Professional Development for Teachers of English to Diverse Learners

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Professional Development for Teachers of English to Diverse Learners Strategies for Integrating Art and Technology for Effective Communication

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Universidad de Puerto Rico - Recinto de Río Piedras Facultad de Educación - Centro de Investigaciones Educativas

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Title: Professional Development for Teachers of English to Diverse Learners: Strategies for Integrating Art and Technology for Effective Communication Copyright © 2013 Centro de Investigaciones Educativas Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Río Piedras Project Director: Annette López de Méndez Telephone: 787-764-0000 ext. 4382, 4384 Fax: 787-764-2929 Graphic Designer: Nilsa Espasas

Cover Photograph: Marilyn Montañez Santos – Escuela Elemental Certenejas I

Editor: Rosemary Morales Urbina, Ed. D.

The Project is funded (in part) by a federal Grant under the Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act. (P.L. 017-110) administered by the Puerto Rico Education Council. Opinions and findings expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and no official endorsement by either of these agencies should be inferred.

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Resources

Administrative Personnel Annette López de Méndez – Director María Antonia Irizarry – Co-Director Lymarie Berrios – Administrative Secretary Lourdes M. Torres – Coordinator Viviana Rivera Rondón – Coordinator Diana Rivera Viera – External Evaluator

Professors María Antonia Irizarry Aníbal Muñoz Claudio Elsie Candelaria Lowell Fiet Rosemary Morales Urbina Juan Carlos Vadi Fantauzzi

Project Participants

Aida Luz Torres Green – Escuela José N. Colón González Ana Ilsia Rivera Oyola - Academia San Alfonso

Celibelle Falcón Delgado – Escuela Rafael Quiñones Vidal

Celysther Matos Rodríguez - Escuela Superior Francisco Morales Cristina M. León Pérez – Escuela S.U. Pedro Díaz Fonseca Daisy Eliza Cedeño - Escuela Tomás Vera Ayala Evelyn Mantilla - Academia San Alfonso

Gisela Roldán García – Escuela Dra. Conchita Cuevas Glenda Hurtado Torrellas - Robinson School

Gloria M. Custodio Méndez - Colegio Puertorriqueño de Niñas Glorimar Meléndez Berríos - Escuela José N. Colón González

Glorivette Montañez Sánchez - Escuela Vocacional Miguel Such

Jesse Aponte Rodríguez - Escuela Especializada en Deportes Albergue Olímpico Jonathan E. Morales Rosario – Escuela Superior Francisco Morales

Jorge G. Hernández Hernández – Escuela Nueva Rafael Cordero Intermedia José R. Cruz-Auffant – Escuela Ana Jacoba Candelas

Katiria Cintrón Barrios - Fountain Christian Bilingual School

Lilawaty Lozano Rosario - Escuela Superior Vocacional Benjamin Harrison Luis A. Pedraza Torres – Escuela S.U. Pedro Díaz Fonseca

María del C. Santiago Matos - Escuela Superior Francisco Morales María I. Algarín Echandi - Colegio Puertorriqueño de Niñas Marilyn Montañez Santos – Escuela Elemental Certenejas I

Melissa M. Cintrón González – Escuela SU Eugenio María de Hostos Migdalia López Vega – Escuela Elemental Tomás Vera Ayala Migdalia Rivera Sánchez – Escuela S.U. Manuel Ortíz

Mónica Concepción Vargas - Escuela Emérita León Intermedia

Nilda E. Echevarría Martínez – Escuela Benigno Fernández García Norma Marcano Mulero - Escuela Rafael Quiñones Vidal Rafael B. Díaz Delgado – Escuela Eleanor Roosevelt

Rebecca Rivera Vázquez - Colegio Mundo de los Niños

Sandy Arlene González Figueroa - Escuela Superior Vocacional Benjamin Harrison Vadi Vélez González - Escuela Vocacional Miguel Such Vilma Meléndez – Escuela Antonio Vázquez Ramos

Vilmarie Acosta Meléndez- Escuela Pablo Fuentes Rivera Viviana Rodriguez Andino – Escuela Arturo Somohano

Wagda L. Babilonia Hernández – Escuela Diego Vázquez Yessica Albino Bascó – Escuela Ana Jacoba Candelas

Yoanell Román Martínez – Escuela Intermedia José Mercado

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Contents

7 Prologue Annette López de Méndez 15 Raising Children Bilingually María Antonia Irizarry 19 Write for You Not for Me ! Incorporating 6 Strategic Planning Steps into the Writting Process Aníbal Muñoz Claudio 25 Advantages of Using 21ST Century Technologies When Teaching Gramatical Structures in ESL Classrooms Elsie Candelaria 28 Is It Over When It’s Over?

Issues to Explore about Creative Educational Projects for Teachers Lowell Fiet 32 What is Flipped Instruction?

Rosemary Morales Urbina 35 Fair Use and Creative Commons: Good to Know When We Use Images from the Internet Juan Carlos Vadi

Lesson 1: 42 My Favorite Potato Artist A Technique to Help Students Perform an Oral Report Sandy González Lesson 2: 48 Writing a Short Paragraph Migdalia Rivera Lesson 3: 52 The Use of Songs in Creative Writing Yoanell Román Lesson 4: 58 Creating a Short “Short” Story Katiria Cintrón Lesson 5: 66 The Effects of Bullying Through Music Celibelle Falcón Lesson 6: 71 Puerto Rican Masks: Daily Lesson Plan for 10th and 11th Grade Yessica Albino Bascó José R. Cruz-Auffant Lesson 7: 78 This is Who I Am Rebecca Rivera Vázquez Lesson 8: 82 Plan Presentation Mónica Concepción Lesson 9: 86 My Journey So Far Vadi Vélez González Lesson 10: 90 Extraordinary Changes for Extraordinary Outcomes Cristina León Pérez 94 Resources

Prologue

Annette López de Méndez

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“As an English teacher, there are always ways to re-invent the wheel. The Professional Development for Teachers of English to Diverse Learners: Strategies for Integrating Art and Technology for Effective Communication workshops has given us the opportunity to re-invent the wheel once more in our quest to teach our students in the most effective and fun way possible” (Jesse Aponte, November 30, 2012).

The Professional Development for Fourth to Sixth grade Teachers of English to Diverse Learners: Strategies for Effective Communication was sponsored by a grant from the Puerto Rico Education Council, No Child Left Behind, Title II Funds (NCLB11-28). The purpose of this Project was to offer a professional training program to teachers of diverse learners that would lead to the development of innovative strategies, foster a better linguistic achievement, and stimulate learning through an integrated curriculum. Specifically, the Project responds to the urgent need of both public and private schools to enhance the teaching of English. It targeted teachers from the Cidra Public School District and Caguas private schools who were surveyed and demonstrated a desire to experience the latest developments in language teaching and learning according to the most recent findings in research.

Thus, the Project envisioned the following goals: 1.

Achieve a high degree competent educator who can implement problem based learning, concept development, cooperative learning, and other teaching strategies pertinent to the educational growth of diverse learners.

2.

Facilitate the professional development of 40 teachers in the areas of visual and performing arts, music, curriculum alignment, state of the art technology, and assessment strategies integrated to the teaching of English to diverse learners for better academic achievement.

3.

Promote and disseminate participants’ strategic planning through the design of curricular matrix(es) and lessons based on standards of excellence.

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In order to achieve these goals, the Project recruited 40 teachers from the Cidra and Cayey School Districts and 9 teachers from the private school system. The project was envisioned as a collaboration among different stakeholders: (a) The Department of Education of Puerto Rico English Program, (b) Cidra District Supervisors, Mrs. Alba Carmona, from the English Program and Mr. Hector Navedo, from the Art Program (c) Dr. Lucia Vega, Director of Colegio San Juan Apóstol y Evangelista in Caguas, (d) Puerto Rico Teachers Of English To Speakers Of Other Languages (PRTESOL), and (f) The University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, College of Education. All training sessions were offered at Escuela Superior Urbana in Aguas Buenas. The University of Puerto Rico Administrative Project team is extremely grateful to Prof. Kelvin Pagán La Luz, Director of the Escuela Superior Urbana, for hosting the Project. Due to his collaboration we were able to centrally locate the Project and bring together a group of teachers from the towns of Aguas Buenas, Barranquitas, Bayamón, Caguas, Cayey, Cidra, Guayama, Guaynabo, Naranjito, Patillas, Río Piedras, Salinas, San Juan, Trujillo Alto, and Yabucoa. It is important to also highlight how accommodating teachers from the public and private school system in these workshops enhanced their learning, as one of the teachers expressed: “Knowing other teachers from different parts of the Island made me realize that I am not alone. These colleagues have the same…difficulties that I face every day. They also have the same enthusiasm and hope that I do. Knowing this, gave me the motivation and courage to go on and continue being an English teacher in our society, working for the welfare of our students and contributing to form a better society in my beautiful island of Puerto Rico” (Rafael Díaz, December 8, 2012).

Instructional Program Teachers attended 127 hours of professional development, distributed in a 2 week intensive summer workshop and Saturdays during the first semester of the academic year. The following topics were explored in the workshops: visual and performing arts, music, curriculum alignment, state of the art technology, assessment strategies for the development of English language skills, and strategic planning and implementation of innovative lessons on how to integrate different topics to develop English proficiency and reading comprehension. In addition, the project wanted to increase teachers’ confidence in planning for the integration of English to other disciplines, as well as increase students’ interest and determine their academic background regarding the arts and technology. The participants found the program challenging, but at the same time pertinent. The following testimony of one participant attests: “To achieve this goal (meet the standards of the new generation) as a teacher I need to continue growing professionally. The seminars that have been offered by the Proposal of the University of Puerto Rico offered an ample variety of topics and covered many of the areas that I was interested in improving” (Vilma Meléndez, December 8, 2012).

Guiding Principles The Project was based on the premise that the development of linguistic and communicative competence benefits from the use of different approaches to prompt teachers’ and students’ awareness that language proficiency is required for effective communication. Researchers in the areas of linguistics, sociology, psychology, and education such as Brown (2001, 2004, 2007), Dodge (1998), Ginn (1999),

Guerra and Shutz (1999), Rassias (1998), and Zapel (1999) advocate the use of visual and performing arts, technology, and recent assessment strategies in the development of communicative competence. This Project reaffirms the following postulates: • The use of different approaches and strategies contributes to facilitating the acquisition of learning a language. This is accomplished through the integration of poetry, drama, movies, music, and the radio to the teaching lessons.

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Observing and thinking about art and poetry triggers in the individual the interpretation of the messages artists and writers intend to convey. This, in turn, stimulates critical thinking, creativity, and the construction and interpretation of meaning.

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The use of problem based learning, concept development, comparative learning, and technology for the creation of digital stories, blogs, and chat rooms contributes to the exploration and understanding of concepts. These strategies foster the multiplicity of modalities of learning, perceptions, and learning styles.

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The integration of different subject areas develops the understanding of distinct perspectives, problem solving abilities, and the use of figurative language, which are essential for critical thinking skills.

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The effective educator understands the importance of ongoing assessment and uses a variety of assessment strategies to guide the teaching and learning of diverse learners.

These principles are well reflected in the comments made by teachers at the end of the workshops: “According to the students, when we use technology, the class hour and school time go faster. In that way, they expressed that the lesson was entertaining and enjoyable” (Rafael Díaz Delgado, December 15, 2012). “[…] I brought up the masks. They weren’t surprised but they were excited because they know and will always love these kinds of activities” (Gisela Roldán, December. 15, 2012).

“I know they are motivated because they came after school at 3:00 PM to request for copies of the lyrics of the songs when I had already used them with all the groups. They took the copies home and told me that they had researched the songs on their own and looked at the videos on YouTube” (Celibelle Falión, December 15, 2012).

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“I have used rubrics and “assessment” tools to evaluate these projects and I have seen how students’ grades are much better than when we used memory tests. They do better in the evaluation of these projects, much better than when art and technology are not included” (Norma Marcano, December 15, 2012).

Workshop Topics In light of the Project’s guiding principles, the following strategies were used to foster the professional development of participating teachers:

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1.

Workshops on curriculum integration and instructional alignment. The workshops on curriculum integration and instructional alignment got participating teachers acquainted with different strategies geared to foster the integration of standards of excellence, expectations, and the English language arts program. The workshops also included models of integration, alignment of standards and expectations, and curriculum and instructional matrixes where technology and assessment were incorporated. Teachers produced lessons illustrating this integration.

2.

Workshops on the assessment of diverse learners. The Project recognizes the relevance and importance of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of diverse learners before planning the teaching-learning process. Therefore, it establishes as a priority the need to make participating teachers conscious of innovative ways to determine the knowledge, skills, and dispositions students bring to school.

Assessment is visualized as a process which aims to observe in a detailed and careful manner the development and growth of students. In the workshops, the resources presented and implemented assessment strategies for the evaluation of oral communication skills, reading comprehension skills, and written communication skills.

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3. Lectures and workshops regarding art, poetry, and drama. The Project offered participating teachers a series of lectures in the areas of the visual and performing of the arts as cues for speaking and writing production and poetry for the enjoyment of literature through figurative language, in addition to drama for the enhancement of oral communication. Through these lectures and workshops, participating teachers had practical and real experiences directed towards the fostering of appreciation of creativity, development of sensitivity and understanding of the relationship of the areas studied and the teaching of English. Likewise, participating teachers had the opportunity to reflect upon values and culture. Furthermore, the Project intends to develop the necessary competencies to implement a creative agenda to enable students to express themselves freely, thus enhancing their self-esteem, perseverance, and motivation.

4. Visit to the museum. To complement the lectures and workshops, participating teachers had the opportunity to visit the Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos, Dra. Josefina Camacho de la Nuez, at the University of El Turabo. This experience enabled participants to be familiarized with artistic creativity, appreciate art, explore the value of art from the social and cultural dimensions, besides learning how art can be a means of expression that strengthens and enhances personal and collective self-esteem and at the same time develop English language skills.

5. Workshops on the production of digital stories and the creation of blogs and chat rooms. The workshops on the production of digital stories and the creation of blogs and chat rooms enabled participating teachers to explore technology as a means of expression (speaking and writing). These workshops allowed participants to understand technological science as an everyday instrument, which can be easily learned and utilized to express ideas, develop new visions, and explore new concepts. The digital art is an integrating experience, which enabled participating teachers and their students to develop the capacity to inquire, identify, solve problems, invent, and create. At the same time, digital stories, blogs, and chat rooms were presented as a means of expression that foster speaking, reading, and writing competencies, enticing the student to connect reality to visual image, and develop oral and written expression creatively. Participating teachers had the opportunity to create and write digital stories, blogs, and chat rooms with the purpose of maximizing their students’ academic achievement.

