how times have changed - BC TEAL

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

jeffbell@thetimescolonist writing boost for english students 14 hrs ago . reply johndonaldredmond@2008TEAL conference eslpioneersbc: a brief proto-history 18 hrs ago . reply dr.li-shihhuang@keyconceptsandtheories language-learning needs assessment 3 days 2 hrs ago . reply

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Winter 2011

Contents B.C. TEAL Board of Directors

3

B.C. TEAL 43rd Annual Conference

14

Letter from the President

4

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL

15-19

Letter from the Editor

5

TEAL Writing Competition Honorable Mentions 21-23

Writing Boost for English Students

6

To SIG or to POD? That is the Question!

24-25

Prior Knowledge

26-27

BC Women Pioneers in the ESL Field

7-8

1 Topic, 3 Takes

10-12

ELSA Upcoming Conferences

27

The Wired Teacher

13-14

TCF Awards and Scholarship Announcements

29

Research SIG Announcement

30

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BC TEAL Board of Directors

BC TEAL Newsletter Committee

President (2009-2011) - Michael Galli First Vice-President, Chair of PAAC (2010-2012) - Karen Densky Second Vice-President, Admin Conference (2010-2012) - Shawna Williams Treasurer (2010-2012) - Janice G T Penner Secretary / Membership Committee (2009 - 2011) - Nick Collins Past President (2009 - 2011) - Liet Hellwig Administrative Manager Marilyn Pierlet [email protected] Members-at-Large (2010-2012) Rebecca Kullman - Co-Chair, Professional Development Committee Susan M. Peake - Co-Chair, Professional Development Committee Nila Gopal Aleah Gustafson Seonaigh Macpherson- ELSA Net Representative Patricia Nicoli -Editor, TEAL Newsletter Michele O’Doherty Jennifer Pearson Terell Tunde Tuzes Eddy White Julie Bond

Editor Patricia Nicoli [email protected] Advertising Manager Adriana del Paso [email protected] Layout Manager Sandra McGoldrick Special Thanks Lydia Skulstad Shawna Williams Tracey Bell Marti Sevier Jennifer Walsh Marr Jillian Snyder Karen Aughtry Jane Wangersky Eilidh Singh

ESL Writing Contest Committee Eddy White Aleah Gustafsson Carmen Larson

Members-at-Large (2010-2011) Joel Rhein - Chair, Special Interests Group Committee Joann Chernen

BC TEAL News is available through membership in BC TEAL and by special arrangement. It is published three times a year in Winter, Spring, and Fall. Contact the editor for specific deadlines. Contributors: We welcome articles of general interest to associated members. All material is submitted to the editorial board before being approved for publication. Copy may be edited for length, style and/or clarity without prior notice to authors. Please be aware that submissions may be reprinted. Copy should be submitted directly to the editor as an email attachment. Advertising material and inserts must be submitted in TIFF, JPEG or PDF formats. For information on advertising rates, contact the Advertising manager or the BC TEAL office. 3

PHOTO CREDITS: The following images have been used under regulations of a Creative Commons license. BC TEAL thanks these artists for their creativity and generosity with their images. Most images may be found on WWW.flickr.com Additional images from: Pink Sherbert Photography, D. Sharon Pruitt Dr. Li-Shi Huang BC Teal Megatech Language Labs Shutterstock

Letter from the President Winter 2011 Dear Members, Welcome to the first edition of the 2011 BCTEAL newsletter. If you read the last BC TEAL Newsletter, I’m sure you will agree there is no better way to keep in touch with current events than to read your Association’s newsletter. We are lucky to have such dedicated individuals who put so much thought and effort into each edition. Our current Editor, Patricia Nicoli, follows a long tradition of committed professionals who have brought us news of our field. Thank you Patricia and keep up the excellent work Second language education covers a wide spectrum of areas and specializations. To name a few; daily lesson planning, activities and instruction, assessment and evaluation of students and teachers, research into so many areas, e.g. discourse analysis, socio-cultural theory, etc., skill-specific foci like reading, writing, listening, speaking, pronunciation, etc., Literacy, K-12, adult learning, settlement ESL, not to mention administration of ESL programs, private and public schools, recruitment agencies, and the list goes on. I have come to realize that the scope of our work is so big that we can’t possibly keep up with all that is going on. This is why I appreciate the TEAL Newsletters so much. It is important to read them and also to acknowledge the people who contribute their time and expertise to bring us these gems. My message to all those who have submitted articles to this edition, as well as to those in the past, is, “Thank you for your contributions. You bring our community together and move us forward. This is the work of professionals.” It is in every one of us to engage in our association. If you are reading this, you are in fact connecting and this is important. Please do encourage others to do the same. There are many ways to get involved: e.g. attending, presenting or volunteering at Conferences / Sessions or on TEAL Committees, or the Teal Charitable Foundation (TCF); joining a Special Interest Group (SIG); writing an article for the newsletter; applying for TCF awards… We have so many interesting and motivating events and opportunities taking place now and in the near future, it would be great to see as many Members as possible taking part. We kick off the 2011 PD events with the February 19th Spring Sessions in Victoria. All of you out there on the Island, please make sure to attend. The annual TEAL Conference will be held at SFU this year, and you can count on it being a big one. The Interior Conference will be held at UBC Okanagan in October and we are currently working on an agreement to resurrect the Tri-TESOL Conference in October 2011. If all goes as planned, we will soon have news of this joint event, which will be held in the Seattle area. Looking farther ahead, the TESL Canada Conference 2012 will coming to BC in the fall of 2012. Stay tuned for updates of both of these events. There are so many exciting professional opportunities coming up, I do hope you will make the effort to attend a few of them. For those of you in the Lower Mainland, I encourage you to attend some of these events that are outside your comfort area. In my role, I travel to all of these events to offer my support but also to network and see firsthand what is going on outside my local area. It is always a great experience to meet new people, see new schools and regions, and learn what issues of importance the local ESL community grapples with. It helps me maintain a better perspective on my work in the field, and I know you will get something similar out of these experiences. This is my second term performing the BC TEAL President’s functions and I look forward to welcoming a new President this spring who will lead our Association. I hope my contributions have helped the Association to grow, and this has brought greater opportunities to all of our members. I plan to remain active on the Board, fulfilling the Past President’s duties, and getting involved in the upcoming conferences and other initiatives. Once again, I encourage you to get involved at some level. Every one of us has something positive to offer. It just means doing it. So many of our predecessors have worked to help move the profession and association forward, and I’m certain it has never been perfect. However, their efforts are the reason we have such an incredible history of Professional Development in this province. Let’s keep that tradition alive. Sincerely,

Michael Galli President, BC TEAL

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Letter from the Editor Winter 2011 Happy New Year! I am sitting here on January first writing this letter. I thought that writing it on New Year’s Day was a good idea since the New Year entices us to reflect on the past and then set goals for the future. The theme for the winter issue is called “How times have changed”. When thinking about the ESL profession I like to think about the significant progress and the positive changes that have taken place. A couple of examples that come to mind are the Canadian Language Benchmarks and the BC ESL Articulation Guide. I know the people involved on the committees have worked hard over the years ,they have produced fantastic results and continue to do so. This collaboration and dedication has given teachers thorough guidelines as well as provided a solid base for teaching English as a Second Language. I, for one, am appreciative of these resources. Just for fun,I requested to have the oldest BCTEAL newsletter in the office sent to me (via snail mail).The issue was from June 1989. It isn’t that old, yet there are some big changes that have taken place since then. I enjoyed reading the article about “ Vancouver Community College-First in Canada to Install New Language Lab Technology”. That was a significant change in 1989 because prior to that traditional audio tape cassettes were used. If you started your career in language teaching many years ago I am sure you can enjoy comparing the technology that was used then and what is being implemented now. Global communication is part of our world now. I guess that might be an understatement. Anyway, I was reading an article from a “printed” newspaper over the holidays and the article was highlighting all the new must-have tech gifts that are available on the market. They listed 3D TVs, games with motionsensing systems, e-readers, such as the Kindle-like devices ,which allow you to read books on your screen once they have been downloaded, a video camera for sports-minded people who can wear the camera on their helmet if they are skiing, and of course the BlackBerry and other new smartphones and iPads with the thousands of mobile applications. I didn’t get any of these as gifts but I did get a really good book! This article made me think about the changes in technology and teaching. We have seen some wonderful changes such as computer language labs, whiteboards, blackboard (Moodle) platforms, social networking, and of course the Internet. When I think of these changes I think of the potential and of how much one can continue to learn in this fast paced world. Does anyone miss chalk and a traditional chalkboard? So with technology, it has been easier than ever to exchange knowledge, concepts and research in English language teaching. Teachers and researchers can work together and stay connected with other professionals from all over the world very easily. So much more collaboration is possible and in turn, much more progress. My question to you now is, “Are you satisfied with the current form of the newsletter?” Shawna Williams, has brought this subject up in the past and we are wondering if many readers actually print their TEAL newsletters. Would it, in fact, be better to have them in a web-based version so that people can read them on their mobile devices? In the next year please watch out for a survey regarding this topic. It would be very helpful to get your feedback I would like to extend my thanks to Carmen Larson for taking the time to go into the TEAL website and place the past newsletter issues in a consistant Volume format. This will assist teachers and students when they are looking for specific issues. So, perhaps one day in about twenty years or so a future TEAL editor will find this issue of TEAL news and will also reflect on the past in order to write about the changes that have transpired in Teaching English as a Second Language. I think there will be even more exciting developments in store for us! Please enjoy reading the winter issue of TEAL NEWS and feel free to submit articles or send some news to [email protected]. Happy Reading.

