thearmy. These are things the economicsprofessor doesn’t hear about. For teachersin non-English-speaking countries,students may be the only people theymeet for months with whom they cancommunicate. To practice English andcommunication, teachers participate indiscussions of moral and ethical issues,values, and life experiences. But teachersneed to maintain their roles in theclassroom. A teacher supports andencourages, but also corrects andassesses. You can’t give your friend a C.

People also don’t think of teaching as aphysically demanding activity, and mostteachers I know haven’t built up largemuscles from hefting books. But I knowplenty of teachers with weightproblems—they’re underweight fromskipping meals, or they’re overweightfrom overloading on sugary or fatty foodsto keep their energy and moodsperpetually up for the classroom stage.Poor eating and sleeping habits lead tomore health problems. Simply put, aphysically demanding job is not just onethat makes you sweat, but one thatstresses your body.

What reward do teachers get for copingwith this stress? When salaries andworking conditions are not rewarding,

they need at least verbal recognition andpraise. However, many programs aren’tconfigured to allow that. Supervisors andcolleagues are more alert to problems.Popular teachers who handle challengeswell may be “rewarded” with largerclasses and more of them, while lesssuccessful ones get release time for otherprojects. Thus, less able teachersironically may get more support andcareer development opportunities; morecapable teachers must seek outprofessional growth opportunities ontheir own, while still teaching a full load.

Most teachers are probably more Amandathan Zoe. But there are solutions toburnout from work. For mine, see“Recharge, Reduce, Reconnect, Recycle,”in the Essential Teacher section of TESOL’sWeb site (http://www.tesol/edu/).

Reference

Freudenberger, H. 1974. Burnout: The high costof high achievement. New York: Bantam Books.

In ESL, burnout is

triggered by the work

of teaching, poor job

conditions, or both.

CL

Out of the Out of the boxboxOut of the Out of the boxbox

he tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, which roared across the Gulf

Coast of the United States on August 29, 2005, brought out the best

in many people. But it also exposed the worst in some, and it has

made me reconsider my role as an ESL teacher in grappling with racial,

economic, and social inequities.

The images that the world saw on TVfrom New Orleans after the hurricaneconfirmed the unheralded reality ofslavery, segregation, and a lack of equalopportunity for the nation’s poorestcitizens, most of them African American.One image that summed up thedesperation that so many experiencedwas that of an elderly black manstranded on his roof, a crudely made signheld high with a straightforward request:HELP ME.

Unlike this man, members of my white,middle-class family in New Orleans wereable to evacuate before the storm. Theyhad a car, cash, and credit cards. Althoughmy childhood home sat under seven feetof water for two weeks and my seventy-seven-year-old mother was left homeless,with a lifetime of memories left to rot, myrelatives had friends within drivingdistance able to accommodate themindefinitely while they waited for life toreturn to New Orleans.

Stereotypes and InnuendoMy decision to rethink my responsibilityto deal with issues of racial, economic,and social inequity in my teaching cameto me after the initial shock of thetragedy had passed, when I began

T

Stranded on the Roofby Julie Whitlow

18

hearing firsthand the comments of NewOrleans’ more affluent white citizenswho had safely evacuated. They blamedthe black residents for not evacuating intime, for not helping themselves, for notgetting educated, and for not betteringthemselves. I found this attitudeparticularly disturbing because thecultural contributions of the Afro-Caribbean black population are whatgives New Orleans its unique sense of place.

In discussing the situation of AfricanAmericans with my college-level ESLwriting class during a unit on race, Iencountered attitudes in my students,both immigrant and international, thatwere very similar to those I had found inNew Orleans. We had discussed thelegacy of slavery; we had read TheAutobiography of Miss Jane Pittman(Gaines 1971) and excerpts from Wright’s(1948) Black Boy. We had read The Color ofWater (McBride 1994) and excerpts ofKozol’s (1991) seminal work oneducational inequities; we had seen partsof director Spike Lee’s films as well asCrash (Haggis 2004) and thedocumentary Eyes on the Prize(Hampton 1986).

But when I asked my students whyAfrican Americans still lag in education,health care, employment, and opportunity,they responded with a consensus: it is“black culture” that keeps black Americansdown. The immigrants and internationalstudents alike cited the up-by-the-bootstraps stories of their own familiesand those like them. They had come to thesame conclusion as the white and middle-class residents of New Orleans: in the landof opportunity, African Americans havenot been able to succeed because they donot want to work hard.

I could not get even one student to stepback, look at the material that we hadexamined in class, and reach a morethoughtful conclusion. The students’reaction has made me realize that thisattitude is so pervasive and so muddledby stereotype, innuendo, and complexitythat I feel educators, especially those ofus who are on the front lines of influencewith newcomers to the United States,must begin to address the issue of raceand economic disparity much morecarefully in class.

Introducing the “Other”If genuine dialogue and understanding areto occur across racial, ethnic, and classboundaries, teachers of language, culture,and content must address issues of raceand class in the United States. Doing somay be the most complex task of our time.It is accepted sociology that friendshipwith an individual who is different willlead to greater empathy toward andacceptance of those who are different.People who count people from ethnic,religious, racial, and cultural communitiesdifferent from theirs as colleagues orfriends have a much better chance ofviewing those communities favorably. Weas teachers cannot control the socialnetworks of students outside the

classroom, however, so our task is limitedto what we can accomplish within theconfines of the curriculum.

Across the United States, the most visibleminority culture and the one perhaps themost distorted by media portrayal is thatof the African American diaspora. Amongthe ESL college students I teach, the mainsources of information about AfricanAmericans are rap music, movies, andsports. And although these images havegarnered a large amount of prestige in popculture, they unfortunately reinforce theimage of the lazy and violent black manfor young immigrants and internationalstudents. In other regions, other groupsmay be similarly marginalized andstereotyped based on differentdemographics. In the southwestern UnitedStates, for example, Native Americans andHispanics are undoubtedly the designated“others” due to competing cultural andeconomic forces.

The complex problem that U.S. societyfaces is neither new nor easily solved.The mainstream ESL materials I haveworked with make it easy to ignore thesetopics. However, I believe that ESLteachers must begin to dispel the myththat racial and ethnic inequities are aresult of the so-called laziness of aparticular racial or cultural group andpromote the idea that they have beencreated by deeply ingrained historical,social, and political factors.

Create Teachable, Defining MomentsHere are some ways you might addressissues associated with racial and economicinequality in the United States. You canstart with the reality of pervasive and long-term poverty in the United States, and theaftermath of Hurricane Katrina is as good aplace to start as any. You can use thistragedy to create moments that are not onlyteachable but defining in the education andawareness of U.S. ESL students.

Start with the FactsImages often speak louder than words.Show students news clips of AfricanAmericans stranded on rooftops, in thesqualor of the Louisiana Superdome, andin temporary shelters. Have students writeabout what they witness and then explorewhy the majority of those who werestranded were African American.

19SEPTEMBER 2006

�

“ “You can use thetragedy ofHurricaneKatrina to createmoments that arenot onlyteachable butdefining.

To this end, you might have the studentsconsult Katz’s (2005) detailed analysis ofthe statistics on poverty and demographicsin pre-Katrina New Orleans, which showshow segregated New Orleans had become;the median household income for AfricanAmericans was half of that of the whitepopulation. ESL students at any level canuse these startling statistics to make simplecharts and graphs that they can explain toeach other.

Move Backward in TimeFor most college-age students, the U.S.Civil Rights movement of the 1960smight as well be ancient history, and theera of slavery, which officially ended in1865, was so long ago that these youngpeople perceive it as being insignificantand irrelevant to the twenty-first-centuryUnited States.

The plight of urban schools, however, isrelevant to high school and college-agestudents in the United States. You mighthave students read Kozol’s (2005)excellent “Still Separate, Still Unequal,”which is a gripping account of how thedifficulties of urban public schoolstudents begin in preschool. ESL studentscan easily research the percentage ofAfrican Americans in the army, on deathrow, and in prisons. They can documentthe number of African Americans whoare accepted by elite universities andwho go to college. They can researchhow many representatives and senatorsin the U.S. Congress belong to minoritygroups and compare the percentageswith the minority group’s representationin the population at large.

When students understand the currentrealities, then go on to explore theunderlying reasons. The Jim Crowsegregation laws of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries, the 1896 U.S.Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson(which established the legality of separate-but-equal facilities for different races), andthe legacy of slavery then become moresalient and meaningful.

Go LocalTake advantage of local and campusevents that bring to life the experience ofhistorically disadvantaged populations.Encourage students to attend relevant art

exhibits, theater performances, lectures,and films. Invite campus or communityleaders to class lead a discussion orpresent a personal perspective. You mightalso have students visit local schools.

Take on the Tough IssuesDon’t be afraid to discuss and grapplewith issues of race and class or to havestudents do some self-examination. Asksome hard questions: Why have theirfamilies succeeded while historicallyimpoverished communities have not?Who helped the students and theirparents when they arrived in the UnitedStates? Where do they get the money fortheir education? Have family membershelped out? What did their parentsinherit from their grandparents? Whatwill they inherit?

Then go on to questions like these: Whatis the typical U.S. immigrant successstory? Who came to the United States bychoice, and who came over in chains?Who has the Statue of Libertyhistorically welcomed? The answers tosome of these questions may spark adifferent level of understanding.

Be PatientMaking a perceptible shift in attitude is along, slow process. One class or one unitmay not result in much change, butmaking racial and economic disparity anddiscrimination part of your curriculumwill be a start. Do not give up if theconversation breaks down. Instead,continue the dialogue on these issues, andlook for creative ways to make societalinequities salient to your students.

Taking Meaning fromTragedyMy experience in trying out thesesuggestions with my students provesthat it is difficult to change attitudes. Aneighteen-year-old Polish immigrantwrote, “If people are willing to workhard, they can be successful. AfricanAmericans, because they have not beentrue immigrants, do not have that idea ofworking for a better life.” A Brazilianwhose parents clean houses and hotelrooms ended up rejecting the Americandream as fantasy:

20

“ “Educators,especially those onthe front lines ofinfluence withnewcomers to theUnited States,must begin toaddress the issueof race andeconomic disparitymuch morecarefully in class.

21SEPTEMBER 2006

I thought that if everybody worked hardlike the immigrants that they can besuccessful. My family is not afraid ofhard work and we are having a betterlife here. But African Americans havenever had access to equal education,health care, or employment. Theirstruggle has been different and it hasbeen harder for them to achieve theirgoals than Europeans and now Latinos.

Ingrained attitudes, stereotypes, andfallacies are hard to dispel, but grapplingwith difficult themes prepares students forreal-world dialogue. Every young mindthat begins to understand the vastinequities that exist in a society has thepotential to become an informed personwho will speak the truth with passion.

References

Gaines, E. 1971. The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. New York: Bantam Books.

Haggis, P., director. 2004. Crash. Film. Santa Monica, CA: Lions Gate Films.

Hampton, H., director. 1986. Eyes on the prize. Video. Alexandria, VA: PBS Home Video.

Katz, B. 2005. New Orleans after the storm: Lessons from the past, a plan for the future. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.

Kozol, J. 1991. Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perennial.

Kozol, J. 2005. Still separate, still unequal: America’s educational apartheid. Harper’s Magazine 311(1864): 41–54.

McBride, J. 1994. The Color of water. New York: Riverhead Books.

Wright, R. 1948. Black boy. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Julie Whitlow is an associate professor in the English Department and co-coordinator of the MA program inteaching ESL at Salem State College, in the United States.

CL

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Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

ducating the mind without educating the heart is no

education at all.—Aristotle

As a freshly graduated languageinstructor in Hungary, I was thrilled toland a job as a supplemental teacher atone of the most prestigious high schools inBudapest. When I opened the door on myfirst day, I found the students chatteringand laughing like any other eleven- ortwelve-year-old children. On hearing thegrating of the door, they scattered like agroup of frightened birds and sat down attheir desks.

Then came the silence—the silence that fortwo weeks I simply could not break nomatter how hard I tried. These childrendid not even vaguely resemble the onesthe headmistress had described as“talkative, sociable, and very, veryintelligent.” From our first English lesson,they just sat there together, confiningthemselves to a basic level ofcommunication. They answered myquestions and sometimes asked verypolitely for help with the homework, butthey said nothing more. They greeted mewhen I arrived and said good-bye whenthey left the room as they were required todo, but generally they showed no interestin my person, comments, or advice.

Was I the Problem?The students felt the same about mycourse content, the learning of personalletter writing. They learned the rules andwrote the letters I asked them to write.However, they did so simply by usingtheir intellect and failed to employ any oftheir creativity. They handed in well-written pieces with no grammaticalmistakes, but the letters looked like pagescopied out of a textbook with the topic andthe words changed: repetitions of the sameschema thirteen times.

They separated themselves from me andbuilt a wall between us in the classroomas well as in our verbal communication. Itwas a wall that I could not break or climbdespite trying everything from littleicebreakers at the end of each lesson togames incorporated into my lesson plans.Sometimes, usually in the middle of anamusing game, I felt that something washappening: a smile, a gesture, or a sparkleof curiosity in a pair of eyes created theillusion that nothing was wrong.Nevertheless, by the end of the activity,the students always returned to theirusual pattern.

Piercing a Wall of Silenceby Orsolya Molnár

22

E


At the end of two weeks of stalemate, Icalled a former roommate from theuniversity who was a practicingpsychologist. She listened to my endlesslist of problems carefully and patiently,and when I eventually ran out of breath,she simply asked, “Have you ever askedthem if they have a problem with you?”