6.

Workshops on movies as a source of idiomatic expression and using the radio for listening comprehension.

These workshops were directed towards the recognition of individual differences among students.

There are many approaches and techniques that can be used to attend the learning styles of diverse students. The workshops provided participating teachers the basic tools to adapt and differentiate the teaching–learning process. Movies and the radio were used to present learners simple strategies to identify and understand idiomatic expressions for listening comprehension. The goal was to develop phonemic awareness and communicative competence.

7. Workshops on the use of music for language production through writing. In these workshops, participants had the opportunity to explore creative writing, emphasizing the relation of music and the power of satisfaction and joy in the production of language. Workshops included models and strategies used in the fostering of creativity and the use of music to stimulate the writing expression in learners.

The main goal was to arouse participating teachers’ thinking about alternate and holistic strategies to motivate and get learners interested in writing. The calendar of lectures and workshops included poetry, drama, music, movies, the radio, and technology to illustrate the integration of different disciplines in the development of the language arts for communicative competence.

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8.

Workshops of strategic planning for oral communication, reading comprehension, and written communication.

The effect of strategically planned instruction increases the probability of successful achievement of goals. Because of this reality, the concept of strategically planned instruction was introduced in order to consider a series of events which affect the learner. It is assumed that this planning can facilitate learning. The purpose of strategically planned instruction is to develop an organized system to promote learning, which will create change in the behavior of people. In this way, the teaching-learning process will not only raise the affective level and instill human values, but also reinforce diversity. Participants were given time to plan and write lessons plans that were shared and commented on by professors and colleagues. A selection of the plans written by participants have been included and published in this Manual.

Follow-up visits were seen as a possibility to stimulate conversations with participating teachers to discuss the challenges schools present and how to facilitate the integration of teachers’ experiences in the Project to their daily classes. Besides, the professional resources of the Project served as mentors giving support, observing, and offering feedback to participating teachers in the process of implementing the diverse strategies, methods, and techniques learned to the school curriculum. They also monitored the teachers’ planning and adaptation of the program of study to stimulate students’ learning of English in new and captivating ways.

The Product: The Teachers’ Manual Like in the past years we have produced a teacher’s manual that includes articles written by the faculty in charge of the project and lessons written by the participating teachers. The manual is a tribute to all those teachers that dedicated the time to learn and share with others their knowledge with the purpose of providing their students with enriching learning experiences. It is their dedication,

passion for teaching and love for the arts and technology what makes the difference in the quality of the education the students receive at their schools. According to participants the project has provided them with the energy to enhance their creativity and their teaching: “Every day, I use the tools and strategies I have learned in the workshops, because I consciously incorporate them into my existing teaching plans and practices. Therefore, the program has helped me not just to create new teaching units, like the ones based on the production of masks and the video capstone project, but also to update my toolbox of teaching practices.” (Gloria Custodio, Nov. 30, 2012) “These workshops are helping me to become a better English teacher. They are improving my teaching skills and enhancing my abilities as an English teacher...

The practical parts of these sessions have provided us with the tools to write these plans effectively and correctly: with all the parts and sections required by our directors and facilitators... The innovative strategies provided us with ideas on how to reach more effectively our students: their needs, questions, and help they need. They have also given us materials and examples on how to get in touch with today’s students, including the Special Education students”.

(Rafael Díaz, Dec. 8, 2012) I would like to invite the reader, to see this Project as a learning experience from which we all can learn; as a request to the educational system to consider the importance of providing the time and the opportunity for teachers to explore and experiment with the use of technology and art in the teaching of English as a second language. I applaud the effort and support the Puerto Rico Education Council in their endeavor to provide universities the resources to make these projects a reality and make them accessible to the teachers, the students, and the schools. We have high hopes and confidence that this effort will begin to change the classroom environments, in order to motivate students’ interest and desire to learn.

Annette López de Méndez, Ed.D. Project Director

References

Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd. ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Brown, H.D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Dodge, D. (1998). Creative drama in the second language classroom: Action Research. Retrieved from http://educ.queensu.ca/~ar/11drama.htm Ginn, W.Y. (1999). Jean Piaget-Intellectual development. Retrieved from http://english.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html Guerra, C., & Shutz, R. (1999). Vygotsky. Retrieved from http://english.sk.com.br/sk-vygoy.html Rassias Foundation. (1998). Language in action: A profile of Professor Rassias. Retrieved from http://Dartmouth.edu/arsci/rassias/JAR.html Zapel, A.L. (Ed.). (1999). 1999-2000 Theater, drama, and speech resources. Catalog #144. Colorado, Springs, CO: Meriwether Publishing.

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Raising Children Bilingually María A. Irizarry, Ed.D.

Language is everywhere around us. It is our most common source of communication and it can represent different cultural backgrounds. This is so because language is part of the culture of any society.

“Language serves many functions” (Saville-Troike, 2003).

According to Ervin-Tripp and Reyes (2005): The requirements for the acquisition of any language are: capacity, motivation to understand, be understood and/or sound like a group member, and access or sufficient time in situations where a symbolic system and understandable information (meanings) co-occur systematically and permit inference and mapping (p. 1).

A second language can be acquired either from birth or later in life. “Bilingual child acquisition generally refers to acquiring two or more languages when exposed to them as a very young child” (Myers-Scotton, 2006, p. 324). When exposed to different languages from a very young age, children can have what seems like spontaneous learning. It may also seem that these children who are exposed to a second language from a very young age learn the language effortlessly.

According to Arnberg (1987), Myers-Scotton (2006), and Caldas (2006), the best language acquisition occurs in babies because it occurs naturally. Second language acquisition can occur later too, but then it has to be acquired by learning rather than in a natural way like very small children can do (MyersScotton, 2006). In that sense, parents that consider the possibility of their children becoming bilingual should consider by any means possible to expose them to all the languages they want their babies to acquire. In this aspect, acquisition is a better word than learning because babies are not being taught speech by their parents. It is more like a natural process in which babies grasp the languages to which they are exposed, acting like tiny sponges.

Pinker (1995) states that “between the late twos and the mid-threes, children’s language blooms into fluent grammatical conversation so rapidly that it overwhelms the researchers who study it, and no one has worked out the exact sequence” (p. 269). The sponge effect seems to be something that keeps occurring in the early stages of the child. That is why the earlier the exposure to languages, the better.

Any baby can acquire more than one language if exposed to. It does not mean that the baby is more intelligent for if we were to generalize, the majority of the world’s population is indeed bilingual rather than monolingual. Since the baby is born, the baby already has the capability to acquire a language to communicate. Even as a newborn, a baby communicates through her crying. She is predisposed to grasp a language and as she develops she can not only understand and speak eventually, but she can also learn how to read in this language even before she can speak.

Andersson (1981) did research on preschoolers who could read. Babies that were exposed to the alphabet and words since as early as eight months old could learn how to read. These babies could start associating a word with an image and eventually the parents could remove the image and leave

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the word and the babies could already know what the word referred to, even without the image. One of the most important things parents can do if they want their children to learn several languages is to read to their children in those languages.

Ever since being a baby, the child will be able to associate images with words if exposed by the parents in this way. Any healthy baby can be taught in this way to read early and to acquire languages from an early stage.

A baby can acquire all the languages she is exposed to and this doesn’t just have to come from the parents. Caregivers can be a big influence and in many cases where parents have had a foreign caregiver, their baby has learned to speak the language of the caregiver effortlessly. No overt instruction is needed for a baby to grasp language. Kamada (1997) mentions the case of a mother in Japan who wanted her child to learn English.

She would speak to the child in English ever since the child was born, but the mother had a full time job and ended up only sharing three to four waking hours with her baby. The baby was with a caregiver and the caregiver was Japanese so the baby started to ignore the English language and even started to reject his mother. The mother, worried about the situation, quit her full time job and started to take care of her son. In this way, she managed to retake what had been lost and the boy started to speak in English again.

According to Myers-Scotton (2006), “the natural outcome for children is to speak whatever parents and other caregivers speak with them...” (p. 326). It does not matter how many languages are involved.

Whether children develop bilingualism through natural exposure or educational intervention, it has consequences in their development (Bialystok & Barac, 2011). For years, it was assumed that these consequences were damaging. Nowadays, many parents are still concerned with the repercussions a bilingual experience may have on their children, but even though it is true that a bilingual development has consequences, these consequences can in fact be positive rather than harmful (Bialystok & Barac, 2011). Bilingualism can benefit cognitive development in children.

According to Bialystok and Barac (2011), early research was actually consistent in showing negative conclusions regarding bilingual development due to the way research was conducted. Past research focused on intelligence as measured by IQ standardized test scores and bilingual children had a tendency to score lower than their monolingual counterparts. Later on it was discovered that IQ test scores were affected by socio-economical statuses and the bilingual children usually came from families of lower socio-economical statuses, thus affecting their performance by showing poorer verbal skills in the language of testing when compared to monolingual children. Pre-existing bias about bilingualism having negative consequences in developing children might have also been a trigger for negative results in past research.

Eventually, following studies focused on language acquisition and metalinguistic development.

These studies showed positive outcomes regarding bilingual children, drastically changing past notions about the consequences of bilingualism in cognitive development. Research continues on the subject, this time focusing on “the consequences of bilingualism on structural and functional brain outcomes” (Bialystok & Barac, 2011, p. 37).

There are some concepts about the acquisition of languages and bilingualism. One of the concepts according to Myers-Scotton (2006) is that childhood bilingualism can be called simultaneous if

it occurs before the age of three. It is expected that until the age of three, the acquisition of any language is natural, informal, and untutored. This is not the case of sequential childhood bilingualism, which is the learning of one language first and then a second language later in life (Baker, 1997). Sequential childhood bilingualism seems to be the case of most children in Puerto Rico. Under average circumstances, a Puerto Rican child will be exposed to only Spanish until approximately the age of six when the child starts her English classes in first grade of elementary school. Bilingualism can be considered sequential if the second language starts after the age of three (Baker, 1997). By the time the child is three, the acquisition of a second language tends to be more structured and formal. In other words, the acquisition will be in a learned sort of way rather than in a natural way.

An important aspect in bilingualism is cognitive development. Although it has been argued that cognitive development in bilingual children is greater than monolingual, Arnberg (1987) asserts that rather than greater cognitive development, it can be assumed that bilinguals are more sensitive to certain aspects of language due to being exposed to more than one language.

Kamada (1997) refers to a Japanese father who believed that if he continued to emphasize the acquisition of the English language in his preschool son, his child would be considered conceited by other children due to knowing two languages. The father thought that his son could be seen by others as thinking of himself as more intelligent. According to Kamada, this is not true. Some researchers argue that an average bilingual child does not possess greater intellect in contrast with an average monolingual child (Kamada, 1997; Myers-Scotton, 2006).

A study by Qureshi (2005), who researched bilingualism and cognition, led her to conclude that phonological awareness is vital in the acquisition of a second language, that early acquisition of a second language is better with elementary level phonological instruction, and that when there are similarities in language system structures, acquisition seems easier for children. In her conclusions she also mentioned that bilingualism held a major impact on phonological awareness and the reading ability of bilingual children.

Bialystok and Hakuta (1994) talk about science and psychology in language acquisition. They mention a critical age and the concept that a child has to be exposed to language from a very early age in order to acquire language in a normal way.

There have been unusual cases in which children have developed without any exposure to language or society. Such is the case of Genie (not her real name) who was found in 1970 when she was thirteen years old. Genie had no exposure to language or society.

The later children like Genie have been found, the less chances they have had of acquiring language to become proficient (Myers-Scotton, 2006). These sporadic cases, like Genie’s or the case of two girls found in the wild in India in the 1920s after possibly having been raised by animals (MyersScotton, 2006), have shown that there is indeed a critical age to grasp a language. Children that for any reason were exposed to language later in life can learn, but they will be linguistically disabled. They will show lots of syntax mistakes and wrong usage of words among many things. Still, even though there is a critical age for language development regarding a first language, this is not necessarily the case of a second language.

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If we were to consider a critical age for second language acquisition, it seems better if the second language can be acquired from a very early age, but this does not mean that an adult cannot learn a new language. In fact, an adult can learn very good grammar and discourse and become very proficient in any target language of his liking (Myers-Scotton, 2006). What is normally affected is the oral part of the language because the later in life, the more difficult it is to speak with fluency. This occurs because in a child the points of articulation can be molded for languages. An adult has normally become fossilized vocally-wise and not all languages have similar vocal patterns.

Parents who decide to raise their children bilingually tend to have many questions about how this will affect their child. They wonder if there will be delays in speech, if it will negatively influence the acquisition of the majority language, and they also worry about code-switching and interference between the acquired languages. The truth is that even children exposed to a second language later in life, like in the case of the acquisition and exposure occurring in the educational environment could also code-switch among themselves as a way of playing with their languages.

References Andersson, T. (1981). A guide to family reading in two languages, The preschool years. Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center. Los Angeles, CA: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Arnberg, L. (1987). Raising children bilingually: The pre-school years. England, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Baker, C. (1997). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Bristol, PA: Multilingual Matters, Ltd. Bialystok, E., & Barac, R. (2011). Cognitive development of bilingual children.

Language Teaching, 44(1), 36-54. Retrieved from Cambridge Journalshttp://journals.cambridged.org Bialystok, E., & Hakuta, K. (1994). In other words: The science of psychology andsecond language acquisition. New York: Harper Colli Publishers, Inc. Caldas, S. J. (2006). Raising bilingual-biliterate children in monolingual cultures Cromwell, UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. Ervin-Tripp, S., & Reyes, I. (2005). Child codeswitching and adult content contrasts. International Journal of Bilingualism, 9(1),85-102. Retrieved from King County Library System.

Kamada, L. D. (1997). Bilingual family case studies (vol. 2). Monographs on bilingualism no.5 (Reports – Research No. 1997-00). Tokyo: JapanAssociation for Language Teaching (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED422750) Myers-Scotton, C. (2006). Multiple voices, An introduction to bilingualism. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Pinker, S. (1995). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York, NY: W. Morrow and Co. Qureshi, S. (2005). Bilingualism and cognition: A review of a metalinguistic task of phonological awareness in bilingual children (Information Analyses; Report – Evaluative No. 2005-00). Online Submission. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED490463) Saville-Troike, M. (2003). The ethnography of communication: An introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Write for You, Not for Me!