Patricia Nicoli, Editor, BCTEAL

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Writing Boost for English Students By Jeff Bell from the Times Colonist November 7, 2010 The Association of B.C. Teachers of English as an Additional Language -- B.C. TEAL -- is doing its part to help Victoria-area students reach their full potential, the group’s Vancouver Island representative says. Aleah Gustafson, a member of the B.C. TEAL board, said local students stood out in a recent provincewide writing contest organized by the association, taking three of the eight top spots and giving themselves a major confidence boost. “It’s become quite developed,” she said of B.C. TEAL. “The organization is for instructors and ESL [English as a second language] professionals. It provides professional development and organizes conferences. By helping the instructors, it will, in turn, help the students who are learning English, as well.” Membership is optional for instructors, Gustafson said. There are currently 20 schools and associations listed as

“institutional members,” including Camosun College, Vancouver Island University and Victoria’s Stewart College of Languages. Individual membership in the nonprofit group has reached about 700 and is climbing steadily. B.C. TEAL deals largely with adult learners, Gustafson said, and the use of the term “additional language” implies that some may be working on at least a third or fourth language when they decide to learn English. Many are visiting students, while others are immigrants honing their English after moving to Canada. Such is the case for Huihui Joy Xing of China and Ikuko Meguriya of Japan, who have both been in Canada for some time. Xing earned an honourable mention in the B.C. TEAL contest for an essay called English Opens a New World to Me, and Meguriya was one of the first-place finishers. “I want to settle

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in Victoria, this beautiful place,” Xing said. When her English studies are complete, she said she would like to complete a degree in psychology. Xing hopes to have encouraged her peers by doing well in the competition “because I’m just an ordinary student.” Meguriya’s essay, The Colourful Scenery in My Life, talks not only about studying English at Camosun as “a big turning point,” but also about her personal struggles. She immigrated to Canada because she married a Canadian, but her husband died two years ago. School helped her get through the situation, she writes. “I started not only writing about my feelings at the time, but also insights and thoughts about many aspects of life.” On the web, log on to bcteal.org. Read more: http://www.timescolonist. com/health/Writing+boost+En glish+students/3790675/stor y. html#ixzz1BKMHil00

BC Women Pioneers in the ESL Field: A Brief Proto-History By John Donald Redmond This transcript is from a speech given by John at the 2008 Teal conference. ESL has a long history in British Columbia. The necessity of ESL became obvious when Captain Cook sailed along the shores of what was to become British Columbia in 1778. In dealings with locals, it soon was discovered that, although they were fluent in their own languages, English was, until then, considered somewhat less than useful, or not considered at all. Thus disappointed with a general lack of communicative competence achieved during his coastal travels, Cook set sail for the Sandwich Islands, where he assumed, having eaten many sandwiches during his voyages of discovery, he would find English in general use. The assumption proved somewhat fatal, he becoming more like an ingredient of a sandwich than he had imagined. Years later, in 1792, Captain George Vancouver, himself the grandson of a Dutch ESL student, and having sworn off sandwiches, sailed into the waters of the West Coast. However, his stay was also short-lived, due in part to the refusal of Salish educational authorities to recognize his CELTA certificate as the equivalent of the CSJCert (Chinook as a Second Jargon Certificate) required of local settlement workers Simon Fraser visited here in 1805 on the original Explore! (Second Language Bursary Program (SLBP)) program, having been drawn by the curiosity of a river having his family’s name. His initial stay was met with

 

“It’s called a gerund and it’s worth four otter pelts.” hostility by the Musqueam people due to the equally hostile phonetics of his Scots English (okay, he was a Loyalist from New York, but that’s not as funny). He sought refuge on a hill where he, curiously, also found a university named after his family. Fraser stayed on, taking the PDP program and joining the worldchampion pipe band of his name. The 1820s saw many more Explore! students arrive with the Hudson’s Bay Company. They were usually accompanied by Scottish monitors, keen to give workshops such as “Beaver Pelts R Us” and “Creative Blanket Stacking”. Fort Langley became, thus, the focus of ESL on the West Coast. Here, happily engaged in contac t and taskbased communicative competence assignments with First Nations people, second-language acquisition prospered for the next thirty years, with help from the new settlements of Victoria and New Westminster. Enter the greatest threat to the English 7

language in 1858: American gold miners! Gold had been discovered in the Cariboo, and a rush ensued. It was soon seen by Governor Sir James Douglas that something had to be done, and done quickly. In addition to the minor details of establishing a crown colony, sending in the Royal Engineers and boosting the Royal Navy’s presence, a call went out to the British Council (or Imperial Council for the Dissemination and Persuasion of the Queen’s English, as it was then known) for ESL instructors. This was answered with the dispatch by the Crown of Chief Matrons Mary Ashworth and Dame Patricia Wakefield, first ladies of ESL in British Columbia, armed with a proclamation to “bring order and the Language of Civilization to those (Americans in particular) without the Tongue.” Matrons Ashworth and Wakefield armed with a full panoply of the latest ESL texts (Professor St. John Featherstonehaugh’s “English for Improving the Working Classes” and “Oxford’s New Routes of Imperialism”)

BC Women Pioneers in the ESL Field

arrived in Victoria on board HMS Lexical (Capt Jack C. Richards, RN), the latest screw-frigate. The voyage took much longer than expected, due to the first officer, Lt. S. Krashen, who held the view, which he called “Combustible Input”, that, in spite of the manufacturer’s ratings on the boilers, if they were stoked to just beyond safety, what he called the “threshold”, speed and handling would be improved. This was his “Circumnavigational Competency Theory.” After the second boiler explosion, he and the casualties, a group of slightly scalded Korean bibliophiles, were put ashore in California where his descendants continue, to this day, to expound upon his philosophy. The two plucky matrons, having lost their textbooks in an unfortunate game of whist in Victoria, set off for the gold fields of the Cariboo in the sternwheeler, S.S. MohanReeder. There, in the classrooms of the Barkerville Global College of Knowledge, they set about teaching EIL (English as an Imperial Language) to the hordes of American newcomers. Regrettably, the hordes failed to realize the value of the Queen’s English and were soon replaced by diligent Chinese workers, brought to the Crown Colony by kindly labour agents. These pioneering efforts laid the foundations of English as a Second Language in British Columbia. So firm were these foundations that, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was opened almost twenty years later, enabling vast numbers of eastern Canadian university students to transit though our great province on their way to Japan, Korea and Taiwan to enhance the professional reputation of the field, it was

simplicity itself for the early entrepreneurs of the era to sail the other way from Korea and elsewhere to open quality schools that catered to all learners’ needs. So, as you lead your field trip past the twin statues of the pioneer matrons that grace the entrance to the gargantuan ESL Hall of Fame in Vancouver, think yourself lucky that others, of broad shoulder and keen mind, have gone before you.

Footnote: The real Mary Ashworth and Patricia Wakefield are well-known to those of a certain age, but for others, a note or two might be useful. Mary Ashworth was, with Pat Wakefield, the founder of professional ESL in the province of British Columbia. She was instrumental in the founding of BC TEAL and was key in having the field recognized by UBC and the educational powers that be. Her works were many and her disciples uncountable. Mary passed away on Saltspring Island in 2009, after having enjoyed many years of well-deserved retirement. Patricia Wakefield has been referred to as the “Queen of ESL”. She started her career when the acronym was unknown in British Columbia, working with “New Canadians”. Her career included work with UBC, VCC and the VSB, helping to ensure that our field was accepted as a permanent professional feature of the provincial educational scene. Pat lives in very active retirement in Vancouver. As for the others mentioned in the history, I allow you to use your education and imagination to locate the authentic characters.

John Donald Redmond started his ESL career in 1971 in Japan, later teaching at VCC, UBC (both at the ELI and in the Faculty of Education), Langara, and now at Kwantlen Polytechnic University where he is head instructor at the Richmond Campus Learning Centre. He has also worked on language and crosscultural training projects involving China, Vietnam and Singapore. He sometimes wears a kilt and is a member of the 78th Fraser’s Highlanders.

