ELLSA 2016: Managing the Multilingual Classrrom
ELLSA 2016 was the 3rd annual international school EAL network conference in Asia which created a network of teachers from the region, to connect, collaborate, and advocate for the teaching and learning of EAL students. Participants attended workshops offered by leaders in the field of EAL. ELLSA 2016 was attended by 115 teachers from 14 different countries.
Hosted by Bangkok Patana School: Saturday & Sunday, 5th to 6th March 2016
Committee: Ondine Ullman (chair),
Keynote: Elly Tobin: With over thirty years' experience in education from Kindergarten through to adult learning, Elly Tobin is an experienced presenter, guest speaker and educational consultant specialising in language acquisition, EAL, leadership, management and curriculum development. Full biography at http://consiliumeducation.com/elly-tobin/
Committee: Ondine Ullman (chair),
Keynote: Elly Tobin: With over thirty years' experience in education from Kindergarten through to adult learning, Elly Tobin is an experienced presenter, guest speaker and educational consultant specialising in language acquisition, EAL, leadership, management and curriculum development. Full biography at http://consiliumeducation.com/elly-tobin/
Thank you so much for your hard work with the ELLSA conference this weekend. I have returned to work with practical ideas and am ready and excited to move forward in implementing them into my practice. It was wonderful to visit Patana school and to meet so many of your EAL team. What a great learning and teaching environment you have. Thank you for sharing your school, and please pass along my thanks to your teaching staff for sharing their wonderful practices and hard work with the greater EAL community. Jennifer Lemery
A Voice at the Round Table - Tan Huynh
Description: John Hattie suggests that classroom discussions and collaboration significantly impact students' achievement. This presentation shares a collaborative discussion method called the "Harkness Table" where students’ interactions drive the conversation. The goal of the method is to foster students' ability to make meaning of texts and concepts by collaboratively using strategies such as questioning, clarifying, connecting, and justifying ideas. Originally used in prestigious boarding schools and Ivy League universities, the Harkness Table has been adopted for an EAL classroom that consists of various mother-tongues and levels of English language proficiency. This method connects with the conference theme because it provides teachers with a structure and process within a multilingual classroom that allows everyone to participate regardless of their language proficiency.
In this session, the presenter will briefly share Hattie’s research, provide background information about the Harkness Table, and show footage of children engaged in the method. The participants will then be guided through an exercise that models the Harkness Table. The presentation concludes with a reflection of the participants' experience, which will be conducted using the Harkness method.
Bridging the gap between class teachers and EAL teachers - Claire Myers & Clare Owens
Description: What do class teachers want to say to EAL teachers? What do the EAL teachers wish that class teachers understood? How big is the gap between the two roles? How can we bridge this gap?
As experienced class teachers, we have both taught for a number of years in a variety of contexts and have both, either recently or currently, taught EAL. We hope to offer insights into the similarities and differences in the roles, as well as key messages we have learnt along the way.
Building Awareness of Academic Language - Kristy Goodman
Description: Academic language is a necessity for all students to master. However, teachers tend to be so immersed in it that it can be difficult for us to describe. The goal of this presentation is build awareness of academic language and the challenges that it presents for our students. Being able to identify academic language is the first step in helping our multilingual students master this language. If time allows, we will also look at methods for teaching academic language in your classroom.
EAL in the Classroom: Making It Work - Cheyenne dela Fuente & Cheryl Newman
Description: Do you want to know how to support EAL learners in the mainstream classroom? In this workshop we will hear what two facilitators have done in their learning environments in order to make learning successful. The session will provide participants with easy-to-implement strategies and activities which can then be added to their personal toolkit.
Getting out of the Goldfish Bowl: English Weirdness & Home Language Influence - Richard (Rick) Kirtland
Description: During this session, we will be looking at some of the weird ways in which English works, or doesn’t... We will briefly trace the history of the language and explore some of the issues that its complexity creates for ELLs. We will also look at the role of language distance and the influence of home languages and cultures on the learning of English as a second or additional language.