Incorporating 6 Strategic Planning Steps into the Writing Process.

Based on the article by L. Drummond & N. Perry (2002) “Helping ESL learners become self-regulated researchers and writers”

Dr. Aníbal Muñoz Claudio Maya Angelou, the great American author and poet once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Reflecting on Maya’s assertion, we cannot deny that every one of us lives with an untold story inside of us that needs to be shared with the world. Unfortunately for Puerto Rican students in their English classrooms, their stories become so difficult to be exposed in academic writing experiences due to the great gap (disconnection) that permeates between what they would like to say and those writing conditions imposed upon them by their teachers.

These impositions, which usually take place at the classroom level, interfere significantly with the real stories students want to reveal. Such disconnection transpires because teachers do not motivate much less engage students into the writing process as they do in other English academic instances like the production of videos, role-playing presentations, literature analysis, or artistic projects. As a result, students are often discouraged to write anything in class or simply cannot think of anything to write in classroom writing activities. Teachers are then forced to drag out sentence by sentence from learners or, sometimes, they need to rely on the usual fill-in-the-blank activities that are less threatening for students but do not bring about effective writing/learning experiences . In other words, learners are responsible to give just the minimum effort in the writing process. In usual circumstances, most of the time, teachers want students to write what the teachers want instead of the other way around –what students want. This has to change. Teachers should tell their students, “Write for You, Not for Me!” According to Lynn Drummond and Nancy Perry (2002), in their article “Helping young students become self-regulated researchers and writers” teachers could help their students significantly in their writing process if they incorporate six strategic planning steps into the writing process. These six steps are: 1. Building a community of learners between educators and learners 2. Involving students in complex and meaningful tasks 3. Giving choices to students during writing process 4. Giving students opportunities to control challenges in the writing process 5. Involving students in evaluating their works (self-evaluation) 6. Engaging students in a reflection-action process before or after publishing

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These ground-breaking steps will engage students in the writing process in many diverse ways and thus, turn them into self-regulated learners (SRL). In the first strategic plan, building a community of learners, teachers are facilitators of the process by participating directly in all the five stages of the writing process. This can easily be done by providing prompts (sentences, phrases, cues) for students at every stage, providing specific ideas for writers to follow in the drafting stage, or basically by writing along with students in a “think aloud” method that would pitch out key vocabulary words or phrases for them to use. This process is frequently known as a mediation process in which teachers and writers/ learners provide half of the writing to make up a whole. One example of community collaboration could be to ask ESL learners to insert Spanish words or expressions in the middle of their writing pieces to contextualize their work. This, of course, is made easier when two other strategic steps (choices and control), suggested by Drummond and Perry, are set in motion for writers to gain control of their writing tasks during the drafting stage.

During the middle stages of the writing process (revising and editing), it will be useful to follow Drummond and Perry’s suggestions of a self-evaluation method to ease up the anxiety that evaluation procedures bear upon writers. Lastly, a reflection in action process must take place before and during the publishing stage (final stage) of the writing process.

However, one of the most salient points of Drummond’s six steps is the one about engaging students in complex meaningful tasks throughout the five stages of the writing process. Studies that have examined tasks as a dimension of literacy contexts indicate that complex, meaningful tasks present students with opportunities to engage in SRL (Fisher & Hiebert, 1990; Perry, 1998; Turner, 1995). Typically, such tasks address multiple goals and integrate reading and writing processes. They are completed over multiple reading (or research) and writing periods and result in the production of extended discourse.

In carrying out such tasks, students focus on the meaningful aspects of reading and writing, think metacognitively, and behave strategically.

Figure 1.

Alignment of 6 Strategic Planning Steps with 5 stages of the Writing Process.

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Building a Community of Learners

Involving Students in Complex & Meaningful Tasks

Giving Students Choices

Giving Students Opportunities to Control Challenge

Involving Students in Evaluating Their Works

Reflection in Action

Pre-Writing • • • • •

Free-writing Making a list Outlining Mapping or clustering Brainstorming with: Wh-questions: what, where, when, why & how

1-Community

3- Choices Challenge

4-Control

___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ __________________________________

Drafting (composing)

• •

• • • • •

1. Always begin with your Topic Sentence (then, choose 5 or more of the options below to write your sentences) Insert 1 common Spanish Saying to connect to your topic (at the beginning or at the end) Mention 3 accurate examples of classroom situations affecting your class (add pictures, diagrams, statistics, graphs, etc.)

Point out 2 direct requests or demands Provide 1 anecdotic experience (positive or negative, pleasing or disappointing) Post 2 questions for your supervisors Provide 1 suggestion Make a future prediction

1-Community 2- Complex &Meaningful Tasks 3- Choices 4-Control ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________

1-Community

Revising

Editing (proofreading)

Publishing

2- Complex &Meaningful Tasks

5- Self / Evaluation 1-Community (50/50 eval.

Method) 50/50 RUBRIC (50% teacher + 50 % self- evaluation or peer review)

1-Community 3- Choices 4-Control 6. Reflection in Action

Prepared by: Dr. Aníbal Muñoz Claudio (2012)

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Practice Exercise: Writing a Letter to Future Supervisor(s).

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In a workshop conducted at the Aguas Buenas School District, participants and presenter engaged in a hands-on practice exercise to incorporate Drummond’s six strategic planning steps into the writing process and, in turn, becoming self-regulated writers/learners. To begin with, the presenter set the tone of the activity by providing a topic full of choices and entirely meaningful and relevant for participants. They were asked to write a formal letter to their future supervisor(s) depicting all kinds of situations they endure on a daily basis at their institutions. From this starting point, participants shifted their perspectives for the writing experience, since they immediately acknowledged that this letter will be a powerful tool they could use in the future (to show it to their supervisors–realistic/practical publishing) rather than being a mere writing exercise for classroom purposes. Participants felt they were writing for them not for the class.

For this workshop, participants used a guiding handout (Figure 1.) which aligned the strategic incorporation of Drummond’s six steps into the writing process (stages) –writing a letter to their future supervisor(s). In the first stage of the writing process –pre-writing techniques, participants were given Choices and Control of the writing situation for they could decide the kind of pre-writing technique they wanted to use, the length (in words), and decide to which supervisor(s) they would like to show the letter to later on. Right from the start, many participants became eager to write just by thinking of the names of their school principals, teaching facilitators, or district superintendents they would like to write to. One participant took it to a higher level by including the Department of Education of Puerto Rico Secretary of Education in the list of supervisors that would, eventually, see his letter. Likewise, in this stage, the presenter joined the Community of Learners, by providing lots of ideas in a “think out loud” method while writing his own letter. Ideas such as number of students per class, on-the-job-training, use of contextualized materials, lack of equipment, and others were tossed around the room to help the group of self-regulated writers develop pre-writing material.

Having finished the pre-writing stage, participants proceeded to the most critical stage of the writing process–the drafting or composing stage. At this stage, as suggested by Drummond & Perry (2002), self-regulated writers/learners must benefit from four of the strategic planning steps: In addition to the previous three: Community of Learners, Choices, and Control, participants were now ready to engage into a Meaningful and Complex Involvement in the writing process. At this juncture, teachers become crucial facilitators of the process by planning effectively and strategically. At the workshop, many ideas were presented for participants to write their letters to their supervisor(s). Although they had opportunities to make choices and gain control of the writing situation by pondering the options given (Figure 1.), participants quickly realized that they needed additional information and other sources in order to write one single sentence. They needed to either research, read, or ask somebody else. This task, as they pointed out, was not difficult or complicated, but rather complex. For instance, many participants liked the idea of inserting a common “Spanish saying” into their letters to relate to their topic, but they were rapidly dismayed as they realized they could not even recall the sayings in their original Spanish form. When some sayings were being called out loud, such as: “Nadie sabe lo que tiene, hasta que lo pierde,” “Nadie sabe lo que hay en la olla, solo el que la menea,” and “El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta,” and others, teachers began laughing and mocking each other, but simultaneously, they were reflecting about how easily these words of wisdom have been forgotten by the new generation. They were also very aware that they needed to find one precise saying that could fit perfectly with their tone of speech in that letter. As a result of the complexity of the task, some relied on searching the internet for possible solutions, while others decided to call older family relatives who could help them. Just with this simple idea of strategic

planning, writers were involved in complexity and meaningfulness for writing one important sentence in their letters.

Another example of complexity and meaningfulness given was in writing three accurate examples of situations affecting their classrooms at present. Participants immediately felt compelled to denounce publically those situations in their letters for this became totally meaningful to them. They knew they had many situations stressing out their daily work. However, when they were tasked to write only three accurate examples, the complexity in the writing process emerged again. Participants needed to make decisions about which three examples will peak over others. And on top of that, they had to think and read about statistics, percentages, assessment strategies, academic results, pictures to depict problems, or other forms that could evidence or justify their sentences somehow. Once again, teachers acknowledged that the process of writing was not complicated, but rather complex since they needed other informational sources in order to write every single sentence. Writers were totally involved and engaged into this writing process for they wanted to make a solid convincing case for their future supervisors.

Similar reflective practices took place when participants continued deciding upon the options given to complete their letters. These options (drafting stage, Figure 1.) must be facilitated and planned strategically by the teacher. Each one of the options represented a complex writing challenge that was also meaningful for the completion of their letters. If they wanted to post questions, they needed to think critically which two questions they would post. If they wanted to write about one anecdotic experience, they needed to recall it well with details of the circumstances and the people involved. If they decided to make direct requests to their supervisors, they had to be very precise about what they would request and why. If they wanted to make suggestions, they had to think about how they could do it assertively and proactively. If they wanted to make predictions about the future of their current situations, they had to reflect carefully about their intent in the letter as to not make it so personal, threatening, or menacing, that it would backfire on them.

However, even with all the complexity of the process, participants felt that they wanted to continue writing even more for the activity was relevant and pertinent to them.

Instead of not having any ideas at all, now they were full of ideas to write their sentences and looking forward to more opportunities to go on since they were guided by choices, control, and community collaboration. They were fully engaged in a process that accounted for complexity and direct meaningfulness to their professional lives.

Later on, during the revising and editing stages (3rd and 4th stages) of the writing process, Drummond & Perry suggest to use self-evaluation techniques in order for students to generate their own evaluation criteria and therefore, sense they have control over the outcomes in a less-threatening learning environment. Nevertheless, at the workshop participants were introduced to a 50/50 assessment rubric in which 50% of the evaluation will be conducted by their peers, and the other 50% by their teachers. With this modification, which comes right after the writers’ self-revision and editing process both separate appraisals (50/50) will serve to triangulate the evaluation of the writing process in a more rigorous-effective approach. This approach differs significantly from the traditional one-way teacher evaluation of writing pieces, and thus, accounts for providing more control, choices, and community collaboration in the writing process.

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Lastly, in the last and fifth stage of the writing process –publishing stage, participants were asked to use reflection in action to consider their publishing options and to enhance the meaningfulness of their writing pieces. At this stage, teachers are fully involved as members of the community of learners and facilitators of the process by relying on strategic planning that offers choices and control for writers/ learners. During the workshop, participants were then again given a series of options to consider individual publishing venues. They could either present their letters orally in class, mail them directly to their supervisor(s) via e-mail or regular mail, post them (publish) on well-recognized social networks for the world to see, post them on classroom or school bulletin boards, frame them neatly and place them on their desks or as wall pictures, submit them for local newspaper publishing, or simply keep copies handy in their wallets or purses for future direct contacts with supervisor(s). Many participants liked all of the publishing ideas and were eager to read their letters aloud to tell the untold story. Others said it openly that they will indeed save those letters for their future encounters with supervisors.

As Maya Angelou once stated, these teachers had been bearing an agony inside of them that needed to be told and published –the harsh reality of their daily working conditions. In a simple writing exercise that incorporated the six strategic planning steps (Drummond & Perry, 2002), participants were able and motivated to disclose their personal circumstances willingly. They felt they were in charge of making their writing choices, shared collaboration through the whole process, self-evaluated themselves, and made their writing meaningful and relevant for their future lives. They wrote for them, not for the presenter or the class!

References: Drummond L. & Perry N.E. (2002). The Reading Teacher. 56.3: p298. From Literature Resource Center.

Fisher, C.W., & Hiebert, E.H. (1990). Characteristics of tasks in two approaches to literacy instruction. Elementary School Journal, 91, 3-18.

Perry, N.E. (1998). Young children’s self-regulated learning and contexts that promote it. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 715-729.

Turner, J.C. (1995). The influence of classroom contexts on young children’s motivation for literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 410-441.

Turner, J. C. (1997). Starting right: Strategies for engaging young literacy learners. In J.T. Guthrie & A. Wigfield (Eds.), Reading engagement: Motivating readers through integrated instruction (pp. 183-204). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Advantages of using 21 Century Technologies When ST

Teaching Gramatical Structures in ESL Classrooms Dra. Elsie Candelaria Most people are aware of the impact technology has had upon our modern society. The way we handle normal and everyday activities has been forever changed by technologies such as the Internet, smart phones, tablets, Facebook, Twitter, and others. Education and the classroom are not exempt of this revolution. Integrating these tools to the language classroom dates back to the earliest days of computerassisted language learning (CALL); however, the Internet age, forced CALL to spotlight connectivity and computer-mediated communication (CMC). Almost all of the social, psychological, and linguistic interactions that occur through direct physical contact can occur online. As a result of this ability, “virtual life” functions can be used within the language learning environment. As a matter of fact, all four language learning skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) can benefit from the use of these new technologies; however, in this article the focus will be on the effects modern connectivity can have upon the teaching of grammar.

All language teachers have to face the controversy that is involved in the teaching of grammar.

To teach or not to teach grammar is a question that begs an answer; yet, there are no absolutes in this area.

Brown (2007) includes within the definition of communicative competence the concept of grammatical competence; for Brown it is a major component of this type of competence. Dianne Larsen-Freeman (in Brown, 2007, p.420) states that “grammar gives us the form or the structures of language”, but it is without meaning if semantics and pragmatics are not included in the search for communicative competence. Thus, the interconnectedness of these elements forces the language teacher to provide for all three dimensions (grammar, semantics, and pragmatics).

Celce-Murcia (1991) has stated that the teaching of grammar in language classrooms must be gauged according to a set of six variables: 1. Age 2. Proficiency level 3. Educational level 4. Language skills 5. Style 6. Needs and goals

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These variables serve to determine how much pure grammar can be used in the classroom. Brown (2007) has also created a set of four questions that can be used to guide how the teaching of grammar is addressed; answering these questions can help a teacher tackle the presentation of grammatical concepts in the classroom: • • • •

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Should grammar be presented inductively or deductively?

