Weekly update 25th May, 2015
Last updated by Breda Matthews
Talofa lava,
Last week saw a raft of questions and responses and generous offers of support hence a somewhat longer weekly update. Our conversations included:
possible tasks for a response using us 28070 receiving replies that all of the following are acceptable for students to respond to
- a film
- a book
- an event - e.g. ANZAC Dawn ceremony, Prince Harry's visit to your school (nice one Chris!)
and Ana offered to share her task and students exemplars which have been moderated by NZQA.
On which note
- sharing resources on the ELUS VLN group is a good option as you only have to do this once, not multiple times for all of the people who request them, and the resources are safely locked in the closed group.
- if you are requesting resources can i ask that you email the person offering the resources directly rather than via the listserve so that our inboxes aren't full of 'Can i have a .....' emails
We have also discussed 27981 with teachers looking for an assessment resources and a kind offer from Kerry in Hamilton. IN her post Kerry noted the difficulty of getting the text in the first 500 words. This is indeed hugely challenging but is made a wee bit easier by NZQA clarification that states
Including proper nouns in the word count makes it difficult to meet the word level requirements. Teachers are therefore advised that they should not include proper nouns in the word count.
You can also provide feedback on standards - see the information on this page. NZQA do take notice and are very supportive of the English language community of teachers.
Something that I was not aware of is that common lexical sets are excluded from the word lists e.g. numbers, months and days of the week. This obviously impacts considerably when you are writing a text for EL reading standards.
We continued our conversation on how to support an arriving German student who wants to do Level 3 and UE
and discussed resources to support students who want to do the IELTS and reasons why students might be opting for this exam. Fortunately the development of our own EAP standards has impacted on the numbers seeking this option. I wonder how many schools are still faced with requests for support for IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC and how this is managed in your timetables?
Bev in Auckland is looking for a teacher for the first 3 weeks in Term 3.
I also shared
- some links for Sāmoan Language Week / Vaiaso o le gagana Sāmoa this week
- information about Education for Sustainability standards that count for UE literacy
A reminder that the links to the mailing lists will only work if you have logged onto the archives using :
- Username: eesollonline
- Password: mailinglist
On other communities
We shared Janet's Primary ESOL Online post on Vocabulary, Assessment, Writing and Reading Activities.
There is also some great links in Alana's Weekly Update in Secondary Literacy Online on thinking skills.
Michelle shared her Pasifika Update including David Riley’s latest book Samoan Heroes which includes legends, historical figures and contemporary heroes. You can find more info about the book here http://readingwarrior.com/books/samoan-heroes-book/
Have great week everyone.
Breda
Breda Matthews
Facilitator: Secondary ESOL community
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