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Weekly update 7th December, 2015

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Last updated by Breda Matthews
Hi everyone,
The end of term will be upon us all soon and everyone is busily preparing for next year. This preparation took up much of our conversation:
 
Jo followed up Simon and Heni's discussion of electronic resources by describing the use of Chromebooks at Catholic Cathedral College mentioning improved student engagement and organisational skills. Jo would like to know what other teachers are using.
 
Remember if you are using an online tool it can be added to our document Online tools for ELLs and their teachers
 
We shared a request for texts relating to Auckland festivals and celebrations. Thank you to everyone who responded.
 
Sue Blackley followed up our discussion of EAP and hour of teaching with a question about Year 11 courses

Timetabling and programme design are always tricky to manage as all of the variables are particularly pronounced in ESOL environments i.e. teaching spaces, number of lessons available in the timetable, students pressure to take 'other' subject, the wide range of student often in the same year group.

 
The solutions in individual schools will vary greatly and it would be great to share models of yow you manage this.
 
We also shared:
 

Useful and/or interesting links

 
Why not have a go at the Hour of Code this week? I tried this out and the video and instructions were very easy to follow. This would be a great and engaging end of year activity for student and would sit very well with an ESOL programme encouraging reading and following instruction, co-operative work and negotiation of meaning.
 
There is lots of information on running events but the 'bit' you want is in the 'Learn' section. Give it a go here. You really don't need to know anything about coding first - the learning both English language learning and coding knowledge, will come from the discussion.
 

In my other world I am reviewing my assessment resources to meet the requirements of version 2 of the standards. I have a working document of what changes will be required for my resources that you can access on this page. This may help you to work out which resources will simply require you to cross out Version 1 and write Version 2 and which require a wee bit more work.

 

On other communities

 

On Secondary Literacy Online Alana shared the following teacher reflections on examination skills:

  • “Students are not answering the question properly”.
  • “Students are not selecting the most effective strategy to solve problems”.

Alana asked "Have you got one idea about how to respond to these learning needs?"  Do you include examination techniques in your course preparation? If so how do you do this?

On English Online Tania Roxborogh shared a link to a reading of Wilfred Owen’s by Sean Bean that you can view here.

 

Have a great week.
Breda

 

Breda Matthews

Facilitator: Secondary ESOL community 

 

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Secondary ESOL Online (VLN)

Secondary ESOL Online (VLN)

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