Kia ora koutou and welcome to our May newsletter for English, ESOL and Literacy Online.
The launch of the secondary literacy section of the website is imminent as well as further resource development for ESOL which will be coming online at the end of June. It is also worth visiting the Teacher Resource Exchanges for additional materials to support your teaching and learning programmes.
We hope the term is progressing well for you all.
Nga mihi nui,
Dr Phil Coogan , Project director
Maria Lute – Project manager
Cognition Education for the NZ Ministry of Education.
In this issue
News from:
Literacy Online
English Online
ESOL Online
Literacy Online
Kia ora koutou from Chris Henderson.
Since the last newsletter in March, our community has had some quiet weeks and some very busy weeks of professional dialogue on the mailing list, initiated from members’ questions and queries about literacy practice. Three topics that have been to the fore are speeches, spelling and reading levels.
Spelling
A number of useful resources have been suggested in response to questions about programmes. The Sounds and Words section on Literacy Online prompts these questions before implementing a programme.
- What should my students know and be able to do?
- What can my students do?
- What do I need to know?
- What do I need to do?
The flow chart of evidence-based approach was created following a research project conducted a few years ago which evaluated the use and integration of the literacy packages available in New Zealand (for instance, Rainbow Reading, Jolly Phonics, PmPlus, The Sunshine Collection, and Tatari, Tautoko, Tauawhi). This is also a useful resource to draw on.
Reading ages
Another discussion has begun on the use of reading ages. I draw your attention to the shaded box on Page 7 of the Literacy Learning Progressions which highlights the NZCER research on the use of reading ages’ for Years 4 and above .
Ngā manaakitanga o te Runga Rawa ki a koutou katoa.
Chris Henderson
Facilitator: Literacy Online community
Secondary Literacy
Kia ora and welcome from Denise Hitchcock
This month has seen further clarification of the literacy requirements in 2011 for NCEA Level One and an update regarding University Entrance requirements.
NCEA and Literacy Requirements
NZQA outlined that greater clarification was needed concerning the fact that the new achievement standards in two subjects, English and Mathematics and Statistics, can count towards either requirement (the ‘new’ or the ‘old’) in the transitional year (2011).
This SecQual document updates and clarifies the information regarding transition arrangements in 2011 for NCEA Level One literacy requirements.
University Entrance Literacy requirements
New or revised Level 2 English achievement standards, for use from 2012, may contribute to the reading and/or writing components of the existing literacy requirement for university entrance. The list of standards for university entrance literacy will be updated in June to allow for planning for 2012. For further details refer to SecQual University Entrance
Conferences
- NZRA Conference – 'A Literacy Explosion' , July 17-20, Rotorua.
- The Australian Literacy Educators’ Association National Conference , Melbourne, 8-10 July, will focus on literacy learning.
Kind regards
Denise Hitchcock
Facilitator: Secondary Literacy community
English Online
Secondary English
Kia ora and welcome from Mike Fowler.
The secondary English forum continues to be busy. For more details on topics discussed over the last four weeks, go to: 18 April – 1 May , 2 May – 8 May , 9 May – 15 May , 16 May – 22 May .
With many resources being shared online, it’s important that copyright is respected. Resources should be original and developed by the contributor as opposed to compiled from other publications.
There have been several positive online comments about the recent IFTE Conference ‘Much Ado About English’. It’s worth checking out the conference wiki as many presenters have loaded resources. Among highlights in a programme of quality workshops and keynote presentations, Glenn Colquhoun’s keynote and his reading of his wonderful essay on stood out for me.
Regards
Mike Fowler
Facilitator: Secondary English community
ICTs in English
Kia ora and welcome from Claire Amos
The past month saw discussion around Photographing Student Writing and Copyright and Creative Commons . Other topics included Reading Planning and Phil Coogan made a request for examples of Differentiation in English .
Conferences
For the first time, ICT played a key role in the NZATE/IFTE ‘Much Ado About English’ Conference. You can check out the inaugural conference wiki here . There were several ICT in English related sessions, including my ICTs in English session and Fiona Burn’s session on Using Blogs for Collaborative Writing . You can also check out Karen Melhuish’s blog post for CORE Education about our (me, Karen, and Hamish Chalmers) ICTs in English Panel. It was a great conference, and really exciting to see the emergence of ICT as part of the conference landscape (with the development of a conference wiki and some fabulous #IFTE conference tweets!).
On May 21st Wellington hosted the first of the EduCampNZ “unconferences” for the year.
"EducampNZ is a user-generated 'unconference' focused on e-learning and education. We're all about growing our learning, networking, and, of course, having fun! Everyone is invited to participate in some way..."
The events are free (gold coin koha for the host school is welcome), community-generated by volunteers, and anyone is welcome to come along anytime to share and exchange ideas. No real agenda is set and it will be up to you to determine the focus for the sessions, grow your learning, network and have fun!
