viernes, 13 de septiembre de 2013

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: New TESOL Book Series

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: New TESOL Book Series

TESOL
Perspectives on Teaching in Different Contexts
Proposal Deadline: 30 September 2013
Series Editor: Andy Curtis
TESOL is now accepting proposals for a new series that will consist of 80-page books addressing the challenges specific to certain contexts for teaching English language learners.
Scope and Purpose of the Series
The Perspectives on Teaching in Different Contexts series is aimed at raising awareness of the challenges that are specific to a given teaching context both within and outside the United States, from intensive English programs (IEPs) to private tutoring. The books will use concise, accessible language to identify the needs of the learners within a given context and then explain which lesson formats, strategies, and resources most effectively address those needs.
For details on the Perspectives series please see the articles in the 14 August 2013 and 13 September 2013 editions of TESOL’s English Language Bulletin.
Audience
The audience for the series includes preservice and in-service English language teachers (ELTs). The series will be particularly useful for those completing their teacher training and considering employment opportunities. The language and content should also be appropriate for experienced language educators who are preparing to teach in a new context and would like to learn what can be transferred and what needs to be adapted.
Series Format
The project is envisioned as a series of 80-page books, each addressing a different teaching context. Topics limited to a certain geographical region(s) will be considered.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Intensive English programs (IEPs) at universities
- Intensive English programs (IEPs) at private language schools
- Community colleges
- Adult education
- Business English for corporations
- English for specific purposes (ESP)
- K–12 programs (including large groups in an EFL setting)
- Early-childhood programs
- Private tutoring (face-to-face and online)
- Boarding schools
Length: 80 pages/book (about 20,000 words)
Section parts
Each book will follow a similar format consisting of the following sections:
- Explanation of the needs of ELLs within the context
- Other concerns (e.g., administrative challenges)
- Lesson planning: format, materials needed, available resources, objectives, procedures, classroom/ teaching strategies, and assessments
- Questions for reflection
Authors
Authors should be ELT professionals who have considerable teaching experience in their respective contexts.
Submissions
Please submit a 500-word proposal for initial consideration by 30 September 2013. E-mail one copy of the proposal, a current CV, and contact information to:
Series Editor Andy Curtis, andycurtiswork@gmail.com
** Acceptance does not guarantee publication.
Proposal Guidelines
The proposal must include:
500-word summary of the proposed topic that describes the following:
- Explanation of concerns specific to a teaching context
- Suggestions for strategies and resources that best meet the needs of ELLs in that context.
- A list of conferences or professional meetings at which parts or all of the contents have been presented.
Proposals will be judged on the appropriateness for the series format.
Copyright
TESOL asks all contributors to assign their copyright to the Association. The author(s) will be asked to sign a contract during the production cycle for the book. Please do not submit work that has been previously published, is currently under consideration elsewhere, or is already under contract, and do not submit work for which you wish to retain copyright.
TESOL

domingo, 8 de septiembre de 2013

¿Qué profesor chileno queremos formar?

¿Qué profesor chileno queremos formar?

Si bien el gobierno se encuentra concentrando sus esfuerzos para mejorar las facultades de pedagogía hacia la modernización de las carreras, aquello debe estar alineado con el profesor chileno que queremos formar.
El Dínamo
24 de julio de 2012
Por: Jimena Saavedra

