Open ESL- Principles and Strategies for Acceleration

1. Open ESL- Principles and Strategies for Acceleration Jessica Farrar, Community College of Baltimore County jfarrar2@ccbcmd.edu Denise Warner, Lansing Community College dwarner@star.lcc.edu

2. Finding OER: http://libguides.lcc.edu/oer/engwrit

3. Overview of OER Textbooks • Developing Writing • https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/developing-writing • Areading and writing skills text designed for beginning to intermediate learners of English. United States Department of State. Developing Writing is a reading and writing skills text designed for beginning to intermediate learners of English. Each of the twenty chapters in this book is introduced by a reading selection that incorporates the lesson’s model structures, mechanics, and grammar points. Each reading in Developing Writing focuses on some aspect of American or world culture. Each reading passage is followed by composition, vocabulary, and spelling activities. An irregular verb list, grammar rule index, and answer key are also included. • United States Department of State. Accessed 30 April 2019.

4. Overview of OER Textbooks • Writing for Success • https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/53 • Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition.” • Open Textbook Library. Accessed 02 May 2019.

5. Overview of OER Textbooks • College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success • https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/college-esl-writers-applied-grammar-and-composing-strategies-for-success • College ESL Writers: Applied Grammar and Composing Strategies for Success is designed as a comprehensive grammar and writing e-text for high intermediate and advanced level non-native speakers of English. We open the text with a discussion on the sentence and then break it down into its elemental components, before reconstructing them into effective sentences with paragraphs and larger academic assignments. Following that, we provide instruction in paragraph and essay writing with several opportunities to both review the fundamentals as well as to demonstrate mastery and move on to more challenging assignments. • Open Textbook Library. Accessed 02 May 2019.

6. Overview of OER Textbooks • Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence • https://textbooks.opensuny.org/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/ • Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors’ goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments. Each of the nine chapters can be read separately, and each includes suggested exercises to bring the main messages to life. • Open Textbooks: Suny.Accessed 05 May 2019.

7. Other Types of OER Materials • X-Word Grammar • https://sites.google.com/site/accessiblexwordgrammar/ • Commonlit • https://www.commonlit.org/

8. Problems with Existing OER Materials • Wrong Level – not “academic” enough • Problems with accessibility and formatting • Don’t match your curriculum • Don’t use contextualized approach • Not appropriate for English language learners • Don’t incorporate principles of ALP

9. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Reading/Vocabulary Strategies • Pre-reading strategies: • Build Schema with Discussion Questions • Pre-view vocabulary • Teach a variety of vocabulary learning strategies • OER textbook excerpt, Ch. 1 Reading 1 “Masks” by Shel Silverstein You will read a poem by a famous American poet, Shel Silverstein, whose work is loved by people of all ages. Pre-Reading Think about the topic and prepare to read. • What kinds of masks do people wear? • When might someone wear a mask? • Why might someone wear a mask?

10. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Reading/Vocabulary Strategies • During reading strategies: • questioning • encourage active reading • use of highlighting and annotation • OER textbook excerpt, Ch. 1 During Reading As you read, check if your predictions are correct. Highlight or underline information in the reading that supports or contradicts* your predictions. *Contra=prefix meaning “opposite” or “against” • Question your understanding as you read. Ask yourself things like, “How does this idea connect or relate to the previous idea?” “Is this a main idea or a supporting detail?” “What is this an example of?” • Think about how the ideas fit together.

11. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Reading/Writing Strategies • Wrap-around Support/Scaffolding/Schema Building • handout

12. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Reading/Writing Strategies • Post-reading strategies: • Build communicative competence • Post reading discussion questions • Abundant low-stakes writing practice • OER textbook excerpt, Ch. 1 Post-reading Activities based on “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan Discussion (Oral or Post on Discussion Board) Discuss the following questions with a partner or group of classmates. • Why did they invite the minister’s family over for dinner? • Why did the mother prepare typical Chinese foods instead of typical American foods? • What does this story say about identity?

13. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Writing/Grammar Strategies • Align Grading Rubric for writing assignments in ESOL to the co-requisite writing class (e.g. ESOL Levels 4/5 and ENGL 121) • handout

14. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Writing/Grammar Strategies • Focus on grammatical forms in the context of reading and writing tasks -OER textbook excerpt, Ch. 1 Mini Grammar Lesson: Simple Past vs. Past Perfect followed by practice noticing and analyzing examples. • Example from Fish Cheeks: When I found out that my parents had invited the minister’s family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I cried. • Find four more examples of sentences with both simple past tense and past perfect tense in Reading 2. List your sentences below. Think About It In each example sentence, what happened first? Explain the sentence. • Example: Her parents invited the minister’s family for dinner before their daughter found out about it. Then, she cried.

15. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Writing/Grammar Strategies • Focus on editing skills and grammar interventions • Handouts: • Class Grammar Errors • Grammar Errors from Student Writings

16. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Writing/Grammar Strategies • Backward Design • Build toward writing assignments which require students to incorporate source material and develop critical thinking/analytical skills • OER textbook excerpt, Ch. 1 Writing Assignment: Readings 1 and 2 After reading “Masks” by Shel Silverstein and “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, write a paragraph about one of the questions below. Use information from each reading to support your answer. • What is identity and what does each author say about identity? • Describe how the narrator’s mother in “Fish Cheeks” helps her daughter to be true to herself and how this relates to the central idea of “Masks.”

17. Group Activity: ALPESOL StrategiesPolleverywhere With a group of 2-3 people, develop one of the following activities using “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye, 2008. (Each group will be assigned one strategy): • Create 2-3 pre-reading discussion questions • Pre-view 2-3 vocabulary items • Notice the form and meaning of a grammatical feature (a verb tense or a structure, such as gerunds or noun clause) • Build communicative competence through writing and/or discussion

18. Materials Development for ALP ESOL: Other Strategies/Concluding Comments • Community Building: Form bonds between students and with teacher • Meaningful context for assignments – interesting and relevant topics that connect to students' lives  • “Consciously pay attention to helping students develop successful student behaviors” • “ALP instructors consciously pay attention to issues from outside the college that may have a negative impact on ALP students.” http://alp-deved.org/features-of-alp-success/

19. OER Textbook: Bridge to Academic English for ESOL Students This PowerPoint and all handouts, including Chapter 1, will be uploaded to the CADE 2019 website.

20. Thank you! Jessica Farrar, Community College of Baltimore County jfarrar2@ccbcmd.edu Denise Warner, Lansing Community College dwarner@star.lcc.edu