Session details
Subject to change without notice.
Most concurrent sessions are 55 minutes duration. Some sessions (e.g. A1/B1) are double sessions and some (e.g. A10.1 and A10.2) are paired mini-sessions sharing the 55 minute time slot.
Dave Tout
Does this equation work? Does it make sense? This hands on workshop will look at the important role that literacy and language take in the successful learning of numeracy and mathematics. What is numeracy? How good are people at it? What is its relationship to Mathematics? Does it connect to Language and Literacy? If so, how? What are some of the key ideas about how to teach numeracy successfully and integrate numeracy into your teaching, no matter whether that is as a literacy, EAL, numeracy or VET teacher/trainer? A number of teaching strategies and activities will be demonstrated that support this approach.
Dave is widely recognised as one of Australia's leading adult numeracy personnel, and has worked in schools, TAFEs, ACE, university, AMES and workplaces, with over 30 years' experience in the VET sector. He has wide experience at a state, national and international level in research, curriculum, assessment and materials development. Dave had major responsibility for the numeracy domain of the ACSF. He was a member of the numeracy expert group responsible for the numeracy component of the international ALLS survey and also for PIAAC, and had a major role in the development of mathematical literacy in PISA 2012.
Helena Zielinski
The presentation will showcase a collection of activities collated over the time span of fifteen years in order to enter the territory of breakthroughs. The Poetry Truck is one of the activities in this collection. There will be a unique mix of creative expression combined with aspects of direct instruction. Helena will share some of the challenges and successes she has experienced, working in the largest prison in Australia. This presentation aims to help anybody teaching adult students at the initial level of language acquisition. The scenarios are drawn from a prison education experience but can be applied to any challenging educational setting. This presentation will be delivered in part as a talk with power- point slides and in part as an activity the audience will engage actively in. There will be the opportunity for question and answer at the close.
Helena Zielinski has been working in the field of prison education for fifteen years, filling roles including tutor, education officer, campus manager and state-wide adult basic education coordinator. Helena is currently working as a classroom teacher in the largest prison in Australia, teaching adult men initial reading and writing skills.
A3 Connect, Share, Learn: exchanging ways to expand professional learning through social media55 minutes
Lesley Cioccarelli and Cindy Valdez-Adams
Just as this conference is a physical place for teachers to combine to pursue their common interests in learning and teaching, there are increasingly more online places for us to connect, share and learn together. Teachers are using social media to exchange ways of being, and in this workshop we will show you how online connections can enable teachers working in diverse sectors and contexts to learn from one another, share resources and ideas, and develop their competencies in the classroom. We will introduce you to some dynamic online communities on Twitter, Facebook, and other online forums, where teachers across Australia and around the world share and collaborate. We will help you connect with them, and you will leave the workshop with not only a reason to connect, but the skills to join in. Suitable for teachers from ALL sectors: school and adult TESOL and adult Literacy and Numeracy.
Lesley has been teaching English to adult migrants, refugees, international students, diplomats and their international visitors for over 10 years. Now, as Cultural Diversity Coordinator at Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), she provides support of all kinds to migrant and refugee students in mainstream courses, and supports teachers in dealing with the diverse needs of their learners. Lesley has a strong passion for informal learning through networking, and demonstrates this in her active involvement in local professional associations and communities, and in using social media extensively to connect, learn and share online.
Cindy is currently an ESL specialist teacher/mentor at Fairfield Public School, where she has been teaching for over 14 years. This year, she has been invited to participate in the 'EAL/D Mentoring Program', as a mentor to schools with a growing enrolment of refugee learners. Cindy presented her action research findings, and involvement in the 'Fair Go', 'Vocabulary Development' & 'EAL/D Leadership' projects, at TESOL workshops, seminars, and conferences including ACER's 'Excellence in Professional Practice Conference' & 'Re-Thinking Multicultural Education Conference'. She is founder of #tesoloz, a regular ESL ed chat which aims to promote effective EAL/D pedagogy, and expand colleagues' EAL/D Professional Learning Network through social media.
Jan Hagston
This is a practical workshop for adult and youth literacy teachers. The session aims to explore a range of practical activities and strategies that can be implemented to address varied literacy needs from decoding and vocabulary to text structure and descriptive writing. The activities will be linked to the Australian Core Skills Framework (levels and focus area) and will include linking to the community, the use of social media as well as ones that use nothing more than paper and pen. Participants will also spend time considering how the activities and strategies could be used or customised to meet the needs of different student groups. Participants will come away with a 'bag' of activities to try with learners.
Jan is a director of Multifangled P/L, an education and training consultancy specialising in adult and youth education. Jan has worked in the adult and youth literacy area for longer than she cares to remember. Much of Jan's current work involves the development of programs and resources customised to the needs of the learner group. This includes adults and young people 15 - 25 years. Jan has been able to marry her knowledge of educational principles and theory and research with instructional design skills to produce programs and resources that are relevant and engaging for different target groups.
Jennifer Williamson and Iryna Dwyer
The presentation is developed for teachers of the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) and other ESL programs; it aims to describe creative ways of teaching Numeracy through Literacy. Numeracy forms an elective part of the Curriculum in spoken and written English but we believe that being numerate is an essential skill that individuals need to function as citizens of society (Steen, 1999) so therefore numeracy teaching and learning features within our program. Numeracy teaching requires knowledge and skills in Literacy (extracting math out of context, and understanding text and context). Numeracy is embedded within authentic and meaningful learning projects which allow teaching literacy through numeracy, as they develop not only the students' numeracy skills but also their spoken language, literacy and life skills. We are going to describe these projects in detail and present their outcomes such as students' increased skills and confidence, employment and further study.
Jennifer Williamson taught English as a Second language in a variety of different contexts in Asia and South America before returning to Australia to complete her Master in TESOL in 2008. Since then she has been employed by the University of Tasmania as a language assessor and by TasTAFE in the AMEP program.
Iryna Dwyer taught World History and Sociology in Europe before moving to Australia to teach Humanities at High Schools and Secondary Colleges in Tasmania. She has completed Master of Teaching (TESOL) and is employed as an Advanced Skills teacher in the AMEP program (TasTAFE).
Jennifer and Iryna participate in preparation of various Professional Development sessions for teaching staff at TasTafe.
Prof. Ian Malcolm, Glenys Collard, Patsy Konigsberg and Coral Brockman
Form, Function and Feeling in Aboriginal English: This presentation draws on research into Aboriginal English Australia- wide to show teachers its distinctiveness as a communicative medium and as an expression of a 'way of being'. It will be shown that, in form, Aboriginal English has drawn on linguistic inputs from Indigenous languages, from diverse English varieties and from pidgin/creole varieties to create distinctive, interacting phonological, morphological and syntactic patterns. It will be shown that, in function, Aboriginal English operates as a communicative medium appropriate to a high-context speech community, in which indirect and multi-modal communicative strategies predominate and in which many linguistic items have undergone functional transformation. Drawing on findings of cognitive and cultural linguistics, it will be shown that Aboriginal English is the bearer of conceptual underpinnings which link it with the Aboriginal cultural inheritance and provide for its speakers the feeling that it fits with the world they know. This presentation will lead into a 2 hour workshop on Implementing Exchange in Educational Settings.
Ian Malcolm is Emeritus Professor at Edith Cowan University, where he served as Professor of Applied Linguistics from 1991-2003. His research into Aboriginal English has provided the basis for two-way education. Publications he has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited include: English and the Aboriginal Child, Communication and the Teacher, Linguistics in the Service of Society, The Habitat of Australia's Aboriginal Languages, Aboriginality and English and Language and Communication Enhancement for Two-Way Education. He has been made an honorary life member of the Australian Linguistic Society, the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia and the Westralian Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Glenys Collard is a South West Nyungar and matriarch within her family of over 290 people. She has been instrumental in leading the Aboriginal facets of research and materials development about Aboriginal English and in promoting an understanding of its importance in achieving equitable outcomes for Aboriginal learners.
Patricia Konigsberg is an experienced teacher, linguist and educator and a co-leader in two-way bidialectal education. Together with Glenys Collard, she has been instrumental in the development of an EAL/D pedagogy for Aboriginal English speaking learners and in the development and publication of the Western Australian Department of Education's ABC of Two-Way Literacy and Learning resources, including the Tracks to Two-Way Learning.
Coral Brockman is a mother of 6 children and a grandmother of 26, an influential Elder in her extended Budimia/Willinyu family group in the Mid-West of Western Australia. She is an experienced teacher from early childhood through to TAFE, and in a range of contexts from remote areas to urban/rural schools. Coral is also a leader amongst educators who supports and advocates for Aboriginal English and two-way learning.
Antony Atkinson
At Phoenix Academy, we noticed that many learners were struggling to develop their English language skills beyond a CEFR B1 level. Many of our learners are on a pathway to university study where they are required to operate at a high level (B2+ and beyond). The class selected for the trial program was an Intermediate class with learners ranging from A2+ to B1+ across the four macro-skills. We wanted to investigate if moving away from a class based on a pre-set syllabus, relying largely on course book based instruction, would activate the learning capabilities of our learners and assist them out of the intermediate plateau. The pilot program would use largely authentic materials, would have direct input by the students themselves into the topics and areas covered, would have digital technology incorporated into the lessons, use alternative delivery methodologies such as dogme and create a 'Demand High' learning environment. The workshop will demonstrate classroom activities, tasks and approaches developed in the pilot program and discuss their effectiveness. Learner responses to the program will be presented and discussed as they shed light on learner's expectations of an English course and how they responded to the alternative approach.
Antony Atkinson is Manager of Teacher Training at Phoenix Academy in Perth, Western Australia. Antony has been a teacher since 1992 and completed his Delta in 1993. He is a Cambridge CELTA Trainer and Assessor and is an approved Cambridge Delta Module Two Trainer. Antony has taught in the United Kingdom, Czech and Slovak Republics, New Zealand and Australia. He has extensive experience of delivering teacher training in country and in Australia to teachers from Thailand, Korea, China and Japan. His main interests lie in teacher education, developing methods to enhance learner autonomy and utilising technology in the classroom.
A8 The role of resiliency education in English engagement towards successful educational, social and career outcomes for adolescent migrant students 55 minutes
Room NH RIVERSIDE BALLROOM NORTH
Mishayla Webber, Shannon Helbig and Lucinda Graf
Migrant and refugee students face particular challenges in all aspects of their acculturation. The implementation of the Building Resilience in Transcultural Australians (BRiTA Futures) program in Intensive English Centres is a key factor in helping students face these challenges. By mapping the program to the IEC and National Curricula as well as to the Australian Blueprint for Career Development, we are providing adolescents who are new to Australia with strategies and tools to successfully engage with Australian society through career planning. The importance of the English > Education > Employment pathway for new migrants and those from refugee backgrounds cannot be underestimated, especially in regards to preventing the radicalisation of vulnerable young people from complex communities. This session will involve an overview of the program and supporting data, including activities from the program and a question and answer session.
Mishayla Webber has been teaching at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus Intensive English Centre since 2011 following extensive experience in low SEI schools with high migrant and indigenous populations. She currently teaches Year 11 English as an Additional Language or Dialect (ATAR), is the Teacher Development School and Student Services Coordinator and has been training teachers and students in resilience since 2013.
