Free US Government Online English

USA Learns is a website designed to teach basic English skills to immigrants. Audio, video, test scores and more. The level is basic, but the technology is at least intermediate.

There's also a Spanish lesson track.

Privacy on Facebook

Here at the NAFSA meeting I’m attending a lot of sessions on technology in the educational workplace. Usually the first question for the Gen X presenting about Facebook/Twitter/Digby is from a Boomer sitting in the back who raises his hand to ask “but why?”.

One of the best responses was in an article here quoting Marian Salzman, a New York-based trendspotter:

We’re so much more public about posting everything now. We’ll post our breakups, our pictures. Privacy is now defined as something that’s in our hearts. We’ve redefined what’s private, so there’s less worry about what we post.

Interesting.

There have also been news items this week about teachers in Charlotte, NC losing their jobs because of inappropriate Facebook postings. I’ve been alerted to check SJSU policies on faculty/staff social interactions with students so that we can clarify that line and the role of social networking.

A Vision of Students Today video

I’m in Honolulu this week at the Bi-regional NAFSA conference. NAFSA is the professional association for international educators that deals primarily with out-of-the-classroom issues such as immigration and visa regulations, student services, marketing, and legal responsibilities for all facets of international education. So, while it’s informative, it’s usually less inspiring than great TESOL or CATESOL presentations.

However, yesterday in a session about generational diversity, I saw a student-made video I want to share. A Vision of Students Today is about 4.5 minutes and sends a clear message in a creative format. Take a look and let me know what you think. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Free faculty development for Poster Sessions

Take advantage of this workshop to spiff up your poster session.

How to make a Poster for Conference Presentation Using PowerPoint and the Poster Output Service
Provided by SJSU Photographic Services

Fri. Oct 17
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
IRC 210

Facilitated by Kathy Sucher, Faculty-in-Residence for ePortfolio, Professor, Nutrition and Food Science and Bob Bain, University Photographer, Academic Technology

Europe's Learning Tribes

There was much analysis of the trends and topics in student mobility at the conference of the European Association of International Education I just attended in Antwerp. Europe is rapidly adopting English-language instruction in order to internationalize their campuses and to graduate globally marketable job candidates. The result is a greater number of international students and several research projects.

Researchers from I-Graduate in London conducted “the world’s largest ongoing study of international students” and presented their data on how students “differ less by nationality and more by personal expectations and aspirations”. Researchers Archer and Bush named the following “tribes”, characterized by motivation, behavior, influence and ambition.

15% are Surfers looking for fun and a life experience. They are risk-takers ready to try the new culture without committing to it.

Let’s play games and watch videos. I want to meet Americans.

22% are Seekers studying for a better job. They are under strong parental influence and feel a great obligation to their families’ futures.

Can we have more homework?

22% are Gekkos focusing on money, status, and recognition. They are demanding, hard to please, and may not share their parents’ values or follow their advice.

How is this lesson going to be useful to my future? Don’t waste my time.

27% are Bonos working for the greater good and a work/life balance. They are optimistic; they want to make a difference and value recognition over money.


How can I join a club on campus?

14% are Kids exuding unfocused enthusiasm and little maturity. They are generally, but not always, younger and may not be ready to make mature decisions. They haven’t decided what they want to do and are under parental influence.

Can I borrow a pen and paper? Oh, yeah, I forgot to bring my textbook, too.

Personally, I still believe that culturally based communication styles have a great bearing on our students’ classroom behavior, but I’ll have to admit we see each of these stereotypes in SAL classes. Although the names serve to summarize the types, they seem a bit disrespectful to me. I’d say we are already addressing the different demands and learning styles of each group at SAL, but it’s interesting to consider these survey results.

SAL STUDENT LENDING LIBRARY

Our dedicated classroom building gives us the opportunity to build a center for international teaching and learning. We have just added benches to the 'back lobby' to provide seating so it seemed natural to try to define this area as a 'reading room'.

Today we rolled the book cart out of storage and into the 'back lobby' to give our students access to free reading materials. The books have orange dots on the spines simply to signal that they are part of our open collection to be returned to the shelves.