Of course, I had not. I had been far tooconcerned about my failure as a teacherand my inability to arouse and keep mystudents’ attention to do so. However,after recognizing this basic mistake, I stillcould not imagine what I could do. All Iknew was that I could not stand in frontof my group and say, “Hey, kids! Just tellme what your problems are with me.”Fortunately, my friend asked me asecond question: “Why don’t you try tosolve this problem while sticking to your syllabus?”

Jo Is BornThat statement marked the starting pointof a joint effort to save my reputation as ateacher. The following Saturday evening,Jo was born. She was a rather simplecreature made of a cardboard shoeboxwrapped in colorful paper. She had huge

black eyes and a big smile, and shewaved her papier-mâché hands joyfully.

Her most important feature was a slit inthe middle of her belly. She was a littleridiculous, a little awkward, and very farfrom perfect, but we were absolutelysatisfied with her and unspeakablycurious about how successfully shewould complete her mission.

On Monday morning, when the classwas supposed to take a quiz, Jo and Istepped over the threshold of theclassroom hand in hand. She was soconspicuous that the students could notresist staring at her with wide-open eyes.For the first time in my short career as aprofessional teacher of English, I heard amurmur of excitement in the classroom.My seemingly indifferent pupils startedto show signs of interest.

As if nothing unusual had happened, Igreeted the students, distributed the quizsheets, and went back to stand near Jo.After waiting for a few moments (just toenjoy the awakening excitement), Iturned to the students and said,

Today I have someone to introduceyou to. Her name is Jo, and she is ournew postmistress. From this day on, itwill be her responsibility to collectyour assignments, the first of whichyou are going to write today. Pleasewrite a letter to Jo and tell her whatyou think of our English lessons andwhat your opinions about me are. Beas honest as you can. You do not haveto sign your letters, but you may usean imaginary name. When you havefinished, fold the letters up and postthem into Jo. After completing yourtask, you are all allowed to leave.

Letters to JoAs the students started working on theirletters, they seemed rather at a loss tounderstand my intention. Then theygradually became more excited.Dictionaries appeared on the desks, andI could see that the students were tryinghard to explain what they had on their minds.

Reading those thirteen letters was anabsolute joy for me. For the first time, thestudents and I had begun tocommunicate. Some of the letters had

23SEPTEMBER 2006

�

“That is why we teachers are there: not only to be listened to butalso to show that we can listen. We must be determinedpsychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists in the

“

more grammatical mistakes than thestudents’ other assignments, but I couldsee the effort behind every single word asthey tried to ensure that their meaningreached me. With Jo as a mediator, theybegan to address me as a human beingand not just as their teacher. Theyallowed me to see how I intruded into theprivate sphere that they had shared withtheir former teacher for years and thatthey had not been ready to open up to meat the beginning of the school year.

After the appearance of Jo in ourclassroom, the students and I spent twoand a half marvelous months together.Our little postmistress sat on my desk witha constant smile on her face. We agreedthat if anyone had any problem with meor the lesson, he or she could either tell medirectly or write a letter (in English, ofcourse) and give it to Jo. I was verysurprised to find that the students wereactually using this communication path.What is more, Jo did not go out of fashionafter my commission as a supplementaryteacher ended. I left her with the students,and they took care of her and even todaytreat her as an old friend.

Finding a Way to ListenHunter (1984) wrote, “Teaching is anapplied science derived from research inhuman learning and human behavior: anapplied science that utilizes the findingsof psychology, neurology, sociology, andanthropology” (p. 4). I feel fortunate thatsomebody made me recognize the truthof this statement: we as teachers are notonly required to construct and follow asyllabus, but must find a voice foreffective, two-way communicationbetween the children sitting in theclassroom and the adult standing by theteacher’s desk. That is why we teachers are there: notonly to be listened to but also to showthat we can listen. We must be willing tobe determined psychologists, sociologists,and anthropologists at the same time inthe classroom, and—what is even moreimportant—we have to be proud that wehave learned to take this responsibility. Iam grateful that this happened to me atthe beginning of my professional careerwith the help of Jo and, of course, thechildren who taught me how to listen.

References

Hunter, M. 1984. Knowing, teaching and supervising.Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Scholastic Book Services.

Orsolya Molnár is a teacher of English languageand literature and is working on her second MAdegree in Budapest, Hungary.

24

With Jo as a mediator, the students began toaddress me as a human being and not just astheir teacher.“

“

25SEPTEMBER 2006

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lthough I try to encourage students to participate in group

discussions because the production of output helps them notice gaps

in knowledge (Swain 1985), it is easier to theorize about

participation than to put that theory into practice. I have often felt frustrated

about students’ lack of participation and have assumed that those who do not

take part are either shy or have not prepared adequately. While observing an

ESL immersion class in 2003, though, I quickly realized that these assumptions

were not always correct.

To my surprise, the fifteen intermediate-level South Korean students in the collegeimmersion ESL class I observed over afour-week period (as part of a larger casestudy on the relationship among gender,identity, and participation) reporteddifferent reasons for not participating.Their reasons were related to factors suchas these: perceived threats to identity,feelings of powerlessness, and insufficientbackground knowledge. Based on studentand teacher comments I noted duringlessons, I concluded that, to increaseparticipation, I needed to be sensitive tomultiple identities and to offer classroomactivities that foster student ownership ofthose activities.

Refusing to Participate? For one class, the teacher had assigned aselection from the students’ ESL readingbook, a chapter from Twain’s (1885/1981)Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. On the daythat the students were to discuss thechapter, the teacher asked questions, butall of the students remained silent. Theteacher asked follow-up questions. Whenthe students failed to respond, the teacherbecame frustrated and assumed the worst:that the students had not finished theirreading. Angry and dismayed, shedismissed them early, warning students

that they needed to complete the assignedreading in order to receive a passing grade.

After the teacher left, two studentsapproached me and began discussing whathad just occurred. Even though she hadread the assignment, said one femalestudent, she had not participated becauseshe felt that the reading selection was forchildren. She had deliberately not answeredthe teacher’s questions in order to show thatshe disapproved of the reading material.She told me that the teacher’s assigning thatchapter signaled disrespect for the studentsand made her feel inferior. Both studentswanted to read age-appropriate materialthat incorporated aspects of Korean culture,not just U.S. culture.

The Issue Is IdentityMy in-class observation and follow-upconversation with students caused me torethink the relationship betweenparticipation and identity. Identity(defined by Norton 2000 as multiple,contradictory, and changing over time)played a pivotal role in thismisunderstanding, a misunderstandingconfirmed by the teacher following theclassroom incident.

A

What Does It Mean WhenStudents Don’t Participate?by Jennifer Graham

26


The Students Feel InvisibleI believe that the classroom interactionabove affected the participants’identities as students and as SouthKoreans. First, the students thought thatthe reading selection was meant forchildren. This misunderstanding aboutthe appropriateness of the material ledthem to assert that the teacher definedtheir culture as strange, backward,and—most important—childlike. Thisfeeling of otherness or alienation wasexacerbated by the fact that the readingfocused on U.S. culture. The studentsfelt disconnected from the material,which made them feel that they andtheir cultures were invisible andtherefore unimportant.

One student later confirmed that thestudents had begun to believe that theteacher thought of them as illegitimatelearners, which threatened theiridentities. This sense of beingmarginalized can negatively affect howlanguage learners engage with oneanother and the material (Pavlenko 2003).To protect their identities, the studentsresisted by withdrawing fromparticipation (see Norton 2000).

The Teacher MisinterpretsEarlier in the academic year, I had metwith this teacher and other facultymembers to discuss their perceptions ofKorean culture and gender roles. Theyresponded with stereotypes: all Koreanwomen were silent, men and women inKorean culture maintained certain rigidnorms, and students in this immersionprogram did not take the course workseriously enough. Clearly, the facultymembers underestimated the importanceof individual identities. Rather thanseeing these students as having identitiesformed by diverse experiences, theteachers saw the students as havinguniversal qualities based on the teachers’own expectations of the students’ culture.

When I talked to the teacher about thelesson and the students’ comments, shetold me that her initial reaction had beenanger at the students because sheassumed that they had not prepared forclass. Her reaction related directly to anearlier faculty meeting in which she hadheard these students described asunmotivated. She was surprised that thestudents misunderstood the age-

appropriateness of the text, and she wasgenuine in her desire to be sensitive toher students’ multiple identities.

Build Ownership, BuildParticipationGiving students some control overlessons may foster feelings of ownershipand agency, which may lead to greaterparticipation. This was true of thestudents I observed in my largerqualitative study; those who feltempowered began to believe that theyhad the ability to affect change and had aright to speak. Encouraging students toread texts that have some meaning fortheir own lives also promotesparticipation: when students seethemselves in the hopes and strugglesthat others have experienced, they maybecome more invested in the process ofreading (Raphael, Kehus, andDamphousse 2001).

How could the teacher have avoided theappearance that she was insensitive tothe students’ ethnic identities? Adequatebackground knowledge about the textmight have helped the studentsunderstand its importance in U.S.literature and culture. Students mighthave responded better if they had knownthat learners of all ages in the UnitedStates read Huckleberry Finn. The teachercould also have drawn upon the complexcultural themes, pointing out that thebook deals with racism, prejudice, andslavery and, specifically, pointing outhow Twain confronts these issues. Withthe main concepts explained, the teachercould have asked students to relatepersonal experiences when they orsomeone they know had beendiscriminated against based on theirethnicity or gender.

Another way to approach studentownership is to organize reading class as abook club. The teacher and studentsdecide on a theme for the reading classtogether, and the teacher then creates a listof books that are appropriate for thetheme and the students’ reading level.From this list, the students vote on whichtexts will be the assigned course readings.Having students participate in choosingthe readings encourages ownership, andstudents will be more invested in readingthe assigned text and in participating insubsequent class discussions.

27SEPTEMBER 2006

�

“Before assuming thatstudents do notparticipate becauseof a lack ofpreparation, I nowask myself thesequestions: How can Iencourage studentsto feel a sense ofagency? How can Irelate contentknowledge in ameaningful way?

“

28

Build Agency and Ownership� Start a book club in which students choose a genre and then

select books from a reading list.

� Brainstorm items for classroom discussion with the students(Raphael, Kehus, and Damphousse 2001).

Build Background Knowledge� Besides the usual prereading activities (Carrell, Devine, and

Eskey 1988), introduce additional ones such as role plays, inwhich students can imagine themselves in situations similar tothose experienced by the characters in the literature.

Acknowledge Identities� In postreading discussions, ask students to relate their

experiences to those of the characters in the literature. If they canidentify with the character, they may be able to imagine a newidentity for themselves and think differently about their place inthe world.

� Ask students to keep journals in which they relate their personalexperiences to the characters and plot of reading selections.

Strategies for Building

29SEPTEMBER 2006

Ask the Right QuestionsBefore assuming that students do notparticipate because of a lack of preparation,I now always ask myself these questions:How can I encourage students to feel asense of agency so that they invest inlearning and feel empowered to speak?How can I relate content knowledge in ameaningful way? How can I help studentsexplore their identities in a meaningfulway in the classroom?

I have come up with several ways toaddress these questions through the wayI structure and conduct my classes (seethe box). I am now more aware that Imust continually strive to be sensitive towhat my student experience outside theclassroom, realizing that theseexperiences are not static and that theymay hinder or promote participation inthe classroom.

References

Carrell, P. L., J. Devine, and D. E. Eskey, eds. 1988. Interactive approaches to second language reading. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Norton, B. 2000. Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, England:Longman/Pearson Education.

Pavlenko, A. 2003. “I never knew I was a bilingual”: Re-imagining teacher identities in TESOL. Journal ofLanguage, Identity, and Education 2:251–68.

Raphael, T., M. Kehus, and K. Damphousse, eds. 2001. Book club for middle school. Lawrence, MA: Small Planet Communications.

Swain, M. 1985. Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensibleoutput in its development. In Input in second language acquisition, ed. S. Gass and C. Madden, 235–56. Rowley,MA: Newbury House.

Twain, M. 1981. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Bantam Classics. (Orig. pub. 1885.)

Jennifer Graham is a recent graduate of the doctoral program in applied linguistics at the University ofMemphis, in the United States.

TESOLpublicationsPO Box 753, Waldorf, MD 20604-0753 USA

Toll Free USA 888-891-0041 � Tel. 301-638-4427 or -4428 � Fax 301-843-0159 E-mail [email protected] � Order online at http://www.tesol.org/Teachers of English to Speakers


Literature in Language Teaching and LearningEdited by Amos Paran

This book brings to life the organic connection betweenliterature and language teaching. Believing that learners do notlearn in isolation but absorb what is around them, thecontributors to this volume prove that language and literaturedo not have to be taught in separate realms.

This book adeptly shows how the study of literature can besuccessfully integrated with ESL/EFL teachings. Contributorsshare practical applications and case studies used to helppractitioners make literary teachings come alive in variedESL/EFL classroom settings around the world.

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s a Chinese EFL teacher, I faced a problem common to many of my

colleagues: how could I motivate students to write autonomously,

especially with an audience in mind? Most EFL learners I have

worked with in China consider writing in English a headache. They simply

write on a given topic and then submit their work to teachers, with little

willingness or desire. Teachers often have difficulty handling writing classes

since the class revolves around the introduction of writing techniques, which

does not attract students’ interest.

Fosnot (1996) claims that learning meansestablishing connections to pastexperiences or present concerns. Acceptingthis view of learning would mean that animportant part of writing instruction ishelping students relate what they arewriting to some aspect of their lives.However, in conventional writingclassrooms at Chinese universities, mosttopics fail to build such links; no wonderstudents lose interest.

To inspire my students to approachwriting with enthusiasm, I hit upon theidea of basing their writing on problemsolving. I make sure that the topics reflectthe personal experiences and issues of thestudents, who are second-year Englishmajors at Yang Zhou University.