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1 Topic, 3 Takes HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED IN THE ESL PROFESSION This issue’s “1 Topic, 3 Takes” hears from three professionals who have worked in the ESL field for many years. Diana Krall, Nat King Cole and Lucianno Pavarotti will share their perspectives on some of the changes that have taken place over the years. 1. When did you start your teaching career? Can you briefly describe the setting and your feelings from that first experience? D. K. I fell into ESL teaching, having taken Education 478 as credit towards my Linguistics degree. My practicum lead to a job offer, and before I knew it, I was teaching two nights a week at South Vancouver neighbourhood house. It was 1981 and I was in my fourth year at UBC. I remember very clearly my first night teaching that class. It was a small group of 10 or 12 people from the community. They were of varying ages and nationalities and as friendly as could be. It was a great first experience for a very inexperienced teacher. I remember arriving in the classroom with a great big shopping bag full of items I had collected from around the house. The items were not linked to one another in any way. The only criteria for having chosen the items? – they fit in the bag. What did we do that night? I can’t quite remember, but we had fun. N. K. C. I started my teaching career in the 1960’s in a foreign land. I was in a large city which had no English language school for adults, so I invented one. I hung out a shingle

from my rented classrooms saying British College and the students flocked in. Many needed English for tourism and others worked for a US oil company. The setting was a downtown office building and we had textbooks and tapes, but little else. My first experience was that it was very rewarding. One saw great motivation lead to great progress. It was also financially rewarding because the oil company paid me whether students showed up (there was chronic absenteeism) or not. As I became more of a manager and paid teachers when they worked, I was making good money from this scheme. L. P. As so many of us early ESL types did, I began my teaching career in Japan working in the evenings with employees of large Japanese companies (first with Nishin Denki – the company that provided the turbines for the Bennet Dam). The students were usually exhausted after work and just wanted “free conversation” a euphemism “for just talk to us because it is so entertaining and untaxing”. I didn’t let that happen of course and got lots of useful, but given the fairly substantive limitations to their fluency -unreliable information about Japan. Still it hooked me on lots of aspects of teaching and generated a great curiosity about language acquisition – intensified by my own daily struggles to learn Japanese. 2. Can you describe some of the biggest changes you have seen in the last 20 years? For example; with teaching methods, teaching institutions or technology in teaching. 10

D. K. One of the biggest changes I have seen has been the move to adopt the Canadian Language benchmarks. The CLBs provide ESL providers across the country with a common framework for description and assessment of learner language. Such a system makes it easier to build clear pathways for learners to employment, education and the community. There is also a greater awareness of the need to go beyond attention to the basics of language: listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, and incorporate attention to sociocultural competencies and the Essential Skills needed for work, learning and life. Another change relates to the growing number of and need for enhanced language learning programs; programs such as: Communications for Internationally-Trained Pharmacists; Communications for Engineers and Technologists; English for Health Sciences; English for Accountants; ESL/Baking; ESL/Culinary; English/ Health Care Assistant. I expect the need for enhanced language learning programs such as these will continue to grow in response to the needs of our immigrant population. N. K. C. Obviously the biggest change in teaching methods has moved from teacher to student-centred activities and to using engaging content as the vehicle. In Bernie Mohan’s Language and Content (1986), he expresses how we have moved from teaching English to teaching in English and this has changed the ESL/EFL world like Microsoft and Facebook have changed our

1 Topic, 3 Takes

communication world. Additionally, institutions have become far more effective with professionally-trained teachers who receive good salaries (sometimes) and provide continuity. K-12 and Post-Secondary have recognized ESL as a subject that is essential to success. This contrasts what a 1970s Vancouver School Board Principal once told me, which is that ESL teachers would no longer be needed within 2 years when the students had learned English. Technology has come and textbooks now often include CDs and DVDs. Our students have grown up with and are comfortable with a myriad of new inventions. They rarely buy newspapers or use TV and radio for their news. They use the Internet. L. P. One of the biggest changes of course was that it became possible to have a career in ESL. When I got back to Canada from Japan and went for an interview with a Government job placement agency, the counselor asked me what I had done for work to date. I told him that I had taught ESL in Japan, and he replied, ”Oh you can’t do that here – even the classes in this building (and early version of ELSA) are ending at the end of this month”. He added cheerfully, – “I’ll put you down for office work”! Of course the bigger changes have been the expansion of ESL work with international students and the embedding of this activity in public and private post-secondary institutions. The focus on university preparatory work has also greatly expanded. Methodologically, the shift to authentic material and integrated skills courses stands out somewhat. Technology has been slower to impact teaching and learning though I suspect that

the younger and more tech savvy generation of teachers have really transformed the way technology is used to enhance learning. 3. Can you describe some advantages to any of these changes? D. K. Adoption of the CLBs, attention to socio-cultural competencies and the Essential Skills, and the proliferation of enhanced language learning programs are positive changes, and all indicate a greater understanding of the needs of the immigrant population. N. K. C. The advantages of technology are huge, as it has brought more access in shorter time. Students use it like a well-fitting glove. Some teachers feel like dinosaurs when faced with PowerPoint, Moodle, or burning CDs. Adaptation to technological changes over a long career is challenging for all teachers. A major disadvantage I have seen throughout systems -- public, private, K-12 and PostSecondary -- is the acquisition of hardware without thinking things through, and the same goes for software. Some thinking is like “buy it and they will come.” There is also the challenge of IT departments ruling the roost and saying when computers are available, and where and what software is compatible. This has added immensely to the burden of teachers -- not to mention technology -- that does not work properly when it is required. I could go on but you get the point… Another huge advantage is that everybody knows what ESL means now -- you do not have to explain it. Most of the English users in the world are ESL/EFL and that is powerful educationally and 11

financially. L. P. The advantage of course is that much more work is available. It has also meant that the range of working conditions is wider than it has been with great differentials in salaries and security for ESL professionals. The disadvantage is that it takes very little, a health scare or a currency surge, to create considerable declines in enrolments. In the public post-secondary institutions the shift away from ideals of a community college has put continued pressure on us to defend this work as a legitimate part of the academy. The fact that we have embedded international education businesses inside public post-secondary institutions creates a very different mindset from earlier periods were access for all created the context for ESL programming. All fields struggle for a long period before they gain legitimacy and we are still going through that process I think. 4. What do you think will be the biggest change in the next 20 years? D. K. As the need for enhanced language learning programs grows, so will the need for instructors who are trained for such teaching. As such I predict that teacher-training programs will begin to offer advanced-level certificates for teaching enhanced language. I think there will also be a greater recognition and appreciation of an instructor’s nonESL experience and educational background for the positive influence that can be brought to bear on the teaching of sociocultural competencies, Essential Skills and enhanced language.

1 Topic, 3 Takes

N. K. C. To repeat the word professional -- we have TEAL, TESL Canada, TESOL, and IATEFL. Lead in B.C. by Mary Ashworth and Pat Wakefield, we have built a profession. The Canadian Language Benchmarks were the first for an EnglishSpeaking country. We share and we improve and we share again. We have academic journals such as TESL Canada. We have Endowed Foundations with scholarships and project funding through TEAL and we are rightly viewed as experts not just in language teaching ,though we have degrees and post-graduate degrees to back that up, but in all aspects of teaching. We have highly refined and constantly updated skills. My non-ESL colleagues think we walk on water and I am never one to disabuse them of that idea. L. P. That is a difficult one to answer. Certainly competition for international students will become fiercer as demographic change reduces the post-secondary cohort size in countries that supply us now. We are going to become increasingly an economy of immigrants and many highly skilled and educated new arrivals will need ESL programs to “retool”. I think there will be an increasing professionalization of the field with research becoming a bigger part of ESL professionals’ lives – especially as the need for an evidence base for decisions around teaching and learning become more necessary. I think one thing that will not change is the deep satisfaction that comes from supporting learners on their journey to create the lives they want. Classrooms will continue to be places were all the positive values – collaboration, mutuality and optimism are at home.