Google Classroom and Google Drive: Steps to Incorporate in your Classroom - Alis Diana Gorcea
Description: The presentation focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of using Google Classroom: Collaboration, Communication, Participation/Student Engagement and Assessment (with a focus on Google Drive). Alis Gorcea has done this presentation twice during their In-service Day and the reviews were very positive: teachers finding this presentation useful.
Growth Mindset: Reflecting on our ELL Teaching Practices - Deborah Chu
Description: What can our ELLs do already? How do we encourage a growth mindset for them to develop their language skills? This session will take us on a journey of self-reflection in regards to our practices in teaching ELLs.
Increasing Emphasis on Redefining EAL Support - James Dykman
Description: EAL teachers can allow for the creation of learning practice previously inconceivable. In this session, James will briefly share his school's language policy revision process and, subsequently, how their EAL department brought their beliefs and goals in alignment with it. Now, they are digging into aligning their practice.
Using the SAMR model as a framework, we will reflect on our beliefs about language learning and co-teaching partnerships to develop how we can best apply our expertise and energy to support students’ language learning needs.
Why Differentiation? Making The How Easy - Janat Blackmon
Description: Differentiation is a critical skill in the classroom, especially with multi-level language learners. Student learning, motivation, confidence, and success can be greatly increased by effectively implementing differentiated instruction in our classrooms. In this session we will explore concrete differentiation techniques that you can immediately use in your classroom to engage learners, while helping teachers make differentiated instruction and assessment easier and faster to plan for and implement.
Why are Academic Discussions So Important for ELLs? Practical Strategies and Protocols - Chris Capadona & Nel Capadona
Description: The primary goal of this presentation is to encourage the use of disciplinary-focused, structured academic discussion protocols for ELL students, as the current research suggests that frequency and consistency of academic discussion is critical to our ELL populations' language and content development. Multiple examples and applications of structured, academic discussion will also be presented and practised.
As ELL students need to hear language in authentic and varied, disciplinary-focused contexts, the facilitators will emphasise the significance of student talk that maximises student engagement, ensures student accountability, and develops content understanding.
Utilising Visual Media to Enhance Language Output and Cognitive Understanding - Jennifer Lemery
Description: How can visual media be used to increase/enhance language production? Visual media and visual text represent a wide range of art forms, such as painting, photography, animation, etc. that engage emotions that naturally elicit conversation. Participants will have fun exploring several different avenues of how EAL and Content teachers can promote language learning, including language production (writing and speaking), and developing grammar and literacy skills, through the use of various types of visual media and text. Additionally, this hands-on presentation will further explore how to use visual media and text to further enable students to demonstrate their understanding of concepts through the combination of Visible Thinking Routines and visual media. Participants will leave the session with several practical ideas and techniques of how to actively engage EAL students - from beginners to advanced - through the use of visual media. Many of these strategies and techniques can be adapted for inclusion and other language learning classes as well.
Using technology in an EAL classroom to help students work collaboratively - Mark David Jones
Description: The purpose of this presentation is to introduce some ideas about how technology tools can be used in an EAL context to promote collaborative learning among our students. This presentation will include practical ideas that can be used in the classroom including tools for collaborative writing, annotating pictures and online quizzes. During the workshop, the presenter will include time for participants to practice using some of the tools to get a feel for them, especially if they are new to some of the programs that will be talked about.
Using high interest texts for English language development - Paul Dufficy
Description: High interest texts offer both EAL and mainstream teachers a wide range of opportunities to engage their learners with both thinking and language. In this workshop we will look at a number of high interest texts and explore how they might be adapted to assist in the development of speaking, listening, reading and vocabulary development. Participants will have the opportunity for hands-on engagement with numerous tasks that can be readily adapted for children at any grade level. These tasks will include activities that allow us to frontload content; unpack particular language features; and recycle particular aspects of the texts, especially vocabulary.
Tools and Apps for Language Learners! - Samantha Pryse
Description: This will be a hands-on presentation focusing on using a range of tools and apps on all device types. We will play and experience some of the magic that technology can bring into our language learning classes. The presenter looks forward to inspiring and engaging you all with a little bit of FUN!
