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| Friday, November 27, 2009 |
| Teacher Interview on Grading Practices |
As I am also interested in the K-12 level, I decided to see what English language instruction was like at a middle school. I visited our classmate, Julie Murray, and interviewed her regarding her English class. Ms. Murray has been a teacher in the Central School District in Rancho Cucamonga, California for the past twenty-six years. Currently, she teaches seventh and eighth grade English Language Arts for English Language Learners. She holds a Bachelors degree in psychology and a multiple subject credential. While she currently works with middle school students, she has also worked in mono and bilingual classrooms at the elementary level.
Ms. Murray's grading policy is clearly structured through percentages. 90-100% is considered an “A,” 80-89% is considered a “B,” and so on. Grading is done using the GradeQuick grading software. She uses a system in which all work done is assigned a number. This is useful because parents and students can access their grades at anytime via the Edline website. Using the website, students and parents can both see what assignments, if any, are missing, have a good or bad grade, and other information. Students at CELDT levels one and two are given modified work and are given full points if they complete their work. If students are unable to complete a particular aspect of the assignment, Ms. Murray may excuse that portion. Due to the fact that some CELDT level one students struggle so much with the school work, Ms. Murray does not believe it is fair to assign them a letter grade. For these students, she will generally assign either a “pass” or “fail” grade based upon their effort. Grades for all students are heavily based upon participation – students are graded more upon their attitude than their aptitude. Ms. Murray reports that while grades motivate most students, it does not motivate them all.
Ms. Murray is very concerned with her students' progress in her classroom. Students that are falling behind are taken note of so that special care will be taken for their success. The focus students, for example, were not keeping up with the class. An intervention in the classroom that Ms. Murray used was to walk over to them at the beginning of the assignment to get them started. After ensuring that the students were aware of what was expected and that they had gotten a start, Ms. Murray would give them time to work and periodically check back on them. Some assignments were modified for these students and after-school tutoring is always offered. This extra attention usually is the key to bringing students up to speed with the rest of the class.
In general, standardized testing is the backbone of the curriculum at Cucamonga Middle School. As the curriculum is based around standards, Ms. Murray states that if students do well on their in-class assignments, they generally do well on their tests as well. However, test scores are not reflected in the grades of students as the schools do not even receive their scores until summer. As with mainstream students, there are some students who do well on their classwork, but do not do well on the test. Likewise, a student who may not be successful in the classroom may do well on the test. Overall, however, a student's performance in-class is reflected in their test scores. |
posted by miffykurara @ 5:22 PM  |
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| Friday, November 20, 2009 |
| Original Instruction Plan |
(NOTE: Focus sheets and worksheets will not properly post in a blog format. Due to this, if you wish to see the focus and worksheets, please email me or post a comment with your email address)
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SAN BERNARDINO
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Masters of Arts in Education
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Instructional Plan: Letters
Level: High-Intermediate, IEP
Performance Objectives:
Content Objective:
To compare and contrast the format of a business letter and a friendly letter
Language Objective:
To write a letter to a friend and a letter to a business asking for a favor
Learning Objective:
To create a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast aspects of friendly and business letters
Content Vocabulary:
Greeting, format, sincerely, formality
CASAS Competencies:
0.1.4 – Understand or use appropriate language in general social situations (e.g., to greet, introduce, thank, apologize)
0.2.3 – Interpret or write a personal note, invitation, or letter
4.6.2 – Interpret and write work-related correspondence, including notes, memos, letters, and e-mail
7.2.1 – Identify and paraphrase pertinent informational7.2.3 – make comparisons, differentiating among, sorting, and classifying items, information, or ideas
7.4.8 – Interpret visual representations, such as symbols, blueprints, flowcharts, and schematics
Warm-Up:
The instructor will ask students to write a quick note, in any language, to their friend to ask them to come over to their place to eat dinner. After students finish, the instructor will then ask them to write a letter to a business associate to invite them for a business dinner. When students are done, the instructor will lead the students to discuss why they write a letter differently to a friend than they would a business.
Task Chain 1: Compare and contrast format of a business letter and a friendly letter
1.The students will read Focus Sheet 1 individually.
2.In groups, the students will complete Worksheet 1.
3.The instructor will ask students to share out their findings.
