Thanks for starting this blog. I look forward to being in touch with fellow teachers of ESL. I hope everyone will make some comments and posts. I'm Penny Barnes and I teach ESL at Harrisburg Area Community College(HACC). Before that I was with Catholic Charities in Hbg and also with Carlisle OIC. I came from NH with a M.Ed. in TESOL, k-12 and adult ed experience four years ago. (Our sons and families are here.) This is a late career for me after raising three sons. I really enjoyed PAACE this year. The presenters had really helpful information and ideas.
Thanx for responding so quickly! I'm really glad that you liked the MWC. Now the hard part: How can we make the '09 MWC better? Was there anything, no matter how small, that could be done better? Was there something we didn't do at all that you would like to see next year? We are taking suggestions on presentations, hotel accomodations, entertainment, anything.
Again, on behalf of Cat (Cathie Whitmire), Susan Adam, myself and the entire PAACE board, we thank you!
I will second the Thank you for starting this blog. I just started teaching esl about 3 weeks ago and and really trying to find some direction I have a bunch of ideas but am really unsure of the practicality of some of them. My name is Michael Weaver and I work for Tiu11 in Juniata County. One of my ideas was to maybe have an online book club with some of the intermediate to advanced students. With all of the lower level novels out there I think it would be great if we could sort of share students. It will probably be hard for one person to have enough people in class to read a story or book with more than a couple pages. I was thinking that maybe we could have an online blog set up for the esl students accross PA to answer a thread prompt and hopefully get some dialoge amoungst each other going on the site in English. This would give them more of the control and even if they were given a few minutes at the begining of each class to make one post I think it could be beneficial. Of course this may funcionally be a rediculously hard idea I don't know, I'm just looking for some feedback. Thanks everyone Enjoyed Pace and was really helpful to a rookie.
I'm very happy we have decided to start a blog for adult ESL practitioners in Pennsylvania. This is a great way for us to keep the networking that happens at the PAACE MWC going through-out the year.
Here is a link to the ABLE page where you can read about how the standards were put together by & for Pennsylvania practitioners.
Please consider downloading the document (12 pages of content, plus a helpful glossary of ESL terminology) and distributing it to your fellow teachers, tutors, students, administrators, etc.
The text was written to be as clear and jargon-free as possible, while at the same time conveying what students can learn to do in English at each of the NRS levels.
Keep in mind that if you test a learner in listening and speaking alone (e.g. BEST Plus), the other skill areas such as reading and writing ability may or may not be at the same level. Much depends on your individual learner's academic background in L1 [native language] and L2 [in this case English]. In our program we routinely get a writing sample at the pre-/posttest to help fill in this gap for in-house diagnostic purposes.
By the way, I'm Doug Masiroff (ESL Specialist, Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council)
Hello everyone! I, too, enjoyed the Midwinter Conference. Overall, I felt it was an excellent opportunity to brush up on skills I have, and learn new ones!
My name is Cathie Whitmire. I teach ESL and Civics for the Hispanic American Council of Erie. I've been in the field of Adult Ed for 13 years.
I also co-chair the ESL Division of PAACE (Pennsylvania Association for Adult and Continuing Education) along with our Host, Martin Senger (from the Greater Erie Community Action Committee) and Susan Adams (from the YMCA in Philadelphia). PAACE is the host for the Midwinter Conference. Find more info about it at: www.paacesite.org
In addition, I facilitate the NWPDC ESL Network with Martin, and am currently acting as a Teacher Leader for the Learner's Lives as Curriculum(c) initiative.
I look forward to hearing about, & learning from, all of you!
Hi all! Kudos to Martin for creating and hosting this blog! I agree with Doug that it'll be a great way to maintain all the networking we do at PAACE!
My name is Teri Amicucci and I've been teaching Adult ESL for almost 7 years. I'm also currently the program supervisor at the Hispanic American Council in Erie. Up until September I was a co-facilitator with Cathie and Martin for the NWPA ESL Network.
In general, I always enjoy going to PAACE for the chance to network with other adult ed practitioners, expand my professional development, and have a little breather from the classroom. (C'mon, we all need it once in a while.) This year's conference was good. The ESL offerings I went to were interesting although I didn't get to see many. I was trying to hit more administrative stuff. My only complaint about the conference would be the travel time. If I remember correctly, I believe State College is the same distance from Erie as it is from Philadelphia....Could we try to have the MWC there next year or the year after? Other than that, I think Cathie, Martin, and Susan did a great job. I know you really worked your tails off! My hat's off to you all! I look forward to reading more on this blogspace.
