International English Center University of Colorado
Spring 2017
Puzzle
ESLevations
“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” ~Deepak Chopra
Thank you to all journal contributors! ~Amanda McCracken, Editor INSIDE THIS ISSUE 1: Puzzles: Editor’s Prelude
Puzzles
3: Do I fit?
By Editor, Amanda McCracken Growing up I hated working on traditional puzzles—the kind with 1,000 tiny pieces that all look alike scattered on a table. I had no patience for this kind of puzzle, but give me a puzzle that involved words, and I was game. Similarly, finding the types of puzzles that excite our students is one way we as teachers challenge ourselves to alter our teaching styles. Puzzles challenge our problem solving skills, our way of thinking, and how we work as a team. Contributions to this puzzlethemed journal, range from personal reflections on individual identity to puzzles that involve word patterns. In his piece “Classroom Hierarchy and Intertextuality,” Steve Olson investigates how the role of the teacher can adversely affect student writing. He suggests “hierarchical social relations” between student and teacher can negatively affect students’ choice of words in their writing. The IEC advisor position is one that is both challenging and rewarding. Susan Fouts and Connie Davis share anecdotes from current advisors on some of the puzzles they’ve faced and joys they’ve experienced being advisors to a variety of students.
5: Classroom Hierarchy and Intertextuality
9: The Multifaceted Advisor
11: IEC Presentations
14: Developing Word Automaticity in Reading
16: Implied Meaning as Inferred by ESL Students
18: Faculty Spotlight: Samar Aal
20: Guess where…? With Historian Larry
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One of the things we pride ourselves on at the IEC is our ability and willingness to collaborate. However, with our busy schedules, we don’t get a chance to share everything. This school year the IEC faculty and staff have given numerous presentations around the country. On pages 11-13 you can read abstracts from your peers’ presentations you may not have had the chance to attend. If something sparks your curiosity, ask your peers to share! In this journal several teachers used their own experiences to illustrate lessons. Michelle Raese calls us to look at the term “othering” in her personal piece, “Do I Fit?” where she shares her experiences as a Japanese-American growing up in Boulder. If you are looking for a new quick reading drill to help improve your students’ reading speed, read Agnes Farkas Roszell’s article on developing word automaticity. What began as a lesson that helped her son became a routine practice in her reading classes. Mike Hammond’s passion for music guided his article on how and why to use music lyrics to teach students to draw inferences. This journal’s faculty spotlight focuses on the complex identity of new faculty member Samar Aal. Her varied experiences make her who she is today and an asset to our team. And finally, our historian Larry Fisher quizzes us on the origins of several fascinating students who have sat in IEC classes during his 40 plus years working here.
Do I Fit? By Michelle Raese
As a child growing up in Boulder, people would regularly ask me, “Where are you from?” When I told them I was from Boulder, they would say impolitely, “But where are you from originally?” They would rephrase, “What is your ethnicity?” But I heard, “What are you? You don’t look like us.” “I don’t trust your answer to this question about your appearance.” Classmates in elementary school were less filtered and tried out all possible ethnic slurs they knew to my face or within earshot. School was my community, yet no matter what I did, I never completely fit because of my outward appearance. My skin color was slightly darker and my eyes had extra flaps of skin in the corners—all characteristics I could not change. Being called names was not supposed to hurt me, but it felt 2
otherwise. I had conflicting feelings that switched from gloating that bullies were so ignorant (they frequently assigned the wrong ethnicity) to wanting to be included and appreciated by them for the ways I excelled. This longing lingered in the shadows of my friendships. When one of my friends called me a racial epithet name at a slumber party while pretending to be asleep, none of the other kids said or did anything to help the situation. Another friend’s parent casually remarked to me, “Hmmm, Orientals must like yellow,” because she saw my mom in a yellow jacket. On Pearl Harbor Day, my school observed a moment of silence. The principal’s voice came over the intercom describing how Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Some of my classmates made jeering and derogatory remarks about the Japanese, without even realizing I was standing beside them with my hand on my heart. Feeling the blood rushing to my cheeks I wondered if as an American citizen, I was less patriotic or less an American because of my Japanese ancestry. My mother was a first generation immigrant from Japan, and growing up in Boulder meant I didn’t know many Japanese people—or other people of color. “I’m an American citizen,” she told me proudly. “And you are, too. You were born here and can be proud of your Japanese heritage. Immigrants have done great things here. And you have the strength of more than one culture.” I got used to my novelty, and alternately tired of it. Japanese people didn’t think I was Japanese; Americans didn’t think I was a “real” American. On forms that asked for identity, I could not select “White” nor “Asian Pacific Islander”. I was an “Other” and responsible for assuaging the curiosity of whomever wanted a full account. Searching for my own defined identity became a personal challenge and a solution to racism I witnessed and experienced in society and institutions that define themselves based on the existence of an “Other”. In college, I learned about Executive Order 9066, issued ten weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Franklin D. Roosevelt (1942). It authorized the mass removal of people of Japanese ancestry, even American citizens, and placed them in concentration camps. They lost property, businesses, and farmland and were rounded up to live in camps that were former structures for livestock. Some 120,000 men, women and children went to ten different camps in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah and even Colorado (National Archives). Males had a choice from inside camps to prove their loyalty by agreeing to fight in the war for America, or face deportation to Japan. After finding out about this piece of American history, it surprised me my mother knew of it and never spoke about it. She wasn’t interred in a camp unlike some of her friends because she came to the US in the 1960s. Still, she silently endured the same attitudes from Americans who only saw her as “un-American”, “enemy”, “other”. The 3
