The ORTESOL Journal
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The ORTESOL Journal Volume 27, 2009 FeaturesO R T E S O L J o u r n a l ClassroomO R T Assessment: E S O L Journal A View from ORTESOL a Secondary ESL Teacher Journal Using a Graphic Syllabus with Second Language LearnersORTESOL Journal ORTESOL Online LearningJournal Issues ORTESOL and Strategies Journal for Increasing RetentionORTESOL Journal ORTESOL ColumnsJournal ORTESOL Journal In ThisORTESOL Issue Journal ORTESOL Teaching Notes Journal ORTESOL Journal Using Area Studies as a Course Theme Don’tORTESOL Your Students JournalHave Question ORTESOL Blues, Do They? MP3 PlayersJournal Rating ORTESOL Project: An Online Journal Literacy ActivityORTESOL for an EAP Journal course ORTESOL ResearchJournal Notes ORTESOL Journal Reasonable Doses of Anxiety are Not Necessarily to beORTESOL Feared Journal ORTESOL Journal ORTESOL Journal Oregon Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages The ORTESOL Journal Volume 27, 2009 Editorial Board Editors Deborah Healey, University of Oregon and Byrne Brewerton, Oregon State University Advisory Board Barbara Dowling, Oregon State University Bill Walker, University of Oregon Michael Krauss, Lewis & Clark College Michael Witbeck, Oregon State University Steve Stoynoff, Mankato State University Tom Delaney, University of Oregon Tom Robb, Kyoto Sangyo University ORTESOL is a nonprofit organization whose purposes are to promote scholarship, disseminate information, strengthen, at all levels, instruction and research in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages or dialects and to cooperate in appropriate ways with other groups having similar concerns. Benefits of membership includeThe ORTESOL Journal, access to the member area of the ORTESOL website and The ORTESOL Newsletter, special member rates for ORTESOL conferences, and a variety of other services and opportunities for professional development. For subscription and advertising information and guidelines for contributors, see http://www.ortesol. org. Guidelines for contributors are also on the inside back cover of this issue. You can contact the Editors by email at [email protected] Copyright ©2009 Oregon Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Contents The ORTESOL Journal Volume 27, 2009 Features Classroom Assessment: A View from a Secondary ESL Teacher ..............................1 Irina Bleckhman, Reynolds High School Using a Graphic Syllabus with Second Language Learners .......................................9 Keli Yerian, University of Oregon Online Learning Issues and Strategies for Increasing Retention .............................19 Leslie Opp-Beckman, University of Oregon Columns In This Issue .....................................................................................................................ii Teaching Notes Using Area Studies as a Course Theme .................................................................24 Russell Fauss, Tokyo International University of America Don’t Your Students Have Question Blues, Do They? ..........................................25 Bruno Kamps, University of Oregon MP3 Players Rating Project: An Online Literacy Activity for an EAP Course ......26 Migyu Kang, Iowa State University Research Notes Reasonable Doses of Anxiety are Not Necessarily to be Feared .........................29 Tom Delaney, University of Oregon Information for contributors .............................................................. inside back cover Volume 27, 2009 iii In This Issue Deborah Healey & Byrne Brewerton ORTESOL Journal Editors This issue of ORTESOL Journal covers English language learners are perennially topics from secondary education to teaching at a confused by tag questions. They believe, prob- distance and from paper-based activities to Web ably rightly so, that English really doesn’t make 2.0. We lead off with Irina Blekhman’s look at sense with negative tag questions (such as “He’s assessment in secondary ESL classes. She focus- not here, is he?), where the response is “yes” if es an Oregon lens on issues affecting all elemen- the negative is wrong and “no” if the negative tary and secondary teachers working under the is correct. Bruno Kamps gives us an approach constraints of No Child Left Behind legislation. to helping students make sense of tag questions Her questions and suggestions about in-class as- across different verb tenses. sessments apply to teachers at all levels. Project-based learning is a powerful tool for Keli Yerian reminds us that we need to teachers, especially when it provides real-world offer more than lip service to learners who are activities and information for language learn- stronger with graphics than text. That bedrock ers. Migyu Kang describes the use of “mashup,” of university-level