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Higher
number of learning disabilities
I have found that the "weaker" the grouping,
the more obvious and serious disabilities the students will suffer. In
one of my classes, I have estimated that 90% (of an initial 20 total) students
suffer from one or more disabilities that I was able to determine. (Caveat--I
do not have any training in LD identification and treatment--but neither
do many people in the system. I do the best that I can.) Although this
is my highest incidence in the four classes that I teach, the other groups
are not far behind.
When confronted with all these problems,
I felt that I didn't have the time to wait the weeks or months that would
be necessary to collect observations and work samples in order to determine
how to meet the needs of each student--and was given little hope that official
assessments would be forthcoming in the near future. I wanted to start
building an individual plan right away.
I decided to do some very short and simple
group assessments at the beginning of each semester (although I transfer
students during the year as they reach the point of being able to make
it in a regular class, there seems to be a big shift of students at semester
break--it is also a good time to start "fresh"). I recommend some type
of learning styles inventory--to get students thinking about what they
like and do best, and what they find difficult. I was quite surprised to
learn that many of my students had never thought about this before. I also
have them rate themselves on several communicative skills areas on a 1-5
scale--and then share the information with a partner, and eventually build
a class profile. And finally, a very basic assessment test that includes
requiring students to write out the a,b,c (they balk at this, but most
of them were unable to do it; and I gained lots of valuable information
on how they write, use of lower and upper case letters, and how they organize
their work); alphabetization skills; producing whole words by heart within
a chose category (colors or numbers, usually); checking beginning and ending
sound recognition; listening to individuals words, and then in the context
of a sentence, and recognizing the written word.
These simple tools feed into the first
stage of the student's individual "profile" or plan, whatever you would
like to call it. All of the students are individually assessed according
to items--then I can take an overall look to determine directions for teaching
styles, groups for tackling 'clusters' of disabling problems, and curriculum
direction. (Note: I also do these profiles after each major "test" or project).
After this initial 'glance', I assess some
individual problems during the time that students work are engaged in individual
or group work, or in sessions that I set up with students.
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Weaker
and LD students have little or no experience in group work
I found that many of my initial plans for
the year were foiled because students had not learned how to work effectively
in pairs or groups. Games and other activities requiring movement were
out of the question--disruption of "game plans" seems to become the modus
operandi for weaker students unless intervention occurs.
I now spend alot of time discussing the
purpose and benefits of group work, what type of behavior is acceptable,
laying out expectations, setting up procedures, practicing slowly layered
steps from quiet independent work, to sharing in pairs, to solving problems,
to working with small groups, etc. And I need to spend lots of time revisiting
these principles and reinforcing good behavior with praise. I also learned
that all pair and group work requires some type of written or other manipulative
task--even oral activities. And the tasks have to be broken down into small
components, written very clearly on uncrowded pages, preferably in chart
form. Prior to beginning any activities of this kind, we need to spend
time as a class (and this requires that ALL members are attentive) setting
up expectations for the activity, including:
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predicting and brainstorming about the general
topic and vocabulary, preferably using pictures that accompany text--I
only write a few words on the board from this discussion--I find that these
students write alot of vocabulary in their notebooks but never have the
time or simply are unwilling or unable to learn them--so writing down lots
of words at this stage is usually meaningless.
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dealing with any language awareness problems
that the students haven't encountered yet--see discussion later
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clearly stating an overall definition of the
activity, and then breaking down the definition into numbered steps on
the board-- this is best accomplished by writing the material beforehand
on a separate board, in a clearly numbered sequence with different types
of information in different colors. An interesting phenomena in weak classes
is that students get very anxious if they cannot start copying right away--so
I have learned to let them. I know that we often prefer writing down the
steps as we elicit them from the students, with much discussion, and taking
copying for granted. This simply does not work with my classes. Board copying
used to take SO much time that I often gave them hand-out sheets with instructions
that they could staple into their notebooks. However, students have told
me that hand-out sheets don't work very well for them--they learn better
by copying information and reading something in their own handwriting.
I finally got a white board and this activity has improved dramatically.
I try to give very short, clear, simple descriptions--and I walk around
to remind students to leave spaces in between steps so that they can add
their own notes as we discuss them.
