Terrific Tips and Activities

For the Adult Literacy-Level Classroom

Kate Goodspeed

CoTESOL Spring Conference May 2015

(Contact information at the end of presentation and in your handout)

Empathy Put yourself in the shoes of non-native English

learners from other cultures, learning English for the first time

They may have been forced to come here for life or death reasons. They may have suffered malnutrition and serious, untreated health problems.

They may have experienced great trauma, have PTSD, or are experiencing great personal loss, culture shock, and/or fear.

Some refugees, asylees, and immigrants may have seen family members killed or disappeared.

Their personal situation may make simple bio-data questions upsetting.

Empathy Many are pre-literate and can’t read any language,

including their home language and English.

For many, any opportunity to come to school is very important to them — almost sacred —because it is their first chance to sit in a classroom.

Adult learners often have spotty attendance because of the heavy responsibility for family, not because they don’t want to be in your class

Learning a new language can make adults feel like little babies. Give your students the respect and support you would want to have in their situation.

Empathy Most refugees/asylees/immigrants are highly skilled at

crafts, trades, and home skills that we can’t even imagine having or needing. This background deserves your respect and even awe. Gathering enough wood for fires to cook hot food for their

families several times a day

Crafting tools, shelter, and furniture out of found materials

Grinding corn or other grains into edible food stuffs

Foraging for edible plants and fruits

Carrying water long miles in jugs on top of their heads

Tending fields and animals in difficult circumstances

Having babies in refugee camps or on the immigrant trail

Keeping their family safe, clothed, and relatively healthy in the face of incredible hardships.

  

Awareness Be aware that 90% of communication is through body

language Some body language is universal. A smile is understood by all

just as annoyed or aggressive body language is understood.

But some body language is not universal. Ethiopians shake their head for “yes” Eye contact with “superiors” is considered rude and possibly life-threatening in many cultures

Keep in mind that other cultures have different ideas of personal space

Remember that many other cultures raise their voices without it’s necessarily conveying anger or aggression.

Be very careful about touching adult students. Muslim men may not want to shake your hand for religious reasons. Some women may have been sexually abused and fear any kind of touching.

Awareness Know that, in addition to cultural differences, you

will have a mix of educational and literacy levels in your pre-literate classes. Some have no English skills, but may be able to read in

their home language. Some read with a different character set. Some of these students may have high education and rich work experience, but just no English.

Some students have absolutely no educational background, cannot read any language, and have rarely held a pencil.

Others have some conversation, but cannot read English.

Some students may or may not have any education, but are fluent in four or five languages.

Some Muslim students have learned by rote the Arabic of the Quran in a madrasa. They have an awareness of texts and the act of reading, but may present as pre-literate.

Awareness Some students may have undiagnosed problems

such as dyslexia, hearing/vision problems, and/or developmental disabilities.

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine if learning problems flow naturally from a lack of educational experience or are a result of some other problems.

We must utilize a variety of strategies and help the student make progress as well as we can.

Some research is currently underway to see if utilizing strategies for dyslexic learners could benefit low-literacy, low-education students. I have uploaded an interesting power point from the 2014 LESLLA Conference on this subject to the CoTESOL wiki for this conference. This shows some of the strategies that work for both groups.

 

 

Relaxed Classroom Atmosphere Remember that language learners can learn more if

they are relaxed, given pauses to absorb material, and material is repeated again and again and again

Steven Krashen talks about the affective filter, suggesting that having a beer before language class might be a good thing. And, even if this isn’t a possibility, laughter and fun activities can provide a relaxed classroom atmosphere.

Earl Stevick suggests pauses before lesson chunks where the teacher and students aren’t talking. Erasing the board, passing out materials, doing a small classroom chore, can provide these important 20-second breaks.

Relaxed Classroom Atmosphere You, yourself, if you have ever learned a second or third

language, know that you rarely learn anything the first time. Language material needs to be constantly repeated, used in a variety of situations, and, then, reviewed and practiced again

Impatience on the part of the teacher and possibly even other students can create stress and actually make learning more difficult. Nip this in the bud.

I sometimes take an impatient student aside and try to gain their empathy for folks who have never been to school before and are struggling to learn so much so quickly.

But, Kate, you’ve learned this!

Slow, Clear, and Patient Speech Speak slowly and clearly, write clearly on the board, be

patient, and avoid too much “teacher talk.” Even as you speak a bit more slowly and clearly, don’t speak extra

loudly. Don’t change intonation or change your pronunciation.

Small things will communicate your meaning, such as mime and gesture

 Using real objects, pictures, and short videos is incredibly important

Questions are clearer if you end with a raised tone

 Use appropriate facial expressions.

Be patient. If you are losing patience, language learners feel at odds with the teacher and learning plummets.

Avoid excessive teacher talk or chatting to yourself. This can be extremely distracting to beginning language learners. They don’t know if they are expected to understand or not.  

Appropriate and Expert Teaching MethodologyBasic Teaching Methodology — I tend to use the following fairly standard methodology in my classroom: Presentation, Practice, Consolidation, and Review.

1. Presentation, by handout, mime, overhead, pictures or real objects, on the white board, on the smart board.

2. Practice, by whole class oral drills, with objects, with worksheets, with individual activities at their desks and/or small group/pair practice

3. Activities geared to consolidation — games, read-arounds, matching and ordering activities.

4. Review by repeating some of the steps or using other activities to cover or review the same material. (In adult classes where attendance may be spotty, this could be the optimal way to begin your classes each day, possibly cycling back even further.)