Jimena Saavedra
Enseña Chile
Ver columnas »Profesora de Historia y Ciencias Sociales.
Profesional Enseña Chile 2010-2011.
Realizó clases en el Liceo Ing. Juan Mackenna O’Reill de Puente Alto. Actualmente, trabaja como Directora de Formacion Inicial en Enseña Chile.
**
Me pregunto esto a propósito de uno de los temas centrales del informe de la Comisión Investigadora sobre el funcionamiento de la Educación Superior, que liga a ciertas universidades con el lucro, foco de atención para la opinión pública y los medios de comunicación.
Yo voy a algo más puntual, pero profundo. ¿Cómo funciona la acreditación de las Facultades de Pedagogía de nuestro país? ¿Cómo estamos formando a nuestros futuros profesores?
Esta sí que es una pregunta vital, y la respuesta debiese hablar de una visión de país y por ende, una política pública relacionada a ello.
Soy profesora de Historia, víctima de la nociva malla “cuatro años de licenciatura, una de pedagogía”, tan nefasta para la formación de docentes de “calidad”.
Cuando me titulé decidí entrar al programa de Enseña Chile, fundación que inserta profesionales para hacer clases tiempo completo por dos años en contextos de riesgo social.
El año pasado, por la fundación, participé en una propuesta para el Mineduc sobre mejoras urgentes al sistema educativo nacional.
El foco de mi grupo apuntaba a pulir los criterios de acreditación para las carreras de pedagogía.
Me costó reponerme de la sorpresa al enterarme que el Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Educación de la U. de Chile (CIAE) estaba recién terminando de definir los criterios para las carreras de Pedagogía Básica y que sólo desde hace dos meses contábamos con los estándares mínimos que deben “orientar” (ni siquiera regir) a una Facultad de Educación para formar a sus profesores de Educación Media.
O sea, no sabíamos con certeza hasta ahora, a nivel de Estado y Política Pública qué tipo de profesor queremos formar.
Lo anterior me lleva a la siguiente pregunta, ¿cuánto había importado hasta ahora -a nivel de política ministerial- cómo se forman nuestros profesores?
Creo que el modelo de formación que desarrollan hoy en día las facultades de Educación no profundiza lo suficiente el tema del liderazgo pedagógico, se forma muy poco a los profesores en competencias blandasmotivación de estudiantesvisiónmetas,seguimiento de logros.
Creo esto fundamental en la formación, trabajes en un colegio municipal o privado.
Al estar trabajando como profesoraen un colegio vulnerable, me di cuenta que para ser profesor de colegio municipal debes ser capaz de motivar a tus alumnos para que estudien.
Debes ser capaz de movilizarlos para que se atrevan a soñar un futuro, para que seproyecten y aspiren alto, para que se enfoquen hoy en lo que tienen que hacer para lograr sus metas de mañana.
Puede parecer una postal rosa pero es mucho más que eso, pues para llevarlo a cabo requieres planificación y estrategias sistemáticas y efectivas.
Convencer a un adolescente de 15 años que sí se puede y que sí tiene sentido intentarlo, no es fácil.
La pregunta entonces es : ¿Te enseñan las facultades de Educación a trabajar en contextos de riesgo social?
¿Te forman para liderar a estudiantes muchas veces desmotivados y con muy baja autoestima?
Podemos seguir sorprendiendonos con los resultados de la prueba INICIA donde sólo el 50% de los evaluados tiene conocimientos pedagógicos de Educación Básica aceptables y un exiguo 8% destaca, pero el problema es sistémico, al igual que la solución.
Si las facultades de Educación funcionan sin acreditación y pueden enseñar lo que se dé la gana no seamos tan lapidarios con los vergonzosos resultados de la Prueba Inicia.
Si bien el gobierno se encuentra concentrando sus esfuerzos para mejorar las facultades de pedagogía hacia la modernización de las carreras, aquello debe estar alineado con el profesor chileno que queremos formar.
Pero si de verdad queremos llevar a los mejores profesores a la educación pública, no sólo nos tenemos que enfocar en los incentivos económicos.
También es necesario redireccionar la formación universitaria hacia competencias específicas que permitan a los profesionales enfrentar mejor preparados el desafío de enseñar en entornos vulnerables.
**

jueves, 5 de septiembre de 2013

HOW I WROTE THE “SPANISH DANCES”

HOW I WROTE THE “SPANISH DANCES”