Immediate student interest prompted Moe to post a temporary sign. I was thinking of posting something creative to tie reading to increased vocabulary and thus to higher TOEFL scores. Any ideas? We'll be trying a format of open lending - borrow, read, return - for now. Next step might be to ask students to note their recommendations in the front covers or on a clipboard.

Certainly you and students are welcome to add your used books (cookbooks? travel books? fiction? poetry?) to the shelves and to borrow freely from the collection.

New equipment in 2nd Street. - PowerPoint Remote, Tablet PC

Hi all,

Thanks to Karen, recently we have two new equipment coming in 2nd street classroom building. The first one is PowerPoint remote control, which allows you to control the PowerPoint slides when you are not around the PC. This way you don't have to walk back to the PC everytime just to press the mouse button.

The second addition is a Tablet PC, allowing you to write on the screen and project the screen content to the big screen. You can write on your PowerPoint to stress your point, or just start doodling on the screen if you want to make it an art class. Ursula has been our pioneer and tried out the tablet in her writing class this summer, and she likes it a lot.

If you want to try the two device to see if you can use it in your class, please feel free to contact Moe at 2nd Street building

Salzburg Global Seminar

Although my work this week at the Salzburg Global Seminar is not directly related to our classroom work, it has been an extremely valuable week for making campus connections. There are 11 representatives from 11 different SJSU departments, so the opportunities to introduce SAL programs have been very good.

Our purpose this week has been to discuss ways to internationalize the campus with the outcome of making SJSU attractive to students, staff, and faculty as a place of global education. The lectures have gone well beyond curriculum and campuses and conclude with the very important role that education - especially international education - can and must play in addressing global problems. Not only is education the only successful road we know to controlling population growth (effecting food, water, and pollution), it is also the best means to changing prejudices and opening dialogs.

Come to think of it - I should have started by saying this week IS directly related to our classroom work! All of the lectures and powerpoints will be distributed on a CD that we plan to post on a website to share with all.

Home-Away-From-Home Lunches

At NAFSA this week, I was part of workshop on student support activities that address student needs during the cycle of cultural adjustment.


Suffolk University acknowledges the predictable low period in cultural adjustment when students seek out their countrymen for support. Suffolk sets up lunches for country groups in October and February just as the excitement of living in the US is wearing off. Returning students are invited to join tables with new students from their country and share their experiences in surviving and thriving.


The conversations have included such things as the best place to buy/find their homeland food or how to interact with a particularly "different" teacher or interactions with a nationality that they had not experienced at home. One of the results is that the students help each other through some of the challenges in housing, food, relationships.

Suffolk has a smaller student population and so is able to provide lunches for all. Perhaps SAL could do something similar after classes in the afternoon with snacks? Or provide some reimbursement if the students want to go somewhere to meet? Any suggestions?

A related idea was to set up Peer Outreach Partners (POPs!) to pair 'senior' students with incoming students. The success is more dependent on the pairs getting along well - something impossible to predict.

I'm very big on keeping an English only environment, but I can see real benefit in creating or supporting student support networks within their compatriot groups.

EZ Slang Activities online

Randy Davis from University of Utah has created several sites for the ELI students. EZ Slang has slang vocabulary, audio files, and activities that would be interesting for our students. Very easy to use. This could be especially good in our ACC classes.

TESOL IT Fair

Perhaps just one more post from the NYC TESOL. Randall Davis runs the ELI lab at University of Utah. He gave a terrific presentation on technology in the IEP curriculum and also coordinated the Hardware Fair. I'm linking to the description of the Hardware Fair to give you an overview of the many possibilities that were on display. I hope these posts are inspiring us to try to new things ~ especially with Moe on board to help.

Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a great tool for our students to make short videos--probably for OC class. Suzanne Ludlum from Oakland Adult Ed showed us how her students make Digital Stories. Here are some results:
http://storiesforchange.net/stories
The idea is for the student to pre-write her story and then think of a sort of story board.
She can easily find images on Google images and save them or import her own pictures.
You insert your pictures, apply video effects and transitions, type over them using titles or credits or title overlays, and then use Audacity to narrate your story. You can have background music as well.
I'm quite interested in becoming more adept with this and after Moe gets other more pressing tasks under control, I want to work with him on this so that I can do a demo of it for interested teachers, OK?

