TESOL 2008

TESOL Notes and Handouts: Information Gathered from TESOL 2008
Heather Weldele: hweldele@palomar.edu
(These notes are much easier to read in word and include a scanned handout on "using the novel as a textbook." I can send this word document via email to anyone interested.)

Plenary Speeches
The best, in my opinion, were the plenary speeches. In a nut shell, Penny Ur spoke about her research on correcting in both speaking and writing. In spite of some research which suggests corrections interfere with fluency, may hurt students, and are not actually helpful to the students learning, overwhelming, students stated that they want to be corrected and they felt that corrections were helpful. Still, Ur agrees that correcting presents some problems. For one, she notes that we need to be corrected about eight times before we can conquer our mistakes. However, gradual improvement through correction is better than no corrections at all. She also addressed the evidence of the best time to correct being in “real time,” but the problem of interrupting fluency. Here, she says, a good teacher must decide when it is appropriate and useful to interrupt.
A few things I found particularly interesting…. Students prefer (in written correction) to be told exactly how to fix their errors rather than being told what the mistake is and correcting it themselves. (ie: rather than telling them to add a transition, write it in for them). Ur insists that this is not because the students are lazy but because they find it most helpful.
Lastly, some numbers:
Type / Correction
1. Recast (say again correctly)
55% = Frequency of Use
18% = Uptake
2. Elicitation
14% = Frequency of Use
46% = Uptake
3. Clarification of Request (“I didn’t understand.”)
11% = Frequency of Use
28% = Uptake




Aida Walkee: “Quality Teaching for ESL”
Walkee discussed how we define accomplished practice and what it should entail. Her main point was that teachers must offer both high challenge and high support.
Principles and notes:
Academic Rigor: Substantial ideas, deep disciplinary knowledge / develop central ideas and establish complex relationships between ideas / use higher order of thinking skills.
High Expectations: scaffolds are provided / **believe all members can achieve / provide clear criteria for higher expectations.
Quality Interactions: Talk about subject matter of discipline encourages reasoning, application of ideas, argumentation, forming generalization, and asking questions.
Language Focus: explicit discussion of how language works / characteristics of language.
**Students should be given the principles.

Articles: Discussion group
Activities for teaching articles:
Cut out newspaper articles and blacken the articles in the story
Cut out newspaper headlines (these are usually missing articles)
We discussed the difficulties of each of these activities. It seems to make the most sense to blacken the articles in a short story or fable similar to the one below.

A Fable for Articles:
(Use to teach “second mention.”)

A hungry wolf was eating its dinner when a piece of bone got stuck in its throat. It was quite painful, so the wolf went to his friends for help. The wolf said, “I will give anything to anyone who helps me.” No one could help the wolf. So the wolf ran to the shore of a pond and found a crane fishing for frogs. The wolf begged the crane to help, and at last the crane agreed to try. The wolf opened its mouth wide, and the crane put its long beak and neck into the wolf’s mouth. The crane found the piece of bone and carefully removed it from the wolf’s throat. “Now what is my reward?” asked the crane. The wolf grinned and said, “You put your head inside a wolf’s mouth and you still have your head. That is your reward.”

Websites and Videos (from Judie Haynes’ presentation on “DSL”).
Judie Haynes, creator of everythingESL.net presented on using technology in the classroom. Although she was presenting on how to use technology in an elementary classroom, much can be used at the college level as well. Below are some websites that she mentioned that might be useful:
Hotchalk: www.hotchalk.com
This site has NBC news for students, as well as several lesson plans.
United Streaming: www.unitedstreaming.com
This is a website you have to pay for, but a free 30-day trial is available. (Discovery Channel online educational videos and teaching resources).
Inspiration: www.inspiration.com
For writing: Make outlines, peer review activities, clusters, etc that students fill out on the computer.