I am being published! I will have to give you more details as they come. But as luck would have it, about six months ago an educational researcher and professor at Columbia University, Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed. D., found my students’ wiki and loved it. She asked me to write a narrative about how I used the wiki in my ESL class and why. Well, it is getting published in her book about Web 2.0 in language classrooms. I am so excited. My little teaching narrative will compliment the more theoretical, research-based chapter on wikis in her book.

This achievement inspires me in a few different ways. First, as a fairly new teacher, I feel empowered by the Internet’s ability to level the playing field. What are the chances that the author would have found me and been able to peek into my classroom like that without the Internet? Second, it inspires me to try more new things because people notice! They noticed me! Not like being noticed really matters. (But we all know it does.) Anyway, I will keep you posted about when and where to buy the book.

And P.S. thanks for all the encouragement you guys gave me to teach abroad. I am excited about that too.

Image:  Zoha Navehebrahim

I am writing today’s TESOL Convention Tidbit from the Denver airport. After a “flash blizzard” yesterday, flights are delayed. So I’m typing as I sit in an uncomfortable chair outside gate A30, waiting for my flight.

Luckily, the snow didn’t affect the conference. I was a busy bee… buzzing around to six different sessions.  The tidbit comes from Ruelaine Stokes, Andrew McCullough, and Nigel Caplan’s session titled “Beyond ‘Help!’ Diagnosing the L2 Writer’s  Essay: A Strategies-Based Approach.” Their session was delightful and full of witty metaphors. (For fear of ruining the humor, this post is metaphor free.)

Anyway, this panel had a great way to get students writing by using a free writing activity. They called the activity “Pick a Sentence and Go!” Students chose a sentence from a list to begin their story. They were instructed to write non-stop for ten minutes (in typical free write fashion), but they were also instructed to use the words “suddenly” and “murky” and the phrase, “rich beyond my wildest dreams.” Giving students words (especially words like “suddenly” that allow students to change the direction of their writing) help them sustain the freewriting. Other freewriting ideas including having students keep track of how many words they are able to write each time. Over a term, students will be able to see their progress in writing fluently. For other great tidbits from this session go to their webpage and download all the handouts.

Even though today was another busy at the TESOL Convention, I wish I could have done more. I didn’t go to a lot of sessions, instead I went to a few longer sessions, presented my poster and had a job interview. Still my favorite tidbit comes from the first session of my day titled: “Serving Adolescent ELLs and Struggling Readers: Similarities and Differences.” David Moore, one of the presenters, gave a quick three step process to help students find and write the main idea.

1. Find the most important word in the passage–write the topic. (ex. Facebook)
2. Expand on the topic by adding “and.” He calls this a comment. (ex. Facebook and how teens communicate)
3. Write the comment in a nice sentence. This is the main idea. (ex. Facebook has changed how teens communicate.)

By giving students this process, David Moore says it is much easier for students to find and write the main idea of a reading passage. I know I am going to give it a try.

English teachers from all over the world have congregated in the mile high city, Denver, Colorado. This week is the national TESOL convention (all part of March Madness). And, as tribute to my trip here, I am going to post my favorite tidbits from the conference each day.

Today, my favorite tidbit comes from Ji Hyun Byun and Min-Jung Jee at the University of Texas Austin. They gave some great advice on creating a student-centered “Book Club.” During a three week process, students selected a book to read. They were given selection criteria from the instructor. Then, each student found interesting books. They interviewed friends about book suggestions and then presented their suggestions to the class which voted for the ones they liked best.

Then the students split into groups of four to read the chosen books. Each group member had a specific role each week in the book club (create a timeline, describe characters, find a favorite passage, develop discussion questions). Research after the fact showed that students enjoyed the book club.

Sounds like a plan to me! Look for more inspiring ideas from the TESOL Convention tomorrow.

March Madness usually refers to basketball, I know. But this March is full of conferences for ESL teachers like me. And doesn’t that conference logo to the left kind of look like a basketball tournament logo? It’s pretty intense.

