Education Commons^™

Council In The Classroom: New Ways Of Knowing, Being And Interacting, Ximena Allub

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines my learnings on Council, an ancient form of communication, currently being revisited and remolded to suit modern needs. In this vein I explored its application in a school environment. I describe here a year-long study of Council that took me to both Argentina and the United States. The focus is primarily on a different form of classroom management and its impact on students and their learning.

In chapter one, I give an introduction to Council, outlining its history, and providing a brief explanation of the philosophy behind it.

In chapter two, I look at my experience as …

Serving Esol Recipients In A Welfare To Work Program, Dawn Elizabeth Jackman

MA TESOL Collection

Supported Work Program is a Welfare to Work program designed to serve “the hardest to serve” Welfare recipients. The primary goal of the program is to assist recipients in finding and retaining work.

This paper draws upon research done while I was a Basic Skills Instructor for a Supported Work Program in Charlestown, MA. Originally hired as a Reading/Writing teacher, my responsibilities included teaching basic brush up of English Grammar, Reading Comprehension Skills and Writing. I soon found that my classroom was comprised of a wide spectrum of people including many ESOL welfare recipients. The inclusion of ESOL participants was …

The Transition To A Project-Based Curriculum, Cheryl Hoffman

MA TESOL Collection

This paper examines the initial stages in transforming a grammar-based English as a Second Language curriculum into a project-based one that aims to develop learners’ communicative competence. Included is a definition of project-based learning and communicative competence. The background and setting of the curriculum project are described. The emergence of project-based courses and the transition to these courses is also discussed. Implications for future curriculum projects are considered in terms of managing change within an English language program.

English Teachers In The Former G.D.R. Ten Years After The Wende: What’S New?, Renée Flibotte-Lüskow

MA TESOL Collection

English teachers who work in public schools in the eastern part of Germany are doing a very different type of job than they were ten years ago. Although the physical setting and the subject matter is still the same, they are teaching in a new school system based on the West German model. Their personal and professional relationships with the people they work with are different now, and attitudes toward the language they teach have been altered by the political and social changes. This paper seeks to identify interviews conducted in a certain region during a short time span. It …

Adapting The C-L/Cll Approach To A Conventional Textbook Setting: A Novice Teacher’S Reality, Laura Fleher

MA TESOL Collection

This paper is an analysis of the Counseling-Learning/Community Language Learning Approach’s adaptability in a conventional textbook setting. My second internship experience which takes place in a college summer ESL program is the testing ground for my development as a novice C-L/CLL teacher. Questions, doubts, and concerns about the value of a new and an old teaching method are discussed. The importance of distinguishing between approach, method, and technique is advocated. Utilizing the classic cycle of activities is necessary to a novice teacher’s internalization of the C-L philosophy. However, the conventional teaching method, the textbook, is familiar and valued by students …

Language Learning Strategies: A Primer, Carol Lindenbrock Fujii

MA TESOL Collection

The question of why some learners acquire a second language more quickly than others has long been a problem for language teachers. Even when students seem basically equal in terms of opportunity and intelligence, progress can vary greatly. Variations in the language learning strategies students employ could explain why some students do better than others. Students can profitably explore the areas of language learning strategies to become more aware and successful learners. This paper begins by defining language learning strategies as the tools learners use to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning and to make that learning more efficient. …

Timed Conversation: One Routine For Engaging Large Classes Of Non-Motivated Learners In Meaningful Oral Communication, Bradley J. Deacon

MA TESOL Collection

This paper will explore an activity called “Timed Conversation” that I use in large classes of relatively unmotivated first and second year non-language majors in a Japanese university setting. Timed Conversation is designed to help students to communicate in native-like and incrementally longer sustained dialogues in the target language. In the activity, the students interact with many partners and practice conversations while practicing various language expressions. In every lesson over the course of a semester they speak in conversations about a number of topics for a set limit of time. The goal is to be able to speak more fluently …

Toward Student-Led Reading Discussion In The Classroom: A Teacher’S Journey With Reader Response, Judy Davis

MA TESOL Collection

This paper traces an ESL teacher’s learning curve with student-based reading discussion, both teacher-guided and student-led. It comments on her pre-teaching experience with formalist and reader response theory as a reader, student, writer, editor, and then as teacher experimenting with student-led discussion in three consecutive terms. Special attention is given to the strategies that were used to build a reading community and to facilitate the release of students’ voices in the reading discussions. The taped, transcribed discussions are summarized for their intellectual content and examined to assess the social and linguistic benefits to the students. Also evaluated are the uses …

Internet Users’ Manual For English Language Teaching Professionals: Enjoyable Internet Understanding, Jack Bailey

MA TESOL Collection

This paper serves as an overview of the Internet and its resources available to English Language Teaching professionals. The intended audience is both instructors new to Internet technologies as well as those well versed in the Net but looking for further resources. Initial sections give the reader a brief overview of the Internet, its history, and its most prominent component parts including e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups and chat rooms. Primary emphasis is placed on the categorizing and description of key web sites most useful to English Language instructors and administrators. Each site listing contains addresses (URLs), general site descriptions and …