Category: multilevel

How do we design programs that lead to measurable progress?

Posted on | by Pearson

By Sara Davila

In institutions around the world there is increasing pressure to demonstrate how program design will lead to demonstrable progress in English for learners. It raises a key question: how do we design programs that lead to measurable progress. Over the last three years, numerous schools have begun to work on how they can address this challenge using the Global Scale of English (GSE). This year, at TESOL 2019, it will be my pleasure to facilitate a discussion between two administrators who have worked through this process. For me, it’s an opportunity to share some of the best practices I’ve seen developed by experienced educators in the field. For my colleagues, it’s a chance to talk about what they learned during the process, the benefits to their learners, and their future plans.

Salem State University

 Shawn Wolfe, the Associate Director of English Language Programs and International Enrollment Management at Salem State University, will be the first to share his insight into applying the GSE in an institutional environment. At the institution—located in Salem, Massachusetts—Shawn began to explore how the GSE could help to address a greater need for insight into progress given the time ELLs had to prepare in order to enter their degree courses. How much time was required to achieve success in English? How could progress be measured in a way that was tangible to professors and students? These are just a few of the questions that lead Shawn to begin to explore the Global Scale of English.

While the process has been slow and steady, Shawn can provide first hand experience from his use of the GSE, including how he is working to secure facility buy-in by embedding professor views in the curriculum alignment process.

Sacred Hearts University

 Alla Schlate, Academic Director at Sacred Heart University based in Connecticut, will be our second speaker, sharing her process of curriculum review and alignment for her various English programs. At Sacred Hearts, like Salem State and other schools that enroll international learners, there is a significant challenge with both the diversity of language ability and degree interest areas demonstrated by students. In order to address these challenges, Alla has developed a four pillar approach to support learner development. Her long-term goal is to create a curriculum that can be easily adapt over time to the changes in learner needs, instructor needs, and available materials and content. At her institution, like Shawn, she faced similar challenges with aligning the program to the GSE: from gaining faculty buy-in to addressing the challenging and changing needs of the student population.

How did Shawn and Alla achieve success in their institutions using the GSE? What can other schools learn from their experiences? At our TESOL 2019 panel discussion session (on Friday, March 15 at 2pm, Room A407) we intend to explore answers to these questions, and more. We look forward to seeing you in March, and sharing our experiences with you.

Shawn Wolfe is an associate director of the Center for International Education at Salem State University in Massachusetts, where he oversees student recruitment and the core academic components of the center’s English language programs, including accreditation preparation, curriculum and student assessment, instructional coaching, and professional development for English language specialists. Shawn has more than 11 years of EFL/ESL teaching and administrative experience in Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Prior to working at Salem State, Shawn oversaw a community-based English language program for adults and was a recognized state leader and advocate for adult language learners in West Virginia. Shawn holds an MAT-TESOL from the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education and has research interests in teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), second language Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT), and E-learning.

Alla Schlate is the Academic Director of the English Language Institute at Sacred Heart University. Professor Schlate is responsible for academic oversight of the ELI. She is in charge of the content of the Intensive English Program: curriculum, instructors, books, etc., as well as makes sure that the curriculum meets the rigorous requirements of higher education accreditation organizations. She leads Professional Development meetings providing the instructors with the best opportunities to keep abreast with the latest research in Language Acquisition Methodology. Her goal also is to ensure that international students are actively engaged in meaningful language learning process exploring all opportunities offered by numerous Departments at SHU. Prior to working at Sacred Heart, Professor Schlate worked at the Institute of International Relations, Yekaterinburg, Russia, and was an acknowledged leader in Education in the Ural Area of Russia. Professor Schlate holds an M.A. in Linguistics and an M.A.T in Teaching EFL/ESL and Literature from Udmurt State University in Russia (Evaluated by WES); an M.A. in Educational Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University, New York; and a CELTA in Teacher Training and Material Design, from Cambridge University, UK.

“Webinars – a wonderful substitute for live seminars”
Pearson Professional Development Webinar Series

Posted on | by Pearson

speech_teacups_blue_bannerIn October 2015, U.S. Pearson ELT conducted an idea-packed Professional Development Webinar series, consisting of 13 one-hour sessions. The goal of the webinar series was to provide thousands of instructors and administrators around the world with multiple opportunities to learn from English-language teaching experts. Topics included:

