Teachers’ corner - July 2010

(Editor’s note: Mimi Pollack, ESL teacher and Editorial Board Member of Easy English Times, sent us the story below. It also appeared in the ESL newsletter, Dialogue, of the San Diego Community College District’s Continuing Education Department.)

Pen Pal Project
by Mimi Pollack

   I am a level 6 teacher and sometimes getting my students to write is like pulling teeth, so I came up with the pen pal project this semester. My students have been emailing American pen pals. For the most part, this has been a successful project.

                I started by posting on Facebook to see if any of my friends were interested in partaking in this project. I got four bites. Then, I sent an e-mail out to select people on my list, and I got three bites. Finally, I sent out a blanket e-mail to most of the people on my list, and was surprised by the people who agreed to volunteer. Lesson one: never make assumptions about people. I ended up with 22 pen pals, including fellow ESL teachers, my sister, friends of my sister, personal friends, Sara Ferguson’s parents, and even an ESL teacher in France. They were from different areas. About 48 students participated.

                Next, I set up e-mail accounts for my students. I used hotmail, yahoo, and gmail because using just one overloaded it. Next I assigned partners and e-mails. I tried to match people up according to likes, etc. The first time I wrote a short introduction on the board and suggested questions to get the ball rolling. Our ESL computer lab is next door, so that also helped. I had the higher level and more computer proficient students help me with the lower level ones. We did this once a week. By the second and third week, the students were very excited to read their pen pals’ answers.

                Later, I started giving the students writing assignments. They had to not only answer their pen pals, they also had to write them their assignments, and then copy and paste just the assignments to Word and print them for me, so I could correct them.

                After doing this for one semester, I can honestly say that it was mostly a positive experience. Most of the pen pals really got into it, as did their partners, and emailed faithfully. Some of them corrected the students’ mistakes. Others sent pictures which delighted the students and they shared them with the class. Sara’s father invited his pen pal, Rafael, to come and visit him in Colorado! It was also a bonding experience for the students.

                However, there were some students who refused to participate and I didn’t push them. They wrote their assignments by hand in the classroom. Not all of the pen pals fully participated. Finally, because of the nature of our open entry/open exit program, some pen pals had several different partners, so there wasn’t always consistency. Nevertheless, when it worked, it worked well, and I am glad I did it. If you have any questions, please contact me at mpollack@sdccd.edu.

 

Teachers’ corner - archive

Reader’s Theater; ESL Students perform Puppet Show for Early Childhood Center
by Houda Khalid, M.Ed., North Harris College, Houston, Texas

A few weeks into the spring 2006 semester I received an enthusiastic phone call from Mary Anne Grasso who wanted to ask me how I felt about her level two adult ESL class performing a puppet show for the children in the Early Childhood Center at North Harris College. As you can imagine, I was delighted that one of my instructors wanted to apply the information she learned during the, "Reader’s Theater" workshop she attended at our biannual Teacher In-Service. I couldn’t wait to hear details about what Mary Anne had in mind.

Mary Anne told me that she wanted her ESL students to perform three or four short stories for the children at the Early Childhood Center located on campus. She gave each student a script and a "speaking part" to practice. She chose stories that were familiar to the children such as, "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Goldilocks and The Three Bears". Her class worked diligently on making detailed hand puppets and borrowed a puppet stage from the Childhood Center. The ESL students were extremely excited about this long term project. They practiced their parts during class and were simultaneously practicing literacy skills such as; reading, listening, and speaking. The students were practicing their pronunciation and learning new vocabulary as well. Reader’s Theater provides repeated reading practice which builds fluency and comprehension. Repeated reading practice also improves students’ confidence and enthusiasm for reading. When using Reader’s Theater, it is important encourage students to read aloud with expression and to practice pause, inflection and intonation. The instructor and students can get creative with the setting, props, stage or classroom, and costumes they choose to incorporate. Scripts can be found online by doing a simple search for Reader’s Theater scripts or they can be created by the students with some assistance from the instructor.

On the morning of the performance, the children filed into the classroom and sat quietly while they waited for the ESL students to entertain them. The ESL students sounded very professional as they introduced themselves to the children. They started performing "Little Red Riding Hood" and the children gasped when they saw the big bad wolf! Next, the students performed, "The Three Little Pigs" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". The children followed along and laughed as the ESL students put on a great show. As an added treat, Mrs. Grasso read the story, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" to the children as they participated by making the sound effects for the goats.

This level two ESL class worked extremely hard to prepare for this show. The students had to learn all of the speaking parts for the plays so they could fill in for each other in case anyone was absent on the day of the show. Mary Anne was the director, editor and coordinator for this performance. She was able to organize and instruct the students to ensure that they were ready for the performance. Along with literacy skills, Mrs. Grasso taught these students a greater lesson. She taught them determination, pride, and self confidence.