Adult Learning Centers, NYPL

Adult Learning Centers, NYPL

Friday, October 14, 2016

October 14, 2016



Week 4 : Personal Information

Greetings from our October 7 Teacher meeting!



Ken English, Associate Director of Adult Learning Centers
Luke Swarthout, Director of Adult Education Services

Teachers Angela Thompson and Vanessa Ford-Williams
Christopher Platt, Vice President of Library Services, NYPL
 
Kevin  Smith - Deputy Commissioner Adult Career and Continuing Education Services (ACCES)


Joy Haas, Decklan Fox, Eric Rosenbaum, Dolores Roberts


Staten Island in the House! (with Gale Honts)



Teacher Ana Gandelman, New Harlem (left)
Welcome!  New Harlem/St. Agnes Hub Manager
Fatma Ghailan (right)

Wakefield in the House!
Intake Advisor Sid Araujo and Hub Manager Eric Rosenbaum

 
 
Aguilar in the House!
More Aguilar - Hub Manager Stephanie Burnes


 
Here comes the Bronx!
Full-time teachers Sarah Hidalgo and Emily Skalet
 
Teachers Pam Dayboch and Michael DiMartino





Teachers Karen Camino and Rose 


Teachers Marina Bekkerman and Myrna Holguin

Teacher Diana Vayserfirova and
New Washington Heights Lead Teacher :)
(and old Upper Manhattan Hub Manager) Elke Stappert


Intake Advisors rule!
Sid Araujo, Raynira Tejada, Keila Lopez



 
Lower Manhattan Hub Manager Sherin Hamad,
Luke Swarthout, Director of Adult Education Services

Teachers Kathryn Bonn and Laura Dotterer


 
Teachers Ivan Obregon and Marika Martin
 
Teachers Joy Haas, Myrna Holguin, David Fobair
Sorry we didn't catch everybody!

Photos by Elizabeth and Elke

SWOT group work:

* Strengths   * Weaknesses   * Opportunities   * Threats

 At the ALC Administrative Team meeting on October 13, the HUB Managers, Ivelise Lugo,  Steve Mahoney and Ken English reviewed your SWOT comments together. Although the list below does not include everything you listed, we felt like these were the issues that were brought up consistently. (We even listed the number of times some of them occurred). We discussed them at length

We identified the issue of technology as being a primary concern, and Ken indicated that he and Steve would investigate the purchase of new laptops for our program

Strengths - talented staff (5X), professional teachers, library resources (5X), variety of classes (3X), motivated students (4X), supportive staff (3X)

Weaknesses- lack of childcare  (3X), limited space (5X), technology (5X), making copies (3X), branch staff collaboration (3X), multi-level classes, assessment(BP 2.0/lack of reading/writing elective) (4X

Opportunities - variety of classes (2X), working with branch staff, vocational classes, math (3X), English for Special Purposes, outreach, staff development, digital literacy, increased communication within department, online learning, outreach -literacy, expansion

Threats- funding  - undocumented, safety (security) - unsafe neighborhoods,  assessment (BP 2.0), losing talent, competing programs, requirement for student documentation -social security number, space for instruction - disruptions for renovations/repairs 

Thank you for participating in this valuable exercise
We will continue to review it and learn from it as the term goes on

Do you have comments or suggestions? Please share!






WARM UPS

4 Fast Fun Fillers
No Prep Warm Up Activities
Englishclub.com Warmups
Fluentu.com ESL Speaking Activities for Adults
Dave's ESL Cafe: Icebreakers





GOOGLE RESOURCES
From the Free Technology for Teachers Blog:

**Comic Strips with Google Slides
With a little creativity your students can create comic strips in Google Slides. Google Slides contains all of the tools that students need in order to create, share, and print comic strips. The best part of creating a comic strip in Google Slides is that students can collaborate on the process of making a comic strip story.


**This is a useful blog post from Free Technology for Teachers about 



TECHNOLOGY TIP:

Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary

learnersdictionary.com/
Clear and simple definitions in basic American English from North America's leading language experts. More usage examples than any other dictionary.
Available as a free website and a free Smartphone App.
Tell your students about it in class (or, if you have a projector set up, look up a few words together) and encourage students to use it outside of class. It might be good to tell advanced students to only look up select words, we've seen students trying to look up everything.





SONGS IN CLASS:
Elke will add a few songs-in-class activities this cycle. 
You can use them as a warm-up or transition in between other activities. If you have a projector and screen, great, if not, speakers and an iphone/Smartphone work, too.

Songs can fit the current curriculum topic or grammar point.

#1
Supertramp - The Logical Song (1979)
Level: Advanced

Ventures connection: Ventures 4 Student Book, p. 8 (Parts of speech: adjectives/adverbs)
Ventures Arcade: Level 4, Unit 1, "Parts of Speech" (Two exercices: adjectives/adverbs)

All song/adjective resources below are on the Week 1/Personal Information Wiki: 

Download the GAPFILL-PDF

EXCERPT:


 

Adjective order is a great follow up activity.

Here's are three pictures (all jpg downloads on the week 1 wiki).




If you would like to see more activities here, and for different levels, please let us know :)



From the Oxford University Press English Language Teaching Global Blog
Rigor, Relevance, and Respect for Beginning Adult English Learners

Coping with complexity is integral to our success as learners, workers, parents, caregivers, engaged citizens, and community members. If the tasks, texts, and technology we navigate in the 21st century can be challenging and even maddening for the fluent English speaker, imagine the situation of the adult English learner! 






Call for Contributions: New Ways in Teaching Grammar, second edition

From the TESOL website:
The upcoming edition of New Ways in Teaching Grammar will feature the latest collection of form-focused activities developed by ESL/EFL professionals for classrooms in a variety of settings and for students of all levels. These communicative grammar-based activities will motivate students to use and master grammatical forms for speaking and writing in high school, higher-ed, or IEP classrooms.  The lesson plans may include digital technology or Internet resources, as this volume will have a companion online resource page. We look forward to receiving your lesson plan ideas!




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!

Thank you, we really appreciate your feedback!

Have a great week!!!

Elke & Elizabeth





2 comments:

  1. Very nice edition--thanks for all of this!
    The Oxford University Press article bases a lesson on
    the Family Reunion pages of their Picture Dictionary.
    Wish we could give all our beginner students a copy of the OPD
    to keep.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the feedback, Joan!
    While we can't give books to students (maybe one day...), we'll look for some useful links for students to post in this week's blog. Students may not all have computer access, but most of them have smartphones.

    ReplyDelete