Category: skills

Online Reading-Instruction Practice at Multiple Levels

Posted on | by Pearson

s_johnsonStefanie Johnson
Instructor, Grossmont College and San Diego Miramar College

Launched this fall is a new online reading lab series from Pearson called MyEnglishLab: Reading. While there are currently Pearson labs for reading, MyEnglishLab: Reading (MELR) is the first one from this publisher geared toward English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students. In contrast to online reading labs for students available through other authors and publishers, these labs come with purchase of the text. It is here that Pearson’s MELR has the clear advantage in that the online component can be used as a supplement with any textbook or as a stand-alone product. As such, MELR provides more practice with various readings and skills practice. MELR is a great tool that is available for four levels and would work in any ESOL course with reading in it. Continue reading →

Hitting the Right Note: Extending the Theme of Your Song / General Tips

Posted on | by Pearson

2013_Heyer_SandraSandra Heyer

One way to extend the lessons in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs is to follow up each unit with a supplemental song that connects to the theme of the unit, plus an activity to go with the supplemental song. Each month, I’ve shared a song-based activity that has worked well with my beginning and high-beginning students, for a total of six activities. Last month, we considered the idea of using a checklist to quickly find an appropriate activity for a song. This month, in the final article in this series, I’ll share some general tips for using songs in the classroom. Continue reading →

Hitting the Right Note:
Extending the Theme of Your Song / Activity #7

Posted on | by Pearson

2013_Heyer_Sandra Sandra Heyer

One way to extend the lessons in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs is to follow up each unit with a supplemental song that connects to the theme of the unit, plus an activity to go with the supplemental song. Each month I’ve shared a song-based activity that has worked well with my beginning and high-beginning students. In the past six newsletters, we’ve explored these activities:

  1. The Targeted Cloze
  2. Summarizing the Song’s Story (and making the summary “disappear”)
  3. Personalizing the Song’s Theme with Draw-Write-Share
  4. Building a Lesson Around a Repeated Phrase
  5. Writing New Song Lyrics
  6. Singing or Speaking the Chorus

This month, let’s take a look at an efficient way of matching a song with an activity. You could begin by choosing an activity, and then look for a song that works with it. For example, if you chose Activity #2, Summarizing, you would look for a song that tells a story. But it’s usually easier to pick a song first, and then match it with an activity. To quickly find a match, convert your list of favorite activities into a checklist, run the song you’ve chosen through the checklist, and–voilà–the activities that are a good fit will naturally emerge. Here is a checklist based on the activities above. Continue reading →

Hitting the Right Note:
Extending the Theme of Your Song / Activity #6

Posted on | by Pearson

2013_Heyer_SandraSandra Heyer

One way to extend the lessons in True Stories Behind the Songs and More True Stories Behind the Songs is to follow up the song in each unit with a supplemental song that connects to the theme of the unit, plus an activity to go with the supplemental song. Each month I’ll share a song-based activity that has worked well with my beginning and high-beginning students. This month, let’s look at how to further connect the song in the unit and the supplemental song by enhancing both songs with the same activity: Singing or Speaking the Chorus. Continue reading →