6 comments:
Thanks for starting this blog. I look forward to being in touch with fellow teachers of ESL. I hope everyone will make some comments and posts. I'm Penny Barnes and I teach ESL at Harrisburg Area Community College(HACC). Before that I was with Catholic Charities in Hbg and also with Carlisle OIC. I came from NH with a M.Ed. in TESOL, k-12 and adult ed experience four years ago. (Our sons and families are here.) This is a late career for me after raising three sons. I really enjoyed PAACE this year. The presenters had really helpful information and ideas.
Pax Penny!
Thanx for responding so quickly! I'm really glad that you liked the MWC. Now the hard part: How can we make the '09 MWC better? Was there anything, no matter how small, that could be done better? Was there something we didn't do at all that you would like to see next year? We are taking suggestions on presentations, hotel accomodations, entertainment, anything.
Again, on behalf of Cat (Cathie Whitmire), Susan Adam, myself and the entire PAACE board, we thank you!
Ciao!
I will second the Thank you for starting this blog. I just started teaching esl about 3 weeks ago and and really trying to find some direction I have a bunch of ideas but am really unsure of the practicality of some of them. My name is Michael Weaver and I work for Tiu11 in Juniata County. One of my ideas was to maybe have an online book club with some of the intermediate to advanced students. With all of the lower level novels out there I think it would be great if we could sort of share students. It will probably be hard for one person to have enough people in class to read a story or book with more than a couple pages. I was thinking that maybe we could have an online blog set up for the esl students accross PA to answer a thread prompt and hopefully get some dialoge amoungst each other going on the site in English. This would give them more of the control and even if they were given a few minutes at the begining of each class to make one post I think it could be beneficial. Of course this may funcionally be a rediculously hard idea I don't know, I'm just looking for some feedback. Thanks everyone
Enjoyed Pace and was really helpful to a rookie.
I'm very happy we have decided to start a blog for adult ESL practitioners in Pennsylvania. This is a great way for us to keep the networking that happens at the PAACE MWC going through-out the year.
Here is a link to the ABLE page where you can read about how the standards were put together by & for Pennsylvania practitioners.
Please consider downloading the document (12 pages of content, plus a helpful glossary of ESL terminology) and distributing it to your fellow teachers, tutors, students, administrators, etc.
The text was written to be as clear and jargon-free as possible, while at the same time conveying what students can learn to do in English at each of the NRS levels.
Enjoy!
http://www.able.state.pa.us/able/cwp/view.asp?a=13&q=129314
Keep in mind that if you test a learner in listening and speaking alone (e.g. BEST Plus), the other skill areas such as reading and writing ability may or may not be at the same level. Much depends on your individual learner's academic background in L1 [native language] and L2 [in this case English]. In our program we routinely get a writing sample at the pre-/posttest to help fill in this gap for in-house diagnostic purposes.
By the way, I'm Doug Masiroff (ESL Specialist, Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council)
Hello everyone! I, too, enjoyed the Midwinter Conference. Overall, I felt it was an excellent opportunity to brush up on skills I have, and learn new ones!
My name is Cathie Whitmire. I teach ESL and Civics for the Hispanic American Council of Erie. I've been in the field of Adult Ed for 13 years.
I also co-chair the ESL Division of PAACE (Pennsylvania Association for Adult and Continuing Education) along with our Host, Martin Senger (from the Greater Erie Community Action Committee) and Susan Adams (from the YMCA in Philadelphia). PAACE is the host for the Midwinter Conference. Find more info about it at: www.paacesite.org
In addition, I facilitate the NWPDC ESL Network with Martin, and am currently acting as a Teacher Leader for the Learner's Lives as Curriculum(c) initiative.
I look forward to hearing about, & learning from, all of you!
Thanks,
Cathie
Hi all! Kudos to Martin for creating and hosting this blog! I agree with Doug that it'll be a great way to maintain all the networking we do at PAACE!
My name is Teri Amicucci and I've been teaching Adult ESL for almost 7 years. I'm also currently the program supervisor at the Hispanic American Council in Erie. Up until September I was a co-facilitator with Cathie and Martin for the NWPA ESL Network.
In general, I always enjoy going to PAACE for the chance to network with other adult ed practitioners, expand my professional development, and have a little breather from the classroom. (C'mon, we all need it once in a while.) This year's conference was good. The ESL offerings I went to were interesting although I didn't get to see many. I was trying to hit more administrative stuff. My only complaint about the conference would be the travel time. If I remember correctly, I believe State College is the same distance from Erie as it is from Philadelphia....Could we try to have the MWC there next year or the year after? Other than that, I think Cathie, Martin, and Susan did a great job. I know you really worked your tails off! My hat's off to you all! I look forward to reading more on this blogspace.
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