YouTube in the Classroom

I went to the CATESOL presentation by Nathan Crandall and Steve MacIsaac called, "Using YouTube in Speaking and Listening Classes." I've got to say that at first, I wasn't sure I'd get anything out of it because they were covering the very basics of YouTube - what is it? who posts videos on it? how do you find it? - all things that anyone from my generation would know. But, after all those questions had been answered (there were a lot of people who needed the basics, so it was important), I learned a few ways to use YouTube in the classroom, other than just cueing up some videos right before class. Here's a taste:

1.  You can make a YouTube account and save movies to it so that you don't have to worry about finding them before class. The movies will be safe in your account until they are taken off of YouTube all together.

2. Within your account, you can create and name playlists. Playlists can help you organize movies by class, topic, etc. 

3. You can create a contact list (your students). You can email these contacts the videos in your account by playlist- a great way to assign homework.

I created an account, but I haven't used it in class yet. It really is a hassle trying to find the video you found the night before while your students are coming in and class is starting. I think that even if the playlist and contact list isn't for you, the account is really helpful.  

Cyber-Grading: Teaching a Paperless Writing Class with "One-Click" Commenting

Randall Rightmire, (yes, really his name), from UC Santa Barbara City College, UCSB Extension introduced a correcting system online that he had privately-made. His system included codes for each mistake, a link next to the code to send the student to an example and explanation site and all this over the web outside class. He also set it up so students can exchange each writing assignments with each other. He offered to allow anyone to go to his website and benefit from his correction system themselves.
I really think this is useful! I want to sign up for his system and use it to correct papers of students that I see once a week. This is thorough and complete! Would anyone like to make this work for SAL?

Using Technology to Mount a Collaborative Pronunciation Tutoring Project

Donna Brinton and Jack Walker of Soka University of America in Southern California presented this pronunciation project. (It should be noted that Soka Gakkai is considered by many to be a cult religion from Japan. ) Jack is head of the ESL department and Donna heads the Masters in TESL department, so they decided to do a project where their students could learn from each other. Each ESL student was assigned a tutor according to the tutor's schedule. Tutors were given techniques, but not always in the order pronunciation was presented to the ESL tutees in Jack's classes. The tutors had to dialogue with Donna on techniques, links and other suggestions. Tutors changed their tutee after two months. For the most part, it seems that tutors and tutees were satisfied with their accomplishments.
This is a great idea and I am sure people at SAL have thought of working with the MA program at San Jose State University. But just as Donna and Jack realized, this is a logistical nightmare. If this could be simplified in some way...if one tutor were always available at a particular time or... It is a great idea!

Practice Speaking English with ESL Robots

This was 11AM Friday. Ron Lee is from Pasadena City College. He talked about
programming Pandorabots to respond to students random questions in ways a native speaker would. When the same student asked the question a second time, the robot gave a different answer. The instructor gave homework assignments such as; ask the robot ten questions and print out the dialogue.
I can only see this working well with F or D1 students. Reason being, students will quickly pass up the robot knowledge of how to respond. However, it is good for students who don't seem to catch the teacher's explanation of why a question or statement gets an unexpected response. I can also see the transcript being a tangible way of working with writing and then speaking in the classroom.
Personally, I couldn't see spending that much time programming the robot to say all the stuff we studied in class or other things the students could come up with themselves. There are just too many choices. Fun idea! If anyone wants to do this with me, I could see it being fun and useful for the students!

Technology-driven educational innovation

I was reading an article on James Goodnight (billionaire CEO of SAS) in "Forbes" magazine recently and was impressed with his vision about educational reform, starting in North Carolina, his own sphere of influence. Like the speaker from Adobe we heard at last year's IES retreat, Goodnight was amazed at how little his own children's school was utilizing technology to reach kids. He rightly suggested that it was no wonder kids weren't much interested in school; they live in a world of iPods, blogs and other user-driven means of accessing information, but they are expected to come to a classroom and watch somebody write on a whiteboard. His position is that, unless we do something, all the best jobs in the U.S. will be taken by foreign-trained individuals and that those going through the American educational system will be relegated to jobs in the service industry. So what he did was to start a new secondary prep school outside Raleigh. This page tells a little about what's happening in that school: http://www.sasinstitute.fi/news/sascom/2004q1/feature_sasinschool.html

Previously an avowed Luddite, I have come to believe that we will never reach our students unless we use their means of communication. I can't imagine that getting up to speed on educational technology would be any harder for you guys than it is for me; I see from your blogs that many of you are already ahead of the curve. I hope that we'll have an interactive grammar program to pilot this summer and I think it will go a long way in helping us engage our students. I'm so jazzed about having Moe here to expand our horizons and hope we'll keep this conversation going.