5. If you have an interesting teaching anecdote from sometime in the past, please share it with us! D. K . A former student in my ESL baking class applied for a parttime weekend job in the bakery at Safeway. There was a help-wanted sign posted, so she went in to meet the bakery manager and drop off her resume. The manager was too busy to meet with her at that moment, but asked her to leave her resume and return the next day at an appointed time. She returned at the appointed time, but the manager was not available right at that time, and she was asked to wait. She waited 15 minutes or so and then left. She assumed that because the manager did not show up at the appointed time and because he made her wait, he was really trying to send her a message that he did not want to hire her. The student is from Korea and she assumed this because she said that in Korea this would be a likely interpretation for this situation. Upon hearing her story, I convinced her to go back again, believing that the manager truly was busy and would likely be quite happy to see her when he could. She returned, met with the manager and got the job. This scenario provided for good discussion on cultural differences as they relate to job search. N. K. C. My anecdotes are numerous and speak to the fun, humour, and humanity of our teaching. Imagine a rookie teacher about to teach a three-hour night school class who is approached in front of the class by a female francophone who announces “ I ‘ave a bladder infectshun”.** If you can recover from starts like that and get through three-hours of teaching then you can indeed walk on water. Enjoy your job said Confucius and 12

you will never work a day in your life. You mean they PAY us to do this. Indeed a happy and rewarding life as an ESL teacher. ** Her pills said take twice daily and she needed advice from her teacher/ doctor what that meant!! L. P. There are two things that come to mind. First the memory of the heartfelt, but astonishing presents that students in community programs used to give their instructors – I once got a very chunky metal bracelet suitable for a biker from students – I still can’t figure that one out. There were a couple of these presents so astounding in their kitchy taste that they became the objects of regifting at social gathering of ESL folks. We may have questioned the tastes involved, but we never doubted the deep affection behind these gifts from students. Second, I remember teaching a young Francophone RCMP member in a writing class who joined the dog squad and asked if could bring the pup to the classroom to habituate it to people. It came and life got interesting. I still swear that pup would growl when I was conferencing with the student about his writing and pointing out areas for improvement. Whether he growled to admonish me or the student I still can not say with certainty.

The Wired Teacher By Dr. Scott Douglas, PhD How Times Have Changed: Online Vocabulary Profilers In the past, when choosing a reading text to use with English as an Additional Language (EAL) students, many of the decisions regarding vocabulary were based on intuition and subjectivity. While experienced lexical intuition can be a powerful tool, there are now accurate and objective measures of vocabulary readily availabe online in the form of vocabulary profiling. These tools can help teachers make decisions for both their extensive and intensive reading activities. Popular versions of vocabulary profiling that are being increasingly used by teachers are found on Tom Cobb’s Compleat Lexical Tutor website www.lextutor.ca (Cobb, 2010). The Compleat Lexical Tutor website is dedicated to data driven language learning on the web, and the VocabProfile home on this website gives teachers the ability to quickly analyse the vocabulary found in a reading text. A vocabulary profiler of particular interest on the Compleat Lexical Tutor is that of the Web VP English v3 Classic (Cobb, 2010). This tool is based on a version of Nation’s VocababProfile and RANGE (Heatley & Nation, 1994). The Web VP English v3 Classic generates a report that includes measures quantifying the kinds of word families (the base form of the word with its inflected and derived forms) being used in a text against external lexical frequency lists, namely the General Service List (GSL) ( West, 1953), and the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000). This analysis results

in a vocabulary profile that provides the percentage of text covered by the first 1000 (K1) and the second 1000 (K2) word families of the GSL, the percentage of text covered by the AWL, and the percentage of text termed Off-List, that is word families beyond the 2000 word threshold of the GSL and excluding the AWL. Practical applications of vocabulary profiling include determining the suitability of a text for use with EAL students in extensive reading projects, and highlighting vocabulary items in intensive reading situations. If a text is to be used for extensive reading purposes, students need to know at least 95% to 98% of the vocabulary in order to understand what they are reading and to learn the remaining vocabulary incidentally (Nation, 2001). By entering a text into a vocabulary profiler, teachers can see how many of the words in the text are low frequency words, and therefore unlikely to be known by their learners. A text with too many unknown words is probably not an appropriate choice for inclusion in an extensive reading project. Vocabulary profiling is also practical for more intensive reading instruction as well. Knowing lower frequency lexical items and AWL A PhD (TESL) graduate from the University of Calgary, Scott has taught EAL at all levels to both children and adults in the Middle East, Japan, and Canada. His current research interests lie in the field of English for Academic Purposes. He also blogs regularly with his students at: www.englishforacademicpurposes. blogspot.com

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vocabulary helps teachers decide what to pre-teach to students before reading a text, and what vocabulary to focus on after reading a text. All in all, vocabular y teaching decisions are easier today than they have ever been because of online objective measures of vocabulary such as vocabulary profilers. Taking the time to visit the Compleat Lexical Tutor can help teachers to implement a more principled approach to vocabulary teaching based on lexical frequency. Note: The classic vocabulary profile for the above article is as follows: 1k+2k=81.43%, AWL=8.78%, and Off-List=9.78%. In other words, about 81% of the above article is written with the 2000 most frequent words in the English language. If your students know the first 2000 words of English and the AWL, they are likely to understand 90.21% of the above article. Unfortunately, that is below the 95 to 98% threshold where learners can start to guess unknown vocabulary (Nation, 2001). What words would you teach to bring them up to the 95 to 98% threshold?

The Wired Teacher

References

BC TEAL Annual General Meeting

Cobb, T. (2010). The Compleat Lexical Tutor v6.2. Accessed December 10, 2010 from http://www. lextutor.ca Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list.

to be held

TESOL Quarterly 34(2), 213-238. Heatley, A. and Nation, P. (1994). Range. Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. [Computer program, available at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/.] Nation, P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. West, M. (1953). A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman.

Friday ,May 6th, 2011 at Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre Campus

www. englishforacademicpurposes. blogspot.com.

515 West Hastings Street Vancouver

B.C. TEAL 43rd Annual Conference The 43rd Annual TEAL Conference: The Teachable Teacher will be held May 7th and 8th at the Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre Vancouver campus. If you would like to present at the conference, please go to the BCTEAL website at www.bcteal.org. Go to 'Conferences', then 'Call for Presentations May 2011'. You will find the guidelines for presenters and the online submission form. Only online submissions will be considered. The deadline for submissions is February 14, 2011. Our keynote speakers will be Dr. Heesoon Bai and Dr. Kumari Beck from Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Education presenting on their award winning documentary 'Dare to Care', and Professor Stephen Molinsky from Boston University (and of 'Side-by-Side' fame) presenting on his own experiences as a language learner, and how that can inform us as language teachers. The TEAL Board has had a busy year with new initiatives and will share a variety of opportunities for further professional development during a Panel Presentation: BC TEAL and You. And new to the conference this year will be a Hot Topics Breakfasts discussion. We hope you will join your colleagues from across the province to take part in this rewarding professional development opportunity. Karen Densky and Shawna Williams 2011 Conference Co-chairs 14

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL By Dr. Li-Shih Huang Welcome to the third installment of the “Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL” column. In each edition of BC TEAL News, I share key concepts and theories in the field of teaching English as an additional language (EAL). The goal of this column is to help EAL teaching professionals stay informed about the latest developments in the field, as well as to further link those concepts or theories to current research and practice. In each issue, the column will introduce a key term (i.e., what does it mean?), followed by an account of what relevant research tells us (i.e., what does the research say?) and an explanation of how EAL teaching professionals can use the concept or theory introduced (i.e., what can we do?).

teachers and curriculum developers are busy designing tasks, lessons, courses, or programs. As various methodological teaching innovations fade in and fade out, it may be time to reflect on why posing fundamental questions about learners’ languagelearning needs has rarely moved beyond an acknowledgement of these questions’ importance. What is your understanding of your students’ language-learning needs from your own and your students’ perspectives? What kinds of needs-related information have you gathered to inform your teaching? How do you go about gathering such information?

Language-Learning Needs Assessment

The term “language-learning needs assessment ” seems simple and straightforward. It refers to finding out what our students’ needs are. A look into the literature, however, quickly reveals that defining the term “needs” involves a complex inquiry. In the literature, the term “languagelearning needs” encompasses various

While putting together a course on task-based second-language i n s t r u c t i o n , I c a m e a c ro s s a n excerpt from Roger Schank’s (n.d.) upcoming Cognition! Teaching Kids to Think, where he notes, “Designers of courses must contend with this truth: The students that you have may not want to learn what it is that you want to teach.” I think that this applies to language learners of all ages. Instructors, course designers and materials developers often ask themselves, “ What should language learners learn?”but how many of us regularly ask the key question--“why?”--from the learner’s perspec tive? Few of us would disagree with the idea that learner needs are a sound starting point for designing courses; the exploration of learners’ language-learning needs is often circumvented, however, when

What does it mean?

15

perspectives and factors in the process of determining what, how, and why learners need to learn (e.g., Brown, 1995; Long, 2005; Munby, 1981; West, 1994). As West (1994) points out, the term “needs” is often considered an umbrella term with many different interpretations. Until the 1970s, language-learning needs were mostly intuitively determined by instructors. Since the 1970s and the advent of learner-centered approaches to teaching and learning, various theories of language learners’ needs assessment, taxonomies, models, and frameworks have emerged (see Huang, 2010b). With them came a wide array of terms associated with the concepts of needs and needs assessment, such as objective and subjective needs (Brindley, 1989); perceived and felt needs (Berwick, 1989); targetsituation, learning-situation, and present-situation analyses; productoriented and process-oriented needs (Brindley, 1989); necessities, wants, and lacks (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987); and the list goes on.