Should we use grammatical explanation and technical terminology in the Communicative Language Teaching classroom?

Should grammar be taught in separate “grammar only” classes?

Should teachers correct grammatical errors?

Historically, there have been many second language teaching methods and approaches. Each one of them has assumed a position with respect to the teaching of grammar and has responded to these four questions according to the philosophical foundations that have served to support them. All of them have addressed the way grammar is to be taught, but none have completely excluded the teaching of grammar. Therefore, it can be said that teaching grammar is inevitable. The way it is presented to the learner has been the main source of controversy.

Modern students expect classrooms to be an extension of their life experiences: tablets, smart phones, and other forms of technology are invariably a part of their lives to some degree. Using these tools to teach grammar seems unavoidable. When teachers fail to come up with activities that include these technological tools, the students cannot help but notice. Thus, it is necessary to insure that language teachers acquaint themselves with what is available and make the most of these technical marvels.

Communicative competence is at the center of most second language instruction done today, either in classrooms or when we use any of the connectivity tools that are available. In most English as second language (ESL) classrooms, the emphasis lies in the specific tasks learners must carry out, either individually or in groups. Goodwin-Jones (2009) believes that “tasks lead learners to focus on communicating within concrete, realistic contexts, negotiating meaning towards reaching a specific goal, and gaining confidence in using the target language to achieve results” (p.1). Furthermore, tasks cannot be disconnected activities; they must lead to the achievement of specific goals. Computer programs, online or offline, offer the perfect scenario for this type of practice exercises, since they can easily track progress, provide immediate feedback, offer help whenever necessary, and progress in difficulty in a logical and gradual manner. Several studies serve to support this type of use of computer tools.

Sheard, Chambers, and Elliott (2012) present the results of a 12-week study carried out in 42 primary schools in the north of England and Wales where Questions for Learning (QfL) were used.

QfL is a technology-enhanced formative assessment technique in which pupils use electronic handsets to work through questions at their own pace in a classroom setting. This technology was used in the teaching of grammar and consisted of having the pupils use electronic handsets to respond individually to electronically presented question sets. Information about the rate and accuracy of the responses was presented on the teacher’s computer screen; the teacher used the information to provide feedback and remediation. Pre-test and post-test assessments were used in the study, which included discrete grammar questions; a paragraph revision writing task was also included to investigate transfer of grammar knowledge to writing. The results of the study showed that on the grammar test, pupils in the QfL classes performed significantly better than control pupils, but these effects did not extend to the writing task. These results suggest that QfL particularly supports average and low-achieving pupils’ learning of grammar concepts. The report also concludes that teacher training and professional development in managing and responding to formative assessment data are essential for maximizing the potential of QfL on teaching and learning.

Mills (2010) investigated the impact of an Internet based program designed to improve basic writing skills on grammar and punctuation scores on an English Competency Test. Three groups of university freshmen enrolled in a small Midwestern university (USA) composition class were tested.

Group 1 served as a control group and did not use the program. Groups 2 and 3 were treatment groups.

Group 2 used the Internet based program on its own and Group 3 used the program in conjunction with teacher correction of rough drafts of assigned papers. The results were not statistically significant among the groups; however, Group 3 had higher scores than the other two groups and the students surveyed believed that the program had improved their skills. This led the investigator to state that more research on the effect of these types of programs is warranted.

Suthiwartnarueput and Wasanasomsithi (2012) present the results of a study that explored the effects of using Facebook as a medium for grammar and writing discussions of low-intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Thailand. The data were collected from the students’ utterances asking for explanations about English grammar and writing that were posted on Facebook. Pre-test and post-test scores and interview responses were used as a part of the data collection procedures employed in the study. The findings showed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the pretest and the post-test (t = 6.65, p = 0.00). The most common topics of discussion were sentence structures, word meanings, parts of speech, and relative clauses. The students had positive attitudes toward using Facebook as a means of learning grammar and writing. For these students, Facebook provided a convenient and attractive means to engage in discussions with the teacher and other users on general grammatical concepts.

Aarts, Clayton, and Wallis (2012) have focused on a way to use smartphones in the teaching of grammar by developing an application, with the full support of the University College London (UCL) and a research program called Survey of English Usage (SEU). It offers “a new way of studying grammar on the go” (p. 6) because it does not need a continuous Internet connection. The application, published in late August 2011, is called the interactive Grammar of English (iGE). This app is aimed at a broad audience that includes teachers and students of English as a native language and as a second language.

The application is a grammar course that includes exercises that ask users to perform tasks, such as identifying nouns, adjectives and verbs, or phrases, or to classify examples according to a grammatical criterion. It an excellent way “to get students to understand that grammar ‘rules’ are a shared framework which we use to communicate, rather than a set of restrictions that must be obeyed” (p. 7). Among the advantages this technology represents, we have the fact that no Internet connection is needed and an iPhone or iPad can be used to project it in a classroom where exercises can be done collectively.

In conclusion, the tools to improve and challenge our 21st century students to learn, particularly grammar, exist and we must use them in order to remain a pertinent and important contributor to their development. It is our duty as responsible and effective teachers.

References Aarts, B., Clayton, D., & Wallis, S. (2012). Bridging the grammar gap: Teaching English grammar to the iPhone generation. English Today, 28, 3-8.

Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, Inc. Celce-Murcia, M. (1991). Grammar pedagogy in second and foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 459-480.

Goodwin-Jones, R. (2009). Emerging technologies focusing on form: Tools and strategies. Language Learning & Technology, (13)1, 5-12.

Mills, R. (2010). Does using an internet based program for improving student performance in grammar and punctuation really work in a college composition course? Education, (30)4, 652-656.

Sheard, M., Chambers, B., & Elliott, L. (2012). Effects of technology-enhanced formative assessment on achievement in primary grammar.

Report on achievement findings, The University of York.

Suthiwartnarueput, T., & Wasanasomsithi, P. (2012). Effects of using Facebook as a medium for discussions of English grammar and writing of low-intermediate EFL students. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, (9)2, 194–214.

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Is it Over When It’s Over? :

Issues to Explore about Creative Educational Projects for Teachers Dr. Lowell Fiet

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Even the most innovative and productive of projects reach their final stages, or at least, a hiatus and process of evaluation that leaves space for transformation before they continue. My participation in the Diverse Learners: Strategies for Effective Language Production project has reached such a stage. During the past four years I have enjoyed and appreciated nearly every aspect of this innovative and engaging proposal, and through the teacher-student participants and my fellow professors I have learned and grown personally and academically. I want to briefly review my involvement and, at the same time, explore three critical aspects of my learning process that could benefit future projects: the first involves what I’ll call the myth of universal teaching; the second addresses the need to loosen time and space constraints; and the third underscores the variability of teachers’ and schools’ curricular and social needs.

Diverse Learners provides a Saturday morning curriculum that engages public and private school teachers in the integration of new technologies and the arts in classroom settings. My participation involves mask-making and creative performance workshops that contribute to the teacher’s toolbox of methods and techniques that will stimulate creative and interactive responses to “content” subjects such as English, Spanish, Math, Sciences, History, and Social Sciences. The need to transform the normative learning environment --its form, structure, and perspective-- to insure that the classroom takes on a

new identity and dimension as an open space of creative expression is the first critical insertion made in my workshops with the teachers. That transformation process remains essential, even if achieved only periodically or for brief periods. A second critical insertion urges teachers to take advantage of materials and resources that already form part of the students’ everyday life and the immediate social conditions that surround them. Even at elementary and middle school levels, through research and fieldwork, students, teachers, and key members of the community become living textbooks and actively participate in the writing or re-writing of curricula that evolve by integrating their personal and collective archives of images and experiences.

Creative workshops require few hard-set rules, but those that do pertain should be followed as universally as possible: (1) the hands-on process takes place in the classroom. Everyone has access to the same materials and works with them at the same time --this is not a take-home or extra-curricular process; (2) the templates or models provided by the instructor or director serve as guides but never as limitations --nor are there right or wrong answers; and (3) the artifact (the mask) created should be original and not a copy or imitation of another object or mask. As a result, the creative act emerges spontaneously inside the workshop environment. Yet the vision differs with every student, and uniformity plays no viable role in the process. Through the acts of recycling and transforming basic materials into expressive aesthetic objects, cardboard, one-gallon plastic water jugs, newspaper, and paint, we can also change how we see ourselves.

The workshops aim to complete the tasks of making masks, creating a text of songs and original creative phrases, and staging a performance that combines both. The emphasis on the mask and performance reinforces the roles verbal, visual, plastic, sonorous, and corporeal expression as important not only in learning processes in art, music, and drama classes, classes that are now being offered with less frequency, but also transversally in languages, math, history, and science. While trained or professional artists and art teachers are by no means excluded from this idea of arts across the curriculum, the teachers who plan to use artistic techniques in the classroom do not need to be practicing artists.

However, they do need to demonstrate an intense interest in and a sense of commitment to the arts as a field of study.

Throughout most of its sessions, Diverse Learners attracted a high percentage of teachers with the degree of engagement necessary to appreciate, assimilate, and effectively implement unconventional teaching methods. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, that percentage dropped in the last semester to create the interesting but, at times, distracting situation of having some of the most committed and some of least engaged participants as members of the same session. After four years the “pool” of high potential participants seemed to shrink. Yet the situation reveals a definite up side: specialized workshops and seminars will never be universally accessible, and participants should not be required to enroll in all the subject areas. In a future project design, participants might select only three of the areas such as mask-making and performance, cinematography, computerized music, or digitalized storytelling from a menu of (hypothetically) six possible offerings. The time spent on each of the selected areas could then be doubled to increase the degree of specialization.

Time is the greatest obstacle to teaching and facilitating creative educational practices. The structure of most workshops for teachers, including those of Diverse Learners, simply cannot provide the time to complete complex tasks such as text creation (the most intensive and time-consuming of the activities) and performance. The normal mask-text-performance work in independent workshops involves investing three to five hours a day for at least three consecutive days. The academic structure of the Diverse Learners schedule provides a maximum of two hours of contact on two consecutive Saturdays and a third two-hour strategy and curriculum planning session several weeks later. This is sufficient to

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introduce a new educational practice but does not always provide enough time or experience for teachers to implement these new tools into their own teaching practice.

In the case of the mask-making workshops, we have never had enough time to explore the crucial element of creative writing in the development of a spoken text. This process involves concentration, imaginative thinking, and language and cognitive skills, all stimulated by and related to the more visual and kinesthetic process of the masks. Songs such as the African-American spiritual “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” and Bob Marley’s reggae classic “One Love” initiate but are by no means the end of that process. Like the templates for the masks, they provide a structure that can be modified, varied, or changed completely in the process of creating a unique performance text that incorporates new written and spoken materials from each participant. Although these elements are discussed and a “play” procession with the masks functions as a concluding element of the workshops, time factors have not allowed the development of this second creative and cognitive element. Nor do they provide the opportunity to rehearse and present a final masked performance based on the newly created texts. Thus, a future proposal might consider a broader and more flexible schedule that dedicates more class days and hours to creative methodologies.

Teaching environments and conditions vary widely: public versus private schools, metropolitan versus smaller-city and rural schools, schools with budgets for curricular materials and technology versus schools virtually depleted of all material resources, students with more affluent parents versus students from lower-income families, etc. The in-school evaluations reveal situations in which teachers teach, have materials, texts, and technology available, and seamlessly integrate the new Diverse Learners techniques in ongoing classroom projects with great success. However, they also reflect the perhaps more realistic conditions of the teacher with severely restricted resources who successfully teaches (also integrating new techniques) a small percentage of the classroom population while functioning as a social worker to arbitrate endemic social issues such as chronic academic disinterest and under-achievement, absenteeism, bullying, teen pregnancy, and drugs. Those topics, which also affect, although no doubt to a lesser degree, more privileged schools settings, will probably require attention in future proposals.

If, as argued here, activities such as mask-making tap impulses for creativity, growth, learning, and memory as old as the human race, they also seem capable of stimulating the imagination in ways that can impact positively on learning performance in all academic fields. The study, construction, and use of masks, along with other popular and formal arts, provides the structure of an “educational anthropology”1 that shares basic pedagogical elements with Paolo Friere’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and Augusto Boal’s “Theater of the Oppressed.”2 That structure facilitates the connection of cognition, universal human history, the specificity of local social and cultural conditions, and the participatory skills of citizenry as part of curriculum of the elementary, middle, and high school classroom. I remain convinced of that, and it continues. It isn’t over after the project ends.

No single project can serve all teachers and all classroom conditions. My experiences indicate that Diverse Learners met its goals of introducing new technologies, methods, and techniques to foster greater creativity and increase academic achievement in language-learning classes and across the curriculum with greater success than any similar project I have had direct or indirect knowledge of. I am proud to have been part of that. Diverse Learners deserves a future, and I hope that the comments made here

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er

earn

1 I adapt here Eugenio Barba’s term “theater anthropology”: Beyond the Floating Islands, trans. Judy Barba, et al (New York: PAJ, 1986): 114-156.

2 For the most recent editions see The Pedagogy of the Oppressed [1968] (New York: Continuum, 2007) and Theatre of the Oppressed [1974] (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1985).

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What is Flipped Instruction?

Flipped

Rosemary Morales Urbina, Ed. D.

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The term “flipped instruction” has been reverberating around school buildings for some time now and has been tested and tried in many classrooms in the United States. What is very provoking for educators is that it seems that this new teaching strategy doesn’t need to occur during school hours. This means that the traditional lesson plan and presentation teachers prepare daily actually takes place the evening before in students’ homes or after school, while during class time teachers devote the period to clarify homework assignments, problems solving activities, and higher order thinking skills. (Hart, M.;http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/04/18/the-ever-expanding-school-day.aspx).

Such is the case at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology where the “flip model” instructional approach requires students to watch the online lesson and lecture at night so students can spend the class period going in depth with lab work, discussions, projects, and other exercises (Khan Academy; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html?tk n=RXSFOFdsI1GuM3iSGpBwRVgXvjBxiGBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd).

The “flip model” of instruction has achieved recognition thanks to the promotion led by Khan Academy, a non-profit organization committed to changing and improving education by providing free online tutoring on almost any subject (Khan Academy; https://www.khanacademy.org/about). It was created by Salman Khan, a graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was searching for a way to tutor his niece in India with her math homework.