  • “Exploring the Potential of the Flipped Classroom” by Robyn Brinks Lockwood
  • “Teaching with Technology and 21st Century Skills” by Sara Davila
  • “Using Our Brains: Brain-based Approaches to Teaching” by Sarah Lynn
  • “Critical Thinking in English for Academic Purposes” by Ken Beatty
  • “Four Skills Teaching” by Sara Davila
  • “Critical Reading Skills for College and University Students” by Tania Pattison
  •  “Academic Writing Assignments: Teaching Discourse Synthesis” by Carol Numrich
  • “Creating Authenticity in the English Classroom” by Ken Beatty
  • “Addressing Learner Needs Around Spoken Academic English” by Ken Beatty
  • “Extend and Engage: Digital Learning” by Christina Cavage

An overwhelming number of teachers who attended commented that they were able to get ideas from the webinars that they could start using right away. One teacher commented: “Thank you for these past two weeks of webinars. I appreciate having plenty of new ideas to use in my classroom.” The recorded webinars are available in the US website (registration is required to view the recordings).

A total of 4,359 people registered for the webinars, and 2,120 people attended the sessions. Another teacher commented: “Really enjoyed this webinar; very useful content and explanations of how to utilize this information in the classroom.”­ A third teacher responded about the content of the webinars: “As usual, my ‘teacher’s imagination’ has been stimulated by ideas presented in this webinar. I especially appreciate the insights, too.”

Webinar_Country_Cht

Teachers from 25 countries attended the webinar series.

Countries Represented (ranked by number of attendees)

Webinar_graph

United States represented almost half the attendees. Other countries represented: Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Each of these countries represents less than 2% of the total attendees.

One participant summed it up perfectly: “Webinars are a wonderful substitute for live seminars, which cost time and money, and I commend you for organizing these amazing sessions! Already looking forward to the next ones!”

The U.S. ELT marketing team is already hard at work developing topics and scheduling for the next webinar series, possibly in spring 2016. Click here to receive updates on the next series of webinars.

G is for Games

Posted on | by Pearson

Ken BeattyDr. Ken Beatty

“Why are they playing games and not learning something?”

Games are among the most misunderstood pedagogical strategies in the teachers’ toolbox. Parents, other teachers, and administrators can misinterpret students’ enjoyment of games as having fun at the expense of more serious and productive learning. But the opposite is often the case; the casual competitive nature of games suppresses students’ self-consciousness and helps them focus and learn more than during other classroom activities.

However, to be fair, sometimes teachers play games in the classroom without a perfect understanding of the benefits that games carry and the ways in which they can be tailored to better address student needs. In such cases, teachers may only use games as filler activities, as a way of keeping more able students busy while others catch up. Alternatively, games might only be used at the end of a class when there is extra time left.

Motivation

Because games are inherently motivating, they are useful as a reward or a break from other classroom activities. Some games add excitement, such as kinesthetic ones that require students to stand up and participate as a group. An example is Simon Says, in which students have to listen carefully and follow a leader’s directions as long as they are prefaced with the words, “Simon says (touch your nose).” If the words Simon says aren’t said by the leader, students have to remain stationary or find themselves out of the game.

The pedagogical purposes of Simon Says–type games are usually to encourage discrete listening and also to reinforce language students have already learned around actions related to identifying body parts (touch your knees), types of motion (shake your head; close your eyes), and actions (sit down; stand up). As with most games, there are opportunities to tailor the game to the target vocabulary students have recently covered. Reinforcement through a game is important because it stores the information in another part of the brain. Beyond reading, writing, listening, or speaking, the kinesthetic aspect helps make the vocabulary more memorable. Continue reading →

Back to the Future: Still More Low-Tech Activities
for a High-Tech Classroom

Posted on | by Pearson

2013_Heyer_Sandra Sandra Heyer

This is the last article in a four-part series on activities that foster physical activity in the classroom. I titled the series “Back to the Future” because my search for activities led me back to time-tested ones I began using years, even decades ago. At first I balked at reviving them; I confess that the razzle-dazzle of the new technology had a stronger pull on me. But when I saw how enthusiastically my class responded, I had to remind myself that although the interactive activities were old hat to me, they were novel to my students, who were accustomed to a teacher-centered learning environment, one in which they rarely, if ever, got out of their seats.

I chose the activities because they might benefit our physical health, but they may have improved our psychological health as well. I think we all enjoyed periodically taking our attention off the big screen at the front of the room and instead focusing on one another. After all, that people-to-people connection, not gliding desks or a high-tech console, is what makes a class great. It’s what has always mattered—and always will.

In previous newsletters, we took a look at six activities:

  1. The Moving Line
  2. Conversation Stations
  3. Walking Dictation
  4. Find Your Match
  5. Opinion, Please
  6. Line Up According To

Below are the final two activities, Find Someone Who and The One-Question Survey. Continue reading →