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Panel of Experts: Finding the Common Ground

2022 VicTESOL Symposium
Panel of Experts: Finding the Common Ground

Chair:
Assoc. Prof. Russell Cross (Melbourne Graduate School of Education)

Panelists:
Rebecca Paic (Catholic Education Commission Victoria), Angela DiSciascio (Gordon Institute of TAFE), Mairead Hannan (Collingwood English Language School), Peter James (Richmond West Primary)

Discussants:
Prof. Ben Rampton (Kings College London), Dr Mel Cooke (Kings College London)

Summary

The symposium kicked off with an engaging panel discussion facilitated by Assoc Prof Russel Cross in response to the keynote presentation by Prof Ben Rampton and Dr Mel Cooke. Panel members from the primary, secondary, Catholic and adult sectors shared their insights on the role of EAL teachers in their setting, how much EAL teachers have in common across settings, how policy and curriculum shape the work of EAL teachers and what the important aspects are of an EAL teachers’ role in different settings. The discussion illuminated a shared passion across all sectors for the holistic needs of EAL learners and the unique and privileged role that EAL teachers play in the lives of learners that goes far beyond curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The panel ended with thematic conclusions from Ben and Mel, who had watched the discussion via zoom from the UK.

Recording

 

 

 

 

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Impacts of Traumatic Refugee Experiences on Learning and Behaviour

2022 VicTESOL Symposium
Impacts of Traumatic Refugee Experiences on Learning and Behaviour

Allison Green and Matt Roger (Foundation House)

Summary

In their session “Impacts of Trauma on Learning and Behaviour”, Allison Greene and Matt Roger from Foundation House presented insight into the practical strategies and theories to support students impacted by refugee experiences. Allison and Matt began by providing some of the theory around refugee trauma and then invited participants to investigate 2 fictional case studies of students from refugee backgrounds. In small groups, teachers discussed some of the concerns that were evident relating to the students’ learning, engagement and behaviour and then shared some possible strategies to support them in their transition to Australian schooling.
The provision of knowledge and practical examples provided by Allison and Matt, along with the reflective discussion, assisted educators to develop their trauma informed lens. The session allowed for participants to explore connections between trauma reactions and supportive responses, and consider how our various educational settings can be a restorative space for students and families from refugee backgrounds. Participants in the session were given some excellent resources to take away which included further strategies and support for teachers when dealing with students’ trauma reactions and disclosures. For further information, resources and professional learning educators can visit the Foundation House website at https://foundationhouse.org.au/.

Presentation and other Resources

Download (PDF, 1.98MB)

Download (PDF, 1.6MB)

Download (PDF, 1.81MB)

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Reframing Early Childhood educator professional learning needs in culturally and linguistically diverse early childhood contexts

2022 VicTESOL Symposium
Reframing Early Childhood educator professional learning needs in culturally and linguistically diverse early childhood contexts

Dr Yvette Slaughter (Melbourne Graduate School of Education), Dr Gary Bonar (Monash University), Dr Anne Keary (Monash University)

Summary

Summary to come

Presentation

Download (PDF, 4.78MB)

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Teaching Resource

Teaching Resource – Language Portraits

Developed by Kimberley Smith, Blackburn English Language School, in collaboration with Julie Choi, Senior Lecturer in Education (Additional Languages) in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education

This in-class teaching and learning task provides an opportunity for students to explore and communicate their linguistic identities and language practices and the role these play in shaping their experiences as language learners.

Download (PDF, 112KB)

Download (PPTX, 5.56MB)

Download (PDF, 284KB)

Download (PDF, 171KB)

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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 

Download (PDF, 1.24MB)

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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Download (PDF, 29.53MB)

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 Teacher Interviews – pre-service teacher resources now available!

Dr Anne Keary has generously shared a number of recordings used in the education of pre-service primary school teachers at Monash University.

They cover topics including advice for planning and programing, getting to know learners, behaviour management and how schools have adapted to remote learning.

Michelle Andrews, EAL Teacher Preston North East Primary – Planning

Michelle shares with us an insight into the planning of teachers at Preston North East Primary School. She shows the viewer her school’s Individual Learning Improvement Plan document, highlighting the importance of setting goals and planning lessons in a way that involves students and families.