Japanese Americans have been collectively called “The Quiet Americans” because of their stoicism and acceptance of the way events unfold. Today, it’s not uncommon to meet Nisei and Sansei who are unaware their parents or grandparents are/were survivors of the camps because no one in the family ever spoke about it. I firmly believe, now more than ever as a teacher, that we should know our history and remain vigilant to protect the rights of all, even if it is not immediately apparent as to how we fit together. Additionally, as teachers, we should understand the phenomenon of “Othering” in terms of identity construction within cultures and nations, particularly as we incorporate the practice of inclusivity in the classroom. Several important writers and thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Edward Said, Simone de Beauvoir and Edmund Husserl have addressed how we tend to identify “the Other” and how this results in discrimination and dehumanization. Fred Korematsu, who was imprisoned for trying to resist internment during WWII, went all the way to the Supreme Court to argue against legalized discrimination in Korematsu v. United States. He lost his case in 1944, but it was later thrown out in 1983 because of “racist hysteria” during the time of war. Korematsu’s case was not explicitly overturned, however, even though it was proven that false evidence was presented in 1944 by the government (Trickey). Speaking out against the perils of racial profiling, he defended Muslim Americans after 9/11, insisting that US leaders not duplicate the harm imposed on Japanese Americans. I quote Korematsu below to invite your discussion with me on the implications of “othering.” “According to the Supreme Court decision regarding my case, being an American citizen was not enough. They say you have to look like one, otherwise they say you can’t tell a difference between a loyal and a disloyal American. I thought that this decision was wrong and I still feel that way. As long as my record stands in federal court, any American citizen can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or a hearing. That is if they look like the enemy of our country. Therefore, I would like to see the governMichelle with her Uncle Ed and Aunt Yoko ment admit that they were wrong and do celebrating the New Year in their kimonos something about it so this will never happen again to any American citizen of any race, creed or color” (qtd. in abbreviated biography Fred T. Korematsu).
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References "Document for February 19th: Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese". Record Group 11; The National Archives. Retrieved 20 March 2017. Fred T. Korematsu Institute ( 2017, March). Retrieved from http://www.korematsuinstitute.org/fred-t-korematsu-lifetime/Korematsu v. United States (1944) Japanese Internment, Equal Protection. http://landmarkcases.org/en/landmark/cases/ korematsu_v_united_states Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Patheon Books. Trickey, E. (2017). Fred Korematsu Fought Against Japanese Internment in the Supreme Court… and Lost. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fred-korematsu-fought-againstjapanese-internment-supreme-court-and-lost-180961967/#diJGYdDTkfX88L7j.99
Classroom Hierarchy and Intertextuality By Steven Olson "Intertextuality" refers to ways by which material from a text is incorporated into another text. Perhaps the most conventional way by which text is incorporated into another text is by 'paraphrasing'; however, illegitimate means also are used: patchwriting and outright plagiarism. These are negative examples of intertextuality. If one chooses to broaden the concept of 'intertextuality,' then one might include citations that refer to texts from which nothing has been 'borrowed.' Investigation of intertextuality within English as a second language writers’ text has focused on ‘patchwriting’ within ‘resource-based’ writing. Insufficient attention has been given to social relations embedded within text. I propose that student writing is shaped by hierarchical social relations (Abasi & Akbari, 2008), thereby obscuring a student writer’s persona (see Don, 2016). A student writer’s persona is herein defined as her presentation of self (Goffman, 1956), but within text. A textual persona functions through performance, itself intended for and shaped by an audience. Within text, the audience is the intended reader situated within the perceived boundaries of academic discourse and, for graduate students, disciplinary discourses within the division of specialized knowledges. Student familiarity with discourse facilitates performance, of course; however, information may be imperfectly allocated, leading some students to establish and to perform their personas more effectively than others (see Ouellette, 2008). Ideally, students within second language learning milieus acquire information about discourses so that their performance reflects an increasingly appropriate persona within academia. Students also learn to adjust their perceptions of adequacy of performance within a new cultural frame 5
