Teacher guide for 0-level students

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kresearch
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: United States

Teacher guide for 0-level students

Post by kresearch » Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:22 pm

Hello everyone...I am new to this forum!

I am testing a theory, and, realizing you are all at least as busy as I am, am hoping you can still lend me five minutes in a response to help me in a bit of current research...my theory is this:

There is not a guidebook for teachers of 0-level students.

I do not mean a text/workbook for students, as these are impractical at this level, and I do not mean a general "how to be a teacher" text for instructors, as there are plenty of good books in this area. I mean a specific text that walks teachers through the first year of working with students who at 0-level...meaning they have absolutely no English. These are the students who are often preliterate, who walk into the classroom without a single word of English language. These students may or may not have been privy to education in another country previously, and often they are refugees or migrant workers.

The kind of text I am looking for, and that I don't believe exists, is one which offers a general sense of direction, without necessarily offering daily lesson plans. It should give a general order of topics to be presented, give suggestions of how to present this information, include all skill areas, and be appropriate for upper middle school to adult level courses. This text should include literacy and academic instruction cooperatively.

If you need me to clarify any further, please let me know. I appreciate any and all feedback you can offer...thanks so very much!

Have a great day!

DD
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:44 am

Post by DD » Mon Mar 13, 2006 3:38 am

Hi kresearch

I'm also new to this forum ... was actually just browsing and your thread caught my eye as I'm currently working in that area too.

I work in intensive English programs in the public secondary education system in Australia.

There are some teacher produced materials available over here, but ofcourse the difficulty in this area is that what you would teach would vary so greatly depending on the educational context and also the age and level of print literacy of the students that something produced for one group would not neccessarily be appropriate for another.

As refugee students are not a very lucrative market, most of the materials I have collected have been produced and shared by teachers in schools - there are some resources available at the Government Education Department websites. The Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) in NSW produces a lot of resources and their catalogue is available to download online. SOFWeb is the Victorian Department of Education and Training website and has some resources to order and or download. TKI - ESL online (New Zealand Ministry of Education site) also has some useful resources and links. Unfortunately, very little of this is specifically targetted at pre-literate students ... and what is is rather vague and general.

In contrast to the needs of 'regular' ESL students, pre-literate students need to learn English literacy in a way more similar to the way English speaking children develop literacy ... except ofcourse they often don't have the preceding oracy, so that has to come first.

Most teachers I know use the same strategies that early childhood teachers use to teach literacy ... they just adapt it to suit older students. The difficulty is in finding suitable reading materials that are not too babyish. For this reason, and also to contextualize the language, we make our own simple books (much easier thesedays with computers and digital cameras) based on shared experiences such as outings and school activities and develop literacy activities based on those.

So ... short answer to your question ... I don't think there is a commercially available text that walks teachers through what to do in the first year with pre-literate adolescents - if there is, I haven't found it yet either!

Are you thinking of producing one?

buba11!
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:54 pm
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Post by buba11! » Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:55 pm

really?:)

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