Ginna note about research challenges: a great deal has been written about how to incorporate social media and online content management tools at the university level, but I couldn’t find anything about doing it on a small, no-budget classroom scale. Also, not to the ESL but the English-speaking classroom. Also, nothing for adult learners, and…
ginna.allison@gmail.com 510.847.9991 Ginna Allison MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages personal narrative + digital tools + creative arts
I wrote this for something I’m not going to do, but it could be adapted for IS purposes: Blogs and digital photos and text messages and chats and cell phone videos — all have infinite potential as tools for language learning. How can technology become a platform for empowering immigrant, refugee and other English-learning students…
For my Sandanona presentation I could use the Venn diagram as the framework for much of the discussion, introducing a circle at a time. Explain the meat of my research, interested in the intersection of my pasts and my present. My degree in fine arts and photography. Then producer for public radio from the early…
“I sweat when I teach.” — Maggie Smith, instructor Best way to learn is thru workshops, not books. FL Teach is a listserv for foreign language teachers. It’s where she learned about TPRs: Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. It’s not related to TPR (at least not any longer) Helps with problem of how to…
I had an interesting experience in Spanish class tonight. It was the first time I’d been in over two weeks, since the PIMs had been on vacation for a week and I’d missed a week’s worth (i.e. two) classes after that. The last class I went to, the students divided into cliques, and I felt…
Specific Goals Affective: Develop a sense of safe community in the classroom, for optimal learning about language and about each other as cultural individuals. Objectives: SWBAT… As a group, develop norms for fostering community Through regular focused group activities, get to know one another, .[foreground this] starting with more neutral topics and moving gradually to…
Blogs and digital photos and text messages and chats and cell phone videos — all have infinite potential as tools for language learning. How can technology become a platform for empowering immigrant, refugee and other English-learning students to tell their story and communicate with one another as they develop language skills? Come brainstorm about ways…
Heather Linville Academic Director, English Language Center University of Maryland, Baltimore County April 16, 2010 We come to it with the ESL piece being the most important. The students’ classroom experience here is greatly enriched by the opportunity to do personal narrative. Their program began (ca. 2004?) in collaboration with the U’s New Media Studio…
Above & Over Above: ‘more than’ with temperature, weight, vertical scale Over: Covering, ‘more than’ with age, time, speed; movement from one place to another Both: Higher than, higher rank Start with movement uses. Fly over/above… Under & Below Under: touching, right below (under the sun). Both: lower than, less than. Below: more general. Shades…
Here are some things that have helped ADHD students: Walk to a different area — different room or even different corner of room to teach a new concept. Give test in same area as they learned about that subject, or where they studied, or HOW they studied (same music, etc.) so memory of place helps…
There are several areas of competency that my students will build during my course, and I will evaluate each during the needs-assessment phase at the start of the session. Goal 1: Develop English competency by exploring narrative structure as a listener, speaker, reader and writer. This goal requires the most astute needs assessment of the…
While singing to each other after class today, Curtis and I made a discovery about Mr. Rogers: he’s the modal man. It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood, A neighborly day for a…
Berlin radio producer Jens Jarisch: “I always knew you could do in radio what you’d never dare in print: spread words, give ungrammatical clues, condense thoughts… I am quite surprised that … the message comes across undisturbed by wide omissions, in fact, that a story can be told without really telling it.” http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/library/258-hong-kong-song
Top of Hill Grill Visit 2, April 14, 2010 Parking lot is full. No one is sitting inside except a family with an infant who leaves as I arrive. Reggae is playing, and a young white rasta climbs into his SUV in the parking lot. Six tables of people, dotted like stars or moles on…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: How to Avoid a Terrible Work Situation as an English Teacher Abroad By AJ Hoge http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0503/teaching_english_abroad_the_good_the_bad_the_ugly.shtml “We’re not teaching another class until we get paid.” The teachers room boiled with angry foreigners. Korean staff ran to and fro in a panicked frenzy. Underlings scurried between the owner’s office…
Interview with Sue Schardt, Executive Director, AIR April 13, 2010 What gives shape to whatever is created in that realm is determined in large part by if you have a platform. The classroom is the platform. The manner in which they engage: there’s a wide range of possibilities. Is there a common platform? Build idea…
Overlapping triangles: Culture loss, language loss and environmental education; hearths and marketplace (required for language survival), migrating stories (traditional tales that need a place to land) and ecological identity. Her interest and research in this led to her dissertation question: How do children experience their refugee parents’ memory of place and loss of place? And…
Don’t come into class with a defensive attitude, or tell students who are confused about a class activity: “No no no no. I PUT it up on Moodle. And it’s right there in front of you.” Take note when everyone is confused; consider your instructions. Don’t assign homework until you know you have no changes…
Clean Laundry Hi. My name’s Ginna. I was born on May 30, 1954, in Memorial Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. That same day, a litter of possums was born in our basement. We infants drew the attention of the local newspaper, and we got our first ink. It is the Cold War. We like Ike. I…
Soft pop music and soft conversation. Racing green woodstove with a gas fire. Chimney pipe through the wall, not the ceiling. Wood floors Then a blues song and people at both tables tapping their feet. Man in 60s in jean jacket and jean pants, Timberland t-shirt, white hair, glasses, beard. Sitting alone at round table,…
This was on the office door of one of the professors.
