KQED Education's ESL Insights offers a space for ESL educators to explain what they do, share ideas and media rich resources and engage in discussion about what inspires them and what challenges them. Posts are written for and by ESL practitioners.

Fun Ways to Use Voicethread with ESL Students

June 7, 2013, 8:05 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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voicethread

By Denise Maduli-Williams

CCSF ESL class- Introduction to Reading Voicethread

Voicethread’s tagline is “Conversations in the cloud” and that pretty much sums it up.  I love using Voicethread activities with my ESL students at City College of San Francisco and have been doing so for years now.  It is a great tool to encourage students to talk to each other, listen and think about each others’ ideas.

The way Voicethread works is to allow students to comment on a document, image, or video right on the page.  They can comment by recording audio, video or typing and then their comment pops up right on the same page.  They can even doodle on the document or image with the drawing tool while they are recording comments.

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A Collaborative Vision for Serving Adult Learners

May 24, 2013, 10:45 am • Posted by Maxine Einhorn
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Redshirts
Photo by Tom Jung, San Mateo Adult School

Round table discussion report from CATESOL Northern Regional Conference.

The 2013 Northern Regional CATESOL Conference on Saturday May 4th gave us a wonderful opportunity to bring together a panel of ESL educators from community colleges and adult schools to talk about A Collaborative Vision for Serving Adult Learners. It was a chance to share ways of thinking about the two systems, how they differ, what they share and how they both strive to serve adult learners through the different historic filters that have shaped them.

The session was moderated by KQED Education and the panel brought considerable experience and expertise from both sectors to the table. Dr Bob Harper, Director of Campbell Adult School and Kristen Pursley, Lead Teacher from West Contra Costa Adult Education, presented their vision for adult education and Greg Keech, elected Chair of ESL at CCSF and Sonja Franeta, former Chair of ESL at Laney College, spoke to issues confronting noncredit ESL provision in community colleges. Both sectors addressed ways to work together towards a fair and equitable system that meets the needs of non native speakers in Northern Californian communities.

Greg Keech laid out the context for this discussion in his post on KQED ESL Insights blog - What is Noncredit? “What is known as "adult education" in the K-12 system is generally known as noncredit in Community Colleges. In the ESL realm, there have been two separate entities delivering instruction: some districts have adult ESL classes under their local K-12 district, while credit instruction is provided by the community college; in other areas, the community college district provides both credit and noncredit ESL, though not always under the same roof.” Our panelists offered examples of the differing systems - City College of San Francisco provides both credit and noncredit ESL classes, whereas Laney College offers only credit ESL courses.

The discussion was further set against the backdrop of Governor Brown's recent proposal to move adult education into the community college sphere, which was unanimously rejected on March 19th by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. However the subcommittee voted to approve it "without prejudice," which means they did not disagree with the principle. As such the idea is likely to come back in the May budget revise.

To summarize the points discussed:

  • Both systems are based on principles of social justice.
  • The community college system is more driven by standards and outcomes that frame their work.
  • Colleges privilege credit courses in terms of funding, with more funding allocated to courses where students matriculate. Many ESL students do not seek to go to college but look for other outcomes that may be vocational. Their right to language provision should be protected, as should the rights of seniors to attend lifelong learning classes, and classes for adults with disabilities. CCSF also offers non-credit Parent Education classes – all of this provision could be under threat if the Governor’s plan goes though.
  • Both sectors stressed the importance of open access, fluidity in terms of access and achievement, with clearly delineated pathways for students to navigate systems whether in terms of progression or reentry.
  • Participants in the session talked about the importance of solidarity between sectors in terms of defending provision. Adult schools are clearly in a more vulnerable position and face considerable uncertainties in terms of jobs and program survival if they are absorbed into the community college system.

To understand the impact on adult education under K-12 in California, please visit http://a4cas.blogspot.com/2013/03/weekly-update-33113.html.

It was agreed that setting up a working group between adult education and noncredit ESL sectors would be a positive way forward to collaborate on issues discussed. Participants from the group signed up to stay involved.

