After each session (fall, winter and spring), the project team will
provide a follow-up newsletter to summarize activities for that session
and announce upcoming workshops and opportunities. Each newsletter will
come to you in paper form and will also be posted on the Eisenhower-ELI
web site.  |
In this IssueSummary of Fall project activitiesProject team site visits Fall district workshops Fall workshop at OSU Project resources
Registering for credit
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Some issues that surfaced during our site visits…
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It has been a busy and exciting fall for the Eisen-ELI project! Our
first series of workshops in the districts is now almost complete. Fall
workshops were held in Albany on October 13, in Lincoln City on October
30, in Newport on November 1, and in Springfield on November 30. The
Lebanon workshop is coming up on January 29. Altogether, approximately
90 participants have attended this first series of workshops so far,
which has focused on practical techniques for adapting instruction to
enhance language acquisition.
After a brief second language "lesson" designed to help participants put themselves in their "ESL students' shoes," we reviewed Jim Cummins' definition of two levels of language proficiency: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). BICS involves using language for social, everyday situations --it tends to be contextualized and is acquired relatively quickly. CALP involves the language needed for academic tasks --it is much more abstract and it takes much longer to acquire. As teachers, we must be aware of these two levels of proficiency because we it is easy to mistake a student's conversational fluency as a reflection of his/her overall language proficiency. Many of our students are very fluent in BICS but still struggle with cognitive and academic tasks (CALP).
The workshops also featured many hands-on activities. Math and Science lesson demonstrations included models for collaborative learning and language development through the use of graphic organizers, realia, music and actions. Ideas for lesson planning and evaluation were also discussed. The workshops seemed to stimulate an energizing exchange of ideas among all -- our task is now to take these ideas and come up with tools that work for us and our students in our own teaching contexts.
"Being taught in Spanish and Portuguese gave me a better understanding of how ESL kids feel."
"Thank you for your preparation, time, commitment, and professionalism. Enjoyed the team presentation approach and hands-on activities. Thank you for coming to our district!"
"This was a very good experience for me. Just to remind myself that just because my students can pronounce the words doesn't mean they understand."
The workshop at OSU on December 8 was our first opportunity to bring
together professionals from the four participating districts and OSU
pre-service teachers. Apart from networking with each other,
participants attended several high-interest sessions dealing with use of
technology in the classroom.
Deborah Healey and Joyce Bryan guided participants through an exploration of useful Internet sites. Teachers valued the opportunity to dedicate time to exploring the web and find rich language and content resources that can be integrated into classes. We also explored sites which provide first language support and which can be used in aiding with translation. In addition, participants visited our Nicenet class site, which is an electronic discussion tool with very powerful classroom applications. Many people wrote annotations for the Internet sites they visited and posted them as links to our Nicenet class site.
Jane Averill's and Maria Dantas-Whitney's sessions focused on video
and software resources. Jane discussed the use of software for teacher
presentation and student tasks. A hands-on period gave everyone a chance
to try out and evaluate some of the software packages available to ESL
students today. Maria's session focused on the exploration of commercial
and student-generated videos. Participants agreed that video and
software can be highly motivating to students. However, like anything
else, these resources must be used as an integrated part of a broader
context for them to be most effective with second language learners.
Related linguistic and content material should be presented through a
series of pre-viewing, viewing and post-viewing tasks.
Nicenet Update
In our December 8 workshop, we introduced participants to our Nicenet
class site, which is a tool for web discussion and link sharing. We
would like to invited all those who are interested to join the site and
to respond to issues being raised in this forum. We would also like to
encourage everyone to post new questions and provide feedback to
others. |
To sign up for our Nicenet site, go to http;//www.nicenet.org. Click on "join a
class." Then enter the key for our Eisen-ELI class: X29550E96. Then, you
should enter your user name and password of your choice.
Browse through the 70 annotated links that have been added to our site by workshop participants and read about their insights on web conferencing as a tool for the classroom. If you come across useful web resources, please add them to our list of links and share your comments with the Eisen-ELI cyber-community! |
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"Being a novice on the net, I was excited to be able to use
cyberspace in a new way. I found sites that will be valuable for me in
my teaching of ESL. I have enjoyed learning about teleconferencing
options." Jean Frantz | "I really enjoyed learning about conferencing and
link sharing! This will be great to use with my students." Lucinda Shirley |
Project ResourcesThe project website with resources for teachers and information coming out of the workshops can be visited at http://osu.orst.edu/dept/eli/eisen-eli/. Teachers are encouraged to submit lesson plans, resource lists, and ideas for projects involving different members of the school community. |
Our project mailing list for announcements of upcoming events and ongoing collaboration has now more than 200 subscribers! If you're interested in signing up, send a message to listserv@mail.orst.edu and in the body of the message, say SUB EISEN-ELI firstname lastname -- where you put your own first name and last name. You can also sign up through a form on the website. |
Study Group Leaders
Albany: Tami Gardner, Memorial Middle School
Lebanon: Peggy Sweet, ESL Coord., District Office
Lincoln City: Robin Rhyner, Taft Elementary
Newport: Tami Johnson, Sam Case Elementary
Springfield: Nancy Bray, Guy Lee Elementary
Topics: Assessing language proficiency; evaluating subject-matter knowledge of LEP students; conducting assessments to meet specific benchmarksDates
Albany Lebanon Lincoln County Springfield March 16 February 20 Lincoln City: Mar 6
Newport: Mar 8February 2
Winter Session at U of O
Understanding second language acquisition; teaching language skills as part of the content lesson. February 16Spring Session at OSU
Understanding sociocultural factors in a multilingual classroom; building cultural sensitivity among students. May 18
We look forward to seeing all of you in future
workshops!