The planning process in developing my 10 week ESL course has followed a progression of lessons in 3 phases.  Phase 1: pre-assessment and exercises to unlearn English through learned example reinforcement, Phase 2: pronunciation and vocabulary building based on topics, and Phase 3: conversation through peer group discussions.  The unlearning English aspect comes from the need to establish credibility with the students who have learned in a non-English environment that is not fluent.  Examples are used to reinforce skills they already know to break learned ‘trigger’ responses helping their speaking become less foreign.  Pronunciation through vocabulary expansion allows students to express themselves without the need to search for the right words.  And finally, conversation development in small groups helps apply lessons within a peer environment reducing apprehension barriers.

The materials and delivery during my class has already started to reflect a higher level of differentiation which the students are responding to quite positively.  For my new contract, I already know the students skill sets and phase 1 is unnecessary.  My differentiated approach now focuses on preparation, content delivery, and individual skill set deficiencies.  Utilization of the internet has become a daily addition  using a variety of formats to address skill set deficiencies and reducing instruction time in class to increase speaking time.  Students now receive emails from me every Monday containing links to various topics for each class which help with listening skills and to formulate their own vocabulary before class.   YouTube is actively being used for accent reduction, ESL rubrics given to students before examinations so they understand what they are graded on, and quiz/skill activities offering various degrees of difficulty are provided for students to address known individual problem areas.  The first run of the course had only an in-house speaking focus per the company request, but now I am taking responsibility to offer the students doorways outside of class to improve their English.

A study by Laura Reynolds-Keefer of the University of Michigan-Dearborn (Reynolds-Keefer, 2010) focuses on how a student’s use of rubrics impacts the potential teacher use of rubrics in the classroom.  The findings indicate that nearly all of the students understanding of teacher expectations were greatly increased when a rubric was assigned to a lesson.  I have used grading rubrics with my lesson plans before when teaching computers, but now see it improves language development as well in an oral test format by allowing the students to base a complete spoken response to an informal grading system.  Another article written by Adina Levine of Bar-Ilan University and collaborators (Levine and collaborators, 2002) describes the application of variation in peer responses to facilitate writing skills when comparing ESL students in Israel and the USA.  The results of the study indicated that the ESL students within an English speaking environment (USA) were more in-depth in their revision into a topic and to a degree some personal investment into the writings.  The Israeli ESL students, on the other hand, were much more general with their comments and offered more supportive revisions than critical responses.  This article has led me to find a writing activity which takes peer writing in steps similar to a story completion of the previous student’s work which I plan to implement next week.  The collaborative nature of peer writing should prove to be invaluable in identifying further skill sets to address while having students assess peer progress.

The following are currently being added into my lesson plans or recently implemented into the course.   Materials are geared toward classroom activities and student guided instruction options which they can select the focus thus further differentiating my older methods.

1. TeacherPhilEnglish on YouTube (Teacher Phil) utilizes both written and spoken examples to enhance student pronunciation and listening skills.  I have recently used the Accent Reduction and Idiom sections in class to provide a source for students to study independently during short breaks.  Skill set strength = written English, deficiency set = listening and pronunciation.
2. Interactive Writing (Stickyball) is a highly modifiable lesson using writing prompts to facilitate collaborative writing and peer-review among groups of ESL students.  As students are limited on time for each paper, they need to focus on direct sentence application and not complete writing skills.  Skill set addressed = short topic creation from a peer provided prompt.
3. ESL grading rubric (Trotta) can be used to offer students some insight into the grading process before an oral exam is given.  Understanding will lead to greater student performance.  Skill set addressed = Spoken content expectations.
4. Lop Ngoai Ngu (translated Foreign Language Class) contains hundreds of interactive ESL exercises covering a large variety of topics and skill sets.  Though not one single lesson is highlighted, students can focus on their own language deficiencies with a navigation system in Vietnamese.  Language Barrier removed.  Skill set strength = Vietnamese navigation, deficiency = individual to student.
5. ESL Lab (Davis) provides listening skill exercises and has comprehension quizzes that go with each topic.  Students choose the type of lesson based on interest and difficulty to match their skill level.  Skill deficiency addressed = listening and understanding, Skill set strength = topic of interest and known difficulty level, deficiency = listening skills and critical thinking.

Bibliography

Reynolds-Keefer, Laura (2010). Rubric-referenced assessment in teacher preparation: An opportunity to learn by using. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 15(8). Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=15&n=8.