Solving Society’s ProblemsEvery week I inspire the students to definea real-life problem and guide them to writea composition to solve it. For example, aprevalent problem among young Chineseis compulsive Internet use (David 1999).Once, after discussing Internet addictionwith my students, I asked them tobrainstorm in small groups and writedown one way to wean people fromaddictive computer use. I provided a fewquestions to guide their discussion, such as“How do we prevent young people from

becoming addicted to the Internet?”,“How do we help them exercise self-control on the Internet?”, and “How do weteach them to be masters rather than slavesof the Internet?”

All the students put forward advice intheir essays. I was impressed that one usedan analogy to make her point:

One effective way is to “think before youleap.” It’s just like doing shopping. If youhave no idea what to buy, you hangaround in the street or at thesupermarket, stopping from time to timeto take a look at or buy whatever catchesyour eyes. However, if you make a listbefore shopping, you will buy what youwant directly, avoiding a waste of timeand money. As a result, we’d better thinkbefore searching on the Internet . . . . Weshould be the controller of the Internetrather than be controlled by it.

Afterward, the student shared the solutionwith her classmates through peer editingand published her work on the course Web page.

Another real-life problem-solving topicarose from one of the students’ journals.The student, who worked as a tutor of afifteen-year-old boy, was astonished to

A

30

Out of the Out of the boxboxOut of the Out of the boxboxAdding Problem-SolvingFuel to the Writing Fireby Fang Ying

learn of the boy’s heavy load ofschoolwork. The burden mostly camefrom the boy’s father, who judged his sononly by his schoolwork and believed thatforcing him to study was the only way to help him succeed.

When I presented this situation to theclass as an educational problem, itaroused the students’ attention becausethey themselves were victims of the exam-oriented education system in China. Theyeach wrote a letter (in English) to theboy’s father in an attempt to persuadehim to relieve his son of the burdensomeschoolwork and to raise his awareness ofquality-oriented education. Some of theletters were particularly passionate:

A burden is to people what a shell is toa snail. A heavy burden works againstwhat people engage in. Please don’timpose your will on your kid. Don’texpect too much of him. . . . High markcan’t stand for knowledge and richknowledge can’t stand for excellentability. . . . One day he will take overthe mission that life gives him.

In fact, the letters caused a stir amongfaculty members as well as studentsbecause they highlighted an issue foreducation in China at all levels (to readthe letters, see http://greentrees.8800.org/yzu/).

Working Out Their Own ProblemsI have found that when writinginstruction revolves around problemsolving, it is more likely to motivatelearners. Educators and psychologistsagree that learners learn best when theycarry out meaningful tasks and solvemeaningful problems in an environmentthat reflects their own personal interests(Collins, Brown, and Newman 1989).Journals offer students a channel forexpressing concerns and troubles in allaspects of their lives. Each week, I readthe journals very carefully, and, with thepermission of student writers, I shareentries dealing with problems that seemmost relevant to the class.

The problem of lack of confidence is a casein point. One student wrote that, becauseof a relatively heavy workload and poorperformance on exams, she had lostconfidence and was even thinking of

giving up studying English. I discussedthe problem with the students in class,omitting the writer’s name so the studentwould not lose face in front of her peers.When I asked the students how many ofthem suffered from similar anxiety,everyone raised a hand. Students eagerlyworked out solutions to the self-confidence problem. Among the solutions,the problem sufferer found the followingsuggestions the most instructive:

Whatever difficulties you have metand will meet, you should havecourage to face any challenges,expected and unexpected. You mightstart with something that attracts youfirst and then extend your interest toother subjects . . . . Hard work isessential. If you cannot do as well asyour classmates, just devote a littlemore time to the task. Gradually youwill make more progress . . . .

Subsequent journal entries and classroomobservations showed that the studentseemed to have more confidence in herlearning strategies after reading herclassmates’ feedback.

Real-Life Problems, Real CommunicationThe most beneficial aspect of usingproblem solving in writing instruction isthe communication it fosters amongclassmates. The traditional Chineseclassroom setup, in which student desksare arranged in straight rows, detersdiscussion and interaction. However, thestudents’ desire to communicate canovercome this roadblock.

By exchanging points of view, studentsbroaden their horizons and improve theirinsights. In this way, they learn how toorganize their perspectives into logicalorder. They are writing not just to developlanguage skills but, more importantly, toeffectively express their ideas. As onestudent noted, “We always have a sense ofachievement when our solutions areaccepted by our classmates. We learn to beconsiderate and thoughtful.”

Compared with conventional competitiveand individualistic writing experiences, Ihave found that writing instruction thatis based on problem solving is effectivein establishing a rapport among studentsand helping them organize their ideas.

31SEPTEMBER 2006

“One student wrote,“We are no longerworried about havingnothing to writeabout because theproblem is so closeto our life. . . . Ithink about what Iwould do if I were inthe same position.”

“

�

Students also seek out reading materialon their own, which may mean that theyare more likely to connect what theyfind to their internal schemata (Jonassen,Peck, and Wilson 1999). One bookstudents often refer to is Survey ofChinese College Students (Hu et al. 2005),which records in detail the problems ofmillions of Chinese university studentsin such areas as the relationshipsbetween students and parents, thenational College English Test, and youngcouples living off campus. The studentsuse the book as a reference forconstructing their own problemstatements. They also access informationthrough Internet search engines and thelibrary’s online catalogues.

Making the Jump fromPassive to ActiveAs the Chinese saying goes, “Wheneverybody adds fuel, the flame riseshigh.” In the problem-solving process,language becomes a tool by whichstudents solve practical problemstogether. Writing about solving problemsgives the students a chance to use

Reading in Search of SolutionsLooking for solutions to the problemsthey discuss and write about in class hasmade the students more sensitive towhat they read. Instead of being aburden, reading material becomes a resource.

For instance, the campus Englishnewspaper, 21st Century, carries threeadvice columns edited by U.S. teachers:Just Ask, which deals with problems onlife issues; Clearing It Up, on languageproblems; and Love Troubles. Thestudents in my class collect the weeklynewspaper and imitate the way in whichthe U.S. teachers ingeniously suggestways to solve problems—not only thelanguage but also the patterns of essaydevelopment, such as exemplification,classification, cause and effect, andcomparison and contrast. The studentsregard imitation of these authenticsources as more effective than thelearning of rigid rules.

32

“ Looking for solutions toproblems has made thestudents more sensitive towhat they read. Instead ofbeing a burden, readingmaterial becomes a resource.

“As the Chinese sayinggoes, “When everybodyadds fuel, the flame riseshigh.” In the problem-solving process, languagebecomes a tool by whichstudents solve practicalproblems together.

“ “

References

Collins, A., J.S. Brown, and S. E. Newman. 1989. Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the craft of reading, writing, andmathematics. In Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, ed. L. B. Resnick, 453–94. Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum.

David, G. 1999. Virtual addiction: Help for netheads, cyberfreaks, and those who love them. Oakland, CA: NewHarbinger.

Fosnot, C. T. 1996. Constructivism: A psychological theory of learning. In Constructivism: Theory, perspective, andpractice, ed. C. Fosnot, 8–33. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hu, X., T. Li, S. Wang, et al. 2005. Survey of Chinese college students. Wuhu, China: Press of Anhui Normal University.

Jonassen, D., K. L. Peck, and B. G. Wilson. 1999. Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Fang Ying is a teacher of English in the School of Foreign Languages at Yang Zhou University, in China.

33SEPTEMBER 2006

Out of the Box is edited by Phil Quirke ([email protected]). See http://www.tesol.org/ for submission guidelines.

SEND

language for authentic communicationand enhances their ability to thinkcreatively. By writing purposefully andmeaningfully, students shake off feelingsof passivity and become activelyengaged in learning.

As one student wrote, “We are no longerworried about having nothing to writeabout because the problem is so close toour life. When I have the problem athand, I think about what I would do if Iwere in the same position. In doing so, Iam becoming more and more interestedin writing.”

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Stoynoff and Chapelle introduce teachers and administratorsto the PRINCIPLES, METHODS, and VOCABULARY of language assessment.

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What Is Podcasting?Podcasting is a method of publishing files on theInternet and allowing users to subscribe to andautomatically have those files downloaded to theircomputers. In effect, it is a form of audio or videobroadcasting that allows you to create your ownradio station.

Not technically limited to the World Wide Web, theportion of the Internet that is viewed by Webbrowsers such as Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explorer,Netscape, and AOL Explorer, podcasts can beaccessed in varied ways, including peer-to-peersoftware, file transfer protocol software, andconferencing software. Furthermore, users canautomatically transfer or update podcasts to MP3players, such as the Apple iPod. Many traditionalnews outlets are quite active in podcasting, butmany nontraditional sources of information availablealso broadcast authentic and meaningful content.Podcasting has recently begun to specifically addressthe needs and interests of the TESOL community (seePodcasting Resources on p. 37).

Finding PodcastsNearly every media company has some sort ofpodcast today (see Podcasting Resources for some

A Multimedia Lab on Your Desktop

The popularity of MP3 players (portable

devices that store and play digital audio

files) has taken the business and

entertainment world by storm. Apple Computer’s

popular iPod has proven to be a business miracle,

consumer must-have, and fashion statement. As

portable devices have grown in popularity and

availability, the software, hardware, and communities

that involve them continue to offer more to language

teachers and students.

by Greg Kessler

This article looks at podcasting, a term formedfrom the words iPod and broadcasting: what it is,how it works, how you can receive podcasts, howyou can become a podcaster, and how you can usepodcasts in your classes.

To get an idea of how digital audio and portabledevices have affected language education, firstrecall how tape-based audio labs have typicallyfunctioned. The audio lab represented one of thefirst opportunities for exposing students to targetlanguage recordings. However, the labs offered afairly limited set of experiences. Often, tapes wouldbreak, get lost, or degrade to the point where theybecame inaudible. Students’ access to materials wasalso limited to the times the lab was open.

Fortunately, digital audio and portable recordingdevices offer teachers and students a much moreflexible environment for in-class and self-accesslistening and speaking activities. These digital solutionsalso allow students to experience a much broader arrayof authentic materials. In addition to all of theactivities that were possible with traditional audio labs,students can now record themselves nearly anywherethey desire, conduct interviews with native speakers,listen to up-to-the-minute news, and share recordingswith students, teachers, and the public.

[ ]PortalPortal

34

examples). A comprehensive collection of podcastscan be accessed via Apple’s iTunes Music Store(http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/),categorized by areas of interest.

Once you identify a podcast of interest, you cansubscribe to it through a Really Simple Syndication(RSS) feed, which will deliver the podcast directly toyour computer for downloading to your portableplayer. RSS allows you to schedule automaticdownloading or updating of podcasts, Weblogs, andnews sites. When used with programs such as Apple’siTunes, RSS allows you to make many recordingsavailable to students with minimal effort.

Getting Started in Recording and Podcasting As a trainer in computer-assisted language learning,I have helped a number of teachers learn to recordand exchange and even start their own podcasts.They have found that using these materials is easyand rewarding if they have the proper equipment.

Make Your Own Audio FilesCreating your own digital audio is actually a loteasier than you might expect. You will need acomputer with a microphone as well as recordingsoftware. A quality headset and speakers will greatlyimprove the experience. Among the free recordingprograms available, Audacity (see http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is one of the best available. It isvery easy to use and mimics the conventionalcontrols of a cassette recorder.

Once you have recorded or downloaded files andsaved them in MP3 format, you can transfer them to theInternet for students to utilize. If you have access to aserver through your school or your personal Internetservice provider (ISP), the entire process will cost younothing. Many people have such access withoutknowing it; contact your ISP support staff or schooltechnology support staff to find out.

Make Your Own PodcastsYou and the students you teach can easily create yourown podcasts. As the technology becomes morecommon, more programs for podcasting are becoming available.

Podcasts can be received on conventional computers,but the ability to use them with portable MP3 playersallows for more flexibility. Using either of two freeprograms, Juice for both Macintosh computers andcomputers running Microsoft Windows (see http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/) and iPodder.NET forWindows (see http://ipoddernet.sourceforge.net/), youand your students can easily save or scheduleautomated updates of podcast audio to your portableMP3 players. By using one of these programs, you cancreate an archive, or library, of useful audio contentfor students. Such files could be stored on CD, DVD, ora file server for student access.

35SEPTEMBER 2006

�

Students can now record

themselves nearly

anywhere they desire,

conduct interviews with

native speakers, listen to

up-to-the-minute news, and

share recordings with

students, teachers, and

the public.

Podcasting-Based Lessons At my university, my colleagues and I have beenusing iPods in our classes for almost two years. Sofar, the students have reported that they find itmuch easier and more comfortable to do aural/oralactivities from their apartments or with their iPodsthan in the traditional audio lab (which we stilloffer as an option). Thus, many of them spend moretime engaged in assigned activities and often gobeyond the minimum requirements of an assignment.

Another bonus is that the recordings the studentsmake sound more natural than they would ifrecorded in the traditional lab, where students oftenwhisper or otherwise speak in a manner thatdemonstrates the self-conscious nature of being in aroom with many other people who could beeavesdropping. My hope is that this increasedcomfort and ease translates into greater successwith language.

Peer Review via Podcasting Now that many MP3 players are equipped withmicrophones, students can interact with a podcastby recording responses, reactions, and comments.They may even want to begin their own podcasts.

Once you and your students begin using thistechnology, you may want to have students engagein peer-response activities using podcasting. Thisapproach may increase the amount ofcommunication relative to face-to-face interaction,and it alleviates the overwhelming load of gradingthat you might have to do otherwise. Peer reviewcan also contribute to a better ability to self-evaluate, an ability that empowers students. Youmay still find it useful to assess student recordingsbased on a checklist of goals.