(American academic culture differs from non-American academic cultures in subtle ways, e.g., use of first person pronouns). Students also learn to adjust their perceptions of adequacy of performance (enactment of a persona) within a new cultural frame. Use of first person pronouns elicits controversy among many students (and professionals) whose first language is other than English. For example, former ESLG 1210 students stated that first person pronouns were unacceptable in technical text. Yet, by the end of the course and when they prepared to write a capstone (collaborative research project), these students not only demonstrated familiarity with academic discourse but also reconceptualized writing within academe. A few excerpts from a capstone suffices to show that students adjusted their perceptions and thereby produced text within a cultural frame befitting expectations of how writers enact their personas: Our research question is, “Is the wireless navigation system a practical replacement for the cane stick or the guide dog used by the visually impaired to navigate?” We planned to integrate an application through which the user (who can be a relative assigned by the owner of the navigation system) could monitor the location and health parameters of the owner (the person who owns/wears the navigation system). Gilson, Gohil, Khan, & Nagaonkar, 2015
Clearly, these students altered their perception of academic/technical text production to fit the expectations – often unstated and occasionally even denied – of how first person pronouns are routinely used to guide readers through text, to recount choices writers have made in conducting research, and to interpret information. Here are two examples from published studies: In this paper, we aimed to shed light on the differences among subjectivity terms and put forward the potential that these differences provide to advancing the NLP research. Munezero, Montero, Sutinen, & Pajunen (2014) Here, we describe experiments demonstrating the ability to perform high energy-resolution measurements of x-rays into UV PDC with laboratory x-ray systems. We overcome the low count rate challenge by using a silicon drift detector with a dark count rate of less than 1 count per 1000s. We increase the signal-to-noise-ratio by inserting narrow slits before and after the Ge (220) 2bounce channelcut analyzer and by carefully aligning their positions with respect to the center of the beam. We measure the effect in diamond and in LiF crystals in the UV range of between 30eV and 65eV with an energy resolution of a few eV, which is comparable to the resolution reported with synchrotron 6
experiments. In this regime, we measure the effect in LiF near the fluorine LI edge at 37eV and near the K edge of the lithium at 55eV and show that the effect is atomic selective. Borodin, Levy, & Schwartz (2017) An initial step in student writers’ adjustment to discourse differences is to establish a persona within the text. This step, however elementary, nonetheless has ramifications beyond the strategic use of first person pronouns. Textual persona reflects more than discourse features specific to academia and to cultural context; textual persona reflects as well the performance of dialogue between writers who present themselves to readers within a hierarchy. It is the writer’s perception of this hierarchy that aids the reproduction of relations of authority (see Abasi & Akbari, 2008) through deference. ESL pedagogy prepares students for entry into the aforementioned hierarchy through mirroring the hierarchy within academia. Occupants of higher statuses are perceived as having authority and power over occupants of lower statuses. Simply stated, ‘teachers’ occupy higher statuses, whereas ‘students’ occupy lower statuses. Given this hierarchy, students might engage in transgressive intertextuality (use of source materials that violate not merely ethical standards but also dialogue essential to a text’s adequacy)1, thereby eclipsing their personas through pseudo-performance (plagiarism). Students might otherwise engage in reactive intertextuality (defined as reluctance to interpret original source material, resulting in excessive quotation or importation of ideas with little or no active interpretation of those ideas), thus obscuring their personas through wooden paraphrases perhaps thought to reflect not their interpretation of others’ text but a mere reflection of that text. Both transgressive and reactive intertextualities offer little in the way of performance of personas. The student writer has absented herself from the text, thereby remaining in a subordinate status facilitating the reproduction of authority (and power). A third option, articulated by Yamada (2003), advances an alternative performance: interpretation of another’s text through inferential logic. Yamada’s suggestion is that student writers use either deductive inference or analogy to interpret text. Here is an example of how this might be accomplished when interpreting information from a text published in the journal “Advances in Mechanical Engineering”: 1
Stemwedel (2013) offers this insightful acknowledgement of the dialogical nature of scientific studies, which informs not only professional research but also the expectations grounding all academic writing, even that at the undergraduate level: “On the surface, plagiarism, while potentially nasty to the person whose report is being stolen, might seem not to undermine the scientific community’s evaluation of the phenomena. We are still, after all, bringing together and comparing a number of different observation reports to determine the stable features of our experience of the phenomenon. But this comparison often involves a dialogue as well. As part of the knowledge-building project, from the earliest planning of their experiments to well after results are published, scientists are engaged in asking and answering questions about the details of the experience and of the conditions under which the phenomenon was observed.”