We had an assignment for ICLT to create an identity box, containing artifacts representing ourselves. I didn’t want to do the assignment. It seemed random, not connected to any specific outcome: just a general exercise in self-revelation. Further, this was shortly after my incident with the professor, so I, formerly open, was especially disinclined to…
Elka handed out this quote in class. “‘A’ inclines toward the unfamiliar… ‘The’ is anchored in the known; ‘a’ sets sail toward horizons unforeseen, undefined, undisclosed. Where ‘the’ entitles, ‘a’ unsettles. Preachers need ‘the’s’; poets need ‘a’s.’ ‘The’ meets its (already made) match, ‘a’ meets its (unmatched) maker. ‘The,’ by its very nature, is famous;…
From Elka: “Learner challenges here are very much form related (the mastery of the past participle forms and the complex passive voice forms in the perfect and the progressive tenses). Because of th is formal complexity and the message sent by many textbooks that the passive and active are interchangeable, we end up with usage…
The deadline to hand in my site report was only a little over a week after I returned from Mexico. I was exhausted and overwhelmed, upset in the aftermath of my experience there, aspects of which (homestay, aspects of teaching) had been negative. After talking to colleagues and considering the situation from an ethical perspective,…
I noticed a surprising thing in one of Elizabeth’s classes last semester: that who I am in the SIT classroom is not someone my old friends would entirely recognize. In a small-group project for The Four Skills, Sarah presented a lesson in which we thought of adjectives to describe the others in our group. Some…
Focal adjustment (or shift): With the passive voice, refers to changing the semantics of an utterance by changing the emphasis of the action, away from who did it and toward its simply having been done. “The passive allows speakers to make a kind of figure/ground reversal.” Transitive v. intransitive verbs: Transitive verbs co-occur with subjects…
“So we are talking about cultural things, so I will tell you about it. I grew up in a very white culture, my school was almost entirely white. Not only white, but it was like.. Maybe there was one token Jew, maybe one token black kid .. .I don’t think we had any Asian kids..,…
What did I notice about myself During the interview: That I was engaged and comfortable in talking with Natalia, and impressed with how open she was being. That I was sensitive to the importance of what she was revealing and cautious about not invading her privacy. That the most important thing to her in the…
This theme-based course is geared to high-intermediate to advanced ELs who will have sufficient vocabulary and cognitive skill to learn to use English in order to explore the rich world of traditional international folktales. At the top of the mind map is a line showing “Story Elements”: some of the key features that define the…
Specific Goals Affective: Develop a sense of safe community in the classroom, for optimal learning about language and about each other as cultural individuals. Objectives: SWBAT… As a group, develop norms for fostering community. Through regular focused group activities, get to know one another, starting with more neutral topics and moving gradually to deeper personal…
5.1: Questions about goals and objectives I’m writing this after I read the chapter, so it’s hard to answer. However, here are some of the questions I have had, and will need to reference the book during writing, to make sure I’m heading in the right direction: What is the difference between a goal and…
Please be advised that I couldn’t be at our English leson. [from Jess] Type of error Semantic: unclear meaning. Student data Jeremy, male low-intermediate EL. L1: Portuguese, L2: French. Format: e-mail to teacher. What student did correctly He knew that he needed a modal in the sentence and knew the right one; he recognized the…
April 5–11: Media Research April 12–18: Technical Rsch April 19–25: EL Research April 26–May 2: Interface Interview Beverly Mire @ MIT Interview Sue Schardt @ Airmedia Ask Bev B: NS interview Anita Johnson interview? Online communities that use digital storytelling Wikis WordPress/Blogs Cellphones & Cameras Ning Chats & Other Dialogues Document Collaboration SoundSlide Garage Band…
Natalia spent the first few years of her life in the early 80s in a religious community in the USSR where the “Old Believers” — a form of Christianity — preferred to live a somewhat separate existence from the rest of local society. When she reached school age, she experienced a major shift in her…
Interview: March 30, 2010 Ginna: What kind of community did you grow up in? Natalia: Uh, this is, uh, kind of “old believers” community. It is a kind of, um, a Christianity thing. You have to christ like with two fingers only — well, like this. Not like this. G: You have to cross yourself?…