Teaming up last year with the Los Altos, California school district, the Khan Academy, supported

by Seattle based-Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, initiated a pilot study in which students in grades 5-8 used Khan-produced online lectures as part of their math curriculum. The pilot study has now increased from 150 students in 5 classrooms to 1000 students in 40 classrooms. The Khan program allows teachers to track the videos watched and the exercises completed by students. Courtney Cadwell, a 7th grade math teacher, feels that the best part of the model is the rapid feedback on students’ progress (Khan Academy; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html?tkn=RXSFOFdsI1G uM3iSGpBwRVgXvjBxiGBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd).

While many programs are being developed to incorporate the flipped instruction model all over the country, one cannot help wonder if this approach really works. A lot of experimentation is undergoing, but there is no hard evidence on its effectiveness yet. Those against it argue that the model is too reliant on online materials and may make it challenging to use in schools without major technology infrastructure (Khan Academy; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.htm l?tkn=RXSFOFdsI1GuM3iSGpBwRVgXvjBxiGBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd).

According to Hertz, M. B. (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-pro-and-conmary-beth-hertz), this approach would not work with her students just like many rural and urban teachers feel as well, because not all students have internet access at home. It was suggested students could use the library, but at the public library there was a limited number of computers and a limited time allotted to their use per client. Another suggestion given was to create her own DVDs, but how much time can a teacher dedicate during the day in creating 10-15 DVDs? Still another suggestion was for students to

watch the videos after school; however, the school only had 27 computers for the entire student body.

The only option would be for the school to launch an after school program, which by the way, is the best course to deal with this dilemma. Lastly, she thought that if every subject teacher adopted this approach, students would be watching videos all night and not all students learn by watching a screen.

Despite these challenges, there are several reasons why this approach works. It seems that the flipped classroom provides individualized instruction and learning for students. Teachers explain how students can work at their own pace, review what they need when they need to, and how the teacher has the time to work on an individual basis with each student on the areas he or she needs more attention. “It allows me to improve the connections I’m making with students, because now I can get into the material in a deeper way,” Mr. Willis said, a teacher who teaches physics at Gwinnett and who had just started to experiment with the flipped classroom approach with requiring students to view his recorded lectures and other materials online before class a few times a week. He used short automatic-response quizzes at the beginning of each class to ensure students had seen the videos. Since instructional time was reduced, he then used class time to delve into demonstrations and experiments. (Khan Academy; http://www. edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html?tkn=RXSFOFdsI1GuM3iSGpBwRVgXvjBxi GBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd).

Conforming to Bergman and Sams (http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/06/12/fp_ bergmann_sams.html?tkn=WPCC1Rxu4%2FbCFsj3iEU3%2Bqk97aMS3xc0jkgq&cmp=clp-sb-edtech), the flipped classroom works because it speaks the language of tech-savvy students. Gráinne Conole, director of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance in Britain, states that young learners are so accustomed to the digital world that it was the only way to reach them. (Fitzpatrick, M. http://www.nytimes. com/2012/06/25/us/25iht-educside25.html?_r=1). Facebook and YouTube are what students know and digital devices allow for flexibility in the teaching and learning process. Students are encouraged to bring their own devices (BYOD) so they can learn at their own pace. (Bergman and Sams http://www.edweek. org/tm/articles/2012/06/12/fp_bergmann_sams.html?tkn=WPCC1Rxu4%2FbCFsj3iEU3%2Bqk97aMS 3xc0jkgq&cmp=clp-sb-edtech).

In addition, the flipped instructional model also helps students keep up with lessons. If students are absent for whatever reason, the flipped method allows for students to make up the work without having to reteach a lesson to students who would have otherwise missed the class lecture (Bergman and Sams http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/06/12/fp_bergmann_sams.html?tkn=WPCC1Rxu4% 2FbCFsj3iEU3%2Bqk97aMS3xc0jkgq&cmp=clp-sb-edtech).

Another reason why “flipping” works, state Bergman and Sams, is that it is especially helpful for struggling students and advanced students as well. In a traditional classroom, the students who actively participate in class tend to get the most attention while the rest of the class passively listens. However, in a flipped classroom, students can watch instructional videos and PowerPoint presentations as many times as necessary and offer small- group tutoring and individualized instruction to help those who need it the most by probing deeper into the content and guiding the learning of each student individually.

Moreover, apparently the flipped classroom tends to improve classroom discipline. In a traditional classroom, bored or misbehaved students can cause major distractions. In flipped classrooms, these students no longer have an audience for their misbehavior and boredom is eliminated through small group and hands-on activities, posit Bergman and Sams (http://www.edweek.org/tm/ articles/2012/06/12/fp_bergmann_sams.html?tkn=WPCC1Rxu4%2FbCFsj3iEU3%2Bqk97aMS3xc0jkgq &cmp=clp-sb-edtech).

Students at Gwinnett said they have noticed the difference with the flipped instruction model stating it has made homework interesting, since it is completed in class and not at home (Khan Academy; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html?tkn=RXSFOFdsI1GuM3iSGpB wRVgXvjBxiGBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd).i

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There is one strong advocate for the flipped instructional approach and that is Greg Green, principal of Clintondale High School near Detroit, Michigan, whose school was falling apart with annual failure rates. Students did not pay attention, homework was not getting done, discipline problems were rampant, and absenteeism was prevalent. (Green, G.http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/myview-flipped-classrooms-give-every-student-a-chance-to-succeed/?hpt=hp_bn1). He realized that something drastic had to be done to improve the quality of education in his school and the only way was to flip it. He applied for a grant from TechSmith, a local screen and lecture recording company, which in turn provided the school with technology licenses and helped them create flipped class instruction. It began in the 9th grade and eventually spread to the whole school.

Mr. Green wanted to give his students the opportunity to learn about every subject from experts and decided to team with other schools across the country and the world and so he did. Students received video lectures from teachers in private schools and even learned about the Holocaust from videos made by teachers in Israel.

The most significant result, however, is that the failure rate decreased in the first year by 33% after implementing the flipped instruction model. The statistics revealed that in English, the failure rate declined from 52% to 19%; in math, from 44% to 13%; in science, 41% to 19%; and in social studies, 28% to 9%. By September 2011, the entire school was utilizing flipped instruction. By the end of the following year, the failure rate dropped to 10% with significant improvement on statewide test scores, thus proving that this strategy helps students understand the work better (Green, G. http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/my-view-flipped-classrooms-give-every-studenta-chance-to-succeed/?hpt=hp_bn1).

Mr. Green feels that it is important for educators to collaborate and work toward a common goal in order to fix the education system and give students the best educational opportunities possible.

The use of digital resources may even help reverse the downward trend in U.S. education standards (Fitzpatrick, M. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/us/25iht-educside25.html?_r=1 Apparently, it’s time to change education forever, affirms Mr. Green. (Green, G. http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/my-view-flipped-classrooms-give-every-studenta-chance-to-succeed/?hpt=hp_bn1).

Is it time for educators to begin thinking differently in Puerto Rico as well?

References Bergman, J. Sams, A. (2012, June, 12). Why flipped classrooms are here to stay. Retrieved: http://www.edweek.org/tm/ articles/2012/06/12/fp_bergmann_sams.html?tkn=WPCC1Rxu4%2FbCFsj3iEU3%2Bqk97aMS3xc0jkgq&cmp=clp-sb-edtech Fitzpatrick, M. (2012, June 12). Classroom lectures go digital. Retrieved:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/us/25iht-educside25. html?_r=1 Green, G. (2012). My view: Flipped classrooms give every student a chance to succeed. Retrieved: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn. com/2012/01/18/my-view-flipped-classrooms-give-every-student-a-chance-to-succeed/?hpt=hp_bn1 Hart, M. (2012, April 18). The ever-expanding school day. Retrieved: http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/04/18/the-ever-expandingschool-day.aspx Hertz, M. B. (2012, July 18). The flipped classroom: Pro and Con. Retrieved: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-proand-con-mary-beth-hertzBy Mary Beth Hertz Khan Academy: Lectures are homework in schools following Khan Academy lead. Retrieved: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/ 09/28/05khan_ep.h31.html?tkn=RXSFOFdsI1GuM3iSGpBwRVgXvjBxiGBlBelV&cmp=clp-sb-ascd Khan Academy: Retrieved: https://www.khanacademy.org/about February 6, 2013.

Fair Use and Creative Commons: Good to Know When We Use Images from the Internet

©

Juan C. Vadi-Fantauzzi, Ed.D.

“You’ve heard the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, but when that picture is protected by copyright, the picture is only worth three words: cease and desist” (Hawkins.

2011).

This paper is a guide of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrines of fair use and creative commons.

The use of technology in the classroom every day is more common. Our students know and manage the technologies very well and without major problems, whether for entertainment, education, or acquisition of information. When we ask students to do a task, a job, or homework, frequently, we note the use of technologies on their works, even though it is done on paper. Also, we note the use of visual images to complement the written text. The visual images become part of their narratives. The Internet, by its nature, is full of visual images and sounds (multimedia digital works).

We don’t have problems with the use of visual images or sounds as complement of the written text.

The history of communications is full of examples of the use of images to communicate. The problem is when we use images or sounds from the internet without permission. So it’s a good time to talk to our students about how to use images from the internet in their educational projects. We can introduce terms like Copyright, Copyleft, Fair Use, and Creative Commons to discuss the responsible use of copyright digital material.

All texts, videos, music, and photos are copyrighted and their creators’ Copyright protects them.

If the author does not claim anything against it, only he owns all rights to his work during his lifetime and seventy years after his death. This implies that only the author or his heirs may make copies of the work, play, interpret, create derivative works, or publicly present them. Anyone who wants to use it must ask permission. The only exceptions are the right of appointment (that plays fragments) or private copying, upon which much controversy remains about its extent.

Fair Use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some

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circumstances, especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no specific authorization for the use in question, as it does for certain narrowly defined classroom activities (Center for Social Media, 2013). One of the myths out there is that you can’t use any image, video, or content from another website on your educational works. This isn’t true. First, we have to identify the tag of the material that we want to use.

Almost always there is a tag with the digital material such as “Feel free to reproduce this work in its entirety. For excerpts and quotations, depend upon fair use” or with a logo like the one below.

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The author can also waive the Copyright, but there is another alternative: Copyleft licenses, which allow the author to define a wide range of possibilities to specify how you want to use your work.

The most popular is Copyleft license Creative Commons. Creative Commons (CC) licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators working on the concept of “all rights reserved” of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary approach, “some rights reserved.”

Creative Commons is an organization founded in 2001 that promotes the creative reuse of works and literary and artistic creations. Works with CC allow copying and distribution by other users, but with the assessments, known as attributes, as decided by the author. Different types of the CC licenses are: Attribution: it requires the authorization of the author of the work. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they give you credit for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. It is recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Noncommercial: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work noncommercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Non Derivative Works: The works must be distributed without modification (among other cases, a photo with this license cannot be transformed. For example, use it in a collage).

Share Alike: It requires that all derivative works be distributed under the same license provided the original work These attributes can be combined. The best option when we use digital work is opting only by including a Fair Use or Creative Commons licenses, as you just respect their attributes to avoid later claims. The webpage of Technology and Learning at www.techlearning.com creates a chart to inform teachers of

what they may do under the law. (See Appendix 1) They explain how to use digital material from the internet and other digital recorded material, like DVD or CD music in the classroom.

Also, there are plenty of websites where users can post content under Fair Use or CC licenses: Flickr.com (in picture) and Youtube.com (in movies) are the best known. For example, Flickr is an image search engine, in addition to searching by labels (tags) placed on each image for users to select only images with the CC license. In Appendix 2, we include a list of recommended internet sites with Fair Use and Creative Commons licenses for use in digital works. As a teacher, remember, ďŹ rst evaluate the site before recommending it or using it with your students. You determine if the site is appropriate or not for your educational purposes.

I hope this paper helps you to answer some questions about the use of copyright digital material in the classroom. For more information in using copyrighted digital materials, see the reference section.

We recommend consulting the Center of Social Media, especially the article Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, and Copyright Fair Use and How it Works for Online Images written by Sara Hawkins.

References Burt, R. (2012). The educator’s guide to copyright, fair use, and creative commons. Retrieved: http://theedublogger.com/2012/ 02/09/the-educators-guide-to-copyright-fair-use-and-creative-commons/ Center for Social Medial. (2013). The code of best practices in fair use for media literacy education. American University, School of Communication. Retrieved: http://centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practicesfair-use-media-literacy-education Creative Commons. (2013). About the licenses. Retrieved: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Hawkins, S. (2011). Copyright fair use and how it works for online images. Retrieved: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/copyrightfair-use-and-how-it-works-for-online-images/ Martinez, N. (2013). How to get written copyright permission to use a picture. Retrieved: http://www.ehow.com/how_6735195_writtencopyright-permission-use-picture.html Tech & Learning. (2013). Copyright and fair use guidelines for teachers. Retrieved: http://www.techlearning.com

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����������������������������������������������������������� This chart was designed by ����������������������� to inform teachers of what they may do under the law. They authorize to feel free to make copies for teachers in your school or district, or download a PDF version at ��������������������. ������ ������������� ����������������

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• Videotapes (purchased) • Videotapes (rented) • DVDs • Laserdiscs • YouTube

• Teachers may use these materials in the classroom.

• Copies may be made for archival purposes or to replace lost, damaged, or stolen copies.

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• Internet connections • World Wide Web

• Images may be downloaded for student projects and teacher lessons.

• Sound files and video may be downloaded for use in multimedia projects (see portion restrictions above).

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• Records • Cassette tapes • CDs • Audio clips on the Web

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• Poem less than 250 words; 250-word excerpt of poem greater than 250 words • Articles, stories, or essays less than 2,500 words • Excerpt from a longer work (10 percent of work or 1,000 words, whichever is less) • One chart, picture, diagram, or cartoon per book or per periodical issue • Two pages (maximum) from an illustrated work less than 2,500 words, e.g., a children’s book • An entire work • Portions of a work • A work in which the existing format has become obsolete, e.g., a document stored on a Wang computer

• Up to 10 percent of a copyright musical composition may be reproduced, performed, and displayed as part of a multimedia program produced by an educator or students.

• Teachers may make multiple copies for classroom use, and incorporate into multimedia for teaching classes.

• Students may incorporate text into multimedia projects.

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• Photograph • Illustration • Collections of photographs • Collections of illustrations

• Single works may be used in their entirety, but no more than five images by a single artist or photographer may be used.

• From a collection, not more than 15 images or 10 percent (whichever is less) may be used.

