Use the Sandwich Paragraph Writing Strategy

How to use the sandwich paragraph writing strategy to help elementary students write complete paragraphs with a topic sentence, details and a closing sentence.

The sandwich paragraph writing strategy utilizes a concrete graphic organizer to help students learn to write a complete paragraph with a topic sentence, details, and a closing sentence. The sandwich visual helps students organize their thoughts by providing them with a formula for writing.

This strategy can be taught as a whole class writing lesson, a writing workshop mini-lesson, or as remediation for those who struggle with writing. The bread in the sandwich represents the topic and closing sentences, while the details are represented as the fillings. While using this strategy, students will construct and deconstruct paragraphs to examine and internalize the process of writing a complete paragraph.

Read more »

Pendidikan Nasional Telah Kehilangan Roh

Pendidikan nasional telah kehilangan roh karena ditinggalkannya fungsi character and nation building dan hanya mengejar perkembangan intelektualitas saja.

Mantan KASAD Jenderal TNI (Purn) Tyasno Sudarto mengatakan hal itu pada orasi Dies Natalis XXIX UNiversitas Slamet Riyadi Surakarta (Unisri) di Kampus Kadipiro, Solo, Sabtu.

"Anak didik sekarang dicetak menjadi robot-robot pintar, atau pekerja-pekerja intelektual bahkan kuli-kuli produktif saja. Perkembangan bakat dan kepribadian serta budi pekertinya dikesampingkan," kata Tyasno.

Read more »

TEACHING MODELS

Teaching models prescribe tested steps and procedures to effectively generate desired outcomes. In general, models can be classified along a continuum from instructor-directed, to student-instructor negotiated, to student-directed .

To help you choose a model, you should know that instructor-directed models are the norm for college campuses, and are criticized for not actively involving students and for often failing to challenge students to think at high levels (e.g., analysis, synthesis, evaluation). Student-directed models require considerably more interest and effort from the students and are criticized for consuming a lot of class time to cover smaller amounts of information at greater depths. A greater chance exists for higher-level thinking via student-directed models, however. Social models provide a common ground between the two extremes.

Read more »

CHANGING YOUR HABITS IS EFFECTIVE TO IMPROVE YOUR MOTIVATION FOR ENGLISH

All non English speaking students in all over the world learn how to speak English well. The problem is; most of them do not know what their motivations exactly are. As the result, they get lost and gain their goal slowly, and even worst they got nothing. There are varieties causes of these problems. The less qualified teachers, lack of books and study materials, less supported environment, less self-confidence, and unsupported friends are probably cause this problem. However, students’ selves confidences is the most influential thing that need to be increased. The rest of this essay will describe you some good habits as suggested strategies which effective to improve motivation for English.
First, imagine you can talk to native speakers just as you talk in Indonesian. You know that all people around you, especially your schoolmates, wanted to have good English. Therefore, I expect you to talk to them in English like the way you talk in your first language. You also need to believe in your ability and realize that you have already well in English. You have already learnt English since you were in Elementary School that means you have already known English. All that you need to do is pushing your self to use it as often as possible. More you use English, more your skills improve. Besides increase yours, using English more often also helps to improve your schoolmate English too. In short, you should try to speak in English as often as possible.

The next strategy that you should do is talk to people about English. This is a very simple method, but it is very effective. Here is how it works: You usually talk about things that interest you. The opposite is true, too. If you start talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it. Imagine you are studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but you have to pass the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two options: you can tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell those people about the things you have learned. If you choose the first option, you will only feel worse. If you choose the second option, and start a conversation on the "boring" subject, you will begin to look at it in a very different way. Suddenly it will become a subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject. As the result, you will begin to like it and learn about it faster and faster.
The third one is try to find friends who also have hard willing to learn English. If you can find a friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill, you will be in an excellent situation: you will have someone to talk about English with. These conversations will increase your interest in English. Learning English will be easier, because you will be able to discuss your problems with your friend. You will study English more, because you will want to be better than your friend is. You should meet your friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or go to the same school as you. If you absolutely cannot find anybody willing to learn English with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse solution: your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to compete with someone who you do not know well. However, making more friends can help you much to increase your willing to learn English.
Next, you need to spend some money for English. If you spend your money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if you buy an expensive football shoes, you will probably go out and play football every day. This rule is also true for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to learn English, buy a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book, English-language magazines, English-language novels, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will want to use it, and you will improve your English. There is a problem with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually lose your desire to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would have to buy something every week. However, this method is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start learning. For example, if you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably learn some words from it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write an e-mail message with these words. This will increase your motivation, and you will learn more.
The last important thing is you have to remember that learning English requires action. We have heard this many times. One small action is more powerful than reading hundreds of articles. We know it is very hard to do things, even if they are good for us. We humans are lazy creatures. That is why not many people speak English well. Still, we hope you can do the things above in your English learning method — not only read about them. You will be successful only if you change something about your life.

Improving Students’ English Ability through Loneliness

Some students have problems to develop their English ability because of less supported environment. They can not focus to the goal in crowded, much noisy, and too many ideas from others. For example, a student can not focus to his / her speaking practice while his / her friends are turning the music loudly. There are some options to solve those problems, one of them is loneliness. Practicing by own self may help us to improve their English ability. The purpose is to concentrate. In other words, students also need to be alone to get more concentration in order to improve their English abilities, such as reading skill, writing skill, listening skill, and, speaking skill.

No body wants to study in such inconvenience place and situation, there are many disadvantages of its. When they write some thing in English, for example, it will be hard for them to manage our ideas because there are also many ideas that should be considered from others. As the result, they might be stuck wasting their time to consider that ideas. Some time they need to be confident and believe in their own decision. They can learn how to make a good decision through loneliness.



Even if they can practice in crowded, it will not work to improve their skills. It is not easy to get concentration in crowded. People’s voices or any attractive events are possible to divert their attention. They may lose their concentration, can not practice well and they will get nothing. They need to take their self to a quiet place and situation; getting alone. When they practice their English skills by their self, they will get more concentration. Concentration is the key to be success to improve English ability. They do not have to be alone all day long, but an hour each day is enough for them. Practice orderly in a supported situation (loneliness) can help them gain their skills.

If they concentrate, the next advantage that they can get from loneliness is a clear mind. They are able to think clearly in a good concentration. The purpose is to make ideas appear faster and brighter, so that they can improve their ability. More concentration can they gain more ideas can they get. For example, ideas can appear when they think clearly and focus to their goal when they try to write something in English. Not in writing only, this theory also works in reading, speaking, and listening, because those things are related each other.






Some students are difficult to speak in front the public or class, they usually refuse when the teacher ask them to speak in English in front the class. It is because of they are ashamed and do not believe in their ability. They are worry about making mistakes because they never know their speech ability. To solve this problem, students should have practiced by their own selves. Practice to speaking by their own self can increase their self confidence, so that they will not be ashamed to speak in front the public or class. The aim of practice speaking alone is to make students common to speak in English.

Loneliness also gives us a chance to look back to our mistakes before. We can take a deep breath and try to remind whole things that make us slower in developing our English ability. After we make a list of those disturbing things, we should arrange a fully organized schedule to avoid them. When we accomplished our goal to avoid mistakes and figured out our problems, we can study, practice, and improve our skills soon.

All students want to have better English ability, they keep trying to solve their problems while studying and practicing. Loneliness is one of helpful methods, it can help student to get more concentration, think clearly, be more confidence, and introspect their mistake. It is very useful in order to improve English skills such as writing, reading, listening, and speaking ability. In other words, students also need to study and practice by their own selves to develop their English skills.

Improving your motivation for learning English

In this article, we share our techniques for improving your motivation for learning English as a foreign language. We used them all the time when we were learning English and we still use them when we need to boost our motivation in areas other than English.

Imagine yourself in the future

Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.

It is helpful to read an article about the advantages of knowing English well. There are two such articles on Antimoon: Why learn English and English makes you feel good.

You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.

Remember that you are already good

You already know some English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success! Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.

Remember there is a lot that you don't know

You are good, but your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.

You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language". Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.

Use your English whenever you can

This is very, very important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.

Because English is so popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Google to find English-language websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in English, or you can do other things that we write about.

If you do these things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can imagine.

Talk to people about English

This is a very simple method, but it is very effective. Here's how it works:

You usually talk about things which interest you. But the opposite is true, too. If you start talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it.

Imagine you are studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but you have to pass the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two options: you can tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell those people about the things you've learned. If you choose the first option, you will only feel worse.

If you choose the second option, and start a conversation on the "boring" subject, you will begin to look at it in a totally different way. Suddenly it will become a subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject.

How can you begin such a conversation? If you're studying English, you can surprise another person by talking to him/her in English. Say (in English): Hi, I'm studying English and I hate it. Or you can say (in your first language): Hey, I've learned 50 English words today. Do you know what's the English word for ...? If there are no people near you, you can telephone or send an e-mail message to your friend.

