Websites for teaching English to Young Learners (TEFL-YL)

Following are websites that you can use if you are (or plan to be) teaching English to young learners.

1. http://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/yl-sites.html. Click here for it.

2. http://www.teachchildrenesl.com/. You can find lots of worksheets, games, songs, flashcards, all for free!

3. http://www.eslkidstuff.com/

4. http://www.teyl.com/. Click here. You can find contents of a course to prepare teachers of English for young learners, or TEYL for short. More details can be found here.

The content is so good, I have to copy it here for easy access for myself and my students. See below.

Objectives of the CertTEYL Course

1. To give you the special skills required to properly instruct children.

2. To help you understand all aspects of a child: social, emotional, intellectual, etc.

3. To show you how to interact effectively with young learners in a classroom.

4. To let you explore methods that work best in teaching English to young learners and to S-T-R-E-T-C-H your teaching style to accommodate the individual needs of your students.

5. To teach you how to create an appropriate classroom atmosphere for learning English.

6. To help you properly manage children's behavior.

7. To demonstrate to you how to use teaching resources easily and efficiently.

8. To allow you to acquire proper instructive strategies using flashcards, stories, music, drama, crafts, games, projects, and pair work.

9. To further develop your teaching career and to increase your level of professionalism.

CertTEYL Course Outline
We provide a logical sequence of learning and use the modular approach to maximize efficiency.

Introduction
Course Objectives and Course Breakdown
Should you be teaching children? (with self-assessment questionnaire)
The Science of TEYL
Course Resources
Online Resources/Study Tips

Module 1 - Characteristics of a Young Learner
Defining a Young Learner
First Language Development
Learning a Second Language
Parenting and Communication
Psychological Development and the Role of Motivation
Social Development
Intellectual Development
Physical Development and TPR
Cultural Considerations
Interaction Strategy and/or Philosophy

Module 2 - Learning and Language
What is Language?/Language Acquisition
Learning Another Language
Grammar Goblins
Phonology - The Sound of Language
The Four Skills

Module 3 - Classroom Management
The Makings of a Good Teacher
Behavior Management (includes Discipline)
Classroom Atmosphere
Classroom Safety

Module 4 - Instructive Strategy
Using Gestures and Flashcards
Using Games
Using Music, Songs, and Chants
Using Dance and Movement
Using Dialogue, Drama, and Poetry
Using Stories and Storytelling
Using Crafts and Activities
Project Work
Using Technology in the Classroom
Pair and Group Work
Including Phonology in Lessons
Error Correction (+Concept Checking & Syllabus Design)

Module 5 - Resource Management
Free-form Lesson Planning
Where to get ideas! (includes an Idea and Resource Guide with hundreds of sources for lesson plan ideas)
Building a Set of Re-Usable Resources
Material Evaluation

Module 6 - Professional Development
Teachers' Rights
Language Teaching Versus Test Preparation
School Policies and Practices Versus Teacher Independence
Working Freelance or Owning Your Own School
Further Education

Certification Option 1 - Tasks
The Purpose of Certification
TASK 1 - Short Answer
TASK 2 - Annotated Bibliography
TASK 3 - Plans, Portfolio, Video, or Reflective Project
Alumni Services

Certification Option 2 - Written Paper
The Purpose of Certification
Choosing Your Topic
The Rough Draft and Research
Establishing a Purpose and a Pattern
Revising and Polishing Your Paper
Alumni Services

Within the modules there are: Three Assignments.
Fifteen major tasks.
Three minor tasks.
Forty quick reviews and quizzes.
Seventeen major "readings".
Several other minor readings and tasks. A total of 40 learning sections and another 21 sections that include introductions, instructions, and other important information.

Free Language Testing Articles

You can go here to find them.

Enjoy (if you can, that is!) ;-)

You are a language teacher, and you don't know what WORDLE is?

The title of this entry is provocative, I know. It's meant to be. Because I want you to coax you into using WORDLE in your classes.

But what is WORDLE? Well, don't depend on anybody's description (including mine own); it's a lot better if you go to the web page to see and experience things for yourself. Go where, I hear you ask. Here is the link: http://www.wordle.net/.

But if you insist on me giving you description, then read below (taken from Wordle's web page itself):

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

Just so? Then why do language teachers need to know how to create word clouds from Wordle? Oh, there are several reasons. Let me tell you a few:

1. It's fun. "Worldle" allow you to make beautiful world clouds by experimenting with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Try it for yourself, and you will see that you can make beautiful "word arts". Your students will love this kind of activity because it's fun, I am sure. You can even organize wordle competitions, using students' essays to make word clouds, and give the best prize to the most beautiful and meaningful word cloud where the format, style, and layout fit with the content of the essay. Lots and lots of fun to be expected.