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL

Objective needs, for example, are derived from outsiders (i.e., parties other than the learners themselves) and from what is already known and can be verified (e.g., learners’ characteristics and proficiency levels, use of language in real-life situations). Subjective needs are based on learners’ own statements, which may pertain to their goals and to the “what” and “how” of their language-learning process. Target needs refer to what learners need to do in particular target situations, which may involve necessities (i.e., needs determined by the demands of the target situation), lacks (i.e., the gap between what learners knows already and the necessities), and wants (i.e., learners’ wants and their views about the reasons). Learning needs represent what learners need to do in order to learn. Similarly, product-oriented needs are derived from the goal or target situation, while process-oriented needs are derived from learning situations. Taken together, various kinds of needs analysis can be defined as the gathering and interpretation of such information about the uses of the English learned following your instruction, what learners will need to do in the learning situation in order to learn the language, the backgrounds of the learners and teachers, and the constraints and resources in a particular setting. Language-learning needs assessment is important because the results are relevant for specifying objectives, procedures, content, materials, methods, and outcomes assessment at the task, course, or program level. Researchers also generally agree that collecting and applying information about learners’ needs is a key component of task design (e.g., Van Avermaet & Gysen, 2006) and

course design, as well as important for planning general English courses (see Seedhouse, 1995), and especially ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses (e.g., Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001; Jordan, 2005). What does the research say? In the research, language-learning needs have received the most attention in the area of ESP and EAP. Since the 1980s, numerous studies have examined English-asan-additional-language learners’ academic language needs using various methodologies that focus on, for example, academic literacy

skills (e.g., Bridgeman & Carlson, 1984; Horowitz, 1986; Leki & Carson, 1994, 1997), general language skills (e.g., Geoghegan, 1983), writing skills (e.g., Horowitz, 1986; Jenkins, Jordan, & Weiland, 1993), or aural/ oral communication skills (e.g., Ferris, 1998). Empirical research has revealed that language-learning needs are learner- or group-specific and are context dependent (see Long, 2005). Several studies have highlighted a mismatch between students’ perceived needs and expectations and those of instructors (e.g., Huang, 2010b; Nunan, 1988; Sherman, 1992; Thorp, 1991). The results of my most recent research further showed that what instructors or learners consider an important skill to possess may not 16

be what learners perceive that they need to develop (Huang, 2010b). Some studies have suggested that students tend to have a clear idea of their language-learning needs (e.g., Ferris, 1998), but others have indicated that learners may not always perceive their own difficulties (e.g., Auerbach, 1995; Long, 2005). The latter findings suggest that languagelearning needs must be considered from multiple perspectives and that various kinds of student needs should be taken into account. What can we do? When designing a language-learning task or a course, instructors need to be aware that what learners believe about what they need to learn strongly influences their receptiveness to learning (Horwitz, 1987). Information about learners’ needs helps instructors meet learners where they are within their zone of conscious incompetence, in other words, the areas where they perceive their incompetence. This enables instructors to begin their instruction where learners perceive that support is needed, and the information gained will help instructors prioritize what to teach while guiding learners into areas where learners may not be aware of their incompetence (i.e., unconscious incompetence). The goal is to move toward the zones of conscious competence and, finally, unconscious competence (i.e., the level of automaticity) (Howell, 1979, 1982; Huang, 2010b; Morell, Sharp, & Crandall, 2002). So what sorts of information can instructors collect? Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) proposed a conceptual framework for needs analysis in ESP, presented in the following table,

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL

which is still valid today and can be applied to the process of conducting needs assessments for general language skills. A variety of methods for determining students’ language-learning needs can be adapted for classroomteaching purposes. Here below are some options that instructors might consider as they devise a workable and practicable approach that is suitable to their own instructional needs and contexts: 1. Use a checklist or adapt existing questionnaires to learners in order to collect learners’ background

Information

information and information about how learners need to use the target language (e.g., Brown, 2001; Huang, 2010b; Lambert, 2010); 2. Conduct informal interviews in order to explore learners’ perceived needs and wants;

learners’ personal verbal, written, or group reflection on their languagelearning needs and challenges (Huang, 2010a).

6. Integrate the ongoing practice of

The amount of data about learners’ needs and how often it is collected will depend on available resources and the purpose for collecting the data. One could choose, for example, to collect a small or large amount of data only at the beginning of instruction or throughout the entire course. Behind any successful course, though, is an ongoing process of questioning. What kinds of needs assessment have you conducted? Do you know whether or not your perceptions of learners’ needs match your students’

Description

Focus

3. Use spoken and written texts that typically occur in the context of language use (e.g., using corpus data, Huang, 2010c); 4. Use learners’ language performance data (e.g., in-house tests or standardized tests); 5. Integrate group discussions with learners that explore their needs (e.g., Huang, 2010d); and

A

Professional information  about the learners

Tasks and activities learners need to do using English

Target situation and  objective needs analyses

B

Personal information  about the learners

Information such as previous learning experiences, cultural  information, reasons for attending the course, expectations,  perceptions about their language skills, and attitudes toward  English

Learners’ wants and  subjective needs analyses

C

English language  information about the  learners

Learners’ current skills and language use

Present situation analysis

D

Learners’ lacks

The gap between C and A

Analysis of lacks

E

Language‐learning  information

Effective ways of learning the skills and language

Process‐oriented analysis

F

Professional  communication  information about A

Knowledge about how language and skills are used in the  target situation

Linguistic, discourse,  and/or genre analyses

G

Information about the  environment

Information about the environment where the course will be  conducted

Means analysis

H

What is needed from the  course

What do learners need from the course, and for what  purposes do learners need English?

Course and overall needs  analyses

17

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL

perceived needs? What is one type of information that you can gather, using a workable method, as a foundation for your teaching? As the American philosopher, author, and professor Allan Bloom (1987) once said, “Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion” (p. 63). For students, instructors, and institutions, the knowledge gained from needs assessment is the heart of current learner-centered and communicative language-teaching approaches that enable instructors to guide learners toward discovering the skills that they truly need to develop. References

Dudley-Evans, T., & St. John, M. (1998). Development

role of writing in graduate engineering education:

in English for specific purposes. Cambridge:

A survey of faculty beliefs and practices. English for

Cambridge University Press.

Specific Purposes, 12(1), 51-67.

Ferris, D. (1998). Students’ views of academic aural/

Jordan, R. R. (2005). English for academic purposes:

oral skills: A comparative needs analysis. TESOL

A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge:

Quarterly, 32(2), 289-317.

Cambridge University Press.

Flowerdew, J. & Peacock, M. (2001). Research

Leki, I., & Carson, J. (1994). Students’ perceptions of

perspectives on English for academic purposes.

EAP writing instruction and writing needs across the

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 81-101.

Geoghegan, G. (1983). Non-native speakers of

Leki, I., & Carson, J. (1997). Completely different

English at Cambridge University. Cambridge: Bell

worlds: EAP and the writing experiences of ESL

Educational Trust.

students in university courses. TESOL Quarterly,

Horowitz, D. (1986). What professors actually require:

31(1), 39-69.

Academic tasks for the ESL classroom. TESOL

Lambert, C. (2010). A task-based needs analysis:

Quarterly, 20(3), 445-462.

Putting principles into practice. Language Teaching

Horwitz, E. K. (1987). Student beliefs about language

Research, 14(1), 99-112.

learning. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner

Long, M. (Ed.). (2005). Second lan­g uage needs

strategies in language learning (pp. 119-129).

analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Morell, V. W., Sharp, P. C., & Crandall, S. J. (2002).

Howell, W. S. (1979). Theoretical directions for

Creating student awareness to improve cultural

intercultural communication. In M. K. Asanti,

competence: Creating the critical incident. Medical

E. Newmark, & C. A. Black (Eds.), Handbook of

Teacher, 24(5), 532-534.

intercultural communication (pp. 23-41). Beverly

Munby, J. (1981). Communicative syllabus design.

Auerbach, E. (1995). The politics of the ESL classroom:

Hulls, CA: Sage.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Issues of power in pedagogical choices. In J. Tollefson

Howell, W. S. (1982). The empathic communicator.

Nunan, D. (1988). The learner-centered curriculum.

(Ed.), Power and inequality in language education

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Huang, L.-S. (2010a). Do different modalities of

Seedhouse, P. (1995). Needs analysis and the general

Berwick, R. (1989). Needs assessment in language

reflection matter? An exploration of adult second-

English classroom. ELT Journal, 49(1), 59-65.

programming. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.) The second

language learners’ reported strategy use and oral

language curriculum (pp. 48–62). Cambridge:

language production. System, 38(2): 245-261.

(pp. 9-33). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cambridge University Press.

Huang, L.-S. (2010b). Seeing eye-to-eye? The

Sherman, J. (1992). Your own thoughts in your own words. ELT Journal, 46(2), 190-198. Thorp, D. (1991). Confused encounters: Differing

Bloom, A. (1987). Closing of the American mind. New

perceived academic writing needs of graduate

York, NY: Simon & Schuster

and undergraduate students from students’ and

Bridgeman, B., & Carlson, S. (1984). Survey of

instructors’ perspectives. Language Teaching

academic writing tasks. Written Communication, 1,

Research, 14(4), 517-539.

