Institute for the Study
of American Language and Culture,(ISALC)
in the Mainstream:
Lewis & Clark
How Technology Can Help!
Krauss, Lewis & Clark
John Gorman, Program Coordinator for the Center for
Professional Development at Lewis & Clark College, offers the
graduate level course, "ESL in the Mainstream," designed to help K-12
teachers provide more effective instruction to the non-native
speakers of English in their classes. This Web page was prepared to
support a 3-hour session within this course, and is intended to give
teachers resources and hands-on practice in using technology to
assist in their instruction. It is hoped that participants will share
this information and these skills with others in their school
I. Basic information about participants and
- Are you an ESL or mainstream teacher?
- Do you deal with ESL students on a pullout
basis or within the mainstream classroom?
- Do your students have access to computers in
the classroom? To a computer lab?
- Do you have access to a computer at home? Do
most of your students?
- Do you regularly use computers to prepare
- Do you use computers to facilitate your
teaching? If so, do you use desktop software? Internet? Both?
- Do your students know the basics of operating
a computer? Do they know how to keyboard? Use a word processor? Do
they feel comfortable with computers?
- What age are your students?
II. Some assumptions about teaching and
learning (which you may or may not agree with)!
- ESL students learn English best when they use
English as a vehicle for studying content, not when English
instruction is presented without a meaningful context.
- Motivation is the single most important
ingredient for successful learning for both ESL and traditional
- Both ESL students and native speaker students
will be motivated to learn when they study materials which are 1)
intellectually stimulating 2) have relevance to their lives and 3)
are within (or just beyond) their current level of linguistic
- ESL students and traditional students each
have unique knowledge and skills which can be shared to the
benefit of both groups.
- Most high quality learning activities which
are designed for native speakers will work with ESL students if
accommodations are made for linguistic complexity and lack of
- Technology, when used appropriately, helps
teachers create effective learning environments for their
III. Objectives of this
- Briefly discuss our teaching situations and
philosophies of teaching (we've done that already)!
- Provide teachers with basic resources to get
started using technology in their teaching.
- Look at and do CALL activities which work with
both ESL and native-speaker students.
- Broach the subject of how to best exploit the
vast resources of the Internet by incorporating materials into
- Consider "next steps" so that the information
presented in the workshop is converted into classroom activities
IV. Resources for teachers getting started
to help people use computers," Phil
(Just in Time Training) = great to
develop basic Internet skills such as Email, Web browsing,
Searching, and Evaluating Resources. This is part of
(Oregon Public Education Network), the best online source for
education information in Oregon.
Tips by Deborah Healey, OSU -
Technology Tips of the Month by Deborah Healey - Basic Technology
Skills for Teachers - A treasure of highly relevant, easy to
follow mini-lessons (aimed at teachers) on using technology in the
classroom. Includes practical lesson ideas as well.
to find CALL software - Here you'll
find up-to-date lists of software, resources for choosing software
to meet your students' needs, as well as sites to download free
demo's of ESL/EFL software.
V. A sampling of
activities you can do with your ESL and native-speaker students:
(some use desktop software; others use Internet
Ideally, computer resources would be woven into a
course along with traditional paper-based materials. For example, see
course on Diversity and Civil Rights in the
U.S. For convenience, I've broken them
down by language skill, but many of these activities will involve
- Hollywood (animated shows)
& Keypals (articles, lesson
plans, places to get keypals, Student Lists and more!)
Conferencing (can be real-time or on
student's own time)
Conference Presentation (Using
conferencing for pre-writing, problem solving or
comprehending reading passages)
student conference (low level)
(Quit Netscape before
going on to the next step!)
student conference (higher level)
- Try a short computer
- Want to try online conferencing with
- A free service is NiceNet
(http://www.nicenet.org/) and here is a Tech
Tip to get you started. (NOTE:
The link to NiceNet in the Tech Tip doesn't work (URL has
changed). Use the one on this page.
- Another way to stimulate and organize
online discussion is through a listserv. Egroups
allows you to set up a group with a common Email address,
free of charge.
- Finally, for group Email plus many
other features (instructional, testing, recording and
chat), try blackboard.com
- Word Processing/Graphics
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Independent Study Lab - "One stop
shopping" for Internet resources: Activities in all skill areas
for all levels, all ages, ESL and native speakers
-Try it yourself!
(Joan Berger) Cooperative groups to research; then make oral
learning (Incorporate all skill
technology into the classroom
(National Educational Technology Standards for Students:
Connecting Curriculum and Technology) published by
(International Society for Technology in Education)
- Integrating the Internet into the
Classroom: An Online Course (Michael Krauss)
VII. Next Steps:
Transition from this workshop to the classroom
Assignment (you knew you would have
homework, didn't you?) Within the next week, Email
me (email@example.com) and send a cc to
(firstname.lastname@example.org) at least one idea from tonight's workshop
which you plan to use with students in the classroom. Feel free to
use me as a resource, and I will help you in any way I can to
implement your idea and make it work for you and your students.
Thanks for your attendance
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