A librarian may make up to three copies “solely for the purpose of replacement of a copy that is damaged, deteriorating, lost, or stolen.”

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• Although older illustrations may be in the public domain and don’t need permission to be used, sometimes they’re part of a copyright collection.

Copyright ownership information is available at ������������or �����������.

• The material must be legitimately acquired (a legal copy, not bootleg or home recording).

• Copyright works included in multimedia projects must give proper attribution to copyright holder.

• Resources from the Web may not be reposted onto the Internet without permission.

However, links to legitimate resources can be posted.

• Any resources you download must have been legitimately acquired by the Website.

• A maximum of 30 seconds per musical composition may be used.

• Multimedia program must have an educational purpose.

• Copies may be made only from legally acquired originals.

• Only one copy allowed per student.

• Teachers may make copies in nine instances per class per term.

• Usage must be “at the instance and inspiration of a single teacher,” i.e., not a directive from the district.

• Don’t create anthologies.

• “Consumables,” such as workbooks, may not be copied.

• Copies must contain copyright information.

• Archiving rights are designed to allow libraries to share with other libraries one-of-a-kind and out-of-print books.

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My Favorite Potato Artist:

Lesson 1

A Technique to Help Students Perform an Oral Report Sandy Arlene González Figueroa Benjamín Harrison Vocational High School Cayey, Puerto Rico

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In deep appreciation of Yolanda García of Caguas’ República de Costa Rica Vocational High School.

The teacher who use the original potato activity… Thank You! Benjamín Harrison Vocational High School is located at 249 José de Diego Ave. in Cayey, Puerto Rico. This is a High School that offers 18 workshops in the vocational area. This school gives students the opportunity when they graduate to earn a diploma in the Academic and Vocational areas. The school has 63 faculty members and 182 students who belong to the Special Education Program. The school enrollment is 768 students divided into 428 males and 339 females. Benjamin Harrison Vocational High School has been in the Improvement Program for 10 years.

As teachers, we are constantly looking for strategies that can help us spark student’s interest and attention, teach them how to write, read, and also make them able to communicate. The English class can make our students feel anxious, nervous, stressed and unable to speak if they are requested to make an oral presentation in front of the class. There are many theories about the silent period and experts say that students shouldn’t be forced to speak, that they will do it when they feel ready and comfortable.

The reality is that students feel panic when speaking English. For that reason, they build a huge wall to protect themselves from making mistakes, others mocking them, or simply because they don’t want to feel ridiculous in front of anybody. At this point, as teachers, we have to look for the best way to get them hooked into the class but specially to make o students leave their fears about speaking English behind them.

Into good language instruction, we can find several strategies that will help us to achieve our goals inside our lesson plans. Interactive lessons with hands-on and cooperative work, encouragement of student’s creativity, versatility and flexibility and giving our students the opportunity to feel successful are methods that can be useful in the English as a Second Language (ESL) class. In the English class, students work on a completion of a task or project which requires the use of all language skills. For example, there are projects, written reports, and oral reports to be done during the school year. The preparation in order to accomplish those works and requirements may involve students reading, gathering of information, talking to each other in planning and the design of the project, and speaking or writing the delivery of the final product.

According to Tomioka (2003), the more active the students are in oral practice, the faster, it is believed, they will learn a second language (L2). Consequently, an ESL teacher often demands that

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students talk right away and expends great effort to make them repeat after his model from the first day of the class. Krashen (1985) revealed that in the initial phase of the language acquisition process, there is typically a ‘silent period’ during which children acquiring a new language in natural settings are silent and concentrate on comprehension. They may respond, if necessary, only in a non-verbal way or by making use of a set of memorized phrases. But the question when applying Krashen’s assumption is: How long does the silent period should take? When can students be requested to give an oral report as part of the class assessment? When will students be able to speak aloud? The answers to these questions could be a little complicated and also be full of lots of theories from experts, but the fact is that speaking English for a high percentage of our students is a giant step that they are not able to take. We all know that we should create a good atmosphere in order to make our students feel comfortable inside our classes. For that reason, as part of the English class, students of 11th and 12th grade were requested to make an oral report about their favorite artist. They had to illustrate, dress, and create their favorite artist as a potato to give their report in front of their classmates.

The idea of giving an oral presentation by using a potato at first could sound weird and even crazy but the results were amazing. As teachers, we should provide the opportunity to work with pertinent and meaningful material in our classes. In that way, the affective filter will be activated and the students will feel more comfortable by reducing their anxiety. Students would work with something they like and where they could be able to use their creativity. Krashen and Terrell (1983), expands their original proposals by suggesting specific teaching techniques. They divided the language acquisition process into three stages; comprehension or reproduction, early speech production, and speech emergence. The classroom devoted to activities which provide comprehensible input is important throughout the process of a language acquisition. It is for that reason, to emphasize the creation of original assessment techniques in which our students can use their creativity, intellect, and develop what they want to communicate in their own way what they are trying to say. It is important to encourage them to participate actively in the class and also give them the sense that no matter if they are speaking in another language everything is possible. After all the main goals in our English classes is to achieve effective communication.

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In the following oral communication assessment, students will perform an oral presentation and create the characterization of their favorite artist by using the shape of a potato. They will draw a potato in an 11 X 14 inch cardboard. Students have to search the following information: • • • • • •

Who is this person His/her real name Hometown of this artist Genre of music What he/ her is doing for a living The reasons why you chose this artist

The students will dress, paint, and decorate their potato with accessories in order to make it look similar to the artist they have chosen. They should research to provide additional information about the artist, like awards earned, concerts given, etc. By providing this alternative to giving an oral report, the students’ atmosphere of tension that was created when an oral presentation was announced will decrease because they will be working with something of their interest in a very original way. The rubric designed to evaluate the students will be one focused only on the oral presentation because not all the students have the same economic status to buy or to decorate their potato. For that reason, originality and creativity are not part of the evaluation to give students the opportunity to be in even. I have found that this technique increases students’ interest and takes away their fears of speaking English in front of an audience.

The acceptance and respect for students’ peers when they speak in front of the class is important.

This kind of oral report keeps on working on students’ self-esteem. Moreover, it keeps them working on their affective filter because they start to establish similarities and comparisons among other students’ reports. This makes them feel, for a moment, like the main characters and helps our students perform oral reports. It also helps them leave behind their fears, worries, and stress when they have to speak English in front of an audience.

Department of Education Benjamín Harrison Vocational High School Cayey, Puerto Rico

Name:______________________________ Date________________________________ Homeroom__________________________

English Class 11th & 12th Grade Mrs. González Rubric for Evaluating Individual Oral Presentation

Criteria

45 5

4

3

2

1

Excellent

Good

Average

Poor

Unsatisfactory

1.Presentation and self-confidence.

2. Posture and gestures.

3. Tone of voice and enthusiasm.

4. Diction, pronunciation, and oral expression.

5. Logic ideas, clarity and coherence.

Comments: Score:

/25 POINTS

References Hoge, A. (2004). Silent period teaching methods. Retrieved from http://effortlessacquisition.blogspot.com/2004/06/silent-periodteaching-methods.html Krashen, Stephen. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman.

Tennessee ESL Resource Guide. (n.d.). Strategies for ESL teachers. Retrieved from http://www.suu.edu/ed/resource Tomioka, Taeko. (2003). The Silent Period. Retrieved from http://www.homepage3.nifty.com/park/silent.htm Wilson, Reid. (n.d). A Summary of Stephen Krashen’s “Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition”. Retrieved from http:// www.languageimpact.com/articles/rw/krashenbk.htm

Lesson 2

Writing A Short Paragraph Ms. Migdalia Rivera Sanchez S.U. Manuel Ortiz School, Yabucoa , Puerto Rico Grade: Fifth Lesson Time Frame: Three Days

48

Standard: Writing The Student effectively communicates to a variety of audiences in all forms of writing through the use of the writing process, proper grammar and age appropriate expressive vocabulary.

Grade Level Expectation: W.5.5 Follows the writing process; applies prewriting strategies to generate ideas; uses the dictionary as an aid in the writing process; identifies spelling, capitalization, and ending punctuation errors.

DOK: Strategic and Extended Skill: Writing a short descriptive paragraph Objectives: Conceptual: Students will follow the writing process to write a descriptive paragraph comparing him or herself to a friend in class.

Procedural: Students will use information gathered in a Venn diagram to write a short paragraph with no less than ten complete sentences.

Attitudinal: Students will demonstrate appreciation and respect towards diversity through writing in the English language.

Students will develop self-esteem by including a foot of oneself and sharing their paragraphs with the rest of the class.

Materials: • The Writing Process chart • Sentence strips • Markers • Venn diagram worksheet • Sentence frames worksheet

• Dictionaries • Alike and Different book cover Initial Activities: • daily routine • greetings date • Questions: • In what ways may two people be different from one another?

• In what ways might they be alike?

• On sentence strips, list categories to use as a guide to compare one another: • physical characteristics • character traits • likes and dislikes • favorite things • special abilities Developmental Activities: Students will: • review the writing process • acquire a Venn diagram worksheet • work in pairs • complete the Venn diagram with a friend and write the ways they are the same and different from their friend • (students label the circles in the Venn diagram, one with their name, the other with their partner’s name and in the middle, include information in which both students are the same) • use dictionaries as an aid • use the writing process chart to write their paragraph • use the information from their Venn diagram to complete the sentence frames • publish information • include a picture of him/herself and their friend in the picture frames Closing Activities: Students will: • share their paragraphs with the rest of their classmates.

• comment on their experience when the activity is done.

Teacher uses students completed paragraphs to create class books.

49

Love M u

Love M u

c i s

c i s

Lesson 3

5

The use of Songs in Creative

51

The Use of Songs in Creative Writing Yoanell Román Theme/Topic: Unit 8.5 POETRY

52

General Strategy: ECA

Phase: Conceptualization

Cross-Curricular Connection: Social Studies (Values) Content Standards: Reading, writing The student uses reading strategies, literary analysis, and critical thinking skills to construct meaning and develop an understanding as well as an appreciation of a variety of genres of both fiction and nonfiction.

Learning Outcomes: R.8.1 Analyzes the text and distinguishes text features to enhance comprehension.

R.8.2 Applies context clues, reference sources, and other vocabulary expansion strategies to assess word meaning; uses prefixes, suffixes, and root words to determine the meaning of unfamiliar and compound words.

Depth of Knowledge: DOK Skills/Concept (Level 2)

Objectives: •

Conceptual: The student will read and comprehend the lyric of a song.

Assessment: Questions

•

Procedural: The student will increase his/her understanding of different types of texts by learning that the words sung in songs are called lyrics, be able to apply context clues to assess word meaning, will answer reading comprehension and critical thinking questions, state main idea, and write a descriptive paragraph after singing along the song Count on Me by Bruno Mars.

Assessment: Worksheet

•

Attitudinal: The student will develop an appreciation for a variety of genres as he/she enjoys reading and singing along with the lyric of the song.

Assessment: Sing-a-long and oral discussion Activities: Introduction: Reflection, Routine Activities: Greetings, Weather, Date Review (Vocabulary) Development: The teacher will guide a brief conversation about friendship and what makes a good friend using a set of pictures. Today you are going to have fun singing along the song Count on Me by Bruno Mars that tells about the friendship.

Guided Instruction: 1. In a prior lesson, the teacher played the song in the background in order for the students to be familiar with it.

2. Students will practice listening skills by gap filling and organize events.

3. Students will check the exercise in pairs, then with the whole class.

4. The teacher will distribute the lyric and discuss that the words sung in songs are called lyrics and that they can read the lyrics.

5. Finally, students will listen and sing-a-long.

6. Students will work with follow-up activities such as discussing the topic raised by the song, vocabulary in context, verb future form, spelling, critical thinking, main idea, first conditional clause, and descriptive paragraphs.

7. A descriptive paragraph (5 sentences) of a special friendship will we written.

Closing: Discussion and correction of work.

Materials: Curriculum Map Sixth Grade, computer, projector, PowerPoint presentention or video with the lyric and music, or a CD with the song, copy of the lyric, worksheets Teacher Reflection: Students enjoy this activity, especially because they love music.

o e v

e

L

Mus i

c

Music

v o

L

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Count on Me by Bruno Mars If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea I’ll sail the world to find you If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can’t see I’ll be the light to guide you Find out what we’re made of What we are called to help our friends in need

54

You can count on me like one, two, three I’ll be there and I know when I need it I can count on you like four, three, two And you’ll be there ‘cause that’s what friends Are supposed to do, oh yeah, Wooooh, Wooooh, Yeah, Yeah If you toss and you turn and you just can’t fall asleep I’ll sing a song beside you And if you ever forget how much you really mean to me Everyday I will remind you, Ohh Find out what we’re made of What we are called to help our friends in need You can count on me like one, two, three I’ll be there and I know when I need it I can count on you like four, three, two And you’ll be there ‘cause that’s what friends Are supposed to do, oh yeah, Woooh, Woooh, yeah, yeah You’ll always have my shoulder when you cry I’ll never let go, never say goodbye You can count on me like one, two, three I’ll be there and I know when I need it, I can count on you like four, three, two And you’ll be there ‘cause that’s what friends Are supposed to do, oh yeah, W00ooh, Woooh You can count on me ‘cause I can count on you

Vocabulary in Context Fill in the blanks with the following missing words: find

dark

light

middle

If you ever find yourself stuck in the _________ of the sea.

I’ll sail the world to ________ you.

If you ever find yourself lost in the _______ and you can’t see.

55

I’ll be the ________ to guide you.

Find a word/phrase that means “discover”: We find out what we’re made of When we are called to help our friends in need Match the sentences that form the chorus:

Love M u

c i s

Mus i

L

v o L

e

o e v

Music

a) be there b) are supposed to do oh c) like 4,3,2 d) be there e) like 1,2,3 f) when I need it

c

You can count on me _______________ I’ll _______________________________ And I know _______________________ I can count on you _________________ And you’ll ________________________ ‘cause that’s what friends ___________

Spelling There are some words that are not correct. Underline and correct them:

If you’re tossin’ and you’re turnin’ and you just can’t feel asleep I’ll sing a song behind you And if you ever forget how much you really need to me Everyday I will forget you We find out what we’re made of When we are called to help our friends in need

56

[Chorus] You’ll always have my shoulder when you cry I’ll never let go Never say goodbye You know…

[Chorus] You can count on me ‘cause I can count on you

Answer 1. Identify verb forms in the future tense. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Can you find a first conditional clause? Give examples. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. What’s this song about? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. What feelings or images does this song evoke in you when you listen to it? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Write a five-sentence paragraph describing what makes a good friend.