Resources

For KQED ESL Educator resources, visit www.kqed.org/esl

Edsource 5/14/2013 - Governor tries to fix adult ed plan, but controversy remains

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Our Learners' Voices

May 14, 2013, 9:12 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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SV ALLIES Initiative ESL students

SV ALLIES Initiative ESL students

by Usha Narayanan

The video footage below was taken at Campbell Adult and Community Education (CUHSD) in Campbell, California and highlights the experience of adult English as a Second Language learners.  The video was made possible by the ALLIES initiative.  This initiative in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is engaged in forming a multi-sector alliance that brings adult education schools, community colleges, non-profit agencies, businesses, Workforce Investment Boards etc. to support better integration of immigrants and enhance their contribution to the economy through education and training.

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What is Noncredit?

May 1, 2013, 7:00 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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City College of San Francisco ESL class

City College of San Francisco ESL class

Two part series by Gregory Keech

Part 2

The Pedagogy and Funding of Noncredit

The pedagogy of noncredit is quite different from credit. Because students' attendance may be intermittent, teaching requires lot of repetition and "spiraling up," which can be described as repetition with a slight refocus or increase in difficulty each time a teaching point is covered. In ESL, repetition is not a problem - in fact it's a benefit. Language acquisition must involve repetition, and lots of it. All learning, to be clear, involves repetition, but noncredit builds the concept in. Students are not expected to acquire knowledge after one presentation and then reproduce it on a test. How many times would it take you to learn the correct endings of a Spanish verb? Voy, vas, va, vamos, vais, van. Got that? Or would you need to practice it many times in order to add it to your store of knowledge and experience?

Noncredit instruction fits in nicely with what Diane Larsen-Freeman calls Language as a Dynamic System. The adult human brain is not a vessel to be filled with knowledge; it is a living, changing organism which constantly adjusts and readjusts to new experiences and information (well, maybe not in current American politics, but certainly in language acquisition). Another way of describing it is that language learning is not linear. We are trapped into thinking of learning as linear by the time-focused framing of our traditional educational format, which we know as credit in community colleges and elsewhere. But in fact learning happens fitfully, in leaps and bounds, with fallow periods and moments of revelation (Oh, that's how to conjugate that verb!).

Noncredit lends itself to this non-linear reality in learning by allowing students to sip at the cup of knowledge at their own rate. And now that I've used that metaphor, I hasten to add that they are also acquiring experience and "tools" if you will, which they then incorporate into their own dynamic system. Measurements of this type of complex, highly personal and individual progress baffle folks charged with making education "accountable." How do you measure the student who leaves at Literacy and comes back at Level 3? Credit the school for giving him those tools. But not so fast.

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Is Technology Changing Your Brain?

April 23, 2013, 9:04 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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photo by by dotheygandalf/Flickr

photo by by dotheygandalf/Flickr

By Stephanie Levin

Digital technology may well be the darling of the 21st Century, but is it good for your brain? When I ask college students if the onslaught of information affects their brains, or how they learn, there is a digital divide in responses. The 20 year-olds and under grew up connected, yet will admit that focusing on one thing for any length of time is problematic. Wedded to their phones, they glance at them numerous times in class, jump when it jiggles and bolt out of the class to answer it; and as for critical thinking...humm, is it necessary?  

Half of my students sleep with their phones, and have separation anxiety at the thought of being disconnected from them. In contrast, students in their late 20s and upward tend not to be connected all the time. They are certainly not connected 24/7, tend to ask questions and generally are more engaged in class. This age group reads both online and printed text. About 80% of the 20 under group didn’t read on or offline. Everyone used social networking.

No one could tell me if being wired all the time takes a toll on the brain or if multitasking hampers attention or interferes with information assimilation.  But, I could tell them that research bears out that the brain is, indeed, affected by the constant barrage of technology, and that the brain needs a break; after all, it’s a muscle for  thinking, not a machine.

Is there too much technology? There’s no question that technology has yielded stupendous results in our lives, our jobs and communication.  But studies continue to show that over-dependence on technology, multitasking and constant connectivity is creating a distracted generation with a short attention span. Studies out of Stanford, MIT and UCSD find growing evidence that multitasking frazzles the brain making it less productive.  Heavy multitaskers have trouble paying attention and filtering out irrelevant information. The failure to filter suggests that they’re slowed down by that irrelevant information, according to a 2009 study from Stanford, or in other words their cognitive ability is impaired.  While multitaskers think they are accomplishing more, studies show the opposite to be true.  Their performance suffers, greatly. The brain is not wired to multitask efficiently and effectively.