To check out what happened in Wellington and to register your interest for future “unconferences”, go to the following sites:
- Wellington : Saturday, 21st May, 10am-3pm
- Tai Tokerau : Saturday, 2nd July, 10am-3pm
- Auckland : Saturday, 6th August, 10am-3pm
- Tauranga : Saturday 13th August, 10am-3pm
To find out what happened last year, check out Fiona Grant's video of the day .
The inaugural Emerging Leaders' Symposium also took place in the April holidays. This will be followed up by an Ignite Evening which will take place at Albany Senior High School on Wednesday 6th July at 6:30pm. Drinks and nibbles provided. All welcome.
What is Ignite? Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes. It's fast; it's furious; it's fun.
Three things for you to do:
- Register here to secure your place.
- Forward this email to other emerging leaders in education you know.
- Visit http://igniteshow.com/ to learn more about ignite talks.
Also ULEARN11 is on in the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua. CORE Education is working hard to ensure Ulearn11 will continue as normal this year. . Start planning your attendance. Check out all the details here .
Regards
Claire Amos
Facilitator: ICTs in English community
ESOL Online
Primary ESOL
Kia ora and welcome from Gaylene Price
This month we have had interesting discussion on Primary ESOL Online about authentic listening tasks to support making a ‘best fit’ on the English Language Learning Progressions. Recent references to material for supporting understanding additional language acquisition have also been highlighted.
- The Ontario Ministry of Education site has a focus on improved outcomes for students through their capacity building papers including, ‘ELL voices in the classroom’ and 'Let’s talk about listening'.
- NALDIC (National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum) has a focus on English as an Additional Language in schools in the UK. Looking under ‘events’ then ‘conference reports’ uncovered recent presentations from Pauline Gibbons and Ofelia Garcia.
National Standards support materials for parents
Resources to help support parents with understanding National Standards are available.
These include:
- A snapshot of the New Zealand curriculum - Hard copy poster
- Supporting Your Child’s Learning – foldouts that are available in hard copy or pdf format to download
- Supporting Your Child’s Learning – translated booklets – available in 14 languages in hardcopy or pdf format to download
- How Well is My Child Doing?- leaflets available in 16 languages that explain ELLP and National Standards - in hardcopy or pdf format to download
- Resources to Support the New Zealand Curriculum National Standards – A wall chart showing all available resources - pdf format to download
The English Language Learning Progressions new ‘Reporting’ modules
There are professional learning modules available on ESOL Online with information about the monitoring, tracking and reporting of English language learners’ progress. There is a series of modules - An Introduction, Oral Language, Writing, Reading and two new modules, Reporting to Parents (primary and secondary) recently added. Each module is designed for self access and steps teachers through key information. You can work through them individually, with a colleague, or as a whole team. Each module has an additional page at the end designed for school leaders who may be designing ELLP PD across their school.
Kind regards,
Gaylene Price
Facilitator: Primary ESOL community
Secondary ESOL
Kia ora and welcome from Breda Matthews
This month on ESOL Online has seen discussions of a wide range of topics including:
- The new EAP standards
- ESOL unit standards assessments and resources
- Links to the free e-asTTle seminars
- Clarification of the literacy and numeracy requirements for NCEA Level 1
- New NQF level descriptors
- ELLP online modules
- Using ELLP and Kamar to track and report on student progress
AKTESOL AGM and meeting
Last week AKTESOL took the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of Dorothy Brown to the field of TESOL. And, of course, Dorothy didn’t waste the opportunity to continue our professional development when she reminded us that the content of our language lessons must be cognitively demanding.
New ways to access Professional Development
The range of online talks and links continue to grow.
EDtalks is a collection of video interviews, discussions and presentations featuring thought leaders, innovative educators and inspirational learners.
This talk from Rose Hipkins considers how key competencies encourage thinking at a deeper level and can change both learning and subject content.
New resources
New summative assessments for the resource ‘Our Changing World’ have gone online. These match the revised ESOL unit standards.
A number of new resources have been uploaded to the Teacher Resource Exchange . They include:
- Useful wordlists and tests overview. An overview of vocabulary levels word lists and tests that includes links to online vocabulary word lists and tests.
- ELLP tracking documents
- Oral language Input
- Oral language Output
- Reading Matrix
- Writing Matrix
- A Diagnostic Reading Tool
Accelerating Writing Progress in Years 7 and 8 is a new resource available on Literacy Online . It has many useful strategies that could be used in an ESOL context.
You may also find the following tool of interest. This text to speech tool allows you to type in text and select an accent. The avatar will then read the text. Students can use this to practise pronunciation and longer chunks of formulaic texts. Choose your accent carefully as some are better than others
Community resources and links
- A new book Beyond the Dark Journey written by eight young former refugees who share their stories including their experiences of settling into Aotearoa New Zealand. If you want to purchase a copy visit the WNRAS website .
- Samoan Language Week runs from 1st – 7th June and the Human Rights Commission has details in both Samoan and English, scroll down the page for the English text
- World Refugee Day is on Monday, 20th June with events around the country.
Kind regards,
Breda Mathews
Facilitator: Secondary ESOL community
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