Week 11 is here: Friends and Family
LEARNING FROM MISTAKES
Hello colleagues- I though this short post from Education Weekly was very valuable. It talks about letting our students make mistakes. Students Can Learn From Mistakes helps us think about that silent space in the time between you've asked a question and when someone answers it. It's hard to hold back and wait for an answer, isn't it?
Elizabeth
TRADING CARDS
I can't wait to use this resource, shared by the Free Technology for Teachers website. Create Motivational Posters and Cards on Big Huge Labs. This has information about creating trading cards and posters for your classroom. Think about all you could do with these cards- games of memory, vocabulary acquisition...the possibilities are endless!
Elizabeth
RESOURCES FOR TEACHING READING
Independent Online Reading Practice- a great list of free access to texts for your students.
NEW DORP NEWS
Instructors at the New Dorp branch Josephine Lopez and Art Freifeld conducted a Holiday Food Drive with their NRS 1-2 and NRS 3-4 students for the third year in a row. They invited a guest speaker from Project Hospitality (a large social service provider on Staten Island) to talk with students. They incorporated the talk and the food drive with the theme of Friends & Family in the classroom. Students brought in donations that were given to the needy in Staten Island.
If you have something you have done in your classroom that you would like to share, please let us know! Email us at: elizabethschade@nypl.org or elkestappert@nypl.org
Last month we proudly hosted:
The Third Annual Student Mayoral Election at the Harlem Library!
I just wanted to stop by at the election to take a look, but I stayed for all presentations, because they were outstanding. The students put so much love, enthusiasm and dedication into this project, from preparing speeches in teams to Powerpoint presentations. For me, Francesco's team won the award for creating promotional material and election snacks :)
We hope you enjoy reading teacher Myrna Holguin's article below and watching the short video:
All student PowerPoint Electoral presentations are on the writing wiki:
Harlem Library Class Election Project
By Myrna Holguin (Harlem Level 5-6 and Level
1-2 teacher)
On Thursday, November 20th, students from the
Harlem Library ESOL 5-6 class held a mock mayoral class election. It was held with Katherine Perry’s Harlem
Library ESOL Level 3-4 class who participated as audience members and Election
Day workers.
Students formed teams and held roles according
to their public speaking comfort level:
·
Mayoral candidate
·
deputy mayor candidate
·
campaign manager
·
media specialist
Candidates ran for office as themselves in the
Republican or Democratic Parties.
To prepare for the project, students discussed
social issues such as education, housing, crime, jobs, and health.
Students
selected the issues they wanted to focus on and worked together to write a
campaign speech. They also
created a campaign PowerPoint presentation to enhance their candidate’s
speech. Students made posters
and brought food and beverages for an Election Day mixer.
“It was
an amazing project,” said Manny Tepepa, campaign manager for Nery Osario from
the Democratic Party. “I like
working in a group. My partners
were very nice.”
“My team
and I enjoyed working in this project,” Nery agreed. “For us it was a very
good opportunity to practice both writing and speaking English. Also it was
an excellent exercise to develop other skills as to speak English in public
and work in groups. It was very important for me to work as a team with my
pals because the brainstorm helped us to develop a successful presentation
and speech.”
The class
election began with a primary election, in which each team took turns coming
up to the podium. Campaign
managers introduced their teams, providing glowing background information
about their mayoral candidates.
“I was
the first person to speak,” Manny remembered. “I was very nervous.”
Nerves
withstanding, candidates presented their speeches, engaging the audience and
rousing wild applause as the media specialist played the team’s
PowerPoint. Afterwards, the
audience voted for the best candidates, Nery Osario, from the Democratic
Party and Jennifer Ranfla, from the Republican Party.
Next, students held an Election Day mixer,
followed by a Q & A session.
Intermediate students took turns coming up to the podium to ask Jennifer and
Nery questions. They had
previously worked with their teacher, Katherine Perry, to ask their
questions.
The audience then voted for the winner, Jennifer Ranfla. Jennifer first started the ESOL program in
the beginner level and graduated to the intermediate and advanced
levels. She is going to college
in January.
“This
experience was very interesting for me and for my group because we won.”
Jennifer smiled. “I had a
wonderful team. They helped me
so much with my speech.”
“We
didn’t win, but it doesn’t matter because we had fun,” Manny observed. “We enjoyed sharing the experience
with another class.”
This is the third time the Harlem Library
English 5-6 class has done the class election. Many of the students who participated in this year’s
election were audience members from the Harlem Library 3-4 class in last
year’s election.
Jennifer
was one of those students. “I
was a spectator in the 2014 class election and now this year I ran for
mayor. I enjoyed it very much.”
“It was a
very exciting and fun day.” Nery said about the class election. “ I think it
is one of the best ways to learn.”
“I want to say thank you to my teachers, Myrna
and Katherine,” Jennifer added. “Because without their help I would
not have improved my English. I would not have been the first female mayor in
New York City!”
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Until next week!
We will have an interview with Lianne Smith, and the promised report about Katherine Perry's Muhlenberg PenPal project.
Comments and suggestions are appreciated!
If you have something you have done in your classroom that you would like to share, please let us know!
Email us at:
elizabethschade@nypl.org and/or elkestappert@nypl.org
Please check upcoming events below.
Best,
Elizabeth
& Elke
UPCOMING EVENTS
Cambridge University Webinar - Tomorrow, December 8, at 3:30 pm
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Columbia University's American Language Program WINTER CONFERENCE:"Critical Thinking in Language Learning and Teaching"Saturday, February 27, 9:30-6pm
PROPOSALS ACCEPTED - DEADLINE JANUARY 15, 2016 (please see below for more info)
Dear New York ESL community,
We are pleased to
announce that we are now accepting proposals for Columbia University’s
American Language Program (ALP) Winter Conference.
The theme for
this year's conference is Critical
Thinking in Language Teaching and Learning.
The conference will be held at Columbia University’s Faculty
House on Saturday, February 27, 2016, from 9:30 AM to 6 PM.
The conference is
a professional development event for practicing TESOL educators, researchers,
and graduate and doctoral students focused on enriching their
pedagogical practice in terms of teaching critical thinking.
We welcome proposals from our colleagues at all New York area
colleges, and
we are interested in receiving proposals that focus on using critical
thinking in writing, reading, speaking, listening, pronunciation, grammar, or
a combination thereof. We welcome both presentations of papers or hands-on
workshops.
Proposals will be evaluated based on:
·
Novelty of approach
·
Significance to the field
·
Research basis for proposed practices
·
Clarity of session description
Please use the
following Google form to submit a proposal: http://goo.gl/forms/8XyVthqDJO
Proposals must be received by January 15, 2016. In the meantime, feel
free to contact us if you have questions or if you would like more
information about the conference.
Best regards,
Christopher
Collins (cc3651@columbia.edu)
Polly Merdinger (pbm1@columbia.edu)
Brittany
Ober (bo2212@columbia.edu)
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