Shifting and Lifting in Devens, Massachusetts with a cadre of Beginning ESOL Professionals

Adult ESOL teachers are a rare breed...perspicacious, systematic, buoyant, resilient and coalescent.
(Okay, sure-- they were prompted with those choices...but they could have chosen not to vote. Did I mention that adult ESOL teachers are also very supportive? )

Over the course of five 1/2 hours these teachers committed themselves to sit in a windowless--and at times airless--room, working on ways to integrate the College and Career readiness Standards at the very beginning level of ESOL.  (Beginning literacy, Low Beginning and High Beginning) Not an easy process--let me assure you, but an important one. It involves looking at ways to help learners begin their dive into complex texts and citing textual evidence--using visuals, short pieces of authentic text, and all matter of multimedia.

Want to have a little fun? Try inferring what the image on the right is. Consider what evidence you are using as the basis for your inference. Then go to this link to check your inference. http://floorsix.blogspot.com/ (You might need to scroll a bit and then click"Show answer." )

If you'd like to see the materials shared in the workshops, they're posted on the Tools and Tips page of the website. And if you're ever in Devens, Massachusetts--you can't go wrong with the Marriott Springhill Suites. The people here are SO kind. There I was an hour before the workshop with the winter air turning me into a victim of intense static cling -- miserable in my suddenly form fitting blouse. (Form-fitting is not a place I like to go...) In response to my deep woe,  Jen at the front desk found a few dryer sheets. (In case you don't know, applying the sheets to the inside of clothing removes the issue.) Thanks to Jen (and Bounce ;-) ) flow restored.

The Story Behind the OPD Tell the Story Contest

Years and years and years ago, (22 to be exact), Norma Shapiro and I wanted to create videos based on the pictures in the *New* Oxford Picture Dictionary.  Our vision was of  OPD pictures dissolving into live action scenes that would engage learners and demonstrate the OPD vocabulary in use. At the time, the New York office of Oxford University Press (American English Language Teaching) was not in a media frame of mind. (Roy Gilbert, head of OUP-AMELT at the time, did like the dialog balloons we gave the cover characters during workshops - but we just couldn't "sell" the video concept. 


Soon after we made our video suggestion, Bill Bliss and Steve Molinsky came out with Side by Side TV and Norma and I put away our video dreams for a while. We brought
the idea up again during work on the 1998 edition of OPD, but at the time the resources were directed towards the OPD interactive and the learning curve for including video was a bit  steep.  By 2008, video had made its way into the OPD digital materials,but the authorial vision of a cross dissolve from page to reality didn't make the cut.



Still, I am a terrier at heart.

I ruminated and pondered and came up with an answer I should have had all along: turn it over to the learners! LEARNERS could make VIDEOS inspired by the stories they saw in the OPD. 

The sales and marketing group were enthused and plans began for the...
OPD Tell the Story Video contest. 

As one would expect, the vision has had to be adapted in order to make it manageable. The Tell the Story contest asks learners and their instructors to choose from one of four story pages in the OPD in order to create and act out a video script. The story serves as the narration that frames the action, and learners write the dialog and action to flesh out the story.  Once the class is happy with their work, they rehearse the script and perform it for the camera, upload the video to YouTube and await the video judging in June.

The teacher of the grand prize-winning class wins a Trip to TESOL 2015 in Toronto

Teachers of First-Runner Up and Second-Runner Up Classes win and iPad and an iPad mini respectively

Learners get prizes too, of course. The Grand Prize class get the iPhone OPD app
or a choice of print dictionaries, and first and second place classes get a choice of dictionaries as well.
(There's even a Learners' Choice Award given to the video with the most votes from the ESL community participating in the contest.)

All contest submissions must be in by June 2, 2014.

While the prizes are certainly lovely, I think the task-based learning at the heart of the contest will be the bigger pay off.* This is an opportunity for learners to collaborate and get creative as they determine what parts of the story to tell and how. (All the materials you and your learners need are provided free through the Oxford Teacher's Club.*) Here's a sample: Tell the Story Lesson Plan. The recording process is an added benefit to learners. It allows them to capture and celebrate their successes and identify language skill areas they want to refine.

I hope you'll consider trying out the materials and entering the contest!


*This year the contest is open to US learners in secondary and adult classes, but the free materials for "telling the story" are available to all teachers and their learners at The Oxford Teachers' Club. You'll need to register, but registration is free. And once registered, search for OPD Tell the Story. You'll be directed to the free materials through a link on the site.)

The art of conferencing: TESOL 2014

After 23 years of TESOLing, I feel as though I can speak with some authority when I say that Portland knows how to do a conference! The giant poppy sculptures hanging from the convention center hallways, the laptop lounges, the compostable coffee cups (with coffee that tasted much better than compost), the reassigned men's to women's restrooms (well that was a little tricky...) and a classy cocktail lounge right on site. All attendees received free light rail passes and I haven't even mentioned the excellent presenters and sessions. My focus is on adult ESOL and a plethora of sessions made the 2014 conference into a moveable feast. (Thank you Lori Howard,  Radmila Popovic,  Joe McVeigh,  Marsha Chan, Ronna Magy, Helen Solorzano, Susan Finn Miller, to name a few! Unfortunately, I couldn't make these links to their work at TESOL--it's too early...but once they come online, I'll switch the links.) 