I am gonna give you my top three conferences in March. You might not be able to go to them all. (I certainly can’t.) Hopefully, though, you’ll be able to go to one. So here they are:

1. TESOL Convention- March 26-28 in Denver, Colorado. Learn teaching tricks and tips. Hear about the latest research. And bonus, there is a large job fair at the conference.
2. American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL)- This conference is more research based, but it is the same week as TESOL (March 21-24) and in Denver. So you could do both maybe!
3. Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO)-At this conference, you will find out how people are using technology in their classes and how that benefits students. It will be on March 10-14 in Arizona.

I am going to the TESOL Convention. I’ll be presenting a little something about why ESL students report using Facebook. If you happen to go to one of the other conferences on my top three list, please tell me all about them. You can learn so much at a conference. I am excited!!

We want our ESL students to read, write, and think. But how do we help them do that? With Read-Write-Think curriculum and online materials, of course. The site has great materials that students can work on by themselves, but it also has examples of how teachers can integrate Read-Write-Think tools into lessons.

The Essay Map is one example of materials available for learners. It walks students through the process of making an outline for an essay. There are a bunch of writing lessons on the site that use the Essay Map. I have used it in class and students liked it. It makes essay writing a lot easier. Bonus: after making the Map, students can print it out in a nice format. (Alternatively, teachers can leave the Essay Map blank and print the blank Map to use as handout for class.)

If your writers are more advanced, they might not need the Essay Map. But the site has other things to offer too. Here are my favorite Read-Write-Think online activities for students:

• Letter Writing- learn the traditional format of friendly and business letters. And some lessons to go with it.
• Literary Graffiti- give artistic student the chance to summarize a text in writing and with pictures or other creative lessons.
• Persuasive Map-similar to the Essay Map. Also includes a variety of lesson ideas.
• Eye on Idioms- learn a few idioms and see why they make (a little) sense.

They have materials for all students of all ages. Some are more appropriate than other for adult ESL students. Anyway, I like Read-Write-Think. Hope you do too.

Videos can be really fun in the classroom. In older posts, I have explained a few ways to use YouTube videos in the classroom. They can be used in esl lessons about food. Students can also learn to use YouTube videos in their presentations or you can integrate them into lectures. Well, now, I have a slightly new challenge for you. Make your own educational video!

TeacherTube is full of videos teachers and/or students have made. You can use YouTube and TeacherTube to find videos for your esl classes, but when you just can’t find what you are looking for it might be time to make your own video. The next few posts will explain how to make a YouTube video.

First, you have to start with some video clips. Use your cellphone, a video camera, a web cam, whatever to capture some video and audio. I used the built in video camera and microphone on my Macbook to make this video. It will be used in an international studies class. The final project in the class is to make an annotated bibliography and this explains how to do it.

Once you have the video, you have to find video editing software. You probably have one on your computer. On Macs, there is iMovie. On PCs, there is Movie Maker.

So from here out, the directions are for macs on iMovie. But I have used Movie Maker and it is pretty simple too.

Once you have the video recordings, you need to import them into iMovie (File > Import Movie). A simpler option is to record video in the iMovie program using a webcam. Then, go through the recordings and drag the parts you want to use into the video screen. The process is a simple drag and drop. (There is a link at the bottom of this to a more detailed video tutorial.)

The next step is to add titles. There is a little “T” for text or maybe for title. Click on the “T” and the different formats of titles come up. Drag and drop the title that you want to the place where you want it.

Once you’re finished adding video clips and titles, press Share in the toolbar and then select YouTube. Follow the steps (including creating a YouTube account) and before you know it you will have a video on YouTube.

Here is an iMovie tutorial. It may seem a little complicated. But I opened the iMovie program for the first time last week and was able to completely finish a YouTube video in less than one hour!