4.The instructor will offer examples of more information to put in the chart.
Task Chain 2: To create a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the letter types
1.The instructor will give the students more samples of business and friendly letters.
2.The students will complete Worksheet 2 using Worksheet 1 and Focus Sheet 2 as a reference.
3.The instructor will canvass the room to assess the student's understanding.
Task Chain 3: Write a letter to a friend and a letter to a business asking for a favor
1.The instructor will ask the students different situations in which they may write letters. As the students provide topics/situations, the instructor will write these on the board for reference.
2.The students will select one of the topics/situations on the board or come up with one on their own.
3.The students will write a friendly and a business letter, each using the same topic/situation.
Final Assessment: Student letters
1.Using the student letters as a reference, the instructor will evaluate the students' understanding of the similarities and differences between friendly and business letters. |
| posted by miffykurara @ 1:57 PM |
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| Friday, October 23, 2009 |
| Standards and Lesson Plan |
The standards used are from the CASAS Competencies.
I designed a plan myself and also found a few plans already made. For the pre-made plans, I will provide links and for my plan, I will post it here.
Found plans:
Buying a Car
Understanding Over-the-Counter Medicines
Reading Food Labels
(Plans from the "Lessons for the CASAS Competencies" website)
My plan:
(Please let me know if you would like any of the focus sheets or worksheets as I have created them, but they do not post properly onto the blog!)
Instructional Plan: Rethinking Recycling
Level: High-Intermediate, IEP
Performance Objectives:
Content Objective: 1. To compare and contrast trash and recycling policies/habits between students’ home countries and America
Language Objective: 2. To create a comparison chart and Venn diagram to organize this information
Learning Objective: 3. To create and orally present a poster to promote positive recycling habits
Content Vocabulary: Recycle, sorting, trash, garbage, waste, reuse, redemption values, policies, environment, ecological (additional vocabulary to be added by instructor and students)
CASAS Competencies:
0.1.2 – Understand or use appropriate language for informational purposes (e.g., to identify, describe, ask for information, state needs, agree or disagree)
0.1.3 – Understand or use appropriate language to influence or persuade (e.g., to caution, advise, persuade, negotiate)
0.1.5 – Interact effectively in the classroom
0.1.6 – Clarify or request clarification
2.7.3 – Interpret information about social issues
5.6.1 – Interpret information about neighborhood or community problems and their solutions
5.6.4 – Identify ways of conserving resources, including recycling and using energy efficiently
5.7.1 – Interpret information related to environmental issues
7.2.1 – Identify and paraphrase pertinent information
7.2.3 – Make comparisons, differentiating among, sorting, and classifying items, information, or ideas
7.5.1 – Identify personal values, qualities, interests, abilities, and aptitudes
Warm-Up: Ask students “why do we recycle?” Students should speak in groups, then share out. Write down reasons/important details on the board for later reference.
Task Chain 1: Compare and contrast trash and recycling policies/habits between countries
- As a class, students will go over Focus Sheet 1. They will add at least 10 terms to the list of vocabulary based upon their experiences and observations.
- In table groups, students will describe recycling in America based upon their observations.
- Groups will share out their notes about American recycling policies/habits and write down additional notes, ask questions, and clarify.
- Students will work independently or with other students from their home country to write about their own country’s policies.
- Students will pair with a student from a different home country and they will interview each other about their home country’s policies.
Task Chain 2: Create a comparison chart and Venn diagram
- Paired with their interview partner from the previous task chain, students will complete Worksheet 2 with the information from Worksheet 1.
- Using Focus Sheet 3 as a reference, students will transfer the information from Worksheet 2 to a Venn diagram on butcher or poster paper.
Task Chain 3: Create and orally present a poster
- In pairs or groups (depending on class size), students will create a poster to promote positive recycling habits.
- Students will present their posters to the class.
- Using Worksheet 4, students will record highlights of their classmates’ presentations and questions for classmates.
Final Assessment: Score students using presentation and poster rubrics
- Using a presentation rubric, students will be evaluated on their presentation skills.
- Using a poster rubric, students will be evaluated on their project.