247-280.

Huang, L.-S. (2010c). Key concepts and theories in

Brindley, G. (1989). The role of needs analysis in adult

TEAL: Corpus-aided discovery learning. TEAL News:

ESL programme design. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.), The

The Association of B.C. Teachers of English as an

second language curriculum (pp. 63-78). Cambridge:

additional Language, pp. 29-32.

Cambridge University Press.

Huang, L.-S. (2010d). A model for teaching academic

ELT innovations: A needs analysis framework. ELT

Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of language

listening and responding. Currents in Teaching and

Journal, 55(2), 133-141.

curriculum: a systematic approach to program

Learning, 3(1), 4-13.

development. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). English for

Brown, J. D. (2001). Using surveys in language

specific purposes: A learning-centred approach.

programs. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Press.

Jenkins, S., Jordan, M. K., & Weiland, P. O. (1993). The

expectations in the EAP classroom. ELT Journal, 45(2), 108-118. Van Avermaet, P., & Gysen S. (2006). From needs to tasks: Language learning needs in a task-based approach. In K. Van den Branden, (Ed.), Task-based language education: From theory to practice (pp. 1746). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waters, A., & Vilches, M. (2001). Implementing

West, R. (1994). Needs analysis in language teaching.

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Language Teaching, 27(1), 1-19.

The author welcomes readers’ comments

Key Concepts and Theories in TEAL

or further questions about the content of this column, as well as suggestions about theories that they would like to have featured in upcoming columns. She can be contacted at [email protected]. You can also follow Dr. Huang on Twitter at twitter.com/AppLingProf.

Dr. Li-Shih Huang, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Learning and Teaching Scholar at the University of Victoria, has a decade of EAP and EAL instructional and curriculum design experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was also the recipient of TESOL’s Award for Excellence in the Development of Pedagogical Materials.

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The TEAL Sessions 2011 A day of professional development presented by BC TEAL

INTERCULTURAL APPROACHES TO ESL Saturday, February 19th, 2011, 8:30 - 4:30

Global Village Victoria, 200-1290 Broad Street, Victoria, BC V8W 2A5 Early Bird Registration Deadline: February 12th, 2011 Early Bird Fees: TEAL Members: $35.00 / Non-TEAL Members: $45.00 For registration details check the BC TEAL website at www.bcteal.org or call 604.736.6330 or fax 604.736.6306

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Teal Writing Competition Honorable Mentions By Barb Small, Lin Wang, Wang Li Jie, Huihui Xing (Joy) ESL WRITING CONTEST-2010 THEME: LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLISH Honorable Mention Instructor -Category 1 Barb Small

other name the animals. What a difference a year can make.

said, “Yes, but look how far each of you have travelled.”

After completing my TESOL certificate I wasn’t sure teaching English as a Second Language was for me, so I continued to volunteer in the ELSA class where I soaked up the

The thing I like best about being in the classroom is getting to know the students who come from Korea, Rwanda, China, Vietnam, Columbia, the Congo, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Bangladesh. As they get to know me they offer me glimpses into their lives. One day a woman from the Congo asked me to help her write a dialogue she could use when she phoned a prospective landlord; she and her seven children were staying in a hotel room after a fire had forced them from their apartment. Another day a jeweler from Sri Lanka showed me a photo of his two children standing in front of a pile of rubble that had been their home before the tsunami.

School: Douglas College, TESL Citation Program

‘Satisfaction’ Two years ago on Lunar New Year I taught an ELSA class the word for pig and ox, and all the other lunar animals as part of the practicum for my TESOL certificate. The palms of my hands sweated as the teacher assessing me scratched notes on a sheet of paper, and I tried to remember the names of the students that I had met the week before. A year later, the students at the ELSA class where I was subbing, stuffed and cooked over 100 dumplings, painted Chinese calligraphy characters for good luck and happiness, and learned the chorus to a New Year’s song that we sang with great gusto. I tacked up the same pictures of the ox and rat and pig that I had used in my practicum class, and the students helped each

knowledge and practical style of the teachers who welcomed new immigrants and refugees into their classroom and taught them the English they needed to describe their symptoms to a doctor, buy groceries, and read a job posting. In one of the first classes I attended the students were studying Canadian geography. The teacher divided them into two groups and asked each group to draw a map of Canada on the white board. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she said, “Start with British Columbia and draw the provinces in the correct order. Don’t forget the capitals,” she added as an afterthought. Noisy conversations filled the classroom and I watched in amazement as two maps appeared on the board. Not perfect, but the provinces were in the correct order, although the Maritimes were slightly askew. A student asked me how to spell Fredericton and I told her my daughter had recently moved there to go to university. “Ah, so far away,” she said, and I looked at the small group that surrounded me and 21

After subbing the odd day to cover a workshop or doctor’s appointment, one of the teachers said, ”Would you

“I knew I had changed from being a volunteer to a teacher, when a student asked me to be in a picture with her.” --Barb Small like to sub for me during my two week vacation?” I was really nervous about covering for her but knew it was time to commit myself to the world of ESL teaching. The theme for the month was Employment. We practiced dialogues asking for job applications and role-played job interviews. Students completed a crossword puzzle on Income Assistance and

Teal Writing Competition Winners

played Snakes and Ladders that asked them questions about the Employment Standards Act of BC. Each day I went home and prepared for the next. I was exhausted. The end of the two weeks coincided with the end of the month, and the graduation of a number of students. I knew I had changed from being a volunteer to a teacher, when a student asked me to be in a picture with her. The student who had brought me tea at break time for the last two weeks thanked me for my teaching, and presented me with a gift from the class. I was really touched by their thoughtfulness. On a trip to China with my father in 2000 we stopped at a high school where my sisters and I sipped tea from tiny cups while my father spoke in Chinese to a number of teachers as we sat around a large wooden table in the staffroom. The teachers laughed at something my father said, and then he turned and said to my sisters and me, “The principal has asked us each to teach an English class, and I told him we’d be delighted.” “I can’t teach an English class,” I said. “How would I do that?” My father dismissed my concerns with a slight wave of his hand and shortly after, a teacher named Jerry linked her arm through mine, and my eldest sister smiled and mouthed, “Good luck,” as Jerry led me to her classroom. Ten years later I find myself thinking of that time in China when I nervously stood in front of the classroom and answered questions about Canada. “Who’s the president of Canada?” one boy asked. A girl asked me what I do on Christmas. “Do turkeys come from Turkey?” someone asked. At the end of the class the children surrounded me and asked me for my autograph. Fame is overrated. Now I feel a great sense of satisfaction when students thank me as they leave the classroom, and tell

me to have a good afternoon. I think my father would be proud. Biography: Barb Small I got into ESL teaching in my mid-fifties and enjoy the flexibility of substitute teaching. I live in Vancouver with my husand, and have two children who are traveling and studying abroad. Honorable Mention ESL Student Category 2: Benchmark Level 3-4 Lin Wang School: ISS of BC Language College ‘Why do we learn English’ For a long time, learning English was a duty for me. I studied English from grade three and I have studied English for over 20 years. For me, learning English was only a duty but not interesting. But about two months ago, one thing changed my opinion. My husband is a salesman. He sells furniture that comes from other countries. He doesn’t know English well. One day, he carried some furniture to his company. When he put them down into his office, an old Canadian man asked my husband

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whether he could help my husband. Then the old man stood in front of the door and taught my husband the names of the furniture using simple words likes ‘Table’ ‘Chair’……Until my husband finished his work and had time to repeat and learn these English words. Learning English is not only a duty, it is a tool to help others. I think learning English is important and interesting. If something is helpful to others, then we know the value of why we do it. Biography: Lin Wang I came from Guangzhou, China. I had been engaged in various kinds of technological work in the telecommunication field with the civil aviation Air Traffic Management Bureau in China. On May 16th, I immigrated to Canada with my husband and ten-year-old son. I have studied the English language for about 2 months in ISS of BC Language College. Honorable Mention ESL Student Category 3: Benchmark Level 5-6 Wang Li Jie School: Camosun College

Teal Writing Competition Winners

Li’s Story’ I s t u d y E n g l i s h a t Va n c o u ve r Community College. I n China, where I am from, I was a successful businesswoman. Hundreds of people worked for me. My family was welloff. I have a son. He is very intelligent. When he was young, he liked to be the center of attention. I wanted my son to be a successful man, so I sent him to England to study when he was 14. I found out later however that living in a foreign country wasn’t good for him. He was beaten up by robbers a few times. He didn’t get along with his roommate, and he was not used to the weather or the food. In my opinion these were small things so I told him “I do not want to hear about that. I just want to see good marks.” After that he didn’t complain anymore. After five years, I immigrated to Canada. My son gave up his studies and went back to China without my approval. I was very angry. I didn’t understand why my son didn’t follow my instructions. I told him on the phone “Don’t call me mother again. I’ve never had a son like you.” Since then, more than three years, he hasn’t given me a call. Last month we had a topic in the class, ‘Is immigration to a foreign country more difficult for children or adults?’ I thought it was difficult for adults. Children have a lot of energy. They learn new things, make new friends easily, and they don’t need to think about money. However, I learned something new when our teacher told us she and her family immigrated to Canada. When she came to Canada, she was a teenager and she had lots of pressure. She had to learn English. It was difficult to make friends. It was difficult to mix between Canadian culture at school and then her family’s culture at home. She said she didn’t know who she was. I was realized I was

wrong. Living in a foreign country is difficult for children too. I should have asked my son before I sent him to England. I should have listened to him when he had problems and helped him figure them out. I can imagine right now how much my son must have suffered. Now I can forgive my son. Now I want to say “Son, I’m sorry. I was wrong.” I’ll find a way to fix our problem.

