Category: edci335 (page 1 of 1)

ESL     Develop English Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing Skills

EDCI 335

Pod 5

Carol Liu

Caroline Wang

Savannah Miao

Course Description: This course introduces a project-based instructional approach in second-language learning. Students will develop their English skills through real world tasks and situations. This course is created with the intention of providing learners (CLB 8) the opportunity to develop communication, listening, reading comprehension and writing skills in English. Throughout the course, learners need to use their receptive skills (listening and reading) as well as their writing and presentation skills to finish a term project. At the beginning of the class, each student will choose a book to read over the term. At the end of the term, each student is going to do a presentation about the book that they read and draw a poster about one plot in the book and write the book summary on it. Also, while students are doing their presentation, the rest of the students should take notes about what happened in other’s book. Each week students should be able to read one chapter and write a summary about it. In each class, students are going to learn knowledge through the real world problem. (e.g. students are going to learn some evaluate language use through reading the movie review online.)

Concept Analysis:

1. Learning English as a second language is defined in the literature as learners of English language development, in comparison to peers, for academic purposes in the schooling context (Baker, 2006; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2005; Peregoy & Boyle, 2008; Perez & Holmes, 2010). Also ESL could be a multicultural concept, students from elsewhere come together to learn the same language and share their country’s culture in a new language to their peers (Berlin, 2012).
2. English has been the most commonly used language in many schools, even though the official language of that region is the other one. For example, French is the official language in Montreal, but the lectures are given in English in the universities. To respect the diversity of cultural background, professors and students have to speak English because it is the most common language that the majority of them can speak. With the unified language, it is easier for everyone to communicate with others in the class. In addition, it is more convenient for instructors to organize the class. Thus, learning English could be very helpful under a variety of circumstances. 
3. However, there are some misconceptions on English learning. One thing needs to be mentioned is that people tend to believe the second language has to be learned since early childhood; because it is the best time to acquire new skills. Although kids might learn new things faster, people of any age are able to learn and obtain another language. A person in his middle adulthood could also make an achievement on English learning. Age cannot determine whether you will learn English well or not.
4. Practice is the most essential feature of English learning. By reading more english articles, both reading comprehension skill and writing skill will be improved. Similarly, having more conversations with other English speakers could also enhance one’s speaking and listening skills. Without the practice, it is difficult to make progress on the learning of this second language. Because the subject of the learning is a language, communication and feedback could also be considered as essential features. Communicating with others will not only let learners practice more, but also provide the feedback through the process. The feedback reflects learning outcomes and it will let learners notice whether they use the words appropriately or not. 
5. For accidental features of learning English, one of them could be the talent for language. Language talent is certainly very useful during the study process, but it is not a necessary element for language learning. A person without talent could also achieve success in mastering a language through hard work. Another very similar accidental feature is the language environment. Being in an absolute English environment would be very helpful for learning English from many aspects. It will allow learners to make great improvement in a short time. However, this does not mean that improvement cannot be made in a non-English speaking environment.

Learning Outcomes: 

After completing this course, our learners are expected to:

• Achieve success in future academic learning which base on an English learning environment. As the main learning outcome, we will achieve it by enhancing learners’ fluency and accuracy of English using during the study process. Learners will be able to keep up with any school content from listening, oral presentation, reading and academic writing four aspects with no language barrier problem.

• Be able to apply English into real-world social situations in different forms. In addition to the academic purpose, learners will also be familiar with how to respond and complete daily life conversations in English, and be knowledgeable of some culturally influenced social situations based on the Canadian culture. Moreover, the learners will be knowledgeable of how to talk and meet online(phone call, texts, e-mail etc.). 

Sub-topics Mindmap:

Resources:

• ‘Grey literature’:

           Recommended TV series: 

           Stranger Things      

           Friends

           Killing Eve

           The Morning Show

• Technology Tools:

           Kahoot

• Websites:

           ESL Library https://www.esllibrary.com/courses

• Others

           Handouts that instructor created for each class

Work Allocation of Interactive Learning Resource:

1-4 (Caroline), 5-8 (Carol), 9-13 (Savannah)

1. An overview of the resource
2. A description and rationale for the learning theory upon which your resource will be based (behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism)
3. A description and rationale for the learning design you chose (inquiry, project-based, direct instruction, etc)
4. A description of your learning context (K-12, higher ed, corporate, individual, etc)
5. 2-4 learning outcomes (copied or revised from your blueprint)
6. Brief commentary about each topic and activity
7. One interactive activity for each learning outcome/topic based on a resource aligned with that topic (blog post, video, article, etc)
8. An overview of your assessment plan.
9. An overview of your plans to design for inclusion of diverse learners (choose two from the list above, and specify in your resource).
10. A rationale for your technology choices.
11. Links to each peer review of your resource
12. A rationale for why you did or did not incorporate your peers recommendations into your final resource
13. A bibliography or reference list of all resources cited and/or required for your learners

References:

Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters LTD.