Multimedia Readings, Videos, and MoreBy utilizing interactive quiz-building tools such asthose included in most course management systems(CMSs), or the popular software Hot Potatoes (seehttp://hotpot.uvic.ca/), I frequently integrate audiorecordings into multimedia materials. The resultingmaterials might include readings, videos, audio, drag-

and-drop matching exercises, crossword puzzles, andother media. For a great example of such materialsthat use online movie trailers as the content, seeEnglish Trailers (http://english-trailers.com/).

Audio Sharing In addition to podcasting, my colleagues and I relyon the sharing of digital audio files. We exchangeprerecorded, teacher-recorded, and student-recordedaudio files through e-mail, over an intranet, andthrough a CMS. We use both the Moodle (seehttp://moodle.org/) and Blackboard (seehttp://www.blackboard.com/) CMSs to share thesefiles and maintain a variety of interaction. The use ofa CMS also allows students and teachers to exchangefiles as a single component of a more globalinteraction. Students can attach the files to forumsto augment their written text. They can transcribetheir recordings in a forum. They can even take otherstudents’ audio recordings and edit them to inserttheir own responses, thus creating a cohesivedialogue. These dialogues can be used as classroommaterial or even collected for research.

With the ability to collect recordings on a DVD,CD, file server, or other storage device, there isvirtually no limit to the amount of content that youcan ultimately archive. The ability to exchangeaudio recordings easily and quickly from anylocation allows you to plan more creative peer-response activities and have more frequent (andvaried) interaction with students. In theinternational teaching associate classes at myuniversity, for example, students record themselvesand exchange files with classmates and the teacherthrough Moodle.

Some of our classes have utilized a shared libraryof songs on a local file server that automaticallyupdates the material on the students’ iPods eachtime they are plugged into any computer in ourbuilding. Each class can have its own playlist,which can be updated as necessary from anycomputer on the network. This automaticityeliminates many of the problems that may occurwith portable devices. We can be assured thatstudents have the required listening files.

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Share the WealthIn my experience, teachers and students haveresponded positively to the integration of digitalaudio materials into English learning. Students likethe flexibility and variety of podcasting. They alsoseem to be willing to engage in more Englishpractice using these technologies than they didusing a traditional audio lab.

Once you get started in podcasting, you may find itso exciting that you need to share. Similarly, you mayfind that your students create materials that are sointeresting that others must see them. If this is thecase, visit the collaborative collection of ESL podcastsat Easy Online RSS Reader for English as a SecondLanguage (ESL) Podcasts (http://a4esl.org/p/), browsethe offerings there, and post your own.

Greg Kessler, a recent chair of TESOL’s Computer-AssistedLanguage Learning Interest Section and currentlypresident-elect of OhioTESOL, teaches linguistics and ESLat Ohio University, in the United States.

37SEPTEMBER 2006

Podcasting Resources

General Media Outlets

� Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7078547/site/newsweek/)

� The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/multimedia/podcasts.html)

� National Public Radio (http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php)

� BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

ESL/EFL Podcasts

� Breaking News English (http://www.breakingnewseng-lish.com/): a collection of audio recordings as well asinstructional materials based on recent news events.Topics cover a wide range of interests. Materials foreach article (available in two levels of difficulty)include an MP3 file, a podcast, communication activities, pair work, discussion, and reading andvocabulary exercises as well as classroom handouts.The podcasts are also downloadable by themselvesand can be scheduled using an RSS feed.

� ESL : Listening : Podcasts (http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/Podcasts/): a comprehensive collection of podcasts maintained by Charles andLarry Kelly. As of mid-2006 the site contained morethan thirty podcasts, links to podcast software, andinstructions on using and accessing podcasts.

� English Idioms and Slang (http://www.englishcaster.com/blogs/): explanations in context for a variety ofidioms and slang.

� The Bob and Rob Show (http://englishcaster.com/bobrob/): addresses issues of culture, idioms, language, and vocabulary. Presented as a discussionand variety show between the two hosts (who areteachers in Japan), this podcast is extremely enjoyable and informative.

their home language and in English, with somehighly literate in their first language and some not.The course asked for two kinds of writing: classroom-based assignments, which included summaries, asynthesis paper, and an argument paper, and theblogs. The classroom-based assignments were gradedin the traditional way, but students only needed topost a blog to receive credit.

For this course, students were asked to read andwrite extensively on one topic: plagiarism. Eachclassroom assignment dealt with different aspects ofwhat constitutes plagiarism and how it should be dealtwith. We set up a class blog that we and the studentscould contribute to. The students were asked to posttheir opinions about their readings, their experienceswith plagiarism, and their own experiences related toliving in Ohio, where our university is located. Inaddition, we asked them to respond in various ways towhat their classmates had written.

Creating a Space for Virtual Democracy

Blogging seems a natural tool to use in the

composition classroom. Blogs can give

writers an almost infinite amount of space to

write, helping them develop fluency and extend their

concept of audience beyond the classroom. By adding

links to other Web sites, bloggers can consider what

other information their audience might want. In some

cases, they can add images to complement their texts.

Interestingly, blogging also seems to foster a greater

sense of authorship than do other forms of hypertext

(Blood 2000) and therefore may be more suitable for

addressing the kinds of problems students have with

expressing their opinions. For these reasons, we

introduced blogging into the lowest level of our three

U.S. university-level ESL composition courses.

by Joel Bloch and Cathryn Crosby

The success of blogging in creating onlinediscussions on both personal and political topics (see“Blogging, the Virtual Soapbox,” Essential Teacher,September 2005) also made it a good fit for ourclasses. Blogging has helped create what Gillmor(2004) calls extreme democracy and, in Englishteaching, allows students to share their voices withthe world (see “In Blogging, the Benefits of ExposureAre Worth the Risk,” Essential Teacher, September2005). Compared with setting up other forms ofcomputer-mediated discourse, blogs can be a simplerand sometimes cheaper way to have students discussand publish their ideas online while allowing them toexplore various aspects of online writing.

The CourseThe ten-week, postadmission composition classes weteach are usually composed of a mix of internationalstudents and immigrants, mainly from Africa. Thestudents have a wide range of literacy skills in both

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Three Types of GoalsOur six goals for using blogging in this course fellinto three categories: communicative, academic, and technological.

Just TalkOur communicative goals were to have studentswrite using a variety of discourses, both informaland academic, and discuss aspects of their liveswith classmates. These goals are based on one ofthe most popular uses for blogging: just talkingabout your life. An important aspect of beginningany discussion is for the participants to get to knoweach other. The class blog was a good way forstudents to introduce themselves while sharingcommon experiences and problems. For us, the blogsoffered insights into the lives of students that wecould not always see in the classroom. In thisexample, a Korean woman, who spoke little duringclass time, wrote passionately about her frustrationswith native English speakers.

One day, I went to a cafeteria to have something.I ordered hot wrap and it was one of my favoritesat there. The wrap is similar to burrito, but insidestuff is a little different. Any way, a few minuteslater, I got mine and went through a register. Theregister was a guy, and he asked me whether it isa veggie wrap or meat wrap. I answered, “This ismeat wrap.” As soon as I replied, he laughed atme for a while!!! I was so embarrassed, and askedhim whether something was wrong . . . .

Students seemed to be able to write more andgenerate more ideas in their blogs than in theirclassroom-based assignments, perhaps because theydid not have to worry about grammar and spelling.Unlike our practice with the classroom assignments,we did not correct errors, allowing the students towrite as much as they could. While some teachersmight object to not correcting the grammar errors,we believed that by freeing students from worryingabout their errors, we could encourage them towrite more using the types of literacies with whichthey felt most comfortable (see Ferris 2004).

Cultivate the Writing Process The second group of goals related to how we coulduse the blogs to help students develop theirclassroom assignments: we wanted students togenerate ideas for writing assignments; discuss,argue, and negotiate their opinions about issuesrelating to plagiarism; and create texts forclassmates to use as critique or support of their own views.

Composition theory has begun to recognize thatthe invention process, by which writers generateideas for their papers, does not simply occur in theprewriting stage but continues throughout the writingprocess. Blogging allows the students to collaborateon this process of generation at any time they wantto. For example, the students were asked to write anargumentative paper on whether teachers should useTurnitin (http://www.turnitin.com/), a Web-basedplagiarism detection system, to check student workfor plagiarism. While drafting their essays, studentswere asked to blog about whether they thought usingthe program was a good idea. One student wrote,

some people believe that it is a good stuff forteachers because to use turnitin.com, teacherscan save hours and hours of time searchingthrough the internet looking for pages. moreover,they believe that it promotes originality instudents work, improve students writing andresearch skills encourage collaborative learning.even if some people believe that there are somebenefits using this site, however, i believe that itis not necessary at the school because theteachers using the “turnitin.com” is not fair andit might ignore the confidence between studentsand teachers.

The student could use the ideas generated in theblog for his argumentative paper on how the schoolshould deal with plagiarism. Because we hadpreviously found that students wrote more criticallyonline than in their print assignments, we encouragedthem to cut, paste, and revise what they had writtenin their blogs for use in their classroom assignments.

39SEPTEMBER 2006

�

One of the most interesting goals was for studentsto think of these blogs as texts to complement whatthey read in class. Because blogs seem to give thewriter a stronger sense of authorship (blog readersusually search blogs by author, not by subject), weencouraged the students to incorporate theirclassmates’ blogs into their papers as data andsources, in the same way they used the texts theyhad been assigned to read. In this example, thestudents had been asked to write about theirexperiences with plagiarism.

before i came to United States, i had someexperiences about plagairism because i used towrite a paper using internet sources when i was auniversity students at Korea. whenever i wrote apaper, i used to cut and pasted some wordswithout citation same as ***. obviously, it waswrong. however, i did not realize what plagiarismexactly was at that time because i had nevercaught what i did and studied about that.Moreover, i had never thought how seriousproblem is.

In the follow-up synthesis paper, the studentscould compare their classmates’ experiences withplagiarism with the experiences of the students inthe articles they had read. In their argumentativepaper, they were asked to use their classmates’blogs either to support their own claims or tocritique the claims of their classmates. We did thisnot only to create more interactivity among thestudents in the blogs but also to help them thinkabout themselves and their classmates as experts inthe area of plagiarism, just as they consideredpublished writers experts. Our hope was that theblogs would help deal with some of the causes of plagiarism.

Learn How to BlogOur technological goal was perhaps the mostabstract: to help students learn how to blog. It ishard to predict how important blogging will becomeas a form of literacy, but only by using blogs canstudents understand the potential of blogging and

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On the class blog,

the students posted

their opinions about

their readings, their

experiences with

plagiarism, and their

experiences related

to living in Ohio.

One day, I went to a cafeteria to havesomething. I ordered hot wrap and it was one ofmy favorites at there. The wrap is similar toburrito, but inside stuff is a little different. Anyway, a few minutes later, I got mine and wentthrough a register. The register was a guy, andhe asked me whether it is a veggie wrap or meatwrap. I answered, “This is meat wrap.” As soonas I replied, he laughed at me for a while!!! Iwas so embarrassed, and asked him whethersomething was wrong . . . .

4 comments

the differences between blogging and traditionalforms of print literacy. Blogs can be taught as aneasy form of Web page design to help studentsunderstand the concepts of hypertextuality, such asthe power of linking between Web sites, as well asthe visual nature of texts.

Blogs also have their own distinctive ways ofcreating social networks. One of the most excitingaspects of blogging is how blogs can be aggregated.Blogs can be set up to send out feeds that notifyreaders of new postings. Web sites such as Bloglines(http://www.bloglines.com/) can gather these feedsso readers can easily access new postings from theirfavorite bloggers. As the Internet expands as aspace for participation and the sharing ofinformation, blogging can help students becomeaware of the potential of these concepts forchanging how they communicate.

Coping with the LimitationsNot all of the students we teach have enjoyedblogging, particularly if they see it only as extrawork. However, many have recognized its usefulnessfor their writing. As one student put it, bloggingwas an extra burden, but “this burden made us keepwriting in English with comfortable feelings.” Whilewe were pleased in general with the blogs, werealize that often the hype surrounding atechnology obscures the fact that no technology cando everything a teacher wants it to do. For example,we found that blogging was not always as effectiveas other technologies, such as e-mail discussionlists, in creating interactivity.

Sometimes, teachers can overcome suchlimitations by changing how a technology isimplemented. For example, we attempted to increaseinteraction through a variety of differentassignments. Asking students to cite theirclassmates’ blogs in their texts was one way.Another way was to have students post a blog inresponse to one their classmate had written or touse the comment feature of blogs to respond.Having to modify the way we used blogging in order

to achieve our goals is a useful reminder that theuse of no technology is predetermined; it canalways be adapted to achieve different results.

Only One of Many New Literacy FormsDespite its limitations, blogging can be an excitingclassroom tool and writing environment. Bloggingitself is changing rapidly: the explosion of interestin podcasts (see “A Multimedia Lab on YourDesktop” in this issue), which can be seen as oralblogs, as well as video blogs can help you betterunderstand the new relationships among oral,written, and visual forms of literacy that aredeveloping online. For more information on gettingstarted with blogging in ESL/EFL, see Crosby andBloch (n.d.).

References

Blood, R. 2000. Weblogs: A history and perspective.http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html.

Crosby, C., and J. Bloch. n.d. TESOL Electronic Village mini-workshop on blogging.http://esl.osu.edu/staff/bloch/weblog/.

