Basic Skills Forum

Responses Below ↓

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Week of March 24, 2008

What worked for you when you were a student? How did you learn? What made you persevere? What helped you fulfill your academic goals?

Sharon Chidester:

I want to answer those questions, Julia. They are: What worked for you when you were a student? How did you learn? What made you persevere? What helped you fulfill your academic goals?What worked for me was my teachers were available to me for questions when I got stuck, and they genuinely cared that their students learned. I learned by listening, taking notes, and hands-on. I persevered because when I came to difficult times, I looked for alternate ways to stay on task, and asked friends and instructors for help with those alternate ways or for ideas of how to persevere. The biggest thing that helped me fulfill my academic goals was that my teachers believed I could, even at times when I doubted myself.I believe as a teacher, that I have the duty and responsibility to my students to care that they succeed, be available to them for questions, and show them that I believe in them. Most student success depends on us as teachers giving them the support they need.

Maribel:

Personally, what I think worked for me as a student was to have mentors, be persistence in completing my academic goal regardless of the presented obstacles. Also I always looked for available resources that would provide assistance for academic and personal matters. In regards to my learning style, I believe was important to provide visual tools for my academic success. I also participated in student organizations and leadership programs. Therefore, as part of the basic skills initiative it is important to incorporate learning styles, counseling, peer mentoring, and list of campus resources and leadership opportunities.

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Week of March 10, 2008

What mechanisms do we have at our institution to facilitate communication and coordination between the faculty and staff in different developmental disciplines as well as with student services?

ESL Teacher:

I think that the ESL required staff meeting at the beginning of the year is a good starting point for communication between the faculty, staff and administration, but there needs to be more communication and education about the roles of administrators. I would like to see a “Dear Administrator or Dear Dean” column much like the “Dear Abby” column. It would also be nice to have a place where teachers and staff can see what the responsibilities of each dean and administrator are. Many teachers don’t even know who their dean is. If there’s an issue teachers are more likely to talk to the union than an administrator.

Chris Robinson:

Dept. mtgs. are always great. (I remember the monthly ones I attended while in C-BET for 2 years.) My own thought for improvement was echoed by the contribution above with regard to a forum (e.g. flex workshops, or even an accessible web despcription – a map or flow chart – demonstrating the interrelations among adminstrative functions. (Maybe this is something I’ll need to get in a graduate program, but it would be convenient. Or, if someone could let me know of some resources to find such info, that’d be “swell.”

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Week of March 3, 2008

What are the best reading, writing and math websites that you use?

Susan McClellan//March 9, 2008 at 8:09 am
Sunday’s LA Times (3/9/08) has a front page feature article on Singapore Math. To read the story:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-math9mar09,0,1449785.story. For more information on the Singapore Curriculum: http://www.sgbox.com/singaporecurriculum.html

Denise Dowling //Mar 7, 2007 at 12:56 AM
This webpage is a collection of power point presentations that I use to make grammar intersting, promotes converstion and can lead to reading and writing.
http://www2.bakersfieldcollege.edu/jhart/Main%20Page/ENSL%20B55/Textbook%20Aids.htm
Adrianna Gonzalez // Mar 1st 2008 at 11:40 amThe best site that I use is education world. www.educationworld.comI particularly like this site to teach ABE because there is a variety of worksheets and teacher instructional materials that can easily be printed and used with students. The best is that it fits their reading level perfectly.

Adrianna Gonzalez // Mar 1st 2008 at 11:42 amThis is a great website given that it has printable worksheets and teaching ideas that can easily be integrated at the ABE level.

Susan McClellan // Mar 1st 2008 at 12:23 pmI usually access ESL websites. I like this one, from Purdue university for grammar (the link provided) and for other writing-related topics. However, since I teach beginners, I usually revise material I find on this site.
Susan
http://owl.english.purdue.edu

malenacopeland // Mar 1st 2008 at 4:40 pmGreat input. I really enjoyed both the Purdue as well as the Education World websites. These websites are very different but can be used in all levels if you use a little creativity. What lessons have you used from these sites?At Education World, I found the writing bugs interesting and useful. This is something I will definitely try with my students. There weren’t many, but I like the idea of giving a writing prompt each week, and having students build on it.From the Purdue site, I liked the explanations of the different components of writing. I think my students could really benefit from basic lessons on the writing process. These sites are very interesting. Thank you for the links.