What will your friends say? Probably they won't be very interested, but it doesn't matter! The important thing is this: After talking about English, you will study it with much more passion. Try it.

Find a friend who is learning English

If you can find a friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill, you will be in an excellent situation:

* you will have someone to talk about English with. These conversations will increase your interest in English, as explained in the previous section.
* learning English will be easier, because you will be able to discuss your problems with your friend.
* you will study English more, because you will want to be better than your friend. :-)

You should meet your friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or go to the same school as you. If you absolutely can't find anybody willing to learn English with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse solution: your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to compete with someone who you don't know well.

Spend some money on learning English

If you spend your money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if you buy an expensive tennis racket, you will probably go out and play tennis every day.

This rule is also true for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to learn English, buy a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book, English-language cable TV, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will want to use it, and you will improve your English.

There is a problem with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually lose your desire to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would have to buy something every week!

However, this method is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start learning. For example, if you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably learn some words from it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write an e-mail message with these words. This will increase your motivation (as explained before), and you will learn more.

Read Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins

Anthony Robbins' book Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement gives excellent advice on how to achieve any kind of goal. This book has changed the lives of many people, so you might want to take a look at it.
Remember that learning English requires action

We have said this many times. One small action is more powerful than reading hundreds of articles. Yes, we know it is very hard to do things, even if they are good for us. We humans are lazy creatures. That is why not many people speak English well.

Still, we hope you can do the things we talk about in our English learning method — not only read about them. You will be successful only if you change something about your life.

Don't put it off. Begin now.

Tag question

A tag question (also: question tag) is a grammatical structure in which a declarative statement or an imperative is turned into a question by adding an interrogative fragment (the "tag"). The term "tag question" is generally preferred by American grammarians, while their British counterparts prefer "question tag".
Forms and uses

In most languages, tag questions are more common in colloquial spoken usage than in formal written usage. They can be an indicator of politeness, emphasis, or irony. They may suggest confidence or lack of confidence; they may be confrontational or tentative. Some examples showing the wide variety of structure possible in English are:
• Open the window, will you?
• She doesn't really want those apples, does she?
• You'd better stop now, hadn't you?
• So you thought it would be a good idea to reprogram the computer, did you?
• It's quite an achievement, isn't it, to win a Nobel prize!
• Oh I must, must I?
• I just adore Beethoven, don't you?
• I'm coming with you, all right?
• You've been there, right?
• Easier said than done, eh?
• You went there, no?

Some languages have a fixed phrase for the tag question, such as Russian не правда ли? (not true?), French n'est-ce pas? ("is it not?") and German nicht wahr? or simply oder?. Standard English tag questions, on the other hand, are constructed afresh for every sentence, and are therefore quite variable: have I? did you? won't we? etc. A similar pattern is found in the Celtic languages. A tag question need not have the grammatical form of a question (will you?); an adverb or adverbial may serve the purpose instead: right? all right? surely? OK? eh? German often uses oder? ("or") and ja? ("yes") as tag questions.

Care should be taken by the confident speaker to make certain that any tag questions are not mistaken for a leading question. The frequency with which Londoners use isn't it sounds strange to American ears and can be mistaken for manipulation.
Tag questions in English

English tag questions, when they have the grammatical form of a question, are atypically complex, because they vary according to four factors: the choice of auxiliary, the negation, the intonation pattern and the emphasis.

Auxiliary

The English tag question is made up of an auxiliary verb and a pronoun. The auxiliary has to agree with the tense, aspect and modality of the verb in the preceding sentence. If the verb is in the perfect tense, for example, the tag question uses has or have; if the verb is in a present progressive form, the tag is formed with am, are, is; if the verb is in a tense which does not normally use an auxiliary, like the present simple, the auxiliary is taken from the emphatic do form; and if the sentence has a modal auxiliary, this is echoed in the tag:
• He's read this book, hasn't he?
• He read this book, didn't he?
• He's reading this book, isn't he?
• He reads a lot of books, doesn't he?
• He'll read this book, won't he?
• He should read this book, shouldn't he?
• He can read this book, can't he?

A special case occurs when the main verb is to be in a simple tense. Here the tag question repeats the main verb, not an auxiliary:
• This is a book, isn't it?
(Not doesn't it?, as the normal rules for present simple would suggest.)

If the main verb is to have, either solution is possible:
• He has a book, hasn't he?
• He has a book, doesn't he?

Negation
English tag questions may contain a negation, but need not. When there is no special emphasis, the rule of thumb often applies that a positive sentence has a negative tag and vice versa:
• She is French, isn't she?
• She's not French, is she?

These are sometimes called "balanced tag questions". However, it has been estimated that in normal conversation, as many as 40%-50%[1] of tags break this rule. "Unbalanced tag questions" (positive to positive or negative to negative) may be used for ironic or confrontational effects:
• Do listen, will you?
• Oh, I'm lazy, am I?
• Jack: I refuse to spend Sunday at your mother's house! Jill: Oh you do, do you? We'll see about that!
• Jack: I just won't go back! Jill: Oh you won't, won't you?
Patterns of negation can show regional variations. In North East Scotland, for example, positive to positive is used when no special effect is desired:
• This pizza's fine, is it? (standard English: This pizza's delicious, isn't it?)

Note the following variations in the negation when the auxiliary is the I form of the copula:
• England (and America, Australia, etc.): Clever, aren't I?
• Scotland/Northern Ireland: Clever, amn't I?
• nonstandard dialects: Clever, ain't I?

Intonation
English tag questions can have a rising or a falling intonation pattern. This is contrasted with Polish, French or German, for example, where all tags rise. As a rule, the English rising pattern is used when soliciting information or motivating an action, that is, when some sort of response is required. Since normal English yes/no questions have rising patterns (e.g. Are you coming?), these tags make a grammatical statement into a real question:
• You're coming, aren't you?
• Do listen, will you?
• Let's have a beer, shall we?

The falling pattern is used to underline a statement. The statement itself ends with a falling pattern, and the tag sounds like an echo, strengthening the pattern. Most English tag questions have this falling pattern.
• He doesn't know what he's doing, does he?
• This is really boring, isn't it?

Sometimes the rising tag goes with the positive to positive pattern to create a confrontational effect:
• He was the best in the class, was he? (rising: the speaker is challenging this thesis, or perhaps expressing surprised interest)
• He was the best in the class, wasn't he? (falling: the speaker holds this opinion)
• Be careful, will you? (rising: expresses irritation)
• Take care, won't you? (falling: expresses concern)
Sometimes the same words may have different patterns depending on the situation or implication.
• You don't remember my name, do you? (rising: expresses surprise)
• You don't remember my name, do you? (falling: expresses amusement or resignation)
• Your name's Mary, isn't it? (rising: expresses uncertainty)
• Your name's Mary, isn't it? (falling: expresses confidence)
It is interesting that as an all-purpose tag the London set-phrase innit (for "isn't it") is only used with falling patterns:
• He doesn't know what he's doing, innit?
• He was the best in the class, innit?

On the other hand, the adverbial tag questions (alright? OK? etc.) are almost always found with rising patterns. An occasional exception is surely.

Emphasis
English tag questions are normally stressed on the verb, but the stress is on the pronoun if there is a change of person.
• I don't like peas, do you?
• I like peas, don't you?
This is often a rising tag (especially when the tag contains no negation), or the intonation pattern may be the typically English fall-rise.
In French, this would be expressed with et toi?, which is also a kind of tag question.

Variant forms
There are a number of variant forms that exist in particular dialects of English. These are generally invariant, regardless of verb, person or negativity.
The tag right? is essentially equivalent to the Spanish ¿verdad?. It is common in a number of dialects across the UK and US.
The tag eh? is of Scottish origin, and can be heard across much of Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and the North-Eastern United States. In Central Scotland (in and around Stirling and Falkirk), this exists in the form eh no? which is again invariant.

False tag in Welsh English
It is often erroneously assumed that Welsh speakers of English use a tag question to make an emphatic statement, eg: Lovely day, isn't it?
However, this is instead a cleft sentence of the form: Lovely day, is in it.
This has its roots in the Welsh language, and this type of cleft features in all extant Celtic languages. The lack of verb at the start of this construction coupled with the lack of rising intonation mark this as distinct from tag questions, which are used in Welsh English in the same manner as the majority of the UK.

Tag questions in the Celtic languages
Like English, the Celtic languages form tag questions by echoing the verb of the main sentence. The Goidelic languages, however, make little or no use of auxiliary verbs, so that it is generally the main verb itself which reappears in the tag. Some examples from Scottish Gaelic:
• Is toil leat fìon, nach toil? - You like wine, don't you?
• Tha i breagha an diugh, nach eil? - It's nice today, isn't it?
• Chunnaic mi e, nach fhaca? - I saw him, didn't I?
(Here, eil and fhaca are dependent forms of the irregular verbs tha and chunnaic.)
In Welsh, a special particle is used to mark tag questions, which are then followed by the inflected form of the verb:
• Mae hi'n bwrw glaw heddiw, on'd ydy? - It's raining today, isn't it?
• Canodd y bobl, on' do? - The people sang, didn't they?
• Doi di yfory, on' doi? - You'll come tomorrow, won't you?