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discussing the particular strategy
that we are learning or practicing. Although there are many stages to instruction
of material in these classes, I would have to say that the most important
is teaching students strategies for doing the various communicative tasks
that they must accomplish. I find that my students have very little (or
no) knowledge of why they are doing activities, and how to apply what they
have learned from task to task. Many report that in middle school, they
concentrated on vocabulary and grammar--and feel that they understood and
retained very little. I also tried in all classes to build vocabulary and
grammar, and failed miserably. However, when I changed the emphasis to
reading and listening strategies, they became more engaged, performed better
in class and in tests and seem to enjoy themselves much more. By mid-year,
I had changed the focus of the entire program based upon these findings.
Some of the strategies that really seem to help in the early stages are
identifying text type, scanning questions before reading, focusing on key
words, asking and answering "wh" questions, when and how to use their dictionary,
skimming, etc.
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going over the steps but in the context of
using a very simple example-- asking for an example from one of the students
proves much more meaningful than my providing one for them--this is the
first important stage of making sure they understand the definition of
the concept we are studying and applying it to their everyday life. In
mabar
classes, as recommended by Feuerstein's methods, this is essential.
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applying the steps to the handouts, or materials
the students will manipulate during the exercise. If these are story strips,
I think it is important to do the first, or at least one of the strips
with the students, moving around the class and watching them manipulate
the material; if it is a chart filling out one of the items with them using
a board model in colors once again.
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a general rule--I always try to keep MOST
of the material at or slightly below their current level, with only one
or two items to challenge them at a higher level. This gives them the practice
that they need, helps them succeed, and brings them along at the right
pace.
A couple of caveats
(a) Constituting
pairs and groups --I rarely let students work with whomever
they want. I experimented with this and found that students in weak classes
usually want to work with a friend and have a good chance of ending up
'off-task'. It is only after a few months that they relearn the value of
working with someone that they can work with effectively, learn a new skill
from, gain an advantage, or eventually share skills. I set up my pairs
and groups while I'm doing the lesson plan, with different goals in mind
each time--having an insecure student work with one that has recently felt
some success; having a good verbal but dyslexic student work with a (comparatively)
good reader and writer, but poor speaker; and sometimes pooling strong
students together to make new progress, while spending more of my time
with a section of weaker pairs, focusing on one particular skill. I still
have to deal with some complaints about this--but I stand firm and always
willing to explain my reasoning. Every few weeks, however, I reward good
behavior in class (students who have worked well independently to complete
an exercise in class) by asking good performers if they would like to work
with a friend, then asking the "chosen" friend if he or she would also
like to work in a pair. Kids who fool around get the message very fast.
(b) Hand-out materials--At
times, I get frustrated at the slow pace of accomplishment in my classes--but
these times occur less often as I watch how the students are indeed learning.
I am reconciled, and think I am correct in having concluded, that it is
not the QUANTITY of work that we cover, but the QUALITY. Trite, but true.
There are a very limited number of tasks that students will be required
to perform on the bagrut examination, and they are repeated ad infinitum
in tasks using different subjects and vocabulary and text types and genres--but
they ARE repeats. By focusing on strategy practice, I believe that we will
cover sufficient material to have made the year worth it--even if we only
managed to finish two chapters of an 11 chapter book. ( I keep reminding
myself that most of these students finished at least six texts before arriving
on my doorstep, and managed to learn very little throughout the process.)
Therefore, I pick several different types
of tasks or the same basic learning point presented in several different
ways or with different texts. Each of these tasks or activities has only
2-4 examples. The advantage is that MOST of the students can complete ALL
of the activities within the allotted time. But more importantly, if they
are keeping focused, they change activities and methods every 5-15 minutes--so
their concentration and interest are more engaged.
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Weak
and LD students have inappropriate behavior and poor study skills which
they must learn to improve
I have no doubts about this one. The weak
classes are MOSTLY filled with students who don't know how to learn English,
have very poor motivation, don't concentrate very well, are very disruptive
and can make a teacher's and other students' lives miserable. My students
tell me that this is a result of being unable to function in class--in
previous years some were allowed to do what they wanted as long as they
didn't disrupt class too much.
I spent the first few months carefully
documenting the different types of behavior--this helped me in two ways.
I was able to identify different behavior/work habits that I felt were
essential to their learning and that were often lacking (to different degrees)
in all the students. And instead of letting them drive me nuts, I forced
myself to DOCUMENT instead of discipline and react.