Integrating Internet-Based Video

I attended a fabulous session entitled "Integrating Internet-Based Video in English Language Instruction" by Angela Webster and Kristi Reyes of MiraCosta College. I would rename it to "Making English Language Learning Totally Fun!" In this demonstration, the presenters showed how they use video clips found on the internet to teach a grammar point.

Advantages for students:
1. authentic language input: reduced speech, normal speech rates, contractions, reductions, idioms, and various accents
2. opportunities to build fluency
3. visual support for language learning
4. engaging, high-interest materials

Advantages for teachers:
1. break from routine
2. numerous free, easy-to-find materials
3. basis of or supplement to thematic, integrated-skills lessons or project-based learning
4. chance to plan lessons that integrate skills thematically or to employ project-based learning

Demonstration 1 was about how to use short action clips (with or without) sound to practice grammar. After watching (the very funny) video clip, the students can tell a partner or write down what: is happening (present continuous), happened (simple past and past continuous), has just happened (present perfect) or will happen next (future)... Here was the clip they used for this one (fabulous!) about some people doing a (theatrical?) experiment (show?) called "Frozen in Grand Central Station."

Activities for teaching:
1. list vocabulary from clip (example: freeze, to be frozen)
2. Order/unscramble words or phrases from a sentence that describe the action
3. Use prompts to describe the action
4. Tell a partner about the action
5. Write a sentence to describe the action

Demonstration 2 focused on a clip (with no dialog) for fluency development and writing practice where students can:

1. Write the dialog they create or a scene summary from memory
2. Order sentence strips of a scene summary or dialog
3. Complete a cloze exercise of the dialog or scene summary
4. Provide oral or written alternative endings or character descriptions

There were a couple of really great video clips for this one that I call Red Car and this one I call Beautiful People.

Demonstration 3 illustrated how you can use a longer clip or documentary or news report to create or build on a thematic unit. The presenters used a news report about a guy who won the lottery. The thematic unit was "Lottery Winners/Luck" and the skills practiced were conversation/speaking, listening, writing, grammar and vocabulary. [I could see presentation skills and idioms as other skills to learn and practice.] There was a section on discussion around fortune cookies and luck and playing the lottery and then the video clip of the Lottery Winner.

The activities for this one are many and can be found on the handout, which I will put a copy of in my accordian file in the 2nd St. classroom building. Feel free to grab it and make a copy of it for yourself. Please remember to put it back for the next person. Thank you!

Danielle P. (DJP)

Using Videotaped Role Plays

I attended a workshop entitled "Enhancing Business Etiquette with Videotaped Role-Plays" by Lisa Leopold of the Monterey Institute for Int'l Studies, who is an Assistant Professor and Program head. Although this particular workshop focused on business etiquette, it could be applied to almost any ESL teaching point.

The focus was to teach various speech functions, for example an employee making a request for vacation time to his/her boss and a supervisor giving negative feedback to an employee. Making requests and giving feedback are necessary for students, so the 'business situation' could easily be transferred to an academic situation. Ms. Leopold created general situations ("You are a boss and you do not want to give your employee time off because of company policy." "You are an employee and you made these travel plans before being hired and you need 2 weeks off.") and videotaped coworkers acting them out. The first videotaped role play shows a BAD example of how to do it. The second role play shows a better example of how to do it. [NOTE: At MIIS, no textbooks are used. All of the teachers must create/generate their own teaching materials. If time is an issue, I think role plays could be found in movies and online resources.]