How to write an effective application letter

1. Specifically state what it is that you are applying for or interested in applying for (e.g., the position, appointment, student or other visa, extension on a deadline, loan, credit card, etc.).

2. Identify the reason that you are applying. Be as specific as possible.

3.Give the reasons that you feel you merit or qualify for the position or object/thing you are applying for, if applicable (e.g., your goals, experience, qualifications or accomplishments, positive traits, and so forth).

4.Identify what you hope to accomplish by sending your letter and the action you would like the recipient to take.

5. Indicate the date by which you would like a response to your letter or by which you would like the action to be taken.

6.Refer to any other documents you have included with your letter, such as application or other forms, letters of recommendation, resume, examples of your work, etc.

7.Include a request for any information you would like to be sent, if applicable.

8.Include your contact information, such as e-mail address or phone number where you can most easily be reached and the time(s) when you available for calls, etc.

9.Close your letter by sincerely thanking the person for his/her time or for any assistance he/she can give you.

Schools approved as ESL centers

Some teachers were upset. Some parents were concerned. And some board members feared they hadn't been told the whole story.

But after an emotional discussion, Lawrence's school board gave its final approval to a new policy that would set up Sunflower and Schwegler schools as English as a Second Language neighborhood schools.

The new policy would mean teachers at those two schools will need to take 18 hours of college coursework to become ESL certified.

The policy, which was tentatively approved last month, is designed to help the district deal with an expected influx of non-English speaking students over the next few years.

About 30 people, including more than a dozen teachers from Sunflower School, attended Monday night's board meeting.

The main concern of parents and teachers was that longtime teachers at the school, especially those nearing retirement, would transfer. Many also were concerned about the hardships placed on teachers to take classes outside of their regular workday.

The policy was approved on a 5-2 vote, with board members Craig Grant and John Mitchell voting against it.

Grant and Mitchell tried to get the vote on the policy postponed until the next meeting. However, their motion to do so failed.

The district currently has two "cluster" ESL schools: Hillcrest and Cordley. Demographic studies have shown that many of the ESL students in future years will live in the Sunflower and Schwegler boundary areas, so the board decided to designate those two schools as "neighborhood" ESL schools.

Mitchell and Grant questioned whether the ESL certification requirements for the neighborhood schools should be the same as the cluster schools. Mitchell said there wouldn't be as many ESL students in the neighborhood schools, so not as many ESL teachers would be needed.

Grant said he wanted more information why college coursework would be better than in-service training, which would be done during the school day.

However, Sue Morgan, board president, and Linda Robinson, board vice president, said their understanding of the policy was that there should be no difference in the training required at either the cluster or the neighborhood schools.

Morgan also said many of the concerns that teachers and parents had during a March board meeting had been resolved.

For example, teachers would not have to sign an agreement to stay at the school for a period of time if they started taking the ESL training, which is being funded by the district, she said.

Also, teachers would not have to repay the district for the ESL coursework if they did not stay at the school, she said.

And those who were planning to retire early within two years would not have to take the training, Morgan said.

Teacher, parent concerns

However, there still were problems, according to Janet Breithaupt, a teacher at the school.

Breithaupt, whose voice broke as she said she had young children, said it would be a hardship to some teachers to take the additional classes outside the school day.

"Our plea today is to take a step back," Breithaupt told the board. She suggested the ESL requirement could be met by teachers taking in-service training rather than additional college coursework.

Melanie Davies, a Sunflower parent, also said it would pose a hardship on teachers.

Another Sunflower parent, Sean Smith, had concerns that the "cluster model" of requiring all teachers to be ESL certified shouldn't be extended to neighborhood schools.

After the vote, Grant was unable to get support from other board members to bring up the ESL requirement at a future meeting.

However, after talking about the issue for about 20 minutes, board members were urged to submit their questions to Superintendent Randy Weseman to see whether he could answer them.

Other action

In another matter, the board first met in executive session, then took action regarding a female Lawrence High School teacher who was arrested last month for allegedly having sex with a teenage student.

The board identified the teacher, but the Journal-World does not print the name of a person accused of a sex crime unless there has been a conviction.

The board decided to conduct a hearing at 8 a.m. April 20 to consider whether to cut off pay for the teacher, who has been suspended.

The board also decided not to renew the teacher's contract for next year.

The 24-year-old teacher was arrested March 16 for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old boy between August and mid-March.

The teacher was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing today in Douglas County District Court. She has been charged with four felony counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

Students get early start on foreign language

Three years ago, Adriana Natali-Sommerville spotted what she considered a serious weakness in Lawrence elementary schools.

She noticed none of them offered foreign language programs. As coordinator of outreach programs for Kansas University's Center of Latin American Studies, she decided to install Spanish-language programs in Lawrence elementary schools.

"I thought Spanish was such a useful language to know," Natali-Sommerville said. "It's the fastest-growing language in the U.S. I saw that Kansas City had a program for elementary students, but that Lawrence didn't."

Hillcrest School's Parent-Teacher Organization approved Natali-Sommerville's request to test drive the after-school program with a group of first graders in 2000.

Hillcrest added programs for other grades in 2001. Tammy Becker, principal at Hillcrest and member of the PTO, said the organization supported the program because it allowed all students to experience a second language.
Starting young

Today, the program offers classes for grades one through six at Hillcrest, Pinckney and St. John's schools. For $25, elementary students can attend a series of eight one-hour Spanish classes taught by undergraduate and graduate students in Kansas University's Center of Latin American Studies program. The elementary students can receive need-based scholarships.

Natali-Sommerville said she hoped to start programs at other Lawrence schools. Elementary school is the best time to begin studying a foreign language, she said.

"It is best to learn Spanish before junior high. The sooner, the better. When you start learning later, you can't get rid of the accent," she said.

From 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. each Wednesday, Amanda Dixon, second-grader at Hillcrest, attends a Spanish lesson with 18 other students in first and second grade. The program helps her to communicate better with her Spanish-speaking peers, Amanda said.
Hillcrest fifth-grader Fiona Muniu translates during a vocabulary exercise in an after-school Spanish class at Hillcrest School.

Hillcrest fifth-grader Fiona Muniu translates during a vocabulary exercise in an after-school Spanish class at Hillcrest School.

"I have Spanish-speaking friends and a lot of them don't know English," Amanda said. "I need to learn Spanish so I can speak to them."

Kemly Rejidor, who moved to Lawrence from San Jose, Costa Rica, said she likes that the program helps English-speaking students communicate in Spanish with their Spanish-speaking counterparts. Rejidor said that her daughter, Monica, a first-grader at Hillcrest, had not lost her English skills by speaking Spanish with other students.

"They listen all day to students and teachers speaking in English," Rejidor said. "Hispanic students teach them (English-speaking students) how to say things in Spanish. It's good for both parts."
Multiple benefits

Beside helping students communicate with their Spanish-speaking peers, learning a new language increases children's problem-solving skills and improves memory, self-discipline and self-esteem, Natali-Sommerville said. And the study of a foreign language helps children think beyond their own culture and country, she said.

"In a global world, the historical tendency of Americans toward isolationism needs to be overcome," Natali-Sommerville said. "Language is an obvious and attractive way to introduce children to other cultures and the idea of other nations."

A grant from the U.S. Department of Education funds the administration and coordination of the program, while supplements pay for the Spanish instructors and provide materials needed for the Spanish class during the first semester, or eight weeks, of the program, Natali-Sommerville said. After the first semester, the programs become self-supporting from class fees.

Amanda's instructor, Katie Naeve, Kansas University junior and Spanish major from Ames, Iowa, has just completed her fifth week of teaching at Hillcrest.

In the middle of the lesson, she told students to stand in front of the class and recite numbers one through 10 in Spanish.

"I really enjoy learning numbers the most. I like to learn them a lot," Dixon said.

Though Naeve only meets with her group of 18 students each Wednesday, she said she has been impressed by how quickly they learn.

"I was told they wouldn't retain a lot, but they do great from week to week," Naeve said.

Becker, Hillcrest's principal, said the Spanish classes have made the children curious about still other languages.

"Sometimes kids say they want to learn Russian," she said.

Library workshops gaining students

For Kansas University students such as Jill Mayhood, the libraries on campus provide a quiet sanctuary to focus on schoolwork.

Mayhood, a junior from Neodesha majoring in human biology, brings her laptop to one of the campus' two large libraries, Watson or Anschutz, logs onto the Internet using the wireless connection, and studies in peace for hours.

"It's especially nice during finals, because they open them up and we can study all night if we need to," Mayhood said.