Presentation

Practice

Consolidation

Review

Appropriate and Expert Teaching Methodology Soak your materials.

Soaking means to get every little bit of usefulness out of each piece of realia or student material you develop — letting all kinds of possibilities soak into your material and squeezing every bit of usefulness out of it.

Many inexperienced teachers run through materials like water. Students haven’t mastered the material and the teacher is out of materials!

 

Appropriate and Expert Teaching Methodology 

Scaffolding is essential for low-literacy level students. Vygotsky, the Russian educator, speaks of the Zone of Proximal Development. Knowledge of this concept is helpful to all teachers, but especially to teachers of beginning students. Krashen’s “comprehensible input” refers to the same idea.

The issue of scaffolding is this: “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Larger questions such as: Do students need to be able to know the names of their letters before they know the phonetic sounds? Smaller questions such as: What is the optimal order of these 5 worksheets on personal schedules?

When students are confused by your materials or teaching, reflect on whether scaffolding is the problem. Did you skip an important step? Was the jump too big between chunks?

 

Zone of Proximal

Development

Appropriate and Expert Teaching Methodology 

  Integrating whole language with scaffolding adds a layer of

difficulty, but is essential.

Whole language does not separate vocabulary development, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and grammar into separate lessons, but integrates them all into a lesson or unit.

Further, in many classes the students need content areas to be covered as well. I would suggest that within whole language and content based units, one must still scaffold chunks of a lesson carefully.

  

 

Vocabulary

Content

Content

Readin

g

Writin

gSpeaking

Listening

Gra

mm

ar

Checks and Assessment 

Checking comprehension and learning is important, but often formal testing can damage developing student confidence. Seek a variety of assessment opportunities. Ask simple questions: Is this an apple? How much money is this? What

color is Kadija wearing? How many windows do we have in our classroom? What is his job?

To test comprehension, give directions. Please close the door. Open your mouth. Turn right. Go straight. Touch your elbow.

Don’t simply ask “Do you understand?” because students will almost always nod their heads or say, “Yes, no problem,” whether they understand or not.

Keeping an individual student checklist is possible if the class is relatively small, and some teachers develop student portfolios as a way of tracking student progress

To fit assessment in seamlessly, use a worksheet to consolidate an activity, keep these in an assessment folder to review individual student work at a later date and enter progress on a checklist. This avoids labeling anything a test.

 

 

Reciprocity Recognize that we are all teachers and we are all students.

Everyday there is an opportunity to teach someone something new and also so learn something new.

One of the best ways to help become accustomed to American culture is to think of the situation as reciprocal. Be open to how other cultures function, but don’t be afraid to gently educate people on how to do things properly in our culture, especially if doing it according to their culture would have serious consequences (such as beating your children!). Be aware that the American way is not the only way to do things!

Again, if you’ve ever learned a new language or tried to function in a country with a different language and a different writing system, you can empathize with your students. Honor your students for their efforts and positive attitudes.

See and DoLook at these materials and discuss:

How would I use these in my classroom?

What might come before and after this activity, in terms of a perfectly scaffolded lesson?

How could I soak these materials?

Does this type of activity bring to mind other content areas in which it could be used?

Remember any questions you might want to ask Kate.

Pick one of these activities you could use on Monday.

Remember that much of the material used here is downloaded on the CoTESOL website.

See and Do Hand Puppets spice up simple dialogue and Q and A practice

Alphabet and number packets have myriad uses

Color packets and crayons are fun and useful

Real coins and fake bills are important realia for your classroom

Matching activities are good for practice, consolidation, and review

Copying can build confidence and important small motor skills for writing

Stand-up activities and games break up sitting sessions

Both building phonemic awareness and recognition of sight words are important

Don’t forget old standbys like choral listen and repeat, pair practice, word walls, substitution drills (a la Side By Side), etc.

, real money, objects to be counted and sorted

Check out www.leslla.org Folks from Low-Educated Second Language Acquisition group in

Florida presented at TESOL and I attended their workshop. This was several years ago, but, since then, more and more research is being done with this special group of students.

LESLLA has a conference annually and, if you are fortunate enough to have the resources to attend, I’d highly recommend it. I have never been able to attend, but the papers and workshops presented look fascinating. In past years their conference has been overseas, but this year’s conference is in Florida.

Their website is also very helpful, and I have uploaded one presentation onto the CoTESOL Wiki for this conference.

Feel free to contact me and I can reply to your e-mail and attach any of these files you might want. Let me know if you have access to Publisher (you can make changes) or if you’d prefer PDF files.

10 Jobs Bingo 10 Jobs Flash Cards 10 Jobs Worksheets Alphabet Flash Cards for Ordering at Phonics (a sample of this type of

activity) Body Parts Isaac’s Day Book Isaac’s Day Matching and Worksheets Individual Letter Packets Money Bingo Money Matching LESLLA The Red Book (presentation about

student-created learning books – an alternative to portfolios)

Skip Counting Stand-up Activities 2014

CoTESOL – Power Point The Man and the Fat Cat book The Man and the Fat Cat

matching and worksheets Time Matching Activities and

Worksheets Tips for Tutors – an old Word

Document that might still be helpful

goodkate88@yahoo.com – please put Send Me Materials in the subject line. I will be traveling from May 20 to June 8th, so either before or after this would be preferable.

No response? Text me to look for your request, 303-748-9377

Contact me: goodkate88@yahoo.com