(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 (PairedReading 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" Directionare 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!
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
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!
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)
athaving 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!)
Fat Tuesday was not a part of my upbringing, but the spirit of letting "les bon temps" roll was certainly something my parents encouraged--our version was a saucepan and wooden spoon parade around the house while singing "We are marching to Pretoria." Even now, when I feel especially festive, I let my inner 6-year old hum those two lines. (I only just found out that there are lyrics beyond "We are marching to Pretoria-Pretoria-Pretoria. We are marching to Pretoria-Pre-tory-ory-AH!" Thank you Wikipedia.)
These days I live in a more diverse universe--both real and virtual, and Fat Tuesday ventures into my field of vision annually. There are beads and masks at my drugstore as well as my friends' jubilant and madcap FB announcements and photos. I especially like the masks, and I know I am not alone in this. So, I thought this month's blog could focus on a few
mask idées which I hope will inspire some bons temps with your learners.
Faces of Diversity Jose Manuel Ribeiro / Reuters
MASK MATCH UPS Show students any of the images ofmask collections from google docs--this one for example:inShare
• Ask about the types of masks they see in the photo and the types of masks they have worn or seen.
• Have learners categorize the mask images by emotion, rate their appeal or craftsmanship, or come up with one sentence that someone wearing one of the masks would say.
VIDEO LISTENING LESSON: BEHIND THE MASK
For your intermediate-level learners, show this 9-minute documentary "Behind the Mask" in segments, asking learners to listen for specific information in each segment (See sample time frames and questions below)
Segment 1- 00:00 to 1:49
How old is the oldest mask we know about?
Where is the picture of that mask?
How old is the Balinese mask tradition?
What did ancient people believe about masks?
Segment 2- 1:50-3:59
How did masks help actors in the Greek theater?
How did Comedia del Arte actors use masks?
Segment 3- 4:00 – 6:19
How did you feel when you saw the actor in the lion mask?
One speaker says masks are “stepping into another person’s shoes.” Is that a good thing to do? Why or why not?
Which masks do you remember from this part of the documentary?
How is making a mask different from wearing a mask?
Segment 4- 6:20 – end
One speaker talks about masks allowing us to have fun in public.
What are the pluses and minuses of “having fun in public”?
How does a mask help a person have fun in public?
MASKS AND ROLE PLAYS
Based on your lesson theme, come up with a scenario for a roleplay. For example; if students are working on giving opinions and talking about healthy life choices, you could set the roleplay in a workplace breakroom, and have groups of learners develop a role play based on a situation that occurs when someone brings a birthday cake to work. Some workers are upset because they don't want to eat sweets, but several workers like snacks at work.
Next have the groups determine the personalities of each person in the role play and decide what those people look like. Distribute markers, paper plates cut in half, craft store half masks, or stiff card stock cut in large half circles, glue sticks and other craft items for groups to use in creating masks that represent the different personalitiesthey've decided on. (Because you want to be able to hear the "actors" in their role plays, it's probably best to create masks that only cover the upper half of the face, leaving the mouth exposed.)
Have learners put on their masks and practice their role plays. Give groups the opportunity to perform their role play for at least one other group if not the whole class. Be sure to get feedback from the class about how they felt using the masks.
LINCOLN IN THE HOT SEAT
Use masks to play "hot seat"- the activity where one person sits at the front answering the class' questions. These questions may be printed on sentence strips or cards or may be generated by the learners. In this version of the activity, the student who volunteers to be "on the hot seat" is given a choice of printed masks of famous people. The class then addresses the learner as the person on the mask. E.g. "Mr. Lincoln, what's your favorite color?" (Note, "Mr. Lincoln" tries to give answers that make sense based on what everyone in the class knows about him.)
Fat Tuesday will have been and gone by the time most of you read this--and Halloween is not for months yet-- but wouldn't you agree that masks can be the source of some truly lighthearted learning anytime? How have you used masks in your teaching? ___________ (1) The Asian mask collection at Lisbon's new Museu do Oriente
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.