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Mairead Hannan, Assistant Principal, Collingwood English Language School – Getting to know your learners

Mairead discusses the processes in place for getting to know newly-arrived students at Collingwood English Language school. She takes the viewer through the student profile documents used, highlighting information that can be useful to gather, such as: socio-lingual context, language background, visa codes, nationality, cultural group, position in family, siblings, religion, prior learning, settlement services involvement, and well-being. Mairead also reflects on the need for teachers to not assume anything about their learners and emphasises the need to ask questions to get as good a picture of the student’s prior learning as possible.

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Rosemary Abboud, Dandenong North Primary School, Developing Programs

Rosemary describes the range of programs running at Dandenong High School, including the EAL program and the transition program.

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David Rothstadt, Principal, Noble Park Primary School

David talks about how he and the staff at Noble Park Primary School have adapted to remote learning over the last 18 months. He highlights the flexibility and sheer hard work of teachers to get online programs up and running in a short amount of time, and how teachers supported each other in the transition. David concludes that one of his key learnings from these uncertain times is that the value of face-to-face teacher/student relationships cannot be underestimated or replaced by technologies.

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Various Presenters on Behaviour Management (edited version)

VicTESOL acknowledges and thanks the Faculty of Education, Monash University, for providing these videos.

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Online Resourcing and Networking session for pre-service, early-career EAL teachers and teachers new to EAL

Thursday 3 June, 2021, 4-5pm

Online Event – Presentation and Conversation Rooms

This was an opportunity for teachers who are at a similar stage of their careers to share practice with teachers from other schools and institutions. A big part of this session was EAL resource sharing with Jennifer Peck from the Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC) and and Eileen Wan (Blackburn English Language School). They presented on LMERC’s online and physical resources. This session was for pre-service teachers and early-career teachers (0-2 years) of EAL students, and teachers who are new to teaching EAL students.

Click here to access LMERC’s website.

 

Download (PDF, 3.56MB)

 

Some suggested resource links from participants in this session included:

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Supporting EAL students in Inquiry-based Learning

Wednesday 5 May, 3:45-4:45pm

Online Event 

Once upon a time, a good learner was one who could just recall and repeat knowledge. However, in contemporary education we expect learners to do so much more – to locate, evaluate, articulate and create information individually or collaboratively. Reflecting this, Inquiry-based Learning (IBL) has become a popular pedagogical approach in Australian schools. Yet IBL presents unique challenges for EAL/D learners due to the complex language demands involved in problem solving and higher order thinking, as well as those required to work cooperatively with others. This workshop explored how to help EAL students participate and engage in IBL through effective planning and targeted teaching strategies that scaffold understanding, organisation and expression of ideas.

Following 14 years as a NAATI accredited translator then tertiary Spanish lecturer, April Edwards went on to gain a Master of Teaching as an EAL/D and English secondary teacher. She later took on roles as an EAL Coordinator, EAL specialist mentor to English teachers and Teaching and Learning lead teacher. She is currently training undergraduate and postgraduate pre-service teachers in the School of Education at La Trobe University as well as having worked as an EAL consultant to both the DET and the VCAA. April thrives on sharing her knowledge about 1st and 2nd language acquisition with colleagues and students alike. She does so in the belief that when Culturally and Linguistically Diverse students are supported to use their whole linguistic and cultural repertoire they can participate fully in any classroom setting.

Michelle Andrews is a Primary EAL specialist, currently coordinating the EAL program at Preston North East Primary School. Before moving to the mainstream in 2017, she worked for many years in the New Arrivals Program at Blackburn ELS, taking on a variety of roles including student wellbeing coordinator and Primary curriculum leader. She is passionate about supporting English Language learners to engage, learn and thrive in Australian schools.

Click here to access the resources used in the group activity.

Download (PDF, 10.13MB)

 

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Early Childhood and Education

The VicTESOL early childhood education series focuses on families and communities as a resource for growing and strengthening the development of bi/multilingual children.

The series engages with key Australian early childhood documents and frameworks including the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) and the recently released VCAA resource Supporting Bilingualism, Multilingualism and Language Learning in the Early Years.

This series is made possible through a generous grant from The Foundation of Graduates in Early Childhood Studies at AGECS.

Click here to access the resources, videos and recordings from the keynote presentations (Feb-April 2021).