BY MORITZ MOSZKOWSKI
I think it was about the middle of my seventeenth year that, as often happens to both old and young musicians, I was in sore need of money. I could think of only two ways to get what I wanted: to borrow or to compose something. After turning over, for several days, the advantages and disadvantages of both ways of bettering my circumstances, I concluded I would borrow. Therefore, I went to those two of my colleagues with whom I was on most familiar terms, Philipp and Xaver Scharwenka, in hope that I should not find their fortunes at so low an ebb as mine.
Philipp was at home, sitting on a sofa and smoking a pipe. I sat down by him and asked if he had a cigar. He said that he was out of cigars, but that I could smoke a pipe. So I took a pipe and looked around for tobacco, but sought and sought in vain. Finally Philipp said:
“You needn’t hunt any longer, Moritz; there is no tobacco here.”
Then I began to grow a little angry, and said:
“Do you know, Philipp, that is drawing it rather strong? You offer me an empty pipe, let me look for tobacco in vain, and then coolly tell me there is none here, and yet you yourself are smoking. Give me some tobacco.”
“If you will smoke what I am smoking, I am satisfied,” answered Philipp, who emptied his pipe and prepared it anew by drawing out of a hole in the sofa some of the seagrass used to stuff it, which he put in his pipe.
For a moment I was speechless with astonishment.
WHEN SCHARWENKA SMOKED HIS SOFA
Now it was clear that I could not borrow money from a man who was using his sofa for smoking.
I went back home, sat down at my table, and began to look through my sketch book. A motive of a Spanish character struck my eyes, and at the same moment arose the thought that I would write a set of Spanish dances.
I worked rapidly, and in several days had finished my Opus 12, the Spanish Dances for four hands. I had only the last few notes to write as Philipp Scharwenka stepped into my room.
“Good day, Moritz,” he said; “you may be glad that you need not go out, for it is wretched weather.”
“Since we are speaking of wretched things,” said I, “what are you composing now?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Xaver, who was accustomed to this kind of conversational tone from me; “but you appear to be at work; do you need money?”
“Right you are,” said I, “and you can do me a service by playing through these four-hand pieces and telling me what you think of them.”
We tried the dances, and then Xaver said:
“I would rather have lent you some money, so that you would not have had to compose.” But that was only a return thrust.
An hour later I called on Simon, the publisher, who promised to let me know in a few days if he would bring the pieces out. When I saw him several days later he said he had shown the pieces to several experienced critics and they had advised him to take them. The question now was what I wanted for them.
“I have a brilliant idea,” I said; “I propose that you pay me an exceptionally good price, which will get talked about in the papers and thus make a big stir about the pieces.”
But it made no impression on the publisher. He thought that so pretty pieces needed no such advertising, and besides that, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and others always had sold their compositions cheaply, and as a publisher he felt obliged to accept such traditions.
In vain I sought to change his mind by suggesting that he ought not to compare me with Beethoven; he would listen to no distinction between us in that respect, and paid me a small price, with which I finally withdrew, tolerably well satisfied, at least, to be relieved of my present necessities.
When the “Spanish Dances” were published, several weeks later, they found a good sale. Some years later they were known everywhere, being taken up in various editions and arrangements.
I consider this as one of the works which first made me known to the musical world in general. Of course, the publisher profited largely by it, and all because Philipp Scharwenka had no tobacco and could not lend me money…
**
Moszkowski, Moritz
Spanish Dance for piano 4 hands, Op.12, No.2, No.2 in G-

