Roman alphabet language: Farsi. The first task is a numeracy worksheet in which
the participants count symbols of several different items. They then write the ...
This activity was developed as a professional development workshop by ESL literacy instructors at Bow Valley College in Calgary, Alberta. In the activity, participants use the literacy skills and background knowledge they have gained from their previous formal education to try to complete two literacy tasks in an unknown, nonRoman alphabet language: Farsi. The first task is a numeracy worksheet in which the participants count symbols of several different items. They then write the answers to six questions asking “How many”. The second task is a reading/writing activity in which participants use a word bank to write the days of the week in order. Posters with Farsi text mounted around the room by the facilitator beforehand will provide enough indirect clues to complete the tasks if the participants:
employ good learning strategies employ good reading strategies use their background knowledge.
The purpose of the activity is to demonstrate how the learning strategies, reading strategies, and background knowledge we have gained in our previous formal education can contribute significantly to doing literacy tasks in an unknown language.
Workshop Presentation Slides Workshop Facilitator Notes Four Farsi wall posters, printed on at least 11 x 17” paper (larger would be more effective, if available): -Poster 1: a poster of a clock with Farsi numerals -Poster 2: a page from a Farsi wall calendar -Poster 3: a face, labeled in Farsi -Poster 4: transportation modes, labeled in Farsi Two Farsi worksheets
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One set per group for the activity; additional copies available for each group member Observer Notes worksheet Participant Questions worksheet Answer keys to the two Farsi worksheets. English versions of the two worksheets for comparison.
1. Before the session, mount the four wall posters on the walls around the classroom in places that are highly visible to all participants. o Consider posting the Farsi clock over the face of an actual clock hanging in the room. o Consider posting the Farsi wall calendar on top of a page from an actual calendar. 2. Use an LCD projector to project the Workshop Presentation slides on a screen. o There are twelve workshop slides. o The notes below will guide the workshop facilitation process.
Welcome the workshop participants to the Literacy Learning Simulation. This professional development workshop was developed by ESL literacy practitioners and the ESL Literacy Network at Bow Valley College in Calgary, Alberta. The workshop has been made available through the ESL Literacy Network so that other organizations can participate in this learning experience. The ESL Literacy Network provides information, resources and an online community of practice to support the professional development of ESL literacy practitioners.
With participants seated in the circle, go over the workshop outcome.
With participants seated in the circle, go over the workshop outline. Approximate timing of each: Introductions: 30 minutes Literacy Learning Simulation Group Activity: 20 minutes Group Discussion: 20 minutes Group Reflection: 30 minutes Debriefing: 20 minutes
Materials: a ball of string, chairs for each participant Procedure: 1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10.
Before the activity, move the tables to the side of the room and arrange the chairs in a circle. Have the participants/facilitator sit facing each other in the circle. The facilitator takes out the ball of string and wraps the end around her finger. She explains that when she holds the ball of string, she has the opportunity to say her name, share a little about her background with ESL literacy, and one personal thing about herself that the rest of the group might find surprising: “I was 27 years old when I went on an airplane for the first time.” The facilitator then throws the ball to a participant across the circle, creating a line of string connecting her to that person. The participant then wraps the string around her finger and shares her name, background with ESL literacy and something surprising about herself. The participant then throws the ball to someone across the circle from her, creating another line of string connecting her to the next person. Repeat steps five and six until all participants have spoken and a “web” is created connecting all workshop attendees to each other. The last participant then throws the ball back to the facilitator, completing the web. The second half of the activity involves unravelling the web, one line at a time. To do this, the person holding the ball, must remember the name and the unusual item about the person who spoke before them. She can model introducing this participant to the others with a phrase like, “This is Mary. She went on an airplane for the first time when she was 27 years old”. After she gives this information, she removes the string from her finger and throws the ball to the person she is connected to. That person then rolls up the excess string, unravels the string from her finger and introduces the person she is connected to. Step 9 is repeated until the web is gone.
