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Content Type: 1
Title: 10 Summer Safety Tips for English Learners
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Judie Haynes writes, “It’s important for teachers of English learners to teach or review safety issues that are unique to the summer before the end of the school year. We should not assume that ELs have understood lessons on safety that were taught earlier in the year.” See her list of ten safety areas and online resources that address them: http://blog.tesol.org/10-summer-safety-tips-for-english-learners/
Source: TESOL
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Title: English for Heritage Language Speakers Program
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From http://www.cal.org/what-we-do/projects/ehls
The English for Heritage Language Speakers (EHLS) program is an intensive program of study for adults who possess a high level of proficiency in a critical language and want to achieve professional proficiency in English. Conducted by the Center for Applied Linguistics in partnership with the Georgetown University Center for Language Education and Development, EHLS gives participants the English listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills they need to succeed in professional positions in the federal government.
The EHLS curriculum consists of four interconnected courses that enable participants to develop language proficiency and analytical and critical thinking skills through a series of tasks that are typical of the federal workplace. The capstone of the instructional program is an analytical research project on a topic provided by a federal agency; participants develop papers and presentations on their topics with guidance from federal agency mentors.
Program graduates since 2006 include native speakers of Amharic, Arabic, Balochi, Bambara, Chinese-Cantonese, Chinese-Mandarin, Dari, Hausa, Hindi, Igbo, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Pashto, Persian Farsi, Swahili, Somali, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek, and Yoruba.
Visit the EHLS website at http://www.ehlsprogram.org/
Source: CAL
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Title: Musicuentos Black Box Podcasts Connect the Work of Researchers and Teachers
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From http://musicuentos.com/blackbox/
The Musicuentos Black Box is a collection of video podcasts and other media resources designed to address the great disconnect in world language teaching: the lack of effective communication between researchers investigating how people learn language and the teachers working to help those people develop communicative language skills.
The resources will be developed by a team of five world language teachers, including Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, a past InterCom contributor. Ms. Cottrell is the author of the first podcast of the series, a video that discusses the work of applied linguist Michael Long and his distinction between methods and methodologies, which is available here: http://musicuentos.com/2015/06/blackboxv1/
As you prepare for a new round of department-wide discussions with your colleagues, this video will be an excellent foundation to bridge perceived differences between how you all teach.
Source: Musicuentos
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Title: 3 Steps for Creating an Engaging Presentational Assessment
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From http://www.creativelanguageclass.com
In the last two week’s we’ve noted posts from the Creative Language Class blog about assessing different modes (interpersonal at http://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/19518 and interpretive at http://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/19552). Here is a third post, this time about assessment in the presentational modes: http://www.creativelanguageclass.com/assessments/3-steps-for-creating-an-engaging-presentational-assessment/
Source: Creative Language Class
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Title: Teaching Grammar Website
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Most second language researchers and practitioners have strongly-held views on the teaching of grammar in a second language classroom. For those who wish to teach grammar and would like to read research about doing so, here is a new website, Teaching Grammar: http://teach-grammar.com/
You can read articles about teaching grammar (why? how?) on the website, plus read suggested activities by other teachers.
You can also subscribe to an email listserv dedicated to the topic at http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/teach-grammar
If you’re wondering about what role a focus on accurate grammatical use may have in language teaching and learning, read this Topic of the Week article by CASLS Director Julie Sykes: http://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/17546
Source: Teaching Grammar
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Title: Activity for Simple Past: Today I…
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From http://www.teachthemenglish.com
In his third post in this series, teacher and blogger Adam Simpson describes a simple, low-prep activity that focuses on the simple past: http://www.teachthemenglish.com/2015/05/re-imagining-the-grammar-classics-what-did-you-do-today/
Source: Teach them English
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Title: Activity Idea: Discussion Tic-Tac-Toe
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From https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com
Here is a low-prep way to get your students discussion big questions with each other in the target language: Tic-Tac-Toe. Read how in this blog post: https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/tic-tac-toe-setting-discussion-goals/
Source: tekhnologic
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Title: Standby Activities
Body:
From http://frenchteachernet.blogspot.com
Teacher and blogger Steve Smith describes activities that you can do with no prep, perfect for those times when your “Plan A” doesn’t work out: http://frenchteachernet.blogspot.com/2015/05/standby-activities.html
Source: Frenchteacher
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Title: Article: Options in Classroom Self-Assessment
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From http://blog.tesol.org/options-in-classroom-self-assessment/
Robert Sheppard writes, “Can we really trust students to assess themselves? Is a student’s assessment of her own progress or performance reliable? Is it valid? If reliability and validity aren’t guaranteed, then what’s the point? These are important questions to ask, but as long as we think of assessment not just as a tool for bureaucracy and accountability but as an opportunity to empower our learners, and as long as we keep an eye to its limits and its role in a broader assessment system, then such self-assessment is most certainly a worthy undertaking.”