Unlocking Reading For All Students: The Reading Recitation

Desire to Read & The Reading Recitation

First things first. If you are going to teach reading, you have to be a reading teacher. A teacher who does not like to read, or who has not acquired the habit of reading, will have difficulty being a reading teacher. Our first priority, then, is to be a reading teacher, to be a role model, a teacher who reads
Desire to Read
The teacher must first of all kindle in the child a desire to read. The task is an easy one. It may be done by reading half of an interesting story, breaking off in the middle of it, and then asking the little ones, ” Wouldn’t you like to be able to read the remainder of it yourselves? (Source:Essentials of Reading)
The teacher may show the pupils a book with interesting pictures, and may suggest that those who can read can find out the story that the pictures illustrate. Children who can read and write can send letters to Santa Claus, and can read the replies. The ingenious teacher can find very many ways of creating the desire to learn to read. As a matter of fact, many, if not most, of our beginners come to school with the desire to learn to read already developed.
Division of a reading recitation
The time allotted to the recitation in reading should be carefully apportioned to the different operations of a reading recitation. These operations are four in number:
1st. — The recitation proper, consisting of hearing the pupils read, questioning them on the thought, and interpreting what needs interpretation.
2nd.— Drilling in articulation.
3rd.—The assignment of the new lesson.
4th.—Supplementary reading.
The time apportioned to each operation.
No universal division of time can be recommended. At one time a teacher may find it necessary to give more than usual attention to exercise in articulation.
At another time she may find it best to devote an unusually long time to questions on the thought, thereby shortening the time for drill in articulation.
Again, a teacher may find the lesson she expects to assign contains such a number of new words and strange ideas that she must take half of the recitation period to make the assignment.
It may be that the lesson to be assigned contains no new word or ideas. Then the amount of time necessary for this operation becomes zero.
Under average conditions a thirty minute reading recitation should be divided into about seventeen minutes for oral reading, questioning, and interpreting, three minutes for exercise in articulation, five minutes for the assignment of the new lesson, and five minutes for supplementary reading.
Very often this last time can be saved by having this reading done in the period of some other class, or in the opening exercises.
1 Teacher and a Big Class.jpg
The assignment of the reading lesson.
It is economy of time to make a careful assignment of the new lesson. A minute at this operation may save misunderstandings that would require many minutes to detect and clear up. Four things must be considered in assigning a reading lesson:
First, the selection of the lesson;
second, the length of the lesson;
third, the development of the new words and ideas;
fourth, the exposition of the work to be done by the pupils in the process of preparation.
The selection of a lesson.
The teacher should select the lesson before she comes to her class. She should bear in mind that the lesson should be of a nature suited: first, to the class; and, second, to the purpose of the teacher. It should be of such a nature as to be likely to interest the pupils. It should be of such difl&culty as will test their power, but not over-tax it.
The purpose of the teacher.
The teacher may see that her pupils lack facility in the reading of material in which there are no new words. She should select lessons of this nature until the pupils gain the desired facility.
Then her purpose may change. She may wish them to increase their vocabulary. The lesson selected will then contain many new words.
It may be that she finds the pupils unable to read verse well. She consequently assigns those lessons which are in verse. She may find her pupils much interested in some poem by Baker. It would be well for her to assign another lesson from the same author.
If she wishes to familiarize the class with types and effects, she must assign lessons suitable for that work. If she wishes to cultivate the power of gleaning thought by silent reading, she should select lessons of more than ordinary difl&culty, and should devote the recitation period to questions on the thought. Let her realize that order in the book is a consideration not to be compared with the reasons mentioned above.
I Love Reading by WAM
The length of the lesson.
This also must be suited to the pupils, and to the purpose of the teacher. It may vary from a few lines in work in types or effects, to pages in gaining facility in recognizing old words. It must always be the subject of careful judgment.
The development of new words and ideas.
A certain lovable and scholarly professor of Greek in a large college held to the opinion that he could judge a student’s knowledge of a page of Thucydides by the way the student pronounced