Once I had identified the major areas of
problem behavior, I found that I needed some mechanism to record student
progress from day to day--in order to praise improvements and focus on
problems. I eventually came up with a modification of a behavior log that
a colleague uses successfully in elementary school. Advising students that
30% of their grade in my class depends on their daily progress, I now provide
them with a monthly log, where EACH day they log in the date, and grade
themselves on the following:
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On time--being on time for class
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bring all books and supplies
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ready to work--arriving in class, taking out
books, notebook and pencil, and being ready to start, not talking with
friends
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homework--based upon the system that I have
developed for them students are graded on WHETHER they do homework every
day, PLUS the quality of their work, after they have finished correcting
it.
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paying attention--
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participation
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behavior--a catch-all category that includes
cooperating with me and others and not disrupting other students
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worked in class
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other--a bonus category for doing well with
independent, pair or group work, or doing something special for someone
else in class, including me; or in some cases, a special skill that they
are trying to improve
I give the logs to a student to hand out at
the beginning of each class. Each student has to enter the date (which
is always in the same place on the board), checking off behavior as class
progresses and completing the log for the day at the end. If someone breaks
a rule, I warn, then make a point of putting an X on their log. If someone
does well, I likewise praise and check. Homework is usually checked off
by me by making a quick round of the class and glancing at homework, using
one or two items for scanning. At the end of class, someone collects the
logs for me, and puts them with the student portfolios--all of which STAY
in our class cupboard.
At the end of the month, we spend some
quiet time looking over the previous month's log, and identifying areas
where the students have improved, or need improvement. The new month's
log includes a circle around one, or at the most, two items that the student
has chosen to work on during the next month.
After using the system for awhile, one
interesting thing occurred--several (and always different) students tried
to find legitimate excuses to move around class, or were suddenly struck
with an emergency need or illness--leaving their coat in another classroom,
needing to go to the bathroom or get a drink. Once I caught on, I decided
to discuss this problem with all the students. We finally figured out that
now that they are "mostly" engaged, it is hard to do so for very long or
for every class. I simply tell them to be honest--if they need to get up
and walk around, they can go outside for a few moments until they can get
control. It's amazing how this phenomenon has been reduced as well.
Needless, to say, the logs make my life
easy when I'm trying to explain to a student and parents what behavior
is contributing to his/her failure or success in class. ý
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Weak
and LD students have very little knowledge of how the English language
is constructed.
For lack of a better term, I'll call this
language awareness. My students and I have a joke--"where were you when
the teacher talked about..." and the list is endless. It includes most
ambiguous consonants (e.g.when to say k or s for c; g or j for g; x; consonants
that look similar, such as h and n; plus all kinds of individual combinations);
silent letter; just about anything having to do with vowels; just about
all consonant and consonant/vowel blends......need I go on? And none of
them every heard of prefixes, roots and suffixes, but surprisingly, find
it interesting and fun. I quickly learned that language awareness out of
context from text is virtually useless. And language awareness IN context
of the text WITHOUT strategy instruction takes too much time. So the layers
of my lessons, that I mentioned previously take the form of not only some
"social" principles, but include new and review language awareness elements,
pulled out from the text we will work on, and taught through prediction
and comprehension activities. However, the main focus of the lesson still
needs to be teaching strategies for dealing with different listening and
reading texts, oral work or the writing work that we do.
I have found some "raw" material relating
to language awareness. Starting over --A literacy
program by Joan Knight, Educators Publishing Service, 1990.
By the way, EPS books were recommended during a training session sponsored
by the Ministry of Ed., Jerusalem, on LD and Attention Deficit Disorders,
and I am using several of their publications--adapted to my needs--but
with great success.
Starting Over
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contains several pre-tests that are useful
for initial assessments, checking progress and review; as well as some
useful interviewing guidelines
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the instruction model is multi-sensory, as
well as concentrating on all communicative areas.
-
there are explicit guidelines for teacher's
as well as students work sheets
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it is very comprehensive, providing units
for the alphabet and multi-sensory strategy instructions, short vowels,
alphabetization, consonant units (that include various vowel and consonant
combinations) and several useful appendixes including breakdown of the
44 sounds of the English language, guides for spelling and pronunciation,
sound of letter connected/unconnected to name, dictionary skills, silent
letters and syllabication.
The additional benefit is that it is geared
for the adult learner--words and texts are more sophisticated. The disadvantage
(and areas where this raw material needs to be reworked) are that it is
targeted for native speaker literacy problems, including ESL, although
it is advertised as being useful for false beginners learning EFL.