The impact of the first language acquisition and identity onto the additional language acquisition - Jelena Ribar Delic
Description: The prevailing theory of language acquisition in general and a brief history of linguistic research in the field of the first and additional language acquisition mechanisms, will open the presentation. By the end of the session, participants will be acquainted with the origins of the prevailing linguistic position on the importance of the first language development support throughout EAL students’ formal education, based on the previously mentioned research and its unambiguous message that the first language does not only affect the additional language acquisition but also the overall cognitive development of EAL students. The main theoreticians in the field, whose work is often quoted in contemporary linguistic essays, will be touched on as well as their thoughts on bilingualism, linguicism (linguistic discrimination) and assimilation. Moreover, some useful practices to encourage the first language and avoid standard mistakes when supporting EAL students in their homeroom will be suggested. Finally, how multilingual children can contribute to the international global community will mark the conclusion of the presentation, followed by an open discussion.
The Genre-Map Assessment Framework: A Systematic Approach to Developing Students' Mindfulness of Language - Stu Howard, Lee McKernan & John Bifield
Description: During the session we will be presenting and discussing:
• The rationale behind an explicit focus on writing genres within school contexts;
• The development of the Genre-Map Assessment Framework;
• The process of planning and using the assessments within a curriculum cycle;
• The use of the assessment maps to collaborate on the curriculum with mainstream colleagues;
• A Genre Map group workshop and feedback session.
Teaching Reading Strategies to Primary Students - Sharon Ellis
Description: Although recognition, decoding and fluency are building blocks of effective reading, the ability to comprehend text is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. For beginning readers, comprehension strategies must be explicitly taught. This session will clarify reading strategies, model how to introduce these strategies to young readers and share practical examples of student activities that will inspire primary teachers in their reading instruction.
Teaching Mathematical Language - the literacy of numeracy - Melinda Mawson-Ryan
Description: Every teacher is a teacher of language: this is a key statement in the role description for teachers in international schools. So what does it look like? What does it look like for teachers of mathematics?
This session specifically explores the challenges of, and the strategies for, developing the language of mathematics in classes where many students have English as an Additional Language. How do we manage the multilingual classroom where students are immersed in English as the language of instruction? What works? What can we do to purposefully facilitate learning so that students can access their mathematics curriculum in a meaningful way?
We will explore issues related to the literacy demands of mathematics including the use of everyday English terms that have different meaning in the mathematics classroom and language based factors in solving mathematical word problems. Students have to make meaning from symbolic notation, visual displays and oral and written language.
Participants will be invited to share their challenges and also to harness the expertise of colleagues so that we can collaboratively develop our repertoire of strategies for the benefit of students.
Social Platform for English Teaching Across the Curriculum- SPELTAC - Marcelle Houterman
Description: How can we sustain and differentiate professional development for English language teaching across the curriculum in international schools? For the 2016/2017 school year International School of Phnom Penh (ISPP) has opted for an in-house training model that leverages social media and documentation for learning as professional development for language teaching across the curriculum, as we believe all teachers are teachers of language. SPELTAC, Social Platform for English Language Teaching Across the Curriculum, is an innovative model of professional learning that extends cross-curricular English language teaching practices in the context of 21st century learning. This session will explain how SPELTAC will facilitate collaborative learning and will invite teachers, administrators and ELL specialists to pilot the programme before it is launched in September 2016 at ISPP.
Revolutionising Language Pathways - Terri Bakker and Mattie Jackson
Description: How do we accept our English Language Learners, provide for their uniqueness, and at the same time allow them to fully access our English-language curriculum? This presentation unfolds our preconceptions, explores the vital link between English Language Acquisition and Mother Tongue Language and Literature, scans the research of language acquisition, and offers suggestions for building a program which entwines international-mindedness with developing language proficiency.
Language Starters - Susan Ogilvie
Description: This workshop is well suited for EAL and mainstream (content) teachers. It is all about the first five to ten minutes of a lesson, which begins with a language STARTER. It will involve active participation, and ways to apply a language focus to a variety of content classes such as Science, Mathematics, Humanities etc. Each participant will receive a booklet of tried and tested ‘Starter’ activities.
