NJ Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/
NJ Bilingual Educators

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Bilingual Secondary ESL

October Testing and Teacher Flexibility

By Janet Kaback

Welcome back to a new school year! As always, we, as educators, know that the year will be filled with students requiring our help and nurturing, administrators with more requirements and observations for us, tests and more tests, and whatever else comes our way. If nothing else, once you enter the field of education, you learn how to become flexible and adaptable, to be able to work with whatever you have—students, materials, people, physical environment, etc.—, and to change it all around without notice!

By the time that you read this, the fall administration of the HSPA scheduled for October 5th, 6th, and 7th has taken place. There is a new window for the AHSA, which is scheduled in the latter part of November, before the HSPA results come back from the state.

The NJDOE has a fantastic website search engine for the Core Curriculum Content Standards. All you do is select the search criteria: the subject from the pull down menu and insert the topic you are teaching and…voila! The search engine finds your CCCS for you!

It makes writing lesson plans a cinch except that the WIDA/ACCESS standards are not found here. Here is the link to the contents page. This link is a direct connection to the WIDA standards.

Visiting China

This summer, I traveled with friends to Hong Kong to present at the Learning Conference. This was held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Most of the attendees were university instructors from different countries seeking to change their methods of instruction in order to meet the needs of their students. This requires a completely different approach from the lecture format to which they have been accustomed. Pilar Veru and I presented “Instructional Strategies for Delivering Content and Curriculum,” a presentation we had delivered at one of the NJTESOL/NJBE Inc. conferences. Our hands-on, practical approach, research-based strategies and practices were very well received. It was an interesting experience, especially when some workshop attendees began taking snapshots of some of the slides in our presentation! (I have learned that I will request that this not be done in the future.)

From Hong Kong we flew to Beijing, a very crowded, up-and-coming city. We landed and had to find a taxi in a horrible rainstorm – three of us with our suitcases! Most of the taxis are small and we could not fit into one. And we had a lot of difficulty finding one because we were soaking wet! Taxis are very independent and the drivers did not want to get the inside of their cabs wet. We saw the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square (what an experience for me as I remember the demonstrations there!), the shopping: you can purchase a knock-off of anything you have ever wanted! The Bird’s Nest Stadium where they held the Olympics, a silk factory, a tea plantation, and so much more. The one site that affected me most was climbing the Great Wall. I can cross off this item on my bucket list now. This was one of my lifelong dreams – to climb the Great Wall of China. The construction of the wall is a marvel; it took 1,000 years to build. Viewing it and reflecting on this really made an impression: this is the country that is requiring all schoolchildren to learn English. By 2019, China WILL be the largest English speaking country in the world. I can believe this goal!

Everywhere we went, we had our photos taken with so many Chinese people that I lost count. It is a symbol of prestige for the Chinese people to have their photo taken with a Westerner.

From Beijing, we flew to the South, to Guilin, a completely different climate, environment, and pace of life from the north. We saw the rice being cultivated, not only in sea level paddies, but also in terraced farmlands, by the Jong people. We took a bamboo raft on the Li River and attended a water ballet, choreographed by the same man who choreographed the opening ceremonies for the Olympics in Beijing. We saw a panda and caves and so much more

The people we observed are the same as people everywhere I’ve traveled so far in developing countries. They work very hard; there are the haves and the have-nots. However, in China, I noticed that all of the parents we spoke with have one common dream: to see their children get the best education and opportunities so that they can have a better life than they had.

Now, how do we get our parents here to be more involved in their children’s education?

Janet Kaback is the Bilingual Secondary SIG Representative and submitted the photos from her trip to China. She teaches in Newark.

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Early Childhood

Tests, Tests, and More Tests

By Sandee McBride

There has been a lot of discussion on our Hotlist regarding the various testing instruments used in our school districts. Our state assessment, the ACCESS, is our secure test instrument administered only during a specific testing window each spring. In the past, scores have been delivered to the districts sometime late in the summer. These scores are just one factor used to make exiting decisions. Districts in New Jersey are able to use multiple exit criteria which may include report card grades, classroom performance, the input of the ESL, bilingual, and classroom teachers, the administrators and parents, etc.