Shannon Helbig has been teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL/D) since 2011 and is a qualified BRiTA Futures Facilitator. She has taught migrant and refugee adults, teenagers and children in several settings both in Perth and overseas. She is currently teaching Year 11 and 12 EAL/D and in the Intensive English Centre at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus.
Lucinda Graf has been teaching at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus Intensive English Centre since March, 2014 and is a qualified BRiTA Futures Facilitator. She returned to Edith Cowan University in 2013 to complete her Post Graduate Qualifications in Education majoring in TESOL. Her passion for supporting recent migrants, refugees and disenfranchised students has led her to where she is now. Lucinda currently teaches EAL/D and implements the BRiTA Futures program to migrant and refugee students.
A9 Using TEAL resources to assess the oracy and writing skills of school age EAL learners new to English55 minutes
Janet Saker
Assessment of EAL skills involves finding a balance between consistent performance of a task, and the nature of spoken interaction or the written text involved. The TEAL project has developed, refined and trialled assessment tasks that teachers can use with EAL learners in classroom contexts, to identify levels of performance and provide markers of development. This workshop will focus on the materials being developed to assess oracy and writing skill of EAL students in the early stages of EAL learning, from Foundation to Year 10. Samples of EAL learners' performance of some of these tasks will be presented, and participants will be involved in rating the performance of the samples, using the criteria and documentation developed in the project. Participants will compare their ratings of the students' performances, and reflect on the usefulness of the task and accompanying documentation. The implications of this experience for classroom assessment will be explored.
Janet Saker worked for over 20 years in the ESL/EAL unit of the Department of Education, Victoria, developing range of EAL curriculum and assessment materials, including the ESL Scales, the EAL AusVELS, ESL Course Advice, EAL policy documents, professional learning materials and teaching resources. She is now working on the TEAL project, developing oral assessment tools and units of work.
A10.1 Impact of teaching strategies on second language learning: a study of adult ESL classrooms25 minutes
Khairul Aini Mohamed Jiri
The paper draws upon a study conducted to examine the impact of the teaching strategies on adult ESL learners. Research was conducted at an adult literacy centre at Central Pennsylvania, USA that offers free ESL classes. The literature review reveals that effective teachers utilise certain teaching strategies in creating an effective language classroom. The analysis of the data reveals several effective teaching strategies for the ESL classroom which include the use of humour to minimise the anxiety level of the learners and as a way to establish connection between the teacher and the learners. The use of visual aids, the utilisation of group learning, the positive perceptions towards mistakes and the proper lesson planning are among other strategies recognised to be effective in the ESL classroom. This study is beneficial to the ESL field in Malaysia as it explores an area which is rarely highlighted in this country.
Khairul Aini Mohamed Jiri is a Head of Unit at the Assessment and Evaluation Department, English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC), Ministry of Education Malaysia where she teaches professional development courses for the in-service English Language Teachers in Malaysia. She conducted her doctoral work at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA with an emphasis on multicultural education and ESL teacher education. Her work focuses on how pre-service English teachers in Malaysia and the United States make sense out of, or theorise, everyday racial diversity and inequality in a time when colour-blind frameworks seem to predominate. Her other research interests include adult education, ESL teacher education, multicultural education and narrative inquiry.
A10.2 Applying CALL-Based Approach in teaching communicative grammar of English from the intercultural perspective in Vietnamese campuses25 minutes
Nguyet Thi LE
So far, few language teachers in Vietnam have put their efforts into integrating culture with the teaching of the communicative grammar of English. Therefore, this paper examines the current situation of teaching the communicative grammar of English in Vietnamese campuses in relation to the use of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and intercultural topics. It then investigates the effectiveness of teaching English grammar communicatively with the use of CALL in cross-cultural settings for Vietnamese EFL learners. Four instruments are employed: two sets of questionnaires, experimental teaching, class observations, and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study reveal some conclusions. First, the current application of CALL in Vietnamese EFL classrooms is not exploited effectively for the purpose of improving a learner's communicative grammar. Second, cultural factors are mostly neglected in teaching grammar in Vietnamese campuses. Third, thanks to the use of CALL, culture is integrated into teaching English grammar the most effectively and learners' communicative competence in different cultural backgrounds is improved the best in grammar classes. Finally, the author will provide some recommendations about how to apply CALL to enhance the teaching quality of English grammar in combination with cross-cultural topics to meet some challenges in the 21st-century multicultural context.
Le Thi Nguyet is a full-time lecturer of English at the University of People's Security, Vietnam. She has also been working as a visiting lecturer at other universities in Vietnam such as University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology - HUTECH, Foreign Trade University, etc. Her research interests include Teaching methodology, ESP teaching, Business English teaching, teaching of cultures, CALL, CLIL, and Applied Linguistics. She has presented her projects in lots of international conferences such as ACTA, ThaiTESOL, TESOL Asia, etc.
A11.1 Transcultural literacy and identity: Implications for language teaching and social interaction25 minutes
Paul Mercieca
In this paper for those in the field of language education, I will explore ways in which cultural literacy can be re-envisioned as not merely a set of skills, but rather as a deeper set of transcultural understandings. It will be suggested that transcultural literacy can be acquired in spaces between the familiar and the new, with implications for both life outside and inside formal educational settings. I will argue that for successful language learning and social interaction, transcultural literacy should now overarch the narrower concepts of communicative competence and cultural literacy. The paper draws on my study of cultural practices in a migrant group of adults in Western Australia and the development of both a reshaped transcultural identity and an accompanying literacy. I will explore a number of ways of transculturally reshaping language teaching practices and will also examine promising contexts of social interaction outside and beyond the classroom.
Dr Paul Mercieca works in the School of Education at Curtin University, where he is the MA Applied Linguistics Co-ordinator and Director International. He has also worked in the UK, Egypt, Vietnam and Oman. He has been a CELTA assessor, IELTS and TEE examiner, and was the Executive Editor of the English Australia Journal from 2010 to 2013. Paul's research interests are teacher education and critical literacy. His 2013 book, 'To the Ends of the Earth: Northern Soul and Southern Nights in Western Australia', explores theories and practices of identity and cultural literacy via engagement with popular culture.
A11.2 Moving from educating Sudanese refugees to educating remote Aboriginal students: a reflection25 minutes
Tracey Anthony
This session will outline Tracey's journey from teaching limited-schooling students in a highly multicultural school where Aboriginal students were integrated into mainstream classes, to teaching a specialist class of remote Aboriginal students in a school that is less multicultural. The presentation will describe the ways Tracey has adapted her EAL/D methodology to suit a different cohort of students and consider both the similarities and differences of teaching remote Aboriginal students and students who have recently arrived in Australia.
Tracey Anthony is a secondary trained teacher who was formerly the Head of EAL/D at Aranmore Catholic College in Leederville, Perth. In this role, she developed lasting relationships with the Sudanese community in Perth in an attempt to improve the retention and graduation of these students. She received the Australian Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009 in recognition of her work with these students and their community. Her relationship with these students and their families continues to this day. Tracey subsequently took up a position as teacher of (specialist) English and S&E to year 9 transition students from remote Kimberley communities who board whilst in Perth. She continues to teach in this role.
A12 EAL/D learning and being as a lived experience in a comprehensive public NT rural middle and senior school55 minutes
Lucinda Murrell
What it is like to learn, be and live as an EAL/D adolescent student in a NT rural middle and senior comprehensive school? Case studies of a number of diverse EAL/D middle and senior students will be presented. Based on informal student interviews, teacher notes and observations, student work evidence, analysis of student results and achievements the case studies enable the experience of diverse EAL/D learners to be explored. Issues, implications for practice, the importance of learning from each other and for differentiated EAL/D practice will be identified. Discussion will be opened to share experiences and to continue the conversation about how to best address issues raised particularly regarding: middle and senior school EAL/D learning and teaching, educational, language and literacy planning, teaching and programming, monitoring and recording learning and achievements, the Australian Curriculum, policy, teacher standards, school, management and resourcing.
Lucinda Murrell (B. Ed Social Science, MAPPLI ESL) first presented at the 2014 ACTA International TESOL Conference in Melbourne. She has over 20 years of experience teaching in a variety of contexts in Australia and extensive experience as a secondary school SOSE and English teacher. She is currently EALD Specialist teacher at Taminmin College, NT and Treasurer of ATESOL (NT).
A1 continues
Denise Shearer and Mary Walsh
There has long been recognition of the need to provide LLN support for 'domestic' as well as ESL background and international students to succeed in VET courses. At Central smaller LLN programs had been piloted to support VET learners but these lacked a consistent and rigorous approach to identification of needs and subsequent learner support. This session will outline the solution Central developed to the issue of non-completions of qualifications due to learners' low LLN skills. It aims to share Central's strategy in use of an internationally recognised diagnostic LLN tool and the related integrated support sessions for all learners. The session will include a presentation outlining the research, strategy development, piloting and refinement of this successful program. Participants will hear of the direct experiences of the practitioners involved. There will be an opportunity for participants to provide structured feedback and discuss and compare their own strategies and experiences.
Denise Shearer currently manages Central's curriculum and quality programs and has an extensive teaching and leadership background in access and equity programs across several countries and educational institutions. She has a keen interest in addressing the barriers experienced by learners with language and social disadvantage.
Mary Walsh has completed a range of successful innovative literacy related projects both in Australia and internationally. She is a highly experienced ESL and literacy teacher of adult learners. She has presented at a range of educational conferencing and maintains a strong professional interest in improving staff capability in inclusive teaching and learning practice.
Dr Evelyn Bach and Nicola Griffiths
According to The Australian Journal of Teacher Education (2014), around 50% of year 9 students are bored at school and 25% of these students eventually drop out of school completely. This session presents the rationale that in the absence of formal teaching and training, students become self-organised, motivated and effective learners. If learners are motivated by curiosity and are provided with the tools to research a topic, then they intuitively explore and learn together. Evelyn and Nicola will provide a 55 minute hands on workshop that will take you through the process of how to reengage adult learners by letting learning happen.
After 6 years of corporate training in the UK, Nicola completed her Masters in Education at Notre Dame in 2008. Since then she has been working with adult learners in universities, prisons and further education colleges. She is currently researching self-organised learning models with the hope of establishing her own Open Air Academy.
Evelyn completed her PHD in Literature in 1998 and is an artist, horticulturalist and translator. She has worked in education for over 30 years and is currently learning Mandarin.
A4 continues
Kerry Handley and Jill Millar
Sharp Reading has been developed to address prominent issues in the teaching of decoding and comprehension. It has been developed by classroom teachers (Hilton Ayrey and Brian Parker), through consultation with well-known academics, and action research in NZ over 12 years. Sharp Reading has achieved successful results with students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. The specialised routines within Sharp Reading develop effective competencies by using a common language that enables students to process text as they read.
This session focuses on the Developmental Progression of Sharp Reading which caters for all students - from early decoders through to the complex text analysis required at secondary level. Interactive activities throughout the session will assist participants to grasp the impact of the routines.
