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Languages in Early Childhood Education: Launch of special TESOL in Context edition

Presentation PDF: Knowing who you are: Heritage language, identity and safe space in a bilingual kindergarten, Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech and Dr Eseta Tualaulelei 

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Languages in Early Childhood Education: Launch of special TESOL in Context edition

May 5 from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Virtual Event

Editors: Dr Yvette Slaughter, Dr Anne Keary, Dr Gillian Pennington, Dr Gary Bonar

The special early childhood edition of TESOL in Context was launched via a webinair on Thursday May 5th. The launch highlighted the wide range of work being undertaken into pedagogical and policy practices that see multilingualism (including home languages, English as an additional language and additional languages) as lived and dynamic.

An outline was given of the work of Prof Shelley Stagg Peterson, Yvette Manitowabi, and Jacinta Manitowabi who in their paper discuss The Niichii Project: Revitalizing Indigenous Language in Northern Canada.

Assoc Prof Caroline Cohrssen on behalf of the research team including herself, Dr Yvette Slaughter and Dr Edith Nicolas presented on Leveraging Languages for Learning: Incorporating Plurilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education and Care. Assoc Prof Jane Page and Assoc Prof Janet Scull presented on behalf of the project team on their study into Mothers as First Teachers: Exploring the Features of Mother child Interactions That Support Young Aboriginal Children’s Multilingual Learning at Playgroup. The final presentation was about Knowing Who You Are: Heritage Language, Identity and Safe Space in a Bilingual Kindergarten which was presented by Dr Kerry Taylor-Leech and  Dr Eseta Tualaulelei.

The presentations raised key questions about how to grow strong social and cultural identities of children. The importance of children participating in early childhood programs that engage with the rich repertoires of languages of families and communities was a key take away message from this sharing of research in this emerging field.

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Enacting translation and translanguaging collaboratively between teachers and learners for knowledge building

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Dr Julie Choi and Ms Kailin Liu presented a session on 24 March entitled: Enacting translation and translanguaging collaboratively between teachers and learners for knowledge building. In this session they prompted us to consider translation and translanguaging as a collaboration and explained that this can take place on a number of levels. Talking about it in relation to learning, we were shown texts in which there were examples of a number of translation strategies used by learners. One was a reading text, where students had not only written words they had translated in the margins, but had also made notes about their translations of larger concepts that appeared within the texts. They also showed us a student notebook explaining that these kinds of texts are intricate spaces where we can observe students and the ways they use translation. They demonstrated that translation isn’t simply a case of converting a word or phrase from Language Code A to Language Code B but is a more complex process involving moving back and forth between languages to find the best fit for meaning. As I understood, this is where translation engages with translanguaging whereby learners and other plurilinguals bring to the fore their knowledge of all languages, or their combined language repertoire, in order to make meaning.

The presenters emphasised the value of collaborative dialogue in which speakers “[engage] in problem solving and knowledge building” (Swain, 2000) involving negotiation of meaning and knowledge building. They then shared with us their own experiences of collaborative dialogue that they themselves had engaged in as part of exploring a language translation issue related to the word “besides”  – a vocabulary item in English often inappropriately used by students in their writing.

The session was highly engaging and informative and offered many practical ideas for teachers for working collaboratively with language learners to explore and develop skills in translation and translanguaging. Thank you Julie and Kailin!

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EAL Framework “101”: A Beginner’s Guide to the Victorian EAL Framework Curriculum

 

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On Wednesday 9 March, 373 EAL practitioners from the adult sector participated in a webinar hosted by VicTESOL. Attendees zoomed in from all states of Australia, from both regional and metropolitan regions. Recent changes to the Adult Migrant English Program has lead to the Victorian EAL Framework curriculum being mandated for use. VicTESOL decided to develop this webinar as a “101” introduction to the curriculum for those new to it.

The Victorian Curriculum Maintenance Manager responsible for the EAL Framework, Nadia Casarotto,  presented a thorough overview of the curriculum, its rationale and structure. A back-to-basics explanation of Units of Competency was presented by VicTESOL Vice President Angela Di Sciascio who highlighted some of the particular features that appear in Units from the curriculum.

This was then followed by a dynamic panel discussion, with panel members drawn from a range of providers across Victoria: regional and metro, large and small, TAFE and ACE. The panel members shared their experiences of designing programs using the Framework in a spirit of openness that was greatly appreciated by attendees. There was lots of chatter in the chat room and a broad range of questions asked.

Stay tuned for further PL events on the Victorian EAL Framework Curriculum!

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VCE EAL Exam Webinar – Meet the Assessors Online 2022

The VCAA Chief Assessor for VCE EAL, Glynis Rose, and Assistant Chief Assessors, Rosemary McLoughlin, Jenna Gomes and Michael E Daniel, presented an overview of the 2021 VCE EAL exam….

