Société pour la promotion de l’enseignement de l’anglais langue seconde au Québec / Society for the Promotion of the Teaching of English as a Second Language in Quebec.
A day like Speaq Campus is a great day for teachers in training: it is ongoing professional development that is varied, dynamic and stimulating and that, outside of the classroom. It takes a day like Speaq Campus to help us refresh some ideas & theories seen in class, and see some concrete applications in everyday life of experienced teachers. I have decided to share my recollection of the conferences I attended to help my own practice (Competency 11) and to convince fellow students of the Beals to attend next year!
The ESL Sky is the limit with Skype and Instant messaging Systems. Maria G. Contente shared her experiences with Skype in her classroom. There are many advantages to the use of Skype: she invites guest speakers from all over the world to address her students. Students are motivated to participate in debates on various social and ecological issues. Mrs. Contente explained her experience with oral skills homework done on Skype, and that ESL learners speak without fear on a one-to-one basis (although at home in their comfort zone, without the presence of peers). She further explained how she uses Moodle to plan her classes and upload files on Skype. She is quite inspiring, and one can tell that her students aren’t bored. They go on virtual trips. She maintains links with Brazil, and helps less fortunate people learn English through e-learning environments. One can see how Skype, as well as other e-learning tools, such as Elluminate, can help language learning in remote parts of the world where no regular institution can offer such courses. Mrs Contente also described her volunteer work in helping citizens of Rio de Janeiro to learn useful English-speaking skills to enable them to work for the Olympics in 2012.
Making the ESL classroom more brain-friendly, especially for teens. In this conference, Randy Hamlyn discussed the brain, how it rules our conduct and the importance of transforming information. He presented David Sousa’s book, How the Brain Learns and John Medina’s book Brain rules. Both authors are researchers in educational neuroscience. Hamlyn stressed the fact that ESL students shouldn’t rely on rote memory, but should transform information and reinvest their learning. He strongly suggested to use the first ten minutes of the class, that’s when students are most ready to learn.. He called this period prime time. I noticed how much importance he gave to concentration and the principles of wiring and rewiring the brain: a learned experience is rewiring. Every brain is wired differently and there are multiple intelligences. Hamlyn discussed the kinesthetic children who need to touch and manipulate. Teachers have different kids in a classroom and their job is that of facilitators: to trigger the students and support the students along their learning activities. Hamlyn’s presentation definitely sparked my curiosity to read more about brain rules and learning.
Surviving your first year teaching. Patricia Parks brought us humour on a serious topic. She shared her own experiences and many strategies about surviving a first year in front of a classroom. She insisted on being passionate about teaching and transmitting one’s passion. She suggested ending her classes positively; she thought it was important that students be able to make a choice (for example, on a final project or even on how to be tested and evaluated). She did apply consequences and cut out the funny ending if a class had been disruptive. Mrs. Parks starts her classes with a ten-minute silent reading which, she said, helped students settle and focus on English. She provided us with her 10 tips tool box, the first one being on planning. She confided that becoming friends with the students shouldn’t be a teacher’s aim, students have friends, but they need a teacher. It was good to hear an experienced teacher speak about her difficult times in the first year, and how she gradually organized her lesson plans and class management to make it a successful and pleasant learning environment for her students. Since a high rate of teachers drop out of the field within the first 5 years, it is most appropriate that future teachers get as many tools and information to help them along the first years which are apparently the hardest.
Help, my students can’t read and they won’t talk. Monique Mainella’s workshop was very structured and aimed at helping teachers to teach strategies to learners. Teachers often forget that students are scared to read in front of a class; they feel incompetent in front of a text in a second language, are worried about mistakes, and that they will have to answer questions. According to Mainella, the teacher’s role is important; he/she is responsible for the student’s willingness to speak. Therefore he/she should teach students strategies to read and speak in the group; give them time to process and think before asking for someone to answer. This reduces stress and creates an affective climate, which are part of a natural approach. An environment without stress will help comprehension but also help the students express themselves orally.
Mrs. Mainelle explained also that teachers can use anonymity to poll the classroom on the understanding of a question or subject matter. She also gave us a helpful tool: “my exit slip”, one short question or exercise on a slip of paper that students hand in before leaving class. It is a simple and effective way of surveying the understanding of a notion, and to identify those who need more explanations. Finally, she gave additional strategies to help the students read, adding visuals to support a text, for example.
Tips, tricks and tools to reach and inspire. Judith Rohlf’s message was clear, concise and important for improving our future teaching skills in the classroom. I retained her three principles: Structure for success (let’s remember that planning was also an important tip for P. Parks); use everything that you can think of to animate and explain and catch the students doing something good. This experienced woman shared with us numerous tips and tricks she had developed over her many years of practice. She highlighted the importance of simple class rules, of establishing routines and the importance of functional language posters. I can see that such posters are helpful for ESL learners and should be present in ESL classrooms. Personally, I noticed a classroom in one practicum where none were posted and that bare classroom seemed pretty uninspiring for kids: no functional language that could help them take risks in formulating sentences. Finally, Rohlf shared her enthusiasm for arts & crafts activities, which are a way to provide a pleasant atmosphere (affective factor in language learning for beginners), as well as an opportunity to learn and use the English words in association with objects. This is exactly what was taught in my Ped course: Teaching young children (S. Priego). Puppets, banners, mini-books are creative activities that involve “showing and telling” in the target language. J. Rohlf’s lecture helped future teachers review some of the cooperative structures such as: Think –pair-Share; Inside-out circle and showed different opportunities to get students to talk and participate.
To conclude, let me say that I truly enjoyed my time spent at Speaq Campus. The Speaq Campus committee had done a great job setting up the conferences, arranging for the good lunch in the Atrium and offering many attendance prizes.