In addition to a quiet place to study, the libraries offer students a wide variety of technological resources. Scott Walter, assistant dean for information and instructional services, said the libraries not only provide students with technology to use in their classes, but also teaches the students how to use that technology.

More than 18,000 faculty, students and staff received technology training last year by either attending a library-sponsored workshop or receiving the training as part of a class, Walter said. The workshops are popular with attendance having increased every year the past five years.

The workshops range from teaching about the Microsoft Word suite to software for building and designing Web pages to complex data analysis and statistical programs.

"We're not the IT help desk," Walter said. "We can't wipe a virus off you're computer, but if you want to learn how to use PowerPoint to do your presentation for class we're going to help you learn how to use it."

The amount of technology available at the libraries can be somewhat overwhelming for new students, Walter said.

"With the amount of information we make available online, this is not your high school or public library," he said. "We're talking about tens of thousands of online journals and hundreds on online databases."

The important thing to remember for incoming students is that there are plenty of ways to learn how to use the technology. By attending a workshop or even getting some one-on-one training, students can receive help from the library.

"It's important for students to know this technology is here to help you do your work, to help you be successful in your studies," Walter said. "But we're not just dropping you in the ocean and saying sink or swim. There are regularly scheduled opportunities for you to learn how to do this more effectively."

For Suzanne Accurso, a freshman from Lee's Summit, Mo., Watson Library was daunting before she received some help.

"When I first came here my senior year of high school I was like 'Oh my gosh, what is that building? I hope I never have to go into it,'" Accurso said.

"But I went on a tour in my freshman English class and it helped a lot. When I come here with friends, I learn new areas of the library all the time."

Mayhood had a similar suggestion for incoming students.

"Take the tour," she said. "If you have to go look for books, it's really confusing with all the stacks. Just get really familiar."

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

Yulin Chi, a 44-year-old mother of four, was born in China and lived in Hong Kong and Columbia, Mo., before moving to Lawrence eight years ago.

Edilda Rojas, a 31-year-old Venezuelan woman, has been visiting her brother here for the past five months.Last Wednesday morning, the two women sat side-by-side in a classroom at the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1900 University Dr., learning English together from Novy Bowman, a retired Kansas University assistant professor of education.

"We're all learning quite a bit," Bowman observed, adding his students "write English with some facility" but need some help with speaking it.

Together, they go over such words as "druggist," "solo" and "carpenter," sounding them out, defining and using them in sentences, and chatting about language nuances as they go.

In another room, teacher Maxine Bowman goes one-on-one with student Zenab Ghazali, a 62-year-old grandmother from Suez, Egypt, who is just beginning to built her English repertoire.

IN THE CHURCH'S fellowship hall, teachers Don and Eunice Binns use lists of words to help new students Parvin and Homayoun Negehban, formerly of Iran, determine their proficiency level.

In another corner, the most advanced group of three women, Harumi Nonomura and Mayumi Tsunenari, both of Japan, and Ghalia Assal of Syria, find pictorial answers in special "cue books" to questions from their teacher, Liz Njeim Maggard.

Later, everyone joins together for coffee and cookies in the church's fellowship hall, and a quick civics lesson from Mr. Binns, a retired high school teacher and former Lawrence mayor.

Then, it's back to the classroom for more work before the morning is gone.

The church's English as a Second Language classes were organized by congregation member Marie Armstrong, a retired teacher from Texas. She and her husband, Emerson, head up the all-volunteer staff of ESL teachers, as well as a refreshment committee organized by Evelyne Moore with assistance from Hazel Morgan.

MRS. MOORE said they have geared their morning treats to help the students learn about American culture too, including such celebrations as Halloween and Christmas, but "we don't mention religion."

For Christmas, she and Mrs. Armstrong noted, many of the students also brought foods of their homeland to share, being careful to omit pork for the Moslems.

All participating volunteers are church members, Mrs. Armstrong said, noting many also provide transportation to students who might otherwise not be able to come.

She said her son, Bill Armstrong, principal of Hillcrest School, alerted her to the language barrier many of his students' parents faced during their time in Lawrence. Many come here to attend or do research at Kansas University.

PRINCIPAL Armstrong said Hillcrest has 130 foreign students, which is "about a third of our population," and that although there are a number of groups in town that foreign parents can connect with, "many spouses do find themselves isolated.

"This does provide another opportunity, not only to learn the language, but to interact with the community in another way. It's not only learning the language."

He said the classes are his mother's way "of trying to help integrate these people into the Lawrence community."

Mrs. Armstrong said Kathi Firns-Hubert, Hillcrest ESL teacher, helped her plan a curriculum, and a fellow congregation in California with a similar program provided valuable organizational insights.

Nationally within the church, Mrs. Amstrong added, it isn't unusual for congregations to offer such classes as outreach work.

Also, Mrs. Armstrong received a grant from the church's national "Tangible Love" fund, which was used for textbook purchases.

STUDENTS WHO are able to pay for their own texts do, she said, but the grant ensures that everyone can have one. No other fees are charged.

To launch the ESL project, Mrs. Armstrong said she sent a letter home with Hillcrest foreign students in August, inviting parents interested in learning English to a luncheon.

About 25 to 30 showed up, she said, and in September, classes began for about 10 students.

"We were really pleased, as I remember," she said.

By the end of the first semester, 15 to 18 were coming on and off, the newer ones having learned of the classes by word of mouth.

Homelands represented among the student body to date are China, Venezuela, Poland, Japan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Colombia and Mexico.

Both men and women attend, although most are women; ages range from young adults to grandmothers.

The lessons are held every Wednesday morning at the church, which some of the students said balanced nicely with Small World meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

SMALL WORLD is a 24-year-old local organizations that aims to help international women and their children feel at home here.

According to Laura Marlow, Small World president, about 70 foreign and local women are members, with more than half of them foreign.

Small World meets from 9:15 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, and right now, four levels of English classes are offered there, along with a preschool program and monthly craft and cooking classes.

Membership is $10 a semester or $18 a year, with the money going for snacks for the children's program.

People interested in learning more about Small World should call Marlow at 842-3527.

The only other ESL classes offered here for people who are not KU students are through the Lawrence school district's Continuing Education program.

CAROL WALLACE, continuing education secretary, said two beginning level classes are to start this week. They meet for 10 weeks, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. either Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Lawrence High School campus.

She said there is a limit of 15 students in each class, "but we have plenty of room right now."

Registration for these classes, which is $58, also will be taken after the sessions begin, to help those who find out about them late.

"They usually have a pretty good time," she said. "And attendance is good if they get the transportation."

Similar classes are offered in the fall. For more information, call continuing education at 842-6234.

For more information about the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints program, call the church, 843-8427.

Bueno? Dobre? How to learn a foreign language online

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Whether I was squeezing myself into a crowded subway car or admiring the fall leaves around at Tsaritsino Park, I was constantly learning new Russian words during my two-week study trip to Moscow last October.
The Internet offers a variety of options for people looking to learn foreign languages.

The Internet offers a variety of options for people looking to learn foreign languages.

When I came back from my trip, I had vague notions of continuing my linguistic education through classes and books. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any convenient classes, and the textbooks didn't hold my attention for long.

I had basically given up when, about two months ago, I came upon the opportunity to use a program called Rosetta Stone. Having refreshed my vocabulary with it, I then turned to the Internet to see what other resources were available to help me stay on top of my language learning.

Here's what I've found:

Free online learning

With the boom in social media, it makes sense that learning a language online would take on a Facebook-like component. My general impression is that these are great ways to exchange languages with people all over the world, but you might not always get helpful feedback. Video Watch for more on language learning »

With Livemocha, you get to learn the language of your choice while helping others who want to speak your native tongue. Once you complete a structured lesson, you submit your own writing and audio recordings to other users for feedback. Reading a sentence aloud and then sending my recording off was pretty intimidating, but I got a response within 10 minutes from a girl in Russia who gave it five stars and a "Good!!" -- although she was surely too kind. I also got to review English submissions from other users, which felt especially gratifying because I had just been in their uncomfortable situation of sending off my words to strangers.

There's also Lang-8, which is all about the practice of writing. You essentially keep a journal in the language you are practicing, and others in the online community read and correct it.

Want more structure? The Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium gives out awards every year for outstanding language-learning Web sites: read the full list. No Russian sites made it there, but for Spanish (my second language) they cite a wonderful (and free) interactive refresher called Spanish Language and Culture with Barbara Kuczun Nelson.

This site uses popular Spanish songs, photo essays and other activities to teach grammar and vocabulary. It's intended for people who have had some exposure to the language, however.

iPhone apps

If you've got an iPhone, you've got a way to get exposure to your language of choice wherever there's adequate reception. In general, I'm kind of in awe of the idea that I can have a pre-recorded voice pronounce words as many times as I want so I can match it (although standing in the subway and repeating the same foreign word over and over might draw some unwanted attention).