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| posted by miffykurara @ 10:02 PM |
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| Tuesday, October 13, 2009 |
| Site Visit - UCR IEP |
As my target teaching level is IEP, I decided to conduct my interview at University of California, Riverside’s University Extension Intensive English Program. I was granted an interview with Stephanie Landon on Monday, October 12. As I did my undergraduate work at UCR, I knew about the Extension Center’s IEP as we would often have advertisements encouraging students to work as conversation partners for their conversation program. In fact, a friend of mine met his future wife by becoming her conversation partner. My roommate currently attends UCR and volunteers in the conversation partner program, and as such I have been able to meet many of the international students involved in the program.
Although I knew about the IEP and the services they offered, I had never actually been there until the day of my interview. Upon coming into the building, I noticed that the IEP served a variety of students, but I also noticed a high concentration of Japanese and Korean students. While riding the elevator up to Ms. Landon’s room, I also noticed that dorm rooms for the students were a part of this building in addition to the dorms behind the building. While I believe this is beneficial for building a community of learners with the students, I had mixed feelings because it also felt a bit isolated from the greater community of the university and town.
As I waited for Ms. Landon, I noticed the open classrooms around me. Class sizes were quite small, in both number of students and actual square footage. The rooms I saw were about the same size as the room in my apartment. However, this set up appeared to work well to serve as an intimate learning environment. Every student could see and hear the teacher and each other and the class enrollment was small enough that individual attention was possible for all students. Reviewing of assignments also appeared to be very individualized as the instructors provided feedback about previous work, common mistakes she had noticed, and tips for future assignments. Ms. Landon’s room was also as small as the other rooms I had noticed on her floor. A single row of desks lined the north and the south wall facing toward each other. From the papers up on the board, it appeared that the latest class had been focusing on the vocabulary and sentence structure for describing a person’s physical appearance and demeanor.
After settling into the classroom, Ms. Landon began to talk about herself and the program at the IEP. Ms. Landon received her Masters in TESOL at Simmons College in Boston, MA. A requirement in her program was for students to enter into a one-semester internship, but they had an option of staying in the internship for a whole year. Ms. Landon’s internship was at a local community college and she was fortunate enough to have the department chair as her mentor. This opened many opportunities for her, including having her second semester’s internship become a paid job as she took over her own class at the community college. She has also worked in Chiba, Japan teaching English. At this time, she teaches Oral Skills Development and Writing classes.
The IEP uses the Michigan Placement Test in order to place students into one of six levels (beginning is 100 level, advanced is 600 level). Students are tested during orientation and placed into a skill level according to the results. As the 100 level is rather basic, they do not always have a 100 level class offered as students do not always need it. However, they are considering changing the qualifications for each levels as some of the students who barely test into the 200 level appear to have trouble and would perhaps benefit from taking later 100 level classes. All students in the IEP must take Reading, Writing, and Grammar classes. 100-400 level students must also take Oral Skills Development while 500 and 600 level students may decide to take Oral Skills Development or another elective. Each quarter, students have competency exams administered by an institution.
When asked about a program model, Ms. Landon explained to me that there is no one model that is used. In fact, instructors have great autonomy in deciding what approach they wish to utilize, so as long as they cover the curriculum. Many instructors in the IEP have been working for many years, some as long as 20 years. Various publications have also been written by instructors in the program. As a result, the program has strong trust in the abilities of its faculty. Coordinators are assigned to oversee each subject and they meet each week to discuss the quarter and teacher evaluations. As a beginning instructor, one may be evaluated each quarter while those who have been with the program longer may only have one per year. The evaluation team is made up of another instructor, an administrator, and a coordinator. The nature of the evaluations is generally to serve as constructive feedback to further the development of the faculty.
Texts utilized in the program are quite varied. While browsing the shelves at the IEP’s bookstore, I noticed publishers such as Oxford (Person to Person, Well Read), Jamestown (Adventures, Chills, etc), Pearson Longman (Basic English Grammar, Fundamentals of English Grammar, etc), Cambridge (Writers at Work), Thomson Heinle (Basic Composition for ESL), and even workbooks produced by the IEP itself. This eclectic variety of texts reflects the varied instruction offered by the IEP. When I asked Ms. Landon about the faculty’s voice in the selection of the texts, she explained to me that an instructor could recommend a text and the program would pilot it for a year. Based upon the results of the pilot year, the program would decide whether or not to keep the book as a part of the program.