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Original Text (fr om Fan, Y ang, W ang, Song, & Song, 2017) “In some specific harsh situations (e.g. high temperature and moist [sic]), the installation [of a speed sensor] reduces the reliability of the system” Interpreted Text System reliability is degraded by both excessive heat and moisture. System reliability is degraded when the speed sensor is installed under adverse external conditions. Though the interpretations might not remain fully faithful to the original, Yamada would argue that the use of others’ text is not to demonstrate faithful reproduction but to demonstrate understanding (see Paltridge and Starfield, 2007, on the expected textual performances of university students in producing text). Students who assert their personas potentially break the reproductive chain of authority by repositioning themselves as knowledgeable subjects. Their presentation of self is no longer deferential; rather, the text as a site of dialogue is redefined as one of peer-to-peer, at least momentarily. Hierarchy presupposes vertical lines of authority and power in which students are disadvantaged. This disadvantage is evidenced in the perceived need to accommodate more knowledgeable, and therefore more authoritative and powerful, audiences who determine the merit of text not as performance within which persona is projected but as reproduction of hierarchical relations. The implication is that student persona becomes visible within an interpretive frame of text appropriation, whereas that persona is less visible or even eclipsed within a rigid conformity to perceived original meaning. Text, as a site of dialogue, is also a site of struggle wherein the student writer seeks to find the means by which to construct a persona and thereby redefine relations of (textual) production/ reproduction. If here I may offer a personal aside, I would like to note that I attempt to reduce the effect of hierarchy in the classroom. One small way is to decenter authority by sitting among students or even encouraging students to take turns sitting in the ‘teacher chair.’ Students have much to contribute, in the classroom and in their papers. Dialogue occurs among equals, though some may have more to contribute than others at a particular time or on a particular topic. As students become thus empowered, they are more likely to feel free to enact personas becoming of university students. References Abasi, A. R. & Akbari, N. (2008). Are we encouraging patchwriting? Reconsidering the role of the pedagogical context in ESL student writers’ transgressive intertextuality. English for Specific Purposes, 27(3), 267-284. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2008.02.001 8
Borodin, D., Levy, S. & Schwartz, S. (2017, March). High energy-resolution measurements of x-ray into ultraviolet parametric down-conversion with an x-ray tube source. Applied Physics Letters, 110. doi: 10.1063/1.4979413 Don, A. (2016). “It is hard to mesh all this”: Invoking attitude, persona and argument organization. Functional Linguistics, 3(9), 1-26. doi: 10.1186/s40554-016-0033-1
The Multifaceted Advisor By Susan Fouts and Connie Davis
IEC Primary advisors are the first point of contact between students and their academic program. An advisor’s duties include meeting with assigned advisees during orientation, first or second week of classes, mid-session advising day, end-of-session advising day, and as needed per student throughout each session. It is during these meetings that students sometimes reveal significant details about their lives and situations for which an advisor can become especially valuable. It is also during these meetings when advisors experience their greatest challenges, rewards, and surprises. We would like to share some of our advisors’ reflections and anecdotes in order to share and perhaps heighten your awareness of the roles played by IEC advisors. Anecdotes Advisor #1:
As an advisor, I have had more opportunities to serve in the role of a mentor to some students and have shared tender moments of connecting and understanding across cultures and ages. The closest one was a young Saudi man. We talked a lot, and he often came to talk to me when he needed advice or to tell me about something going on in his life. He is studying at a Saudi university now, and we are still in touch by email. Another advisee was a Chinese student who was very bright but was an independent, non-conforming individual. Consequently, he had difficulty completing the requirements of conventional higher education, so we met often to discuss his Student Success Plan. He was grateful to have someone to talk to who could understand his situation and be supportive. Another rewarding part of being an advisor is being able to help students who are feeling overwhelmed and confused by completing necessary paperwork requirements. Helping students get their official transcripts to their home country’s advisor, or helping them to learn how to talk to their teachers about grades and missed assignments are examples of how I’ve reduced their stress. I’ve learned that no matter what culture or country our students come from, they all have the same desire to be understood and supported in navigating life’s challenges. Thus, it is personally gratifying and rewarding when I see them smile, relax, and even tear up with appreciation for having received my time and help. 9
Advisor #2: Some of my best memories are when students come to tell me that they have achieved a test score so they can go to university, and to thank me for my help. One of my most difficult memories is of a student who was both in my writing class and who was my advisee. His failure to pass, both the writing final and my writing class, and his failure to engage with me as his advisor, was a double loss. When I have connected with an advisee on a more personal level, I feel that their smiles at seeing me and their visits to tell me their progress are genuine, and this rapport bridges our communication and enhances their vision for success. A student came in for a routine signature, and I asked her how she was doing. She replied with an enthusiastic, “Great!” I asked her what made her feel so great, and she said that she is leaving the IEC. I never want to assume that I understand their world; also, I want to be un-shockable and curious about their perspectives. So I feel that being an advisor enriches me emotionally equally as much as I assist them practically. Advisor #3: A year ago, I had a 19 year-old female student who came to see me about being depressed. She felt her class assignments were overwhelming, and she was very concerned about her performance in her classes. She was my advisee, but also my student in I-2 Writing. She had an A in my class, and when I looked up her grades in her other classes, she had A’s and B’s. She was doing well in her classes, but when I inquired further into her perception of how she was doing in her classes, she felt she was doing poorly. (I thought that she could be suffering from being a perfectionist.) Any small correction made her feel overwhelmed that she wouldn’t be able to do it correctly. She also confessed that she had felt deeply depressed at times and even had trouble getting out of bed. In addition, she informed me that she had trouble sleeping and focusing on her assignments. She asked for my advice. I suggested that she speak to a professional mental health counselor at Wardenburg. She had a few more visits with the therapist, and, with time, she improved and entered CU as planned. She has always had a sweet disposition and is extremely smart. If you met her for the first time, you would never guess that she had ever suffered from acute anxiety.
