Week 9: Time/Weather
TEACHING RESOURCES
Are you familiar with Woodwardenglish.com? Lots of great resources there. Many thanks to Stacy Brower for sharing this one with us:
A nice collection of weather resources here on the ISL Collective website: Weather Printables- many thanks to Joanne Springstead for sharing!
The Free Technology for Teachers website has great information about making copies of Google Docs that aren't shared directly with you here: How to Make Copies
NYS-TESOL EVENT
You can attend an event at Hunter College on March 31, "Bilingualism to Promote English." Find out more here: NYSTESOL Event
Long Island ESOL Conference 2016
The Changing Landscape of Instruction For ELLs
Molloy College, Rockville Centre, NY
Time: 8:00 AM-12:30 PM
Call for Proposals
Due Date: March 25, 2016
Submit your proposals online now.
LI ESOL Conference Information*All Sessions Will Be 45 Minutes Long*
Audiovisual Equipment: Each classroom will be equipped with an LCD projector/screen or interactive whiteboard, PC, sound capability, and DVD player. There will be no charge to the presenter for this equipment.
Presenter’s Registration Fee: The registration fee will be waived for presenters.
Notification of Acceptance: Notification regarding the status of your proposal will be emailed on or about April 1, 2016
Questions about Program Proposals: Please contact Dr. Maria Dove by e-mail mdove@molloy.edu
TEACHER INTERVIEW
5 Questions for ... 
1 Where are you from and what brought you to NYC?
and Hawaii before I moved to New York City. I was
drawn to the city’s diversity, its openness, and the range of different
opportunities that it seems to offer everybody who are willing to work hard.
Of course, meeting and falling in love with a New Yorker from the East
Village did not make me less eager to move.
2 Have you
ever taught in another country? How has that shaped you as a person and as a
teacher? I think what
would stand out are my view on the relative frequency of L2 usage in the
language classroom, my view on the relative frequency of assessment, and my
view on childhood education.
When I started teaching in
Honolulu, I discovered how most of the ESL classes there were taught in English
almost exclusively while as in Norway they were taught largely in Norwegian.
Of course, presentations and so on would be carried out in English, but I
rarely remember speaking English with my peers or teachers. I think maybe
this could be why, even though most Norwegian Speakers of English have a very
high level of proficiency, they tend to have very low self-esteem when it
comes to actually speaking it. If I go back to Norway, I would try to
minimize my use of Norwegian and encourage my students to speak English
amongst themselves and to me. I must add, however, that the L1 has a place in
the language classroom. Especially for beginning-level students such as the
ones I am teaching at Melrose currently. Giving instructions in the L2, for
instance, is very hard when your students’ proficiency level is too low to
comprehend the main gist of what you are trying to say. My class consists of
all Spanish Speakers of English, so I can put what Spanish I know to good
use, but there is still a language barrier. The way I solved this issue was
bringing more technology into the classroom. Much can be said about the
accuracy of Google Translate, but if it comes to giving instructions on games
and so on, Google Translate works like a charm. When needed, I type my instructions
in English, they appear in both English and Spanish on the screen, and I
either read it out loud to them or press the play button.
The frequency of L2 assessment,
especially in higher education, also seems to vary a lot between the U.S.A.
and the Scandinavian countries. In Norwegian Universities it is customary to
have one summative assessment and have very few other means of assessment. It
is therefore crucial that the test is reliable and that the topics discussed
are equally familiar to all test takers and so on. In either case, I think,
having initial assessment, several formative assessments, and one summative
assessment, as is customary in the U.S.A., will provide a more accurate and
reliable test score. Students with test anxiety, for instance will most
definitely benefit from multiple means of assessments.
When it comes to childhood
education, there is a massive gap between the American and the Norwegian
system. In Norway and the rest of Scandinavia, children do not start school
till they are 6 years old, and the time they spend in barnehagen (kindergarten) is mainly devoted to self-initiated
explorations. The teachers will set up classroom, materials, and explorations
based on what the children are interested in, and the teachers are viewed as
learners on the same line as the children. Children are believed to be
curious and capable and will have the opportunity to use, for instance, power
tools and knives in their explorations given that the conditions are safe.