Levine, Adina and collaborators (2002). Variation in EFL-ESL Peer Response.  TESL-EJ. V.6.N.3. Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://tesl-ej.org/ej23/a1.html

Teacher Phil (2010).  Teacher Phil’s English Channel.  Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/user/TeacherPhilEnglish

Stickyball (2010). Interactive Writing.  Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://www.stickyball.net/games-and-activities/282.html

Trotta, James (2007). Evaluation grading rubric. Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://www.eslgo.com/resources/sa/oral_evaluation.html

Lop Ngoai Ngu (2007). ‘translated’ Foreign Language Class. Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from  http://lopngoaingu.com/index.htm

Davis, Randall (2010). Randall’s Cyber Listening Café.  Retrieved on July 16, 2010 from http://esl-lab.com/

After finishing up my first year in South Korea I took a long overdue vacation back to Ohio where I started to scour the internet for another teaching destination as a return to Korea was last on my list.  A few months went by when I noticed on Dave’s ESL Cafe – international jobs list an ad for an Activity Leader with English First (EF) which had overseas teaching experience.  The job was only 8 weeks in length and based in Long Beach, California working with students from other countries visiting the US for English study.  I really didn’t know what I was getting into at this point, but after doing some research on EF and finding that it has offices worldwide that it might be worth while.

When I showed up in Long Beach, there was already a large staff of Teachers and Leaders present as they had been preparing for the students for the entire week already.  Within hours the teaching job (in the classroom anyway) that I thought I was getting into turned out to be more like a summer camp that progressed in phases.  The concept was that the students would attend regular classes during the mornings which were conducted by local teachers who lived off campus, and then we would take over after lunch and apply the students learned English live in the field somewhere in the form of trips and activities.  To help things greatly, I was partnered with the most senior member of the EF staff who lived in L.A. as I had never been to the area myself up till then.  When were the students arriving?  Tomorrow…ack.

The next day students from 17 different countries started arriving by plane.  First the Italians, then the Russians, followed by some smaller groups from Denmark and Norway and so on, until my group showed up.  Due to the fact that I was the only one on staff with any experience in Asia, I got the Vietnamese students.  The earlier groups that arrived were all 16-18 year old students, but the Vietnamese showed up and were 44 in number from age 8 to age 16.  These were by far the youngest students in the entire camp.  They were escorted by 2 Vietnamese adults to help with the translation as some of the kids spoke absolutely no English at all.  I was a little boggled on how they were allowed into the program with no English skill, but later I found that the youngest ones had older cousins they were with and their parents hoped the experience alone would motivate them with their studies when they returned to Vietnam.

Vietnamese students are very good at learning from a book, but from day 1 is when I started to find that I was going to be teaching a whole lot more than I bargained for.  Let me break them into small situations as some of them are just plain crazy.

1.  Day 1.  Walk them to Target so they can get a few things they need as we were staying on the campus of Long Beach State University during the summer and most of the services were closed.  Ok so far.  Get to the strip mall and enter target.  We made the mistake of cutting them loose and just walking around the store to offer help while 1 stayed at the front door to make sure they stayed in the store.  As I am walking around I see them grabbing cordless phones, huge boxes of junk food, games, water guns, radios, and everything else that wasn’t what I would consider necessary like shampoo, soap, a good towel, drinks, sun lotion.  It really was a free for all in there.  I decide to walk back up to the front as the first student is standing at the register and kind of afraid to walk up and check out.  As the cashier rang up about 30$ worth of stuff, I told the little girl to ask ‘how much is it?’ and she did.  Next thing I know is that this 11 year old girl pulls out about 2000$ and tries to pay.  2000$!!!! Without even the smallest idea of how to spend money, this girl could have put us all in danger at that point (Long Beach is real close to Compton and not exactly Beverly Hills) flashing that much money out in the open like that.  Lesson #1 when we get back – money and safety in L.A.  She wasn’t the only one that did that and we had the Vietnamese escorts take the students money away from them and ration them out after that.  How’s that for assessment?  lol

Each of these students come from a wealthy family and came with pockets full for the entire trip.  The summer EF camp costs about 6500$ per student, whereas a full time Vietnamese teacher working 48 hours a week in Vietnam makes about 60$ a month just to put things in perspective.

2.  Day 3.  The laundry room.  Almost none of these kids had ever had to wash their clothes before and the flight over was around 24 hours.  Some of them were changing their clothes 3 times a day already as all the walking around was too much exercise.  I didn’t realize at the time that Vietnam didn’t have coins yet and they didn’t understand why the coins were needed to run the machines and none of them had a dryer of any kind.  A second lesson on money followed by what a washer and dryer are for.  This burned hours of time, but in the end I think each one became a little more responsible for themselves.