Lesson 4

Creating a Short SHORT Story Katiria Cintr贸n

Creating a Short SHORT Story Katiria Cintrón

58

•

Grade: 10th

•

Time Frame: 2 – 4 days

•

Theme/Unit: Writing a Short Story

•

Standard #1: Listening/Speaking: •

•

Standard #2: Writing: •

•

The student uses the English language to interpret oral input, construct meaning, interact with confidence both verbally and nonverbally, and express ideas effectively in a variety of personal, social, and academic contexts.

The student effectively communicates to a variety of audiences in all forms of writing through the use of the writing process, proper grammar, and age-appropriate expressive vocabulary.

Grade Level Expectations: •

L/S.10.2.

P Listens and responds to analyze, organize, explain, describe, support, and discuss information; answers and formulates closed and open-ended questions.

•

•

L/S.10.3 P Uses appropriate language structure to state opinions in discussions and presentations, to problem solve, and to explain a process integrating comparison and contrast statements.

•

L/S.10.5 P Explains the main idea or topic and important details from learned concepts or readings, and summarizes, analyzes, and compares and contrasts a topic from a variety of text using appropriate language structure.

•

W.10.1

P

•

W.10.2

•

W.10.5

P

P

Applies transitional words, phrases, and clauses when constructing complex sentences to effectively connect ideas and develop variety in writing.

Applies transitional words, phrases, and clauses when constructing complex sentences to effectively connect ideas and develop variety in writing.

Applies editing marks and revision techniques; applies reference sources to verify and support information; writes a final draft using the writing process.

Values: Self-esteem, tolerance, discipline, optimism, responsibility, respect and sharing

Objectives: • The student uses the elements of fiction (title, setting, characters, plot, theme, point of view) in order to create his/her own fiction short story.

• The student creates his/her own short story.

• The student make up his/her own characters based in the plot of their story.

• At the end of the workshop, the student present his/her short story (as a movie or as a book).

Materials: P Plot Diagram P Short Story Draft P Computer P White Board P Markers P Crayons P Pictures P Construction Paper

P Scissors PPencils P Glue P Color Pencils P Glitter P Camera P Rubric

Activities: The teacher • Greets the students.

• Present the elements of fiction & describes them.

• Explain the plot of a story (each part of it).

• The teacher will read the instructions and clarify any doubts that the students may have before continuing to the next part of the project, which is creating the plot of the story and its characters.

59

•

The rubric for the “Creating a Short SHORT Story” will be handed out and discussed before the presentation of the project.

The student selects the theme ofhis/her story.

The student decides if he/she wants to work alone or in groups.

The student writes the first draft of the story.

The teacher evaluates the first draft of the story.

The student takes the teacher’s suggestions and continues working with his/her/their story.

The student finishes his/her/their story.

The student proceeds to edit the movie or create the “book” of the story.

At the end of the workshop, the student stands up in front of the class and present his/her/their project.

• • • • • • • •

60

Short Story Grading Sheet Title: ___________________________________________ Author: ___________________________________________ Grading Scale 4= Above the standard 3= Meets standard 2= Approaching the standard 1= Does not meet the standard/not included Character

4

3

2

1

4

3

2

1

4

3

2

1

•The main character is well-developed and realistic enough that the reader cares about him/her.

•The reader gets a clear picture of the main character through actions, dialogue, and inner thoughts.

•The reader knows the main character’s perspective: feelings, thoughts, attitudes toward self and others.

Setting • The setting is described using clear details.

• Both where and when are included.

Situation/Conflict •The situation that the main character struggles with is realistic (could happen in real life).

•The situation builds curiosity in the reader’s mind.

Action

4

3

2

1

•The action is in the main character’s control.

•The main character makes a decision about what to do about the situation.

Result

4

3

2

1

•The story’s result is realistic and makes sense.

•The result includes how the characters feel at the end of the story

Conventions

61 4

3

2

1

4

3

2

1

•No spelling mistakes.

•No punctuation mistakes (in dialogue especially) •No capitalization mistakes.

•Paragraphs are indented.

•New paragraphs are used when needed.

•Sentences are complete- no fragments or run-ons.

Publication/Final Draft •The assignment is turned in on time.

•The title is clever, properly underlined and capitalized, and relates to the story.

•The hook catches the reader’s attention.

•There are at least 5 different transition words and they are used appropriately.

•At least 3 sensory images are included.

•Dialogue is used at least 1 time in the story

.

•The final copy is clean and free from rips or stray marks.

•There are at least 2 illustrations which relate to your story.

•The self-evaluation is completed and stapled to the back.

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•Papers are in reverse order and stapled.

ORDER front to back: Final draft, other drafts, planning sheets, self-evaluation, grading sheet)

Overall grade:

4

3

2

1

Teacher Comments: _________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Short Story Self-Evaluation

Directions: 1) Complete this when you have finished your final draft.

2) Write thoughtful answers.

3) Write in complete sentences.

4) Staple this to the back of your final draft.

Did you try your best? Did you put in your best effort?

Write 2 FREDs to prove it. (Remember: FREDs are Facts, Reasons, Examples, and Details) ____________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ What part(s) of this assignment are you most proud of? ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Why? Write at least 1 FRED: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ What part(s) of this assignment was easy for you? _______________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ What part(s) of this assignment was difficult for you? ____________________________________________ ______________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Student Comments (optional): ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________

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Lesson 5

The Effects of Bullying Through Music Celibelle Falcón

66

Grade Level: 7th Theme/Topic: The effects of bullying General Strategy: ECA

Phase: Application

Integration: Music Content Standards: Listening/Speaking Expectations: L/S 7.3 Uses appropriate language structure to problem solve and to explain a process; interacts in discussions and presentations.

Depth of Knowledge (WEBB): Skill/Concept (Level 2) Objectives: Conceptual: Students will know the effects of bullying and will interact in a discussion concerning the topic.

Assessment Evidence: Students will recall their prior knowledge of bullying and will discuss the effects this has on others.

Procedural: Students will be able to use the appropriate language structure to problem solve and explain the process of the effects of bullying.

Assessment Evidence: Students will answer questions in an oral discussion about the effects of bullying and will problem solve solutions for this.

Attitudinal: Students will react to the songs accordingly.

Assessment Evidence: Students will discuss their opinions concerning the songs.

Learning Plan: Initial: The teacher will begin with an open discussion about student’s prior knowledge about the effects of bullying. Students will discuss their personal opinions and/or observations about the topic.

Development: The teacher will play the songs “Stole,” “Adam’s Song” and “Beautiful” for the students without the lyrics first. Students will take notes about what they heard and/or understood. These notes will be discussed. The teacher will give out the songs’ lyrics and these will be played again. Students will discuss the different songs’ messages concerning the topic of the effects of bullying. Students will also discuss their reactions towards the songs (which one they liked least/most, which one conveys a stronger message, etc).

Closing: Students will provide problem-solving solutions about the effects of bullying and how this can be stopped. A final class reflection can be provided by the students as well.

Materials: 1. MP3 Player or CD with the following songs • • •

“ Stole” by Kelly Rowland “ Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera

2.

Speakers

3.

Song Lyrics Hand-out

Homework (Optional): Look up the songs’ videos in Youtube and write a short opinion about the videos.

Everyday is so wonderful Then suddenly It’s hard to breathe Now and then I get insecure From all the pain I’m so ashamed I am beautiful No matter what they say Words can’t bring me down I am beautiful In every single way Yes words can’t bring me down Oh no So don’t you bring me down today

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Lesson 6

Puerto Rican Masks: Daily Lesson Plan for th th 10 and 11 Grade Grades: 10th and 11th

Yessica Albino Bascó José R. Cruz-Auffant

Theme: Puerto Rican Masks Estimated Time: 5 days Curricular Integration: History, Art, Spanish General Strategy: Application Standard(s): LISTENING/SPEAKING and WRITING Grade Level Expectations: LISTENING/SPEAKING AND WRITING • • • •

• • • •

L/S. 10.2 Listens and responds to analyze, organize, explain, describe, support, and discuss information; answers and formulates closed and open ended questions.

L/S 10.3 Uses appropriate language structure to state opinion in discussions and presentations, to problem solve, and to explain a process integrating comparison and contrast statements.

L/S. 11.2 Listens and responds to analyze, organize, explain, describe, support, and discuss information; answers and formulates closed and open ended questions.

L/S 11.3 Uses appropriate language structure to analyze and state opinion in discussions and presentations, to problem solve, and to explain a process integrating comparison and contrast statements.

W. 10.1 Applies transitional words, phrases, and clauses when constructing complex sentences to effectively connect ideas and develop variety of writing.

W. 10.2 Applies appropriate grammar, structure, and syntax; analyzes word choice to convey intended meaning.

W. 10.3 Analyzes and applies organizational patterns to connect ideas and to write narrative, expository, and persuasive essays.

W. 10.5 Applies editing marks and revision techniques; applies reference sources to verify and support information; writes a final draft using the writing process.

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• • •

W. 11.1 Analyzes and selects appropriate words to convey meanings; incorporates transitions, correct grammar, syntax, and style.

W. 11.2 Determines the purpose of writing; analyzes and constructs organizational patterns to connect ideas; writes narrative, expository, and persuasive essays.

W. 11.5 Applies editing marks, self-correcting methods, and references sources revise and edit; analyzes, organizes and verifies information to write and revise; completes a final draft using the writing process.

Depth of Knowledge: Skill/Processing and Strategic Objectives:

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Conceptual: The student will analyze the culture of Puerto Rico and its importance.

Procedural: The student will create a mask allusive to the Puerto Rican Culture using the best of his/her ability. The student will write a descriptive essay about his/her mask.

Attitudinal: The student will react to his/her own mask and the importance of producing his/her own piece of art.

Materials:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

White cardboard to cut out model of mask/carton Scissors Pocket Knife (used by the teacher) Glue Acrylic Paint Chalks Markers Crayons T-shirt Images, pictures, and/or symbols allusive to the Puerto Rican Culture.

Other accessories

Procedure: Initial Activity: After greeting the students, the teacher will explain the purpose of mask as part of the celebration of the Puerto Rican Week. The teacher presents a PowerPoint presentation of some culture and traditions celebrated in Puerto Rico. This will help the student gain an insight of the possible ideas they can draw and paint on their masks. The teacher will require at least 3 drawings or pictures should be painted on the mask.

Developmental Activity: The student will cut out on cardboard the model of mask he/she prefers and will begin to draw and paint pictures allusive to the Puerto Rican culture. After the student has finished with his/her mask, he /she will proceed to write a descriptive essay explaining the pictures of the mask and their significance to the Puerto Rican culture. The student will first write a draft using as guide the following questions:

1.

2.

3.

Introductory Paragraph: What is the purpose of the mask? How is the culture of Puerto Rico?

Developmental Paragraphs: What is the name of the drawing or symbol you painted on your mask? What does it mean or symbolizes? Why is it important to the Puerto Rican culture and/or people?

Closing Paragraph: Why did you select those pictures or drawings? How important are they for you? How important is for you to celebrate Puerto Rican culture?

Closing Activity: After ďŹ nishing the mask and the descriptive essay, the student will share his/ her mask by exhibiting it to the class and other teachers. The masks will be evaluated by their peers and teachers. There will be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize for the winners.

Appendix: 1. Rubric for Mask 2. Rubric for Paragraph Writing

73

Department of Education

School of the Community Ana Jacoba Candelas Cidra, Puerto Rico

Rubric for Cultural Mask (celebration of the Puerto Rican week)

74

Name ____________________________ Date _____________________________ Group ____________________________

Mask

Criteria

5

1

Craftsmanship

The student demonstrates skillful use of materials.

2

Connection

Pictures, drawings, and symbols demonstrate historical and cultural awareness.

3

Creativity

Inventive new ideas to express personal knowledge of cultural

4

Critical Thinking

Ability to evaluate information pertinent; awareness of cultural to the Puerto Rican culture.

5

Completion

Finished in a timely way; makes good use of time.

4

3

2

1

Paragraph

Criteria

5

Topic Sentence

The paragraph has a clear and thoughtful topic sentence that refers to that refers to the topic of the assigned project.

2

Supporting Details

The paragraph contains all 3 supporting sentences that support the main idea with reasons, details or facts. The details are well organized, interesting and elaborate on the main idea on the project.

3

Concluding Sentence

The conclusion wraps up the paragraph and refers to the main idea of the project without repeating it.

4

Content

The student demonstrates knowledge and awareness of the Puerto Rican culture by explaining in depth the images on the mask.

5

Mechanics/ Grammar

Demonstrates correct spelling, correct use of punctuation and capitalization. Precise use of grammar and vocabulary. Work is legible.

1

4

3

2

1

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I a m o h w

Lesson 7

This is Who I Am Rebecca Rivera Vázquez

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Grade: 6th Grade Duration: One Week Curricular Integration: Technology/Computer Class Standards & Expectations: W.6.5 Uses the writing process; applies prewriting strategies to generate ideas; uses the dictionary as an aid in the writing process; identifies spelling, capitalization, and ending punctuation errors.

Objectives: The Student will: • •

•

Conceptual: Follow the writing process to answer questions that will help them write about their identity.

Procedural: Write the answers to questions the teacher will provide as complete sentences and then create a Movie Maker presentation with their technology teacher’s help that includes the answers and pictures chosen by them.

Attitudinal: Demonstrate willingness to share their work with the class.

Questions: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

What is your full name?

When were you born?

Where were you born?

How old are you now?

Who are your parents?

What is your favorite thing to do?

What is your favorite food?

What is the best memory in your life so far?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Materials:

P P P P P P P P P

Notebook Pencil Eraser Paper Dictionary Computer Windows Movie Maker Program Pen Drive Screen Initial Activities:

Daily Routine: • • • • •

Greetings Attendance Reflection ("Everybody is unique”) Review of the previous class Topic of the day.

Developmental Activities:

The Students will: • • • • • • • •

Briefly review the steps of writing complete sentences.

Read the questions provided by the teacher and answer them correctly.

Answer the questions in complete sentences.

Check their answers for grammar errors.

Use dictionaries for help.

Choose images or pictures that reflect their answers.

Receive a handout of basic steps to be used in Movie Maker.

Take a one day workshop in technology class that will teach them how to use Windows Movie Maker.

Closing Activities:

The students will: • •

• • • •

Rewrite the answer to the questions in Microsoft Word as complete sentences.