Children are also outside every day even if it is raining or snowing, and
they all get healthy organic food served at barnehagen. The Finnish National Board of Education even state
that they require of all preschool teachers that they hold a master’s degree.
I agree with this view on childhood
education and it has not changed much since I came to the U.S.A. I think
children should be given more time to develop socially and acquire the skills
they need for primary school before they start learning letters and numbers
that may seem both arbitrary and redundant to them. For instance, drawing is
something that most any child finds amusing. It keeps them focused for long
periods of time, and as their drawings develops and start to look more
representative, the muscles in their hands develop to the level where they
are much more capable of holding a pen and forming letters. At this point,
the child is also more likely to take interest in and understand the
underlying premises for writing and counting.
I do not think it is
developmentally appropriate to expect children to write and read before they
are six years old, but the U.S.A., and NYC in particular, is very
competitive, and I do understand that parents would want to give their
children a jumpstart if they can. I would like to point out, though, that
Finnish childhood education has shown more efficient acquisition of both
reading and writing than most other countries including the U.S.A.
On the other hand, I do for the
most part think teachers in NYC seem more open-minded, enthusiastic, and have
more of that drive that you want to see in a teacher’s eyes when they talk
about their profession. At least that is my impression when I visit ALCs such
as Tompkins Square Library.
3
How do you encourage students to
practice English outside of class?
By practicing it every day with the
well of English speakers you can find in New York. This is something that we
do not have the opportunity to do in EFL settings such as Norway where
everybody speaks Norwegian rather than any other language. English is rarely
even used as a Lingua Franca due to a largely homogenous population.
I also recommend that they all
download some form of MALL applications for their smartphones. For instance,
we provide our students with Rosetta Stone, which is highly accessible to them
outside of class. It is important that we assist them in accessing this
software, but I do find that it takes quite some time for some students to do
this. Meanwhile, it is important that we offer the students with an
alternative. I have found that Duolingo can serve this function, as it is both
free and easily downloadable on any device.
I also introduced Apple’s Siri (the
pre-loaded personal assistant on iPhone) along with other speech recognition
software (Cortana, Google Now etc.) during our Time and Weather unit. I had
students practice their pronunciation by teaching them simple functions such
as asking for the time. Most of my students actually got their requests
carried out even though they are all beginners.
This kind of technology is easily
accessible and can make learning languages more engaging, real-life and fun.
I have, for instance, been taking Mandarin classes for some time now, and I
use an application called ‘Hello Chinese’ that does not rely on Internet
connection whenever I commute somewhere. New York City is renown for very
long commute times, and with my 14 hours of commute time per week, I am no
exception.
4
What’s your favorite place in NYC?
My
favorite place in New York must be Veniero’s located at 342 East 11th
Street in East Village. It is an Italian bakery that completely changed my
perception of what makes good cake. Their Blood Orange Delight is to die for!
I also frequently
stop by Arancini Bros for their Sicilian deep-fried rice balls with risotto
filling at 120 Essex Street. The Ragu balls and Carbonara balls are my
absolute favourites, and taste incredible with a Nutella ball for desert.
5 What nobody knew...
I
like to play guitar, dance Irish stepdance, take my dog to the dog park at
Tompkins Square Park, and knit for somebody I care about.
  Knitting is weirdly
enough something everybody in Norwegian primary/secondary schools has to
learn. I believe I took it a step further than most though, by having my
mother teach me how to knit increasingly more difficult items.
I am currently
working on my masterpiece – a pair of traditional Norwegian mittens knitted
on the smallest pins and the thinnest yarn I could find in New York.
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We enjoyed reading about the Norwegian way - what do you think?
SHOW US THE LOVE
One of the only ways we can know if you like what we are doing is if you make a comment on our blog page. Like our blog? Are there topics you would like us to add? Please comment!
Would you like to contribute something? A link, teaching tip, other? Any time!
Are you ready for the spotlight? Teacher interview?
Would you like to contribute something? A link, teaching tip, other? Any time!
Are you ready for the spotlight? Teacher interview?
Thank you, we really appreciate your feedback!
Have a great week!
Elizabeth & Elke
Have a great week!
Elizabeth & Elke
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