Final Thoughts Advising is in many ways like teaching in that one must have a lot of patience and good listening skills. But in advising, one does get to know the students on a deeper level, and this is something that can be both challenging and rewarding. Advisors face different puzzles on a daily basis—and the pieces fit together differently for each student.
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IEC Presentations This school year the IEC’s faculty and staff have presented an impressive number of times at conferences around the country. We are fortunate to work together among such a talented group of individuals. Here’s a snapshot of those presentations. Presenters
Conference
Title
Abstract
Nick Einterz, Olivia Livneh, & Kirsten Stauffer
COTESOL 2016
Development at a This presentation provides an overview of online course creation for TESOL learnDistance: ESL ers. Attendees learn how to implement an Online Courses online TESOL course, including curriculum and Learning Management System (LMS) design, instructor collaboration, student interaction, and time management. In short, presenters prepare attendees to design their own online courses.
Kirsten Stauffer & COTESOL 2016 Summer Webb
Engaging Students through Drama & Music
“All the world is a stage.” Drama and music can be used as powerful tools to practice listening and speaking in the ESL classroom. Presenters will demonstrate engaging activities employing these mediums while targeting contextualized language development of students’ vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation abilities.
Barbara Flocke, COTESTOL Summer Webb, 2016 & Kirsten Stauffer
Exploring Campus Culture Through TaskBased Projects
International students face various cultural adjustment challenges on campus. Presenters demonstrate university preparation projects exploring real-world situations to help students overcome these obstacles. Participants leave with modifiable task-based projects targeting an integrated skills approach and resources to foster student transition to the university.
Sylvie Chevallier & Amanda McCracken
Bridging Generations and Cultures: Students and Seniors
Learn how to set up meaningful experientiallearning activities between ESL students and seniors, what our students contributed and took away in terms of life, culture and language lessons, and why we believe this is a rich and valuable opportunity for international students to experience.
Ten Fun Vocabulary Games
This demonstration shows teaching English vocabulary to non-native speakers using games and activities that are fun and interactive. The games are appropriate for all levels and ages.
COTESOL 2016
Jennifer Caines & COTESOL 2016 Matt Morley
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Presenters
Conference
Title
Abstract
Sarah Vollman
COTESOL 2016
Speaking Activities that Work for Chinese Students
IEPs have seen a significant increase in Chinese student populations. This presentation will provide several speaking activities that lower affective filters and help students at all levels. Come ready to practice as well as discuss what techniques you use.
Parmelee Welsh & Connie Davis
COTESOL 2016
PSA Experiential Learning Project
The presenters prepared, piloted and implemented an experiential learning project in an IEP to build listening, speaking, and teamwork skills as students created Public Service Announcements in groups. Participants engaged in discussion about the challenges and rewards of this class project and viewed samples of student-created PSAs.
Agnes FarkasRoszell & Connie Davis
COTESOL 2016
Icebreakers and Warm-ups Galore
Everyone needs a refresher on icebreakers and warm-ups from time to time. This was a demonstration of some successful, innovative, tried and true, and delightful ideas. Attendees received the presenters' collection for use in their classes.
George Zamarripa
English USA 2017: Monterey, CA
Digital Communications Management for IEPs: Essentials of Social Media and Email Campaigns
In this workshop, attendees will learn about digital communication strategies geared specifically toward IEPs. Topics include: finding your audience; choosing the right platforms; avoiding pitfalls; creating engaging content; developing an editorial calendar; building an effective email campaign; finding/utilizing user engagement data in email campaigns; and more.
Amanda McCracken
English USA 2017: Monterey, CA
How and Why to Create a Faculty Generated Journal
An online faculty journal provide a single venue in which faculty can showcase their research/expertise, offer support for one another, help promote their own program, practice what they teach (in terms of writing and research skills), and improve comradery. The presenter will explain how to create such program investment.
Connie Davis & Michelle Raese
English USA 2017: Monterey, CA and COTESOL 2016
Great Apps for the Classroom
This demonstration overviewed free apps as engagement tools in the classroom and described their applicability and use at an IEP. We discussed using apps to meet students in their own contemporary norms. Attendees had the opportunity to try them out and share ideas for adoption in any classroom. 12
Presenters
Conference
Title
Abstract
Katie Mitchell TESOL Seattle & Matthew 2017 Burrows
Imagining the Future: Challenging Assumptions in Program Design
Immersive, experiential learning is still not widely accessible. This session will provide a model for building educational communities that benefit both students and teachers. Participants will learn about a pilot EFL program that leveraged students’ expertise, project work, and technology. Participants will actively contemplate the future of language programs.