Kerry and Jill are currently literacy consultants working for the Association of Indpendent Schools of WA. They are accredited Sharp Reading consultants and work extensively across all aspects of literacy. The majority of their work is with remote Indigenous schools.
A6 continues
Kim Cootes, Cindy Valdez Adams and Alice Clarke
Fairfield Public School in South Western Sydney recognises the importance of EAL/D leadership with 95% students being of LBOTE background. One third of the school enrolment is from a refugee background. Influenced by the research of Cole, Timperley, Fullan, Hammond, Beck, McKeown, Kucan and Dufficy, the EAL/D Assistant Principal along with the senior school executive, have lead action inquiry and lesson study approaches in the school. Through professional learning in designing learning to develop language and enabling collaborative learning of teachers who plan, design and reflect through lesson study, EAL/D students, including refugees, feel safe, confident to take risks and have improved learning outcomes. This session will highlight these successful initiatives. The work of exemplary EAL/D teachers Cindy Valdez Adams and Alice Clark will be showcased.
Kim Cootes is an Assistant Principal EAL/D Fairfield Public School. She has been and EAL/D teacher for over 25 years and is passionate about the resettlement and educational needs of refugee students.
Kim was a Refugee Student Support Officer for six years with the NSW Department of Education. She won the STARTTS Humanitarian Award for Education in 2014.
Cindy Valdez Adams and Alice Clarke are both EAL/D teachers at Fairfield Public School. Cindy co- moderates #tesoloz and leads monthly TESOL discussions on Twitter, with a broad audience! She is passionate about teaching new arrivals English language through visual and creative arts.
Alice Clarke has taught recently arrived refugee students through creating a sustainable kitchen garden. Through this authentic task students have developed language skills and have settled into school.
B8 An ACTA Forum on Adult ESL Issues in Teaching and Learning: Establishing networks for knowledge sharing and exchanging ideas55 minutes
Karen Barber and Lesley Cioccarelli
Shared knowledge and an exchange of ideas is a source of inspiration, innovation and better understandings. With diminished professional development opportunities on effective and current models of delivery, teaching practices and learning strategies, establishing a network to support teachers of adult ESL (which often includes literacy) is essential. In this open forum key issues in adult ESL will be outlined and a range of networking strategies will be proposed with ample time for participant input and feedback. Through this forum it is imagined that together we will establish an effective way of exchanging ways of being and of supporting each other.
Karen Barber is the ACTA vice president and is a teacher in the AMEP at Central Institute of Technology. She is a classroom researcher, materials developer and writer but most of all she just loves teaching with its exciting challenges, complications and delight.
Lesley has been teaching English to adult migrants, refugees, international students, diplomats and their international visitors for over 10 years. Now, as Cultural Diversity Coordinator at Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), she provides support of all kinds to migrant and refugee students in mainstream courses, and supports teachers in dealing with the diverse needs of their learners. Lesley has a strong passion for informal learning through networking, and demonstrates this in her active involvement in local professional associations and communities, and in using social media extensively to connect, learn and share online.
B9 Using TEAL resources to assess the oracy and writing skills of more advanced school age EAL learners55 minutes
Alan Williams
Assessment of EAL skills involves finding a balance between consistent performance of a task, and the nature of spoken interaction or the written text involved. The TEAL project has developed, refined and trialled assessment tasks that teachers can use with EAL learners in classroom contexts, to identify levels of performance and provide markers of development. This workshop will focus on the materials being developed to assess oracy and writing skill of EAL students in the later stages of EAL learning. Samples of EAL learners' performance of some of these tasks will be presented, and participants will be involved in rating the performance of the samples, using the criteria and documentation developed in the project. Participants will compare their ratings of the students' performances, and reflect on the usefulness of the task and accompanying documentation. The implications of this experience for classroom assessment will be explored.
Dr Alan Williams has worked in EAL and TESOL teacher education and research for over 35 years, first in New arrivals centres, then at La Trobe university and the University of Melbourne. He is currently working on the TEAL project conducted by the University of NSW.
Dr Julie Fletcher and Dr Pauline O'Maley
Recent decades have seen increased tertiary participation by 'non-traditional' students, including first in family, low socio-economic status, non-English speaking background, recent migrants and refugees. In this context, the issue of successful transition to university learning has become increasingly important. Research shows that first year students in particular must be supported to develop a sense of belonging and engagement within the university to enable successful transition into university learning culture. This paper outlines the ways in which inclusive pedagogy, an interdisciplinary, internationalised curriculum, and deeply embedded academic support is fostering student success in an innovative first year foundation unit offered within the College of Arts at Victoria University. Drawing upon the idea of 'come as you are' we embrace our richly diverse student cohort as the greatest strength of the university experience, and work with our students to build skill, academic confidence, and success.
Dr. Julie Fletcher is Lecturer in Foundations and First Year Champion within the College of Arts at Victoria University in Melbourne. Julie has developed and delivers, with Pauline Omaley, an innovative first year foundation sequence in the social sciences. Her research and practice interests in first-year transition and the effective support and inclusion of non-traditional students have their origins in her own experiences, and many years of teaching increasingly diverse first-year students. In 2014 Julie was awarded the Victoria University Vice Chancellor's Citation for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
Dr. Pauline O'Maley is an educational developer within Academic Support and Development at Victoria University, and works with staff and students within the College of Arts. Pauline's doctoral research focussed on diagnostic assessment of adult literacy students. Her particular practice interests include exploring ways to make discipline-specific academic literacies explicit, and working with lecturers to develop enabling learning communities. Pauline has an abiding interest in second-chance education and positive transitions.
B10.2 Diversity in context: a pragmatic response to colonisation in Indigenous language learning25 minutes
Virginia Westwood
In language learning and teaching, diversity extends from the models we have of language structure to the resultant materials development models and pedagogies. In particular, there are fundamental differences in the contexts of oral versus written languages. The development of language learning resources for oral Indigenous languages worldwide has been based on Eurocentric models of language, language learning and, in the case of computer assisted language learning (CALL), software design and development process. This critical study, conducted over four years in the remote Kimberley in Western Australia, exposed the assumptions of these models. Working in partnership with an Aboriginal language community and starting with a design research approach, a model for critical design research was developed. This also led to pragmatic outcomes including a new pedagogy for CALL for oral Indigenous languages, a model for contextual and participative materials design and development, and a CALL program for Nyikina. The critical approach to language and learning demonstrated in this paper has vital implications for Indigenous well-being, practitioner and researcher skills and social justice.
Virginia Westwood has been designing and developing interactive multimedia software programs for teaching and learning language, literacy and numeracy for 25 years. Virginia is currently finishing a PhD on critical design of computer assisted language learning (CALL) software for Aboriginal languages, and continues to work in these areas.
Frances Murray
This presentation is relevant to primary and secondary teachers of Indigenous EAL/D students in remote and urban contexts. The themes are also pertinent to all EAL/D students. This session questions the pedagogic responses and identity exclusion of EAL/D groups, to/in the national testing culture. The session seeks to question the efficacy and relevance of practice-dependent literacy packages for teaching Indigenous EAL/D students. Has language teaching and learning been ignored in the quest to meet the requirements of national literacy testing? The session aims to raise awareness of a) the need to include students' languages and knowledges as learners of EAL/D; b) the skill sets required in teaching multilingual learners. It will look at questions such as: how does the national testing agenda recognise multilingual learners' knowledge and skills? What is its degree of influence on the teaching of multilingual learners?
Frances is the ACTA councillor for the NT. Frances' career has focussed on EAL/D teaching, bilingual education and teacher training. She has worked as an Early Childhood teacher, Teacher-Linguist in a bilingual school, Curriculum Writer, Teacher Education lecturer and ESL Program Manager. She wrote the EAL/D methodology 'Walking Talking Texts', used widely in Indigenous EAL/D teaching. Frances received a National Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Achievement of Literacy. She studied 'Corpus and Status Language Planning' with Professor Joshua Fishman. She is currently engaged in education consultancy work.
B12 • Session Full • Applications of Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) in EAL/D Classes: principles and best practices55 minutes
Julian Chen
Bridging theory and practice, this hands-on workshop will walk TESOL professionals through the implementation of task-based language teaching (TBLT) using a 'backward task design'. Drawing upon previous TBLT research (e.g., Long, 1985; Willis, 1998), the presenter will first define what a 'task' is and further discuss the principles of TBLT and key concepts that need to be considered when adopting TBLT in an EAL/D class (Nunan, 1991). A backward design model (Lee, 2000) that guides TBLT implementation will be then introduced as follows: the task design cycle begins with identifying a desired task outcome, breaking down the target task into sub-tasks, creating and sequencing concrete tasks and building in linguistic support. To solidify the model, the presenter will demonstrate an 'Archaeology Search' task that exemplifies how to carry out a meaningful, communicative and authentic task in class using authentic realia. The audience will have the chance to experience this task execution and evaluate the whole process following the backward design model. The workshop will end with a 'virtual class observation' task where the audience will observe and evaluate a video scenario on teaching speaking with TBLT. Issues and implications will be discussed in the community of practice.
Julian Chen currently lectures on the units in the Master of Education, MA (Applied Linguistics) and Grad Cert in TESOL. Before joining Curtin, he worked as a Technical Director of the Language Learning Research Centre (LLRC) at Stony Brook University in the U.S. where he and his colleagues received several national grants. As a STARTALK curriculum designer (funded by STARTALK, a federal grant), he developed a standards-based, performance-driven curriculum following the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-do Statements for three programs in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. His research interests include computer-assisted language learning, task-based language teaching, 3-D virtual environments, and standards- and performance-based assessments.
Beth Marr
The concepts of numeracy/mathematics are inextricably linked with the language that names them. In mathematics, terms like volume, area and rectangle carry specific meanings, often different from everyday usage. Imagine the difficulties for English language and literacy learners when such language is not given specific attention. Even simple terms like quarter of an hour, odd number, decimal point and reading numbers and fractions can confuse people from other cultures. However, mathematics is traditionally taught as a silent subject: the predominant classroom voice is the teacher. When students do speak, they are rarely encouraged to practise numeracy language. This interactive workshop draws on issues encountered when designing curriculum and teaching numeracy to LOTE adult learner groups in Melbourne and East Timor. It will model a variety of numeracy teaching methodologies, including activities designed to develop numeracy and language simultaneously. All strategies will be applicable in a range of teaching situations, particularly with LOTE and literacy learners.
Beth Marr has worked extensive with adult numeracy teachers and learners all over Australia to produce activity based resources for teachers. These include: Strength in Numbers; Breaking the Maths Barrier and Numeracy on the Line, and recently the up-dated teaching resource, Building Strength with Numeracy (available to all teachers on the VALBEC website) and a series of Professional Development video clips, Collaborative Numeracy (soon to be available through the WA Department of Training and Workforce Development). Beth has delivered interactive Professional development sessions for teachers throughout Australia. She has also taught international teachers and adult numeracy learners, including several groups from East Timor.
Maria Doyle
This is a practical, hands on workshop that showcases 25 communicative activities which can be created and used on the spot, without any prior preparation. Activities are designed to be used with a variety of levels and classroom types, including adults, teens and children. Participants will be involved in as many of the activities as possible, as if they are the students. The remainder will be explained briefly, in order to discuss all the activities (and how they can be adapted) before the session is concluded.