The W-APT, the Model, IPT, LAS, and MAC II may be used to screen new students for eligibility into ESL/bilingual programs. The W-APT has been revised at specific grade levels, so you may want to be sure to use the most recent edition, which is closely aligned to the ACCESS. Both WIDA and the NJDOE have websites with information dealing with the tests and the established cutoffs. In addition, workshops are periodically offered through the state department to assist teachers working with these tests.

At the preschool level, the only assessment necessary is the Home Language Survey, a copy of which is available here, where you can also find the following information:

“The home language survey should be included at the time of registration for families whose first language is other than English. Any child who speaks a language other than English at home is considered an English language learner, in need of home language supports, even if he or she understands and speaks some English. It should be completed by the primary caregiver (with translators available, if and when needed). It is designed to help school administrators and teachers know how to best support the child and families. The home language survey should be followed up with an individual conversation between the teacher and the primary caregivers to develop a better understanding of the child’s home language environment; and to help families understand the school district’s linguistic goals for the families.”

Sandee McBride is the Early Childhood Co-Representative ESL Teacher Grades K-Higher Ed.

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ESL Elementary Grades 1-5

Learning a New Language, Learning About a New Land

By Noreen Drucker

On a cold, gray January morning, over thirty years ago, I found myself saying goodbye to my parents and friends at JFK airport. I was leaving for Costa Rica to spend the last semester of my college career at the university of Costa Rica. At 20 years old, I went of my own free will, to improve my Spanish so that I could eventually teach in a bilingual program in the metropolitan area. I was apprehensive, yet excited. Leaving behind a culture I had known for decades, the only language I was comfortable using and the warmth of my friends and family was so very frightening that I almost refused to get on the plane.

But I did get on that plane. I went to Costa Rica to learn, to explore, and to find out how people lived in an- other part of the world. My motives might have been different, and certainly I was older than the students in our classes today, but I am sure that the feelings and experiences I had then paralleled some of theirs today.

I was armed with almost 4 years of college Spanish, and had read Don Quixote and El Cid. I had taken all of the required courses including advanced Spanish conversation and composition. My Spanish grammar was impeccable. But it wasn’t good enough. Imagine my surprise when I first tried to communicate in Spanish. This is what I heard after “Buenos dias. como estas?”

“Mae! Como sos vos? Queres jalar conmigo a tomarnos un yodo?”*

Mae??? I had never seen that word in Spanish in all my readings. Vos?? Who was that? It looked like a shortened form of vosotros, but the verb that followed it querer was conjugated in a form that did not match the second person plural. And just what was a yodo and where or why was I taking it???

*Fool! What do you look like? Do you want to come with me and have coffee?

I was trying to understand words that were intrinsic to Costa Rica: words that resided not only in their lexicon, but in their culture. Words that explained them, their society, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their unique outlook on life.

Our students go through this type of experience on a daily basis. Some of them may come from international schools in Brazil where they have been taking English classes since preschool. Some might come from a bilingual school in Ecuador where they studied English daily and knew many grammatical forms and had a broad vocabulary. others may come from government schools, as is the case in Costa Rica, where English is taught, albeit sparingly.

Then one day these students wake up and find out that their parents have brought them to America and they must learn to use whatever English they have. A rude awakening if there ever was one.

In English, vocabulary words have many meanings, and they vary depending on the region one finds himself: A Coke is a Pepsi is a soda is a pop.

Colloquialisms change verb forms and create new pronouns. What ya doin’ is a perfect example, especially after we just finished teaching the be+ing form. And then there is the ubiquitous senseless expression in English, such as DEAD END. (By the way, in Spanish, a road without an exit is exactly that…una calle sin salida.) We can easily see the obstacles so many of our students face.

As we start a new year let us try to remember just how difficult learning English can be and remind our colleagues about the struggles the ELL is facing, not only in learning our language, but also in learning about those who speak it.