the text. His classes could have given him much information as to the fallacy of his belief, had it been to their advantage to speak.
A small boy may pronounce very glibly words and sentences whose meaning to him is not at all what it is to the teacher.
A schoolboy insisted that a dirty tramp ran out from under the bridge and caught Ichabod Crane by the ear. He cited as proof the exact words of Irving, “Just at this moment a plashy tramp caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod.”
Another original thinker spoke of Annie Laurie’s donkey, and when questioned as to his sources of information concerning the beast, triumphantly pointed to “Maxwelton’s braes are bonnie.”
The boy would doubtless have read the line with good expression, but with a mental picture somewhat different from that of the teacher.
The mistake would not have occurred had the teacher in assigning the
lesson spoken of the meaning of the word ” braes.”
Learners English Dictionary
The dictionary will not do the work of the teacher.
Nevertheless the dictionary is very helpful. Each child above the fourth grade should be supplied with one, and should be trained to use it.
The dictionary, however, gives the mere skeleton of a meaning. The teacher must make the new idea live in the mind of the pupil. A certain common school dictionary defines lobster as “an edible marine crustacean.”
What an assistance to a ten-year-old boy! The teacher must see to it that the pupils have the ideas necessary to enable them to understand the new lesson.
If possible, she should show them a lobster.
If that is impossible, then a picture of a lobster, speaking of its color, appearance, and use.
It is not necessary to make a detailed study of the thing, inquiring into its anatomy, habits of life, methods of catching it, etc.
Such a study would be interesting, and possibly profitable, for nature study or for the purposes of composition work; but not much reading could be done if every object mentioned were studied in such a fashion. The important thing is that the child have a correct, though maybe not detailed, conception of the objects mentioned in the new lesson.
It is a good plan to review the new and difficult words at the opening of the recitation of the lesson.
An example.
In the lesson “The Lark and the Farmer“, the teacher will find it necessary to explain these words and probably others: Lark, field, neighbors, frightened, reapers, hurry, kinsfolk, harvest, notice, whet, scythes. It would be well to show the children a scythe, or a picture of a scythe, and to call up to their recollection some larks’ nest.
In “The Village Blacksmith” (Chapter Two), the teacher must see that the children have ideas of these words:
Spreading chestnut tree, sinewy, brawny, crisp, tan, bellows,
sledge, sexton, village, forge, smithy, threshing floor, choir,
anvil, repose
.
Many words do more than designate certain objects, attributes, or actions. These words not only express the ideas that they are expected to convey, but they also excite the feelings to greater or less degree. Each of the words: storm, ocean, tornado, mouse;causes in the mind of the hearer a slight degree of the same emotion that would be caused by the presence of the object itself.
If the hearer has seen the object, the effect is of course much greater than otherwise. The scenes in his experience rise again in his mind.
The emotional effect of the word is great in just the proportion in which the memory of his experience is vivid.
If the word indicates something not in one’s experience, it may still rouse the emotion through the imagination.
Such a word to most people is the word, “Arctic”.
The word sets up in the mind a mental image of the frozen North, and a feeling of fear and dread is aroused. One who does not have this feeling cannot appreciate Whittier’s lines:
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon,
Has listened to that startling rune.
Our work in reading fails of one great end if it does not help our pupils to understand and to appreciate literature. It therefore becomes the duty of the teacher to increase the emotional value of words to pupils.
In assigning a lesson the teacher should so use the child’s experience and imagination as to enable the poetic words and phrases to touch his emotions.
She should cause the pupil to tell the experiences that the word brings into his mind, when it was, where it was, etc.
Such an operation increases the facility of the action of the word on the feelings, the very end we desire to gain. This exercise should not be confined to the assignment of the lesson.
It should be part of the assigned work. It should continue until all such words and phrases as: misty light, sea, sea of dew, flaming forge, measured heat, dove, sting, Venicetouch the emotional nature of the child.
Assigned work.
Children reading
The assignment of the lesson is of course incomplete unless specific directions are given to the pupils as to the work to be done in preparation for the next recitation.
One reason why we have not had the results in reading that we have had in other branches is that the assignment of work has not been so definite.
A pupil knows when he has prepared his arithmetic lesson, and he does not hope to conceal his failure when he has not prepared it.