Another excellent series, although targeted
for younger students is the multi-booklet series Explode
the Code, by Nancy Hall & Rena Price also published
by Educators Publishing Service, 1993. This series breaks down all of the
major basic elements of English language into units which gradually build
up the rules for the unit through matching pictures with words, writing
words in beginning consonant, root or middle and ending sequences, word
building through syllables, matching words within the contexts of sentences
with pictures, and eventually stories with comprehension questions. The
disadvantage of this material is that the vocabulary is clearly that designed
for English speakers or at best, ESL, but once again, it is excellent raw
material. I was able to use several examples from each unit, adding more
focused vocabulary, and exercises, plus some listening and oral work. However,
the stories need to be reworked. The students really enjoy this work.
On a higher level Riding
the Wave, by Ronald Green, University Publishing 1996,
has sections on language awareness at the right content level for Israeli
students, which derive from the texts that he uses. However, the texts
are quite difficult--lots of groundwork needs to be laid to work with the
texts, especially since my students are also have text
anxiety--the prediction work needs to be extensive, and the
language awareness material and even some exercises and grammar have to
be introduced prior to tackling the texts in order to keep student anxiety
low. I have found it helpful to add material to these sections and do lots
of review work when using them. On the other hand, the subject matter is
at the right level of sophistication and the students seem to genuinely
enjoy the topics, listening texts and reading/writing interactive work.
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Weak
and LD students have little or no independent working skills.
This problem requires considerable effort
on at least three different levels: dictionary work; using alternative
assessment; and building an independent learning center.
(a) Dictionary
work
I was surprised to learn that most students
don't know the alphabet--so small wonder that they're not too happy using
a dictionary. Some have rudimentary knowledge of alphabetization, but the
'lost' letters often make looking up words frustrating and time-consuming.
And even where this is not a problem, NONE of the students had skills for
working with dictionaries.
So dictionary work is an essential part
of these classes. Even visually disabled students are encouraged to learn
some rudimentary skills. The first task is mastering the alphabet--and
I can't insult them by singing the ABC song. Instead, I found some great
work sheets in Starting Over
The worksheets feature the alphabet song
broken into three parts, with boxes for each letter according to the pace
of the song. Each worksheet leaves more and more blanks. I substituted
an a,b,c chant to a reggae beat, asking the students to beat with their
hand loudly on their desks as they chanted. And told them that whoever
dances in their seats the most, will learn the fastest. One day of chanting
and a couple of surprise reviews, and we had the a,b,c, down. ( I gradually
teach them to replace beating their desk with their hands, to silently
tapping with one finger; and only moving their lips and visualizing the
letter.)
Once we've mastered the a,b,c, we move
on to alphabetization rules--again, Starting Over
has some great worksheets--they're a little complicated, but if you can
reign in your class and get them to concentrate, and use lots of examples,
it works well. It works best when I break the students into groups of 5-6.
I have developed lots of dictionary worksheets
and exercises--starting with different ways of alphabetizing, categories,
moving into scanning and skimming, learning where everything is in the
dictionary, then basic towards more complex definition work.
However, I had to set a policy about IF
and WHEN students would bring their own dictionaries. Students have asked
advice about which dictionary to use, and we have tried to order several
types in the English Center and let them use different ones. Although I
monitor their purchasing and bringing their own dictionary, we are starting
to build up our own collection since individual storage space for students
is limited and the dictionaries ARE heavy. Generally, very weak or LD students
seem to like to use the new Passport Dictionarywhen
starting out. But even in tenth grade, it has limitations. However, the
Oxford and Longman have drawbacks because of the size of the print and
lack of Hebrew-English.
Since this is one area that is crucial
for students, and in which I lack knowledge, I am starting to investigate
choice and uses of dictionaries--there's alot of information out there.
And the students are required to practice
their new skills every week when we work on workcards and other work in
class. No matter how often I articulate my expectations, I still find myself
telling students that I am not their dictionary--being firm about students
continually practicing looking up words will pay off in speed and efficiency!
Even though I encourage visually disabled
and dyslexic students to get an electronic dictionary, I still make sure
that they have available and use regular dictionaries--I adjust the amount
of work and time limits.
(b) Alternative
assessment and taking control of learning
Dictionary work is not the only "black
hole" that contributes to their inability to work on their own--they often
do not know how to approach their homework, have little stamina or practice
in reviewing material every night to improve retention and don't know how
to study for tests. At the beginning of the year, the students were quite
surprised when I refused to accept "I didn't understand" or "It was too
hard" as an excuse for not doing homework. Although I adjust my expectations
for each student, and am quite flexible at HOW they are required to produce,
I am firm in requiring that they try. An important feature of this special
program is taking chances, expecting mistakes and learning how to correct
them.