Ferris, D. R. 2004. The “grammar correction” debate in L2writing: Where are we, and where do we go from here? (andwhat do we do in the meantime . . . ?). Journal of SecondLanguage Writing 13:49–62.

Gillmor, D. (2004). We the media. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

Joel Bloch teaches ESL composition at The Ohio StateUniversity, in the United States, and is writing a book ontechnology in the second language compositionclassroom. Cathryn Crosby is a doctoral candidate inforeign language education at The Ohio State University.

41SEPTEMBER 2006

In other words, lower level or less confident Englishlanguage learners can benefit from art institution siteswith material originally designed for younger native-English-speaking audiences. As a former student, writingabout the MoMA audio program Modern Kids (seehttp://www.moma.org/visit_moma/audio.html) explains,

I thought it’s very good for kids but also for metoo. Because the explanation had soundtrack andemotion, so it seemed like I was listening to somemovie and made me would like to follow them. . .The one thing was, it was not too hard tounderstand and it was very good listening practicefor me.

The museum Web sites also cater to different agegroups. The MoMA, for example, has the moreinterview-based Red Studio (http://redstudio.moma.org/) for teens, and Destination: Modern Art(http://www.moma.org/destination/) for children,with plenty of illustrations, high-frequencyvocabulary, and a slower rate of speech. Both sitesinclude read-along transcripts. You can thus recyclecontent material at different levels, allowingstudents to upgrade when they feel ready to take ona more challenging description of the same artwork.

Using Art Institution Web Sitesfor English Teaching

by Marlene Friis

In the context of ESL teaching, it is significant thatmany museum collections boast works from aroundthe globe, often reflecting the cosmopolitan andethnically and geographically diverse character of thepeople in the cities in which they are located.Consequently, students can readily identify with theseinternational works and their histories, and you caneasily tailor content to the interests and the culturalschemata of the learners. Best of all, while the classis benefiting pedagogically from these sophisticatedinteractive Web sites, you and your students arespared the often prohibitively high admission fees.

Content for All Learners Aside from the cultural accessibility of the art onmany museum Web sites (see Recommended ArtInstitution Web Sites for some examples), thelanguage has been specifically tailored to a layaudience. Speech is usually fairly clear, and ideasare well exemplified through anecdotes and images.For example, attention-grabbing tidbits are sprinkledthroughout samples from the online audioguides ofthe Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum ofModern Art (MoMA) in an effort to keep the listenerattuned. Programs for families or childrenincorporate pauses between sentences and use high-frequency vocabulary as well as sound effects toillustrate points.

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As the general pedagogical benefits of using

Web sites, most teachers would cite the

virtues of language and content

authenticity, interactivity, and the fostering of learner

autonomy. The broad educational mandate of art

institutions has resulted in some of the most

interactive, varied, and pedagogically sound Web sites

online. This article highlights some of the features of

these comprehensive Web sites, which lend themselves

ideally to English language learning.

Different Formats, Different SkillsThe interactive and differing formats lend themselvesideally to the recycling of content, includingvocabulary, both of which are crucial to eventuallanguage acquisition (Nation 2005). In navigatingart institution Web sites, learners have theopportunity to access similar information in differentways. The advantage of this is that learners canchoose to focus on particular skills, such as listeningor reading, and on subskills within those categories,such as listening for the main idea or listening fordetails. If a listening task is too difficult, learnerscan choose to read an accompanying transcript inorder to facilitate comprehension.

Once students have deciphered the main idea, theycan move on to other listening and speaking skills,such as listening for and practicing pronunciation ofkey words or focusing on suprasegmental features,such as intonation, sentence stress, tone of voice, orthought grouping.

Adapting the MaterialI deal with authentic material for the classroom intwo principal ways. The first is to find material thatis ideally suited to the learners’ needs andproficiency levels. The other is to control thematerial through the modification of tasks. Thelatter, which is standard pedagogical practice, isexemplified by the common technique of helpingstudents negotiate difficult texts by assigning tasksthat are relatively easy to accomplish, such asreading for gist or reading for a specific piece ofinformation. Likewise, students can do more difficulttasks, such as transcribing and analyzing, with easiertexts or as extension exercises with a familiar text.

Picasso and PrepositionsThis controlling of material through differentiationof tasks works well with one of my favorite onlineaudio programs, the MoMA’s Visual Descriptions(http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/audio.html). Thisprogram includes oral descriptions of works in themuseum’s collection to help visitors with visualimpairments appreciate significant works of art.

Native English speakers as well as English languagelearners who have listened to the description of PabloPicasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon recorded for thevisually impaired all concur with my own observation:the description is an eye-opener. Objects that viewersmay have previously glossed over or simply not seenappear as if from nowhere, thus validating the widelyaccepted claim that the viewing experience isenhanced with the help of texts external to the workin question (Barrett 2003; Sayre 2002; Tucker 2002).

Being very detailed and concise, these descriptionsare useful to English language learners and ideallysuited to language work with basic descriptiveprocesses. I have gleaned many successful lessonsfrom this feature. Especially successful ones havefocused on prepositions of location and sentencestructure, including the fronting of prepositionalphrases. The language learner also has the enormousbenefit of being able to look at the image being

43SEPTEMBER 2006

�

Recommended Art InstitutionWeb Sites

� Art:21 (http://www.pbs.org/art21/)

� Design for the Real World(http://www.studio360.org/arch.real.html)

� The Frick Collection and Frick Art ReferenceLibrary (http://www.frick.org/)

� The Guggenheim(http://www.guggenheim.org/new_york_index.shtml)

� The Metropolitan Museum of Art(http://www.metmuseum.org/)

� The Museum of Modern Art(http://www.moma.org/)

� The Whitney Museum of American Art(http://www.whitney.org/)

described. After fill-in-the-preposition exercises, Isometimes have students listen to anotherdescription and draw the image based solely on whatthey hear. Or I have students bring in an image oftheir choice to describe in class while theirclassmates listen and draw the image.

Is the Style Descriptive or Interpretive?I have also used the MoMA’s Visual Descriptions forteaching higher level classes or academic English.Students who are just entering an academic programmay have little experience with analytic or criticalwriting, and they may write a paper that merelydescribes when they are supposed to analyze.

By contrasting the pure description of a paintingin Visual Descriptions with the interpretivedescription of the same painting in Modern Voices,the MoMA’s audioguide, students immediatelyrecognize the differing purposes and styles of eachdescription and become more aware of the need toalternate between the two in their writing. You canencourage an architecture student, for example, touse the purely descriptive form to help the readervisualize the project being described beforeswitching to the more analytical and interpretivestyle exemplified in Modern Voices in order tocontextualize the project within architecture theory.

Tapping the Interactivity Many art institution Web sites get high marks forinteractivity, which is an important aspect of motivatedlearning. Interactivity gives the user some control overthree key features: content, in terms of what intereststhem thematically; language level and length of texts,in terms of whether the text is written for a child, anadolescent, a lay adult, or an expert adult; and format,be it stand-alone text, text accompanied by graphics,audio only, audio with transcript, video, video withcaptions, or video with sound.

The MoMA Web site takes interactivity to anespecially high level. You can request a fullelectronic transcript of the museum’s audioguidefrom the education department, saving you a lot ofbackground preparation: a blissful 150 pages worthof transcription has been done for you. Students can

listen to the audioguide on school or personalcomputers, or you can download any segment ontoyour computer individually as an MP3 file and thenburn it onto a CD to play in class if you do not haveaccess to computers at school. This feature alsoallows you to customize your playlist. The MoMAWeb site will also take you—or even better, yourtech-savvy, Apple-iPod-wielding students—throughthe steps of creating their own audioguide.

Unlike many radio programs, such as the otherwiseexcellent “Design for the Real World” feature onPublic Radio International’s Studio 360 (seehttp://www.studio360.org/arch.real.html), the pacingand enunciation of the speakers in the audioguide isconducive to English language learning. Most audiosegments are also complemented by text, images,interviews, and other media.

Mini-TOEFL Art LectureIf you teach preparatory classes for the Test ofEnglish as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), for example,you can easily incorporate high-interest listeninglectures from the MoMA online audioguide. Recently,I had my preacademic class do a task related to a

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Many art institution Web

sites get high marks for

interactivity, which gives

users some control over

three key features.

Format: Does the student want text, graphics, audio, video, or a combination?Format: Does the student want text, graphics, audio, video, or a combination?

Content: What interests the student?Content: What interests the student? Language

level: What age group and level of expertise is the text geared toward?

Language level: What age group and level of expertise is the text geared toward?

MoMA exhibition devoted to Pixar Animation Studio,the company behind computer-generated animationblockbuster films such as Toy Story (Lasseter 1995),Finding Nemo (Stanton and Unkrich 2005), and TheIncredibles (Bird 2004). As we were focusing on thedesign elements in The Incredibles, I assigned thosesegments of the exhibit’s online audioprogram/guide that specifically referred to the film.

The students listened to their assigned segmentsonline and, after listening to and discussing thesegments, small groups of students came up withTOEFL-style questions (and four multiple-choiceanswers) specific to that segment. I then collectedand reviewed their questions for accuracy. Afterdownloading the relevant audio segments andburning them onto a CD, I created a mini-TOEFLlistening test based on their contributions and gaveit to the students.

Social Issues, Content, and Pronunciation PracticeThe raison d’être of the arts is often argued to be itschronicling of social issues. Art history can thus bea great source of material when you need a hook toa lesson. Issues of class, gender, love, socialupheaval, human drama, and race relations form thecontent of much art.

This content is explained and presented in a beguilingmanner on art institution Web sites. The WhitneyMuseum of American Art (http://www.whitney.org/), forexample, hosts its American Voices Audio Tour online.I’ve used images from this chronological history oftwentieth-century American art as introductory orconcluding commentaries on specific eras in Americanhistory. Each image is accompanied by a transcript ofthe audio description, allowing students to read along asthey listen. I’ve also used this material to reinforceother content-related lessons while having studentswork on pronunciation issues, such as intonation, thepronunciation of regular verbs in the simple past (/t/,/d/, or /Id), and the morpheme s (/z/, /s/, or /Iz/).

Multimedia Texts with aPedagogical MandateArt institution Web sites can help you takeadvantage of some of the inherent characteristics ofWeb-based learning, such as easy and affordableaccess to current authentic material. Furthermore,these sites are driven by a pedagogical mandate andoffer multimedia texts that cater to a variety ofdifferent language abilities and interests and thatyou can easily exploit to the English languagelearner’s advantage.

References

Barrett, T. 2003. Interpreting art. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Bird, B., director. 2004. The incredibles. Film. Emeryville, CA:Pixar Animation Studio.

Lasseter, J., director. 1995. Toy story. Film. Emeryville, CA:Pixar Animation Studio.

Nation, P. 2005. Teaching vocabulary: Is it a waste oflearning time? Paper presented at the Thirty-ninth AnnualTESOL Convention, San Antonio, TX, March.

Sayre, H. 2002. Writing about art. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Education.

Stanton, A., and L. Unkrich, directors. 2005. Finding Nemo.Film. Emeryville, CA: Pixar Animation Studio.

Tucker, A. 2002. Visual literacy: Writing about art. New York:McGraw-Hill.

Marlene Friis is an instructor in the intensive Englishprogram at Pratt Institute, in the United States.

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plug. My colleagues and I have given this recordingsystem the pet name PPP (push, plug, and play)because of the three easy steps for using it: pushthe cart into class, plug it in, press play. Eachstudent brings a blank CD to class. As the studentspresent, I film them with the digital camera. Themonitor allows me to sit and watch the presentationwithout having to squint through the cameraviewfinder during filming. (I take copious noteswhile I watch the presentations in case technologyfails—which has happened, albeit rarely.) When astudent finishes a presentation, I burn the recordingonto the CD with the press of a button on the VCDburner/player. The burning process takes about threeminutes for a five- to ten-minute presentation.

Since the VCD burner creates files in MPEG format (afile containing a six-minute video is about 130megabytes in size), students can view their videos onany computer that has either VLC Media Player (seehttp://www.videolan.org/vlc/) or Windows MediaPlayer (see http://www.microsoft.com/mediaplayer/).Alternatively, they can watch the videos on DVDplayers that support VCD technology.

Self-Assessment, CDs, and Videotape

Teachers have often used VHS technology to

record students’ presentations in class for

later assessment. This videotaping allows

teachers to view students’ work for grading, allows

students to assess themselves, and allows students

to imitate models (Quigley and Nyquist 1992).

However, I discovered that the majority of the

graduate-level second language learners I teach had

stopped watching the VHS tapes I had recorded of

their oral communication tasks. The technology had

become outmoded, and the students did not have VHS

players. I had to find a technology solution that

students could easily access.

by Carolyn Samuel

The ability to do self-assessment is an importantskill for second language students because it allowsthem to continue practicing and improving on theirown even after a course has ended. It also affordsstudents a sense of ownership over the assessmentof their work as they can determine how well theyhave met criteria for an assignment. This is inkeeping with the current theory that languagelearning should place a greater emphasis on studentresponsibility and learner-centered curricula (e.g.,Nunan 1998). In fact, in a learner-centredcurriculum, students are encouraged to take a moreactive role in assessment (Bachman 2000).

From a pedagogical perspective, then, if studentswere not watching their videos, the value ofrecording their class presentations was called intoquestion. My solution was to film with a digitalcamera and burn the recordings onto a CD in class.