The assignment in reading, “Take the next two pages, and study them carefully,” is likely to get the scanty consideration that it deserves.
The assignment should be in the form of detailed directions telling what to do, or questions to be answered either orally or in writing.
The questions may be about words, meanings, types, effects, or any other subject connected with the selection.
The directions may include the looking up of meanings, the making of lists of words; for instance, a list containing all the words in the lesson that recall agreeable experiences, a list of all the words that are hard to spell, or a list of all the words whose meaning is not clear to the pupil.
It is usually found best to put the assignment on the blackboard.
Model assignment for “The Lark and the Farmer.”
Where did the Lark build the nest?
How many young Larks were there?
In what danger were they?
What time of the year was this?
How did the Mother Lark feel as she flew away?
Why was not the old Lark frightened on the first two days?
What kind of a man was the farmer?
Make a list of words hard to spell.
Model assignment for “The Village Blacksmith.”
Read it through three times.
What is a smithy?
A bellows?
An anvil?
Did you ever see a flaming forge? When?
What tree does “spreading chestnut tree” make you think of?
What kind of a man was the blacksmith?
Copy the first stanza and mark the groups.
At least five minutes of each day should be spent in oral supplementary reading.
The children should also be supplied with an abundance of interesting easy reading for silent reading.
In most schools this work is limited by financial conditions.
The oral supplementary reading, however, requires but little expense. Two or three books, a current events paper, or the Sunday school papers are all that is absolutely necessary. But one book or paper of a kind is needed; indeed, it is better to have but one. The work is individual.
Procedure:
The pupil is given the book a day or two in advance. S/He is told what selection or part of a selection he is to read. He studies it over, probably at home, usually with some help from parents or teacher. He knows that all depend on him for the understanding of the selection. (interdependence)
He is put into the right mental attitude. (See Mental Attitude.)
When the time comes, he walks to the front of the room, faces the pupils and reads.
The use of the reading period alone limits this work to one or two pupils a day.
The ‘geography period can be used also in reading from such books as “Around the World,” Carpenter’s “Geographical Readers,” “The World and Its People,” the “Youth’s Companion Series of Geographical Readings.”
The same thing can be done in the history class.
This reading, instead of injuring the work in geography and history, actually strengthens it.
The opening exercises can include some reading, possibly in the nature of current events or nature study.
The pupils of a room can be divided into groups for the purpose of giving greater opportunity for individual oral reading.
Two or three times a week twenty or thirty minutes can be taken.
At the signal the pupils gather in groups in the assigned parts of the room.
Let us describe such an exercise:
Group A, in the northeast corner of the room, are seated on the recitation seat and two of the front seats. There are ten pupils in this group.
To-day five of them will read about five minutes each from Gould’s “Mother Nature’s Children.”
In the northwest comer by the organ are gathered eight children. They are reading “Five Little Peppers.”
They are interested. The hum of the other groups disturbs them not at all.
The teacher passing from one group to another as she sees fit, does not find it necessary to withdraw any child from this group on account of misbehavior.
That group just back of the center of the room, the pupils sitting two in a seat, is reading Coffin’s “Drumbeat of the Nation,” while that group in the extreme rear of the room is reading “Viking Tales.”
By such a plan, each pupil receives four times as much practice in oral reading as he otherwise would receive.
**Just a caution or two…
1. The books or selections must be interesting and easy.
2. The periods must be frequent enough to maintain interest.
3. The teacher must watch order carefully, persistently, and unobtrusively.
An alternating program can be used with advantage.
Let one day of the week be set apart for the regular reading exercises, using the standard material of the grade.
One day can be used for sight reading, the study time to be spent in composition, or drawing, or both, as suggested in the chapter on the Classification of Material.
One day can be used for the study of difficult material, with class discussion of the contents and meaning, and with the oral reading of such passages as may seem best.
One day can be used for individual reading, when two or more pupils read lessons which they alone have studied, or when they recite memorized selections or tell stories.
One day can be used for the study of longer selections of minor value, to be given in substance only.
This program affords variety and brings to the pupils in turn each motive that can be used to increase the interest or stimulate the effort in reading, both silent and oral.