With these problems in mind, another major
emphasis of the program has become the importance placed on collecting
and evaluating all work in a portfolio format, and accumulating points
over a period of time on homework and other assignments. At this point,
I should clarify that although our English Department has determined that
40% of student grades are based upon tests, this does not apply for my
group. The percentages are dropped to 20% for tenth grade, and raised to
25% in eleventh grade, and 30% in the first half of twelfth grade (the
final grade for 12th is based on different computations in line with other
classes taking the Bagrut). This takes alot of pressure off of the students
since most of them perform poorly on tests, as a result of test anxiety
or lack of ability. However, homework and certain classwork is raised to
40%. The practice sheets that I use in class are often expanded for homework
with a certain amount of points designated for acceptable completion. The
assignments are titled so that students can keep track of them. Although
I give bonus points for finishing and turning work in on time, I do not
penalize students who take longer to work. There are many individual differences
in how students complete this work. Some spend more time doing the complete
assignment, turn it in for my notations of where corrections need to be
made, make corrections, and then turn it in again for more points. Some
hand the work in smaller chunks, adding corrections to their next batch.
Last semester I gave students until the
week before grades to finish all of their work. This semester I decided
to finish several assignments and ask for the work earlier so we could
spend more time reflecting on all of our work and putting together the
portfolio, including some writing about their progress. I introduced this
"reflective" work right after Pesach--with a very detailed worksheet of
questions that they had to think about, how to decorate and organize their
work, and how to pick which work to 'highlight'. I also plan to give them
some time in class before the due date to work on their portfolios, so
that I can assist them, or they can discuss their choices with me. The
success of this system differs with each student--those who begin to understand
that they can get any grade they choose if they want to keep working hard
have produced some outstanding work. There is a small group who simply
are not interested in the work that I assign or find it impossible to approach--this
requires negotiating for substitute work. And a very small group have a
great deal of difficulty producing at all.
Included in this 40% is a grade of 1-10
points on their workbooks which are collected twice a semester; and HAVING,
USING and KEEPING IN ORDER the notebook that we use in our learning center--there
is a front page chart that has to be filled out for all work.
Finally, there is 5-10% that I use for
more creative work--last semester students were required to turn in a cassette--they
could choose ANY text from our book (Radio Feverfor
tenth grade; Riding the Wave for 11th)
regardless of genre or length. According to the recommendations of Avi
Tzur in his training on "weak" students, they were asked to state their
name and the page they were reading from; they handed in the tape and I
listened and recorded my comments, in English or Hebrew or both, depending
on the proficiency of the student. While I carefully record/check-off a
list of problems and proficiencies, I follow Avi's advice--select only
a few items to comment on, be clear in your corrections, but most importantly,
say something positive about every effort. I found alot of resistance in
my 11th graders, but a few performed on cassettes several times, with some
opting to do oral assignments on cassette, rather than in class. Most tenth
graders, after getting used to the idea and my being firm , enjoyed the
assignment and came up with an interesting array of selections. ALL students
in the tenth grade performed the task, albeit several at the last minute.
And very few tapes were unintelligible.
In addition, last semester, students were
asked to pick any topic in the book to write about independently. I spent
alot of time reviewing how to pick a topic they were interested in (using
the table of contents and activities; pictures that were interesting; whether
they preferred longer or shorter stories, poems, songs, letters, etc.)and
target questions that they had to answer when they turned their choice
in (e.g. why does the topic interest you; why do you like that type of
text; what do you hope to learn; how to you think you can find out more;
how do you hope to improve your English). I also developed a checklist
for progressing on their project. I had mixed results with this work. Most
students had never done a project in English before, although many were
capable of transferring their knowledge of how they had completed their
"Personal subjects" in Hebrew. Some had difficulties selecting material
and I would have to enter into a dialogue with them to focus on their interests.
Especially for LD students, I had to be very sensitive to their anxiety
about written work--I spent time talking to several students about how
to read and listen to a story, how to outline issues for discussion of
the story, and then record them in lieu of written work. In each tenth
and eleventh grade class, a few students became very enthusiastic--interestingly
enough, they were not just my most capable or least disabled students.