'Marvellous mistakes and what went well’ : a case study of teaching a new to English students - Lucie Turnell & Dan Hatfield
Description: This session presents a case study of the unique challenges created when a new-to-English student joins a Year 2 class halfway through the year. We look at what worked, what didn’t and what our next steps might be. The session will give participants some practical tips and ideas to use when new-to-English students join their own schools.
Organising a School-Wide Write: Supportive Protocols for the Writing Spectrum - Peter Sean Cassidy
Description: This presentation will introduce the different planning and implementation stages leading to the assessment of writing across all grades through a School-Wide Write event at two points in the school year. Group discussions will develop during this presentation based on the results of the school-wide write and the strategies that lead to supporting the spectrum of students and the wide-range of writing abilities in mainstream classrooms of an international school in Japan. Participants will be able to implement their own school-wide write based on collaborative discussions comparing and contrasting school contexts.
Description: John Hattie suggests that classroom discussions and collaboration significantly impact students' achievement. This presentation shares a collaborative discussion method called the "Harkness Table" where students’ interactions drive the conversation. The goal of the method is to foster students' ability to make meaning of texts and concepts by collaboratively using strategies such as questioning, clarifying, connecting, and justifying ideas. Originally used in prestigious boarding schools and Ivy League universities, the Harkness Table has been adopted for an EAL classroom that consists of various mother-tongues and levels of English language proficiency. This method connects with the conference theme because it provides teachers with a structure and process within a multilingual classroom that allows everyone to participate regardless of their language proficiency.
In this session, the presenter will briefly share Hattie’s research, provide background information about the Harkness Table, and show footage of children engaged in the method. The participants will then be guided through an exercise that models the Harkness Table. The presentation concludes with a reflection of the participants' experience, which will be conducted using the Harkness method.
Bridging the gap between class teachers and EAL teachers - Claire Myers & Clare Owens
Description: What do class teachers want to say to EAL teachers? What do the EAL teachers wish that class teachers understood? How big is the gap between the two roles? How can we bridge this gap?
As experienced class teachers, we have both taught for a number of years in a variety of contexts and have both, either recently or currently, taught EAL. We hope to offer insights into the similarities and differences in the roles, as well as key messages we have learnt along the way.
Building Awareness of Academic Language - Kristy Goodman
Description: Academic language is a necessity for all students to master. However, teachers tend to be so immersed in it that it can be difficult for us to describe. The goal of this presentation is build awareness of academic language and the challenges that it presents for our students. Being able to identify academic language is the first step in helping our multilingual students master this language. If time allows, we will also look at methods for teaching academic language in your classroom.
EAL in the Classroom: Making It Work - Cheyenne dela Fuente & Cheryl Newman
Description: Do you want to know how to support EAL learners in the mainstream classroom? In this workshop we will hear what two facilitators have done in their learning environments in order to make learning successful. The session will provide participants with easy-to-implement strategies and activities which can then be added to their personal toolkit.
Getting out of the Goldfish Bowl: English Weirdness & Home Language Influence - Richard (Rick) Kirtland
Description: During this session, we will be looking at some of the weird ways in which English works, or doesn’t... We will briefly trace the history of the language and explore some of the issues that its complexity creates for ELLs. We will also look at the role of language distance and the influence of home languages and cultures on the learning of English as a second or additional language.
Google Classroom and Google Drive: Steps to Incorporate in your Classroom - Alis Diana Gorcea
Description: The presentation focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of using Google Classroom: Collaboration, Communication, Participation/Student Engagement and Assessment (with a focus on Google Drive). Alis Gorcea has done this presentation twice during their In-service Day and the reviews were very positive: teachers finding this presentation useful.
Growth Mindset: Reflecting on our ELL Teaching Practices - Deborah Chu
Description: What can our ELLs do already? How do we encourage a growth mindset for them to develop their language skills? This session will take us on a journey of self-reflection in regards to our practices in teaching ELLs.
Increasing Emphasis on Redefining EAL Support - James Dykman
Description: EAL teachers can allow for the creation of learning practice previously inconceivable. In this session, James will briefly share his school's language policy revision process and, subsequently, how their EAL department brought their beliefs and goals in alignment with it. Now, they are digging into aligning their practice.