I believe that the IEP is providing adequate instruction to its students. From what I saw and heard, it appears as though instructors are free to tailor the atmosphere of their classrooms in order to deliver the curriculum in the most efficient way for their students rather than being forced to use a one-size-fits-all approach to learning. The small class sizes were also quite refreshing to me. After substituting in classes with over forty desks crammed into a room, 15 desks in a small room seemed much more manageable. The personal feeling of these classrooms ensured me that an instructor would have an easier time with including all students in discussions and activities in order to foster learning.
Overall, I feel confident that UCR’s IEP is doing a great job with the students as well as with working together with the faculty to improve instruction. The only thing I would suggest to change or modify about the program involves placement in the levels. I had asked if a student could be in multiple proficiency levels, for example, a student with strong verbal skills but weak writing skills perhaps being placed in a 400 level speaking class but only a 200 writing and grammar class. This does not happen. Instead, a student is placed in a single level. I believe it may be beneficial for some students to move up in levels for each skill accordingly. A student who is highly proficient in an area may feel bored in a course that does not challenge that skill. At the same time, if the student’s high scores in one area lifts their levels in other areas beyond their capabilities, they may struggle unnecessarily. Due to this, I believe it would benefit the students to try to split levels.
After my meeting with Ms. Landon, I am more inspired than before to work toward my goal of working at an IEP. Listening to the classes, meeting some of the students in the halls, and speaking with Ms. Landon herself was all a positive experience for me. I hope that when I am hired, I am fortunate enough to work in such an environment.
For more information on the programs offered at the IEP, click here.Labels: iep, ma tesol, site visit, ucr |
| posted by miffykurara @ 1:14 PM |
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| Saturday, October 10, 2009 |
| To Post a Comment |
If you are having trouble figuring out how to post a comment, here is what you do:
1. Go to the end of an entry
2. Click where it says "0 Comments"
3. This will take you to a different page, singling out the entry, and you will see a comment box awaiting your input!Labels: commenting |
| posted by miffykurara @ 12:23 PM |
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| Thursday, October 8, 2009 |
| Time Travel Vacation |
 I tried and tried to think of something I would love to time travel to see, but to be honest, my history knowledge is zilch! My only history class in high school was US History and in college it was just Roman history! So my knowledge about human history tends to be lacking except about random cataclysmic events like Vesuvius decimating Pompei! I know that doesn't sound too fun (and I know that breathing in ash is horrible!), so I'm afraid that for my vacation, I'll have to take everyone way way back before man to the age of giant beasts!
Yes, bring your cameras and video recorders as we venture into the land of woolly mammoths, sloths (which are super cute!), and saber tooth tigers! Now, I know what you're thinking: We're all gonna get eaten! I mean, have you seen the teeth on a saber tooth tiger?! Why, yes I have.
But have no fear. I've taken safety and security into account. Due to the fact that we can time travel, it's very likely that we can also procure various necessities without applying log ic to the process of attaining them. Therefore, we will grab ourselves a few armored cars and go out safari style! We may have a bit of trouble navigating the terrain, what with no roads or other human "improvements," but if nothing else, we can hide in it and take pictures from the windows! Just as I'm sure that part of the joy of being on an African safari is having your jeep rocked lovingly (?) by an elephant, our trip can have the memorable experience of hearing a very confused short-faced bear or dire wolf inspecting our ride. Besides, it's probably for the best that we just remain in our little steel cabin on wheels due to the Butterfly Effect and it's amazing power. Actually, the plants that we will be crushing under the wheels of our vehicle and the distraction of the animals on our behalf is probably enough to screw somethings up - so let's not think about that and just have fun taking millions of pictures and videos of these lost creatures. Who knows, one of us could come back and make a fortune by our research/party pictures!
 Labels: ma tesol, sloths, time travel |
| posted by miffykurara @ 7:18 PM |
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| Wednesday, September 30, 2009 |
| Welcome! |
| Alrighty, looks like my first blogpost is up and running. I'm not new to blogging - been keeping one since 1998 when I first had internet at home. This blog is for the purposes of my EESL 521 class at CSUSB. ♥ Labels: ma tesol |
| posted by miffykurara @ 1:04 PM |
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