The way she teaches the class is to introduce the element she's focusing on (making requests) and then show the BAD role play. She then elicits comments from the students, "Did this go well? What didn't work in this situation?" The class will discuss and she'll put key words on the board, etc. Then she puts the students in pairs and has them recreate the role play so that it is effective. A few brave pairs will do it in front of the class and there'll be discussion. Then she'll show the GOOD role play and they'll discuss.

What applications do I see here... this could be used for socio-cultural situations (for example using 'would' to soften statements); it could be used to teach grammar (verb tenses when telling a story... etc); to teach idioms; and even to practice listening comprehension of fast, relaxed speech.

Lisa Leopold posted 3 of her videos online, which she is going to send a link to. When I get that, I'll forward that along. I also have a handout that has the situations all laid out. I can make a copy of that and put that in my accordian file in the 2nd St. classroom building.

Danielle P. (DJP)

Time Saving Tips in MS Word

I went to a couple of tech-related sessions at CATESOL, both of which are useful to various extent. The first one is using Goolge's "Documents" feature to facilitate students' writing peer review. I can see two advantages of this program: (1). Because the teacher is the moderator and pairs students up (secretly), the writer and the reviewer are both anonymous so the students do not have to worry about criticizing their fellow classmates and hurting their feelings. (2) It can be done (and should be done) outside the class. Because of the time limit, we did not have enough time to practice and ask enough questions. From what I learned there, it seems the teacher has to spend quite some time facilitating this and the application is somewhat limited. Therefore, I need to do some research before I can decide whether this is something I will use in my writing class. If you are interested in pursuing this further, I have the handouts to get you started.

The other one I went to is very simple yet practical. It was called "Time-Saving Tips in MS Word," hosted by two educational technologists from San Diego Community College District. They send "Tech Tip of the Day" to their teachers and their tips are easy and very useful. I think, when we have our own educational technologist, we can do something similar!
Here are some of the tips I found useful for ME (all those tech savvy people probably already know these).

1. Line Spacing: Ctrl+a (to hightlight all the text), then ctrl+1 (for single spacing), ctrl+2 (for double spacing), ctrl+5 (for 1.5 line spacing).

2. to highlight a word: double click anywhere in the word
to highlight a sentence: ctrl+ click anywhere in the sentence
to highlight a paragraph: triple click anywhere in the paragraph

3. Make text bigger/smaller on website: ctrl and + (make text bigger)
ctrl and - (make text smaller).

Again, if you need more tips, please ask me for the handout.

p.s. One of the presenters mentioned that eventually all the handouts for all the sessions will be available on CATESOL's website.

Julie

Audacity at CATESOL

This morning I attended a tech session at CATESOL on using Audacity software for language learning. Audacity is a free sound editor available for download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Although it is intended for music and other creative uses, Marsha Chan at Mission College has found it to be quite useful for teaching ESL as well.

Marsha showed us two major ways to use Audacity in the classroom. First, she showed us how to record our own voices and manipulate our recordings in various ways. A teacher might record a lecture to place online for later listening practice, or customized sounds for use in a PowerPoint presentation. Audacity's tools allow the teacher to change the pitch, tempo, and volume of the recording, as well as edit out any errors or background noise. Additionally, we discovered that changing the pitch significantly alters the sound of the recording, so that a single person can record in two different "voices" - perhaps a man and a woman having a dialogue.

Next, Marsha explained how she uses Audacity for commenting on a student's speaking. She asks students to submit digital sound files for homework. Her sample sound file was that of a student practicing the pronunciation of several vocabulary words, but she also alluded to more complex speaking journal-type assignments. The student's sound file can be imported into Audacity, where the teacher can then make comments orally on another track. Marsha suggested putting the student's speech on the left track (to be heard in the left ear when wearing headphones) and then recording comments on the right track (to be heard in the right ear) to provide the student with feedback. The file can then be exported as an mp3 file that can be placed online or emailed to the student.

Several conference attendees (including myself!) worried that it would be difficult for a student to understand the teacher's comments when they are spoken WITH the student's original speech. One attendee suggested that teacher comments be inserted into the student's speech, which can easily be done with Audacity. While Marsha confirmed that this method may be easier for a student to understand, and useful at times, she maintained that the simultaneous speech is more effective because it does not interrupt the rhythm of the student's original speech.