A limited representation of the complexity of Adult ESOL

This was my busiest TESOL ever! A paired reading PCI with Lori Howard on Tuesday; all day TESOL meetings on Wednesday;  a panel with authors Daphne Mackey &  Joe McVeigh along with editor Jeff Krum and publisher, Pietro Alongi on Thursday, a vocabulary session on Friday--which I began 15 minutes early, until I caught myself.

My last session, on complexity, motivation, and adult ESL was a new adventure and to my delight I experienced a gracious group of participants who went along with me for the brain twisting ride. :-) 

Throughout the days and evenings in Portland, I saw many of ESOL's rock stars, spent time with many good friends, made several new ones, and--as always happens at TESOL-- was inspired by the thousands of practitioners, researchers, and grad students in attendance.  

If you're interested in the materials I shared at the conference, follow this link to Lighthearted Learning's Tools and Tips page--and please, let me know what you think. 

ACE of Florida - Changing Lives through Adult Education

(Note: I do recognize that one post every 7 months is not the idea blogging time frame. And I promise to share some of the adventures that have kept me distracted since March. But let's start with this past week's ACE conference in Orlando Florida.)

The ACE Adult Education conference is always a wonderful gathering of passionate and committed adult education professionals invested in their learners and seeking out the instructional strategies that would best serve their learners' needs. Having faced hurricanes and financial reversals a-plenty, this organization knows how to put a program together.

This was a great conference in many ways, not least of which was that I was joined by four of my favorite colleagues. The California Invasion included Marsha Chan (Pronunciation); Susan Gaer (Mobile Learning and Mobile Apps ); Lori Howard (Paired Reading and Transitions); and Ronna Magy (Problem Solving and Interpersonal Skill Development). I  gave workshops on all three days... (note to self: reconsider that strategy!) My presentations and handouts for Five Fun Ways to Focus on Form; Reasoning and Rigor in the Adult ESOL Class: Integrating College and Career Readiness Standards in the ESOL Instruction; and Moving in the "Write" Direction are all available here.

Participants working to unpack the College and Career Readiness Standards

Kudos to Valorie Boyd, executive director of ACE and her staff: Julie Roberts, Leigh Ann Clark, and Charlotte Hall. I'm sure they're not getting a moment to rest on their laurels, but they should!

TESOLing

What happens when 200+ people show up at a workshop you feel certain will attract 50? You have four times more fun!  Lori (Howard) and I had a great time working with teachers, teacher-educators, students and other equally-important-but-unidentified participants at our Paired Reading session today. At one point- which I so wish I had on film--everyone in the room demonstrated the positive nature of "leaning forward" because I asked them to. (With great power comes great responsibility...)

The day got even sweeter. After doing a run through of the OPDi at the Oxford Booth for an exhausted but enthusiastic instructor from Indiana, I met an instructor from Russia who told me that she was using the OPD to teach Russian gas company executives.  "Bosses are using your book," she said with a laugh. I think I'm going to have to adopt that as my new catch phrase. "You want to know why you should use this book with your learners? Bosses are using it--that's why!"

She promised to send me a photo of the learners with the books and I promised to write them a letter. We finished up this swell collegial encounter with a photo op in front of the sparse yet elegant display at the Oxford booth. All in all-- a day well spent!

Onward!
j/me

TESOL LOOMS LARGE!

Tomorrow the skies of the southwest (and the airline that bears their name) will transport me to TESOL 2013 in Dallas.  I am looking forward to the flight because:
1) I leave from our quiet, local airport in Burbank;
2) there's a short layover in Las Vegas, where the possibility of winning a small fortune at the video poker slots always lurks in the back of my mind; and
3) althought the total travel time is the same as going direct to NYC (6 hrs!), the time difference once I'm there is two hours rather than three.

I am anticipating that TESOL will feel quite different this year. The economic woes facing adult education across the US have made many publishers downsize their adult ESOL offerings and, unfortunately, this is the first year that many of the people I look forward to catching up with at the conference will not be there, (op. cit. economic woes).*  

Of course, every TESOL has an element of surprise. Last year, Pearson's booth-without-books was quite the controversy! Maybe this year Nat-Geo (National Geographic-Heinle Cengage) will do something special, green and cool.

I'll be ready! (And I am excited to see the colleagues who will there. This is often my first opportunity to meet my international students f2f!) 