And some of the work was outstanding. One student read several stories,
letters and fact sheets about AIDS in the book, and then asked for additional
resources and material in the community. Another student became very interested
in the story and information on children with special needs. Two students
asked to do a topic unrelated to the book work (and both of them, a boy
and girl wanted to write about their animals!). And several students astounded
me by going beyond my recommendations for outlining and organizing their
work and producing masterpieces for Tables of Contents. A large group in
each class picked the stories, songs and information about Elvis. In each
class, some students took the lazy way out and copied information from
the book--one was interested in working on his spelling and typed out half
a chapter on his word processor. They didn't receive many points, or my
highest praise, but they got credit for putting forth some effort--this
is an important point, since some of these students NEVER produce project
or other long-term work. I also found that students in the Mabar tenth
grade took the project more seriously, although some of the work in the
regular class was more creative. Many attached some lovely art work. Although
I expected all of the students to write a draft in Hebrew and translate,
I was pleasantly surprised to see some creative writing efforts in English.
And some had even incorporated what they learned about using a dictionary.
I should mention that after assigning this project, and reminding them
of it every week, I also scheduled in time during "learning center" hours
when I could work with them, or they could work on the projects in my presence
in case they had questions. In summary, I hoped to find out what the students
could do on their own, spending time mostly on process and organization
and choices, and they exceeded my expectations.
During the second semester, I dropped the
requirement of the cassette since I wanted to introduce "choosing" work
to go into their portfolio, and following up their interests on topics
related to what we are actually studying. In one class, we are studying
"Predicting the Future" and several students got very excited about doing
research on their horoscope sign, or finding out more about some of the
parapsychological topics that we used--their work and decorations were
not only turned in before I "finalized" the assignment, but are truly outstanding--and
these from students who have been labeled as non-producers. Since the textbook
for tenth grade is built on the premise that teachers and students will
use some form of portfolio assessment, and even suggests several ideas
to students throughout the chapter, some of the "idea" work was already
done.
The final element in the grading system
was introducing the idea of keeping work in order in a portfolio/file,
and assessing students at regular intervals by reviewing that work. As
a new teacher, I knew that I didn't like traditional testing very much--however,
I was anxious about how much alternative evaluation I would be able to
introduce. I decided to set an easy goal for the first semester--and I
recommend this to other teachers when I conduct training. My goal was simply
to teach students the value of keeping and organizing their work. Since
I had insisted on using one room for all classes, and finally found a solution
to storage problems, I decided that I did not even want to struggle with
students about taking responsibility for bringing the portfolio back and
forth--this is an issue of much discussion among teachers who use this
method. I simply require that the files be kept on their class's shelf
in our room, and have included organizational work on the portfolio into
our schedule at least once a week. As the time approached for parent-teacher
conferences, I developed a checklist of questions and met with ever student,
using the portfolio work as our base, for reviewing the work to date.
During this last semester, I stressed this
interactive aspect even more--I prepared a worksheet for students to review
their daily logs and all the work in their portfolio in preparation of
my giving them their grades--they did this assessment on their own, then
I reviewed their work and their self-evaluation, and discussed their status
with them. Now that I've introduced "selecting" work, and writing comments
about what they learned and how they felt about their production,
I hope to talk to the students about their reflections in conferences,
and continue to build toward next year.
However, "portfolio" is not the main point
of this solution to students who generally perform poorly. I think the
key lies in "alternative assessment" measures as a whole. By reducing the
value of tests, students begin to understand that last minute cramming
and periodic checks on a small portion of material are not so important
to our learning process. Rather, by consistently trying to improve on a
day-to-day basis, and diligently doing and correcting homework and other
assignments, they will take control of their own learning and the grades
that they "earn". Another important message that applies primarily to learning
disabled students--they are given alot of flexibility to produce in the
manner that is easiest for them, or to try to do more difficult tasks,
but at a lower level of proficiency. Some of these students never had this
choice before, and have flourished in a more open environment. And finally,
all students begin to understand that everyone can succeed in class, if
they are willing to put in the effort.
(c) Building an
Independent Learning Center
Although I had high hopes for making more
progress in building an Independent English Learning Center this year,
the realities of lack of budget and time won out. However, some progress
has been made and we have great hopes for the future. The subject of learning
centers is an article in itself, of course. To put it simply, students
need time at least once a week to work on different types of task--workcards
for reading, oral practice with a partner based on workcard assignments,
listening comprehension, reading stories and books (usually while listening
to a tape), simply writing activities, and where possible, computer use.
The tasks need to be leveled for ability, cover a wide range of subjects
and be do-able independently. And the student must be able to make some
choices what type of work he/she would like to perform.