This content is available for VicTESOL members.
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Members Resource Page – Assessment and Reporting for EAL students in primary and secondary schools

https://youtu.be/UJ1upapjqXM Thursday November 18, 4-5pm Online Panel Discussion What does effective assessment look like? How do we give feedback that shows students their strengths and assists them to improve? How…

This content is available for VicTESOL members.
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Member Resource Page – Towards a model for a hybrid delivery of EAL

Edwin Creely, Katrina Tour, Peter Waterhouse & Elizabeth Keenan Thursday 4 November, 4-5:30pm, online  https://youtu.be/PTUJFmc2CWA During the session participants contributed to these documents in their discussions. Flipped Learning : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iINgmm2ub4pkS-nG_OsXAYP0H9r_L0GUUgvhuAirBtg/edit?usp=sharing Hybrid…

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The Way Forward: How COVID has changed adult EAL delivery

Tuesday 19 October, 4:00-5:30pm (AEST) Online Webinar The arrival of the pandemic saw a fast and impressive pivot to remote learning for all sectors of EAL. But as we move our way…

This content is available for VicTESOL members.
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Resource page – Immigration Museum and VicTESOL: Integrating culture and language for EAL learners

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Wednesday 25 August, 2021, 4-5pm

Explore Immigration Museum’s digital resources and content that can expand learning experiences for EAL learners. Museum resources include migration stories, cultural stories, and objects, timelines and personal stories investigating a myriad of Australian identities. This professional learning program was designed for EAL and classroom teachers. Resources can be adapted to suit a variety of subjects, including Humanities, English, Civics and Citizenship. Presented by Immigration Museum Educators in collaboration with VicTESOL.   

Gurmeet Kaur is the Education Program Producer at Immigration Museum and is an experienced former classroom teacher of English and Humanities. She has also worked on international programs such as Teach for Bangladesh and researched intercultural education in schools across Japan, Australia, and UK. Gurmeet studied International Relations and History at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences before completing her qualifications in Education. 

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*Resources Page* VicTESOL Symposium 2021 – TESOL in a time of COVID: Implications and Possibilities

VicTESOL, the state association for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) & Multicultural Education, held our annual Symposium on Tuesday 31 August. This was live online event from 4-5:30pm AEST.  For this event, we had a panel of speakers, experts in TESOL and multicultural education and related fields who discussed what they see as implications of the COVID pandemic for the field of teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Victoria and Australia.

They discussed what TESOL might look like in the next few years and in the longer term as a result of what we are currently experiencing. With the pausing and slowing of some programs during the pandemic, is there a chance that TESOL and other programs may change?  Is there a chance that while there are no new arrivals that existing programs and services will be affected, not only in the short term, but also in the longer term? How might this look? What might be some of the advantages of possible changes? What might be some less positive consequences of change during and post COVID? What can we do to prepare ourselves for ensuring we maintain and build on the quality of EAL and associated learning and support that has been established over many, many years?

You can view the recording of the event here:

Panelists:

Jessica Bishop, Migrant Information Centre (Eastern Melbourne)

Margaret Corrigan, CEO of Carringbush Adult Education and President of the Australian Council of TESOL associations

Dr Susan Creagh, Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Education, The University of Queensland

Associate Professor Russell Cross, Language and Literacy Education, Melbourne Graduate School of Education

Carmel Guerra, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Multicultural Youth

Mark Melican, Principal of Blackburn English Language School

Matt Rodger, Senior Schools Support Officer – RESP Education & Early Years Program Practice & Sector Development, The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture

Chermaine Thomas, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Ltd (MACS)

The panel was chaired by Dr Shem Macdonald, VicTESOL President and Lecturer at La Trobe University.

To view the collated comments of participants from the registration process, see below. Participants were asked to identify one positive and one negative coming out of their experience of working in the TESOL field during the pandemic. .

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During the session there was great engagement in the chat and Q&A. We have collated and edited the responses which can be viewed here:

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The recent issue of TESOL in Context contains an editorial related to the topic covered in today’s session. It is referred to within the symposium event.

Teaching and learning English in the age of COVID-19: Reflecting on the state of TESOL in a changed world

To access this, click here:

https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/tesol/article/view/1427

Many thanks to all who were involved in this event.

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EAL Micro-Teaching Vignette – Membership Grids

A lot of professional learning quite rightly focuses on the global, big-picture ideas of teaching and learning, but what about a small, everyday practice of successful teaching. In this series of vignettes, EAL teachers showcase a single activity, idea or resource that they find to be effective in the EAL classroom, and discuss how and why it works. This vignette is generously contributed by Stephanie Georgiou, Mckinnon Secondary College. It focuses on a Membership Grid activity which she uses with secondary-aged EAL students. We thank Stephanie for donating her time and expertise.

There is a wealth of EAL expertise out there! Why not share it with the EAL community? We are keen to showcase this practice of teachers in primary, secondary and adult sectors. If you would like to contribute a vignette about an activity, idea or resource you find to be effective in the classroom, please email plcoordinator[at]victesol.vic.edu.au