Etienne and ESL

For this activity, I have chosen to write my evaluation on the Aboriginal Identify unit, which is pegged at the CLB 8 level.  Below you will find a link to the student materials. https://listn.tutela.ca/wp-content/uploads/CLB8-Identity-SS-2014-07-29.pdf Target Learning Context: A classroom consisting of young and mature adult learners, ages 25 to 50, with an English proficiency of around CLB 8, who have recently immigrated to Canada. These students wish to improve their English and learn about Canadian culture and customs. Objectives: Students will be able to use a variety of skills, including reading, writing, speaking, and listening, to learn about and to discuss the identity of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Students will be challenged to apply their language skills in order to think critically about issues that affect Canada’s First Nations and relate them to their own experiences. Some criteria that I have applied to this unit include: -     ...

Learning Technology: Duolingo (Source: http://socialna-akademija.si/digitaleducationaltools/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/duolingo.jpg)  What is it? Duolingo is a free language learning app that can be accessed through smart phones, tablets or PCs.   How can I learn how to use it? In order to use this app, learners are required to create an account. From there, learners can choose to start learning from scratch, or take a proficiency test to place them at an appropriate level. The app itself is very user-friendly and quite easy to navigate, and tailors the lessons based upon the performance of the student, focusing especially on areas where they struggle.   Why do you like it? Duolingo incorporates listening, speaking, reading and writing skills into its lessons, through a variety of activities. Some examples of the activities include matching vocabulary, writing answers to listening questions, pronunciation practice, and sentence re-ordering. ...

TESL 0150 Unit 3 Reflection: We Must Learn How to Learn (Source: http://sayquotable.com/quotes/quote-about-it-is-better-to-know-how-to-learn-than-to-kno-image.html ) What stood out to me from this week’s assigned readings from Tomlinson (2014) was the idea that students, as well as teachers, must learn how to learn. What he means by this is that in order to become independent learners, students must first be exposed to a variety of learning skills and mediums. Once students become familiar with a wide range of approaches to learning, they can then be tasked with choosing an approach that best suits their needs. This plays into the idea of creating a learner who is self-aware of their abilities and needs and can effectively work at bettering themselves. One way teachers can go about doing this is by stating an objective for an assignment and giving the students the freedom to choose how they will set out to accomplish it; the students might decide to write a poem, compose a...

TESL 0150 Unit 2 Reflection: Evaluating Learning Resources (Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghozt_Tramp_-_Business_Communication_Duplicat_model.jpg)  While I was reading through some of the learning theories Tomlinson outlines in his book “Developing Materials for Language Teaching”, one that particularly stood out to me stated that “…the most important thing that learning materials have to do is to help the learner connect the learning experience in the classroom to their own life outside the course.” (2014) In other words, the material that the students learn must translate into something relevant and useful to them. This is especially true with studying any language.  If a student learns a new language feature but has no way to use it elsewhere, they will most likely forget about it. Why hold onto information that will be of no use? I can remember many times when in high school, I studied grammar rules and conjugations in French class and...

TESL 0150 Unit 1 Reflection: Authentic vs. Scripted Materials                                                        (Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/52455)  In this blog post, I’d like to reflect on the assigned reading from Brian Tomlinson’s book “Developing Materials for Language Teaching”, pages 1 to 13, specifically on the use of authentic texts. In this reading, he compares authentic texts and non-authentic texts, or scripted texts. This appears to be a hotly debated topic as there are those who insist authentic texts are better for learners, while others argue that scripted texts are best (Tomlinson 2014). This applies to everything from reading materials to listening materials. Authentic texts are those which are not specifically written for language learners, but rather make use of real examples of native Eng...