Running a college Language Lab: Running a college Language Lab: Memoirs of two personal trainers Memoirs of two personal trainers ETAI International Conference, Ramada Hotel, Jerusalem – July 14 th , 2010 Dr. Melodie Rosenfeld & Mr. Melvyn Rach Achva College of Education
Dr. Melodie Rosenfeld & Mr. Melvyn Rach we help EFL teacher candidates improve their own English? This presentation discusses the challenges, solutions, findings and lessons from running an English Language Lab for two years in Israel academic college...
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Running a college Language Lab: Running a college Language Lab: Memoirs of two personal trainersMemoirs of two personal trainers
ETAI International Conference, Ramada Hotel, Jerusalem – July 14th, 2010
Dr. Melodie Rosenfeld & Mr. Melvyn Rach
Achva College of Education
The Challenge at our collegeThe Challenge at our collegefor EFL teacher candidatesfor EFL teacher candidates
Need for language skill improvement (!)Need for language skill improvement (!)
Many levels of English proficiency (!)Many levels of English proficiency (!)
Not all are strongly motivated (!)Not all are strongly motivated (!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What and how to improve?What and how to improve?
Which materials?Which materials?
Which methods to develop skills & motivation? Which methods to develop skills & motivation?
Our Lab PopulationOur Lab Population
N=22 N=22
1 female native speaker 1 female native speaker 1 male 1 male
1 Arab female, aged 18 1 Arab female, aged 18 19 other females, ages 23 - 4519 other females, ages 23 - 45
Room 216Room 216
TheThe Lab InterventionLab Intervention
– 2 weekly hours; 2 semesters– No grades (pass/fail) – “Personal Trainer” role of instructor – Only-speak-English policy– Weekly presentations (instructor & students)– Independent-partner-group work online– The Lab online sites
The Language Lab websitesThe Language Lab websites
•Signs of life (mandatory attendance)•Signs of personal initiative to improve•Signs of improvement•Typed, weekly paragraphs + corrections•Online involvement•Vocabulary notebooks •Dialogue journal entries•Mini-presentations•Midterm & final portfolios
The Lab mindsetThe Lab mindset
• The instructor is your "personal trainer"
The Lab MindsetThe Lab Mindset
• “Not done to you, but rather done with you”
A 2nd-person perspective rather than a 3rd-person perspective
• An eye on authentic motivation to improve your own English:
Students need excellent English to keep their future jobs as English teachers.
The Lab mindset (cont’d)The Lab mindset (cont’d)
Many students came +/- 20 minutes before the lesson officially starts.
• 10 minutes: Students work independently on the Lab computers; homework returned;
• 5 minutes: Focusing the students – What are you working on?
• 60 minutes: Independent/partner work with online sites; instructor's "diagnosis" of students (miscue analysis, help with study skills; correction of English; strategies, skills, motivational talks); partner/group work on course material (e.g. summarizing, paragraphing, reading academic articles in English).
• 15 minutes: Interactive presentation by instructor (grammar, spelling, writing, speaking, pronunciation, issues bothering them in courses…)
• Touch-typing: 20 wpm required test (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing)
• Individual diagnosis of reading/writing/speaking (oral proficiency & miscue analysis of oral reading)
• Separate vocabulary notebooks• Regular notebooks to write down websites & rules etc.• Reading for pleasure & sharing • Strategies for reading academic articles in pedagogy• Strategies for summarizing articles• Strategies for writing a correct English paragraph• Grammar and spelling strategies
!!100100אני רוצה שהמורה ייתן לי אני רוצה שהמורה ייתן לי 5.5.
קניתי בגד חדש.קניתי בגד חדש.6.6.
דני גדל בחו"ל.דני גדל בחו"ל.7.7.