Marsha posted her PowerPoint and Audacity handout online at http://catesol2008.org/audacity. She also posted a 3rd file, which was not at the core of her presentation, but was a good idea nonetheless! The last PowerPoint file is Marsha's speaking prompt for her students. She begins with a photo, a story starter, and simple instructions: "Marsha likes gardening. In October she decided to plant some narcissus bulbs in her yard. Continue telling the story. Use past tense verbs with -ed endings /t/, /d/, and /id/." She then provides a series of pictures that prompt students to tell the gardening story in their own words.

Marianne and I are pretty excited about Audacity. I hope to be teaching OC this summer, so I can try it out with some students. In the meantime, I am going to make some PowerPoint presentations with picture prompts for G1 Grammar!

Jaime

Technagogy Weblinks from TESOL

Another technagogy presenter has shared her annotated list of favorite websites supporting Reading and Vocabulary in IEP curriculum. That document is really her webliography. Here's another handout, though, that is just the titles and links all on one page.

SJSU Academic Technology Expo on April 17

Reserve Thursday, April 17 from 4:00 to 6:00 for an Academic Technology Expo to be held in the Academic Success Center in Clark Hall. The Expo features innovative pedagogies and technologies for teaching, assessment and collaboration. Faculty and students will be showcasing their projects. iPod Shuffles and USB keys drawings will be held every 30 minutes. Light refreshments will be served. A partial list of presenters and topics to explore at the AT Expo follows:

• Elluminate - Debbie Faires, School of Library and Information Sciences
• ePortfolio - Kathy Sucher, Nutrition and Food Science, ePortfolio Coordinator, Devin Elston, Peer Mentor, Student, Psychology and Advertising
• Incubator Classroom - Joe Becker, Physics, John Clapp, Art and Design, and Katherine Harris, English
• iTunesU - Peter Beyersdorf, Physics, Faculty-in-Residence, Technology Innovations
• Online/Cable/Video Blended Courses - Rita Manning, Philosophy
• Accessible Technology Initiative - Hilary Nixon, Urban and Regional Planning, Richard Sessions, Management and Information Sciences, Michael Kimbarow, Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Xiao Su, Computer Engineering, Faculty-in-Residence, Accessible Instructional Materials
• Teacher Scholars - Amy Strage, Child and Adolescent Development, Faculty-in-Residence
• Peer Partners in Teaching - Nancy Markowitz, Elementary Education, Faculty-in-Residence
• Information Literacy - Susan Kendall, University Library, Faculty-in-Residence
• Lecturer Support - Beth Von Till, Communication Studies, Faculty-in-Residence,
• TV, Webstreaming Classes - Xiaolu Hu, Counselor Education
• Smart Classroom Operation – Rod Maciel and Bruce Kelbert, Academic Technology
• Video, DVD, Equipment Lending Library – Shirley Warren, Rick Solsten, Roberto Mena, Phil Braverman, Josip Totic, Academic Technology
• Desktop Support and Questions – Leon Nguyen, Academic Technology
• Professional Poster Creation – Bob Bain, University Photographer, Academic Technology, Kathy Sucher, Nutrition and Food Sciences
• Web Services, Accessibility, Search, Web Wizard – Harish Chakravarthy, Scot Close, Neil Torrefiel, Academic Technology
• Educated Person, Annette Nellen, Director, Campus Reading Program, Professor, Accounting and Finance
• Course Design, Nikos Mourtos, Assistant Director, Center for Faculty Development, Professor, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
• Faculty Development Lab, Sammi Situ, Administrative Support Coordinator
• Information Literacy Web Site, Ji Mei Chang, Professor, Special Education
  

A flyer advertising the Academic Technology Expo can be found at http://www.sjsu.edu/acadtech/openhouse08

Grants and Awards Available from TESOL and ETS (they are in need of applicants!)

Did you know that many grants and awards were not given out at the TESOL conference?

Why? There were not enough applicants!