Push, Plug, and PlayThe equipment for filming and burning consists of acart with a monitor, a digital camera, and a videocompact disc (VCD) burner/player (which looksmuch like a VHS or DVD player), all powered by one

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What Are My Expectations?My purpose in switching to an up-to-date technologywas to improve the pedagogical use of the videos. Iwanted students to have easy access to their videos sothey could do self-assessment with a view to developingan awareness of how to improve their communicationperformance. With the technology solution in place, Inow had to ensure that students had explicit criteriaagainst which to assess themselves. It is the ability to“isolate specific behaviours” (Quigley and Nyquist 1992,327) that can lead students to address and improvetheir performance. Therefore, the criteria had to affordstudents a clear understanding of my expectations oftheir work.

Because criteria must be tied to what is taught andlearned in the course, I use different criteria fordifferent presentation assignments (see the next sectionfor an example). We go over the criteria in class wheneach assignment is introduced and practiced. Inaddition, I include the criteria in a self-assessmentchecklist that is posted on the course Web site.

Expectations for the presentation assignments arealso supported by model student presentationsavailable for viewing at the course Web site. Themodels in the box above, which meet all or almostall the criteria for the assignment, were solicitedfrom students who took the course previously.Because the graduate students I teach present ontopics related to their field of research, I choosemodels from a variety of disciplines so that studentsget a broad view of appropriate content.

The Self-AssessmentThe students assess their oral presentation according toeight to ten criteria dealing with structure and delivery(see p. 48 for an excerpt from one assessment sheet).Next to each criterion on the self-assessment sheet is an“Evidence” column, where students write notes about thecontent they delivered to meet the requirement. In thethird column, “Time,” students write the time on thevideo recording when each requirement is met. (As analternative to writing, students can download the self-assessment sheet and type their notes in a word-processing program.)

In addition to assessing how well they meet thecontent criteria, students monitor the length of thepresentation and fill in the start and end times on theassessment sheet (see the sample).

The time constraint (for example, five to six minutes)is critical for the graduate students I work with, as theyare practicing to become effective oral presenters oftheir research, particularly at conferences. Rate of speechis also assessed, and the time constraint helps studentscontrol their pace. Since controlling the rate of speechtakes a lot of practice, I encourage students to audiorecord their presentations and time themselves beforepresenting in class.

Model self-assessments, paired with the modelstudent videos, are also available at the course Website. Students can watch a video online and follow thematerial in the evidence column in the model to seeclearly how to complete their own self-assessments.�

47SEPTEMBER 2006

Expectations are

supported by

model student

presentations

available for

viewing at the

course Web site.

ABOUT THE PRESENTATIONS

These students have consented to their presentations being shown as models.

These presentations were awarded high marks because of their intelligibility,

not because they are “perfect English.” In fact, these presentations do make

some English mistakes, but they have adopted English rhythm, stress, and

intonation well enough to be readily understood. In addition, the presenters

incorporated all of the presentation structure criteria.

Process/Procedure

Wenxia: The procedure for submitting a

research paper to a journal (Fall 2005)

Andreea: The process of solving a

mathematical equation (Winter 2005)

Lu: The process of gene engineering

(Fall 2004)

Enrique: The process for putting a new

product onto the market (Winter 2004)

Kaipin: The federal government’s

process for issuing treasury bonds

(Winter 2004)

Lin: The Process of writing a

programme in java (Winter 2004)

Yan: The process of how sources

circulate in an academic library

(Winter 2004)

Problem-Solution

Julie: Solution to the problem of local

adoption in Quebec (Fall 2005)

Joon Young: Solution to the problem

of determining the stage of cancer

(Fall 2005)

Naveed: Solution to the problem of

transmission of information messages

(Fall 2005)

Josianne: Solution to the problem of

rehabilitation services for seniors

(Winter 2005)

Min: Solution to an electrical

engineering problem (Winter 2004)

Xiaoyu: Solution to the problem of

finding binding transcription factor

sites (Winter 2004)

[ ]Portal

48

Self-Assessment Sheet

Presentation start time: 0:15 Presentation end time: 6:03

� One mark will be deducted for exceeding the time limit.� One mark will be deducted for not speaking for the minimum time.

Criterion Evidence Time

Gestures (2 marks; 1 mark each)

�Two intentional gestures aremandatory.

�Watch the video without soundin order to better focus on thegestures.

Discourse markers (2 marks)

Comprehension checks (1 mark)

�One is mandatory.

�Scan and wait 5 seconds.

1. “Two” — Raised two fingers onone hand to refer to thenumber of points

2. “Three” — Raised three fingersone after another whileenumerating adjectives todescribe the people in question

3. “None” — palms facingdownward

4. “My opinion” — hand on chest

First

Second

Let me begin

There are two kinds of

The first type is

The second type is

In other words

To reiterate

In conclusion

Are there any questions?

0:56

1:55

2:19

3:24

0:20

0:24

0:51

1:08

1:11

1:48

3:36

4:20

5:39

2:36

49SEPTEMBER 2006

SEND Portal is edited by Mercedes Rossetti ([email protected]). See http://www.tesol.org/ for submission guidelines.

Students submit both the CD and the completedself-assessment sheet to me for viewing. I commentas appropriate on what the student has noted, addcomments of my own, and assign a grade. Studentsalso have the option of an holding individualconference with me to discuss the feedback.

Scepticism, Disbelief . . . Then Relief Students’ reactions to having explicit criteria oftenborder on scepticism and disbelief. A frequent commentis along these lines: “If you tell us exactly what to doand so far in advance, we can prepare and all get aperfect grade.” This reaction is likely a reflection of thetype of assessment students are familiar with ingatekeeping courses, where the more knowledgeablestudents are separated on a bell curve from the lessknowledgeable ones. I find that students are notaccustomed to being assessed on their ability toperform a skill. The goal, in fact, is for all the studentsto get a perfect score. A match between learningobjectives and student production is sound pedagogy.

A reaction that follows the scepticism is relief. Fromstudent comments, I know that the model materialsreduce their anxiety about what they have to produce tosucceed in the course. Seeing their peers in actioncreates realistic and manageable expectations for them.Furthermore, this reduced anxiety (i.e., the loweredaffective filter; Krashen 1981) should have a positiveeffect on language learning. For the students I teach,who are all second language learners, the oralpresentation is a vehicle for exercising thepronunciation skills they have learned in the course intandem with the presentation skills. Reduced anxietygenerally enhances the quality of their English speech.

Reaction to the new digital video medium has alsobeen positive. At the end of every semester, studentscan pick up their CDs at my office. Most students do,which indicates that they want their videos andfeedback for re-viewing.

An Efficient, Fair Assessment MethodBurning presentation videos to CD and havingstudents assess their own performance is efficient forme and advantageous for student learning. First,

self-assessment reduces opportunities for gradingdisputes. If a student cannot identify a certaincriterion in his or her own presentation, I cannot beexpected to do so, either. Second, grading is lesstime-consuming because students share the task.

Moreover, videos on CD allow me to meet apedagogical need: students can play an active role inassessing their oral communication, which affordsthem the opportunity to develop self-studystrategies that may lead to independentimprovement. For a course in oral communication,the accessibility of digital technology revitalizes theprocess of taping and assessing students’ oral work.

Ultimately, the best service you can render students isto help them develop the ability to continue learningwithout you. You can involve students in assessing theirlearning through awareness-raising tasks facilitated byan accessible technology. The task objectives mustclosely correspond to what students can realisticallyproduce, and support in the form of peer-generatedmodels can reinforce realistic expectations and promotestudent success.

References

Bachman, L. F. 2000. Learner-directed assessment in ESL. InLearner-directed assessment in ESL, ed. G. Ekbatani and H.Pierson, pp. ix–xii. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Krashen, S. 1981. Second language acquisition and secondlanguage learning. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nunan, D. 1998. The learner-centered curriculum. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Quigley, B. L., and J. D. Nyquist. 1992. Using videotechnology to provide feedback to students in performancecourses. Communication Education 41:324–34.

Carolyn Samuel is a lecturer in the English and French LanguageCentre of the Faculty of Arts at McGill University, in Canada.

P enetrating and bracing mightdescribe the elements of Weiss’s ownEnglish style. His “guide to writing

correspondence, reports, technicaldocuments, and Internet pages for a globalaudience” is much more than even thebook’s lengthy subtitle suggests. Weissoffers advice and poses questions aboutreducing linguistic burden, the ethics ofcultural accommodation, writing fortranslation, working in varied media, andother facets of using English tocommunicate with multilingual speakers.

His advice appears as fifty-seven tacticsranging from the conceptual (e.g., “AvoidBusiness Jargon and Fashionable BusinessTerms”) to the sensible (e.g., “Break ApartLong Paragraphs”) to the surprising (e.g.,“Use Hyphens Aggressively”). The questionsfollowing each cluster of tactics are neitherprescriptive nor rhetorical: “In most socialsituations, who should adapt to whom: thehost or the guest?”; “Do you find yourselfskimming nearly everything you read?What might prevent you from skimming?”

Weiss’ ideas, examples, and open-endedqueries promote imaginative engagementwith issues that affect every professionalwordsmith. They also reassure anyonewho’s ever been faced with impenetrableprose that it’s the writer, not the reader,who’s responsible for that initial attempt tocommunicate clearly.

Marilyn Kupetz is a technical writer andeditor for a public interest corporation inVirginia, in the United States.

Home&O T H E R P A G E S

The Elements of International English Style. Edmond H. Weiss.Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005.

In the early 1960s, U.S. linguistChomsky (1965) drew attention to “thecreative aspect of language use” (p. v).

Yet the key concept of linguistic creativityhas only been minimally dealt with in thespecialized literature of linguistics. To fillthis conspicuous gap, British appliedlinguist Carter has written this volumesharing his experience and expertise on thecreativity of users of spoken English.

Topics covered by Carter includelinguistic approaches to creativity;creativity and patterns of talk; andcreativity, language, and social context.

The last chapter features a brief butenlightening section on creativity of usagein the language classroom.

Carter’s book offers much to languageeducators. Revealing insights onconversational samples shed new light onthe use of creative language. A look atrecent handbooks for TESOL professionalsshows that the creativity of Englishlanguage learners does not yet have asignificant place in the literature. Carterhas therefore provided the profession witha most inspiring and needed source tobring the study of students’ creative uses ofEnglish into focus. After reading his book,

ESOL teachers will start looking for thevisibility of the verb create and theadjective creative in materials andprograms. This book is a must for yourpersonal and institutional libraries.

ReferenceChomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory ofsyntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Francisco Gomes de Matos, an appliedlinguist, is president of the board of the BrazilAmerica Association, a binational center in Recife.

Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk.Ronald Carter. London and New York: Routledge, 2004

Words in print

50

MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resources for Learningand Online Teaching. http://www.merlot.org/.

Do you wish you could send yourstudents to a free Web site topractice pronunciation,

grammar, and listening? Or do you needvetted content-area materials? Type“merlot.org” into your browser andsample high-quality learning materials.

MERLOT is a free and opensearchable repository of materialsgenerated by educators around theglobe. The site offers excellent peer-reviewed English language learningmaterials (click on World Languages,then ESL) as well as a bounty of nativespeaker resources in all disciplines(e.g., biology, mathematics, history).There are also collections of materialsfor the areas of teacher education andteaching with technology.

Founded in 1997, MERLOT is aconsortium of twenty-five universitiesin the United States and Canada thatjointly maintain a free and openresource of multimedia resources onthe Internet. The MERLOT site isdesigned primarily for faculty andstudents in higher education,although a great deal of material isappropriate for high school and evenmiddle school instruction. With theaim of supporting quality instruction,MERLOT provides access to materialsthat have been reviewed by experts.The World Languages Editorial Boardcurates the ESL/EFL collection alongwith instructional and resourcematerials for hundreds of otherlanguages. These materials can helpyou learn about the languages andcultures of English language learners.

The World Languages EditorialBoard has reviewed more than 300 ofthe learning materials in its collectionof well over 1,000 sites. Some of themost recent additions to the collectioninclude faculty-generated podcasts forindividual student and in-classinstructional use. If you face content-area needs, MERLOT can also serve asa resource for a wide range ofadaptable content-area materials.

In addition to accessing andcontributing instructional materials,you can join the MERLOT communityby contributing your own opinionsabout a learning object (MemberComments) and submit your ownideas for learning assignments usingmaterials on the site. As a member,you will also receive a periodicnewsletter, The Grapevine, and bealerted to upcoming MERLOTconferences. Finally, MERLOTpublishes the Journal of OnlineLearning and Teaching (JOLT), anexcellent online journal that containsa range of articles on teaching andlearning with technology.

In short, MERLOT offers you a one-stop venue for powerful onlinematerials, resources, and community.

Carla Meskill is associate professor ofeducational theory and practice at theState University of New York atAlbany, in the United States, andcoeditor of the MERLOT WorldLanguages collection.

The Story ofHuman Language.Taught by JohnMcWhorter. DVD, video, CD, or audiocassette. Chantilly, VA: TheTeaching Company, 2004. Available fromhttp://www.teach12.com/.

The Story of Human Language is an outstandingcourse. McWhorter is dynamic and engaging, andhis thirty-six lectures of thirty-minutes each aresubstantial but easy to understand. He begins byexplaining what language is and when it began. Hediscusses language change, talks of assimilation,consonant weakening, and vowel weakening;describes the process of grammaticalization, inwhich content words become grammatical words;and explains changes in word meanings. Examples are given in English and in a variety of other languages.

Additional lectures cover such topics aslanguage families, dialects, pidgins, creoles, BlackEnglish, and language death. In this way, thecourse provides TESOL professionals with newinsights into the English language whiledescribing other languages and contrasting themwith English.

Although these lectures are quite expensive(ranging from about US$50 for audiotapes toabout US$100 for DVDs), the publisher holds salesseveral times a year. Also see The TeachingCompany’s other excellent offerings for Englishteachers, such as Seth Lerer’s History of theEnglish Language.