First, I checked out AccelaStudy, an iPhone app that offers practice in 15 languages, including Russian. The free version shows and pronounces 132 words in "study" mode. In "flashcard" mode, you get a word in English and then touch the screen to "turn over" the card and hear and see the Russian translation. I like that you can listen to each word as many times as you want before you think you're pronouncing it right.

The quiz, though, is only 10 words, which are the same in the audio version and don't seem to vary. However, $7.99 will get you access to more than 2,100 unique words. This seems like a good supplement for language learning but not ideal on its own, especially since there's no speaking or writing practice.

For some, Byki, also available in multiple languages, may be more useful. For $7.99, you get flash cards with audio and pictures, and I feel that both elements are essential for my own learning of new words. The app comes with 1,000 words, which is less than half that of AccelaStudy, however.

I am intrigued that you can use this app to see how your vocabulary words are being used in real time on Twitter. For those without an iPhone, you can get free version of Byki for Mac or PC, or a "deluxe" version you can use to import vocabulary lists to the iPhone.

Paying more for immersion

The gold standard of computer-based language learning seems to be Rosetta Stone. Here's what I love: It forces you, like a real situation in a foreign country, to stretch the limits of your understanding but gives you feedback so that you learn and progress.

Instead of memorizing words, you confront pictures and learn to describe what's going on. In the two months since I started the beginning Russian levels, I've been exposed to a variety of everyday vocabulary words through pictures and constant audio reinforcement. It is gratifying at the end of each unit to have a "milestone" activity in which you interact with the people in pictures, simulating the frustration you feel when you forget how to say something basic off-the-cuff in a new language.

The obvious downside for this program is the cost: $229 for Russian Level 1, for instance. Some people, such as myself, are able to get Rosetta Stone through corporate programs or universities. The other downer, depending on what your needs are, is that there is no explicit explanation for why the grammar is used the way it is.

In other words, I have no idea what the different "cases" are in Russian, even though I understand that endings of words change in different constructions. On the other hand, small children who grow up fluent in English don't learn that in English the phrase "if I had known" is in the "pluperfect subjective tense"; they just learn to say "if I had known."

A rival to Rosetta Stone is Transparent Language, which is less expensive ($179 for the complete edition) and owns the Byki products mentioned above. But Mac users beware: It's only for PC.

Use it or lose it?

All of these resources have shown me that, although I let many months lapse before trying to resume my Russian, I haven't lost it all. In fact, Grant Goodall, linguistics professor at the University of California, San Diego, says that if you spent a significant amount of time interacting in a language at some point -- even a decade ago or more -- a lot of it may return.

"It seems to be that the higher your ability level that you attained to begin with, the more likely it is to come back later in life," he said.
advertisement

He also noted that, although your ability to learn a new language goes down with age, it never goes away completely. A 20-year-old will learn faster than a 40-year-old, who will learn quicker than a 60-year-old, but anyone at any age has the ability to take on a new tongue.

I believe these digital resources are worthwhile tools for improving your language skills. Of course, nothing replaces the learning, and the joy, that comes with negotiating daily life in a different language in a foreign place

Lawrence home to growing market for English classes

Sonia Rocha is learning English through "Chicken Soup for the Soul."

She attends the Lawrence school district's Adult Learning Center for English language classes, but "Chicken Soup" keeps her going outside class.

"I want to learn English so I can get a better job," she said. Rocha said she works at McDonald's, which pays entry-level workers $5.35 an hour.

A recent Kansas House bill that would make English the state's official language comes as Lawrence is straining to meet a burgeoning demand for English language classes.

Rocha, from Juarez, Mexico, is one of 55 students enrolled in English language classes at the center. Twenty-five more people are on the center's waiting list.

Linda McGuire, the center's facilitator, said limited funding and access to facilities have kept the center from offering more classes.

The center offers free English classes through the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy grant, which is administered by the Kansas Board of Regents. States must match the grant money with a minimum of 25 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

For 2007, the center has received $84,636 in federal funds and $45,803 in state funds. The overall amount was about the same as in 2006, McGuire said.

Traditional English learners

In Lawrence, English traditionally has been taught to immigrants such as Mariapilar Rabinad, who is from Spain.

Rabinad, who attends classes at the center four days a week, said she has taken English lessons for one and a half years. She said she plans to become a U.S. citizen.

Her husband, David Nualart, is a mathematics professor at Kansas University, and her daughter is a KU freshman.

Rabinad said she likes English, but she's found that learning it is hard.

"I speak Spanish at home," she said. "That is my problem."

Other local groups, such as Small World, a nonprofit organization that teaches English to international women and their children, have taught immigrants for years.

Director Kathy Mulinazzi said 80 percent of Small World's 100 to 118 students were spouses or relatives of a KU student, visiting scholar or faculty member. Most of the women enrolled have bachelor's, master's or doctoral degrees.
Changing demographics

Recently, Small World and the Adult Learning Center have noticed an influx in international students, particularly Hispanics.Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that Hispanic students comprised more than 70 percent of all participants in Englishlanguage classes in 2004 and 2005.

Programs also are seeing an increase in people with limited education.

To reach out to these learners, Small World started an introduction to its beginner class, which provides two hours a week of one-on-one tutoring. Mulinazzi said tutoring is the best way to reach these students.

The Adult Learning Center has been experiencing similar difficulties in teaching students who were not literate in their own languages.

"You're really starting at ground zero in everything," McGuire said.

Even with tutoring, Mulinazzi said, teaching these students has presented challenges to the organization's traditional classroom model.

Many of these women are housebound and rely on public transportation.

She said one student traveled an hour on the bus, with her two children, to arrive at the classroom and another hour to return home.

"These women tend to live a pretty cloistered life," she said, adding that they tend to work one or more jobs.

Even with childcare, Mulinazzi said, the women find it difficult to learn in a classroom and bring their children.

"I think that's what's holding them back," she said.

Looking to the future

As a possible solution to the need for English teachers, Mulinazzi said Small World offers KU students the opportunity to tutor through a program called "Students Tutoring for Literacy."

"I see KU students as an untapped resource," she said.

The House bill's proposed $500,000 grant for English classes could allow the Adult Learning Center to expand its offerings.

Ange White, one of four teachers for the center's English classes, said she thought most students were not overly concerned with the House bill making English the state language. If more English classes could be offered through it, she said, they might consider it a bonus.

"I don't think people often understand the level of commitment it takes," she said, "to learn a foreign language."

Church makes teaching English a mission

At first glance, it may not look like much — about 20 people gathered in a small classroom on the second floor of Plymouth Congregational Church.

But if you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of lives being changed.

“I visited the Russian art museum in Minneapolis in August,” student Nonna Tarkhova said in perfect English, with a thick Russian accent.

That one sentence is remarkable, given the fact that when Tarkhova first began attending the church’s free English classes in March, she didn’t speak a word of English.

The classes were the vision of 27-year-old Shannon Gorres, pastor of Hispanic Ministries at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt. The majority of people attending the classes speak Spanish as their native language.

“I’m very passionate about Latin American immigrants,” Gorres said. “A year ago, we found out from a survey that Spanish speakers’ No. 1 need was accessible English classes, so that’s what we wanted to offer.”

Gorres and her team of volunteers began offering the free classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights at the start of the year. She estimates about 60 different students have taken part. Enrollment is continuous, meaning anyone can stop by the classes at any time, but Gorres knows it’s difficult for students to walk through the door.

“Anybody who has started to study another language knows the difficulty there is in just grasping the basic sentence structure, and then beyond that I think there’s a challenge of feeling competent and intelligent,” Gorres said.

That’s where the volunteers come into play.

“We only ask that you be fluent in compassion and patience,” Gorres said.

A team of volunteers takes time each week to practice conversing with the English-language learners.

“I think it’s extremely important,” 73-year-old volunteer Graham Kreicker said. “Most of these people, if not all, are here to stay. Some are refugees, some are here because their spouse is at KU, and they really want to become integrated into the community. This is an opportunity to help them in a big way.”

Volunteers range in age from 16 to 82, and Gorres said they are always looking for more.

Meg Winchell, who speaks Russian, said she felt inspired to volunteer after the struggles her grandmother encountered trying to learn English in the early 1900s when she first came to the United States from Sweden.

“She went to a schoolhouse in the country and tried to learn, but the kids made fun of her. They laughed at her because she couldn’t speak English, so she quit,” Winchell said. “I thought, this is an improvement, and I’d just like to help other immigrants, too.”

“These classes are great because they afford us conversation practice,” Tarkhova said in Russian, using Winchell as her interpreter. “I know a lot of words, but I can’t say anything, but here we learn how to speak.”

And soon, Tarkhova said she hoped she would be able to say that in English.

Anyone interested in either participating in the classes or volunteering can send an e-mail to the English as a second language class coordinators at plymouthesl@gmail.com.

Methods for teaching another language evolving

At the start of the school year, the sound coming out of Valerie Valdivia’s class was rare for a room full of 5-year-olds.