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Restarting Your Career with Upwardly Global – Monica’s Story

April 12, 2013, 7:26 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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Immigrant professionals

Immigrant professionals

By Mary Voelbel

Monica came to the US in 2006 from Columbia with a Masters degree in Child Abuse Prevention and years of experience in public health. Originally an ESL student, she spent 5 years working minimum wage jobs until she learned about Upwardly Global and how to rebuild her career.

“El que persevera alcanza”

My father told me this when I was a child: “el que persevera alcanza.”  In Colombia, my home, this phrase means that if one has the courage to do something and believes they can do it, they will. From when I was young, I always wanted to help people especially children. I studied dentistry because I wanted to work with children and, in Bogota dentists have the advantage of seeing patients more often than physicians. So, I spent seven years studying at Pontifical Javeriana University to earn my Doctor of Dentistry and Masters in Child Abuse Prevention. 

“Helping families was always the goal. I wanted to help people and it didn’t matter the angle. With my education, I designed a program to teach dentists how to diagnose and prevent child abuse.”

I came to the US with years of experience in public health, health education, and clinical practice.  I moved here to study English, then met my future husband and decided to stay in the US to be with him. I had no idea getting back into my field would be so hard.  When I settled here, back in 2006, my first thought was to go to dental school. But, then you start finding out about all the obstacles – the cost, the years of study, the fact that you have go to University all over again.

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The Listening and Speaking Center at De Anza College - We Help You Lower Your “Affective Filter”!

April 8, 2013, 11:38 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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De Anza College Listening & Speaking Center

De Anza College Listening & Speaking Center

By Kanako Valencia Suda

If you are an ESL/EFL educator, you must remember the Affective Filter Hypothesis … right? It is one of the five hypotheses about second language acquisition proposed by Stephen Krashen. It refers to a psychological barrier that can hinder or promote progress in learning a second language. The Affective Filter can be raised or lowered as a result of the quality of the learning environment - and low anxiety facilitates success in practicing and learning a second language.

College ESL students experience these barriers all the time even if they cannot exactly identify the causes. At De Anza College’s Listening and Speaking Center (LSC), we try to ensure that ESL students can practice English in a safe environment, where they don’t feel judged based on their “nonstandard” English. Every quarter, about 500 students use the LSC, many coming because their ESL instructors require them to participate in activities outside the classroom. After joining a few workshops and tutoring sessions, they discover that here they can freely express their opinions without being afraid of making mistakes – they feel at home.

Our most popular program is the Conversation and Specialty Workshop program. The workshops cover a variety of topics from idioms and vocabulary to pronunciation and presentation. Whatever the topic, our main goal is to have students speak as much as possible.

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What is Noncredit?

March 26, 2013, 7:13 am • Posted by ESL Insights
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fox5sandiego.com

fox5sandiego.com

Two part series by Gregory Keech

Part 1

Governor Brown's recent proposal to move adult education into the community college sphere was unanimously rejected on March 19th by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance but the discussion generated is bound to continue. The committee did not disagree with the goal but rather the details of implementation. The Legislative Analysts Office has weighed in on the subject, and practitioners in both arenas - adult education and community college noncredit - are concerned. (See What’s Happening to Adult Education? on ESL Insights)

What is known as adult education in the K-12 system is generally known as noncredit in Community Colleges. In the ESL realm, there have been two separate entities delivering instruction: some districts have adult ESL classes under their local K-12 district, while credit instruction is provided by the community college; in other areas, the community college district provides both credit and noncredit ESL, though not always under the same roof. With recent state budget cuts of education, both delivery systems have suffered, but I would venture to say that adult education under K-12 has suffered more statewide. When faced with budget cuts, K-12 systems logically prioritize adult education lower than elementary or secondary classes.

But what is noncredit?

