Instructional Practices Page Comments
Mar 18th, 2008 by basicskills
Sue Pace Will the Basic Skills Initiative provide help for very very low level students or those with learning problems? My Beginning One class has students who scored zero on their entry test. I also have students with learning problems. I want to help them. Is it possible that their needs will be met in the Basic Skills program?
Malena Copeland Yes. This project can help all of our students. By participating in the blog and communicating needs, our faculty and staff will shape the direction of our research, curriculum and professional development. Students of all levels will be addressed in not only ESL classes, but throughout our entire program. So if your students have specific needs in math, reading and writing areas, this is the forum to address those needs, find out what works best in the classroom, and explore ways to implement these ideas.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Wow, Alice! Your article was extremely informative. Just yesterday, my friend said that because her daughter is left-handed, she is very creative. That didn’t sound quite right to me, but I had no idea that the left-brain/right-brain concept was a myth. I am dying to learn more about the brain. Will you be doing more summaries on this topic? I hope so! This is an area where lots of teachers can use some education. You mention the different parts of the brain. Can you explain them to us along with their functions? What about the myth that we only use 10% of our brain. (I always heard 20% but whatever.) I am curious to know approximately how much of our brain we do use. Do you have any idea? I absolutely loved your summary, and hope to see many more contributions from you on this and many other topics.
I think this is very interesting. For the past couple of months, PBS has been telecasting a very interesting program on the HUMAN BRAIN. They do mention the right /left brain in it. There are brain exercises they talk about in this program.
People with several health conditions improved after following exercises that were recommended by the neurologists.
I didn’t know at the time that I would be mentioning this in my line of work or I would’ve taken notes and elaborated on my comments.
If I watch the program again, and I’m sure it be telecast again, I definitely will write more on this subject, as I believe there is a big breakthrough in this field.
Tim, couldn’t agree with you more. I am at a Beg.1 level for sometime now. I try to have the class in English as much as possible. This is what I have observed, experienced - when the students are stuck at a point, for lack of comprehension, and just one word or phrase is explained to them in their native language, BINGO! The problem is solved.
This works at least at the very low level that I teach. Also need to mention that quite a few of the students are illiterate, period. So when a point is made in their language, it really does help them.
I think that as long as the purpose is served, does it matter that a few words or phrases of a native language are used?
Hi,
I’m very interested in this area. I’m going to a professional development workshop at SAC on Friday. It’s called Brain-based Learning Theory and the Art of Teaching. I’ll keep you posted.
Claudia
I have experienced that my Beg. 1 students respond very well to cooperative learning. For example, when learning a new concept in grammar, some students, depending on their educational background and degree of comprehension, grasp it faster than others. When given a short exercise to determine how much the students have understood, group work yields wonderful results. It takes just one or two students, explaining the grammar to others to make some abstract ideas become so simple to understand. it is sometimes done in a native language - could be Vietnamese/Spanish.
I have also observed that frequent, short tests on materials covered helps the students to understand the topic well. this goes for the entire week.
Sometimes, asking a simple question like. “What did we study today?” helps the student to recall the day’s learning activity. At this point their grammar is not important. What is important is that they are attempting to speak English. And they are very forthcoming in their responses. Between those who participate, they pretty much are able to recall material covered during the class.