Topics of Semester BetTopics of Semester Bet
• Instructor and Peer correction of weekly written paragraphs. • Writing improvement: how to use a thesaurus• Melvyn's "Bits & Pieces"• Poem "Horrible EnglishHorrible English" and the introduction of the site: www.howjsay.comwww.howjsay.com• Difference between in/on/at (of time)• Forms of -ing (Five uses of the Present Participle)• Division of Writing and Proper Paragraphing• Six ways to effectively connect sentences• When (and why) should we double a final consonant?• Three types of Questions: tags, subject and all the rest• An easy way to differentiate between Present Simple and Present Progressive• The English Verb system: about auxiliaries and aspects • KWL, a dictation of difficult-to-spell words• Do adverbs describe anything else besides verbs?• Presentation of the Cobuild Collins Guide to English Usage Cobuild Collins Guide to English Usage • What you MUSSSCCMUSSSCC know about any new word• Presentation of "my best grammar bookmy best grammar book" • Homonyms, homophones and homographs
Examples of student workExamples of student work
The Research QuestionsThe Research Questions
1. What English skills improved?
2. What other changes did they report?
3. According to students, what contributed to their changes?
Findings
1. What English skills improved?
What improved? “How much did you improve in the following areas?” N=13
Reading
__________________reading for pleasure 2.60reading vocabulary 2.50 comprehension of texts in English 2.46finding academic articles 1.80
Writingparagraph structure 4.00presentation skills 3.69sentence structure 3.40importance of drafts 3.30grammar in writing 3.30vocabulary 3.00spelling 3.00 ________________proofreading 2.80writing correct emails in English 2.30oral reading 2.00
Listening
______________listening to lectures in English 2.61 listening to others in English 2.60listening to TV & radio in English 2.23
Speakingvocabulary while speaking 3.00pronunciation 2.92motivation to speak lots of English 2.92grammar 2.89oral presentations in front of audience 2.89 ________________
Other Skills
computer skills 4.07other study skills 3.30
_______________
Affective Improvements
bringing work to lab 3.92taking initiative 3.77coming on time 3.38using Lab time effectively 3.15
______________
Findings
2. What other changes did they report?
Skill Changes
using computer to improve English 4.07other study skills 3.30more aware & critical of my English 3.30 general English improvement 3.15
__________
Affective Changes
bringing work to lab 3.92taking initiative 3.77taking responsibility 3.46using Lab time effectively 3.15
____________
I worried about the level of my English as an EFL teacher 2.3Lab reduced the worry 1.92
Other Changes
I received help in areas I needed 3.77Lab helped identified areas to improve 3.60
______________
Findings
3. According to students, what contributed to their changes?
What contributed to making the Language Lab helpful to you? N=13
Affective Areas
a supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere 4.38 ____________
The Instructors
the "personal trainer" role of the instructor 4.38the instructors themselves 3.54 ____________
The Pedagogy (what the instructors did)
weekly correction of your written paragraphs 4.23instructors' presentations 4.00 pass/not pass 3.69"speak only English" policy 3.62personal help from instructors 3.54help in identifying weaker areas 3.31opportunity to bring work from other courses 3.17Lab requirement to show improvement 3.15other students' presentations of websites 3.08 ____________opportunity to work with other students 2.69keeping a vocabulary notebook 2.30
The Material
Melvyn's website 3.00 ____________other online links with EFL activities 2.85EFL material such as Longman programs 1.92the Lab's online site 1.85
Otherjust knowing that you'll need excellent English to be an EFL teacher 4.23
The teacher was very supportive, and no question was too "dumb".
I try to speak about various subjects that in the past I was afraid of.
The individual time was a great opportunity to ask questions about things I had trouble with.
This course is very important for all the students. The ones that weren't confident and wanted to improve their English skills found a great deal of help.
Thinking about my own mistakes in English helped me understand my own pupils better, because they often do the same thing: they think in Hebrew, and when they write, it comes out "Hebrish“.
I found myself looking forward to writing in my journal, sharing my thoughts with you, but most of all, I was filled with anticipation to read your feedback.
I believe that sharing websites is very helpful; now I have a great list of useful sites that I might not know of without the mini presentations by my classmates.
Student Feedback Samples 3Student Feedback Samples 3In GeneralIn General
I hope that this course will be available to other students that need to improve and boost their confidence in English.
The course improved my English in every aspect: grammar, oral proficiency, and common mistakes that many of us Hebrew speakers make, and need to pay extra attention to.
Reflection ExampleReflection Example
We need to improve in LabWe need to improve in Lab
• More EFL speaking + listening opportunities
• Weekly monitoring & guiding of each student
• Better documenting of individual improvement (vocabulary bees?)
• Efficient updating of Lab websites
More QuestionsMore Questions
• A one- or two-semester course?
• The instructor as “personal trainer”: a model for other teacher colleges?
• Make the English Lab available for other Departments?