While still seated in a circle, the facilitator explains that this part of the activity can be done in the first days of an ESL literacy class, using simpler language such as, “My name is…I am from… and I want….” The facilitator then instructs the participants to reflect on the following question throughout the course of today’s workshop: Why do you think an activity like the classroom web would be valuable at the beginning of an ESL literacy class?
1. Divide the participants into groups of 3 – 4 people and have each group sit at a table together. 2. Explain that there is one literacy worksheet and one numeracy worksheet to complete. 3. The worksheets are similar in design to something that might be used in a Benchmark 1 class, although simplified in format to more of a literacy level. 4. Assign one person to be the “observer” and give them the Observer Notes worksheet to complete while the group completes the task. 5. Give little instruction on how to complete the worksheets. 6. Allow approximately 15 minutes to complete the task. 7. If all workshops participants are having a great amount of difficulty getting started, you may give the hint that they can get information from all parts of the room to help them complete the task.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Handout the Participant Questions worksheet. Allow 15 minutes for the small groups to work through each of the above questions. At this time, the group observer will also share his/her reflections with the group. Come together as a whole group. Show the participants the Farsi Answer Keys and the English versions of the two worksheets and go over what was expected on the worksheets. 6. Have each group present some of their reflections about what helped them complete the tasks and how they felt doing the tasks.
Guide the discussion toward some of the sample answers below: How did your L1 literacy and educational background knowledge contribute to your performance on these tasks?
symbols represent speech pictures relate to the text near to it highly symbolic pictures can represent real three-dimensional items information in our environment can be used as a reference to write answers we might not know scanning the room for new posted information before class that may be useful for the day’s work noticing text in our environment and thinking about its potential relevance to tasks we might be asked to do name and date are usually requested at the top of the page instructions can be found before the numbered questions on a worksheet
questions are numbered or lettered if there are 7 questions, you would need to provide 7 answers various formatting conventions such as: o blanks and spaces where answers are to be recorded o labeling lines (on the face poster) o table lines (on the transportation poster) o the seven column formatting of the calendar separate rows for each question use of a word bank to copy from information can be extracted from unrelated items and put in another context to create answers for a worksheet all but one of the word bank words in the “days of the week” worksheet have the same ending, so they are likely related words in the same category there are 7 days in a week clocks have numbers clocks are usually mounted high on one wall in a classroom posters present information thematically the pictures in the worksheet are in different quantities; therefore, the worksheet might involve counting there are different ways in different languages to represent speech with symbols Farsi is written from right to left Farsi is spoken in a predominantly Muslim country in which Saturday is the first day of the week dates can be represented by a series of numbers information is categorized in school (e.g. the transportation poster; the face poster).
If you had little literacy/formal education in any language, how would this activity have been different for you? How would you have felt being asked to do it? What strategies might you have employed?
would not have had the literacy & learning strategies, background knowledge to draw from would have felt highly stressed doing it may have only had copying or avoidance strategies to draw from may have appealed to someone else to complete the task
Teaching ESL literacy is not only about learning to read and write or about acquiring English; learning how to learn and how to apply learning to new contexts is a huge part of the curriculum. ESL literacy learners have to acquire the concepts behind new language in addition to the language itself. For example, learners may need to learn the concept behind the word:
Address: Learners may not know that the numbers on houses or the names on street signs relate to how the city’s spatial information is organized. Year: Learners may not know that they live on a planet that revolves around the sun and that a year represents one trip around the sun.
Have the participants look at the worksheets they did and give examples of something conceptual that may be difficult for someone with limited education: o o
writing the date involves a significant amount of conceptual knowledge writing the days of the week in order involves conceptual knowledge about how time is divided up in our culture; that a week is made up of 7 days; that the 7 days have names and that there is an order to the names.