Using the SAMR model as a framework, we will reflect on our beliefs about language learning and co-teaching partnerships to develop how we can best apply our expertise and energy to support students’ language learning needs.
Why Differentiation? Making The How Easy - Janat Blackmon
Description: Differentiation is a critical skill in the classroom, especially with multi-level language learners. Student learning, motivation, confidence, and success can be greatly increased by effectively implementing differentiated instruction in our classrooms. In this session we will explore concrete differentiation techniques that you can immediately use in your classroom to engage learners, while helping teachers make differentiated instruction and assessment easier and faster to plan for and implement.
Why are Academic Discussions So Important for ELLs? Practical Strategies and Protocols - Chris Capadona & Nel Capadona
Description: The primary goal of this presentation is to encourage the use of disciplinary-focused, structured academic discussion protocols for ELL students, as the current research suggests that frequency and consistency of academic discussion is critical to our ELL populations' language and content development. Multiple examples and applications of structured, academic discussion will also be presented and practised.
As ELL students need to hear language in authentic and varied, disciplinary-focused contexts, the facilitators will emphasise the significance of student talk that maximises student engagement, ensures student accountability, and develops content understanding.
Utilising Visual Media to Enhance Language Output and Cognitive Understanding - Jennifer Lemery
Description: How can visual media be used to increase/enhance language production? Visual media and visual text represent a wide range of art forms, such as painting, photography, animation, etc. that engage emotions that naturally elicit conversation. Participants will have fun exploring several different avenues of how EAL and Content teachers can promote language learning, including language production (writing and speaking), and developing grammar and literacy skills, through the use of various types of visual media and text. Additionally, this hands-on presentation will further explore how to use visual media and text to further enable students to demonstrate their understanding of concepts through the combination of Visible Thinking Routines and visual media. Participants will leave the session with several practical ideas and techniques of how to actively engage EAL students - from beginners to advanced - through the use of visual media. Many of these strategies and techniques can be adapted for inclusion and other language learning classes as well.
Using technology in an EAL classroom to help students work collaboratively - Mark David Jones
Description: The purpose of this presentation is to introduce some ideas about how technology tools can be used in an EAL context to promote collaborative learning among our students. This presentation will include practical ideas that can be used in the classroom including tools for collaborative writing, annotating pictures and online quizzes. During the workshop, the presenter will include time for participants to practice using some of the tools to get a feel for them, especially if they are new to some of the programs that will be talked about.
Using high interest texts for English language development - Paul Dufficy
Description: High interest texts offer both EAL and mainstream teachers a wide range of opportunities to engage their learners with both thinking and language. In this workshop we will look at a number of high interest texts and explore how they might be adapted to assist in the development of speaking, listening, reading and vocabulary development. Participants will have the opportunity for hands-on engagement with numerous tasks that can be readily adapted for children at any grade level. These tasks will include activities that allow us to frontload content; unpack particular language features; and recycle particular aspects of the texts, especially vocabulary.
Tools and Apps for Language Learners! - Samantha Pryse
Description: This will be a hands-on presentation focusing on using a range of tools and apps on all device types. We will play and experience some of the magic that technology can bring into our language learning classes. The presenter looks forward to inspiring and engaging you all with a little bit of FUN!
The impact of the first language acquisition and identity onto the additional language acquisition - Jelena Ribar Delic
Description: The prevailing theory of language acquisition in general and a brief history of linguistic research in the field of the first and additional language acquisition mechanisms, will open the presentation. By the end of the session, participants will be acquainted with the origins of the prevailing linguistic position on the importance of the first language development support throughout EAL students’ formal education, based on the previously mentioned research and its unambiguous message that the first language does not only affect the additional language acquisition but also the overall cognitive development of EAL students. The main theoreticians in the field, whose work is often quoted in contemporary linguistic essays, will be touched on as well as their thoughts on bilingualism, linguicism (linguistic discrimination) and assimilation. Moreover, some useful practices to encourage the first language and avoid standard mistakes when supporting EAL students in their homeroom will be suggested. Finally, how multilingual children can contribute to the international global community will mark the conclusion of the presentation, followed by an open discussion.