2. It's actually a tool for language research. Each word cloud is a summary of the main points in a piece of writing, based on the frequencies of the words used in the writing. I've read an article somewhere in which they compare the two speeches made by two Heads of Nations - US and Vietnam. Looking at the word clouds you can immediately tell what is considered most important in each speech.

Below is a word cloud created from the text of the US constitution (I believe). See how beautiful it is, and meaningful at the same time.

See how beautiful it is? And very meaningful. Did you see that the most prominent words are: State, Congress, President, United States? And you will see that Vice-President is a lot less prominent than President, but still it is there. And other things too, hidden messages everywhere. Let you students discover and describe what they find. A lot of interesting activities can be generated.

Now you see why I have that provocative question as the title of this entry? Then go there, create you word clouds, and use it in class!

Good read: "Risk taking and language learning"

Hello there!

I have not been here lately, due to an overloaded work schedule. As usual, I hear you say. Yes, such is the kind of life that I lead!

I've just come across this article which is a good read for ESL/EFL teachers like you, so here goes.

I hope you enjoy reading the article, and if you have any ideas, please share them here.

See you all tomorrow.
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As some of you has pointed out in class today, my link did not work. I checked, and there was a mistake in the syntax; that's why.

The link works now; the "article" (actually I should have called it a blog entry) is very short, but the accompanying video clip is very good and I like it very much. And I totally agree with the author's idea which I quote below:

Risk taking is one of the most important features of a good language learner. They accept what they don’t know (the ambiguity of language/communication) and they focus on what they do know. They don’t wait for perfect pronunciation or form. They communicate, plain and simple. And in all this, they like the penguin sit moment after moment on the precipice of babble, noncommunicability and yet again and again, like the penguin, they jump over it and succeed.

Teachers – I’m not sure other than a safe environment for your students, through your own building of relationships – how you might promote risk taking in your students. However, a place to start might just be showing them this video and getting them thinking about it….

Enjoy!

"Types and uses of language tests"

This is a summary of the main points in Chapter 1 of the Brown book, "Types and uses of language tests". The summary is a guide for you to continue reading in the topic, and also serves as an aid to your memory. This is necessary because for many students, testing is a very difficult subject and hard to understand, not to mention to remember. Many students told me that after finishing a course in testing, all they remember are two words: validity and reliability (which are abstract concepts and difficult to understand indeed!)

Hope the summary helps you in your study, and good luck!
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1. Two important groups of test users in schools are program administrators and classroom teachers. They use tests to make 4 kinds of decisions: placement, diagnostic, achievement, and proficiency.

2. There are two families of tests to serve the different purposes: norm-referenced tests or NRT for program administrators and criterion-referenced tests CRT for teachers.

3. NRTs are used to compare students in terms of their general abilities, while CRTs are used to decide whether students have acquired particular the knowledge or skills required of them. (cf. Table 1.1 on page 3)

4. Each test purpose requires a different kind of information. Therefore, NRTs and CRTs employ different methods for test item construction, scoring and score interpretation. (cf. Table 1.2 on page 7).

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Further resources on this topic

1. Norm- and criterion-referenced testing by Bond, Linda A. - Link: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=5&n=2

A short, nice introduction to NRT and CRT. If anyone has the time to translate this for me, I will be grateful!

2. Assessment purposes (my title: NRT and CRT compared). Link: http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/assess/purposes.html

Very good, succinct comparison of NRT and CRT. You will need to go back to this when you do your assignments.

3. How to understand the difference between norm- and criterion-referenced testing - Link: http://www.valparint.com/CRITERIO.HTM

A further discussion of the differences between the two families of tests.
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Well, so much for now. See you all tomorrow!

Language Assessment Syllabus (prepared by Vu Thi Phuong Anh)

Dear students,

Below is the syllabus for the Language Assessment Syllabus starting tomorrow. A copy of this syllabus has been sent to you via email. All comments and questions are welcomed.

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LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT
COURSE SYLLABUS – Spring 2011
(Tentative as of March 12, 2011)

Lecturer: Vu Thi Phuong Anh


Textbook
Testing in Language Programs: A Comprehensive Guide to English Language Assessment (New Edition)
Author: James Dean Brown
International Edition 2005
Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Course description
This course aims to provide classroom teachers and program administrators with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools that will allow them to make good decisions about how best to evaluate their students’ learning, the effectiveness of their own teaching, and the degree of success of their programs. In order to do this, they will need an understanding of the basic theoretical concepts and issues in language assessment, and a degree of competency in creating their own – or making the right choice among those readily available – assessment tools, and in reporting and interpreting assessment results.

