CHECK THIS OUT, Link to website

https://sites.google.com/site/alexandriawhite1125/video-1

Website UPDATE, Im super proud.

https://sites.google.com/site/alexandriawhite1125/language-test-construct

This is WHY I choose USFCA Education, Education!

Holiday Message From the President

Students,

This holiday season, our celebrations can be tempered by the steady news of the suffering, evil, and injustice around the world. The rash of mass killings in the Holy Land, across Africa, in Paris, and close to us in San Bernardino, diminishes our joy and increases our unease. We are likewise troubled by the images and reality of migrant families fleeing war, risking their lives, desperately seeking somewhere, anywhere, they can find food, shelter, and safety, to which they have a fundamental human right. And also close to home, we are confronted by images of deadly violence involving police officers and young black men. Rather than these crises bringing us together as a nation, as happened after 9/11, we see divisions deepening, rhetoric laced with anger and bigotry, and increased levels of fear.

The feasts of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa allow us time to step back from these temptations to anger and fear and to dwell instead, both as individuals and as a learning community, on that which unites us: the Jesuit values at the core of our mission to educate hearts and minds to fashion a more just, humane, and sustainable world — the world for which we long. These are the values we strive to foster in our students, so they can make a difference in uniting our communities for generations to come. 

Here are three of USF's core values I commend to you for reflection:

• We respect and promote the dignity of every person regardless of age, national origin, race, sexual orientation, gender expression, or socio-economic status.
• We see learning as a humanizing activity that transcends the interests of particular individuals or groups and seeks instead the common good, with a particular attention to those persons and communities most in need of our help and protection.
• We see diversity of perspectives and traditions as essential to a quality education in a global context. We seek unity in our diversity for the sake of inclusive excellence.

For over four centuries, Jesuits have placed their hope for future generations in an education centered on values such as these, the very kind of education in which you invest yourselves every day. These are not just ideas; they are a call to action.

I invite you to reflect on your Jesuit education and, with it, the values we believe can change our world, more in need now than ever. And I thank you for your contributions, both small and large, to peace on earth.
Sincerely,


Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J.

Discussion on Assessment Strategies

 As TESOL instructors we can use native language and culture to connect and transfer, native language to English language ideas, concepts, and discussions. Shannon (1999) discusses the importance of building on writing skills that exercise language rights and privileges that incorporate heritage language while working on language acquisition.

     Responsive and extensive writing assessments described in Dr. Washington’s, Module 6 PowerPoint, are very helpful in describing the prompting tools provided by teachers that guide ESL students to finding the correct concepts for writing exercises. Following Brown, Washington, Shannon, and your own experiences can lead you to an ethical assessment standard that incorporates adequate amounts of heritage culture and language knowledge.

“A test administrator poses a series of questions that essentially serve as an outline as the emergent format written text (Brown, 2004).

     Focus on assessment guidelines that incorporate heritage culture is a priority for many TESOL instructors. This is because we, as teachers, do not want to oppress student culture, but rather use English language to help student express opinions, idea, and traditions of their native culture to English speakers. I this incorporation of heritage culture is very important to student expression, which is usually conveyed through their writing practices. Important note; we want to avoid penalizing students for grammatical errors while trying to express abstract ideas through language that is not learned yet. To set our students up for success, we can use the responsive and expressive wring models to lead student to correct language and grammar expectations. We can roll model this through writing examples, key vocabulary, and lesson build.

     For example, comparing and contrasting student holidays, and how they are celebrated in their Native country/culture. Lets say we write about Thanksgiving. Teachers can build a lesson that uses English vocabulary and visuals to describe food that is recognizable to student’s native traditions. Then, teacher can share writing examples from the similar English level students. Teachers can explain rubrics which share where points are gained and lost in writing. The rubric should ONLY setup expectations that have been reviewed, practices, and discussed in class. Writing prompts such as Thanksgiving traditions, helps preserve heritage and build connection between two different cultures that can be used in many different areas, social settings, writing, and speaking events inside and out of the classroom. Students can share this information with their family, which helps them connect their native culture to their non-native culture.

     This lesson build helps student s generalize, and focus in on the content and then provide their own ideas around a topic. The students I work with are diagnosed with Autism, ASD. We AWLAYS do baseline assessment before creating an individualized education program, IEP goals for the year. Side note; most ESL students in public schools have IEPs. We use the John Woodcock assessment for reading comprehension and writing baseline. Baseline means there is no teacher guidance, except instruction. Once we have our writing baseline from standardized testing, we then add in other responsive, and extensive writing assessment that we as teachers have observed, which basically means we decide if content is relative and transferable to learner life for comprehension. One strategy I want to share is positive impact of picture visual, response on language acquisition. We show a picture of student and ask who, what, when, where questions. You guys should check out the app Pictello, some students use this app to transfer pictures, and then write into a story, with voiceover reading, that is saved on their Ipad devices that can be reviewed later.