Noreen Drucker is the ESL Elementary Grades 1-5 Representative for NJTESOL/NJBE. She teaches in Randolph Township.

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ESL Middle School 6 – 8

Born in America

By Tina Kern

Teachers of ELLs are magicians. We enter a class of students at various levels and grades and, with our hard work, techniques, and other “bag of tricks,” we change a group of students with beginning English skills into participating members of our school community. Poof! But it’s not easy. We must adjust our lessons for various learning styles, levels of proficiency, and the occasional reluctant learner. We must remain vigilant for learning problems and be the expert who differentiates between language in- interference and other types of challenges. We are the ones – or the one – in the school who must have, or be able to find, the answer for any situation involving our students.

Many things have changed since the first ESL teachers marched to the challenge of the newly formed classroom for English language learners. remember the newly arrived student who first learned survival language while modeling correct pronunciation in our classrooms? Book companies in the United States quickly – too quickly – published the latest “ultimate” book for the new ESL teachers, some of which contained translated stories which were so inappropriate for our newly arrived English learners. I remember sending for a group of Laidlaw readers from Puerto Rico because there was nothing available for these children to read in Spanish.

Now consider the population in our classrooms today, the teaching methods, and thrust of our programs. Curriculum has changed, content area has gained new prominence in ESL programs, and buzz words in “regular” classrooms have infiltrated our vocabulary, too. Surprisingly, our inclusion in staff development sessions has grown out of the failure of our students to learn English at the speed of light that many politicians think our students can acquire language. Can these policy-makers learn a new language in a year or less and then pass a state or federal test showing content area proficiency?

Now look around your district. I have had the opportunity to visit and speak to professionals and students in many different schools in our district. When i pose the question, “How many years has this student been in this school?” i am often told that this student, and that one, and the other one there, have all been born here in the United States. They were born in the local hospital. That is another dynamic in our ESL programs. We need to think about this population: the American born ELL.

This group of ELLs wants to fit socially into the school environment and American society. The parents know that education is the key to economic success. There might be a legality issue for the parents, which impacts on the students, too. What is happening to the identity of the student? How do they view their heritage? Do they want to maintain their parents’ language? How does this affect their education and their performance in our classrooms?

Let’s turn our attention to the language, to the deep structures beneath the social language. Does this student have the ability to participate in content area study successfully? Even though, as the regular classroom teacher attests, these students can speak English as well as the other students in the homeroom, have they learned and retained the content area vocabulary and skills necessary to progress successfully in all classes, without ESL instruction?

Consider the beginning of a student’s life. He [or she] began life immersed in his parents’ home language. He lives in an environment that mirrors the ideas, values, and culture of his parents. When this child enters school, often without any exposure to American culture and/or language, he begins his first formal English lessons. If he knows some English, it is conversational and usually rife with errors.

As this child grows and progresses from one grade to another, he becomes familiar with playground language, and speaks almost accent free. yet he still needs and is eligible for ESL classes. This child, our American born ELL, has become a new challenge. The program we design for this child has many earmarks of our ESL instruction, but needs the remediation and skills designed for the Basic Skills student. We must think about the needs of this student and how we can design and tailor lessons for him. This child needs our sensitivity, our expertise, and our flexibility.

At the elementary level, this is your student who speaks English well, yet struggles in reading, writing, and other content classes. At the middle school level, this is the student who might be exited from the pro- gram, but fails to participate fully and successfully in his first middle school content area class. He might act out finding the history book difficult, and, thus, not fare well on projects and tests.

We must be vigilant of the students that fit this profile, the student that “graduated” from the elementary curriculum, but cannot manage the stressful rich vocabulary and structure in content-area texts. We must strengthen our communication with the elementary schools and create a network with which to identify and support these students before they enter the middle school, and before they are doomed to lower level classes at the high school level. They may become drop-outs. When we dialogue about ESL programs, we must be inclusive of a variety of issues and students that do not conform to any one category of learner. Being a teacher of ELLs has become more complex and more challenging – and that fills me with energy- as I search continually for new answers and possibilities that might reach one of my “new” students. Something is sure: i am never bored! and that makes all the difference!

