the glory and the challenges
Once again I will not be teaching ESL as scheduled. An entire Chinese cohort decided not to participate in the program this fall and therefore the number of classes needed dropped.
I am sad about that.
It also means that I cannot apply for the Advanced Practitioner Certificate, as you have to be a presently teaching ESL professional.
Boo hoo.
Earlier this year I applied for TESOL certification. There were insufficient applications and I was told that my application would be rolled over into the September cohort.
Today I received an email stating that I should apply for the Advanced Practitioner Certification instead, as the basic certification is not aimed at teaching professionals.
Whoo hoo!
I am teaching an ESL class this semester and had a meeting this morning with the entire faculty of the program.
There are four instructors and two staff/faculty positions involved. I have met three of the six folks previously. Now I have met everyone.
The classroom has been painted, updated, and decorated. It is a very pleasant room. I wish we could do that for all the rooms we teach in. They tend to look very institutional.
I learned quite a bit about the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CERF), which is what we are using to base our assessments on–both incoming and outgoing.
The level of writing that I will be teaching assumes B1.
Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and dreams.
Before they get into on-level classes, they need to achieve C1.
Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognize implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organizational patterns, connectors, and cohesive devices.
Students and teachers will all be challenged this semester.
I was planning on teaching ESL this summer and was looking forward to it.
Unfortunately that is not going to happen. The group of students who were the main focus of the summer ESL program (from Japan, I believe) decided not to participate.
I will have to wait for the fall.
Showing things that are similar to each other help us understand what a thing is.
Showing things that are different also help us understand.
I find it odd that these were presented in the chapter in the opposite order. When I came to write down notes, that order seemed problematic, so I changed the order (book had contrasting/contrasting, then showing/showing ideas).
Contrasting things that are very different show fundamentals.
Contrasting things that are similar to each other highlight the things that are different. These can be very subtle and they are usually more important than the differences highlighted with very different examples.
When giving contrasting examples, make them specific to individual things. If you wanted to learn how to tell other flowers from daisies, you might get individual “not daisies” that have a single difference and have multiple “not daisies” which have differences in color, petals, stems, and leaves.
Compare/contrast alone does not allow the students to see what they need to be looking for.
Instead compare/contrast with a specific function or feature in mind.
I am trying to imagine what this would look like if I were having students c/c emails during the section where I teach email etiquette.
Could we have multiple examples of subject lines and have students identify whether or not those are appropriate? Or rank them according to how specific they are? (Specificity increases readability in the emails.)
I could make these up or I could go back through my emails and use actual examples (though removed from the actual emails) to give contrasting cases.
Okay. I can see that working.
How would I do this with introduction options–ways of writing introductions? Do I make up my own? Have to think on this more.
The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them by Daniel L. Schwartz, Jessica M. Tsang, and Kristen P. Blair