Create a short slideshow in Movie Maker (no longer than 5 minutes) in which they will integrate their answers to the questions as complete sentences along with the personal pictures or images that they choose. Students will be allowed to be creative with their presentations (Example: they may integrate music as well).

Save their work on their pen drives.

Print out a copy of the Microsoft Word answers for the teacher.

Present their short movies to their classmates.

Comment on the activity.

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81

Lesson 8

Plan Presentation Mónica Concepción

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•

Poetry • Song: Heal the world Michael Jackson

•

Standards • Reading and Writing

•

Expectations • R.8.6/ W.8.4 , W.8.2

•

Depth of knowledge Recall : Use Skill/ Concept: Construct Extended Thinking: Apply Concepts •

Conceptual: The students will use elements of poetry to identify imagery and symbolism.

They will apply verbs to the concepts.

•

Procedural: The students will read the lyrics of the song.

• They will look for the verbs through the lyrics and use them in sentences.

• Then they will write a cinquain poem based on the world.

•

Attitudinal: After watching the song’s video, the students will talk about things that people do that affect our world.

• • • • • •

Citizenship Caring Empathy Daily Reflection Students will talk about things that affect the world by completing a word map.

Students will choral read the lyrics of the song and they will talk about what feelings the words of the song evokes on them.

• Students will watch the video.

•

Students will look for verbs through the lyrics of the song. After they list all the verbs they found, they will write sentences using those verbs.

•

The students will review how to write a cinquain poem. Then on filler paper they will write one related to the message of the song.

•

Materaials: • • • • • • • • •

computer projector DVD lyrics of the song filler paper pencils whiteboard notebooks markers

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There’s a place in your heart And I know that it is love And this place could be much Brighter than tomorrow.

And if you really try You’ll find there’s no need to cry In this place you’ll feel There’s no hurt or sorrow.

There are ways to get there If you care enough for the living Make a little space, make a better place.

Chorus: Heal the world Make it a better place For you and for me and the entire human race There are people dying If you care enough for the living Make a better place for You and for me.

Lesson 9

My Journey So Far Vadi Vélez Grade: 12th

86

Time Frame: 1 week Content Standards and Learning Expectations: Reading R.12.3 Classifies genre, analyzes plot, establishes cause and effect; makes connections, predictions, and inferences in a variety of texts; draws conclusions; analyzes and determines conflict and resolution; uses text evidence to validate responses.

Writing W.12.1 Analyzes and assesses word choice to convey meaning; incorporates transitions, correct grammar, syntax, and style.

W.12.2 Evaluates and applies a variety of organizational techniques to write effective narrative, expository, and persuasive essays using the writing process; demonstrates a preferred style of writing.

Objectives: After completing the lesson, students will be able to: Conceptual • Search for information about a famous Puerto Rican that interests them.

• Create a 3-panel brochure presenting the most important details on the famous Puerto Rican they selected.

Procedural • Read a variety of narratives by Puerto Rican authors as well as about Puerto Rican experiences.

• Using the brochure model discussed in class as a guide, organize the information that will be included in the Famous Puerto Rican brochure.

Attitudinal • Have a better understanding and appreciation for Puerto Rican culture and themselves.

• Express their own formational experiences through writing.

Materials: 1.

Internet 2.

Copies of brochure model

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Copies of brochure rubric Classroom laptops Biography of Anibal Muñoz Claudio [with guide questions] Active learning SMARTBoard Student’s individual pen drive

Special Project: Famous Puerto Rican Short Biography (3 paragraphs mentioning main events in the life of the person selected).

Paragraph # 1 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Paragraph # 2 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Paragraph # 3 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ A.

Illustration/Photo of Famous Puerto Rican

Name of Person _______________________________ B. Answer the following question.

Why did you choose this famous Puerto Rican?

(1 paragraph – no more than 5 sentences) ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Name: ___________________ Group: ___________________ Date: _____________________ Workshop: ________________

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Lesson 10

Extraordinary Changes for Extraordinary Outcomes Mrs. Cristina M. León Pérez

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10th and 11th grade Being part of this professional training has been very encouraging and enlightening. Nowadays, we all know that our functions as educators blend in with many others and at some point these might interfere with our motivation and performance as teachers. The lack of materials and even ideas sometimes become a bit overwhelming and brings us to two questions: How can I teach this concept or skill and have my students really engaged in the process? How can I align everything and comply with all of the aspects in which a human being ought to develop and gain knowledge? These were some of the questions that haunted me constantly. Nevertheless, as time went by, I gathered enough knowledge and more passion towards my mission as an instructor to diverse learners.

Learning how to align the curriculum expectations with activities, values, and assessments was a big challenge as an amateur educator .However, It was not until I understood and saw the horizontal connections between these that I felt the liberty of launching myself and unfolding the parts that compose the integral parts of teaching.

I decided to focus my attention into one of the most dreaded genres by some of the students, which is poetry. This amazing genre represents a challenge to most students because of the critical thinking effort that is implied to understand the meaning within the words and appraise the art of expression. And there it is, art. There is nothing more appealing to our youngsters nowadays regarding communicating feelings; it is by means of audible and visual arts.

Therefore, after being exposed to a number of assessment tools, I decided to explore the multiple layers of poetry becoming aware of the poetic material that surrounds us daily, that is music. After, arranging a curricular matrix for this unit with the use and help of the strategies and methods provided throughout the training I came up with a set of complete, fun, and challenging lessons that facilitated and taught the students not only how to use poetic devices, but also to develop a sense of ownership of their knowledge. They interpreted, listened to, read, felt, and understood poetry and made it theirs.

As an educator, I felt nothing more rewarding than being the spectator of this monumental achievement. The best part of all is that it enabled me to work with the diversity of learners and their needs, which is our main goal as teachers. All of these accomplishments wouldn’t be possible without the support and gathering of resources and dedication. I have never felt so in control of my responsibility and so eager to continue working in such admirable labor. Motivational speaker Ty Howard said and I quote, “Ideas... plus Enthusiasm... plus ACTION... will amount to significant results if you go after a Vision of Hope with the belief that it’s possible — on a daily basis.” This is exactly what I found through this project and therefore, I hold on to this thought wholeheartedly and encourage you to do so as well.

Standards

Reading

Content Outline

• Poetry: Music

and Creative Writing

• Identifying and classifying Figurative Language in the songs: Listening

• Firework by

Katy Perry

• A thousand Years by Christina Perry • Rain

by Bruno Mars

Speaking

Writing

• Creating, justifying and explaining new outcomes (writing and presenting)

• Designing a concrete poem using their already invented figures of speech portrayed in an image related to the message of their song.

Expectections

R.11.5 Uses

elements of poetry and plays to analyze, interpred and compare and contrast genre, imagery, figurative language, and symbolisim L/S. 11.1 Listens an responds during a read aloud presentation , or performance from a variety of literature, periods, genres and styles to analyze character development and setting , and to distinguish the characteristics of tone, voice, and mood; makes connections to text.

L/S 11.3 Uses appropriate language structure to analyze, explain and state opinions in presentations W. 11.3 Applies figurative language and develops voice to produce different styles of poems.

Activities

Day 1-3

The students will be listening, reading, and interpreting a few songs. they will be identifying and classifying the figures of speechwithin them. The students will be place into pairs and will then select one of the ones studied.

Day 4-5 The students will be editing the original version by changing the figures of speech that the song has for new ones.

Values

• Respect for

each other opinion

• From the

songs:

• Love • Self-esteem • Justice

Assesment

Resources

Day 1-3

• Lyrics for each

• Lyrics and

vocabulary enrichment tasks for reading comprehension.

(Could include the use of sinonysms, antonyms, and parts of speach tasks.

Day 8-9 The students will work on a concrete poem. (symbol/object)

• Computer and

speakers

• Colored

Pencils

• For Concrete

Poems

• Computer Lab

Day 4-5 • Empty Song

Sheet.

• Rubric for

Job Distribution within pairs.

Day 6-7 • Rubric for

presentations.

Day 6-7 The students will present on PPP their new product to the class justifying their changes and explaining the meaning of them.

song

Day8-9 • Rubric for

Concrete Poems

• Cardboard • PowerPoint

Presentations

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January 2013 Curricular Matrix Lesson Plan Date: January 21, 2013 Grade: 11th Unit 11.6: Create!

Topic: Music and Creative Writing

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Theme: Poetry My Way (Day 1) General Strategy: ECA (Conceptualization) DOK: 2 Teaching Strategy: Direct Method Objectives: Conceptual After having discussed previously the figures of speech, the student will identify adequately these in a song.

Procedural While listening to the song for the second time, the student will select different colors for each figure of speech found.

Attitudinal At the end of the class, the student will show clearly his/her poetic interpretation of the song.

Initial Activities: The teacher will greet students as usual and share a reflection about the universal language of music. The teacher will then explain that music possess poetic elements that make them very rich in meaning.

Developmental Activities: The teacher will then encourage the students to listen to the song “Firework” by Katy Perry. Afterwards, the teacher will ask the students about their interpretation of the song. What do you think it is about?

What is she mentioning in the song? Then, the teacher will hand out copies of the lyrics and have the students look at the the words to find possible challenging words. They will be copied on the board. The teacher will start discussing the song by parts to enhance meaning. The teacher will ask the students to select specific colors for each figure of speech found in the song and make a legend of colors as well at the bottom of the page.

Closing Activity: The student will share his/her interpretation of the song.

Homework: Look for the synonym of the most difficult words found throughout the lyrics of the song that were previously written on the board.

Assessment: *Lyrics, questions through class discussion Materials: * Board, notebook, lyrics, colored pencils, Computer, speakers, mp3 file (song).

Special Arrangements •

Repetition of the instructions, Individual assistance, additional time.

Example of the final product Katy Perry’s song, “Firework”

Original Version

My Version

•Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?

Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?

• Do you ever feel, like a simple leaf shifting through wind...?

• ‘Cause baby, you’re a firework Come on, show ‘em what you’re worth Make ‘em go, oh As you shoot across the sky

• ‘Cause, baby you’re a super star Come let’s get this party on.

Make them go oh oh oh When you believe you can go far far far

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R

Resources

94 Dr. Annette López de Méndez Dr. López de Méndez holds a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Educational Research from Harvard University. She is the director of the Center for Educational Research of the College of Education of the University of Puerto Rico in RIo Piedras. She has taught courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UPR-Río Piedras in areas, such as investigation, curriculum, and preschool education, among others. She has also taught at the preschool and elementary levels and is a Consultant for the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in different projects such as the design of activARTE (2000), an interactive gallery for children and families. She also has collaborated with the Museo de Arte de Ponce in the programming of the Museum Education Symposium, and the Contribution of Museums to Society and Education (2008-09). She has been a consultant for Caguas’ Municipality Criollo Learning of the Arts for Children (2007-09). She has been a Member of the Advisory Board for Preschool of Fundación Angel Ramos and is President of the Asociación Puertorriqueña para la Educación de la Niñez en Edad Temprana (APENET) an affiliate chapter of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Dr. María Antonia Irizarry Dr. Irizarry holds a BA degree in the Teaching of English as a Second Language from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA degree in Arts in English Teaching, an MA in the Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language, and an Ed.D. in Languages and Literature from Columbia University in New York. Her professional career includes teaching in the public systems of Puerto Rico and the United States. She was a professor at the Essex County College of the New Jersey State University, Associate Superintendent of Schools of the Newark Board of Education in New Jersey, professor and director of the Education Department at Sagrado Corazón University in Puerto Rico, and the Dean of the College of Education at UPR- Río Piedras. She has represented the University of Puerto Rico internationally in different organizations and ministries of education of countries, such as Chile, República Dominicana, Panamá, and the United States. She is a professor and the Coordinator of the Graduate TESL Program at UPR-Río Piedras.

Prof. Aníbal Muñoz Claudio Dr. Muñoz Claudio holds a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction in English (TESL) from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and a BA and an MA in English Teaching and Curriculum (TESS, TESL) from the University of Puerto Rico. He also possesses a second MA in Translation, also from UPR at Rio Piedras. As a writer, he has published three novels (two in English/one in Spanish) and an Anthology titled, Boricuan Times, which includes 25 short stories and a play. His literary works mainly focus on adolescents’ lives and conflicts at school and in society. Dr. Muñoz has participated as a keynote speaker in several PRTESOL conferences and other forums through his 19 years of experience as an ESL professor in Puerto Rico. He currently works as assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao.

Dr. Elsie Candelaria–Sosa Dr. Candelaria-Sosa holds a doctoral degree in Education with a major in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. She has 25 years of teaching experience and holds the rank of Associate Professor at Colegio Universitario Tecnológico of San Juan. Dr. Candelaria is familiar with current trends in education and has effectively integrated technology into the teaching of English as a Second Language.

Her research interests include technology, the impact of the World Wide Web on language teaching and learning, and other areas of linguistics such as language change and gender-based differences in language use.

Dr. Lowell Fiet Dr. Fiet holds MA and PhD degrees and has over thirty years of experience as a professor of theater history and performance in the United States and especially in Puerto Rico. His numerous articles and books focus on Caribbean and Puerto Rican dramatic expression. He directed the Taller de Imágenes theater collective (1988-1995). His work frequently focuses on masked rituals, celebrations, and cultural performances. He is also active as a critic; he has written theater reviews for the weekly Puerto Rican newspaper Claridad since 1992. He teaches at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras and currently directs the Interdisciplinary Studies Program of the College of Humanities.

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Dr. Rosemary Morales Urbina

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Dr. Morales Urbina holds a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Teaching in TESL from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master’s degree in Bilingual Education from the City University of New York. She has been a curriculum consultant in various institutions in Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. She is a Full Professor of English at the Secondary School of the University of Puerto Rico, College of Education at Rio Piedras. Her interest in educational and new technologies is effectively incorporated in all her courses. She has been moderator of the English Forensic League of Puerto Rico, Chapter UHS for nine years to help students develop public speaking skills and in the dramatic arts and prepares them to compete at the annual competition. She enjoys traveling to other countries and learning about their culture and traditions.

Dr. Juan C. Vadi-Fantauzzi Dr. Vadi-Fantauzzi holds a doctoral degree in Education majoring in Spanish and a BA and an MA in the Arts with a major in Social Communication. He is a professor in the School of Communication of the University of Puerto Rico, RĂ­o Piedras Campus. He also works in the Graphics Arts Unit at the College of Education at UPR-Rio Piedras. He has been Acting Associate Director of the Department of Curriculum and Teaching of the College of Education at UPR-Rio Piedras. He has worked in different teacher training projects demonstrating how to integrate technology, specially the digital storytelling technique, to the school curriculum.

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