Mark Sullivan TESOL Seattle 2017
Poster Session: Teaching U.S. History to ESL Students: Content and Language Combined
Teaching content can be tricky, but these strategies might help. Research shows that content-based instruction helps develop learners' language skills, but how can it be best implemented in the classroom? Learn strategies for getting students engaged in content while improving their language skills.
Karen Eichorn & Luke Coffelt
TESOL Seattle 2017
Reading Fluency Made Easy with ESL-bits.net
Fluency building can be difficult for ELLs, especially when engaged in extended reading. This practical demonstration showcases eslbits.net, an open-source Website that provides learners with readings while simultaneously allowing them to listen to audio of the text. Participants will learn how to use esl-bits.net to promote reading fluency.
Ruth Moore & Barbara Flocke
TESOL Seattle 2017
Comprehension Out Loud: Collaborative Strategic Activities for Building Reading Skills
Are you looking for engaging ways to help your students build academic reading comprehension skills? Presenters demonstrate scaffolded group activities for students to summarize, paraphrase and respond to main ideas while ensuring individual accountability and equal participation. Participants leave with resources for designing reading lessons that get students talking.
Nick Einterz
For the United States Distance Learning Conference: Indianapolis 2017
STEM at a Distance: Projectbased Curriculum for Online Science Courses
This presentation offers a gamification model for designing project-based STEM curriculum on the D2L learning management system. The presentation will display past project designs (visual stills and videos) and technical writings as evidence of how the curriculum can encourage both academic and creative skills in students.
Shing Kit (Jackie) Wong
NAFSA 2017
Bridging IEP and Undergraduate Studies - ESL Academic Bridge Program
The audience will learn how to identify the challenges working with conditionally admitted students in an IEP, how to create a strong partnership between IEP and academic advising to enhance the preparedness of ESL students for their undergraduate studies, and how to develop a successful program based on student population needs and institutional types. 13
Developing Word Automaticity in Reading By Agnes Farkas Roszell
When my son in second grade was struggling with reading, we had him tested for dyslexia. Nothing unusual was identified. I was frustrated. As luck would have it, around this same time, I attended a lecture at TESOL Dallas (2013) about teaching reading to Middle Eastern students. I was fascinated by the presented idea of automatic word recognition. It made perfect sense to me as a valuable tool to use in order to increase students’ reading speed. Automatic word recognition is the ability to identify words quickly and effortlessly, which will lead to reading texts faster. After the same conference, Ruth Moore mentioned a book by Keith S. Folse titled “Rapid Reading Practices.� Initially, I was questioning how a line of six words would help someone read faster, but then I tried the exercises myself and started experimenting on my son. My first observation was that it was just kind of boring. It was somewhat of a monotonous game of having a word or expression to the left of a big black line, then five words listed to the right where you had to circle the word/expression that was EXACTLY the same as the word to the left of the line. (See example below.) However, practicing with my son started yielding promising results, so I began preparing word lists for my reading classes. The exercises range from beginning to advanced, ending with words on the academic word list. My students started circling the words reluctantly at the beginning, but soon decided they liked the challenge. As they progressed through the four levels, they thought the activity was getting more interesting. I began timing them, and we had races to see who could identify the right words faster. With time and continuous practice, just ten minutes at the beginning of each class, my students began recognizing words in their reading text books that they had seen on my word lists. They were excited about how fast they could spot these words and felt that their reading speed was improving. I concluded from this experiment that automatic word recognition was especially helpful for my Middle Eastern students due to the fact that they face the difficult challenge of learning to read from left to right (opposite of reading in Arabic). Changing the direction must not be easy for the brain and the eyes, but training definitely paid off, and students improved without much effort. If someone wants to attend a university in the United States, they need to be able to read a huge amount and usually are not given a lot of time to fulfill that requirement. Reading fast is definitely an essential skill in order to succeed. I have taught Reading to ESL students of different levels. I know how they struggle and how frustrated they 14
tend to get with their slow progress of their timed readings. Rapid reading is a special challenge for students who are from countries where the Latin alphabet is not used, or where the reading direction is different. These students have a special disadvantage. They might have a good vocabulary base and be able to exhibit good proficiency in the second language, but they still labor over every word. Even a good command of the language can mean below college level freshman reading speed. This is, unfortunately, commonly neglected by ESL teachers. Many directions to readings, such as “Read the paragraph as fast as possible,� are too vague. Word recognition has proven most beneficial for my son and my students as well. Although at first I experienced some resistance from the students because of the simplicity of the exercise, slowly they got the hang of it and started enjoying the activity. Timing how fast they could find the right words really got students into the competitive spirit. If I skipped a class and did not have a work sheet for them, they would vocalize their disappointment. Take a look at Folse's book in my office. There are four different levels (basic to advanced) you could use. There are word lists online from which you can make your own lists or worksheets. Try it yourself and let me know what you think. Figure 1: Example of an intermediate level word list of frequently occurring words
1.
