|
|
Teaching Teachers
to use weblogs effectively
This site is presented as part of a CALL-IS Internet Fair planned for TESOL 2005, San Antonio TX, USA, by Thomas Leverett, CESL, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, C'dale IL 62901-4518 USA, and Jessica Montgomerie, CESL, SIUC
[ Teaching Teachers home ][ CESL ]
[ Advice ][ Quotes ][ Resources ][ One teacher's perspective ][ articles ]
Simple and Meaningful: ESL Writing for Adults
Case Study
Jessica Montgomerie
LING 582: Course Design for TESOL
Cheryl Ernst, Instructor
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Spring 2005
Scenario:
Intensive English Program at a university. Adult students, six proficiency levels from advanced beginner to high intermediate. Most learners are preparing for academic situations, and the integrated curriculum reflects this at all levels. Specifically, learners are taught writing skills from the beginning levels that will later prepare them to write academic style research papers at the high intermediate level.
Problem:
In this case study I am most concerned with the teaching of writing in this integrated skills program, and I will focus on learners who have competency in forming simple sentences and are learning supra-sentential writing conventions such as discourse markers and paragraph structure.
In the program where I teach, learners are often highly educated and have at least finished high school in their home countries and write competently in their first languages. Most are studying English as a means to obtain a degree in their academic field of interest, while others have no academic goals at all. In all, very few are interested in English discourse or writing as a discipline. As a result, it requires some effort to convince them that writing classes are a necessary part of their language program. Many learners feel that their own writing is sufficient and resent having strict structures and conventions imposed on them when they just want to learn grammar and vocabulary.
While the necessity of strict writing conventions may certainly be argued philosophically, the reality is that students must follow or at least understand certain academic conventions in order to succeed at American universities. With this prerequisite in mind, the program includes more writing practice than a nonacademic program would, culminating in research assignments at the high levels similar to those assigned in college courses. Students build up to this work, first learning the fundamentals of English discourse including topic sentences and other elements of paragraph organization. It is when students are first learning these basics that their tasks are most tedious, and it is this specific problem that this case study addresses: making simple paragraph writing authentic, engaging, intrinsically rewarding, and meaningful for the student.
Proposal:
An instructor in the program has recently introduced weblog use into the program, and is working continuously to integrate their use in the different levels. Currently, however, weblog use varies considerably from teacher to teacher and they are not yet established in the writing curriculum as a consistently used tool. I propose that they be used much more consistently according to the sequence below.
1. Parallel to direct instruction on English discourse, students look at AUTHENTIC weblogs and observe how short and simple most posts are. Even when often disregarding formalities like capitalization, many webloggers maintain traditional paragraphs to break up their content. Students observe how pictures and external links replace long explanations in this style of communication.
2. Students create their own weblog, writing about topics where the STUDENTS are the experts. Links and graphics (including photographs when possible) support and deepen their compositions, making the content more interesting for both the author and their readers.
3. When possible, students connect the weblog directly to other class work or reading they do for class, but students are also encouraged to write about whatever topics interest them.
4. Students read classmates' weblogs and post comments to them. They respond to comments posted on their own weblogs. Continuing to read non-class weblogs, students are encouraged to link to other related weblogs and develop relationships with other online resources, such as other ESL students' websites or those related to their fields of interest.
5. Students continue to use these weblogs through all the levels of the program. At the higher levels they use their weblogs to post their abstracts and link to the full research paper. The weblog is always used for shorter communications at all levels of proficiency, in keeping with the style of the medium.
Predicted Consequences
I predict that most teacher and students will gladly receive new ways to integrate technology into the program. In fact, many participants have already plunged eagerly into weblogging. Teachers have seemed to welcome the idea but are not sure exactly what to do with it. A clearly defined place for weblogs in the class, such as I detailed above, should eliminate this obstacle.
As in every adaptation, there are some possible negative consequences to consider. Though weblog-creating user interfaces is not very time consuming in itself, teachers and students will need to spend some time getting acquainted with the steps unless they are already weblog users, which is getting more and more common. There will also be an initial time investment for the teacher, not in setting up web applications, because there are fantastic free services available already, but in setting up the connections between the writing process and online journaling. Another prospective barrier is that some people are very private and would be distressed to have even their best work displayed on the internet. Luckily it is possible to display online journals discreetly, so only people with permission from the writer can view it.
The potential benefits of online journaling seem to go on indefinitely, so I will simply list the most significant. First of all, this is a free way to communicate globally. It shows every sign of being an important new branch of media, and the world is paying attention to it. After students leave the classroom, they may continue their participation, and this possibility is immediately apparent to students, making this a much more meaningful activity than classroom-only exercises. People from other spheres of the students' lives will be able to view the weblog from anywhere in the world (provided that they have internet access). These characteristics of online journalling provide intrinsic rewards for students who invest themselves in this project.
The benefits for language production are not insignificant, as this is the program's focus. One obvious value is that this project gives students an opportunity to contribute authentically to the online community while they still have the support of teachers to help them revise their writing. This process teaches or builds upon both peer and self-evaluation because of the comments portion. Also, students will have been exposed to a very wide variety of vocabulary in their reading of other weblogs.
CESL Teachers' weblog
CESL Students' weblog
CESL Today, student newspaper
Weblogs in esl/efl
Teachers' resources
Integrate the web
Make your own weblog
Page made and maintained by
Thomas Leverett, CESL, SIUC
Photo at top: Leap of Faith, Kurt Larsen
|