Tina Kern is the ESL Middle School SIG Representative. She teaches in the Morris School District.

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ESL Secondary

Moving from Isolation to Involvement to Rejuvenation

By Christina Namendorf

I live and work in Middlesex County as a secondary ESL teacher in a district with a small ESL population. I felt isolated and alone working as the only high school ESL teacher with no advice or guidance from anyone. Then I received an email from the Middlesex County Chapter of NJTESOL-NJBE. I decided to attend and see what it was all about. Since then, I have made many friends and connections in the ESL and bilingual community who have greatly helped me to be more successful in my teaching. I even became an active member of the larger NJTESOL-NJBE community by serving on the NJTESOL- NJBE executive board as the Secondary ESL Representative. Getting involved in this organization has rejuvenated my professional goals.

If you live or work in Middlesex County as an ESL or bilingual teacher or supervisor, I strongly recommend that you attend a meeting this year. The meeting location varies but is often held in Perth Amboy. The meetings are hosted from 4 pm to 6 pm and refreshments are served. You also receive professional development hours. The topics truly help to inform and inspire us to not only teach our students but to in- spire and empower them. To me, the most vital part of these meetings is having a chance to speak with other ESL and bilingual teachers and discuss my own struggles and successes.

I even presented at the Middlesex County chapter meeting in October which was held at the Middlesex County Vocational School in Perth Amboy. This presentation was about Enhancing ELL Instruction with Free Technology Resources. If you are looking for some new ideas and information to bring back to your district, the Middlesex County chapter or any chapter of NJTESOL-NJBE meetings should not be missed! The meetings are advertised on the NJTESOL-NJBE hotlist, but if you have any questions, comments, or concerns or would like to present at one of the Middlesex County meetings, please email the Middlesex County Co-Chairs.

[Ed. Note.: See Chapter Listings for a NJTESOL-NJBE chapter near you.]

Christina Namendorf is the Secondary ESL SIG Representative. She teaches ESL and English for ELLs at Sayreville War Memorial High School in Sayreville, New Jersey.

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Higher Education

Rethinking Good Study Habits

By Marianne Hsu Santelli

In a September 7, 2010 Science Times article in the New York Times, Benedict Carey reported on research conducted by Dr. Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at UCLA. The article, Forget What You Know about Good Study Habits, presents an argument against well-held beliefs that you need to study in a quiet, well-lit room or area. In fact, what Dr. Bjork found was that when students changed the room in which they studied, the information they were learning was retained longer in part because of the changed environment.

Two groups of college students were given the same list of 40 vocabulary words to learn; one group studied the words in two different rooms and the other remained in the same room and studied the vocabulary twice. The results showed that students who had learned the vocabulary in two different rooms did much better in later tests of recall. This experiment was later duplicated, and in fields other than English.

When the outside context is changed, for example, the room, that change seems to provide a kind of “neural scaffolding.” Just as scaffolding provides support activities that are eventually removed in our lessons, “neural scaffolding provides [our brains] the multiple associations” (support) of the target learning. “When the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” Bjork said. Changing context increases accessibility.

The Science Times article continues by citing the work of Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor at the University of South Florida who found that fourth graders formed deeper associations when the target information taught varied in one sitting. In the online journal, Applied Cognitive Psychology, they reported that “alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language” [in a lesson] rather than focusing on a single skill in a given class, students retained more later. Furthermore, these students were better able to transfer what they had learned to new learning experiences in different areas. The implication for our classrooms is to rethink our teaching grammar or reading or writing or speaking in isolation of each other as discrete units of language in separate classes or in isolated environments. We have often taught this way with the belief that some miracle of language happens and that somehow everything comes together for our students in the future.