3.  Week 2.  You would think that basic hygiene is something that every teenager has a firm grasp on.  Come toward the end of week 2 and find that the rest of the group has singled out one kid as the person to avoid for a few reasons that I will get into in a min, but the most important was a shower.  This kid at age 13 had NEVER bathed himself and was stinking very badly.  We had him grab his towel and told him to go take a shower.  He did just that.  Grabbed his towel and walked into the shower-fully clothed. *shakes head*  Astonished we all sat there in wonder and had to explain to him that he needed to take off his clothes, shower, then dry off with the towel afterward.  He goes back in with a dry towel.  Now he comes out into the lobby NAKED and still has dirt, grime, and even some dried blood on his leg.  Now we really need an intervention with all the staff and quickly dragged him back to the shower.  This time had to give him soap and shampoo then tell him how to use it and give a step by step on how to shower.  How’s that for differentiation?  lol

I can’t even exaggerate how crazy that day was.  We sat down with the Vietnamese escorts and found out that this kid had already lost 800$ gambling with other students, was bossing everyone around like they were his servants, and at 13 was still bathed daily by his full time housekeeper.  Again its safe to assume that his parents are in a super high position of authority.

3.  McDonalds.  After a while of ordering delivery of large meals to campus, they started to complain of wanting something different.  It is a lot of responsibility to make sure a group of almost 50 (including us) gets fed every night so we thought we would mix it up. We all know how McD’s works, but if you have never seen a fast food restaurant, then it might be intimidating when you are looking at it in a foreign language. To add to the problem, we didn’t realize that most of the younger kids have NEVER been asked what they want to eat before and get to choose for themselves.  In Vietnamese culture, the mother (or housekeeper) makes dinner and everyone sits down and eats what is made so we were breaking new ground again.  We let the older students go first as we thought they would have the easiest time with the menu.  They just didn’t get it.  The ala-carte stuff wasn’t vocab they knew and the combo was a new concept.  We had to pull them all back and explain to keep things easy and order by number.  Just find a picture they thought looked good, order by the number, and it would come with french fries and a drink.  After the quick pep talk things went a little better, but it just shows how common the fast food culture is in America and the McD’s empire does not cover the entire globe.  There still isn’t one here today, but a single Carl’s Jr. (aka Hardees on the east coast) opened a month ago and is packed with wandering souls wondering what is going on.  Lesson learned – choice. Bad Lesson learned – fast food is way to easy

4.  Week 4.  The Getty Museum.  Not sure if you have ever been to a high end art museum before, but the Getty qualifies as one of the best in the States anyway.  We had been going to beaches, libraries, shopping malls, Disneyland, and a bunch of fun places up to this point, but the classes in the morning focused on the English of what they would see in the Getty.  NOT the rules to follow when they get in the door.  The Getty is a quiet place and no one is to touch anything.  As soon as our bus pulled up, various security guards got on their radios and warned everyone inside we were coming.  I was looking for an enjoyable afternoon in here, but we made it through the first door and within minutes one of the younger students ran her finger down across a million dollar painting.  We freaked, the guards freaked, more security showed up, and the group was either to leave the building or if we continued to keep the students on a real short leash.  We were going to stay, but had to take everyone back out to the courtyard for a real serious prep talk in English and Vietnamese on social etiquette and volume control during discussion after we went back in.  The rest of the tour was uneventful, but about 20 security guards had to follow us.  Lesson – Make sure the classroom teachers revise their lesson plans to address ‘rules’ so the rest of us don’t have heart attacks during the application phase of the lesson.

This experience showed me that not all learning comes from inside the classroom.  We all are placed in teaching roles at some point in our lives whether we would be professional teachers or not.  My daughter at 8 months old reminds me of that every day.  I did go on to finish this first summer and return for a second a few years later on a break from Vietnam.  A huge cultural melting pot of learning the 2nd round as I was involved with the Italians and Russians while someone else took over the Vietnamese that summer.  More to come soon.

A few years ago I was teaching in a Vietnamese public elementary school and had a partner teacher who could speak English as the level of the students was very very low.  I was only there roughly 8 hours a month as that was all they could afford, but thought it was important to give the students a chance to talk with a foreigner.  I did this for almost two years and one day, I happened to create a speaking/writing game with vocabulary for a first grade class.  Students came to the board 4 at a time and I would either draw a picture or ask them a question and they had to spell the vocabulary.  First one done got a point for their team.  As the students that sat all the way in the back of the class came up, I drew a cat on the board and they all started writing as fast as they could.  The winner got a point and the students sat down.  As I am looking at the board, I see one is spelled tac, but actually the letters were backward too.  I had the student come back up and write it again, same thing.  I asked him to write dog and out comes god with the letters also backwards.  The teacher was confused at why I had stopped the class for a min and asked the students to start in their workbooks while we talked.  The kid had Dyslexia also, but this was the first student I had ever encountered in a live class and was a little taken back.  I explained to the teacher what Dyslexia was and said that we might want to let the parents know so they could get him some help in writing since I caught it so early.  He had the student come back up and write his name.  No problems there as he could spell it right.  I stopped the teacher and asked him to write dog again, but this time in Vietnamese figuring maybe it was just a mistake with the English.  Nope, dog in Vietnamese came out backwards as well.  The teacher knew the problem was there, just had no idea that there was a name for it or how to approach it.