Christine Meloni teaches ESL at Northern VirginiaCommunity College, in the United States.

[ ]Cybersights

51SEPTEMBER 2006

soundbites

Home&O T H E R P A G E S

Software ThumbnailsComic Life (version 1.2.4). New York: Freeverse. Available fromhttp://plasq.com/.

Comic Life is one of the most enjoyable and possibly most usefulrecent software tools to hit the market. Not only that, it’s one of theeasiest, least expensive, and most powerful tools to use. Running on

Macintosh OS 10.3 and above, this software allows users (students orteachers) to create stories, movie posters, photo albums, cards,advertisements, and more. Through Comic Life, users can import photosand graphics from any number of sources and turn them into creative,thoughtful projects. For bilingual and multicultural classes, the newestversion of the software also comes with features in six languages.

The process is simple: to start a project, the user chooses a ready-madecomic page template and then drags graphics to each of the frames on thepage. The graphics are automatically formatted to fit the shape and size ofthe frame. The user can then add speech balloons, comic lettering, and text.

There are many uses for this software in the ESL/EFL classroom. Someexamples follow.

Sequencing: Teachers or students can make comics with the standardsquare frames, print the page, and then cut the frames apart. Otherstudents can put the frames in order and explain the order they chose.

Vocabulary learning and practice: To make vocabulary learning moreinteresting and relevant, students can use personal spelling and vocabularywords to create an ongoing story.

Differentiation: Teachers and learners can produce comic strips withother learners in mind. For example, a set of comics can address differenttakes on the same topic, use different focus vocabulary, or be accompaniedby postreading questions at different levels.

Multimodal reading support: Users can provide panels of photos orother graphics to accompany any text. These graphics give studentsadditional clues to the text’s meaning.

Summary writing: Students can turn a reading text into a comic or anarrative text into speech. These short writing tasks do not require as muchlanguage as a traditional summary but require students to distill languageand connect it with graphics in explicit ways. This might be an effective andvery different way for teachers to assess student comprehension.

Humor: Students can create a comic that is humorous to them andthen test its giggle-quotient on others.

Comic Life has many of the same features as other desktop publishingprograms, but its format and ease of use make it motivating to learn. Youcan download a free thirty-day trial version of the software fromhttp://plasq.com/.

Joy Egbert is associate professor of ESL and technology and coordinatorof the ESL Program at Washington State University, Pullman, in theUnited States.

Home and Other Pages is edited by Christine Meloni([email protected]). See http://www.tesol.org/ for submission guidelines.

SEND

52

CL

53SEPTEMBER 2006

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A S S O C I A T I O Nnews

TESOL Goes to Capitol Hill On June 21, 2006, twenty-two TESOLmembers representing nineteen U.S.-based affiliates met in Washington, DC,for TESOL Advocacy Day 2006. Thisevent, the first of its kind for TESOL,featured a day of issue briefings andworkshops, capped by members visitingcongressional offices on Capitol Hill. Thegoal of Advocacy Day was not only tolobby on key issues for TESOL, but alsoto provide an interactive learningexperience for affiliate representativesfocused on elements of advocacy. By theend of the day, TESOL members hadvisited more than forty representativesand senators.

U.S.-based affiliates were invited at thebeginning of the year to nominate arepresentative for one of twenty slots forthe event. Nominees were selected basedon various criteria, including membershipin TESOL and level of leadership in theaffiliate. In addition, nominees were askedto identify their congressional delegationand to commit to doing some preparatorywork in advance of TESOL Advocacy Day.

With guidance from TESOL, participantsset up their own individual meetings withtheir congressional representatives.Participants received talking points andbackground briefings on the topics theywould be addressing so that they couldbegin to familiarize themselves with thekey issues in advance. To help make theircongressional meetings more effective,participants were encouraged to findexamples from their own programs toillustrate the talking points.

TESOL Advocacy Day commenced with awelcome from TESOL President Jun Liu.

The participants were also joined byPresident-Elect Sandy Briggs and byTESOL Board member Brock Brady. Themorning workshop was led by JohnSegota, TESOL’s advocacy andcommunications manager, and includedpanel briefings on the issues of No ChildLeft Behind, adult education and theWorkforce Investment Act, and studentvisas. Representatives from organizationssuch as the Alliance for ExcellentEducation, the American Association ofIntensive English Programs, the NationalCoalition for Literacy, and NAFSA:Association for International Educators allprovided updates on these issues and howorganizations were addressing them.

Following these briefings, an interactiveworkshop was held on how to have aneffective meeting with one’s congressionalrepresentative. This workshop was led byEllin Nolan and Ellen Fern of WashingtonPartners, LLC, who serve as TESOL’slegislative consultants. Participants wereprovided key information to prepare fortheir meetings and given the opportunity torole-play. The purpose of the briefings andthe workshop was to help the participantspractice and prepare for their meeting onCapitol Hill that afternoon. “The morningbriefing provided the substance that mademy afternoon meetings succinct and to thepoint,” said Margaret Silver, whorepresented MidAmerica TESOL(MIDTESOL). “This has been an invaluableexperience that I will recommend to theMIDTESOL affiliate.”

The afternoon was set aside for individualmeetings with members of Congress.Participants were required to set up twoindividual meetings, though some tookthe initiative to set up three. Although

Charlene Ruble (right) of CaliforniaTESOL meets with RepublicanCalifornia Rep. Ed Royce (left).

The participants in TESOL AdvocacyDay 2006.

54

most participants met with key congressional staff,some had the opportunity to meet with theirmembers of Congress directly. Those who did notget a chance to meet directly with theirrepresentatives were not disappointed; members ofCongress depend on their staff, so in speaking to theappropriate aide, participants knew they had the earof the representative.

Over dinner at the end of the day, all the participantsshared their experiences and what they had learned. Allof the participants agreed that, overall, this event was avery positive experience for them and for TESOL.

“I learned an incredible amount. I feel empowered toget in touch more readily with national and localpoliticians on issues that are important to me,” saidAndrea Poulos, who represented Minnesota TESOL.“I feel like I can honestly urge others to contactpoliticians because I've seen that it matters.”

Donna Allen, who represented IntermountainTESOL (I-TESOL), agreed: “At first I wasn't sure ifthis was going to be worth the expense to myaffiliate, but it absolutely was worth it. I learned agreat deal and hopefully enlightened the Utah andIdaho legislative delegations.” All participants wereprovided with materials to take back to theiraffiliates about the event, including informationsheets on the issues and grassroots advocacy tips.In addition, the participants agreed to share theexperience with their affiliates through theiraffiliate newsletters and Web sites.

More information about TESOL Advocacy Day,including additional photos and videos of the event, isavailable on the TESOL Web site. If you are interestedin learning more about your congressionalrepresentatives and the legislative issues TESOL istracking, go to the TESOL U.S. Advocacy ActionCenter at http://capwiz.com/tesol/.

55SEPTEMBER 2006

TESOL Advocacy Day 2006 Participants

Donna Allen Intermountain TESOL (I-TESOL)Brock Brady TESOL Board MemberSandy Briggs TESOL President-ElectScott Endo Minnesota TESOL (MinneTESOL)Verniece Goode Alabama-Mississippi TESOL (AMTESOL)Georgette Ioup Louisiana TESOL (LATESOL)Cheryl Leever Huffman Oklahoma TESOL (OKTESOL)Ineza Kubeca Washington Association for the Education of

Speakers of Other Languages (WAESOL)Jun Liu TESOL PresidentAndrea Poulos Minnesota TESOL (MinneTESOL)Kate Reynolds Wisconsin TESOL (WITESOL)Charlene Ruble California TESOL (CaTESOL)Jackie Saindon Georgia TESOL (GATESOL)Rebecca Samawicz Washington Area TESOL (WATESOL)Jory Samkoff New Jersey TESOL/NewJersey Bilingual

Educators (NJTESOL/NJBE)Terry Shearer Texas TESOL IV (TexTESOL-IV)Margaret Silver Mid-America TESOL (MIDTESOL)Shalom Tazewell West Virginia TESOL (WVTESOL)Michael Travis Alaska Association for Bilingual Education (AKABE)Noelle Vance Colorado TESOL (COTESOL)Donald Weasenforth Texas TESOL V (TexTESOL-V)Peggy Wilson Maryland TESOL (MDTESOL)Deborah Young Intermountain TESOL (I-TESOL)

New PreK–12 English LanguageProficiency Standards Using TESOL’s 1997 landmark publication Pre-K–12ESL Standards as a building block, a team ofprominent TESOL professionals has developed the newPreK–12 English Language Proficiency Standards(subtitled An Augmentation of the World-ClassInstructional Design and Assessment Consortium(WIDA) English Language Proficiency Standards). Thenew standards provide a conceptual framework and

sample performance outcomes to help educators whodesign, conduct, and oversee instruction andassessment for English language learners (ELLs).

Whereas the 1997 Pre-K–12 ESL Standardsfocused on using English to succeed acrossacademic content areas, the 2006 revisedstandards are linked to individual content areas.The five standards target language insocial/intercultural interactions, language arts,mathematics, science, and social studies.

These standards augment the WIDA EnglishLanguage Proficiency Standards developed by themultistate World-Class Instructional Design andAssessment Consortium and incorporate academiccontent standards from TESOL, National Council ofTeachers of English, National Council of Teachers ofMathematics, International Reading Association,National Research Council, and the National Councilfor Social Studies. The diagram below illustrates theblending of standards in the development of TESOL’sEnglish Language Proficiency Standards.

The 2006 standards acknowledge the social andintercultural aspects of language development by usingstudents’ native languages and cultures as the foundationfor developing academic English language proficiency.The standards have been structured to synchronize withrecent U.S. federal legislation.

For each standard, the 2006 volume presents sampleperformance indicators in user-friendly matrices organized

� by grade-level cluster: PreK–K, 1–3, 4–5, 6–8,and 9–12.

� by language domain: listening, speaking,reading, and writing.

� by proficiency level: starting, emerging,developing, expanding, and bridging.

The matrices reflect the interaction of the fivelanguage proficiency levels with each languagedomain. The following sample matrix shows possibleperformance outcomes for Standard 3 (mathematics)at Grade-Level Cluster 1–3 for the reading domain ateach of the five proficiency levels.

PreK–12 English Language ProficiencyStandards: An Augmentation of theWorld-Class Instructional Design andAssessment Consortium (WIDA) EnglishLanguage Proficiency Standards

Standard 1: English language learnerscommunicate for social, intercultural, andinstructional purposes within the school setting.

Standard 2: English language learnerscommunicate information, ideas, and conceptsnecessary for academic success in the area oflanguage arts.

Standard 3: English language learnerscommunicate information, ideas, and conceptsnecessary for academic success in the area of mathematics.

Standard 4: English language learnerscommunicate information, ideas, and conceptsnecessary for academic success in the area of science.

Standard 5: English language learnerscommunicate information, ideas, and conceptsnecessary for academic success in the area ofsocial studies.

TESOL’s 1997ESL Standards

National and State Academic Content Standards

TESOL’s 2006English

Language Proficiency Standards

56

In addition to the matrices, the 2006 standardsoutline specific ways to implement the standardsby planning instruction and assessment,transforming the elements of a sampleperformance indicator, and collaborating withother educators. Detailed appendixes list sourcedocuments, articles on related topics, andcurriculum documents by U.S. state.

To find out more about the PreK–12 EnglishLanguage Proficiency Standards, and to purchase acopy, visit TESOL’s home page (http://www.tesol.org/),and click on Product Catalog.

TESOL Board Approves Two NewPosition Statements, Member ResolutionAt its recent meeting, the TESOL Board of Directorsapproved two new position statements. Thestatements, addressing immigration reform in theUnited States and principles for the reauthorization ofthe Elementary and Secondary Education Act areavailable online.

In addition, the TESOL Board approved the MemberResolution in Support of Professional DevelopmentCredit for Part-Time, Adjunct, and Contingent Faculty,which was approved at the Annual Business Meetingat the 2006 TESOL Convention. The language fromthe resolution has been amended to TESOL’s PositionPaper on Equitable Treatment for Part-Time, Adjunct,and Contingent Faculty. The revised positionstatement is available online.

2006 SymposiaThe TESOL Symposium on Words Matter: TheImportance of Vocabulary on English Teaching andLearning took place March 27 at Dubai Men’s College,in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The featured speakerswere Tom Cobb, Montreal, Canada; Michael McCarthy,Nottingham, United Kingdom; and Ron Carter,

Nottingham, United Kingdom. David Palfreyman,Dubai, United Arab Emirates, provided closing remarks.

The TESOL Symposium on English TeacherDevelopment in EFL Contexts will take placeNovember 10 at Shantou University, in GuangdongProvince, China.

For more information, contact [email protected].

Conduct TESOLBusiness OnlineYou can join or renew yourmembership, subscribe to TESOLserial publications, and purchase TESOLpublications online. TESOL members get an averagediscount of 25% on publications.

Main [email protected] [email protected] Services [email protected] [email protected] Programs [email protected] Services [email protected]

Affiliates [email protected] [email protected] Services [email protected] [email protected] Sections [email protected]

President (Board of Directors) [email protected] [email protected]

Advertising [email protected] Teacher [email protected] [email protected] Quarterly [email protected]

Domain

READING

Topic

Basic operations

Level 1

Identify wordsassociatedwith symbolsfor addition,subtraction, ormultiplicationwith a partner(e.g., + goeswith “and” or “plus”)

Level 2

Locate or sortphrasesassociated withsymbols foraddition,subtraction, ormultiplicationwith a partner(e.g., “Twelvetake away twois ten.”)