Motivation and focus remain important factors in learning. What if motivation and focus were also improved by increasing multiple associations? Developing learning communities is another related strategy to provide multiple associations; linking courses is still another. Approaches like these allow students to see a bigger picture than an isolated grammar class or an isolated reading class allows. If multiple associations have shown to increase “neural scaffolds,” so that students are better able to retain more and transfer more to other learning situations, then varying the learning environment and alternating the presentation may be well worth our time.

Marianne Hsu Santelli is the Higher Education SIG Representative. She teaches at Middlesex County College.

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Socio-Political Concerns

We’re Not Waiting for Superman—We’re Too Busy Teaching

By Jory Samkoff

“The film dismisses with a side comment the inconvenient truth that our schools are crim inally underfunded. Money’s not the answer, it glibly declares. Nor does it suggest that students would have better outcomes if their communities had jobs, health care, decent housing, and a living wage. Particularly dishonest is the fact that Guggenheim [the director] never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children’s Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to.”— Rick Ayers, Education Professor at the University of San Francisco

The poster shows a little blonde girl, sitting at her desk, raising her hand, surrounded by destroyed buildings after some sort of apocalyptic event. a little dramatic? I think so, but the movie poster for the film “Waiting for Superman” definitely caught my attention. my original plan was to boycott this new film that had been creating a lot of buzz, not just in the education world, but among non educators and in homes throughout america alike. Then, I realized that I needed to be able to respond to people who believed the hype, so I went to see it. as Diane Ravitch points out in her article “The Myth of Charter Schools,” this was the first documentary on education to stir up conversations not just among educators and politicians, but to also generate discussion around the water cooler.

“Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim of “An Inconvenient Truth” fame has done his best to paint the american education system in the worst light possible. Unfortunately, non-educators who do not take the time to do a little research about the real, complex factors at play in the american education system—factors that Guggenheim chooses to ignore, will walk away with an unfavorable view of teachers and the unions that protect us from the injustices that non-union workers face. In this film, Guggenheim takes aim at educators and teachers’ unions, portraying educators as uncaring and lazy people who are only out to collect a paycheck as student after student falls through the cracks in our broken education system. all the more ironic, Guggenheim does not interview a single teacher throughout the entire film.

The most unfortunate aspect of this film is that the broader issues that affect students’school performance are ignored and solutions to them are not discussed. In addition to those dynamics quoted above by Rick Ayers, other factors include, but are not limited to: the socio-economic status and literacy levels of the families who live within a school district, problems such as drug/alcohol use in the community, degree of access to social services, and crime rates. If Guggenheim were really concerned with the quality of the american school system, he would look into ways to address these larger issues that extend way beyond the walls of the school, focusing on what steps can be taken to improve the well-being of families that live within a given community.

In addition to these external factors that play a role in student achievement, Guggenheim also chooses to ignore the factors that exist within a school itself that impact student performance. many studies have shown that reducing class size is an important variable affecting student achievement (Pritchard, 1999; Ehrenberg, Brewer, Gamoran, & Willms, 2001; Cohen, Miller, Stonehill, & Geddes, 2000). However, this is never mentioned in the film. Instead, Guggenheim takes the “If only we could be more like China/Singapore/Finland in their approach to education” point of view. Every time I hear our education system being compared to that of other countries, I have to shake my head! The demographics of the United States are unique and while many countries simply allow students who are learning the language of the country or who have learning problems to slip through the cracks, the american system has programs in place to help these students succeed, upheld legally by the legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education act (IDEA) and the Bilingual Education Act. These same students who have access to a free, public education here in the US might be pushed to the side in some other educational systems.

In 102 minutes, Guggenheim succeeded in rounding up many of the stereotypes and other fallacies that exist about the education system of the United States and perpetuating them on the big screen. on behalf of our profession, and more importantly, on behalf of the communities that we serve, we need to dispel these unfair portrayals by speaking up and by letting legislators and community members know that we are not waiting for superman…we’re too busy teaching!

Jory Samkoff is Socio-political Concerns Representative for NJTESOL/NJBE and an ESL teacher in Clifton, NJ. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate.