I yell
me yell
I tell
I fell
I yell
I will
2. Knew
know
now
known
knew
knowing
3. To ask
task
mask
to ask
asked
a task
4 .
Wife
wolf
wives
whiff
wife
wipe
5.
Hear
head
herd
heard
hear
beard
References Folse, K.S. (2007.) Rapid reading practices, Developing word automaticity in reading. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Anderson, N. J. (1983.) Rapid Reading in the ESL Classroom (Presentation Pdf) TESOL Conference Toronto, Canada.
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Implied Meaning as Inferred by ESL Students (The Mystery in Song Lyrics) By Mike Hammond
Once becoming an ESL teacher, my familiarity and affection for the power of music perked my curiosity for how music could make impressions on people learning English. After all, music is a part of any culture. I believe music has the power to reach people in a way that they may not realize until later. This is supported by research done on the use of song lyrics to teach recognition by Justin Stygles who investigated the effect of using song lyrics to teach K-6 students in 2014. (2014) Therefore, part of my strategy for teaching ESL has always been to include music at selected times to break up the routine of English instruction, and in the process, I have discovered many valuable benefits to the use of music as part of an ESL lesson. One of these benefits is getting students to `see beyond’ words as grammar units on a page and to help them recognize underlying meaning that connects common vocabulary and syntax with human feeling and emotion. When I met my Peruvian wife’s sister, Caro, we were listening to `More than Words’ by the 90’s band Extreme, and she was telling me how romantic she thought that song was. However, Caro (about intermediate ESL level) was devastated when I explained to her the real meaning of the lyrics – that when the singer says ` …if you knew how easy it would be to show me how you feel… more than words… is all you have to do to make it real…” – the guy is actually saying, “A physical relationship will demonstrate you love me.’’ She had interpreted the meaning of the song to be romantic and sweet; upon learning the real meaning, she recognized her misinterpretation of the lyrics to be what was `on the surface’ textually. It was an `aha’ moment for me as a teacher when I recognized that song lyrics could help students to understand indirect meaning more readily in their absorption and application of their exposure to English in a holistic manner. The following are a few of the observations I have made while teaching song lyrics as part of lessons on inferred meaning. For ESL beginners, `Paperback Writer,’ by the Beatles, or the more modern `When I Was Your Man,’ by Bruno Mars, can function in both reading and writing classes as effective teachers of 1st person narrative strategies. The underlying meaning of the story is only slightly disguised in each song, helping instructors to guide Author Mike presenting at COTESOL
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students in subtle secondary meaning. Also, `Paperback Writer’ offers effective examples of grammatical switching between simple present, past and future tense, as well as the use of conditional and modals. `When I Was Your Man’ gives a strong example (if not grammatically perfect) of modals of past regret. For intermediate ESL learners, more complex songs such as the Eagles `Lying Eyes’ offer a lyrical narrative that seems simple and easy to comprehend for native speakers, but not so quickly absorbed by intermediate level students. The story is that of a young woman who marries an older, wealthy suitor for financial security, but later discovers that money cannot buy her true love or happiness. For example, the line `A rich old man, and she won’t have to worry… she’ll dress up all in lace, and go in style…’ – is immediately apparent to native speakers as referring to the storyline. I have observed that few students at the intermediate level connect the word `lace’ and the colloquial expression `go in style’ with a wedding. However, once explained to the class, the reference becomes apparent, and this song functions well to introduce students to the idea of looking deeper than words on a page and recognizing purpose behind use of specific terms by English speaking songwriters. For advanced students, the song by the Police `Wrapped Around Your Finger’ tells a seemingly simple story of a romantic relationship between an older and younger person. However, closer interpretation of lyrics such as `…hypnotized by you if I should linger… staring at the ring around your finger…’ reveals that one of the two people in the relationship is married. The simple use of the second person `your finger’ offers a clear separation from the narrator, who does not have a ring. After listening to these songs and interpreting them with a teacher’s assistance, they function well to instruct students how to draw inferences and be more aware of underlying meaning in text. They guide students to be more creative in their thinking about other people’s written material and in writing their own. References Frey, G. Henly, D. (1975) Lying Eyes. One of These Nights. Geffen Records, Los Angeles, California. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3066 Mars, B. (1/15/2013) When I Was Your Man. Unorthodox Jukebox. Atlantic Records. Web. Retrieved from: https://www.mychordbook.com/chords/bruno-mars/when-i-was-your-man McCartney, P. (5/30/1966) Paperback Writer. Past Masters (Song released as a single.) Apple Records, London, UK. Web. Retrieved from: https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/paperback -writer/ Sting. (1983) Wrapped Around Your Finger. Synchronicity (Album) Lyrics by Sting. Dial Press, New York, NY. 2007. Stygles, J. (2014) Building Schema: Exploring Content with Song Lyrics and Strategic Reading. The Language and Literacy Spectrum; Volume 24. Web. Retrieved from: http:// files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1034915.pdf
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Faculty Spotlight on Samar Aal By Amanda McCracken
Who is Samar Aal? She asked herself a very similar question when she found herself packing her blue and grey suitcases to move to Boulder. The first time she’d packed those bags was when she moved from Egypt to New York City. The second time was to move from New York City to Indonesia. She recalls thinking to herself, “My life is basically two suitcases.”
