ESL Week

ESL Week is a time to acknowledge dedicated ESL professionals and the hard work of ESL learners within our communities. There are endless ways to celebrate the work, energy, and dedication of all the stakeholders involved in adult ESL education.

Some ideas are:
- enter ESL Week contests (usually entries are submitted in early summer)
- host a writing contest at your school
- host an open house at your school and include cultural displays, international cooking, and activities
- host a potluck with your students
- invite and support students to do group presentations about experiences learning English
- share international recipes and publish a small cookbook (or publish on a class blog)
- invite coordinators to present teachers with a small token of appreciation (e.g., a card with a small treat)
- have students write thank you cards to coordinators and other staff



Check out TESL Ontario's web page: http://www.teslontario.net/esl-week
See the winning entries for this year's creativity contest. Get inspired to celebrate!

What are you doing to celebrate ESL Week with your classes? Post your ideas here!

TESL Ontario - I'm Presenting!

It is that time of year again - ESL Week! TESL Ontario is hosting its annual conference from October 16-18, and I am presenting with two excellent teachers and good friends

My workshop is called Multilevel Group Activities for Holidays and Special Occasions
The description is as follows:This interactive workshop will provide participants with creative activities to teach and celebrate Canadian holidays while incorporating language outcomes. Presenters will share their experiences of combining classes from Literacy to CLB 4 to mark special days and holidays. Participants will take part in adaptable sample activities that are low budget, low prep and can be used across the levels.

Hope to see you there!

Beautiful Things - Apple Cider and Pumpkin Pie

Apple season! My favourite time of year!

Seasonal foods may be new to some of the learners in your classes. 

Build in cultural experiences by bringing in culinary favourites for this time of year.

Be sure to ask about allergies, and be aware of dietary restrictions around lard as it is often in pie crusts.

Build from what the learners know, and expand vocabulary.

Use the five senses to describe pumpkin pie and apple cider.

Literacy Considerations
1. Change activities often. Do this kind of activity 20 minutes before break time to break up the day.
2. Begin with speaking. Have students orally describe and discuss words with a partner or a small group.
3. View learning as a social activity. Have learners enjoy the food and drink with a partner or small group.

Outdoor Things to Do in the Summer

When schools are out in the summer, individuals and families often seek fun things to do. Outdoor activities may differ in different parts of the world. What do boys and girls usually do in the summer? What do adults do? One idea is to make a big class list and check off who has done what, and who will do what.

This Hamilton Conservation Authority Facebook link has a list of some ideas: https://www.facebook.com/HamiltonConservation/photos/a.111847857651.118338.7446247651/10152650367427652/?type=1&theater .

If you are teaching during the summer, you could try out some of these activities in school or on a field trip. You could tally up who has done the most things.


I have done 33 things on this list. How about you?

Themes: Canadian Culture, Leisure, Health and Safety
Grammar: Imperatives, cardinal and ordinal numbers, go / try + gerund

Reminder: Start with oral language first. This kind of language development could also be really fun if incorporating TPR (Total Physical Response).

Have fun!

"Eat your Weedies!"

Edible weeds in your neighbourhood? Why not learn about them!

With a teacher experienced in identifying edible weeds, several activities are possible across the levels.

A good resource book like this one can be helpful.  You could use it for your own information or adapt it for higher level learners.

You could
1. Talk about learners' own experiences foraging for and growing food. Do TPR to connect actions and vocabulary. See this link for some ideas for Phase I learners on using TPR and song for learning new vocabulary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJuOR9jTpV4

2. Talk about foraging in Canada - do people do it? Where? Why? What times of year?

3. Collect some edible leaves and flowers and have your students take photos of them, or trace / draw them.

4. Compare shapes, sizes and colours of leaves and flowers.

5. Take your class on a walk around the block to pick your own salad. Follow or make a map while you are at it!

6. Sample all the edibles and describe the taste, texture, and smell.

7. Have a local guest speaker come to class and talk about edible weeds.

8. Read a flyer (adapted as necessary) about a course on this topic: http://haltonenvironment.net/?tribe_events=eat-your-weedies-2

9. Find and follow some recipes using edible weeds. Write your own recipe.

10. Read and discuss issues around excessive foraging / harvesting (adapted as necessary): http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4034957-foraging-is-fine-but-not-on-rbg-property/

 Garlic Mustard 

Some recipes are here: http://the3foragers.blogspot.ca/2014/04/garlic-mustard-recipe-roundup.html

Wood Sorrel (has yellow flowers) - Check out the warnings before you eat this.