Tim Chavez // Mar 3rd 2008 at 9:32 amThe first site I thought of was The OWL at Purdue but I see Susan already posted it…it’s a good one. There is a site I like for listening exercises. Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab–http://www.esl-lab.com/. This site has various levels of difficulty and will display the text with the audio. It offers a comprehension quiz and a cloze exercise with the listening exercise.
basicskills // Mar 3rd 2008 at 10:02 pmTim: The Cyber Listening Lab works great with a variety of levels. It has excellent content and can be used with a number of areas that meet the competencies of our core texts. It might be an idea to develop some ESL podcasts of our own to put on our blog site. We appreciate your suggestions. Perhaps I can post them to the links page for our colleagues to see. Thanks again.
Jolene ShieldsThis is a great website for lower level reading. The site integrates vocabulary, spelling and reading comprehension. http://cdlponline.org/

10 Mar 2008 at 2:15 pm2 Malena Copeland I really find this site to be useful. Students can read interesting stories and then listen to them aloud. Thank you for this great link.
10 Mar 2008 at 9:18 pm3 Henry Kim This is a great site to use copyrighted materials for checks, balancing, registers, etc. Students can read, write, and practice math: I have used this for beginning 3 students and they enjoy it.http://www.cuna.org/download/youth_sharedraft.pdfI was trying to find step-by-step activities to practice balancing checkbooks with students and it looks like this site is more packed than the last time I used it, you might explore the links:
http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1764/build/g1764.pdfBoth sites come from longman.com/readytogo
Have fun.
11 Mar 2008 at 8:03 am4 Danna Weber OTAN (Online Technical Assistance Network for Adult Educators) offers a world of good reference resources, written by teachers of adult students. Search the site at http://www.otan.us, or Google OTAN.
11 Mar 2008 at 3:24 pm6 Donna Minick When I’m stressing a certain pronunciation feature, such as the th sound, I like to bring this site up on the Smart Board, with that sound isolated as it illustrates the mouth movements and pronounces several words to illustrate the sound. Then I follow up with some additional pronunciation practice.
11 March 2008 at 4:50 pm Vincent Nunez
Like Donna M, I use our classroom’s Smartboard in conjunction with specific websites. For my beginning students I use sites with simple sentences and narrative photos, like at http://www.elcivics.com/esl-lifeskills-lessons.html In my presentations I will also involve students in “the show” by using sites such as (for shopping) http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/gamestation/content/supermarket_spree.mspx and (for money) http://www.aplusmath.com/cgi-bin/flashcards/money and (for health) http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/science/body_parts_p/english.htm and et cetera! … By the way, great blog here! But you probably know I’m just here for a shot at those movie tickets.
I.V. I want to share this great website www.mywritinglab.com: Students have to pay about $20/year to use this. This helps to enhance grammar and writing skills.
malenacopeland:

These are fantastic sites. I have always wanted a site specifically for the mechanics of pronunciation to show my students. Thank you for that wonderful suggestion, Donna. I also love the specific recommendations by Vincent for shopping, money and body parts. Henry, the check writing site is a great resource for teaching math in the ESL classroom. What a great link! It’s wonderful to have these great resources available in our wonderful world of technology. It is so nice that teachers don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time we teach a new lesson. It’s already out there, we just need to know where to look for it.

14 Mar 2008 at 7:21 am10 Marianne LowI have used the www.owl.english.purdue.com website and think it is great. They even have online testing you can have the students do right on the computer. We did a lot of work in spelling rules from here.

14 Mar 2008 at 1:57 pm11 Tim VoBeing a third grade teacher at an elementary school, I have noticed that even though websites such as Starfall.com and the likes are designed for young children, they can benefit the adults as well in reading fluency, comprehension and phonics. My ESL students always have a great time when I show them a passage on the computer and have them practice reading with it.

17 Mar 2008 at 8:07 pm12 DebbieHello
I’m Debbie a counselor.
I am so excited about this new program and the students it will serve.
I have located information on the Teachers College, Columbia University, N.Y.
The article is in the Hispanic Outlook March 10, 2008 edition. More information to follow.
Debbie

17 Mar 2008 at 9:20 pm13 Malena CopelandThank you so much. I’m looking forward to reading more about this.

18 Mar 2008 at 4:03 pm14 Erik GasnerI use englishclub.com-esl quizzes and susangaer.com. If students are exposed to language in all areas-reading, writing, speaking and listening and are able to learn they will progress.