Maria Doyle helps passionate professionals systemise, optimise and digitalise their expertise. In doing so, she helps to create quality learning experiences that engage, inspire and motivate their clients to create real change. She is currently a freelance consultant and the Vice President of WATESOL.
Her qualifications include an MEd (TESOL), Cert IV TAA, Cert IV TESOL, CELTA, BA (Modern Languages). Maria has extensive international experience, teaching, developing and managing courses in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the UAE, the UK, Hong Kong and Kiribati. Her areas of expertise include curriculum development, teacher training, project management, assessment and evaluation, and also language and communication skills.
C3 SDERA and the Keys for Life program – educating for smarter choices on the road and elsewhere55 minutes
Deb Zines
School Drug Education and Road Aware (SDERA) is the WA State Government's primary drug and road safety education strategy. SDERA's purpose is to prevent road related injuries and the harms from drug use. While SDERA's name seems to indicate that its focus is on schools, its target audience is in fact much broader than this. SDERA partners with many agencies, organisations and schools to deliver best practice road safety, resilience, drug and health education (curriculum, programs and professional learning) across the community and all regional and remote areas of the state.
This presentation will explore how professionals working in the area of adult literacy can engage with SDERA in the following ways: • Accessing SDERA's evidence-based road safety, resilience and drug education programs – in particular the Keys for Life program for pre-drivers and novice drivers • Attending SDERA professional learning workshops that are recognised by the Teacher Registration Board WA, and available state-wide.
Deb Zines has presented at more than 1000 professional events throughout Australia, reaching at least 20 000 attendees and clients. A well-regarded health promotion and project management expert, national conference & professional learning seminar speaker and author of several resources, Deb has an instinctive and experienced management understanding. With a background of more than 20 years in project management and more than a decade of teaching, consulting and advisory work, Deb is an authority on health and safety that promotes well-being for young people. Road safety education, resilience and preventive drug education are issues she is passionate about.
Jane Jones and Tricia McKenzie
This workshop will present participants with an overview of the research and philosophy underpinning the Learning English Through Story time (LETS) program and showcase a hands-on family literacy session. LETS is a structured family literacy program for culturally and linguistically diverse parents/carers and their children (aged 3-4 years). As a non-formal learning program, bringing a social capital approach to adult literacy is ideally suited to this group of learners. Set in public libraries, learners develop a sense of community, begin to learn more about their newly adopted identity and gain access to knowledge and new skills. The presenters explain the session format with its focus on English speaking and listening skills using songs, rhymes and activities to support home literacy practices. The LETS initiative is an example of the many cross-sector approaches to develop literacy skills through collaborations between State Library of WA, public libraries and agencies supporting families with English as an Additional Language.
Jane Jones coordinates the development of adult literacy initiatives to support the Better Beginnings Family Literacy program, the literacy, information and learning needs of State Library staff and the wider community.
Tricia McKenzie is an Education Officer at the State Library of WA with over 15 years teaching experience. Her role is to develop and facilitate learning programs that not only engage students and educators in the collections of the State Library, but also to support family literacy and learning.
C5/D5 Collard vs State of Western Australia: documentary film and discussion about the landmark human rights court case120 minutes
Glenys Collard and Margaret McHugh
This presentation will start with a viewing of a 60 minute documentary film made by an independent film maker with a small grant from the Sorry Day Alliance. The film follows the progress of a landmark human rights court case: Collard v State of Western Australia (2013). In 1961, eight of Don and Sylvia Collard's young children were taken into care by the state. As plaintiffs, the Collard family were seeking both an explanation of the State's action and restitution for the physical, emotional, social and cultural harm that was caused to parents and children. The viewing will be followed by a discussion about the relevance of this court case as a human rights issue and the important part that language plays in achieving justice for Aboriginal people.
Glenys Collard is a South West Nyungar matriarch within her nuclear family of over 290 people. She has worked within education and training for many years leading the Aboriginal facets of research and materials development about Aboriginal English and promoting an understanding of its importance in achieving equitable outcomes for Aboriginal learners.
Margaret McHugh worked in training and education in Western Australia for 30 years. Since 2005, she has contributed to the development of a bidialectal approach in training and helped produce the Tracks to Two-Way Learning professional development resource. She currently collaborates with Glenys Collard in a variety of writing projects.
Peter McKenzie
In light of the Australian curriculum‚ cross-curricular priorities we are now in better position more than ever to authentically incorporate Indigenous perspectives into classroom experiences. However there is also great risk in continuing hidden curriculums of tokenism, racism and capitalism. This workshop will look at Indigenous perspectives through the lens of critical pedagogy. We will explore opportunities that exist to empower ESL students and transform some of the conditions that perpetuate human injustice and inequity. I will share with participants a number of ESL activities that are designed for both ATAR EAL/D and lower school ESL. These activities form part of what I like to call a course in intellectual self defence.
Peter McKenzie Teacher of English, EAL/D and Japanese, he has a passion for empowering students and inciting educational debates. Peter has recently been involved in the Department of Education's Key Language Leaders Initiative in which he has been doing action research into incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures into EALD and Japanese Language Courses. Peter recently completed his Masters of Education doing research in the areas of Languages Education, Indigenous Education and Critical Pedagogy. In 2014 Peter was ask to share his educational philosophy at the National Symposium on Japanese Language. Peter is currently the Program Coordinator for both the EAL/D and Japanese at Wanneroo Secondary College in Perth.
Adriano Truscott
This presentation is for EAL/D teachers thinking about applying their skills to Indigenous education. EAL/D teachers understand the linguistic and cultural fundamentals learners require to achieve communicative and academic competency, but are also advocates for their learners. Indigenous education in Australia is a sector of elite teaching that requires a combination of skills, including EAL/D understanding and advocacy. This presentation will highlight differences between teaching EAL/D in other contexts. While sharing some of the challenges that can arise in remote communities, we will consider the enormous rewards that arise from moving from teaching to exchanging ways of being. This workshop presentation will offer experiences from a small panel of EAL/D teachers who have worked in varied contexts.
Adriano Truscott is currently the Principal of Wiluna Remote Community School. He has taught ESL since 2001 in a range of contexts, but worked in Indigenous languages and education for the past decade. His passions are language rights and social justice in education.
C8 Wongutha CAPS: engaging Aboriginal students from all over WA in literacy and the wider global community55 minutes
Brendan Franzone
This session will provide an overview of the successes and challenges of literacy at Wongutha CAPS, a year 11 and 12 Vocational school for Aboriginal students from all over Western Australia. Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds and have vastly varied levels of literacy. This presentation will show a number of the strategies that we use at the school. Using texts to teach Aboriginal students primarily from remote communities about the wider global community, differences and similarities with other cultures and issues affecting people around the world. Wongutha has used Accelerated Literacy and Reading to Learn as its primary teaching methodology since 1999 with great results. Our school has 'Training for Life' as its core value at the centre of what we do in all areas. Being a vocational school there is a focus on preparing for work and life after schooling so 'Work Language' is also a strong focus as well as an 'Oral Communication' throughout the school.
Brendan is a teacher at Wongutha, the Literacy Coordinator and Deputy Principal. He used to be a literacy consultant at the Association of Independent Schools, working primarily with the Aboriginal Independent Community Schools. He is also the treasurer of the Kate Mullin Association. Kate was a past president of WATESOL.
Mallika Das and Abby Saleh
In this presentation we will discuss two teacher-initiated bilingual reading programs conducted in school where 99% and 97% of the school population are from CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) backgrounds. These programs involve the reading of texts in multiple languages. Research suggests that 'in early stages it [reading in the first language] can profoundly accelerate the development of reading ability in the second language.'-Krashen, S. (2004). Building on this research, we will discuss the ways parents and community members were engaged in the process. We will outline the processes and procedures used to establish and maintain this program and will share data that offers evidence of the success of this program and its impact on students' English syllabus outcomes.
Mallika is working as an EAL/D teacher mentor at Auburn Public School, NSW. She has 18 years of experience of teaching in mainstream and reception classes. Mallika has been a teacher mentor from 2013 and has participated in PIEP (Primary Intensive English Program) for Refugees, Using Mobile devices for EAL/D learners, Multicultural Story-box Project, Leadership Project as well as Developing Student's Linguistic Repertoires for Language development project. Mallika has presented her work in various forums and is passionate about language development of EAL/D including refugee students and seeing them succeed in achieving their learning outcomes.
Abby Saleh is an EAL/D teacher at Auburn North Public School. She has 17 years of experience of teaching in mainstream and reception classes. Abby has participated in various projects such as PIEP (Primary Intensive English Program) for Refugees and Leadership Project among others. Abby has presented her work in various forums and is very passionate about language development of EAL/D including refugee students and takes keen interest in developing innovative programs to enhance student achievement of learning outcomes as well as supporting her colleagues in implementing these programs.
Jocasta Sibbel and Golda Signal
In 2015 the Western Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People used a peer-led approach to ask almost 300 children and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds about the positive things in their lives, the challenges they face, their experiences settling in Australia and their hopes for the future. This presentation will discuss the findings from that consultation, including challenges learning English, making friends, and experiencing racism, with a focus on the importance of listening to the views of children and young people and using this information in decision making.
Jocasta is a senior policy officer in the office of the Commissioner for Children and Young People Western Australia. She has worked on a range of projects in the Commissioner's office including a consultation with more than 1,200 Aboriginal children and young people. Most recently she was the Project Manager for the Commissioner's consultation with children and young people from CALD backgrounds.
Golda was born in South Sudan but grew up in a refugee camp in Uganda. She moved to Australia with her family at the age of 8. In 2014 Golda was named the winner of the Cultural Endeavours award at the WA Youth Awards. She was also a finalist at the National Youth Awards in 2015. Golda was one of 12 peer leaders engaged by the Commissioner for Children and Young People for the Commissioner's consultation with children and young people from CALD backgrounds in 2015.
C10.2 • Session Full • Success in teaching: sharing the experiences of being in the classroom situation25 minutes
Zanele Khanyile
Teaching and learning does not solely rely on the curriculum or the policies in place. Curricula are frequently replaced by new ones with the aim to improve stale methods of teaching. Through my experiences I have discovered that success in teaching is mainly about the engagement of the teacher with the learners in the classroom situation, classroom management, content and research, the relationship between the teacher and the learners and most importantly about the performance and the results at the end of that engagement. This can only be achieved through teaching and learning, and assessments. For centuries, learning and teaching has mainly been about two aspects, that is, teaching and assessments. How we manage the two aspects can either enhance or diminish the manner in which learning takes place. Technologies can only improve teaching and learning if a good strategy (method) is in place for teachers to employ to reap good results. This article will look at my experiences of being a teacher and how I travelled the journey with my students. I will also explore my present circumstances as a lecturer at a distance education university where teaching and learning is heading towards being fully online.