Berlin, L. N. (2005;2012;). Contextualizing college ESL classroom praxis: A participatory approach to effective instruction (1st ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum. doi:10.4324/9780203826393

This video is aimed at students’ English listening skill. Rather than listening to the recordings only, the video helps learners have a better understanding of the content. It includes many short dialogues under different situations, and learners have to choose the pictures that they think are related to the content. After they make the choice, the dialogues will repeat again but with subtitles that students could check whether their understanding is right or wrong. The interaction between learners and materials is inherent, because students have to choose the answer before the dialogues are repeated. Consequently, students are forced to engage in the practice and pay more attention to it. By doing practice on English listening, learners will have a clear idea of what words or sentences they should use under different situations in their daily life. In addition, this practice will not only enhance listening skill, but also improves learners’ speaking skill. With this understanding, learners are able to apply it into their daily life, for instance, communicate with others who speak English. 

During the class time, students could have a similar activity to practice English listening and speaking. They could be divided to small groups and create short dialogues for the given situations. Then, the other groups have to summarize what their classmates are talking about. This interaction among learners will help themselves make excellent progress on English learning. On the other hand, it is easy to provide either in the face-to-face class or in the online video class. To examine learning outcomes, feedback is given by the instructor and other classmates. First of all, the instructor could give feedback about the quality of the dialogues created by students. Then, the students who create dialogues could give feedback to other classmates’ answers. It is a highly interactive activity that requires each of the students actively engage in it by being the questioner and the answerer.

Besides giving dialogues, there are plenty of activities that could be given to practice English. For instance, one student describes a scenario in English and another student draws a picture about it. As Cc suggested, instructors could provide a variety of activities and let students pick the most favorite one. This will increase students’ interest in English learning and encourage them to learn better. 

https://factsuite.com/blog/diverse-and-inclusive-workforce/

Universal design appears in many public area. The curb cuts is the most common one that present universal design in engineering. Besides the curb cuts, there is a lot of designs commonly seen in our life that apply same idea. For example, the wash basin countertops could also be considered as the universal design. In some of the public washrooms, the height of wash basin countertops are different. Normally, there is a wash basin with a lower countertop, whereas there is another wash basin with a higher countertop in the same washroom. This design allows everyone who wants to use the wash basin can choose the one with their own preference and situation. People who sitting in the wheelchair could use the wash basin with the lower countertop. Kids who are not tall enough could also use the lower one. Even though it is a public washroom, everyone could choose the one that more suitable the self.

Applying to the learning design, some instructors use same idea on the designing of course assignment. They provide students a list of options on the assignments that everyone has a chance to choose with their own preference. For example, if you are good at art, you can design a poster about a particular topic which have learned from this course. On the other hand, if you are good at public speaking, you can have a presentation about that topic in front of the class. There are various forms of the assignment, each of the student can choose the one that they prefer. The basic idea of this learning design is that it allows everyone to make a choice according to their own preferences and situations. By doing that, every student in the class is included in and treated equitable.

As Caroline discussed in her blog post, the automatic doors and automatic grammar checker are good example of universal design as well. Both of these two are not only design for people who have difficulties, but also take convenience to others.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/343776

Different teaching styles bring different learning experiences. There are three different teaching styles: behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. As a student, I have met many teachers that each of them has different teaching method. In this blog, I will share my learning experiences with different learning theories.

Behaviorism

Chinese education is representative of behavioristic teaching style. In China, parents and teachers like to emphasize on the reinforcement. Giving a reward or punishment is the most common strategy that they will apply for the learning the outcome. Once I did a bad job on the math assignment, the instructor assigned more extra works to me to do more practice. These extra assignments which only for me could be seen as a punishment. However, at the end of that term, I made a brilliant progress because of those extra assignments. Undoubtedly, a verbal praise followed by the huge progress, in which could be seen as a reward.

Cognitivism

Comparing to behaviorism, cognitivism is more focus on the mental processing. Studying under western education curriculum, the learning experiences could be considered as cognitivism. When I faced with academic challenge or difficulty, the instructors focus on how am I thinking and processing information rather than assign more works to me. This is completely distinct from the behavioristic teaching style. Once I got some problems on the assignment, my instructor did not directly tell me how to solve it, but guided me to think in another way and let me figure it out by myself. Similar to Cc’s experience, both of our instructors emphasize more on thinking and processing information by ourselves.

Constructivism

Constructivism shares same idea as cognitivism. Both of these two are focus on mental processing and more commonly appear in Canada than in China. Beyond cognitivism, constructivism encourage learners apply their own understanding to the real life and experience. As a psychology student, many of my instructors like us to apply the knowledge we have learned to our real life. Last term I had a psychology class which the professor prefer to allow us analyze some of our experiences with our understanding of the knowledge. Rather than simply explain the theories, the professor let us apply what we have learned to our own experiences. With this learning experience, I had a better understanding on those psychological theories. Among all the three teaching styles, I would say that constructivism is better for me.

Hi, this is Savi, a fourth-year student major in psychology. Looking forward to working with you all!