Editor’s Note, August 2024: The links listed below do not work anymore.

Sources:

Cohen, G., Miller, C., Stonehill, R. & Geddes, C. (2000). The class size reduction program: Boosting student achievement across the nation. The U.S. Department of Education. Jessup, MD: Editorial Publications.

Ehrenberg, R.G., Brewer, D.J., Gamoran, a., & Willms, J.D. (2001). Class size and student achievement. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 2: 1-30.

Pritchard, I. (1999). Reducing class size: What do we know? Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved on October 15, 2010 from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/reducingClass/title.html

Ravitch, D. (2010). The Myth of Charter Schools. The New York Review of Books. retrieved on October 15, 2010 from http://www.ny-books.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/

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Special Education

Special Education Students Returning to Local School Districts

By Dave Greer

It is no secret that New Jersey has often taken advantage of many specialized and private schools to help meet the needs of learning disabled (LD) students. Specialized schools are often better equipped to meet individual needs for students with low-incidence disabilities*. a search of the New Jersey State Department of education website yields data maintaining that in 2008, close to 10 % of classified students were in out-of-district placements. However, for myriad reasons, students are returning to local districts in record numbers. This change in location of schooling can be seen in both a positive and a negative light. One positive is that New Jersey is moving in a direction of inclusive education. LD students will be educated in classrooms with their local peers and will be able to attend neighborhood schools. On the negative side, parents often question the quality of services that the local school district can supply. as English language learner (ELL) educators, we need to keep abreast of which students in our districts might be classified LD and in need of English language services. Unfortunately, there is no single way of helping students that are both ELL and LD. However, there are a few steps that can be taken to help facilitate welcoming these specialized students back into local schools. First, teachers of ELLs should contact the Special Services department to facilitate a positive working environment and to help discover all necessary information. Second, time should be created for both departments (ELL and Special education) to meet and plan appropriate lessons and describe a typical day of teaching. Oftentimes, special educators have not had much exposure to second language acquisition methods. Conversely, many teachers of ELLs do not have much exposure to working with students with specific special education needs. Finally, teachers of ELLs should try to engage in regular conversations with other members of the Child Study Team to learn more about the specific learning disability that a particular student might have and methodologies that will work best for the student. These few simple recommendations could help a teacher understand more about LD students and how to best meet the educational needs of all students in the English language classroom.

*Some examples of low incidence disabilities are: Deaf-Blindness, Auditory Impairment, Visual Impairment, Orthopedic Impairment, Traumatic Brain Injury, Cognitively Impaired, and Other Health Impaired.

*Some examples of high incidence disabilities are: Emotionally/Behaviorally Disturbed, Communication Impaired, Specific Learning Disability, Autism, Dyslexia, and ADHD.

Dave Greer teaches ESL and World Languages in the Westfield School District.

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Supervisors

A Disturbing Trend in NJ Education

By Regina Postogna

English language learners (ELLs) are entitled to receive a through and efficient education. However, as of the 2010-2011 school year, there is a disturbing trend occurring in public education in the State of New Jersey. This trend is the abolishment of bilingual/ESL supervisor positions and content supervisor positions. Bilingual programs are now being run by many administrators who are not highly qualified in this field. There has been a noticeable increase in the questions from teachers regarding the running of bilingual and ESL programs in their districts.

Many of our ELL students attend schools in the former Abbott districts where the role of Early Childhood Supervisor is a mandated position. However bilingual/ESL supervisor positions are not, therefore, districts have felt free to abolish them. They assign the administrative functions to administrators who are not certified in bilingual education or ESL and do not speak a second language. This may lead to unfair evaluations of bilingual/ESL teachers because of a lack of knowledge on the part of these administrators. Some districts have chosen to abolish the supervisor position and replace it with bilingual coaches who are teachers and, therefore, cannot formally evaluate staff. This is a serious concern because without bilingual/ESL supervisors or administrators the fidelity of implementation of bilingual programs may be compromised.