Zanele Khanyile has been in the teaching profession for over ten years, mainly teaching students who are second language speakers of English. She studied English literature at the University of Natal (now named the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa). She was involved in the undergraduate mentoring project, taught at high school, college and now is a lecturer at the University of South Africa. As a junior lecturer, she is studying towards her Masters degree in African literature but feels the need to share her experiences with other teachers whether in language or literature.
C11 The impact of teachers' knowledge, and beliefs about technology, pedagogy and content in adult education55 minutes
Dr Teresa O'Brien
This presentation is aimed at general education teachers working in vocational training contexts. Teachers in the vocational sector need to embrace 'technology' knowledge commensurate with industry and workplace standards. Through the lens of the TPACK (technological, pedagogical content, knowledge) framework, the presentation will explore the impact of teachers' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and their beliefs about effective ways of teaching. A modified framework is then proposed and is based on the notion that teachers' epistemological beliefs are often reflected in their perceptions of students and thus shape their decisions about integrating technology into their teaching.
Dr Teresa O'Brien has worked in the adult and vocational education sector for more than twenty years. She is currently working for a State Training Provider in Western Australia as a Principal Lecturer, and teaches the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment as well as the CGEA. She was recently awarded the Western Australian Institute of Educational Research Award for her doctoral thesis submission.
Teresa is especially passionate about developing teachers' ability to use educational technologies in pedagogically defensive ways. She believes that technology provides the means through which education can reach into Australia's vast regional areas. Its promotion in teaching is therefore vital to avoid marginalisation and exclusion.
Cindy Valdez-Adams
'Developing Language through the Arts' was created to provide newly-arrived EAL/D learners, most of whom are refugees, opportunities to develop their ability to express and communicate their ideas through various art forms. Learners were given the space to show their understanding of concepts and ideas through painting, drawing, sculpture, drama and dance in a safe and secure environment. The major outcome of the program was a noticeable increase in the oral language development, substantive engagement, improved confidence and achievement of students. Partnerships with the broader arts community have been made including the NSW Art Gallery and Casula Powerhouse Museum, as well as newly-arrived parents of the school community. Participants will engage and participate in learning and teaching strategies used with newly-arrived learners, such as 'Visible Thinking' routines to foster and develop creativity, higher order thinking and language learning skills.
Cindy is currently an ESL Specialist Teacher/Mentor at Fairfield Public School, NSW. She also held the position of Assistant Principal ESL in 2011 to 2013. Cindy has been with Fairfield Public School for the last 14 years. This year, she has been invited to participate in the 'EAL/D Mentoring Program', as a mentor to schools with a growing enrolment of refugee learners. Cindy has also been a presenter at various conferences, TESOL workshops and seminars. Last year she presented at ACER's 'Excellence in Professional Practice Conference'. Cindy also presented her action research discoveries, and involvement in the 'Fair-Go', 'Vocabulary Development' and 'EAL/D Leadership' projects, at the 'Re-Thinking Multicultural Education Conference', and other forums. She is founder of #tesoloz, a regular ESL education chat which aims to promote effective EAL/D pedagogy, and expand colleagues' EAL/D Professional Learning Network through social media.
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David Ford
This session is targetted at STEM teachers with EAL/D students, either in mainstream or in EAL/D programs. It provides insight into the particular needs of these students and how language proficiency can be developed while still covering the necessary content and skills. It provides practical ideas, activities and materials for use in class.
David is Science Coordinator in the Intensive English Centre at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus. His set of skills addresses the unique needs of ESL students in STEM subjects. As part of the Teacher Development School programme he has shared his expertise and inspiration with ESL and mainstream teachers across the state. His passion for science and literacy are engaging and the skills and insights he provides can be used directly in the classroom to enhance any STEM program.
D3 Addressing oral language needs of diverse EAL/D learners through whole school professional learning 55 minutes
Lisa Garrett, Breanna Hodi, Megan McWhinney and Rachael Graham
Through implementing professional learning that is sustainable and supported by evidence-based research we are able to see visible change in teacher practice. By challenging teachers' beliefs and attitudes (Timperely 2011, Gay 2013), improving teacher knowledge and skills and responding to students' readiness to learn, positive learning outcomes can be achieved (Munro 2009, Sleeter 2001). This presentation will outline the continuing journey of a low SES urban primary school in Cairns that addressed the oral language needs of their EAL/D students through developing teacher efficacy and pedagogy. Our journey considered the sustainability of professional learning, current educational changes, intensification and standardisation of teacher practice and the diverse needs of learners. We will detail the context, evidence-based research on professional learning, action research and coaching of John Munro's (2011) ICPALER model, changes to teacher practice and classroom implementation of oral language.
Lisa Garrett is an EAL specialist teacher working with refugee students in Cairns. She has worked in remote Indigenous communities and urban areas in NT and Qld, as well as in Africa and the Middle East. She has been a classroom teacher, EAL/D specialist teacher, advisory teacher, adult educator, and curriculum instructional designer for RATEP (A community based teacher education program) for Indigenous adults at TNQTAFE. She has a Masters of Education (TESOL) and is currently a PhD (Education) candidate at JCU. Her research interest is engaging teachers in culturally responsive pedagogy through professional learning to assist with refugee settlement.
Rachael Graham is currently the Master Teacher that works between a large urban school and the School of Distance Education in Far North Queensland. She began her teaching career in regional Queensland and has worked at schools with high numbers of Indigenous students. Rachael's experience extends to teaching in very culturally diverse schools in the United Kingdom. She specialises in the Early Childhood years of schooling and prior to taking up the role as Master Teacher, was a school-based Pedagogy Coach.
Breanna Hodi is a Prep teacher in a large urban school in Far North Queensland. She is in the beginning stages of her career and has taught at a diverse range of Far Northern schools in a range of contexts. Breanna has a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, Masters of (General) Education and is currently undertaking a Research Masters in Information, Communication and Technology in Education and Planning.
Megan McWhinney is currently the Deputy Principal of a large urban multicultural school in Far North Queensland. She has worked in a variety of roles including classroom teacher, Head of Student Services focussing on community engagement and Head of Curriculum. Her interests lie in connecting diverse learners and their families into the school context, in particular the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities.
Janet McHardy
To be effective and cater for the diversity of learners, adult reading teachers must be informed about reading, flexible in approach, and instruction must focus on specific needs. However, reading is an intricate cognitive skill and limited research is available to inform our teaching of less-skilled adult readers. This interactive presentation brings together research findings of strategies employed by 36 West Australian and New Zealand adult literacy learners as they read words. The research is part of a broader study on adult reading undertaken as part of a doctoral program at UWA. Findings suggest many learners are confused about how to go about reading words with ineffective strategies to draw on. The findings are considered with practical suggestions for diagnosing and addressing reading needs of learners. The presentation and discussion will be of interest to all those involved in designing and implementing adult reading programs.
Janet has over twenty years' experience in adult teaching and education. Before moving to Australia in 2011 she worked at the National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults (New Zealand). Other roles have included workplace skills programme developer and tutor, specialist learning consultation advisory roles and community tutor. Janet's focus since moving to Western Australia has been her doctoral study on adult reading at University of Western Australia with part-time workplace literacy work. In July 2015 she moved to Kununurra to work in Access programmes at Kimberley Training Institute.
D5/C5 Collard vs State of Western Australia: documentary film and discussion about the landmark human rights court case120 minutes
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Robin Boccia
Who has a driver's licence? Immigrants come to this country to start a new life and want something different to what they have previously experienced in their own countries. This means more personal freedom for women from Asian and Middle-Eastern countries with the addition of being financially independent as driving instructors. It is also an avenue for men whose overseas qualifications are not recognised in this country to gain a Certificate IV level qualification where the ability to speak one or more languages other than English will benefit them in running their own business as a driving instructor. We will explore the best ways to equip these people with the means to succeed in their hopes and discuss strategies to obtain maximum benefits and outcomes for these students.
Robin Boccia's qualifications include BA (Training & Development) Grad. Dip Adult LLN, Bi-lingual (Italian), Indigenous mentoring, CEO Miro Training Centre RTO. She has 25 years experience in training, programming, specialising in road safety, and all levels of driver training and assessment. She is also a WA Department of Transport HV Licence Assessor.
Maria Salcedo
This workshop will share the journey and examples of how the Queensland Department of Education and Training Metropolitan Region EAL/D and Refugee Program has used Wenger's interpretation of the dimensions of a community-based knowledge strategy to develop their community of practice through the creation of a number of interconnected eLearning spaces to integrate and balance all the dimensions of the social life of knowledge. In particular, the group has managed to make the knowledge flow successfully from the community into the mainstream. We produced an ever-growing range of printed and electronic resources to support EAL/D differentiation of the curriculum. This including 64 units of work supporting the English ACARA curriculum units created by the Department, by making them accessible via the Learning Place, the Department's secure e-learning environment, to all staff and students across the state. The creation of this exchange mechanism has had phenomenal success with over 1,500,000 views recorded to date.
Maria Salcedo: Metropolitan EAL/D Coordinator leading the Metropolitan EAL/D Differentiation Project, which supports EAL/D students to access the Australian Curriculum. 2010 Smart Classrooms Teacher Award Winner for excellence in using information and communications technologies in teaching and learning practice. 2012 Finalist in Excellent Leadership in Teaching and Learning in QCT Excellence in Teaching Awards. Advocate for a cooperative culture aimed at optimising student engagement and learning, contributing to intellectual rigour and authentic learning experiences.
D9 Driving Language and Literacy exchange from the perspectives of three levels of education55 minutes
Sue Beath and Patsy Konigsberg
This session will showcase how the Capability Framework – Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander EAL/D Learners is being used as driver to promote and foster the implementation of a respectful and reciprocal cross-cultural two-way teaching and learning approach at school, regional and central levels of education. Examples will be drawn from the most recent work carried out in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.
Sue Beath is a Karriyara Woman from Port Hedland with 35 years' experience working in education (including as Manager Aboriginal Education) and currently as Regional Consultant Aboriginal Education (Pilbara region). Sue started her career in Education without having completed year 12. This has brought about a strong desire in Sue, to promote similar opportunities for others. Sue subsequently completed a certificate in small business management and was the first person in WA to complete the Certificate of Education to up-skill Aboriginal Education Workers. Sue is a strong leader who supports others to grow. She is a stern advocate for two-way learning with a vision for an education that is fun, engaging and relevant.
Patricia Konigsberg has worked collaboratively with Aboriginal students and educators from across Australia teaching a range of subjects. She was instrumental (with Glenys Collard as Two-Way partner) in overseeing the Education Department's involvement in the two-way collaborative linguistic research (with Edith Cowan University – under the guidance of Professor Ian Malcom) in the area of Aboriginal English which produced resources such as Two-Way English, Solid English, Deadly Ways to Learn, Ways of Being, Ways of Talk, and, most recently Tracks to Two-Way Learning resource. Patricia managed the West Australian Aboriginal Literacy Strategy, the EAL/D Programs at the Institute for Professional Learning and the completion of the final revision of the West Australian EAL/D Progress Map.