  

References:

Brown, H. D., & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices. Pearson Education. White Plains, NY.

Shannon, S. M. (1999). Language Rights or Language Privileges? TESOL Journal, 8(3), 23-28.

Washington, B. (2015). Module 6: Testing communication skills, Part II: Writing and evaluation [PowerPoint Document]. Retrieved from http://oed.usfca.edu/soe/matesol/ime634/m6/index.html

Proficiency Tests

Foreign Language Proficiency Test

My SCORE:

 (Links to an external site.)Take the Test! Foreign Language Proficiency TEST

Voices from Discriminated, Disabled, and how to Listen

“Voices from the Past” from ABC News’ Nightline (1999)

Detail your personal review and reflection, and not the expectation from your professor that you can recount your experience through the lens of a psycholinguist.  Remember:  There is a possibility that a population of your learners may have/continue to experience post-traumatic stress, internment, displacement, and/or alienation before entering your classroom.  It is important that you have a space to reflect upon this in your class assignments, and consider what steps you may take in engaging students with an array of talents and challenges.

At first, I really pondered the relevance of this assignment to ESL testing and assessment, however, with more research came the concept from this assignment of listening interpretation exercise really hit home.

Considering my job-teaching students with Autism, ASD, the topic of an individual learner experience, past and present, outside of the classroom has always intrigued me. As a teacher, I always think about what has happened in a student’s life before I met them, what is currently happening, and what will happen when they arrive home?

I do not think we will ever really know every situation a student has gone through that affects their learning process that would be too overwhelming. The thought of post-traumatic stress, internment, displacement, and/or alienation before entering a classroom and the effects these situations have on a student’s behavior can directly affect student-learning abilities.

So, when I listened to the audio recordings, and since this assignment is a reflection on how to engage students with an array of talents and challenges, I felt I could best apply my experience working at the Joshua School, with students 16-18 diagnosed with ASD. The demographic of students I work with are on what many would call the “lower functioning end of the Autism spectrum.” I wanted to use two students as examples, to answer the question presented: How to gage learner background experiences, and engage learner in their talents with challenges?

So here we go:

Student A, is mostly non-verbal, not because he cannot speak, but because he depends so much on verbal or written scripts from people he communicates with. For example, helping this student express his likes and dislikes. Once I watched him drink black coffee, in which his distressed facial expression indicated this student does not like the black coffee, but when we asked him if he likes black coffee he replied “yes,” with deepened, I don’t like this intonation. Our hypothesis for the disconnect in his real feelings on whether he likes something or not, versus his verbal answer, is that he learned to respond to how his parent or teacher or peer is responding, or with a response that is favorable to teacher, parent, or peer. We realize he has an acute ability to pick up non-verbal prompts that are reflected by the response of the person in the conversation, or asking him the question.

What does this mean for his engagement in talents and activities, with his level of language? Well, first my team thinks about what is most beneficial for student? He doesn’t have to socialize. Except, we want him to be able to independently express his wants and needs, likes, and dislikes. We want him t be able to express, “I do not like coffee.” So for him to engage with people with his level of language acquisition we found reading and typing is the best way to receive a response that is not persuaded by nonverbal language of another person, and that picking up on nonverbal queues is a strength in language development that we can apply in appropriate social settings.  Writing questions and giving choices is also, very helpful to student A. For social situations, were student is expected to converse, we help him by writing out scripts. We use different fronts to queues, when to ask a question, and when to response to a question. This helps student become independent in social situations, like at a dinner with friend, or talking to a peer.

Student B, is Hispanic, and has a twin brother, also diagnosed with ASD. He is very verbal, however his grammar and clarity is hard to understand, especially for those who are just meeting him. He speaks very fast and sometimes incoherently. The unusual part is that he does not even speak to his twin brother in verbal language, but through sounds and noises. We know they’re communicating because they organize themselves to meet at a certain area, or change body positions, or just through synchronized laughter. Student B, is not interested in social conversations. However, he knows the correct response because of scripts he has practice over the years. If he does not want to be spoken too, he says, “can you please stop talking to me,” which he says often.

The challenge here, to benefit his future, is helping him become independent at a job. His conversation with supervisors, who are not trained with his behavior program, or Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) knowledge, is one of the biggest obstacles. Questions on how can we help this student B be successful working with an array of people who do not know his disabilities, quarks, or environmental needs?  Because it would be impossible educate every person we meet, to be ABA professional, we help student B cope, and work through day-to-day challenges in community settings.