If a district does not have a bilingual/ESL supervisor, at least one of their administrators needs to be certified in bilingual/bicultural education or ESL. This administrator would also supervise the bilingual/ESL program in the district and formally evaluate its staff. Examples of administrative positions that have not been abolished in most districts are superintendents, directors, principals, and vice principals.

A mandate that all districts be required to have a minimum of one administrator certified in bilingual/bicultural education and or English as a Second Language (ESL) would remedy the situation.

Regina M. Postogna, is an adjunct professor at Kean and Monmouth Universities, (C & I Departments). She is the Supervisors’ SIG Representative.

Supervisors

Regina Postogna Wins Scholarship Award

On August 8th aboard the “River Belle” during the Nova Southeastern University Alumni outing, Regina Postogna, NJTESOL/NJBE’s Supervisors’ SIG Representative, received the Dr. Metrey Scholarship. This award is given in doctoral studies toward an Ed. D. in Educational Leadership. Ms. Postogna had written an essay about how she would support women in educational administration. To her delight hers was selected as the winner. She looks forward to the opportunity to mentor other women in leadership roles.

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Teacher Education

An Interview with Dr. Linda Best, Director of the Kean University Writing Project

By Gail Verdi

The Kean University Writing Project (KUWP) under the direction of Dr. Linda Best of the English Department was awarded National Writing Project (NWP) status in 2008. I have been fortunate to work with Dr. Best and the other teachers and faculty associated with the program. I thought it would be beneficial to introduce KUWP to the members of our NJTESOL/NJBE community. Therefore, I interviewed Dr. Best to learn more about the process of applying to NWP, the approach to writing that teachers experience when they become involved in the project, and the impact this form of professional development has on both native and non-native speakers of English. This piece is based on a transcript from our conversation:

What is the National Writing Project?

The National Writing Project was founded in 1974 at the University of California, Berkeley. It is the largest and most effective professional development organization for teachers in the United States. Its mission is to support teacher writing and the teaching of writing. It has over 200 sites in the United States. Although its mission is significant in that it sustains teachers and their work with writing, what is more important is the delivery method used at the National Writing Project. Often when we think about writing, we tend to think about the features of writing that are troublesome to us in an academic environment. We focus on errors students make, and we view writing as a product. The National Writing Project helps teachers view it as more process oriented. Both teachers and their students are immersed in writing. They learn to use writing for multiple purposes, and to navigate multiple genres. Finally, NWP encourages teachers to use writing to affirm students’ identities, first languages, and home cultures.

What does it mean to be a National Writing Project site?

Consistently, at sites throughout the United States, the NWP model has proven highly successful in sup porting the achievement of students of all backgrounds, and all different levels. It also plays a significant role in supporting teacher writing because many teachers would say, “I have never really studied the writing process,” “I’m not sure I feel comfortable talking about writing when I don’t really know it as an entity itself.” In being part of the Kean University Writing Project, you engage in writing. NWP sites direct teachers to engage in writing, to think about their own writing and the teaching of writing through a strong teacher-centered collaborative model. In a sample Writing Project activity, one of the first things you do is to jot down some ideas or to jot down some questions. Rather than being directed to use the latest professional development tool, participants in the Kean University Writing Project engage in writing to learn, and they become very aware of writing as a process, its nature, what supports it best, what materials work best, and as a result they become better teachers of writing.

How did Kean University become a site?

A university is a host for the Writing Project and the university applies to be a member and has to meet certain criteria. It has to have university financial support. It has to have a team of specialists in writing. It has to have school districts in the region that are interested in being partners. Kean began the process of becoming an NWP site by filing a comprehensive application. Not everyone is approved. The university had to commit to working within the NWP model, and had to prove that it valued a process model of writing. Once approved, the first requirement was to hold a summer institute, which is actually an annual institute. Throughout the United States, at every site anywhere between ten and twenty teachers will work for four weeks in the summer and they will do the things that I am talking about today. They spend every day during the institute engaging in writing. Participants talk about writing and talk about student writing. They will look at student writing. They look at methodology and materials, etc., and they will be transformed by it. Every summer in the United States, thousands of teachers participate in this type of program. Kean is no different; it has had three summer institutes already. Invitations for summer 2011 are being sent out now.