“It was just dead silence. You wouldn’t think that there was a child in here,” Valdivia said. “Absolutely not a word spoken, and they all just kind of stare at me in fright.”On Friday, the room sounded like what you would expect from a group of 5-year-olds, as the group launched into a song about the days of the week — first naming them in English and then in Spanish.

“They are really warming up to me and warming up to each other,” Valdivia said.

Her class at McKinley Elementary School, a small neighborhood school in Kansas City, Kan., is made up of 16 students, 14 of whom are English-language learners; of those, eight didn’t speak any English when school started.

“I came in and I said hello, and they looked at me,” Valdivia said.

So, for the past 44 days, Valdivia has sung, danced, gestured and partnered her way through the kindergarten class in hopes of teaching her students both English and the basics of an American education.

Methods evolving

Within the next 50 years, every single teacher in the country will have a student in the classroom whose native tongue is not English, said Cristina Fanning, the associate director for Kansas State’s Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy.

To prepare for that change, Fanning said teachers have to adapt to a style that means more group work, hands-on learning and visual aids.

These changes — making the classroom less of a listening environment and more of an active one — are good for any student raised in the world of video games, the Internet and text messaging, Fanning said.

“You can’t expect to hold the attention span of any child very long,” she said. “What worked 20 or 30 years ago in a classroom doesn’t work today.”

Engaged is the word used by Tod Pennell, who directs the English as a second language program at McKinley. Twenty years ago, students who were learning English sat in the back of the classroom and colored. Then there were the “fixers” who pulled students out of classrooms to teach them English.

“That is not how it works,” Pennell said. “We want to get into the classroom and parallel teach. Support the teacher rather than pull them out.”

Training for the future

That integration is obvious in Valdivia’s classroom, where students sit on a rug that identifies colors, animals and numbers in English and Spanish.

The classroom’s calendar is in both languages, as are Valdivia’s nameplates above the door. Next to every vocabulary word that hangs on the wall is a picture.

When Valdivia teaches the alphabet, she brings in muffins as an example of what begins with the letter M. Instead of calling on a student to name the day of the week, the whole class turns to a partner and says it. And, when they do a good job, Valdivia tells them to kiss their brains.

Valdivia is a general education teacher who has gone through training for ESL endorsement. Across the state, more districts are asking teachers to receive that training.

Those classroom changes are registering at Kansas University, where the school is reviewing how to restructure its teacher education programs.

Among the changes could be requiring soon-to-be teachers to take more coursework for teaching English-language learners and to take classes in a foreign language.

Because Hispanics are the fastest-growing subgroup in America and the largest population that speaks a different language, it’s a change that makes sense for Sally Roberts, the associate dean of KU’s teacher education and undergraduate programs.

“It is probably the largest thing we are being told now, that we need to do a better job as we train our teachers,” Roberts said.

In the end, Valdivia believes the teaching strategies used for those learning to speak English are good for all students.

“A lot more teachers are trying to bring it into the classroom,” she said. “And all you are going to do is enhance their learning and make it more concrete.”

Ten reasons why learning another language will improve your writing

I’m studying Dutch. It’s my father’s language but I never learned it as a child and now I’m trying to go back to my roots. I just got back from a four day trip to Amsterdam and 16 hours of intensive one-to-one training. It made me think about how learning another language has helped me write English better.

1. Remember simple words. When you start learning another language you have to focus on the basic words first. Everyday words, such as get, use, give and take, are the most important and easiest to understand. This means that they are also the easiest for people to read. Learning Dutch has taught me a new respect for these direct words.
2. Write for everyone. My teachers have to use the basic words and familiar sentence structures to talk to me but when I read the Dutch papers they are full of specialist words and complicated sentence structures. They are much harder for me to understand. Writing for everyone means writing in a way that everyone can understand; not clever talk for insiders. It doesn’t mean dumbing down but even people with degrees in English literature from Oxford University don’t have time to waste on over-complex writing.
3. Tell a story. In Dutch many of my sentences begin with ‘toen ik’ (‘When I…’) and they are the beginning of a story. Human beings are story-telling animals and, even in technical or business writing, stories are important. Writing needs development, progress and careful control of suspense. But all this easy to forget that so learning another is a helpful reminder.
4. Be a beginner. While I was in Amsterdam, my teacher took her first Russian lesson. I asked her why and she said that she hoped it would make her a better teacher. Remembering the experience of being a beginner – of coming to something new for the first time – is scary and humbling. But it is also exciting because of all the possibilities that exist. I think the best writing has this sense of excitement. It takes nothing for granted. It brings to mind Shunryu Suzuki’s observation that “in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
5. Respect your teacher. When I learned to fly, I found it very hard to take lessons. I was then the boss of quite a big company and I was used to being the ‘big man’. But over time, I learned that having a teacher wasn’t humbling but ennobling. It’s the same with Dutch. I like my teachers (in the UK, Fen Dohmen and in Amsterdam teachers from the University of Amsterdam – UVA Talen) and I think that I learn more than Dutch from them. So when it comes to writing, perhaps I need to adopt the same attitude by reading what other people have said about writing. (I like Writing to Deadline a lot.) I learned a lot from Matthew Rock, my editor when I wrote for Real Business and from other editors at Wired, Popular Science and other magazines. I sort of miss that input now I’m on the marketing side.
6. Continuous improvement. Sometimes I’m depressed by the fact that I’m not fluent yet but I get a bit better with every lesson and with every visit to Holland. Doing is as important as learning. This is also true of writing. I’m a better writer today than I was five years ago and I hope I can keep improving.
7. Regular effort. The secret to continuous improvement is regular (daily) effort. I’m not sure you can really call yourself a writer if you don’t write every day, for example.
8. Get a new perspective. The Dutch languages plays around with my expectations of how sentences should fit together and how grammar works. For example, it’s much more common to use the present tense when you would use the future tense in English. I have to stop myself writing that way but the new perspective forces me to think harder about forms and structures that I take for granted. This thinking is the antidote to clichés.
9. Recognise roadblocks for what they are. When I don’t know a word in Dutch I have to try to talk my way around it. It’s the same with writing. If there isn’t an obvious way to say something, I have to find some other way to make the point. The problem is that getting around a roadblock this way often makes me write lazy prose. I use the passive voice or write clunky things like ‘that means…’. Learning another language makes it easier to think about these roadblocks and that is the first step finding new ways to get around them without clichés.
10. Don’t be shy. Just open the door. It’s difficult sometimes to write. Perhaps you feel a bit shy or nervous. Sometimes, my self-censor stops saying anything. It’s just the same with speaking another language. Just open the door and go through. Open de deur en ga door!

Mourning and Celebrating: Lessons Learned at Stella Maris

I'm in mourning this week: my school is closing. Not the one I work in now, but Stella Maris High School, a small (ultimately, apparently, too small) Catholic girls' school, which I've always described as "on the beach in Queens." It really is on the beach — just about 50 yards from the sand. When we had fire drills, we dispersed to the boardwalk. Stella might be the only school in New York City where students were routinely chastised for wearing bikini tops under their uniforms.

Although vibrant and bustling, Stella was on its last legs for the entire time I was there (2003-2007) and at last has been shut down due to dwindling enrollment and lack of funds. It was inevitable, but it's also quite sad. I'm sorry for the girls who are already there (most especially the Juniors, who will end up going to some other school for just one year), and for my former colleagues, who are talented and caring women facing a difficult job market.

But my sadness goes deeper than just sympathy. I began teaching there as a long-term substitute, and stayed even though I knew the paycheck was too small and commute too long. I stayed because I felt safe and loved there, and because the administration and student body allowed me to come into my own as a teacher. My four years there, mirroring the four years of high school itself, were no coincidence, I think. It takes that long to become a true Stella Girl.

I hope you'll indulge me then, as I share with you some of the practical lessons I learned at Stella. The school building, immaculately (ha) kept by Sister Kathleen, may close down in August, but these lessons will stay in my heart... and in my classrooms, wherever they may be.

Topics Not Covered by Afterschool Specials

When I began at Stella, I was put with mostly freshman classes and we were all equally flummoxed into being introverted by each other. After a few days of strained silence, broken only by my meager teacher talk ("Let's open our books... and.... um..."), I realized I was going to have to do better. So I started to talk. About me. What I was wearing. What my commute had been like. The weather. Soon, I was downright chatty. And I got responses. The girls began to express opinions about my clothes and the commute... and, as time went on, I heard about other, bigger matters too.

Last week, one of my students at my current school came in and took a seat at the beginning of the day, as she always does. She's usually quiet, so I was surprised when she mentioned, "It's getting colder out, Ms. Reed." I realized that I had said something about the weather to her nearly every day; she was unconsciously mimicking me, to form a connection between us.

Small stuff? Perhaps. But this is how our students learn to verbally communicate. Making conversation is a skill we value in others (and miss desperately when they lack it). And I think that for teenagers, especially, it's nice to have the weight-bearing load off of them, when they are so often asked only really difficult, personal questions by adults, of the "What do you want to do with you life?" and "Why did you come in so late?" variety. I'd want to talk about the weather, too.

