"Writing a Book With ESOL Students -- A Project-Centered Curriculum"

Authors:    The Teachers and Staff of Embassy Fort Lauderdale Study Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Presenter:  S. McCrea

Abstract:

The benefits of teaching a curriculum through a project have been well documented.   This paper aims to describe a procedure and the results of creating a book with students focused on their experiences as long-term visitors to the USA.   Input will be sought from others who have experienced the thrill and loneliness of studying in another country away from family, friends and familiar social networks.     The anticipated obstacles are discussed and proposed remedies are described.    The aim is to provide teachers with a plan of action for introducing a “real world” project into the curriculum that calls on students to participate in a “real” project that has a lifespan, not just a classroom exercise that is tossed out at the end of the week. The paper will be delivered with an addendum that will be ready in December or January 2010, so that the audience will have a copy of the finished book, which can be downloaded from scribd.com.

Introduction

This is not the first attempt that this team of teachers and staff members has made to assemble the tips of students.   Numerous handouts for new students have included tips from past students and several members of the team that created this project worked on a book project in 2000 called English For a Successful Life in the USA.  The team expects to use these past successes to bring this project to a happy conclusion.

Materials

1.  The brains of our students

2.  The passions of our teachers and administrators

3.  The curriculum

Method

1.  Ask students who are "long-stay" students to contribute their three or four “top tips” to future students

2.  Create a list of questions to stimulate their thinking, basing the observations on the grammar and vocabulary of the current week's curriculum.  "What in the curriculum can be turned into a question for the ongoing book project?"

3.  Assemble the tips and answers over a 10-to-12-week time period (which allows most students to go through the curriculum at their level).  Arrange the questions and answers in logical order for a visiting student (see appendix)

4.  Create the book (ask students who are artistic to participate in creating the cover and illustrations as well as selecting the font of the book, the center director gets final choice)

5.  Write about the entire process and submit the paper in time for the TOEFL deadline of June 2009

Projects can be fraught with difficulties.  “When implemented correctly, modern day project based activities are real world scenarios that model scaled-down versions of adult activities” (Martin).  With this in mind, the project conducted at our school integrated the questions to the students in our weekly test and as emailed homework tasks (simulating requests by future bosses for input).

Obstacles

1.  Anticipate obstacles

2.  Remain flexible to respond to new obstacles

3.  Look out for bad hard-drives (make backups)

4.  Anticipate resistance from students and make it easy for them to contribute, even verbally if they don’t want to write their tips.

Remedies

1.  Keep an open mind

2.  Make backups of all submissions

Results

1.  Compile the book as an electronic book

2.  Submit the book to Gutenberg.org and scribd.com as a service to future students

3.  Submit the book to the school’s headquarters for possible distribution to agents and future students

Additional Tips

Students will be asked for their general impressions of the USA before they arrived and now after they have been in the USA for at least a month.  These observations will generate additional tips.

Conclusion

The conclusion will be written when the book is completed, probably in November 2009.  The final book will be distributed in book form on the Internet and extracts will be available for participants at the 2010 TOEFL Conference in Boston. 

Appendix

Anticipated chapter headings

Tips For New Students From Other Students

1.  Why study English in another country?

2.  Differences between UK, Canada, USA and Australia (the principal locations for studying English as a foreign language)

3.  Other places to study English (India, Malta, other countries such as Italy for South Koreans)

4.  When you first arrive   (You are on a big adventure.  You have no job, no mortgage, no kids, no spouse, no family, your time is yours and "the rules are different here" -- or are they?   Remember that you carry your culture with you and what happens to you will affect you for the rest of your life.   Your family might never know what happened to you while you were studying in another country, but YOU will and you will carry that information in your brain and in your heart for many years.   The rules might be different, but your memory is strong.  Be careful!)

5.  Getting to know the school and your accommodations (tips from teachers, tips from past students, how to fit in, how to take advantage of the school's assets, expect to learn something about other cultures and your host family, what to expect, some hassles that can be avoided with some flexibility, the importance of talking and communication...)

6.  Get into a routine (Study, eat, shop, beach, sleep)

7.  Getting into the community (beyond the Pentagon of school, shopping, sightseeing, home and beach).   Tips about how to find unusual volunteering opportunities

8.  Long term vs. short term:  If you are away from your country for four or more months, you have a different set of experiences than the student who stays two or three weeks. Haircut, dental, medical problems

9.  Bicycle or car?  Tips about how to rent, lease or own your wheels

10.  Travel and sightseeing in the country (how to balance studies and discoveries) tips about how to travel and stay cheaply, couchsurfing.com, etc.

11.  Staying in contact:  email, Skype and Social Networks

12.  Bad Experiences  (Nightmares, what has happened to other people, such as carjacking, the Italian case where a female student was murdered by her roommate, the visiting student who went trick-or-treating in Louisiana and tried to scare a homeowner with his mask... but the homeowner was frightened and shot the student)

13.  Miscellaneous tips and online resources  (What will local people ask you?  What websites are helpful?)   

14.  The next edition:   Your tips can get into the next book.  If you submit a tip, you will get an electronic version of the future book, plus your email address 

15.  Note to teachers:   The benefits of a project for your curriculum -- each week, a new grammar point can be introduced.  This chapter describes how we integrated most of the 12 tenses, irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and other grammar points into the making of the book.   The final paper, submitted to TESOL 2010, appears as the last chapter of the book with tips on how to complete a similar project and recommendations on what we would do differently to improve the project.

References

http://arp.sprnet.org/inserv/Projectbase/index.htm

Educators must ask, "What is it that we want our students to be able to do?" and then build an environment that allows students to gain skills for achieving these goals.

http://www.motivation-tools.com/youth/project_education.html

Project base education is empowering students to learn, where the instructor is a coach, a facilitator. The Project Based Education concept is based on what interests and motivates the student.

W. Martin, “The Ups and Downs of a Project=Based Curriculum.” 

http://wmartin4.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/essay2draft.pdf

Resources

Vocabulary list (glossary of words, the vocabulary is aimed at the intermediate reader with a vocabulary set of about 2000 words)

INDEX

Contact information:   TipsForNewStudents@gmail.com

Presenter:  Steve McCrea