Shem Macdonald
Research into key aspects of additional language pronunciation along with new approaches to teaching it have emerged over the last few decades. Despite this, many teachers are still not confident about how they address the pronunciation needs of their learners. This is reflected in the fact that professional learning sessions for teachers on how to teach pronunciation often draw a crowd. Feedback from attendees of such sessions reveals a range of understandings about what pronunciation is, how they approach teaching it, and the questions they have about it, and highlights the wide range of beliefs and practices that language teachers hold about this challenging learning area. An overview of several of the common approaches taken and whether and how these align with understandings from current research into additional language pronunciation are provided.
Shem Macdonald works in language education and applied linguistics at La Trobe University. His research interests include the speaking and pronunciation of speakers of additional languages and he conducts teacher professional development in this field.
Alison Hill
Tandem language learning – where (typically) two people support each other in learning each other's languages – is a powerful tool valuing language diversity, learner autonomy and cooperation. It is utilised both in informal tandem partnerships by individuals and in classrooms in schools and universities. From European origins in face-to-face (F2F) interactions, tandem has expanded globally in recent years through online communication networks. This paper provides a brief overview of tandem and presents a case study and ongoing action research in an informal F2F tandem exchange between an L1 Australian English speaker (the presenter) and an L1 Mandarin Chinese speaker. While some tandem approaches effectively promote parallel monolingualism, the exchange described here explores the power of natural bilingual practices such as translation, code-switching and code-mixing. Effective - and less effective - strategies will be discussed, along with potential ways tandem language learning can be incorporated into other community and classroom contexts.
Alison Hill has been exploring two-way language and cultural exchange for 25 years. She was a research team member in Aboriginal English and Two-Way Education collaborations between Edith Cowan University and the WA Department of Education and contributed to the ABC of Two-way Literacy and Learning and Tracks to Two-way Learning. More recently, she has trained in teaching English to adult speakers of other languages and is currently engaged in casual and private English teaching. Over the past year, she has been discovering the power and potential of tandem language learning in a lively tandem exchange with a Mandarin-speaking friend.
Michelle Ocriciano
Technology evolution has given mobile devices an importance without precedent. It goes beyond the initial idea of typical communication. As consequence of its widespread use, mobile devices have reached the realms of education. It is, therefore, relevant to acknowledge the use of these devices to promote new types of engaging and challenging activities in and outside the classroom. In this workshop the presenter, using a very hands-on approach, will show some of the most recent allies in mobile technology such as online and offline applications and the powerful Quick Response Code (QR code). She will also briefly describe the concepts of BYOD (bring your own device) and 'Gamification'. There will also be a website/blog where teachers will be able to consult and download all materials used (including a reference list and posters) so that they can deliver a similar presentation for their colleagues. The target audience is English teaching professionals in general.
Michelle Ocriciano holds a B.A. in English and Linguistics, a B.Ed., CELTA and a Graduate Diploma in TEFL. She has also participated in the English Australia Action Research project. She has been teaching for 17 years and has taught General English, EAP and exam classes. Her fields of interest are Technology in Language Teaching & Learning, Teacher PD, Sociolinguistics and Language Variation.
Rachel Rodriguez and Sara Lembo
This workshop presentation focuses on the use of particular teaching techniques which have proven effective and appealing in our practice of teaching English learners. At the beginner and elementary levels, physical games and the use of fitness media in class are practical and useful means of engaging learners with little or no vocabulary. The activities involve the repetition and review of common language themes and phrases, without the risk of them becoming boring drills or childish exercises. At intermediate and upper-intermediate levels, students enjoy and benefit linguistically from the use of songs. Lyrics provide both grammatically meaningful structures and diverse vocabulary items, including copious examples of slang - paramount to settlement and integration into the local context. This teaching method also envisages exposure to a range of musical genres, famous artists and culturally relevant knowledge. Both of these strategies allow for a fun, captivating and active classroom environment, with a focus on real-life language in a dynamic setting.
Rachel Rodriguez is a lecturer in Spoken and Written English at the Great Southern Institute of Technology in Albany, WA. She specialises in teaching beginner EAL students, as well as adult literacy. Rachel's previous experience includes co-ordinating teachers and curriculum for bilingual education in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Rachel loves teaching refugee students as she is passionate about justice in education.
Sara Lembo has been a lecturer in Spoken and Written English at the Great Southern Institute of Technology in Albany, WA, for 13 years. She has taught across all levels. Sara previously worked in Europe as an EFL teacher. Sara's aim is to create a lively, adult-relevant and conducive learning environment, through the use of a variety of resources and activities in class.
Julianne Krusche
This presentation will explore the emerging themes that have been brought to light around professional identity from the perceptions of the LLN teachers working in Victorian VET institutes. This presentation is part of a PhD research study where teachers/coordinators have participated in a semi- structured interview and answered a series of open-ended questions about: how do teachers describe their professional roles and identities? What policies and practices influence their roles and has this changed over time? Has their professional identity changed over time? What does it feel like to work as an LLN teacher in current times? What do teachers need, if anything, to do their jobs better? The presentation will analyse the emerging data from three layers of discourse: macro (how policy reform in VET and LLN is impacting on teachers' roles and identities); meso (institutional impacts influenced by students, other VET teachers, management out how this has contributed to changing roles and identities); micro (LLN teachers' inner thoughts and actions as a response to policy reform).
Julianne Krusche has worked in teaching, coordinating and management roles within the LLN field in VET for over 20 years. She is currently employed by Federation University Australia as the Associate Director of Federation College which entails overseeing the delivery of preparatory and embedded LLN, English language, youth and corrections programs across a range of campuses and delivery locations. In addition, Julianne is currently a PhD candidate working on a thesis titled 'Unpacking the professional identities of LLN teachers in Victorian VET institutes'.
Jo Hart
This session will be useful for practitioners in both adult literacy/numeracy and ESoL (adult and school age). It will introduce and provide opportunities for engagement and experimentation with a selection of e-tools and strategies. You will be able to choose which tools/strategies you wish to explore from a range of options that will include blogging and social networking platforms and quick, easy-to-learn tools for creating texts of various types. These tools/strategies can: facilitate literacy, language and numeracy acquisition by students through exchanges with the wider world, increase engagement and ownership of their own learning by giving students greater choice of tools and strategies for learning with and from others, provide networking and professional development opportunities for practitioners.
Jo delivers CAVSS (Course in Applied Vocational Study Skills), develops e-learning, and provides e- learning PD/mentoring. From 2011-2014 she co-facilitated the WA Adult Literacy and Numeracy Network. She has delivered adult literacy/numeracy/digital literacy (Foundation Skills) in WA since 2003 (CGEA, NOW, CAVSS, CELL). She also managed/facilitated a variety of in-house, state and federally-funded projects in e-learning and access and equity. She was a finalist in the 2013 Australian Training Awards (Excellence in Language, Literacy and Numeracy Practice National Focus Award). Since 2013, she has been involved in the National Foundation Skills Strategy Project as a Foundation Skills Champion and CoP facilitator.
E3 Developing engaging, relevant literacy resources which meet the needs of Indigenous and other adult EAL learners55 minutes
Margaret James
Australia, as a meeting place of languages and cultures, needs specialised educational resources for adult learners that are sensitive to their diverse linguistic environments, cultural backgrounds and educational contexts. The one-way approach to education fails to take this into account for Aboriginal learners.
The speaker will discuss the rationale underpinning the original series of culturally and linguistically relevant books, the Honey Ant Readers, developed with communities to meet the print literacy needs of First Australians, and how the HARs are building on this success to develop a similar series with, and for, teenage and older learners.
The audience can experience first-hand how Margaret teaches SAE through songs and rhymes, written, with careful consideration of first language, to guide them through the challenging web of pronunciation and syntactic difference between home language and SAE. This methodology is applicable to young and adult EAL/D learners.
Margaret James, (M.Ed; TESOL), author of the Honey Ant Readers, QUT 2012 Faculty of Education Outstanding Alumni Award winner, and NT Australian of the Year 2012 finalist for her original work in improving access to literacy for Australian Indigenous people through the Honey Ant Readers, has spent many years working in the field of English as an Additional Language - specialising in Aboriginal education, creating learn-to-read resources for Aboriginal learners, and a program of lyrics and rhymes to teach English to speakers of Aboriginal languages. She is currently working on government-sponsored education projects.
Carmel Jennings
This SEE Network Discussion is an opportunity for current SEE providers to share experiences and ideas. Topics for discussion will include but are not limited to:
• effectively adapting and dealing with jobactive changes and SEE,
• issues that are impacting on referral or retention,
• what works well to engage jobactive Employment Providers, and
• acknowledging and building on SEE achievements through discussion of the SEE Evaluation.
Carmel Jennings became an adult literacy and numeracy volunteer in Ireland in 1985 and loved the work. On arriving in Australia in 1989 she became involved in the adult literacy and numeracy volunteer sector and then gained paid employment with young people living in accommodation centres. Since then she has mainly worked in the community sector with both accredited and non- accredited programs including the SIP, LANT, LLNP and SEE Program.
Damien Webb and Jane Jones
The State Library of Western Australia's Storylines Project has uncovered thousands of photographs and stories of Aboriginal Western Australia. This session aims to showcase the online archive and explore the potential for use in formal and informal educational settings. Attendees will learn how to search the archive and discover stories and histories which have been shared by Aboriginal people from all over Western Australia. Storylines is an innovative new project which brings Aboriginal knowledge and history to the fore and aims to challenge the colonial narratives which have historically controlled Aboriginal peoples' lives. It is an open access project which encourages sharing and community curation.
Damien Webb is a Palawa man originally from Tasmania, currently working as the Indigenous Engagement Officer for the State Library of Western Australia and coordinating the Storylines Project.
Jane Jones is a highly experienced and knowledgeable librarian who has spent considerable time working on adult literacy strategies and programs for the State Library of Western Australia.
Margaret McHugh and Glenys Collard
This workshop will invite a close reading of parts of the documents from the landmark human rights court case: Collard v State of Western Australia (2013). In 1961 eight of Don and Sylvia Collard's young children were taken into care by the state. As plaintiffs, the Collard family were seeking both an explanation of the State's action and restitution for the physical, emotional, social and cultural harm that was caused to parents and children. Using court documents, participants will be guided through exercises in textual analysis to better understand the misunderstandings that can occur when people before the court speak Aboriginal English while its officers do not. The purpose of the workshop is to illuminate the impact dialectal difference can have in achieving human rights and social justice outcomes.
Glenys Collard is a South West Nyungar matriarch within her nuclear family of over 290 people. She has worked within education and training for many years leading the Aboriginal facets of research and materials development about Aboriginal English and promoting an understanding of its importance in achieving equitable outcomes for Aboriginal learners.
Margaret McHugh worked in training and education in Western Australia for 30 years. Since 2005, she has contributed to the development of a bidialectal approach in training and helped produce the Tracks to Two-Way Learning professional development resource. She currently collaborates with Glenys Collard in a variety of writing projects.
Sakura Ashton
This workshop provides support for teachers of students for whom English is an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D). Participants will be provided with a step-by-step guide on how to use the EAL/D Progress Map from Kindergarten to Year 12. The EAL/D Progress Map supports students to move through the levels of Standard Australian English (SAE) language acquisition within the context of the Western Australian Curriculum.