• All applicants who applied for TESOL 2008 awards received them. Awards range from cash, free conference registration, and free travel expenses. Info can be found on the TESOL site under: Awards Committee.
• TESOL resource center (book and materials writers) are in great need of writers. Cash grants are available. Info is on the TESOL site under: Book Publications Committee.
• ETS (Educational Testing Service) has grants available for TOEFL material writers. Grants range from $2,000-$15,000. Grants are available for MA students, new teachers, young scholars (under 40 years of age), doctoral students, and TESOL members. To find out more info go to: www.ets.org 1) click research, click TOEFL research, click for English Language Teachers, and then click Grants and Awards.

Grammar Feedback

At the TESOL conference, Penny Ur (author of Grammar Practice Activities) gave an interesting plenary about the effectiveness of the correction of student grammar. Researchers have studied the most common methods in which teachers provide feedback and the following are the most typical:

1. Recasting (If a student says the incorrect tense "I sit", the teacher then corrects the tense (" I am sitting".) Teachers use recasting 55% in error correction.

2. Elicitation (A teacher prompts students by saying " I am...", and the student then finishes the sentence by saying "sitting'.) Elicitation is used 14% in error correction.

3. Clarification (A teacher prompts students by asking a question "What are you doing?", and the student answers "I am sitting.") Clarification is used 11% in error correction.

4. Metalinguistic Feedback (A student says " I am sitting," and the teacher identifies the tense and aspect by saying "that's the present perfect".) Metalinguistic feedback is used 8% in error correction.

5. Explicit Correction (A student uses the wrong tense, and the teacher says "that is incorrect.)
Explicit correction is used 7% in error correction.

6. Repetition (A teacher repeats the incorrect tense spoken by the student with rising intonation.) Repetition is used 5% in error correction.

From the above, recasting was clearly preferred by the teachers studied, but the researchers then studied students' understanding of their teacher's feedback and found some major differences between what the teachers and students found to be most effective.

Of the above methods, students benefited most from: elicitation (46%), metalinguistic feedback (45%), explicit correction (36%), repetition (31%), clarification (28%), and recasting (18%).

Therefore, while the teachers studied used recasting as the most common correction procedure, recasting was last in the students' perceived recognition of their grammar error. Ur stressed that, by recasting, students may think that the teacher is confirming their answers rather than correcting them. Ur also stressed that not all teachers may feel comfortable with all methods of error correction, so it is important to review the research to find the most effective method of error correction within our classrooms.

Effective Global English in Action

New York City is an ideal environment for observing Global English both working well and breaking down, so I’m looking for clues as to what makes the difference. It may be all about pragmatics.

Astro Restaurant in midtown Manhattan is a busy and highly multicultural work environment. I had breakfast at the counter Friday morning and observed an impressive work and communication flow conducted almost entirely in ESL. Astro buzzes with counter service, table service, phone-in orders, drop-in carryout orders, and deliveries in a very very small space. The staff is in constant motion, multitasking, socializing and all using an L2.

The manager, Mario, runs the place from behind the counter except that he always comes around to shake hands with his regulars who drop by for carryout. Almost all the language among employees and between employees and vendors is English as a second language. (If Ann Sarrafzadeh had been with me, she could tell you where they were all from ~ I’m guessing their L1 were Spanish, Russian, and Tagalog?)

I wondered how they communicated so competently in a situation that could have been chaotic. I could see that their language skills were not sophisticated but that their understanding and use of conversational pragmatics was highly effective.

I ate slowly enough to take in some of the linguistic exchanges.

• All of the employee exchanges were in English (as L2)
• All restaurant signs are in English
• Almost no one used articles
• Almost no one used plural suffixes (see footnote)
  
• There was never a mix-up of orders or a misunderstanding
• Small talk with customers focused on weather, sports, and headline news (nothing personal or controversial - well, except that the headline that day was the pregnant man story)
• Everyone used a lot of polite forms: please and thank you – and I mean a lot! In New York?

The next day I attended a session on cross-cultural classroom conversations. The speaker made the point that when someone makes a basic grammar mistake in a conversation, we assume he or she is a foreigner. However, when someone makes a basic cross-cultural mistake in a conversation, we will probably decide that he or she is rude and inappropriate. A natural response would be for us to end the conversation rather than continue with someone we find either overly emotive or unresponsive. The Astro counter staff didn’t have great grammar but did demonstrate fluency in non-verbal signs, proxemics, and topic choices.