The teacher pulled me aside and after class we went for a quick coffee between classes.  He pleaded for me not to tell the principal, which is a friendly guy btw, because if the school told the parents that their child needed special teachers or studies that they would immediate take their kid out and put him in another school that didn’t hassle them.  Schools here are not free even the public ones and private tutoring is expensive for them.  His rational is that this child would probably not go to school after the 5th grade anyway because of his problem and not to cause the family to lose face.  A sad situation that can be remedied, but that is the culture that I live in.  In the end, I kept it to myself.  I think about it all the time when I hear Dyslexia and will always wonder if I failed that child by not reporting it.  Sad to think that kid might be selling lotto tickets on the streets like all the other poor 5th grade drop outs around here.

Tonight I had an ESL class with the computer outsourcing company I am developing their speaking courses. After a post assessment discussion with the students from the last contract session, I found that my materials were a little too in-depth and needed to be trimmed down and more focused for quick delivery and allow for more speaking time. The following lesson can be found at http://bogglesworldesl.com/directions.htm and more specifically under the heading “optional materials:  Giving Directions Pair Worksheets”.  The lesson has been modified from this format, but simply a basis for the discussion.  The goal is to give a recommendation and follow with directions to the location.

A little background on the company first.  The company outsources computer software development here in Vietnam, yet has their main sales and marketing offices in the States.  This relationship requires a highly skilled force which is addressing it’s own needs by conduction in house training sessions in spoken English which are currently being developed by a team of one (me).  On occasion, American staff members come to Vietnam and live here for anywhere between 6-9 weeks depending on a specific contract and also assess how the business is developing here.  I had a chance to meet two Americans who were here and a bit shell shocked from the diversity of cultures that define HCMC (aka Saigon).

The lesson starts out with the students identifying their favorite coffee shop somewhere near the office.  Once the location has been established, I need them to verbally direct me to that location without using any Vietnamese street names as the foreigners would not be able to remember or find them in the mess of traffic (traffic is unbelievably bad here at peak hours).  After stumbling through, the group on the whole was able to contribute most of the correct vocabulary through use of landmarks, street lights, bridges, train tracks, and estimated distance (which I had them represent in time rather than kilometers).   Next I chose a location that was famous here in the city (Ben Thanh Market), but had them choose an alternate landmark (New World Hotel) that would be easy for a foreigner to remember in a taxi as the distance was too far to walk.  After the ‘taxi’ would get me to New World Hotel, directions to the market is easy as it can be seen from the hotel.  Aside from the directions, some other facts to living here were addressed and new vocabulary was added.  Ben Thanh is a tourist trap with high prices and very persistent sales people who do not tend to take ‘no’ very lightly.  A student would represent a shop keeper and another the buyer.  Without even telling them to do so, the students engaged in a haggling exercise until they came upon an agreed price and immediately asked me for the English of what they just did.  Here is where the word ‘haggle’ came into play.  Foreign tourists usually don’t feel comfortable in haggling for goods, but it’s expected here and part of the culture.  Next I asked them how to get back to the office.  The taxi was the immediate answer, but they didn’t take into account that the taxis around the market are what is known as ‘black taxis’ and tend to run high meters and drive around the city on the tourists dime.  It took them some time to think about it, but their recommendation to find a good taxi eventually was to return to the New World Hotel and get a good taxi from there.  So we have directions, a recommendation to haggle, and also a safe return warning.

Next, I handed out maps of HCMC that I got from the airport to small groups of students and they had to start a collection of recommendations and directions for restaurants,  coffee shops, shopping, grocery stores, and anything else they thought important to them.  By the end of class, they had enough to probably open a tourism business whether they realized it of not.

The point I was trying to make is that when they get an American staff member/client to come to Vietnam, it is their responsibility to make that persons visit as positive as possible while making them aware of what pitfalls to avoid.  This experience is then taken back to America in the form of small talk that can now ensue between the US marketing team and potential clients as most people back home are very curious to hear what Vietnam is all about today.   The Vietnam War thoughts tend to come to peoples minds first and that world is long gone in reality.  Positive experiences lead to positive  feedback during a small talk session which results in more familiarity with the company as a whole and possibly enhanced reputation due to first hand experience.   Who knew giving simple directions and recommendations in English could possibly enhance their corporate careers in the future?