How would the KUWP Summer institute benefit teachers that work with English language learners (ELLs)?

Given the demographics of schools in our region, ELLs make up the population with which Kean’s Writing Project is most concerned. If we revisit my opening comments about teachers typically looking at writing as a product, we might recognize how often we fixate on this with ELLs. Many teachers continue to focus on the surface of writing rather than the depth of thought and the ideas that develop through the act of writing. At the KUWP Summer Institute, we ask teachers to delay focusing on grammar, so that they can help students to use writing as a tool for thinking and learning. Other questions that we consider every summer in our community of practice are: “How can we reduce anxiety about language in a population that is probably over pressured in language development and in writing? How do we build a comfort level?” As KUWP coaches, we encourage teachers of second language learners to affirm the voices of the students, and also respect the level of oral proficiency their students have acquired. We also recognize they don’t come to us as blank slates, and that they have a great deal of knowledge and experience that they want to share. Consequently, in order to better prepare ourselves to work with teachers of ELLs; we have become affiliated with two networks that are very important. One is the ELL Network and the other is the Urban Sites Network; each of these networks brings sites together with the same demographics: we had the opportunity to work with sites in Los Angeles and in Louisville. Kentucky.

What are some of the lessons you learned about working with second language learners by visiting sites and schools in Los Angeles and Louisville?

Well, first of all, I noticed that the classrooms with English language learners were very stimulating, in terms of materials that would evoke thinking – pictures, pictures that could be placed in sequence, galleries where children could post pictures and tell stories about the pictures and speak and write. I observed children taking notes while other children are talking, generating words, and generating text. I also recognized that these young authors were confident writers. They were using writing and speaking for real purposes. They weren’t filling in blanks or learning grammar in isolation. In terms of reading, sometimes they limited them- selves to one or two pages of a particular book or a particular story. They read through it. They talked about the sequence of the story. They talked about the words. They had children offer other words that could change the meaning a little bit. They had children building stories, using English, and not feeling stressed or pressed to fit a particular mold or to worry about grammar, to worry about spelling. They were just producing, enjoying and sharing, and that is a very positive experience. In addition to that we belong to the Urban Sites Network. The Urban Sites Network has a lot in common with the ELL Network because in many cases it is the same institutions share the needs. But the Urban Sites Network focuses on Urban Education, so this is a little bit different because it isn’t looking precisely at the language learners, it is looking more at the structure of education.

What are the issues in Urban Education? How does Urban Education differ from Rural Education? What are the logistics, the residential logistics of getting to school? What are some the issues with working parent? So we look at both the framework and then the children themselves. What the Urban Sites Network has showed us is that there are a lot of policies and practices and security issues that surround ELLs learning.

What are some ways teachers or schools have gotten involved in KUWP?

We have very exciting relationships with twelve different school districts in the region: we go to the schools, we provide in-service training, teachers come here for workshops, and teachers attend the summer institute. Typically, the teachers that attend the summer institute become coaches in their schools, and some become members of the KUWP staff at Kean. We have also developed a Master’s Program in Writing Studies that includes rigorous study in the writing process that looks into different topics relevant to all learners such as digital literacy, assessment, and working with ELLs. Once someone becomes affiliated with NWP, we provide certificates and professional development hours. This is our fourth year as members of the National Writing Project. We continue to do school visits, school observations, mentoring, coaching, in-service programs, our summer institute, and we look forward to establishing a youth program. In the future, we will have summer writing programs for children who would like to come and develop and practice their writing skills, write detective stories, or take on the role of journalist for two weeks. We are about writing and we support writing both for children and for teachers.

You can visit the Kean University Writing Project Website here.

Gail Verdi is the Teacher Education SIG Representative.

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