So, that's lesson one from Stella — students are people, and people like to have small conversations about little things. They ease us through life.

And So I Came to Love the Write-On/Wipe-Off Board.

The next thing I learned from teaching at Stella is the comfort of routine and the importance of preparation. At first, I approached things in a sort of willy-nilly style. Let's say this — it was very similar to what Iggy Pop might have done had he gone into teaching English: a bit of free for all. Some days we read aloud! Some days we did vocab! Some days we... wait, did we do vocab already? Well, let's take a vocab test! I can't? Why not? Oh, you didn't know about it... Yeah, there was some of that going on.

Well, in the classroom, as in life, preparation is everything, I've learned. Homework for the night goes up on the board before school begins. We review for the test the day before a test. My syllabus is four pages long and mostly consists of protocols for how I'm going to deal with things when they go wrong.

I'm all for change and spontaneity, and I'm willing to throw a lesson plan out the window to talk about college prep if 90% of the kids are suddenly sweating bullets over college prep. But no more do I embrace nihilism as a teaching strategy. This means that I spend much more of my time than I ever thought possible thinking, planning and working ahead. But you know what? I generally work through my day of teaching without too much worry about how to get the copies made before the kids come in, or what to do if we finish up to early on the story I skimmed through on the bus. I hit a number of problems anyway (I've always felt "Problem Solver" is a closer title to what I do all day), but they're usually, at least, not of my own making.

One way I do this, which I figured out at Stella, is by having a vision of where we're going. It's so easy to lose track of this, especially in a subject like English which all of its potential paths. But when you have your eyes on your classroom's prize, both short term (we will all be able to identify and discuss theme) and long term (we will all pass the Regents exam), it's hard to get stumped about what to do next. Keep moving forward, baby (as I think even Iggy would agree).

Here's a practical tip I learned at Stella: Don't leave until you're ready for the next day. This is basic stuff, I know, but by the end of the day, I often want to run out of the school building, arms and legs akimbo, screaming. But that just leaves me pushing to get ready in too short a time (along with other colleagues who are jostling for the copier) the next morning. I try — not religiously, but with dedication — to not leave until I am set up for the next day. If you find that your mornings are out of your control, you might want to try this too. (Folks who, like me last year, have first period free, do us all a favor — save your photocopying until then.)

The Adjective "Great" is Applied Purposefully

This week, we started The Crucible at my current school. I didn't even need to look up the character list. This is my fifth time through the play — which I love, as I'm a sucker for words like "Goody" -- and I can even keep Mercy and Mary straight without a crib sheet. It's nice to go back to Salem, 1692, with a new group of kids, like a field trip of the mind that I take every year. They'll notice things I haven't and I'll point out some things they'd miss. ("Look, kids! Foreshadowing! And, yes, Abigail is talking smack!")

I first taught this play at Stella. I taught it because I had read it once before and I needed to teach a few things I knew while I read ahead in the things I didn't know (yes, the wonders of Ethan Frome were still undiscovered by me). It was a big hit with the girls (not so big as Jane Eyre, much bigger than, um, Ethan Frome), to my delight and relief. And so, I learned a most basic concept in teaching literature, but one which I rarely see mentioned: choose works you think your students will like.

This usually gets changed a bit, into "teach works your students will relate to or understand" or "teach works at your students' comprehension level." Not bad advice, but I think we so often forget that reading good literature can be joyous, can make you giddy as a visitor in a previously unknown world and can show us the universality of the human experience. I'm all for works that relate to students' lives, but I also think it's good to show them lives that aren't their own. I learned this at Stella — pick something of good quality, which I have personally been affected by, and then see if the girls are intrigued too. I've been wrong — And Then There Were None was a bomb — but when I am, I usually just move on. Life's short. Edith Wharton wrote other things; so did Agatha Christie. Great literature's considered great for a reason.

Teaching is a Craft. (See What I Did There?)

Last week, in the last period of the day, I looked at my weary looking group of teenagers. There were five of them, those who had taken the PSAT for three hours that morning and had not required extra time as mandated by their Individualize Learning Plans. I had just had them for an entire period of ELA — now we were on to Playwriting. Half of their classmates had skipped out early. Suddenly, looking at their fatigue-ridden faces, I simply could not ask them to identify the plot points of Iphigenia. Instead, I reached under my counter and got out the good stuff — scrapbooking paper, crayons, markers, scissors and glue. "Ok, guys," I said. "Let's make something."

The crafting break? Yeah, learned at Stella. At first, I was at a loss as to what to do when attendance unexpectedly plummeted, or three-quarters of the class was out on a field trip, at confession or at a sporting event. What do you do with the four kids left, all of whom, inevitably, are right on track with their studies and woebegone about being left behind? I don't like to give study halls. I think those are just mandated gossiping/bullying times. But we do all sometimes need a break. So, I learned that art supplies and either a free reign or very simple guidelines ("Draw the setting of a story you want to write") almost never go unappreciated. It's amazing how often a previously unremarkable student revealed a strong talent in visual art through this activity. My only guideline is that students can't make something for me, something I learned after being given five or six "I sweat Mssss.ReEd!!! <3" signs in one class.

Everything Old is New Again

Stella was an old-school environment. It was a school. And it was old. At first, faced with textbooks from 1981, I despaired: Not a single African-American female writer was included in that text. I supplemented, of course. But I also came to feel that the rush to the new wasn't always serving my kids well. Education seems to go through phases, each one ballyhooed and presented to teachers as the cure-all we've all been waiting for, to make students motivated, accomplished and hard-working. This seems to ignore the basic truth that a big chunk of humankind is neither motivated, accomplished or hard-working (although all VT subscribers are the exception to this, of course).

In many ways, I welcome these ideas, and have found ways to adapt them into my classroom. For example, when I was in grad school, the concept of an "Aim-driven class" (in which the teacher presents an Aim in the form of a question on the board at the beginning of each class) wasn't in vogue. Nobody asked me to write one at Stella, either.

I was extremely reluctant to convert to this format upon leaving Stella and coming into the NYCDOE school system, but I now see the value of distilling a class's goal to a specific question. "What is 'Theme' and how can I identify one in The Crucible?" is a handy goal for a student to see, and (somewhat) saves us all from hearing "I don't even know why we're doing this" later. If you haven't tried distilling your lessons into aims, I highly recommend it.

But we didn't do aims at Stella. We had vocabulary, spelling, grammar and literature lessons, and we worked through them at a brisk, but not unreasonable pace. Words were memorized and used in sentences, literature was read and analyzed in four-paragraph essays, and everyone had a shot at learning the difference between a contraction and a conjunction. We had fun, too, more fun than I have had at my new school. We had special occasions, and big class parties, and annual events, all of which allowed me to celebrate our community and the students I had come to know as part of it. I work harder at my new school, and I suspect I've become a better teacher. I also know it's less fun and less like a family, at least right now, and I would daresay my students feel the same way. (We're very new, of course, and it takes time for these things to happen, I know.)

Which education is better? Honestly, it's hard for me to say. I think each is necessary for the kind of students being taught. There's a big difference between sheltered young women on the outskirts of New York, and the urban kids I teach now. And I trust that in each situation, the students are deeply blessed to be surrounded by a caring and driven faculty and administration, determined to get them a good education.

That's my last lesson from Stella, actually — that the biggest gift of being a teacher is not, as we probably all know far too well, monetary compensation or summers off, but rather the privilege working together with our students in hopes of helping them become the best versions of themselves they can possibly be. I first realized this at Stella Maris High School, and I hope I carry into my work today. In the end, that optimism and belief in the power of education is probably what most makes me, as I hope is clear to all who meet me, a Stella Girl.

source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/2057/

On the Road To (and With) Iphigenia: Adapting Greek Drama in the Classroom

By Shannon Reed

Shannon Reed, a regular contributor to our Teachers at Work column, teaches at the Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School, where she has discovered that adapting the Euripides play Iphigenia has lit an unexpected spark for her students.

I often wish I had some psychic ability, or at least a better understanding of how astrology works. I wouldn't peer into my best friend's eyes and try to figure out what he's thinking, or probe my boss's brain to find out if I've been called into his office for good or bad reasons. No, I'd use my powers to figure out auspicious times to introduce new units to my classroom. The ability to predict the changeable moods of high schoolers is a kind of talent akin to divining powers.

How else can I explain why on one day my students happily settle down to period-long writing assignments while on other days they can't get it together enough to jot down one sentence? Assuming that assignments are of relatively equal interest to them, what is the X factor that leads to focus and concentration? The temperature in the room? The quality of light outside? The amount of sleep the night before (averaged out)? What the cafeteria served for lunch? I wish I knew. I'd bottle that knowledge and create a surefire formula that would allow all teachers to hit it out of the park with the classes every day.