Sakura Ashton is an experienced classroom teacher, who is now working as an Education Officer for the Western Australian Department of Education, specialising in EAL/D. Sakura's extensive educational background includes the role of Senior Project Officer at the Department of Education for the EAL/D Program, the EAL/D Teacher Development School coordinator, a mainstream EAL/D Support Teacher and as a teacher and Acting Deputy for an Intensive English Centre. She is a dedicated advocate for the importance of providing targetted support to all EAL/D students to ensure they are able to access the curriculum and achieve their educational goals.
E8 Effective strategies for teaching late adolescent limited schooling students in a Secondary Intensive English Centre55 minutes
Andrea Brittan
Late Adolescent Limited Schoolers face particular difficulties in acquiring English as an Additional Language or Dialect. This paper seeks to identify and address some of those issues and to present effective strategies which classroom teachers and educators may find useful. A range of topics are covered which have been identified as specific to the needs of recently arrived students who have had little or no formal schooling and who may be illiterate and innumerate in their first language. It discusses such topics as Knowing Your Students, Planning and The Importance of Phonemic Awareness to the Acquisition of Reading and Writing Skills. It also incorporates a short section on Numeracy and the Acquisition of the Language and Literacy of Mathematics. The session takes the form of a PowerPoint presentation and talk with samples of student work and concludes with a question session.
Andrea Brittan has been teaching since 1979. She taught in Darwin from 1979 to 2001 and was for a short time NT Music Advisor in Schools, a position which took her from Milikapiti and Nhulunbuy to Alice Springs. She has been teaching in WA in the Intensive English Centre at Cyril Jackson Senior Campus since 2001. She is currently teaching Limited Schooling ESL for Mathematics and Year 11 & 12 English as an Additional Language or Dialect. She has a BA, DipEd from UWA and an MEd from NTU (now CDU).
Anne McGrath
Schools are required to cater for the needs of diverse learners whilst responding to curriculum demands and increasing use of technology and online media. Generally there is lack of teacher awareness of the need for and benefit of captioned multimedia/video as a vehicle for improved literacy opportunities for diverse student populations. The use of captions considers an Universal Design for Learning approach and provides necessary context, engagement and focus for students with English as an additional language and/or dialect and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander additional language and/or dialect, those who are deaf or hard of hearing or with language delay. The benefits of improved student reading comprehension, incidental vocabulary acquisition and information recall through the use of captioned video is well documented. An unrelenting issue for indigenous students is the high incidence of otitis media and resultant fluctuating conductive hearing loss, which impacts directly on student language development, learning and literacy. This workshop presentation will focus on research that supports the use of captioned multimedia in schools to assist literacy development for students with diverse learning needs. Practical and inclusive ways that teachers can access and use captions to explicitly teach skills and concepts will be explored.
Anne McGrath works in deaf education and is the former Education Manager of Media Access Australia and the original adviser to CAP THAT!, the national awareness raising program about using captions in schools. Anne completed a five-week study tour of Australia and New Zealand in May / June 2015, focussing on captions in education, as the recipient of 2014 NSW Premier's IOOF Centre for Educational and Medical Research Itinerant Support Teacher (Hearing) Scholarship.
E10.1 Translanguaging: using technology enhanced environments to develop multilingual competence25 minutes
Prof Rhonda Oliver
While educators can be reluctant to use online texts in their teaching, it is the most favoured way for today's youth to communicate and to learn about other people and other places. In this study, we explore how Aboriginal multilingual speakers use technology-enhanced environments, specifically Facebook, for their translanguaging practices. Using data collected from Facebook posts written by seven Aboriginal youth over a period of 18 months, we investigate how the participants move between Aboriginal English (AE) and Standard Australian English (SAE) creatively and strategically to express humour, identity as an Aboriginal person and group membership. We also observe how these practices enhance rather than detract from their development of SAE. The findings of the study have important implications for teaching bilingual and bidialectal speakers in general and AE speakers in particular, highlighting the importance of creating a translanguaging space to enable them to maximise their knowledge and understanding of different subject matter and develop competencies in their various linguistic codes. Finally we suggest that this medium for learning, particularly for Indigenous students, is a vital step for future educational practice.
Professor Rhonda Oliver is at Curtin University and an active researcher. She has a strong track record in language and education research and her work appears in a number of national and international journals. Her research focuses on second language acquisition including large scale studies on International and Indigenous university students, and on migrant and Aboriginal children acquiring English as an Additional Language/Dialect.
Dr Xudong Deng
The use of social media such as Facebook, discussion forums, and blogs has increasingly become popular in the teaching of writing and communication skills in institutions of higher education. This paper focuses on the use of blogs in the teaching of a short tertiary-level academic writing course for ESL students. After outlining the documented benefits of pedagogical blogging, the paper describes how blogs are used in the course as a means to motivate students to write freely, to encourage them to provide feedback on one another's writing drafts, and to help them reflect upon their writing experience. Links to student blogs are provided to showcase students' writing and their interactions with one another.
Dr Xudong Deng is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Communication Skills at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). Prior to his SIT positions, he was a Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore for 14 years, teaching writing and communication skills courses to both undergraduate students and PhD candidates. Dr Deng obtained his PhD in Applied Linguistics at Edith Cowan University, Australia. He has presented and published papers on a wide range of areas, including syllabus design, curriculum development, material design, use of IT, course evaluation, classroom teaching techniques, pragmatics, and cross-cultural communication.
E11.1 In the third space or feeling like the other? Perspectives and experiences of a diverse group of Asian English language teachers25 minutes
Dr Toni Dobinson
This paper is based on findings from a two site case study in Australia and Vietnam which formed the basis of a doctoral thesis completed in 2014. In her study, Toni interviewed twenty post graduate students and three lecturers, all of whom were, or had been, English language teachers and were involved in an MA Applied Linguistics course run at an Australian university. During interviews she focused on participants teaching and learning experiences in the Asia-Pacific region in, and beyond, the classroom; as teachers and as learners. Participants were Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Bangladeshi and Indian. Qualitative findings suggested that there was still a need for greater appreciation of contextual pedagogical diversity in the region as well as room for more metacultural sensitivity amongst all English language teachers. This presentation will allow discussion on the social, theoretical and educational discourses surrounding English language teaching in the Asia-Pacific region. It should be of interest to teacher educators and teachers planning to work overseas as well as those working in contexts with a culturally diverse teaching staff.
Toni Dobinson is a lecturer at Curtin University. She currently teaches on the MA (Applied Linguistics) course both onshore in Western Australia and offshore in Vietnam. She supervises higher degree by research students in the field of applied linguistics and education while, at the same time, delivering units in intercultural communication, language and literacy on the Graduate Certificate in TESOL and Bachelor of Education. Her research interests are critical pedagogy, intercultural competence and applied linguistics.
Room Room PP BOARD ROOM
Daisy Ward and Dorothy O'Reilly
Daisy Ward, as cultural advisor for the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School, will share her vision for the education of students in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands communities.
Dorothy and Daisy, as a two-way team, will share an overview of, and rationale for the curriculum being developed in the Lands, and illustrate with this term's curriculum focus on 'local history'.
Daisy will be providing rich local knowledge and insights throughout the session. Participants will be encouraged to comment and ask questions in what will be an informal but visually and aurally authentic presentation.
Daisy Tjupamtarri Ward is a Yarnangu woman from the Central Desert region who has undertaken several education roles with the WA Department of Education over many years. At present Daisy works as a Senior Community Liaison person for the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School and resides in Warakurna. Daisy works closely with the school Executive principal, campus principals, teachers and AIEOs to support building strong two-way practices around school-community interactions, classroom practices and curriculum development. As a well-respected elder across the Ngaanyatjarra communities Daisy is keen to share her deep cultural understandings and knowledge with students and adults alike in order to enrich the two-way approach to education she values so highly.
Dorothy O'Reilly - I live in Margaret River, just me, my dog and friends to play music with. In my semi retirement I run bed and breakfast accommodation as well as acting as a curriculum consultant for EAL/D in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. My role includes creating resources and a curriculum with a two-way foundation that link with the unique cultural and linguistic context of the Lands. I spend a couple of weeks a term in the communities, of which there are 8, the whole school comprising an area larger than the state of Victoria. In my privileged role, I see myself as a visitor and a learner in a country that belongs to another people, culture and history that spans thousands of years. I bring with me some valued experience working as a two way team with Carlene Bartlett, Coral Brockman, Glenyse Collard and Daisy Ward, with whom I have begun the life long journey of learning about Aboriginal Languages and culture. I have also worked as a writer on the EAL/D Progress Map and as a support for research and the advancement of two-way EAL/D teaching of Aboriginal students in metropolitan, country and remote Australian schools.
Karen Slikas Barber
Many adult learners, especially those just beginning their language study, and new to Australia, find it difficult to speak up and speak out. This workshop will present a variety of ways and activities to help beginning and elementary learners of English as an additional language find their voice and give them the words, language structures, intercultural competence and confidence to speak. Through the use of dialogues and role plays covering a wide range of settlement topics, learners can develop the communication skills they need to survive and better yet thrive in their new home. This can be achieved through a considered communication skills approach, which will be demonstrated and explored in this workshop.
Karen Slikas Barber is a lecturer in the Adult Migrant English Program at Central Institute of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. Her areas of interest include adult literacy, materials development, specialist English courses, and classroom-based research. She also writes language learner literature and has recently published 'Carly and Kumar: Easy-to-read short stories' (Levels 1, 2 and 3) and 'More Carly and Kumar'. She has a Master of Education in TESOL and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.
Dave Tout
This presentation will highlight a number of critical issues related to maths and numeracy in work, and the implications for education and workplaces. What are the challenges we face in improving the ability of workers and learners to understand, use and apply maths in their lives, and how might we better address this in our teaching and training practices? Based on knowledge and research about youths' and adults' skills in numeracy, about maths and numeracy at work and about the teaching and learning of maths and numeracy, this presentation will argue why it is essential to explicitly address the numeracy competence of both young people and adults and why strengthening the N in LLN should be given much higher priority. The session will also illustrate and discuss a number of different issues that need to be addressed regarding the teaching of numeracy.
Dave is widely recognised as one of Australia's leading adult numeracy personnel, and has worked in schools, TAFEs, ACE, university, AMES and workplaces, with over 30 years' experience in the VET sector. He has wide experience at a state, national and international level in research, curriculum, assessment and materials development. Dave had major responsibility for the numeracy domain of the ACSF. He was a member of the numeracy expert group responsible for the numeracy component of the international ALLS survey and also for PIAAC, and had a major role in the development of mathematical literacy in PISA 2012.
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Dr Vicky Duckworth
New Literacy Studies and critical approaches to education, offer a potential space for transformation whereby literacy/language learners can explore their narratives and society around them. This shifts from a traditional, competency based approach to curriculum design to a culturally relevant, learner driven, and socially empowering model (Freire, 1993; Barton et al 2004; Duckworth, 2013, 14; Ade-Ojo & Duckworth, 2015) which takes into consideration the cultural, psychological and educational factors related to the Learners and their lives. Drawing on research from the educational and community- based setting this workshop explores effective and meaningful approaches to facilitate learners to take agency over their lives, enhancing their situation and empowering them and their local and wider communities. Further to this we will probe the impact of labelling on marginalization and exclusion, and examine and create approaches to designing motivational resources to offer solutions to barriers learners may face that inspire them on their learning journey.