course documents, the course pulling together information from different description, is too often densely written. Key sources on the Web to create a report. Her stu- pieces of information get lost in paragraph after dents use Google Maps and other Web resources paragraph of text. A graphical syllabus can help to create recommendations about which mp3 every student, not just graphical leaners, focus players to purchase. on what the teacher really wants students to We end with Research Notes from Tom remember about the structure of the course. Delaney. We all know that students should feel Distance education is becoming part of comfortable in class in order to be most recep- more institutional course offerings. The track tive to learning. To that end, we often try to record for retention in most online courses, structure tasks and expectations to minimize however, is quite dismal. There are some tech- learner anxiety. However, Tom’s recent research niques that can help encourage online learners to has provided another possible view about anxi- stick with a course and to succeed. Leslie Opp- ety in the classroom: that applied appropriately, Beckman draws upon considerable experience it can be helpful in preparing students for more in designing and delivering fully online courses difficult tasks. in her article. She has important suggestions for You can see some additional material, those who would like to be successful with their including examples of graphic syllabi from Keli online courses. Yerian and more resources for Migyu Kang’s We have three teaching tips in this issue. course on the ORTESOL website at http://www. Russell Fauss describes a content-based ap- ortesol.org/. proach to English for Academic Purposes. He We encourage you to consider writing for developed and taught an Oregon-focused area ORTESOL Journal. Please see the guidelines on studies course based on Oregon’s sesquicenten- the back page and the ORTESOL website. Feel nial. This topic provided the opportunity to work free to contact the Editors with questions. on history, environment, economics, and culture. ii ORTESOL Journal Classroom Assessment: A View from a Secondary ESL Teacher Irina Bleckhman, Reynolds High School When I began teaching ESL in Oregon’s my approach to classroom assessment. Today I secondary public schools 15 years ago, my main need to have ongoing assessment of my students formal classroom assessments were weekly that not only allows me to make conclusions quizzes and end-of-unit tests which I designed about their mastery of the narrow instructional using a combination of multiple-choice, cloze, goals of each individual lesson, but that also matching, and open-ended items. What I wanted gives me accurate, comprehensive, and current to know was how well my students knew the information about students’ overall proficiency content of their ESL curriculum, and I believed in English. Classroom performance assessments the information from quizzes and tests was suf- have become my preferred form of evalua- ficient for me to draw some conclusions about tion. This article will begin with a definition of their overall language proficiency. Besides the language proficiency. Next will be a description students themselves and some of their parents, of some institutional and technical challenges to few people were interested in these conclusions. classroom performance assessment, then exam- Today, due to the changes brought to K-12 ples from my classroom. ESOL/Bilingual education by the No Child Left Behind Act and the subsequent state-level Language Proficiency and mandates, my students’ English proficiency is of Assessment Instruments high interest to many more people. New policies The description of language competence are centered exclusively around the notion of reflected in various institutional aspects of my English proficiency. One of them is the stan- program is close to that posted on the website of dardized Oregon English Language Proficiency the Oregon Department of Education and which Assessment (ELPA). This test is given to all was adapted from Bachman (1990). (See Figure English language learners in K-12 public schools 1 below.) Figure 1 presents language compe- each year, and the results are closely monitored tence as a dynamic combination of various other at the school, district, state, and even federal competencies that interact and contribute to levels. The other policy is reflected in the goals one’s ability to communicate using language in set forth by the Oregon Department of Educa- specific social contexts. It views language profi- tion and my school district. To meet these goals, ciency as socially situated rather than something 65 percent of my ESL students must advance to that belongs entirely to an individual. the next level of English proficiency