The Genre-Map Assessment Framework: A Systematic Approach to Developing Students' Mindfulness of Language - Stu Howard, Lee McKernan & John Bifield
Description: During the session we will be presenting and discussing:
• The rationale behind an explicit focus on writing genres within school contexts;
• The development of the Genre-Map Assessment Framework;
• The process of planning and using the assessments within a curriculum cycle;
• The use of the assessment maps to collaborate on the curriculum with mainstream colleagues;
• A Genre Map group workshop and feedback session.
Teaching Reading Strategies to Primary Students - Sharon Ellis
Description: Although recognition, decoding and fluency are building blocks of effective reading, the ability to comprehend text is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. For beginning readers, comprehension strategies must be explicitly taught. This session will clarify reading strategies, model how to introduce these strategies to young readers and share practical examples of student activities that will inspire primary teachers in their reading instruction.
Teaching Mathematical Language - the literacy of numeracy - Melinda Mawson-Ryan
Description: Every teacher is a teacher of language: this is a key statement in the role description for teachers in international schools. So what does it look like? What does it look like for teachers of mathematics?
This session specifically explores the challenges of, and the strategies for, developing the language of mathematics in classes where many students have English as an Additional Language. How do we manage the multilingual classroom where students are immersed in English as the language of instruction? What works? What can we do to purposefully facilitate learning so that students can access their mathematics curriculum in a meaningful way?
We will explore issues related to the literacy demands of mathematics including the use of everyday English terms that have different meaning in the mathematics classroom and language based factors in solving mathematical word problems. Students have to make meaning from symbolic notation, visual displays and oral and written language.
Participants will be invited to share their challenges and also to harness the expertise of colleagues so that we can collaboratively develop our repertoire of strategies for the benefit of students.
Social Platform for English Teaching Across the Curriculum- SPELTAC - Marcelle Houterman
Description: How can we sustain and differentiate professional development for English language teaching across the curriculum in international schools? For the 2016/2017 school year International School of Phnom Penh (ISPP) has opted for an in-house training model that leverages social media and documentation for learning as professional development for language teaching across the curriculum, as we believe all teachers are teachers of language. SPELTAC, Social Platform for English Language Teaching Across the Curriculum, is an innovative model of professional learning that extends cross-curricular English language teaching practices in the context of 21st century learning. This session will explain how SPELTAC will facilitate collaborative learning and will invite teachers, administrators and ELL specialists to pilot the programme before it is launched in September 2016 at ISPP.
Revolutionising Language Pathways - Terri Bakker and Mattie Jackson
Description: How do we accept our English Language Learners, provide for their uniqueness, and at the same time allow them to fully access our English-language curriculum? This presentation unfolds our preconceptions, explores the vital link between English Language Acquisition and Mother Tongue Language and Literature, scans the research of language acquisition, and offers suggestions for building a program which entwines international-mindedness with developing language proficiency.
Language Starters - Susan Ogilvie
Description: This workshop is well suited for EAL and mainstream (content) teachers. It is all about the first five to ten minutes of a lesson, which begins with a language STARTER. It will involve active participation, and ways to apply a language focus to a variety of content classes such as Science, Mathematics, Humanities etc. Each participant will receive a booklet of tried and tested ‘Starter’ activities.
'Marvellous mistakes and what went well’ : a case study of teaching a new to English students - Lucie Turnell & Dan Hatfield
Description: This session presents a case study of the unique challenges created when a new-to-English student joins a Year 2 class halfway through the year. We look at what worked, what didn’t and what our next steps might be. The session will give participants some practical tips and ideas to use when new-to-English students join their own schools.
Organising a School-Wide Write: Supportive Protocols for the Writing Spectrum - Peter Sean Cassidy
Description: This presentation will introduce the different planning and implementation stages leading to the assessment of writing across all grades through a School-Wide Write event at two points in the school year. Group discussions will develop during this presentation based on the results of the school-wide write and the strategies that lead to supporting the spectrum of students and the wide-range of writing abilities in mainstream classrooms of an international school in Japan. Participants will be able to implement their own school-wide write based on collaborative discussions comparing and contrasting school contexts.