1. Picture literacy The pictures provided on the worksheets are highly stylized and/or symbolic. These pictures can be very difficult for those with little formal education. These learners may not have seen the symbols as relating to real life three-dimensional objects or the realistic photographs on the poster in the classroom. In ESL literacy, we should always move from:
realia to personalized photographs with the realia included in them to less personally contextualized photographs to realistic greyscale or colour illustrations to line drawings perhaps to clipart-style graphics to symbolic/stylized representations (often not used in ESL literacy classes) The most abstract representations of realia are text itself, and this comes at the end of the picture literacy continuum. We never start with text, but rather move from oral and kinaesthetic exposure to new concepts. The newer the concept, the more need for realto life experience of it and kinaesthetic manipulation of it. Text is the last step. This is opposite to the progression for academic students with previous education; they often prefer to begin with the text. They already know how to read to learn and likely have similar concepts behind the vocabulary, so are simply transferring their knowledge from their language to English.
2. Formats Learners need to learn how to access different types of formats. Some ESL literacy learners will not be familiar with different formats like matching, labelling lines, word banks, tables etc. The best way to introduce formats is not through worksheets but through manipulation of realia and flashcards. 3. Learning styles Many ESL literacy learners are kinaesthetic learners. Some ESL literacy learners are adept at acquiring oral language. In the Foundation and Phase I ESL literacy classroom, we begin with kinaesthetic and oral tasks with realia, and then move toward literacy tasks in which language structures are manipulated physically on flash cards. The worksheet is at the end of this continuum, not the beginning. 4. Personalization When introducing new concepts, use personal experience of the new concept. Learners’ lives, particularly shared experiences of the class, are used often as the introductory content for new concepts, rather than fictional stories. 5. Post-traumatic stress Many ESL literacy learners are survivors of major trauma. ESL literacy instructors have to be adept at creating a safe, welcoming, communal learning environment. Post-traumatic stress also affects the rate at which learners acquire new knowledge and how much repetition they will need. It is important to take into account that in addition to having had interrupted formal education, many ESL literacy learners have had interrupted childhoods in general. Many were separated from elders in their community and from their home countries for large periods. Many would have had more limited exposure to traditional knowledge passed down from elders in their communities.
Slide 10: Summary Some research1 has shown that a grade four level of literacy in one’s first language is required in order to successfully transfer learning/literacy strategies to second language literacy acquisition. One reason is that learners with less than a grade four level of literacy have not yet developed the meta-cognition to reflect on how they learn. 1
Bigelow, M., & Schwarz, R. (2010). Adult English language learners with limited literacy. Retrieved from http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/ELLpaper2010.pdf
It is important to recognize that mainstream ESL classes are not effective learning environments for ESL literacy learners. The needs of ESL literacy learners are different from mainstream ESL learners. An analogy might be to think about the advisability of having early elementary children asked to learn in a college or university setting.
Slide 11: Revisiting the Classroom Web Before showing this complete slide, elicit some ways the classroom web activity done at the beginning of this workshop could be adapted for the first week of the ESL literacy class. Pose the questions: Why do you think an activity like the classroom web would be valuable at the beginning of an ESL literacy class? Go through each of the points on the slide. In terms of “mistakes are celebrated and valued”: the act not catching the ball of string when it’s thrown or not remembering something about a classmate is celebrated while this activity is done. The teacher herself may show her own vulnerability by laughing if she accidentally drops the ball herself or acknowledging when she can’t remembering something about one of the learners. This sets up a learning environment in which mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn rather than failures. The purpose of coming back to the warm-up introductions activity is to give more information on best practices for beginning work with ESL literacy learners and to set up a learning community early on in the term with a new group of learners At the end of the workshop, the facilitator can emphasize that this activity was a way for the participants in this workshop to begin setting up a community of practice with each other; encourage the participants to keep in touch with each other and share their practice with each other in a milieu such as the ESL Literacy Network.
For more information on ESL literacy, you can visit the ESL Literacy Network at: www.esl-literacy.com. In particular, the following web pages provide more background information: LIFE in Mainstream ESL and Adult Literacy Classes Developing Oral Fluency, Vocabulary & Background Knowledge Reading Instruction
Strategy Instruction Literacy Strategies
All workshop handouts and materials can be found at: http://www.esl-literacy.com/community/professional-development/workshops