Read his full article, in which he discusses direct and indirect measures, portfolios, scoring rubrics, and the NCSSFL-ACTFL Global Can-Do Benchmarks, at http://blog.tesol.org/options-in-classroom-self-assessment/.
Of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t remind you of CASLS’ online portfolio service, LinguaFolio Online: https://linguafolio.uoregon.edu/
Source: TESOL
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Content Type: 4
Title: Conducting an Interview
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Renée Marshall is a Curriculum Consultant at CASLS
This activity has many parts: creating questions, interviewing a partner, and writing a brief biographical article. You can place a main focus on any or all of these three parts. I like to emphasize the listening aspect of this activity: be a good listener and ask clarifying questions and follow-up questions based on what your partner says. Listen well and do not write down every single word your partner says, but rather key words or phrases to help jog your memory when it comes time to write the article. I usually use this interactive listening task towards the beginning of the year or semester in order for students to get to know each other better. You may choose to post or display somehow the article and picture that students create based on their interviews so that everyone gets a chance to get to know each person. This activity could be considered a speaking to writing activity (see What Every Teacher Should Know about Heritage Language Learning from June 1, 2015, InterCom) that heritage and non-heritage students can do together, learning about each other and collaborating together to take spoken speech from the interview and present it in a written article.
Objective(s):
Students will be able to write questions for an interview task. Students will be able to listen to spoken information and pick out and record salient key words and phrases that they will use later in a writing task. Students will be able to ask clarifying and follow-up questions based on information given. Students will be able to write a short biographical article based on the information gleaned from the interview.
Resources: Conducting an Interview handout in English and French
Procedure:
- Have students partner up. I like to do this activity near the beginning of the year or semester as a "get to know each other better" activity. It can be useful to have students pair up with someone they don't know yet or don't know very well yet.
- Pass out the Conducting an Interview handout to all students. Briefly go over the instructions for the entire activity with the class, and then have them start on #1: creating their questions. Questions can be difficult in a second language; walk around and offer help/suggestions as needed and appropriate. You could also address common mistakes to the whole class.
- Now have students meet with their partner. This can be done in class or outside class. They complete #2 and #3 on the handout. Be sure to let students know the focus here is listening to their partner's responses, asking clarifying or follow-up questions, and writing down key words and phrases to help them remember what their partner said.
- After the interview, each student will write the biography article on his or her partner (#4 on handout). They will share this along with the picture they drew of their partner with their partner and also the whole class (#5 on handout).
Notes:
1. You can adjust this activity for different levels: Make the number of questions they ask smaller or greater; require certain questions or types of questions (i.e. based on a theme); write the directions in the target language or in L1; require they write a longer or shorter biographical article after the interview; provide a model biographical article; provide a list of helpful words and verbs; etc.
2. Also important here is register: in the example questions on the handout provided I use informal French. Depending on your class and your target language, you and the students can decide if the questions and the interview should be carried out in your target language's formal speech or informal speech. For French, for example, if it's a group of high school students, many of whom know each other and are the same age, perhaps informal speech is most appropriate (tu-form). If it's an adult class with students of varying ages who do not know each other, perhaps formal speech is most appropriate (vous-form). Or, in keeping with the theme of interviewing someone for the newspaper, a news reporter would most likely conduct an interview in formal speech (vous-form), unless they knew the person well (tu-form). The written article, however, which is geared for a news article, should be in a more formal, written register. This activity could be a good chance to practice transitioning between informal speech to a written register, pointing out the differences between the two and showing how the language must be adjusted to fit the task and the audience.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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