The first thing to consider about noncredit instruction is that it is fundamentally different from credit. Most of us recognize the credit model of instruction because that's how we were educated. You register for a course, attend classes for a specified time (a semester, a quarter, a trimester), and are assessed at the end on the acquisition of course content. The key framing element is time. You do not get credit if you miss classes, do not submit homework, or do not pass the test.  Our K-12 experience was similar. You moved to the next grade (or not) at the end of the school year, not at the point at which you acquired the content and/or skills.

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Languages and the Way We Think - Talking with Lera Boroditsky

March 15, 2013, 7:58 am • Posted by Maxine Einhorn
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shared by Solidus Editorial Solutions

shared by Solidus Editorial Solutions

Interview with Lera Boroditsky, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology. She was the opening speaker at the annual statewide CATESOL conference held in Oakland in 2012.

Lera claims “Learning another language is not just a matter of learning to speak differently, it is also learning to think differently.” This connection between words and thoughts goes to the heart of teaching language, and poses questions for ESL teachers about cultural understanding.

ESL Insights: Growing up as you did speaking Russian, do you feel you are a different person when you speak a different language? Does your personality change?

Lera Boroditsky: I do feel different when speaking different languages. This is a very common experience for bilinguals to report.  For example, when I am speaking Russian, I feel more free to be non-literal (metaphorical or ironic) in what I say. Russian communicative culture values clarity and directness less than standard American culture does, but values cleverness and erudition more.

So if you asked me this question in Russian, you might not have gotten the simple direct answer I just gave, and instead something more clever, abstract or absurd.

ESL Insights:  Are there associations that go along with speaking in different languages? For example: you grew up in Russia, does that mean you feel more of a child when you speak the language?

Lera Boroditsky: Most of my experience speaking Russian was as a kid, living in Russia.  And most of my experience speaking English has been as an adult, with a job, living in the US. Switching from English to Russian certainly cues this big switch in context.  Viorica Marian at Northwestern University has shown through her research that bilinguals will recall different memories and espouse different values when they're asked in one language versus another.  Language acts as a cue for cultural values and also for the contexts in which you speak those languages. This is definitely an experience I have.

ESL Insights:  You mentioned in the panel discussion (above) that some people are rather suspicious of you when you speak Russian. Why do you think that is?

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What’s Happening to Adult Education?

March 7, 2013, 12:05 pm • Posted by Maxine Einhorn
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photo by Lillian R. Mongeau/Oakland North

photo by Lillian R. Mongeau/Oakland North

In his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2013-2014, Governor Jerry Brown announced that California is no longer facing a budget deficit. In relation to funding education, his budget increases state funding per student in K-12 schools to $2,700 by 2016-2017. For K-12 and community colleges, funding is projected to increase by $2.7 billion next year and $19 billion by 2016-2017.

What of adult education? The plan recognizes that K-12 school districts and community colleges are authorized to provide adult education instruction, but highlights a lack of coordination between the two systems in terms of serving adult learners. The contention is that the system is currently inefficient and unaccountable. The Governor’s plan proposes $300 million in new Proposition 98 General Fund revenues to fund a comparable K-12 adult education service delivery system within the community college system.

This plan would fund core instructional areas such as vocational education, ESL, adult basic and secondary education, and citizenship. Courses outside of these areas would require students to pay in full. Adult education would be relocated within the community college system.

The Governor’s budget recognizes the importance of adult education and that it must be funded. The issue is where and how it is to be delivered.

The adult and community college level groups of CATESOL are engaged in discussions right now looking at questions such as:

  • Which agencies should be responsible for delivering adult ESL instruction?
  • What are the benefits of keeping adult ESL in the community adult schools?
  • How do the 17 community colleges in California currently offering non-credit ESL programs serve their learners?
  • What are the distinctions between the services community adult schools in K-12 districts and community colleges provide? Whom does each type of institution serve?

Resources

Adult Education Disappearing in California 9/12

A new report by the research group EdSource finds that adult education has been disappearing, ever since school districts were given permission to take funds once reserved for those programs and use them for other educational purposes.

At Risk: Adult Schools in California 6/2012

The EdSource survey found that 23 of the state’s 30 largest school districts have made major cuts to their adult education programs ...

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