Level 3

Select andcategorize byoperationequivalentphrases orsentences inillustrated textwith a partner

Level 4

Arrangesentences inlogical order tocreate illustratedstory problemswith a partner

Level 5

Analyze extendedtext to find cluesfor problemsolving (e.g.,“There are sixred balls and twogreen balls. Howmany balls arethere in all?”)

57SEPTEMBER 2006

Grades 1–3Standard 3: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary foracademic success in the area of MATHEMATICS.

SPONSORSHIP TESOL thanks its sponsors.

2006

2006 Online Courses and SeminarsLearn about online professional developmentopportunities through TESOL, including the Principlesand Practices of Online Teaching Certificate Programand TESOL virtual seminars. TESOL virtual seminarsfocus on key issues in ESL and EFL. Bring togethercolleagues at your school or organization for a liveWebcast (or, when it fits your schedule, use the virtualseminar’s playback feature). Virtual seminar participantscan also take part in an online discussion. For moreinformation, e-mail [email protected].

Call for New Members: TESOLPublications CommitteeThe Publications Committee seeks applications frommembers interested in serving on the committee for theMarch 2007–March 2010 term. The committee acquiresand reviews book manuscripts and proposals, anddevelops publishing plans for books and series thatsupport TESOL’s mission and needs. Committeemembers identify themes or areas of interest suitable forpublication, given TESOL’s mandate, structure, andmarket position. A description of the work andresponsibilities of the committee, as well as a link to theapplication, is available at http://www.tesol.org :Association : Communities : Standing Committees ofTESOL : Publications Standing Committee. Applicationsare due October 1, 2006.

Call for New Members: TESOL SerialPublications CommitteeThe TESOL Serial Publications Committee seeksapplications from members interested in serving on thecommittee for the March 2007–March 2010 term. Thecommittee ensures that TESOL’s serial publicationsmaintain the highest professional standards and meetthe needs of their readers. A description of the workand responsibilities of the committee, as well as a linkto the application, is available at http://www.tesol.org :Association : Communities : Standing Committees ofTESOL : Serial Publications Standing Committee.Applications are due October 1, 2006.

E-List Subscriptions Have New FeaturesThe interest section (IS) and caucus e-lists have newfeatures that enable members to manage their ownsubscriptions. You can now set and change thepreferences for your e-list connections, such aschanging the e-mail address and setting subscriptionsto digest mode.

For these features to take effect, you will need to edityour member profile on the TESOL Web site. If youare currently subscribed to IS and caucus e-lists, youwill need to check “Join Your IS or Caucus E-list” inyour member profile to remain on your respective e-lists. Note: If you did not edit your member profile byMay 1, you were automatically unsubscribed from youre-lists, and you will need to resubscribe.

To use these new features, go to http://www.tesol.org/ :Interest Sections : Connect with Colleagues. If youhave any questions or problems, please [email protected].

Improved Member Application and RenewalTESOL has changed the way members may transactmembership business online. When you join or renewonline, all financial transactions are live. You willbecome an active member immediately after you havecompleted the transaction, with no more waiting tohear if your payment has been processed.

Members now have two online options for renewing theirTESOL memberships. After logging on to the TESOLWeb site, they should select Renew. If members have nochanges to make to their membership record, they mayuse the Quick Renew option. If members wish to makeany changes to their record, they should selectMembership Application and make the necessary changes.

These options are designed to make it easier formembers to renew their TESOL membership.

Platinum Plus Cambridge University PressEducational Testing Service

PlatinumThe Hampton Brown CompanyHarcourt AchieveLeapFrog SchoolHouse

GoldEducational Research &

Development Training ServiceMcGraw-Hill ESL/ELTNational Geographic School PublishingPearson Achievement SolutionsSantillana PublishingThomson-Heinle

For information on how to become a sponsor, contact Bouchra Ettahir at 703-518-2517 or [email protected]

President-elect, 2007–2008(to become President, 2008–2009)

Mark AlgrenThe University of KansasLawrence, Kansas, USA

Shelley Wong George Mason UniversityFairfax, Virginia, USA

Board of Directors, 2007–2010

Deena BoraieAmerican University in CairoCairo, EgyptAndy CurtisIndependent ConsultantOntario, CanadaMarcia Fisk OngIndependent WriterPhuket, ThailandElizabeth FranklinUniversity of Northern ColoradoGreeley, Colorado, USABozana KnezevicUniversity of RijekaRijeka, CroatiaChristopher SauerDivine Word CollegeEpworth, Iowa, USA

Nominating Committee (2007–2008) Representing Eight Major Groups

Adult Education ProgramsTrudy LothianOttawa-Carleton Catholic School BoardOntario, CanandaKirsten SchaetzelThe Center for Applied LinguisticsWashington, District of Columbia, USA

AffiliatesUlrich BliesenerUniversity of HildesheimHanover, GermanyNatalie KuhlmanSan Diego State UniversitySan Diego, California, USA

CaucusesRick KappraCity College of San FranciscoSan Francisco, California, USASilvia PessoaCarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Elementary and SecondaryEducation ProgramsJudie HaynesRiver Edge Board of EducationRiver Edge, New Jersey, USAGlynis TerrellAtlanta Public SchoolsAtlanta, Georgia, USA

Higher Education ProgramsFabiola Ehlers-ZavalaColorado State UniversityFort Collins, Colorado, USACraig MachadoNorwalk Community CollegeNorwalk, Connecticut, USA

Intensive English Programs andBicultural CentersFernando FleurquinUniversity of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan, USAPhilip LessArkansas Department of WorkforceEducationLittle Rock, Arkansas, USA

Interest SectionsJane HoelkerQatar UniversityDoha, QatarAnne V. MartinESL Materials Writer and Copy EditorSyracuse, New York, USA

ResearchersGerald P. BerentRochester Institute of TechnologyRochester, New York, USACandace HarperUniversity of FloridaGainesville, Florida, USA

The 2007 Board of Directors and Nominating Committee Slate

The 2007 Board of Directors and Nominating Committee slate shown below has been posted. Visithttp://www.tesol.org/, under Association. Voting will begin in October 2006 and end in early January 2007.

v v

Renew Early to Avoid Delays duringConvention Preregistration ProcessIf you plan to attend the TESOL 2007 conventionin Seattle, Washington, USA, in March 2007, andplan to wait to renew your membership as part ofthe preregistration process, you may want torenew when your invoice appears instead. Theconvention preregistration process will no longerinclude the opportunity to renew membership orjoin TESOL. Registrants will be referred to theTESOL Web site instead.

Members can now renew online instantly and avoidthe weeks of delay that result from renewing aspart of the convention preregistration process. Byrenewing membership online, members shouldincur no delays regarding the status of theirmembership during convention preregistration.

Easy Access to E-NewsletterSubscriptionsNew or renewing members are now automaticallysubscribed to their respective interest section or

caucus e-newsletters. To manage e-newslettersubscriptions, simply log on to the TESOL Web siteat http://www.tesol.org, select Edit Profile, andnavigate to the Communication Options tab. Youcan opt to receive the e-newsletters for all of theinterest sections and caucuses you belong to or fornone of them.

Celebrate World Teachers DayTESOL invites you to celebrate World Teachers Day byhonoring your favorite teacher or teacher educator.You can recognize a special ESL or EFL professionalby making a US$20, U.S. tax-deductible contributionto TESOL in the teacher’s name. TESOL will sendhonorees a special thank-you and a certificatehonoring the teacher for service and dedication to theprofession. For more information visit TESOL’s WorldTeachers Day Web site at http://www.tesol.org/ :Professional Development : World Teachers Day. Besure to include the name and teaching venue of thehonoree with your donation.

59SEPTEMBER 2006

TTeeaacchheerrss ooff EEnngglliisshh ttoo SSppeeaakkeerrss ooff OOtthheerr LLaanngguuaaggeess,, IInncc..

New WWays iin TTESOL SSeries

Activities for Teachers, by Teachers

TESOL publicationsPO BBox 7753, WWaldorf, MMD 220604-0753 UUSAToll FFree ++1 8888-891-0041, TTel. ++1 3301-638-4427, FFax ++1 3301-843-0159E-mail [email protected] OOrder oonline aat hhttp://www.tesol.org/

TESOL's popular New Ways Series providesa forum for English language teachers frommany different teaching and learningcontexts to share professional knowledgegleaned from years of classroom practice.The series' 20 volumes cover a broad rangeof practical topics relevant to Englishlanguage teaching, including reading,listening, speaking, writing, content-basedinstruction, assessment, teaching culture,technology in the classroom. These booksare useful for teacher education andprofessional development, as well as forteachers who need inspiration or just somenew ideas for what to do on Mondaymorning.

Order Online at www.tesol.org

61SEPTEMBER 2006

62

TESOL 2006 Sponsors

TESOL 2006 Sponsors

PLATINUM +

GOLD

SILVER

Cambridge University PressEducational Testing Service

Education Research & Development (R&D) Training ServiceHarcourt Achieve McGraw-Hill ELS

National Geographic School PublishingSantillana Publishing

Thomson-HeinleUniversity of Central FloridaUniversity of South Florida

AmidEastGES Exposition Service

Kaplan English ProgramsUniversity of Houston-Downtown

The Hampton Brown CompanyHarcourt Achieve

LeapFrog SchoolHouse

PLATINUM



This easy-to-use handbook is an essentialresource for anyone who needs to writeEnglish correspondence and otherdocuments for an international businessaudience. In an engaging, accessible style,it integrates the theory and controversies ofintercultural communication with thepractical skills of writing and editing Englishfor those who read it as a second language.

The Elements of InternationalEnglish StyleEdmond H. Weiss

TESOLpublications

PO Box 753, Waldorf, MD 20604-0753 USA

Toll Free USA 888-891-0041 � Tel. 301-638-4427 or -4428 � Fax 301-843-0159

E-mail [email protected] � Order online at http://www.tesol.org/Teachers of English to Speakers



ISBN 0-7656-1572-XOrder #72X$29.95 ($24.95 member)

63SEPTEMBER 2006

Help make a difference for English language learners and educators! Get involved by going to www.capwiz.com/TESOL today!Want to know what has happened this week in education policy in Washington? Read the Federal Education Update online at http://www.tesol.org/FedEdUpdate.



This interactive feature of the TESOL Web site includes detailed information on the U.S. Congress, a congressional directory, legislation and bills, and communication tools. Through the U.S. Advocacy Action Center you can:

� Help TESOL promote sound legislation and policies that help advance English language teaching

� Quickly and easily send personalized messages to your elected officials in Washington, DC and the administration on such issues as No Child Left Behind, education funding, adult education, bilingual education, student visas, international education policy, and more

� Learn more about your elected officials in Washington, DC

� Find information on key bills and legislation that TESOL is tracking

� Have access to advocacy tools and tips to better understand and influence the legislative process

� Motivate your colleagues to become more involved on important issues

� And much, much more!

In addition, by joining the Advocacy Action Network, you will receive action alerts and updates on legislation andpolicies that impact you, your classroom, and your students.

WWant tto kknow wwhat's hhappening iin WWashington, DDC? Go to TESOL's U.S. Advocacy Action Center!


Toll Free USA 888-891-0041 � Tel. 301-638-4427 or -4428 � Fax 301-843-0159 E-mail [email protected] � Order online at http://www.tesol.org/




This book offers a nontechnical

introduction to English teaching for native-

English-speaking teachers working

outside their home countries. It covers

classroom survival skills, lesson planning,

and adapting to life in a new country,

along with detailed discussions of how to

teach listening, speaking, reading, writing,

grammar, vocabulary, and culture.

New to this revised edition are an

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More TThan aa Native SSpeaker

Order No. 325ISBN 978-193118532-5Member $27.95Nonmember $36.95

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Revised edition

64

Managing ESL Programs in Rural and Small Urban Schools

Barney Bérubé

This resource offers aid and comfort to the ESL manager inU.S. rural and small urban communities. It describes how asmall program of services can fit into the standards movementand how to staff such a program.

This volume will guide you through the challenges and offerthe tools necessary to support an ESL program. It contains awealth of suggestions for instruction, student assessment,program evaluation, parent and community involvement, andmultimedia resources.

A practical and timely guide for the ESL manager, this is a volume to use, to share, and to revisit often.


Toll Free USA 888-891-0041 � Tel. 301-638-4427 or -4428 � Fax 301-843-0159

E-mail [email protected] � Order online at http://www.tesol.org/Teachers of English to Speakers



Order # 919

ISBN 0-939791-91-9

$30.95 ($22.95 member)

PreK-12 English LanguageProficiency Standards

Expanding the scope and breadth of TESOL's 1997 publication, ESLStandards for Pre-K - 12 Students

This volume provides an invaluable resource for each and every educator ofEnglish language learners and a model for states and districts.

This volume:

Connects language to the core curriculum contentareas of English Language Arts, Mathematics,Science, and Social Studies

Values students' native languages and cultures asthe foundation for developing academic languageproficiency

Acknowledges the social and intercultural aspectsof language development

Provides an organizational structure that issynchronized with U.S. federal legislation

Order# 318ISBN: 1-931185-31-8TESOL Members: $18.50Nonmembers: $28.00

TESOL presents…




Toll Free USA 888-891-0041 � Tel. 301-638-4427 or -4428 � Fax 301-843-0159 E-mail [email protected] � Order online at http://www.tesol.org/

Also available: the Rigby ELL Assessment Kit, the first tool aligned with TESOL’s PreK-12 EnglishLanguage Proficiency Standards. Available online at http://rigby.harcourtachieve.com


Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.700 South Washington Street, Suite 200Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USA

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1 cover issue fall:cover redesign - TESOL International Association

Documents

Transcript of 1 cover issue fall:cover redesign - TESOL International Association