We need to be sure that our students know and practice the pragmatics of different and appropriate communication styles. Having a conversation with a partner at a table is probably a fairly unusual setting for real-world communication. Lessons in the physical and topical boundaries of conversations may give them some cultural fluency that will be more effective than perfect grammar.

Footnote: I would have thought that using plural suffixes would have facilitated and clarified the number of eggs or orders, but they worked around it with things like “double scrambled egg”. (In fact, it may be that they deliberately choose lexical markers rather than suffixes to assure that the NNES cooks, who might not notice ‘s’ endings, get the message and the order right. Linguists predict that English will drop plural suffixes; these effective ESL conversations may be the harbinger. )

P.S. A waitress (perhaps Russian L1) warmly greeted a delivery man who had not been in for a couple weeks with a cheerful, “I never see you again!” I wish you all had been there so I could get your insights into Astro English!

Technagogy Links

Here's one of the most comprehensive handouts from a TESOL technology session I attended this evening. To be honest, the session discussion was scattered. However, this electronic version of the handout includes an impressive collection of links and a handy chart (I love charts) that could guide your exploration of technagogy.

TESOL 2008 CALL-IS Discussion Handout: What's Your Favorite Technagogy?

Tips on Effective Conference Brokering

TESOL and CATESOL conferences are as overwhelming as they are exhilarating**. You won’t be able to read the notes you scribble hastily during the sessions, and you’ll never find time to go through all the handouts you collect.

At tonight’s opening plenary in New York City, Suresh Canagarajah ended a great presentation with these tips on getting the most out of these jam-packed conferences. They are actually more ways to think and listen to the dozens of presentations you'll hear every day.

• Contextualize – the information to see what the source is
• Deconstruct – the presentation to determine the underlying values and assumptions
• Translate – the information into ideas that will work for you in your teaching
• Represent – yourself and your school
• Imagine – new worlds, new techniques
• Reflect – on where you fit into this community of practice

Of course, as he talked I was madly scribbling notes which I already can't quite read. I’ll hope Kim listened more, scribbled less, and can straighten these out.

**TESOL 2008 has sessions beginning at 6 am and others ending at 9:45 pm.
There are up to 60 concurrent sessions at various times on Thursday and Friday.

Ideas from Elsewhere, Part 2

Also, the lobby wall at Intrax had lucite holders displaying an 8.5x11 paper about each instructor. At the top you see two photos of the instructor; one a headshot, the other an "action" teaching shot. Below that has the instructor's name, home town, countries visited, languages studied,and a favorite quote (from Dr. Seuss to Gandhi). Nothing about experience or education - just a breezy intro.

Karen

Ideas from Elsewhere

On March 26, Larisa Brener and I visited the Intrax Institute in San Francisco. Intrax is a multi-national company that has English language schools in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, and Vancouver. We were there with 15 or so other schools to participate in their College/University Recruitment fair. Many of their 300 students plan to continue studying so our SAS, MBAP, or even SJSU degrees would be of interest to them.

The fair also gave me the opportunity to spend a day at another IEP; here are some of the things I noticed....

A framed poster on the wall of the Five Golden Rules, Help us help you improve your English. A picture would be nice, but I'll try to remember:

• Speak English at the Institute - you've come a long way to practice, so do it!

• Attend Class regularly (then something about that)

• Do you homework (extend your learning)

• etc etc

At the bottom, it says something about help your friends improve their English by following these rules. I'm sure we could come up with inspirational rules and encouragement like this.

Also, on every classroom door there's a sign that says "English only...it's why you're here" and another that says "15 minutes late? Wait for the break."

The classrooms are tiny (half the size of 101) equipped with small (3'x5') whiteboards and floor fans to try to get some ventilation. There are two small student lounges. One at the front has an old couch and a bench, but there's a well-worn guitar on the couch. What fun! In the back, there's an equally funky couch and a big pool table and an old piano. I love the spontaneous music options.

One other thing ~ their Student Services Director is unofficially called Director of Happiness. To be honest, he sort of cringed when introduced thusly, but it does describe the task!

Whether you are visiting IEPs or walking by middle schools or dropping kids off at camp, you're probably seeing lots of little things that relate to our work at SAL. Add a post, so we'll know!

Karen