Some ideas for article lessons Zero article stuff I did in Mexico An idea adapted from Grammar Practice activities: have students expand headlines that I had found or made up, as an exercise in the zero article versus the definite article. I did the same thing with a few proverbs. I rewrote (to simplify) a…
I read book yesterday. [from Yajuan] Type of error: Missing definite or indefinite article. Student data: Korean student, high beginner, age unknown, oral error (male?) What student did correctly: Correct syntax: SVO + adverb. Inter-language system: Probably L1 transfer is at least partly responsible, since I don’t believe Korean has articles before nouns. Corrected error:…
Fundamental Beliefs about Learning I: I believe that a sense of cohesion among students and teacher — the forging of bonds between individuals to create community — is essential for optimal learning, and that it is the teacher’s responsibility to build that. Consider the classic scenario in grade school classrooms: children uniting against the teacher:…
Simple Past versus Past Progressive What is/are the core meaning(s) of SP? Actions and states that began and ended in past. Factual, completed action or state in the past Remote from present with no possibility of continuing Often used for narrative and description What is/are the core meaning(s) of PP? Actions in progress (and not…
WHEN WHERE ME MY COUNTRY May 1954 Wilmington, Delaware Some ‘possums and I were born Cold war, Ike, desegregation, assassinations, man on moon, antiwar demonstrations, civil rights movement, Beatles. September 1972 Brooklyn, NY Study fine arts at Pratt Vietnam War over; drugs. July 1975 San Francisco, CA Study photography; BFA Watergate 1977 Oakland, CA Fall…
At the top of my mind map I’ve listed, in very abbreviated form, my overarching goals (rooted in my beliefs) and the expected outcomes for the students I defined in my context statement. Examining several simple folktales I identified a few key elements. Often (certainly not always) they unfold in a linear in somewhat predictable…
From What Sticks? Language Teaching for Long-Term Retention by Scott Miles, Daegu-Haany University, Republic of Korea, March 27, 2010. Specifically vocab. Two important concepts: Spaced/interval repetition. [Behaviorist] For example, vocab-teaching in a 30-minute block. One 30-minute lesson vs. three spaced 10-minute lessons with repetition. The latter did about a third better on retention. Similar to…
What I want my students to learn in the course, given who they are, their needs, the purpose of the course (SWBAT) General Language is creative and intellectually rewarding in other than language-specific ways Communication and mutual understanding is foundational They are capable of producing art with language Four skills are intertwined Content Specific Traditional…
The idea of interlanguage is founded upon the assumption that an L2 learner, at any particular moment in his learning sequence, is using a language system which is neither the L1, nor the L2. It is a third language, with its own grammar, its own lexicon and so on. The rules used by the learner…
Employment/Living Abroad links www.transitionsabroad.com/ http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/esl/index.shtml www.escapeartist.com http://www.eslbase.com/advice/ http://www.tefldaddy.com/ http://www.eslteachersboard.com/ Recruitment/job sites (fairly reputable, but read between the lines!) http://www.teachabroad.com/search.cfm http://www.teachingenglishtips.com/ www.eslcafe.com (go to their international job forums, some by country) http://www.tefl.com/ www.onestopenglish.com (go to teacher’s diaries) http://www.esljobfind.com/ http://www.tesol.net/jobs http://www.eslemployment.com/ http://www.eslcafe.com/joblist/ http://www.jobmonkey.com/ –some good articles on specific areas, too Black lists (schools with a lot of…
Teaching English in an Overseas School: All Your Questions Answered By Lovelyn Hunter Maybe you’ve just graduated from college and are still unsure about what you want to do. Maybe your nine-to-five-grind has grown tiresome, and you’re ready for a change. If you’re looking for adventure, you might want to consider teaching English abroad. ESL…
Professional Preparation: What makes a great teacher? What are your top 5 skills as a teacher? General Questions for working abroad: How long has the organization been in business? What is the organization’s mission? What are the in-class hours and out-of-class hours? What responsibilities will there be in addition to teaching? What training would I…
Belief One — I: I believe that a sense of cohesion among students and teacher — the forging of bonds between individuals to create community — is essential for optimal learning, and that it is the teacher’s responsibility to build that. Consider the classic scenario in grade school classrooms: children uniting against the teacher: whispering,…
