A crash course in ESL

"A Crash Course in ESL" will prepare you to work with ESL parents and create a welcoming environment for ESL students.

Course description

Grasp pedagogy, policy and procedure for teaching and working with English language learners. "A Crash Course in ESL" will prepare you to work with ESL parents and create a welcoming environment for ESL students. This course will help you acknowledge the influence of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, socioeconomics, and culture on a student's development and attitudes. You'll develop an appreciation and understanding of the need to establish nurturing relationships with students. This course will help you use data to understand the skills and abilities of students, as well as assist you in learning the policies and practices affecting student learning.

Course objectives

Specifically, this course will:

• walk teachers through the legislation of ESL including what determines which students should participate in the ESL program, what the law says classroom teachers are responsible for in teaching ESL students, and what roles support staff and administrators have in assisting this population.
• explain testing, policies, and procedures for ESL students and the ramifications for classroom teachers including testing accommodations for ESL students.
• assist in understanding second language acquisition, cultural issues, and challenges that all play a role in learning English.
• explore appropriate strategies for reaching English Language Learners that are consistent with each student's level of language development, educational background, and life experiences.
• provide an overview of the English Language Development Standard Course of Study and how classroom teachers can use this tool with their ESL students.
• supply teachers with reliable resources for supplemental information/assistance
• Explore the role of culture in learning, tips on working with ESL parents, and ideas for providing a welcoming environment for ESL students.

Course information

Audience

This course is appropriate for all teachers, administrators, and support staff working with English language learners in North Carolina public schools.

Time commitment

Each week, students will be expected to spend approximately one to three hours on the actual course work.

Duration

A Crash Course in ESL runs for four weeks. Our weeks begin midnight on Wednesday and end on midnight Tuesday.

Credits and fee

The course fee is $150.00 and upon successful completion the student will receive 2.0 CEUs.

A Crash Course in ESL course syllabus

Due dates

In each week's overview, you will see a list of assignments and their due dates. You will need to complete each assignment by the due date and in doing so will be given a certain amount of points for each task. You must receive a total of 90 points over the duration of the course in order to receive course credit. Late work assignments are not accepted. Plan on spending between one to three hours per week on this course.

Stay Current

Don't allow yourself to get behind! With each new week, your instructor will be assigning new tasks, each building on lessons from the previous week. If you suspect you may not have access for more than a day or two, or if you do indeed get behind, please notify the instructor immediately, and they will talk about what can be done.

Course materials

You're in luck! All of the course materials that you will need for this course are available to you online! We've assembled a series of content pages and web links that will allow you to complete the work from your computer. You will, however, need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader software loaded—you'll use this to read a special kind of file called a .pdf. If you don't already have the Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed, you can get it for free by downloading it from Adobe .

Requirements for completing the course

Your instructor will assess your participation week to week here with an aim of giving specific feedback on what's going well and where you may need improvement.
You'll be evaluated on your participation, including posting three times per week with thoughtful comments and completion of assignments.

Working together

The instructor's goal is for you to succeed and everyone be working together to make that happen. Your classmates will form a support community and they'll share their strengths with each other.

Assessments

• Your instructor will describe all your assigned activities in each week's section. If you've completed all listed activities by the last day of the course week, and posted on three different days of the week, you're fine.
• Your instructor will try to make clear in assignments what expectations we have for you and describe how you perform those online tasks.
• Each week, your instructor will post an assessment of your last week's work in the email section.
• Your assessments are private to you and, if you ever have any questions about what your instructor posts, you'll be able to talk to them confidentially in that same area.

Rubric for participation

How, then, does the instructor assess your participation in these important discussions? A simple answer is that they look for frequent and appropriate contributions to class discussions from all participants.
Just what do "appropriate" contributions look like?
Your instructor's assessment of your postings is based upon your level of contribution as a whole, rather than having specific points assigned for content, style, correctness of expression, etc.
Your instructor does, however, encourage you to consider how your writing style appears to others. For instance, if you know that spelling is not your strong suit, you might try writing and spell checking in a word processing document, then pasting those comments into your posting in the forums.
Your discussion postings should be thorough and thoughtful. Just posting an "I agree / disagree with your comment" or "I think the same" to someone else's thoughts is not considered adequate.
Here are some of the characteristics that the instructor considers to be part of excellent discussion contributions, and these are the things they will look for when you both assess your participation:

• Original insights or responses that build on the ideas of other participants
• Responses that are appropriate to a particular purpose and audience
• Content that demonstrates you have read and understood the particular reading
• Skill and competency in the use of language; clearly expressed ideas
• Content that elicits reflection and responses from other participants
• Responses to those who comment on your contributions
• Responses that integrate multiple views, and show respect to the ideas of others
• Responses that dig deeper into assignment questions or issues