Be careful, though! If you cover this topic with your learners, be sure you are providing all the correct and relevant information. Some edible plants may have look alike plants that are poisonous.

Mother's Day

I generally do not do too much for Mother's Day with my learners. It can be a very emotional time, as I have learned. This past Mother's Day, the moms in my class celebrated in the childminding area with their children. They were given some special artwork and enjoyed story time together. One of my students returned to class and said that they had read a beautiful book. I asked her to describe it, and I knew right away it was the book that always makes me cry: Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. As she retold the story, I (of course!), along with some other students, began to cry.

Here is a link to the book and a bit of the background of the song within it.
http://robertmunsch.com/book/love-you-forever

As a class, we talked about how life changes and we are often in the process of growth / new beginnings and loss. Deep ideas for Mother's Day.

It was interesting, though, to learn that different countries celebrate Mother's Day on different days (e.g., March 8, March 21). Not many of my learner's celebrated Father's Day in their previous countries. This makes for some interesting class discussion!

Winter Salad

Winter time can be a difficult time to find good quality and cheap fresh fruits and vegetables. In my class a few weeks ago, we had some visitors from a local "eat healthy" group demonstrate how to make a delicious salad with us. They brought all the ingredients, and we provided the bowls, forks, and appetites :)

For most guest speakers that come into my classes, I  encourage them to use simplified language and make the presentation very visual and experiential. Following this recipe was a great opportunity to build on these learning styles. We adapted the recipe based on what ingredients we had. This concept was a bit freeing for my learners and they began brainstorming ideas to make the recipe their own.

Our guest speakers brought this recipe. I do not know the source.

Some ingredients:

Great cooking vocabulary!

 Chop

 Slice

Toss

We sat and enjoyed this delicious and nutritious salad together. It was a social event and we talked about the textures, the tastes, and recipe adaptations.

Our final item: compost! In our city we are lucky to have a great municipal composting program. This all got pitched into the "green" bin.

Outcomes: Following instructions, describing personally relevant experiences, working with others, measurement, asking questions

Follow-up: Our community offers a "Good Food Box". This contains many fresh fruits and vegetables at a very low cost. It support local farmers and businesses. Practise reading the program flyer for details about dates, costs, items, and pick-up or delivery locations. Once the food box comes in, talk about the food and share other recipes.

In addition, you could precede or follow up this recipe with studying nutritional facts, reading food labels, and doing a class presentation on a nutrient or mineral.

Needs Assessment Tool: Dotmocracy

Every two months, I like to assess what content and activities my students  want to stop, continue and start. 

One way I do this is a "dotmocracy".

My workplace has suggested a consistent yearly thematic sequence to cover. However, we can adjust this, extend it, and skip themes, etc., to meet the needs of our learners. For the topic dotmocracy, I told the students the themes were Travel and Transportation and Family, and if something else was important, we could add it. I love what they added! 

I gave each student five stickers. They had to choose the five most important things for them right now.

For the classroom activities dotmocracy, I started the list with activities that are regular weekly activities, and asked students to brainstorm what we do in class and other activities they would like to do. I gave each student the same number of stickers as items listed. I asked them to choose either “do” or “stop” for each one. Then, students put up their stickers during break.

From this, my students have essentially designed the curriculum for the next two months. I look at the most important items and our time-line and see what we can cover. We will do it again in two months. If something was missed and is very important, the students have the opportunity to express it and vote on it again. Also, students can see how many of their peers share their same opinion, needs and wants.