Course 1: Creativity and Innovations in ESL
Course Description
We are all looking for something new to stimulate the language learning classroom. This course will show participants how to design creative tasks that motivate students, how teachers can prepare students for life outside the classroom, creative ways of starting lessons that engage students, and innovations in teaching spelling to ESL learners.
Session 1.1 Friday, 9 March 2018 10:30-11:30 AM |
Creative Ways of Starting Lessons - Margit Szesztay Click for more details |
Session 1.2 Friday, 9 March 2018 11:30 AM-12:30 PM |
Designing Creative Tasks that Interest, Engage and Motivate Students - Patti Drapeau Click for more details |
Session 1.3: Friday, 9 March 2018 2:30-3:30 PM |
Innovations in Teaching Spelling to ESL – Malt Joshi Click for more details |
Session 1.4 Friday, 9 March 2018 3:30-4:30 PM |
Using Visuals Creatively - Margit Szesztay Click for more details |
Session 1.1
CREATIVE WAYS OF STARTING LESSONS
The first few minutes of a lesson can make a big difference to its success. An energetic start can create focus and help the learners to pay attention. Focusing and sustaining attention is becoming increasingly more difficult in a world of information overload and constant distractions. During the session we will try out and reflect on different ways of starting a lesson bringing in an element of surprise, creativity, and helping everyone move into English and into 'group mode'. We will also discuss how the activities we try out can be adapted to the participants' own teaching context.
Margit Szesztay had been involved in teacher education for the past 25 years. Her professional interests include: learning through discussion, creativity in English Language Teaching, the teacher as facilitator, and building professional communities. Currently she is working at the Department of English Language Pedagogy at ELTE University in Budpest. She regularly runs international training courses for beginner teachers, as well as for experienced professionals. She has designed and run courses on communicative language teaching, cooperative learning, learner autonomy, and trainer training. She has an MA in Teacher Training and a PhD in Education. She is currently the President of IATEFL
Session 1.2
Designing Creative Tasks that Interest, Engage and Motivate Students
Industry leaders identify creativity as a necessary component that is imperative to continuing innovation and future societal growth. While some deem creativity as important, studies today outline an alarming decrease in student creativity and standardized testing mandates threaten to impair creative thinking even further. In addition, some societies and cultures define creativity differently. There is no one universal way to teach creativity; however, teachers should know how to design or revise tasks in order to interest, engage or motivate ESL students. Learning strategies are the keys to academic success. The presenter will demonstrate different creative thinking “grab and go” strategies that are applicable across content and grade levels and can be used immediately in the classroom. Strategies include sound effects, artist trading cards, plus/minus assumptions, visualize /draw /write, and be the thing. These strategies have been successfully tried and tested globally
Patti Drapeau is an educational consultant, internationally known presenter and author. Patti is a presenter in the United States and abroad where she presents keynote and break out conference sessions as well as short and long-term workshops. Her presentation topics include: creativity, differentiation, personalized learning, engagement strategies, student empowerment and meeting the needs of special populations. Patti is on the part time faculty at the University of Southern Maine where she teaches courses in gifted education. She is also a consultant for the Maine Department of Education. Patti is the author of Sparking Student Creativity Practical Ways to Promote Innovative Thinking and Problem Solving (ASCD, 2014), Great Teaching with Graphic Organizers 2nd edition revised and updated (Hawker Brownlow, 2010), Differentiating with Graphic Organizers Tools to Foster Critical and Creative Thinking (Corwin Press, 2008), Differentiated Instruction: Making It Work (Scholastic, 2004) and Great Teaching with Graphic Organizers (Scholastic, 1998). She authored a variety of articles for the Maine Exchange, Teaching Matters, and Understanding our Gifted. Patti has over twenty-five years of classroom experience teaching students and coordinating programs in Freeport, Maine. She coached Odyssey of the Mind, Future Problem Solving, Explorer Vision, and math teams. Patti received the New England Region Gifted and Talented award for outstanding contributions in gifted education and the Maine Educators of the Gifted and Talented award for exemplary service.
Session 1.3
Innovations in Teaching Spelling to ESL
Spelling is an important aspect of becoming literate and many ESL students have difficulty mastering spelling. In this presentation, I shall outline recent research on spelling development and instruction and show some examples of spelling instruction based on research. The presentation will be interactive with participation from the participants.
R. Malatesha (Malt) Joshi, Ph.D., is a Professor of Reading/Language Arts Education, ESL and Educational Psychology at Texas A&M University, where he teaches and conducts research in literacy development and literacy problems among monolinguals and bilinguals in different orthographies. Dr. Joshi is the Editor of Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the monograph series titled Literacy Studies: Perspectives from Cognitive Neurosciences, Linguistics, Psychology and Education. From 1980-2002, Joshi directed six highly successful NATO Advanced Study Institutes which helped to bring various fields together to study literacy. He has published numerous books and scientific papers and has received several awards, such as Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar, Germany, and visiting research scholar from Beijing Normal University, China, Goethe University, Germany, and National Cheng Chung University, Taiwan. He has received several grants and also has served on the review panels for Institute of Educational Sciences as well as the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. At the present time, he serves as CO-PI of two grants: COST Action grant to establish European Literacy Network (about 1 million Euros) and an IES grant to study use of technology in improving comprehension in grades 4 & 5 (3.5 million US dollars). Dr. Joshi has published about 20 books and 120 chapters and papers and has been involved in about 400 professional presentations. Recently, Dr. Joshi was selected as the 2017 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) that exemplifies the highest standards of research excellence through accomplishment, professionalism, and commitment.
Dr. Joshi, in addition to editing the an high-impact journal, Reading and Writing, has published numerous studies relating to spelling and writing not only among monolingual English speaking children but also on children who are learning English as a second language from different first language background such as Chinese, Korean, and Arabic.
Session 1.4
Innovations in Teaching Spelling to ESL
This workshop will focus on activating learners by making communication activities creative and fun. We will start out with some energizing and focusing activities aimed at getting students 'in the mood' to communicate in English. We will also try out a number of controlled speaking and writing tasks, as well as activities which require more extended and sophisticated communication. All activities will involve the use of visuals and images. We will also discuss where such images and visuals can be found on the internet, or made by teachers and students themselves.
Margit Szesztay had been involved in teacher education for the past 25 years. Her professional interests include: learning through discussion, creativity in English Language Teaching, the teacher as facilitator, and building professional communities. Currently she is working at the Department of English Language Pedagogy at ELTE University in Budpest. She regularly runs international training courses for beginner teachers, as well as for experienced professionals. She has designed and run courses on communicative language teaching, cooperative learning, learner autonomy, and trainer training. She has an MA in Teacher Training and a PhD in Education. She is currently the President of IATEFL