Alas, no such formula exists. Each class has its own predilections and pandemonium, its own silver bullets and last straws. One class I had would buy into anything if I introduced it while speaking in an accent. Visual art projects was the way in for another group. And then there was the 10th grade class in which homemade cookies were the only surefire hit — the year I gained 5 pounds.

What's my trick this year? Oh, easy. Iphigenia, the ancient Greek drama by Euripides, in which the King of Greece, Agamemnon, is forced to decide whether sacrificing his only daughter (Iphigenia) is worth the reward for doing so: the gods will then allow wind to fill the sails of the ships of the Greek armies, and off they then can go to "rescue" Helen, the wayward wife of Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus. No, by the way — this isn't a heretofore unknown teen-friendly ancient Greek drama. It's a standard-edition ancient Greek drama, what with soliloquies, a chorus, really angry ladyfolk and what I like to call excursions on the S.S. Moral Quandary.

Yet my students look forward to, and almost uniformly participate in, our work on Iphigenia. This is good because adapting the play is our main work in Playwriting class this semester. Here's how — and a little bit of why — I think the unit works, and why they like it — ideas you may be able to use in your classroom, too.

Gotta Have a Gimmick (Or a Field Trip)

To kick off adapting Iphigenia, I took the entire class to see a staged reading of the play in Manhattan. The kids got to leave school early, eat out and then spend the early afternoon watching a reading staged just for them. As we entered the theatre, the cast, attired in black and red, struck fighting poses on an all-white set. During the show, the actors talked to the kids, had them read parts and otherwise involved them. After it was over, there was a talkback between the students, the director, me and the cast. Frankly, I didn't even need to point out to the class how awesomely cool this was. I had my buy-in at "We're going to take a trip..." Everything else was just gravy.

It's impractical to take your class out of the school every time you want to kick off a unit, but even doing it once in a while means that it sure registers with them, big time. I'm glad I went to the effort of setting this all up (and even more thankful that it wasn't even all that difficult for me, thanks to the resources of the performing arts school where I work and our partners there), because it's paid off time and time again. While writing, the students refer back to what they saw. When we discuss or read aloud what they've written, we can picture it on a specific stage and wonder aloud how such and such an actor might play the part. We even have a class dream, based on this field trip: that the actors we liked so much might visit our school at the end of the semester to act out some of the words we wrote. (Spoiler alert: I'm working on making this happen!)

Your resources may not be my resources, but there's no reason why you can't create a special atmosphere around a work you're reading or using in class too. Get some volunteers and set up a reading at the school auditorium. Haul in some parents to read a chapter aloud. Go outside and stage the main points of the plot. Something immersive, different and cool. Sometimes we pile on the gimmicks ("Let's take the kids sled-riding before we read Ethan Frome!") or wander off from our purpose ("I love 'The Story of an Hour'! Let's feed the kids foie gras!"), and then, when these ideas don't stay with the kids the way we want, we wonder why we wasted all that time and effort. But hewing closely to our ultimate goals as teachers of literature, reading and writing (by, say, taking the kids to hear/see/experience literature), it's hard to go wrong.

Greece: It's the Word

I do love me some Greek drama, I gotta say. They did not hold back, those guys. These were writers who made incest a given, and then ratcheted up from there. And they didn't just dangle war, sex, murder, faith and love in front of their audiences — they truly took the opportunities to sift through various positions and stances on these important issues. And rarely provided an easy answer.

I like giving the kids something meaty to grapple with, too. There is no easy answer as to why Agamemnon doesn't say "Heck, no!" when asked to kill his only daughter. We played Agree/Disagree/Unsure, in which signs reading the same are posted in the room, and each student moves to stand next to one in response to a statement, such as "If God told me to do something, I would do it, no matter what." This lead to a vigorous debate, touching on issues of faith, certainty, doubt, the story of Jacob in the Bible, and stirring quotations of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." (Ok, I quoted Dylan. And it was stirring! For everyone over 30 in the room!)

I'm all for accommodating various learning abilities and reading levels, but it's also good to remember that if a text isn't engaging, kids won't be engaged. There's a reason we do not hang out with our friends and talk about the great microwave manual we just read. Kids like what we like, and we do well to show them how much fascinating literature is available to them that is full of such things.

Journeys of One Semester Begin with a Single Step

Once everyone had seen Iphigenia and we had discussed a few basic themes, we began to work our way through it. We had short one-day workshops on concepts from the play, most of which came from Epic Theatre's amazing Citizen Artist curriculum. (See September's column here.) We also did quite a bit of exploratory writing, and that's when I started to notice something: I was rarely, very, very rarely, having to ask my students to write ("ask" here meaning "cajole," "bribe," "threaten," "plead with," etc.). This was creative writing at its purest, and they were totally into it, even looking to add to their vocabulary. The day I had a child ask me if he could look up what the word "ritual" meant "on VT" (i.e., the Visual Thesaurus) in the computer in the back of the room, I knew something was different about this class.

Here are some of the things I asked them to write: a Nine Word Play (again, see September's column). A scene based on what they had done that morning. A scene about a superhero. The inner and outer life map of a made-up character (based on one of the main characters in Iphigenia). A scene in which said character has a confrontation with a police officer. A scene with no conflict at all. A scene with only conflict. A scene that consisted of no stage directions, only dialogue.

In nearly every case, I saw students who don't like to write, who don't like school, who, frankly, don't like me, sharpen a pencil and willingly move it across the paper to form words. Why? Well, creative expression is a human desire, I believe, as is self-expression, and here was an opportunity to express oneself, creatively.

I also genuinely think the kids felt that they were pulling one over on me. Time after time, they would ask, "Can we curse?" or "Do we have to spell things right?" (Answers: You can, but don't expect a play with cursing to be put up on a bulletin board or presented at a school function. And, no, but even if your character speaks in a dialect, your actors need to understand what they are supposed to say.) Assured that so long as they were meeting the minimum — dialogue and stage directions, and a clear tie-in to my assignment — all was well, I believe they felt unusually free. Some of them didn't like this at first. But most, by now, do.

The Plotting Thickens

Having explored writing scenes and creating characters, we kicked it up a notch, now exploring plot and story. Epic's curriculum again provided the basics, and within a short period of time my students were figuring out the main story points of Iphigenia and adapting it to their own play. To my repeated cries of "Only choose plot points you're interested in, because you will be stuck writing this for a long time!", my students set adaptations on basketball courts, in beauty salons and on the mean streets of the Lower East Side. Iphigenia became a princess, Agamemnon President Obama, and Achilles Dwyane Wade. The year was 2030. 1910. 1850.

The great thing about adapting a play, in short, is that it gives you a framework on which you can hang just about anything you want to, so long as you're willing to live with — and write around — the results. And this, in turn, creates opportunities for student research projects that are truly done in the spirit in inquiry: What was it like to be a princess in 1850? What are the basic requirements to get a cosmetologist license? Who is Dwyane Wade?

We haven't gotten to this stage yet (we're still at the initial drafting stage, in which one fully realized, typed scene is due at the end of the week!), but it's coming. I, for one, am really excited about it. I have no idea who Dwyane Wade is.

Free Their Minds and the Regents Will Follow

One final thought about this unit, so far, and why I'll continue to be a fan of this class for high school students, whether they be Arthur Miller's heirs or not.

Keep in mind that I teach the same kids in English, marching them through the rigors of essays and American Literature. I've begun to see a cool Yin/Yang-y effect from the counterbalance between Playwriting and English. The Playwriting is so free and (supposedly) easy, that the very act of writing becomes less intimidating to my students. Kids who found all sorts of excuses about why they couldn't write in English ("My hand hurts/was frozen/got caught in a meat grinder") can't use those excuses if they want to write later in the day during Playwriting.

Besides, the playscript is actually a quite precise and rigorous medium, requiring a great deal of organization and an editor's mind as well as creative ideas and expression. I don't point this out, of course, until after these skills have been deployed. Of course, these same skills feed into the writing we do in English too.

It works the other way, too. The grammar and spelling so prized in English become tools for communicating clearly in Playwriting (remember, unless the actors know what they're supposed to say...). The literature we read opens up possibilities for new settings, people, ideas and plot twists. The sheer rigor of preparing for the Regents test makes a special need for personal expression. And the vocabulary, still so obscure even when understood "enough" for a test, suddenly becomes useful. After all, if you're writing in the voice of a college professor, or President of the United States, you better up the syllable count to make your characters convincing.

And having found writing and reading fun once, it's quite possible to find it so again.

Merry, Happy, Everything

I'll keep you up to date on how our Iphigenia-ing goes over the next month as we wrap up this unit. And may I take these last few lines of my column to wish you and yours the happiest of whatever winter holidays you celebrate? I love this time of year — the sights, the smells, the sounds, the excuse to use words like "antiphon" and "cherubim" and "Maccabee" and "Solstice" and "Behold!" Get out there and use 'em. The opportunity comes but once a year!

source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/2088/