Specifically, students will need to be able to (1) distinguish between the two main families of tests – norm-referenced (NR) and criterion-referenced (CR) tests, (2) understand the main issues in making a language assessment choice – the performance-competence issue and the discrete-point and integrative issue; (3) to write good language test items that are appropriate to the purpose and context of assessment, and (4) to make valid interpretation of the results in order to provide useful feedback to the relevant parties about the teaching and learning process.

Students are encouraged to reflect on their own language teaching and learning experience and to contribute to class discussions about the issues presented in the course. This will help them in their final test in which they will be asked to write an essay on a given topic chosen among those already discussed in class.

Assessments – Procedures and weightings

Students will be graded based on two criteria: 6 assignments (5% each), then a final test and essay (30% each). The other 10% is for class attendance.

Assignments

Six assignments will be marked during the course. These are selected from the review questions and application exercises in the prescribed course-book, and can be done in class or as homework. Students will do the assignments in groups (either at home or in class), and present their answers with support arguments in class. Marks will be assigned immediately after the teacher provides feedback on students’ work, which will be accumulated toward their final scores.

Final test

At the end of the course, students are required to do an objective test and write a 500-word reflection essay on a given topic related to the issues discussed in class, where they must show how a language assessment foundation may help them solve their language teaching problems and make progress as TESOL professionals.

COURSE OUTLINE

Session 1 Introduction to the Course & Chapter 1: Types and Uses of Language Tests

Session 2 Chapter 2: Adopting, Adapting, and Developing Language Tests

Session 3 Chapter 3: Developing Good Quality Language Test Items

Session 4 Chapter 3: Developing Good Quality Language Test Items (cont.)

Session 5: Chapter 4: Item Analysis in Language Testing

Session 6 Chapter 5: Describing Language Test Results

Session 7 Chapter 6: Interpreting Language Test Scores

Session 8 Chapter 7: Correlation in Language Testing

Session 9 Chapter 10: Language Testing in Reality

Session 10 Rounding off & Final Test

"Approaches to teaching English as a second language"

Hi there!

I found an article on the Internet about language teaching methodology, and thought it might be useful to English teachers or English teachers - to - be, so I post it here so that people can read. Enjoy!
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The Grammar-Translation Method

This method was the most common way of learning languages for centuries and is still used in many situations and countries. The Grammar-Translation method of teaching English as a second language focuses mostly on teaching students about the language but not how to use it practically. Students may have a vast knowledge of grammatical rules but are never provided with opportunities to put their knowledge into practice through discussion, conversation, activities or role-playing.

The fact that the Grammar-Translation method of teaching is based on grammatical analysis to understand the construction of English as a foreign language means that it is not a "natural" method of learning a language. Children do not need to learn the rules of their native language, they assimilate the rules through using and hearing the language.


The Audio-Lingual Method
This method to teaching English as a second language relies heavily on the assumption that learning is a result of habit formation through conditioning. Conditioning usually takes the form of long, repetitive drilling and is considered boring by most students. Drilling is not real, nor is it realistic language that speakers use in everyday life. However, it is an effective tool, used sparingly, for beginners to learn vocabulary.

This method went rapidly out of fashion in the language learning circles because learning to speak a foreign language is far more subtle and complex than forming habits.

The Task-based Method

The emphasis of this method is on language-based tasks rather than on the language itself. Teachers who use this method focus on giving tasks to be completed to students. During the task, problems and errors often become evident and once the task is finished teachers then discuss the error and explain why it was wrong, teach the necessary rules and set another task for their students.

An example of a lesson using the task-based method of language learning:

The task is for students to ask for and give information about train and bus timetables.

Students are given the timetables, put into pairs and perform their task.

The teacher walks around and listens to students while jotting down any language problems.

Once the task is completed, the teacher goes through the errors with students and explains how to correct them.

The Communicative Language Teaching Method

The CLT method differs radically from the other, older approaches to teaching English as a second language that have tended to dominate language teaching over the years. It has two main strands to it:

All language used involves language functions such as inviting, agreeing, disagreeing etc. and must be used appropriately.

Students are given enough exposure to language and opportunities to use the language for language learning to take place,

The idea behind this method is that people learn languages in order to communicate and not to simply know the rules of grammar without being able to use them practically. Adults and children learning English are given the chance to use real language in a classroom setting through role-playing, language games, discussions, technology-based ESL activities and other activities.

Source: http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/86390.aspx