Honorable Mention ESL Student

my own language. Until one day, I watched in English; I found that the movie in original transcript helped me understand plot better. I have to say, reading and watching original English edition books and movies bring me a lot of happiness. After I graduated from college, I had a dream to travel abroad; I wanted to find out the sciences that appear in the books and movies. When I travelled in Canada in the first time, I was able to transfer airplanes, ask for directions and so on. That was an amazing experience. Now I know, I can survive almost anywhere in the world, because I speak English. I found the most fantastic part of speaking English is I made a lot of good friends from various countries. I have friends from Portugal, Japan, Saudi Arabia and other places; we have very good friendship even though we have different mother tongues. My English teacher told me that 75 per cent of English conversations are between people who speak other languages. I should say this is the most marvellous thing in the world. I am now an English student in Victoria, Canada; I love what I am doing now, because my world is bigger than yesterday.

Category 4: Benchmark Level 7-8 Huihui Xing (Joy) School: Camosun College ‘English Opens a New World to Me’ Learning English was daunting to me when I was a child. At that time, I did not know that English will open a whole new world to me. When I was little, I was fascinated of foreign fairy tales and drama movies like and ; I read and watched them in 23

Biography: Huihui Xing Huihui Xing is an ESL student in Camosun College. More than four years ago, she left China and started to travel around Canada. She said”The language barrier gave me hardship in the beginning. I learnt English from everywhere and I found everyhting could be teaching material, even a food package or an advertisement.” Now she is working on her academic English skills for pursuing another degree in Canada.

To SIG or to POD? That is the Question! By Seonaigh MacPherson ...Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of t r o u b l e s a n d, by o p p o s i n g, e n d them...

BC-TEAL has t wo initiatives to support ESL teachers’ professional development in British Columbia: the longstanding Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and now a pilot POD initiative. What, pray tell, is the difference between a SIG and a POD? Whereas a SIG is focused on networking and information sharing, a POD supports teacherinitiated collaborative research aimed at innovation or change: to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them. If you w i l l p a rd o n m e t u r n i n g t h e s e nouns into ver bs, I will tr y to answer the dilemma of whether “to SIG” or “to POD.” Special Interest Groups (SIGs) A SI G i s a s u b - gro up wit h in a p ro fe s s i o n t h a t fo r m s a ro u n d an area of specialization. SIGs enable interested members to exchange and share ideas and emerging issues in a field of specialization. Generally, members of SIGs engage in three types of networking activities: meeting, communicating, and organizing conferences or streams within larger conferences. Although some SIGs may engage in advocacy, as a rule they differ in function from an advocacy group. BC TEAL initiated three SIGs in the past year, with varying success. Joel Rhein helped to launch the first two: an Assessment SIG and

an Administration SIG. Both of these SIGs held sessions or had some representation in the spring 2010 BC TEAL Conference. Then, in the autumn, Eddie White organized a Research SIG. To date, all three SIGs met in Vancouver, but these could expand to other regions. SIGs offer excellent opportunities to meet other professionals in or across regions and to form or deepen an expertise in a particular area of TEAL. Pra c t i ce - O r i e nte d D i s cove r y (POD) A POD is a self-organized form o f p r o f e s s i o n a l i n q u i r y. E S L teachers or professionals meet for a specified duration, e.g., sixmonths, to inquire into a specific topic relevant to their professional practice. The spectrum of “inquiry” can range from shared reading aimed at reflective practice through to structured and formal collaborative research. PODs are outcomes oriented, unlike SIGs, insofar as they are oriented on the transformation of professional practice through the inquir y process. The activities of PODs are focused on initiating, planning, and engaging in inquiry or research and then sharing it with the field. Manitoba’s POD Model T h e Ad u l t L a n g u a g e Tr a i n i n g Branch in Manitoba first coined the term POD for this purpose, but in their case it was an acronym for Prac ticing / Our / D o m a i n { s h a re d k n ow l e d g e } ) . The program encourages adult EAL (ESL) teachers in settlement EAL programs to self- organize 24

study groups or PODs to explore clearly delineated areas of interest relevant to their teaching and professional development. Paul Vieira, the Program Officer overseeing the initiative, described the PODs as an “organic approach” to professional development that supports teachers to form learning communities through bottom-up participatory processes with topdown support. A key premise of the program is that the teachers have to par ticipate voluntarily and program directors have to be educated to support the PODs. BC TEAL’s POD Pilot BC TEAL is now piloting a POD on the topic of Advanced EAL Assessment, which was initiated by Seonaigh MacPherson (ELSA Net rep) with eight other members from three of four different Lower Mainland ESL programs or institutions. In this case, the focal topic is the benchmarking of advanced EAL and how well existing programs and benchmarks support EAL students to transition successfully into academic programs and the workplace. The findings of the POD, in this case a more formal research study, will be presented at the 2011 BC TEAL Conference in May. If the pilot is successful, BC TEAL is considering offering more structured support to member teachers to form small PODs in the future. Below is a chart comparing and contrasting the functions, scope, size, and outcomes associated with different forms of professional associations, with examples provided.

To SIG or to POD? That is the Question!

Function

Scope/Size

ProfessionalOrganization To represent, connect, share,

support, set standards, advocate, encourage and organize professional development (e.g. workshops, conferences).

Outcomes

Broad (all members)

e.g., conferences; membership lists; Websites; notices, newsletters & journals; /Large (100-10,000) professional standards.

Speaical Interest Group To network, communicate, meet

Examples BC-TEAL TESL Canada TESOL

Specialty-focus and organize sharing sessions and/ or conference streams. /Moderate (10-50)

e.g., meetings: sharing or Assessment SIG conference sessions (or a Admin SIG stream of sessions); networking Research SIG opportunites; Web lists & exchanges

Practice-Oriented Discovery (POD)

To conduct focused and systematic Inquiry-Focus research, curriculum inquiry, or professional inquiry. To connect /Small (5-8) practitioners, usually across programs, in a common practical inquiry. To systematically improve or change professional practice.

e.g., research papers, proposals & conference presentations; other publications; lesson or unit plans; assessment strategies; methodologies; curriculum development. -Innovation or change in professional practice.

Assessment POD (Benchmarking Advanced ESL)

Advocacy Group

Lobby on a particular issue to political bodies, media, and the general public.

Change in policy and practice within a circumscribed group, profession or issue.

TESL Canada

Limited to charitable activities (defined by federal law.)

TEAL Charitable Foundation (TCF)

Charitable Organization Solicit (tax-exempt donations;

allocate charitable donations to mandated recipients.