After interviewing Samar, she appears to me to be a beautiful mosaic of the people she’s encountered and the places she’s visited and become. Questioning her identity along the way has made her a more perceptive, patient, and accepting individual. First and foremost, she identifies herself as an educator. “I always knew I was going to be a teacher,” says Samar, “When my mother realized that I loved teaching, she bought me a large blackboard and chalk. I would pretend I was a teacher and explain to my younger sister lessons.” Samar’s appreciation for and acknowledgement of multiple world views began as a child born into a Muslim family sent to attend a Catholic grade school. Samar majored in English literature and minored in French at Ain Shams University. After college she taught English at private high schools in Egypt for four years. While teaching she trained under the guidance of visiting University of California, Santa Cruz instructors to obtain her TEFL certificate. She then worked at the American University of Cairo in 2005 teaching TEFL to adults. In 2006, she packed up her blue and grey suitcases and immigrated to the States to teach English at Zoni, an ESL center for adults for four years. In 2010 she began a master’s program at Hunter College, CUNY. In NYC, she worked as a part-time instructor at three CUNY colleges: LaGuardia, Baruch, and Hunter. When she graduated with her master’s in 2013 and got her American citizenship, she applied for and was granted the English Language Fellowship (ELF) program
Samar Samarat atwedding an Indonesian of former wedding students of former who students now study whoin now thestudy Statesin the States 18
funded by the U.S. state department and supervised by the U.S embassy in Jakarta. Her blue and grey suitcases were packed and she was off to Indonesia for three years. She spent two years on the island of Sumatra and one year in Jakarta. During this fellowship, she taught undergraduate students in the departments of Education and Teacher Training, coordinated projects between the embassy and the universities where she worked, gave countless presentations around Southeast Asia, and taught students awarded scholarships to study in the United States. Samar is most proud of community service work she helped organized. She trained university students of all majors how to teach young learners. The students were then sent out into areas of need where they taught Indonesian, Math, and English to children (ages 5-12—most girls) in makeshift classrooms. During her time in Indonesia she backpacked through nine countries. She found herself at times uncomfortable with people who would look at her and say, “But you are not a real American.” But she also remembers being unnerved when people back in America would say, “I do not see you as Arab. I think of you as totally American.” The intention was goodwilled. “They were trying to compliment me,” she says. However, both responses denied part of her identity. Her experience traveling in Asia made her realize she too had to be careful not to stereotype based on appearances. “I take time now to try to understand situations and people before making judgements.” Samar ‘s student teachers working with youth in Jakarta
In addition, Samar says her ELF position made her more appreciative of the comforts she has. She makes time for herself more and takes better care of health. Her self-confidence greatly increased through the many public speaking presentations she gave. “I miss that challenge and excitement—that adrenaline rush from being handed the mike when the keynote speaker turns up absent.” At a conference for peace and tolerance, Samar gave a talk on cross-culturalism. She 19
remembers saying to the audience, “I will never be only American, and I know I’m not only Egyptian. And I’m happy to be a mix of both. They don’t have to be in conflict with each other. Now, my time in Asia has also shaped who I am.” “Despite Boulder being a predominately ‘white’ city, people here are more likely to judge you based on poor eating, recycling, and exercising habits than the color of your skin,” she half jokes. Samar says she feels well integrated at the IEC and Boulder. It’s safe to say those two suitcases aren’t taking any long term voyages any time soon.
Guess Where the Student was From... By Larry Fisher The IEC has had many fascinating students over the years. Can you identify where these students came from? Answers at the bottom. 1. Designed the IEC logo? 2. Voted best sommelier of this country? 3. Blind sky jumper and marathon runner? 4. Movie star hiding from the Paparazzi?
5. Mother was brain surgeon, and father was nuclear physicist? 6. Member of this country’s Supreme Court? 7. Coded the IEC Admin database? 8. Top ten winner in Arnold Schwarzenegger International Fitness competition? 1. Dominican Republic 2. Spain 3. Saudi Arabia 4. Italy 5. Switzerland 6. Peru 7. Thailand 8. Saudi Arabia
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