About ESL Literacy
Bow Valley has a pretty good Starter Kit -
A Practical Guide to Teaching ESL Literacy: globalaccess.bowvalleycollege.ca/our-resources/publications-resources/practical-guide-teaching-esl-literacy
Practitioner Toolkit: Working with Adult English Language
Learners
This toolkit provides a variety of materials to help language
and literacy instructors who are new to serving adults and families
learning English. These materials include a first-day orientation
guide, lesson plans, and research-to-practice papers on English
language and literacy learning. :: www.cal.org/caela/tools/program_development/prac_toolkit.html
Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA) – An International Research forum :: www.leslla.org
Knowing Your ESL Literacy Students Project
by the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association - this project report
gives an overview of how a LINC program works for ESL Literacy learners.
en.copian.ca/library/learning/ciwa/kyls_project/kyls_project.pdf
Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults - First Steps for Teachers
https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/html/mcshane/
PDF: incs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/applyingresearch.pdf
Building Literacy with Adult Emergent Readers, a video for instructors, is here: www.
Teaching Reading
www.literacywork.com/Videos/Entries/2010/5/23_ESL_Literacy.html
This
series of videos from Literacywork International provides examples of
ways to link oral communication skills and literacy skills.
Teaching Resources
AlphaPlus Open Educational Resources Library :: oercollection.alphaplus.ca
With the guidance of a working group of educators from Ontario adult literacy programs, we've curated a collection of always free and reproducible and mostly open, quality instructional materials and content that tutors and instructors can use with adult learners. This is not another list of links leading you to sites and collections that you have to search. We've done the searching, reviewing, vetting and organization for you. All resources are ready-to-use and most have teaching tips and guidance.
The reading levels are OALCF reading levels, not ESL Literacy CLBs.
Curating Resources in Adult Literacy :: sites.google.com/alphaplus.ca/curation/home
This collection was created by AlphaPlus and is for literacy instructors interested in incorporating e-learning resources into the learning environments they are creating.
Readers
ESL Literacy Readers from Bow Valley (aligned with the ESL Literacy CLBs) :: globalaccess.bowvalleycollege.ca/esl-literacy-readers
WestCoast Reader :: thewestcoastreader.com
And here is a resource for using the readers ::
Using an e-book compilation of Westcoast Reader stories to teach strategic reading (PDF)
Digital Skills
The Digital Skills Library is an open repository of free learning resources designed to help all adult learners develop the digital skills needed to achieve their personal, civic, educational, and career goals. All resources within this library have been curated by educators to align to the Seattle Digital Equity Initiative Digital Skills Framework. All activities in the library are also included in SkillBlox, which allows you to search by skill, select activities you wish to use, and then organize and share these activities as playlists with others.
Smartphone Learning Modules from the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy :: www.mtml.ca/resources/smartphone-skills/learners-or-sps
Practice online: mtml.escases.ca/
AlphaPlus Useful Apps :: alphaplus.ca/technology-resources/useful-apps
For those looking for pictures to help create reading material, The Noun Project, thenounproject.com,
collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that
form the world's visual language, so we may share them in a fun and
meaningful way.
Assessment
Canada Language Benchmarks ESL Literacy resources are here.
Annotated samples for ESL Literacy PBLA can be found in the ESL for ALL Support Kit, Section V: ESL Literacy Resources Pages 218 - 228
My PBLA for those needing extra help with reading and writing
Language Companion for ESL Literacy at Tutela
Here is video explanation of the CLBs for ESL Literacy from the ESL Literacy Network at Bow Valley: http://youtu.be/X01IjmN9VM4
Alternative Formative Assessment Activities to Check for Understanding (Reading Comprehension :: www.edutopia.org/blog/dipsticks-to-check-for-understanding-todd-finley
The review below were taken from here: www.mlots.org/other-adult-learning-videos
Assessing Knowledge of ESL Literacy
The Reading Demonstration was designed by Literacywork International as an assessment for low-level ESL learners. It uses real-life materials and texts. Students are asked to indicate what items they recognize and how much they can read. Materials include fast food items, utility bills, grocery flyers, along with connected texts such as short personal narratives and newspapers. Learners are asked to read aloud a passage written in their native language as well. This is a quick way for the teacher to get a good sense of the underlying fluency and decoding skills the learner possesses.
It has three sections:
1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQHrCxNg6A
2.www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3r2kHwqXFA&NR=1
3.www.youtube.com/watch?v=csEHEb_oV2Y&feature=related
A note on PBLA for ESL Literacy learners:
Refugees hoping to become citizens face high bar to achieve language benchmarks
Julie Ship, the settlement language co-ordinator for British Columbia’s Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Services Agencies, argues that the portfolio process is not designed for adult literacy learners who face barriers to classroom engagement. There was no feasibility study of how changes to the assessment process might affect refugees with low-to-no literacy in their native tongues.
“We are hearing clients are intimidated by the whole process, and if they miss a class, which happens a lot when there are health appointments or they need child minding, they miss out on the assessment,” Ship says. “It is almost too rigorous. The idea was to introduce a steady flow of assessments, but it actually kind of backfires, because talking about assessments all the way through still conveys something scary.”
Some older stuff:
Hands On! A Collection of ESL Literacy Activities from Nova Scotia -- older resource but lots of worksheets for practice :: www.en.copian.ca/library/learning/handson/handson.pdf
A resource manual for ESL and literacy instructors working with low-literate learners :: www.languagepeelhalton.ca/LINC-Teaching-Resources/Documents/Online_Resources_10_Acheved_CLB_Ref_Literacy_Resources.pdf
The BBC has excellent online resources here www.bbc.co.uk/
The Collaborations Series and Stories to Tell Our Children by Gail Weinstein-Shr et al that we looked at in the workshop were published by Heinle and are available at Amazon.
The classic - A Handbook for ESL Literacy by Jill Bell and Barbara Burnaby - is sometimes available at Amazon and other online bookstores.
Some of what is found in Jill's book can be found here: www.cal.org/caelanetwork/resources/limitedliteracy.html (Remember that the Pre-literate category does not really exist.)
You can also find Bell's Teaching Multilevel Classes in ESL on Amazon.
Another classic - Bringing Literacy to Life has articles about theory and practice. You can download it here: http://www.greedymouse.ca/PDF/BrngnLtcytoLife.pdf This resource has articles about theory and practice.
Information about the Learners Lives as Curriculum approach is here: sites.google.com/site/
PS: Gail Weinstein died a few years ago and her site is a bit out of date.
Creating Authentic Materials: www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/resources/teach/jacobson.pdf
Two good articles:
What Works for Adult ESL Students :: www.literacywork.com/Resources_files/What%20Works%20in%20Adult%20ESL%20Literacy.pdf
Less Teaching and More Learning(Project-based Learning) :: http://www.ncsall.net/index.php@id=385.html
There is an ESL Literacy YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ESLiteracy/videos?view=0
And here is my YouTube ESL Literacy playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6940301852B85EFD