Issue-Focus /Size varies Restricted scope /Size varies

Come Join Our Community of Inquiry

Apply by February 28th for Entry Scholarships Contact: William Acton, Director ([email protected])

https://www.twu.ca/academics/graduate/matesol/ 2011 Cohort Information

(Both 36 credit-hour tracks)

RESIDENT TRACK

ONLINE TRACK

  

program Fall Orientation September 2nd– 9th Fall Session – starts September 12th ON CAMPUS

TWU MA TESOL a teacher education program TESL Canada approved:

Professional Standard 3 www.tesl.ca

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  

Summer Orientation - July 11th – 16th On Campus Summer Session Classes – July 18th – 28th Fall Session – starts September 12th - ONLINE

Prior Knowledge: A Rookie's Morning at BCTEAL--VEC By Karl Dick My first BC TEAL conference at BCIT this spring motivated me to volunteer for the fall session at Vancouver English Centre. I thought tasks like envelope sealing or table set-up were jobs for which I was suited and for which I could activate significant ‘prior knowledge’ to help execute. However, when asked to write a reflection article about sessions I had attended, I realized that this pre-grad rookie had very little ‘prior knowledge’ to activate and might actually blow it as a volunteer. After the requisite fear and loathing, it occurred to me that this was the whole point of attending a professional development session in the first place; discovery of what one does not know and learning something, anything, that helps you change that. So, less daunted, I attended my first session about using music in the ESL classroom. This session featured first time presenters/authors Corinne Toffan and Heather McGuire and their teacher reproducible resource book Beyond the Lyrics. It seemed like a safe session for me because I had some ‘prior knowledge’. I liked music, I was able to read music and I even had a brief music performance

history. Really, how badly could this actually go? So, I settled in and enjoyed a lively opening discussion where fellow teachers shared their successes and failures with using music in the classroom. I heard about successful chants for improving student pronunciation, teaching culture with Stompin’ Tom Connors and songs as the basis for lessons on grammar, vocabulary or connected speech. Teachers also shared openly about gaffs caused by lyrics that were culturally insensitive or different versions of songs that did not match the supplied lyrics. Then, using their text as a guide, Corinne and Heather led us through a variety of worksheets and songs. They developed concepts like simple present, contractions and imperatives with James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and reported speech, idioms and ‘go + gerund’ with Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying”. In the end, I left the session feeling great, having engaged with many useful, practical, classroom ready ideas. Greatly encouraged, I joined the plenary session featuring Lawrence and Kay McAllister. Drawing on H. G. Widdowson’s work and their

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own research, they presented “The Operator – Calling on Theory.” The McAllisters invited us to consider how linguistic realities informed language teaching. They led us through a descriptive map of language, focusing on the first auxiliary in an English sentence, labeling it the operator. They outlined the power of the operator in determining verb tense/agreement and emphasized the mobility and power of attraction that the operator possessed in WH questions, Yes/No questions, negation and time adverb placement. In way over my head and nearing panic, I searched the room for others who were sinking but found only somber nods as my more experienced colleagues were clearly getting it. There I sat, my ‘prior knowledge’ taking a terrible beating. Unwavering, I focused harder as Kay McAllister urged us all to rely less on student course books as our grammar guides and to focus instead on teacher resource books. As well, she compelled us to search for generalizations in grammar structures and use student course books to support and teach those generalizations rather than follow the

Prior Knowledge: A Rookies' Morning at BCTEAL-VEC

course book sequentially. Specifically, she pointed to combining often separately taught concepts like auxiliaries, “do” and the modals, and teaching them under the generalization heading of ‘the operator’ rather than as distinct forms. Feeling academically and pedagogically defeated, I was ready to toss what little ‘prior knowledge’ remained and think about lunch. Then, like a teacher super-hero, Kay offered a kinesthetic demonstration of how the operator functioned. Using variations on the framework sentence “Krista should look for bargains.” and recruiting a cast of volunteers, Kay

directed the operator to move about the stage and sentence, alternatively pulling, pushing, ignoring and rearranging sentence parts before our eyes.

As I watched the mini-play unfold, my fear was replaced with the growing sentiment that I could do that. Seeing the operator in action moved me from very little accessible ‘prior knowledge’ to “I think I can teach that!” and maybe more importantly, with a little work, “I can teach that Monday morning if I need to!” That, it seems to me, is really what professional sessions are about – moving us all from ‘I am really not sure what is going on here!’ to ‘I can teach that, even on Monday morning, if I need to!’ Thanks to the organizers and presenters who helped move all of us, especially this rookie, from “What??” to “I can do that!”

ELSA Upcoming Conferences Metropolis National Conference Immigration: Bringing the World to Canada March 23-26, 2011 The Sheraton Wall Centre, Vancouver http://www.metropolis2011.net/welcome

American Educational Research Association (2012) NOTE: For the first time, the largest international conference in education, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) will be held in Vancouver in the spring (April 13-17, 2012). Commonly this conference draws over 10,000 participants, so it is a good venue for information sharing at an international scale. Deadlines for proposals usually fall in mid-July, so plan in advance. Here is a link: http://www.aera.net/meetings/Default.aspx?menu_id=22&id=283

ELSA-Net News We are posting two new resources we have developed on our Resource Web page. One is Active Living (pre-literacy) on health and wellness topics with very useful visuals, and the other is the new ELSA Youth (Ages 17-24) curriculum resource package (ELSA 2/3, ELSA 4/5). You can find these and other resources on our Resource link at: http://www.elsanet.org/links_teachers.html

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Apply for a TEAL Travel Grant • • • • • •

BC TEAL is offering five $100 Travel Grants for carpooling to the TEAL Conference from out of town. Any location which is a 100 or more kilometers outside Greater Vancouver qualifies as ‘out-of-town’ A car with two or more people qualifies as a ‘carpool’ Two people in the car pool must be registered for the TEAL Conference. Applications are available by emailing [email protected] The deadline for applying for TEAL Travel Grants is March 1, 2011

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TEAL Charitable Foundation By Jennifer Pearson Terell

Awards, Scholarships and Bursaries The TEAL Charitable Foundation (TCF) offers awards, scholarships and bursaries to support ESL teachers, students and programs. You are eligible if you meet one or more of the following criteria: • Membership in BC TEAL • ESL/EFL teaching experience • TEAL community volunteer experience

Funding is available for • teacher education and professional development in the field of ESL instruction • international travel to research or study in the field of ESL instruction • the promotion of AIDS awareness and/or health education through ESL instruction

TCF Awards

Amounts

Application Deadlines

Project Funding Award

up to $3000

March 1

TEAL/TESOL Bursary

up to $2500

November 1

Mary Ashworth Scholarship

up to $1500

November 1

David C. Lam Awards

up to $2500 each

January 31

AIDS/Health Education Fund

Up to $3,000

March 1 November 1

Pat Wakefield Award

Up to $4,000

March 1

Nan Poliakoff Memorial Fund

Up to $1,400

November 1

Please note that in accordance with BC TEAL Bylaws, applications received from TCF or BC TEAL Board members or by project teams staffed by TCF or BC TEAL Board members cannot be considered for TEAL Charitable Foundation Awards, Scholarships or Bursaries .

• research projects, special projects, conferences, seminars, matching • funds, seed money and teacher/learner projects

Visit our website for additional information and application forms

www.bcteal.org 29

September,  2010DRDr  Sig  

Research SIG

   

A A    SSppeecciiaall    IInntteerreesstt    G Grroouupp    ooff    B BCC    T TEEA ALL     Coordinator:  Eddy  White,  Ph.D.       I.  Introduction   Are  you  engaged  in  research  as  part  of  a  Masters  program  or  other  formal  course  work?    Is  there   something  going  on  in  your  classes  that  you  would  like  to  investigate?  Are  you  considering  doing   research  but  are  unsure  how  to  proceed?  Would  you  like  to  exercise  your  ‘research  muscles’,   and  talk  (in  the  flesh)  with  like-­‐minded  colleagues?  Are  you  an  experienced  teacher-­‐researcher   interested  in  helping  others  hone  their  research  skills?  Can  you  participate  in  monthly  meetings   to  discuss/report  on  research  plans,  or  the  status  of  current/completed  research?   This  special  interest  group  seeks  to  encourage  teachers  to  take  an  inquiry  stance  towards  ESL   teaching/learning,  and  actualize  that  stance  by  engaging  in  research.    Monthly  group  meetings   will  provide  teacher-­‐researchers  with  a  forum  to  discuss,  report  on,  consider,  develop,   implement  and  help  publish  (e.g.  journal  articles,  presentations)  their  research.  

II.  SIG  Goals  –  This  Research  SIG  aims  to:     •

create  ‘a  community  of  inquiry’  which  promotes  and  makes  public  the  systematic,   intentional  study  by  teachers  of  their  own  classrooms  and  work  environments;      

•

provide  an  opportunity  for  teacher  researchers  to  meet,  discuss  and  report  on   upcoming,  ongoing,  or  recently  completed  research  projects;  

•

promote  and  support  English  language  teaching/learning  research,  in  particular   classroom-­‐based  research;  

•

promote  understanding  and  application  of  effective  research  design  and  methodology;  

•

promote  publication  of  research  (i.e.  presentations  and  written  accounts)  .  

III.  An  Invitation   Investigate  your  classes/practices/English,  join  professional  colleagues,  meet,  talk,  interact,   collaborate,  report,  present,  get/give  feedback,  develop  research  skills,  plan,  design,  implement,   analyze,  conclude,  write,  publish,  disseminate.  ‘Do’  research  and  communicate  about  it!   Whether  you  are  new  to  conducting  systematic  inquiry  or  an  experienced  researcher,  this   Research  SIG  will  provide  a  forum  for  teachers  to  regularly  meet,  discuss,  and  report  on   planned,  ongoing  or  completed  research  projects.  Come  and  join  us!   Monthly  meetings  will    be  held  at  the  downtown  campus  of  the  British  Columbia  Institute  of   Technology  (BCIT).  If  you  are  interested  in  joining  this  Research  SIG,  contact  Eddy  White  at   [email protected].  

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