I stumbled upon a New York times article today about several language learning software programs. It was an old article (from  2005). So what was so interesting about a NY Times article from 2005? The article discussed the different programs’ underlying assumptions about language learning. The Rosette Stone, for example, is based on the assumption that people learn their second language in the same way they learn their first. Basically, they believe second language acquisition is the same as first language acquisition. Personally, the idea that adults learn language in the same manner as children seems slightly absurd.

As teachers, we have all sorts of beliefs about how people learn language.  But I don’t think we give the idea much focused attention. While we might have a teaching philosophy that clearly states how we can help students learn, I think we all need to have a clear idea about how people learn language. A colleague of mine thinks that extensive reading is essential to language learning. I don’t know if that is at the center of her teaching philosophy but it certainly affects what she does in the classroom to some extent.

So like all of the software programs from the NY Times article, our ESL classes are each based on our assumptions about language learning.  If you aren’t sure how people learn language, it might be time for you to start researching second language acquisition. And make more informed decisions in the classroom.

One of the beauties of teaching adults English is that they are more than students. ESOL students are wives, fathers, business professionals, and hospital workers. So unlike their youthful counterparts, adult ESOL learners need to learn English for a variety of contexts, including work. I vividly experienced an ESOL learners’ work context this week: the hospital.

What I thought was a little stomach ache turned out to be appendicitis.  Suddenly, I was being rushed into an operating room and having my appendix removed. Before I got cut open, I learned a little bit about how hospitals work and about the profession of hospital transportation. Most of the hospital transportation people that I met were intermediate English language learners. They graciously pushed me around the hospital. Literally. There job, as far as I could tell, was to push people’s beds from one location to another.

I was so delighted by their conversation skills and medical knowledge. They were so comforting: “Don’t worry the CT scan won’t hurt.”  And so polite: “May I take that cup from you?” The ESOL Hospital Transportation staff were so well versed in how to take care of a patient and the English vocabulary you need to do so.

And it got me thinking about their language acquisition. How had they learned the medical terminology? Was it on the job training? An English class? If it was a general ESL class that helped them, I bet they really paid attention to the polite forms of speech. As a teacher, I know, I don’t really pay that much attention to my students’ work life. But I am going to start bringing in readings from occupational contexts and making a point to link class learning objectives to work. All of my students work, so it seems stupid that I wasn’t integrating their work life into class. In most cases, to be successful at work they are going to need specific English skills. I want to help give them that knowledge so that they can become the knowledgable, polite, professional, and friendly English language learners that helped me at the hospital.

How can I get my students to review vocabulary or grammar for hours? How can I get them to encounter the words hundreds of time? By making it fun! I have talked about taking advantage of students’ free time and using online games is yet another way to engage students during their free time.

Now, you could try to use normal games and make them educational. There are lots of ideas about how to make games educational by creating fill-in-the-blank tests from normal games for example. Read this excerpt from Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley’s article titled Adapting Online Computer Games for the Classroom:

Example: (from the MOTAS walkthrough game):
Level 1:
Look under the pillow to find the _1._ and take the _2._ from the wall Use the _1._ to open the _3._ . You will find a _4._ in the _5._
Missing words: locker, screwdriver, key, box, poster

That seems educational to me. And it also seems like a homework packet students wouldn’t mind doing in their free time. Here are some gaming sites recommended by Larry Ferlazzo for use in the ESL or EFL classroom.

Besides those games, I got really excited about quia.com yesterday. And I think I am going to stay excited, too. On Quia, teachers can create their own games. Then, the games can match your lessons perfectly! You can make battle ship games that require students to answer a grammar question before they can sink a ship. Like this one that tests your knowledge of the possessive.

But battle ship is just the beginning, there are 16 different types of games! Now, there is one catch: it costs $50 a year to create games. But you can use other teachers’ games for free and once you create a game it is online forever! So I think, it might be worth the money. Especially if you could get one of your computer addicted students to play for hours.

I hope, I can convince my department to finance the fun on quia.com. I really think that the more students encounter English outside of class the more they will learn. So why not help them by providing fun online games!