Despite the pervasive E.W.s (see above) I firmly believe that we are soon going to have an immigration reform bill that will help reopen schools and inspire new programs-- but the big question for learners, instructors, and program administrators alike is "Who will be in charge?"  (I would have said it was the $64,000.00 question--but that number is far too low.) TESOL will be a place to hear more about this very issue--and I promise to share what I hear!


My plane flight will most likely be spent reviewing the slides for my academic sessions on Friday at 11 a.m. (Paired Reading with Lori Howard)  and Saturday at 10 a.m.  (Challenges of Online Teacher Education with Radmila Popovic). God help me, I love to tinker with a presentation that should be finished.  How many times do you think I changed the color scheme on this one?

In case you are interested in any of the materials from these sessions, they will go up on the Tools and Tips page of the website. And, in addition, I promise to scout out as many exciting, engaging and practical ideas as I can and put them up too!

And this year, instead of doing a full-fledged publisher-sponsored session, I'll be doing a walk through of the Oxford Picture Dictionary digital materials at the OUP booth (Thurs. and Fri at 1:15.) Those kinds of presentations are always a bit tricky:  will there be people there, or will I look as though I'm trying to sell Oxi-Clean to the passing throngs?

As a lark, I thought I would try my hand at tweeting during the conference.  If you want to follow me, just click https://twitter.com/lthrtdlrng.

And of course, if you see me at the conference and have read this blog--do come up and say hi! It would be lovely to meet my reader. :

Onward!
j/me
******************************
*Yes, I do know this is not the correct usage of op. cit. but I just don't have that many opportunities to use it--and I love the way it sounds. Sort of the researcher's ipso facto, which is also quite lovely. And ibid--can't forget ibid!

A NEW WEBSITE! LightheartedLearning.com

I know it's absurd, but I feel like running around distributing politically incorrect chocolate cigars to complete strangers. (Bwhahahaha....My chance to give candy to strangers!)





Absurd or not, there's a real sense of joy (and relief) at having a website up and running. I should probably knock wood as I type that.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Yiddish verbal equivalent of knocking wood ---no, not spitting, if that were a verbal equivalent it would have to be the cartoon exclamation of TsuTsu-- I'm speaking of the expression, KENOHORA...which one uses to ward off the evil eye. E.g. Look your souffle is so puffy and high. Kenohora!  (The omission of kenohora would mean that once the complimentary statement left the speaker's lips---the souffle would be doomed.) Upon re-reading that last example, I'm not so sure that souffle and Yiddish create a collocative concept. Excuse me while I step over to another browser window to check. [time passes]

Okay--we're good. There were plenty of hits for "Jewish souffle" (However the souffles shown were all pretty flat...guess somebody forgot his or her kenohoras...)

Embryonic Elephant

But back to the website. The gestation process has been what one would expect-- not in elephant terms, of course--but in terms of the average pregnancy.




Proof of Reasoning
Elephant from start to finish: 22 months.
Website from start to finish: 9 months

Ryan Sebring

Thank goodness I worked with a VERY patient and gifted web designer, Ryan Sebring (Sebring Creative). It's probably been at least three years since I said to him, over some chocolate rugelach, "Oh, you do web design? I'd really like to get a lighthearted learning site up and running."  He should have started running...and screaming from the room. But instead, in June of 2012, we found ourselves talking about banners and sub-banners; assets and anchors, and the scroll of death. (We did try to avoid the latter.) Ryan really had no idea what he was getting into, but he was an excellent sport throughout my crazy travel schedule and various changes of heart (and design.) 



Of course,  Ryan wasn't the only patient person during this process. My best friend and LOML, Gary, endured my numerous interruptions to a) solicit advice, b) ask for help, and c) whine.  What do you think my beloved replied when I said, "The hummingbird looks a little snarky. Could you fix his eye?"?  He fixed the eye of course, and then turned his own heavenward and sighed deeply.  
 

Hummingbird, less snarky

And speaking of eyes; my daughter's took on catching every inconsistency in phrasing, punctuation, and spacing. Emily made my life SO much easier at a time when 3,8 and 5; i and l and (.) and (,) look pretty much identical to moi. And then Ed, (best B.I.L. ever), did a round of edits that ameliorated the typos and cut and paste ghosts that can haunt an educational website forever!


Setting a March deadline was probably the best thing we could have done...it  has to be done when you set a deadline. (Or so my editors have always said.) The deadline meant that when I fly away to TESOL in mid-March I will not have to look at my shoes and make snuffling noises in response to the website question. (Nor, since the conference is in Dallas, will I have to hear, "Well, bless your heart, you'll get it done some day." )

This year for TESOL, I've set a goal of having business cards with the website address and my email and no typos. (Not like the year when, much to my chagrin, I discovered I had printed out cards with an extra digit in my phone number. Of course, I'm sure I appeared very editorial as I scrawled the delete mark each time I handed out a card. But I digress....)

I have a new website. You can find it here: lightheartedlearning.com (kenohora)  Do drop by! (And for those of you already here and reading this on the site...WELCOME!)