Workshop & Webshop Offerings
From Actual to Virtual and Back Again
The pivot to virtual instruction highlighted the need to be intentional in the integration of basic digital skills and digital literacy within our English language lessons. That pivot also demonstrated— in real-time— the inequities our learners face without the digital resilience needed to navigate 21st century adult life. Now that so many learners have returned to in-person classes, we need to continue supporting our learners ability to transfer their skills across changing academic, civic and workplace environments. Participants in this session explore how the high-leverage teaching practices of scaffolding, integrating academic language, employing cooperative structures, and prompting higher-order thinking, (Parrish, 2019; Ewert, 2016), help learners develop their language strategies in conjunction with their digital literacy and digital resilience.
Speaking Up!
Although the phrase,“You’re muted…” may be the most repeated phrase in Zoom classes, the virtual classroom can offer many other opportunities for practicing meaningful speaking and listening. Once we’ve done the video check-in or the one community-building activity, it’s easy to forget that we need to be intentional in our speaking skill instruction. In this virtual session, you experience three tasks that check all the boxes for critical thinking, academic language, and knowledge building: information gap, problem-solving, and ranking/categorizing. Along the way, we highlight speaking strategies our learners can practice, and demonstrate how a one-point rubric and task checklists quantify learners' practice and help chart their progress.
Reading Minds
Close reading and the virtual classroom are well matched. The access to a wide array of texts, the ability to zoom out and zoom in on a text, to “clean up” a webpage, and to use annotation tools on computers and mobile devices are all reasons to embrace reading strategy instruction in the online environment. In this virtual session, teachers explore ways to deliver reading strategy instruction; experience paired and jigsaw reading tasks using breakout rooms and level appropriate texts; and develop text-dependent questions for a level-appropriate complex text.
Write Away!
Teaching writing in the virtual ESOL classroom has a unique set of challenges including helping learners use their phones to plan, type drafts, get feedback, and edit their work. In this session, you explore how the stages of the writing process can be addressed in the virtual class using a variety of creative work-arounds and a few old-school approaches (pencil and paper anyone?).
Listening In
Transferring in-person listening lessons to the online environment is one of the smoothest transitions teachers can make in their ESOL instruction. In this webshop, we explore how to provide learners with active online listening practice; transfer effective listening tasks from F2F to virtual classes; and use Zoom features to enhance a variety of fun and engaging activities.
Communicate, Cooperate,
COPE!
Teamwork is a required of adults in all aspects of their lives outside the classroom—and with team tasks creating an authentic purpose to engage with the content and language being learned inside the classroom, the integration of cooperative learning and adult education is even more meaningful than it was forty+ years ago.
This workshop/webshop revisits the concepts of cooperative learning through a 21st century lens using ideas from both Kagan and Johnson & Johnson and explores how routines, roles, and rubrics support both teachers and learners in virtual and F2F learning.
ADDITIONAL WORKSHOPS/WEBSHOPS
The Art of Asking Questions
What is the connection between questions & thinking?
In this session, we …
Explore and work with a variety questioning strategies (Early Production, QFT, TDQs, etc.), and
Work with instructional routines that build learners' questioning skills.
Taking Our Teaching to Task
How does Task-based Instruction benefit adult learners?
In this session, we …
Examine the benefits and challenges of a Task-based approach to language instruction, and
Engage with and develop tasks for the English language classroom.
Grappling with the Group Dynamic
How do group dynamics affect team tasks?
In this session, we…
Examine the language of collaboration,
Work with cooperative structures that promote learner agency, and
Problem-solve for challenging group dynamics.
Mastering the Magic & Madness of Multilevel Instruction
What makes multilevel classes both magical & maddening?
In this session, we…
Explore ways to differentiate content, process, and product, and
Engage with routines that provide practice for same- and different-ability groups of learners.
A Lexical Feast: Learner-Centered Vocabulary Lessons
What does vocabulary instruction look like?
In this session, we …
Explore Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS), and
Engage with routines that integrate VLS into learner-centered instruction.
Complex Visuals Today - Complex Text Tomorrow
Visuals and text complexity: What’s the connection?
In this session, we…
Work with Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) and identify their connection to college and career readiness skills, and
Explore ways to use VTS with learners at all levels of language proficiency.
Fostering Learner Agency: Integrating Voice & Choice in the Adult Class
What is the role of learner agency in adult instruction?
In this session, we …
Define and discuss the concept of agency;
Explore ways to foster agency by promoting voice and choice in the learning environment, class content, and assessments; and
Engage with tasks (analog and digital) that foster learner agency.
Recognizing and Quantifying Progress in the Learner-Centered English Language Class
How do we quantify our learners qualitative work?
In this session, we …
Examine the common terms and concepts related to formative and summative assessment;
Explore ways to quantify and give feedback on proof of learning tasks; and
Work with formative or performance-based assessment tools.
Keeping It Real: Using a Problem-based learning approach to instruction
How does Problem-based learning support contextualized, standards-aligned adult instruction?
In this session, we…
Analyze a problem scenario and engage with the problem-based learning approach;
Examine the skills and language strategies that are part of the approach; and
Plan how to integrate problem-based learning in upcoming lessons or units.
I’m creating new workshops and webshops all the time to meet the needs of the field.
Feel free to click on the “Inquiry” button if you are interested in a topic you don’t see listed above.
Image Credits: Hands and Digital Image-Deposit Photos Standard License; Brain-Unsplash: David Clode; Zoom class-Pixabay: Mohamed Hassan; Laptop-Unsplash: Alexandra Koch Team pushing arrow-Deposit Photo, Standard License;