The team I work with is, also, assisting in him building the language that will more appropriately help him acquire his needs, in language that is easy for people to understand. Student B is most definitely talented, he is great with detail, he learns mechanics so quickly, and he is great with routine. These are his strengths.

Student B is from a low-income, underserved, immigrant community, located in north Denver. To me, he exemplifies student adversity. He has cognitive learning disabilities, and because of his home life and his school life he has learn two different behaviors and functional language. At school, calm voice, work to get rewards. At home, loud vocals, erratic behavior to get attention, to get what he wants.  Sidenote, he doesn’t understand that concept that either behavior is wrong or right.

I bring these two students up because I can relate their stories to the question Module 5 asks about engaging students with language challenges.  I cannot as easily relate the stories of learners with post-traumatic stress, interment, and alienation. However, the stories of the “Voices from the Days of Slavery,” specifically, Susan A. Quall’s voice recording from 1932 is relatable to hearing expressive language to describe an experience from someone with “broken” English.

I had to read the text because the audio was so old and crackly, but when listening to audio, I could hear the change in prosody in her voice as she answered questions and spoke of challenging situations, the ones that “bother [her] everynight.” I, specifically, chose this audio recording because I used to live on John Island, SC, so I know the rich Gullah culture that reside in that areas of the country. However, upon reading the transcription of the audio, I put together a despairing story of abuse, sexism, racism, and rape.

So, I imagine, today, if I had a group of refugee students from Syria, with traumatic experiences, like witnessing death, violence, and whatever horrible things that are occurring in the area of the World they are from, I would of course approach their lesson planning in a way that acknowledges their past experiences, and help them learn expressive language techniques. For this, there are some methods would include, visuals, social stories, and roll modeling feelings. 

At the school I currently work at, The Joshua School, understanding emotions is a huge part of helping students reach cognitive learning goals. If a student can put language with their emotional state, then they can express themselves better. By expressing themselves to others better, more compassion and understanding can occur.

Much like hearing Susan A. Qualls voice (1932, May 16), we as listeners become more aware of the situation she experienced, although the audio is crackled and hard to hear, listeners can hear the sadness in her voice when she speaks of, “How you have to make him do it. You have to talk [sweet (?)] to him,” You can hear despair in her voice as she describes the “man who worry me every night,” Quall, Voices from the Days of Slavery.

I think the most important aspect to take away from this assignment, is listening to the student speak, and encouraging them to speak, read and write, no matter their level of language about feelings and experiences. Most of my students cannot describe their home life, or even what they like and dislike, but we still encourage them in as many different approaches as we can, until one day something’s works, or a concept “clicks,” or just becomes a memorized script.

Teachers may never know what a student has truly experienced in their life, trauma, tragedy, abuse, especially if they do not have the language to describe it, but as long as there is genuine listening, compassion, and tolerance for learners, we will learn the best ways to teach them the language they need to survive, and maybe one day describe their individual experiences, like Susan A. Quall voice has done.

Citation:

Voices from the Days of Slavery. (1932, May 16). Retrieved November 21, 2015, from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/index.html

“Voices from the Past” from ABC News’ Nightline (1999) https://usfca.instructure.com/courses/1555445/assignments/6520181#submit

Interview/ Insight into English Language Proficiency Test Prep

• What specific exams were you preparing for? IELTS and GRE
• Why was this exam of importance to your career, education, or life in the states? They were important for my doctoral study . they were the US universities' requirement for  admission.
• What is the purpose of the exam? ILETS purpose was assessing the test takers English proficiency. GRE purpose, I think it was to evaluate test takers intellectual and critical thinking.
• What were the steps you have taken to study and prepare? For IELTS, I took some class just for being familiar with exam questions and  strategies for answer the questions. For  English knowledge part, I had a self study. For speaking, I practiced my speaking with my American friends via Skype. 
• What were some other exams that have tested your English proficiency? TOEFL IBT
• What were your concerns on English exams? Time were too limited for answering all types of questions. I strongly believe that these commercial exams increase test takers anxiety by putting pressure on test takers because it is beneficial for the test administration if test takers resit the exam for many times.  
• How you do feel about your language learning, do you feel I.e. confident, nervous? Before coming to the US, I thought my English was great, but when I arrived here, I lost my self confidence as I could not understand Americans very well especially if they talked very fast. I think I should keep working on my English in order to understand what people say.  I understand them around 90%. 
• Any other thoughts on your experience in English proficiency exams? I believe that these exams are not fair for two reasons: First, they cannot assess language learners competence, they just judge your performance in a very limited time. Time pressure is very challenging as well as exams duration that make test takers exhausted. Secondly, some people are skillful to answer multiple choices. They may not be fluent in English but they are good at finding the right answers. All in all, I did not find these exams very fair and academic.