Jacky Springall Tuesday 10 November 2020, 4:00-5:30pm AEDT Online Workshop This practical workshop was based on the premise that EAL teachers need to be pro-active in integrating a focus…
This series of professional learning events is a result of collaboration between staff from the Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC), the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV), Stella Schools, and VicTESOL.
About the Organisers:
The School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) offers dynamic and inspiring opportunities for teacher-librarians and library teams to build their essential role in engaging and developing lifelong learners. Through leadership, advocacy and collegiality and an extensive professional learning and publications program.
Stella is an organisation that champions cultural change through recognising, elevating and celebrating Australian women’s writing. It includes the annual Stella Prize award for women’s writing, the Stella Count, which examines gender bias in book reviewing and Stella Schools, which develops programs that seek to inspire and empower young people to find their own creative voices, challenge stereotypes and imagine a future not limited by their gender.
https://thestellaprize.com.au/
The Languages & Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC) is for educators across all sectors K-12. LMERC provides resources in the areas of English as an Additional Language (EAL), Languages other than English, the Intercultural Capability and the cross curriculum priorities areas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Sustainability. The library holds an extensive collection of over 25,000 resources in all formats for educators across all sectors and at all levels, early childhood to adult. Library membership is available free to teachers from these educational settings: early childhood centres (in receipt of government funding), schools F-12 across all sectors, pre-service teachers and lecturers (in the areas of EAL and languages), homework clubs and community language schools. Home school parents, teachers of adults and community workers in education roles are also welcome to join.
https://lmerc.softlinkhosting.com.au/oliver/home/news
Finding culturally diverse literature:
Stella has a couple of wonderful resources to support your text selection around gender diversity and writing from the intersection. If you would like to know more you can contact Lenny Robinson: schools [at] thestellaprize.com.au and visit https://thestellaprize.com.au/.
Auditing and Selection:
Wider reading:
Suggestions:
In part 2, we discussed possible ways to audit your current text lists or collections, and give resource recommendations for you to consider introducing at your school or institution.
Jennifer Peck took participants through the resources available through LMERC, including lists of culturally diverse texts.
Stella Schools Manager Lenny Robinson introduced the audience to two resources developed by Stella Schools to support diversity in text selection: The Read Up Reading Guide, developed in partnership with the Victorian Government, and the Stella Sparks Reading Guide, one of several resources included in their Resource Kit for Stella Sparks schools program.
We then split into groups facilitated by SLAV and LMERC librarians who took participants through some resource recommendations. This part of the session was not recorded.
Jennifer Peck’s presentation:
Lenny Robinson- Stella Schools Manager:
LMERC text lists:
Group Presentation Resources:
https://padlet.com/grassr/2qvzrijrajxkn8nm
Participants were asked to read the article ‘Assessing and selecting culturally diverse literature for the classroom’ by Helen Adam and Laurie Harper (2016) prior to attending this professional learning event. The article can be accessed by clicking here.
Adam, H., & Harper, L. (2016). Assessing and selecting culturally diverse literature for the classroom. Retrieve from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/1892
Online Presentations and Discussion Rooms, Tuesday 6 October, 4-5:30 pm
Naomi Weiler, Stephanie Georgiou, and Maria Papasotiriou
Are you preparing students for the VCE EAL exam? Get ideas and strategies from three experienced EAL teachers and join us afterwards for small group discussions.
Presenters
Stephanie Georgiou has more than 18 years of experience in teaching EAL. She has worked in the adult, Catholic and government sectors, continuing her ongoing tenure at the Department of Education and Training. She has managed and coordinated multiple programmes throughout her career. This includes setting up a government funded bridging program for refugee students and most recently as Language Centre and EAL coordinator managing the learning of international students and teaching staff within that program. She has run numerous in-house in-services for staff on teaching strategies for EAL students.
Maria Papasotiriou is the Head of EAL at Wellington Secondary College, a large government secondary school in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne. She is an experienced VCE EAL teacher and has taught local and international students from culturally diverse backgrounds, including refugees with disrupted schooling. She has previously presented at the VATE Conference and has been an English assessor for VCAA.
Naomi Weiler is the EAL Unit 1-4 Coordinator and Gifted Learners’ Leader at St Francis Xavier College. Naomi has ten-years teaching experience in English, EAL, Humanities and Accelerated Subjects. Naomi will be presenting on Section A of the exam. Her approach to the Listening Task is based on the explicit teaching of skills and knowledge to aural content.
Session Resources
Section A Resources – Naomi Weiler, St. Francis Xavier College
Section B Resources – Stephanie Georgiou, McKinnon Secondary College
Section C Resources – Maria Papasotiriou, Wellington Secondary College
Tuesday 8th September 2020
If you expect to work with EAL/D learners in your teaching career, then you will want to be familiar with the EAL/D Elaborations of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. In this webinar, Jenny went through some of the thinking behind the document and showed how it can serve teachers both in their preparation and their practice. As convenor of the original writing group, she aimed to bring the EAL/D Elaborations to life, and to answer questions from the participants.
This webinar was aimed at Initial Teacher Education students and pre-service teachers.
Please click here to access the EAL/D Elaborations of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
Dr Jenny Barnett worked for many years in TESOL teacher education at the University of South Australia, offering pre-service and in-service courses with a focus on inclusive pedagogies and curriculum design. Her research interests have centred on learning and teaching English in settings ranging from multilingual city schools to remote Indigenous communities and South East Asian universities.
Click to access EALD_Learning_Area_Annotations_Maths_Revised_February_2014.pdf
Julia Lippold, Lauriston Girls School Thursday 30 July 2020 Online webinar https://youtu.be/BDVk8gVXHzI ‘Students working things out for themselves.’ This principle is at the heart of Julia Lippold’s approach…
In this workshop, Dr Sue Ollerhead discussed the important role that students’ home languages play in their classroom learning. She explored the rationale for using translanguaging as a pedagogical approach…
The ideas compiled here are from teacher comments and discussions during a number of professional learning sessions that VicTESOL has run since the move to online and remote learning began. The teachers who participated were from primary and secondary schools and from the adult education sector.
Like the teachers in this session, we hope the ideas and resources in this list help you to also feel more confident about supporting EAL learners remotely. This list includes the positives (what’s working), some challenges, tips, strategies and resources. We hope you find them both useful for, and affirming of your experiences and practices. Thank you to all the participants for sharing their ideas and to the session facilitators for compiling them.
EAL information for schools is outlined on the Department website at:
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/support/diversity/eal/Pages/default.aspx
Click here to access information relating to:
Listening skills are ones we all employ, both passively and actively, but how do we teach and evaluate them as part of VCE EAL assessment?
In this session you will consider how to develop and embed valid EAL listening assessment into every outcome of Units 1-4 through the completion and analysis of an existing assessment tool and subsequent creation of a task based on evidence-based listening assessment practices.
As a passionate EAL, Spanish and 7-12 English teacher as well as an active VicTESOL committee member and second language learner, April is highly experienced in the areas of first and additional languages education. She completed her Masters thesis on VCE listening task assessment at the University of Melbourne and is currently training undergraduate and post graduate teachers at La Trobe University in literacy, secondary EAL pedagogy and curriculum and interdisciplinary education. She recently developed materials for the DET Koorie Outcomes Unit to promote the use of EAL teaching practices for improved social and academic outcomes for Victoria’s Indigenous students.