Vicky has developed considerable expertise in Adult Literacy and Education and is deeply committed to challenging inequality through critical and emancipatory approaches to education, widening participation, inclusion, community action and engaging in research with a strong social justice agenda. She has drew on a critical perspective, applying Bourdieu's work as the theoretical framework, as well as using a range of feminist, sociology of education, literature on the ethics of care and critical literacy pedagogy, including the New Literacy Studies to explore and add to the debate on the impact of violence and trauma on learning, possibilities, resistance and transformation and its link to class, gender, ethnicity and literacy (Duckworth 2013, 14, 15).Most recently she co-explored the gradual evolution of Adult Literacy policy in the UK from the 70s to the current decade; drawing on philosophical, sociological and economic frames of reference from local, national and International perspectives, and the application of empirical data the research argues that the value positions of instrumentalism, driven by the now dominant human capital philosophy has gradually taken control of adult literacy policy and its attendant practice. An alternative curriculum is offered; a transformative model that presents a more socially just different value position (Ade-Ojo and Duckworth 2015). She has advised on policy and is a member of a number of National and International networks, which includes her role as trustee of the Helena Kennedy Foundation (http://www.hkf.org.uk/) (http://www.unaglobal.org/) and membership of the board for the Association for Research in Post- Compulsory Education (http://arpce.org.uk/about/)
Shirley Houston
Literacy is not the only area of learning impacted by dyslexia. Up to 60% of dyslexics experience difficulty with Mathematics, in particular with learning of number bonds, number fact retrieval, number operations, understanding of place value, recall of sequences, mathematical vocabulary, solving of word problems and understanding of time and money. Failure to address these difficulties can have serious long-term implications for daily living, financial management and job performance. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to explore strategies and resources for reducing the impact of dyslexia (and similar reading difficulties)on performance in numeracy.
Shirley Houston is a private Educational Consultant who has been working in the area of Special Needs for over 35 years. She has taught at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. For a number of years she was the lecturer at Central TAFE in Foundation Skills for Dyslexic Adults. She has a particular interest in increasing understanding of the strengths and weaknesses associated with dyslexia and is a Board member of the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation.
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F7 Leading the development of an effective whole-school English as an Additional Language (EAL) program55 minutes
Michael Michell and Margaret Turnbull
Increasing linguistic diversity of the student population and greater emphasis on devolved school- based management in NSW schools requires distributed modes of educational leadership focused on developing whole-school EAL policies, programs and practices. This workshop focuses on developing collaborative EAL leadership through cooperative team-based development of whole-school EAL programs using a pilot planning and evaluation tool designed to develop such programs and assist schools in meeting DEC annual accountability reporting requirements for EAL/D. The workshop considers what leadership looks like in key areas of school operations that go to make up an effective whole school EAL program, namely: data collection and analysis, student assessment, resource allocation, program design and professional learning. The workshop is designed to develop participants' practical skills in whole-school EAL planning and evaluation and provide opportunities to apply these skills to their own school situation with a view for immediate implementation.
Michael is a Research Fellow at the UNSW School of Education. His research interests include socio- cultural and activity theory perspectives to EAL pedagogy, teacher-based EAL assessment, education policy and schools as communities of practice. Previously, Michael worked as an ESL teacher and consultant in the NSW Department of Education Multicultural Programs Unit leading assessment, curriculum and research projects and policies aimed at improving the educational outcomes of EAL learners. Michael is currently President of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations.
Margaret is currently working as an Instructional Leader at Villawood North Public School. Her work in this culturally and linguistically diverse school has focused on leading learning around effective pedagogy and assessment practices through action learning processes. Previously, Margaret worked as the coordinator of the EAL/D program in NSW Department of Education, leading assessment, curriculum and research projects and policy development for EAL learners. She has also worked collaboratively with teachers in schools as a Multicultural consultant and EAL/D teacher. Margaret is currently secretary of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations.
F8 Differentiating for diverse populations: the advantages of problem-based language learning55 minutes
Naomi Migliacci
This interactive workshop will consider how educators engage diverse populations of students in a learning process whereby they inquire into a relevant issue, and where teachers are both communicators of content and facilitators of a learning process that transforms students into explorers and investigators and where everyone in the class learns from each other. Using problem-based language learning (PBLL), educators of upper age primary students through to adult learners will practice crafting essential questions, which will enable learners to view a topic from multiple perspectives that are meaningful to them. Workshop participants will practice with several types of mobile technologies and materials for differentiating assignments for linguistic and cultural diversity to include summarising frames, vocabulary development using mobile phones, reading assignments, mobile viewing assignments and other apps that promote language and literacy in an additional language. An example unit/lesson will be provided for participants to use as a model as they think and work through their own material. Participants will use a 'functions and forms of language' chart to craft assignments and assessments according to cognitive and linguistic demand, thereby allowing all learners access to content and the ability to showcase their unique learning. Participants will use a rubric to determine how their projects meet 21st century learning skills.
Naomi Migliacci is President of NM Consulting, an international firm that promotes rigorous, active learning for teachers and their students. In addition to numerous teaching assignments, most recently as Lector at Yale University's Center for Language Study and School of Management, Naomi has examined culturally responsive domains‚ classrooms, public spaces, and workplaces including factories and farms. At The Education Alliance and Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University, she investigated teaching strategies that boost academic achievement for diverse populations. Naomi consults in educational environments across the USA and globally including Argentina, China, Egypt, France, Honduras, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru and the Philippines. Naomi co-edited Inclusive Pedagogy for English Language Learners: A Handbook of Research-Informed Practices.
Dr Pauline Bunce
This workshop will address the word-level skills development of literate, academic-bound biscriptal learners of English. Such learners are becoming increasingly dominant in our secondary-school and university-bridging English language classes. Their first-language scriptal backgrounds span the Arabic, Central Asian, South Asian, South East Asian and East Asian regions - almost all of which involve literacy skills in written scripts that differ markedly from the romanised English alphabet. This workshop will open with a presentation on global scriptal diversity and the alphabetic demands that English- language literacy requires. This will be followed by an exploration of the possibilities offered by an innovative resource that has been designed by the presenter. 'According to the Script' is a set of 60 mini-lessons, each with three practical elements: sound, handwriting and meaning. The full programme spans a developmental sequence of phonological and morphological awareness skills, plus the welcome addition of handwriting basics - all approached from a mature-age perspective. This resource is designed for use in academic-bound, transitional English programmes and participants in the workshop will discuss and explore its practical possibilities in their various educational settings.
Dr Pauline Bunce is an EAL/D classroom teacher with a particular interest in the reading and handwriting challenges that are faced by biscriptal learners of English. She has worked, published and presented, locally and internationally, on the 'alphabet headaches' that such learners often experience. Pauline has recently developed and trialled a teaching resource for literate, older learners that spans phonemic awareness, phonics, handwriting skills and word-building principles. This downloadable resource, entitled 'According to the Script', will be launched and explored at this workshop.
F10.1 English as an additional language or dialect policy in schools: factors effecting interpretation, implementation and decision-making25 minutes
Fern Hyde
Understandings about policy affect the impact of a policy and its effectiveness in achieving the intended aims; what matters most with policy engagement is who controls the policy content. This session details in-progress PhD research of multi-site case study qualitative research focussed on English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) education policy decision-making and practices in primary schools. The research explores how EAL/D policy is presented, interpreted, modified and implemented through research into the factors that affect policy interpretation and implementation. It seeks to develop an understanding of how EAL/D policy is being interpreted and implemented within schools, including supports and barriers and salient features of decision-making. These understandings will determine possible improvements to policy design, engagement and support for those staff responsible for EAL/D and other public policy implementation.
Fern Hyde is a PhD researcher at the University of Canberra. She is a registered teacher, working as an English as an Additional Language or Dialect teacher in mainstream and specialist settings for over 12 years. She achieved Highly Accomplished teacher certification in 2012. She consulted for AITSL for the development of the Classroom Practice Continuum. Fern has been a tutor and unit convenor as part of the pre-service teacher training at the University of Canberra for the past 4 years. Fern is on the Association of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages ACT committee.
Pamela McPherson
This presentation discusses a recent action research study which explored social influences on literacy development for a small group of refugee women with limited formal education. These influences included socially constructed barriers to home language literacy and English literacy development, but also featured personal resources and experiences that were enablers for second language and literacy development. The study explored literacy program choices available to these learners, and the personal experiences and social resources they drew on to support their literacy goals The learners and their tutor drew on these understandings to co-construct a program of learning that enabled the women to clarify their individual literacy goals, and identify a trajectory of learning towards achieving them. The end result was successful completion of an accredited vocational course, and employment.
For a number of years Pam McPherson has been involved in research, teaching and professional development, with a particular interest in pedagogical and curricular issues for learners with limited formal education, and the specific learning needs of learners with refugee backgrounds. She has worked as a teacher in NSW AMEP and TAFE programs, as a researcher and lecturer at Macquarie University and is currently at University of NSW.
Gill Pennington
The national push in literacy and standardised testing in Australian schools is currently focussed on outcomes in English language literacy, to the exclusion of the multilingual skills and knowledge that students learning English as an additional language (EAL) bring into the classroom. This study seeks to recognise such knowledge by exploring the nature of the storytelling presented to young children within Vietnamese-Australian families. Methodological approaches include case study - recording change and variability over time - and ethnography, giving detailed descriptions of storytelling as it occurs within home and community domains. Data are drawn from interviews in Vietnamese and English with family members and from observations in home and playgroup settings; ecological analysis of such data explores the nature of families' storytelling resources, those historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge, beliefs and experience which provide the stimulus for a storytelling event. Stories told to Vietnamese-Australian children reflect the complex pattern of meanings constructed of transitions and trajectories over time and space within a globalized society. Told variously in English and home languages, they also raise issues about language usage and optimal learning opportunities within established diasporic communities.
Gill Pennington is a doctoral student and tutor at the University of Sydney. She was a classroom and EAL/D teacher before working as an ESL Project Officer within the ACT Department of Education, during which time she completed her Masters in TESOL. From 2007 she was employed by the NSW Department of Education and Communities as a Multicultural/ESL consultant (K-6) in south western Sydney. Gill has been an ACTA council member for several years and is currently President of ATESOL NSW.
Michael Atkinson
This proposed presentation reports on a PhD project which explores a dialogical approach to language learning. A dialogical approach presupposes that classes are marked by power differentials that serve to divide rather than unite. Such divisions are not limited to differences between students and teacher or between students themselves. They also exist within as learners attempt to balance their own multiple identities as parents, migrants, students, members of new communities or as new Australians. Within this context classroom delivery and its administration can serve to reinforce feelings of inadequacy, reminding students of what they don't know rather than what they do. Bridging that division through the construction of a mutually agreed learning ethos ensures that the focus falls on learning rather than knowing, on improving rather than struggling. Such an approach highlights for the student that they are not simply learning English but rather constructing a new sense of self.
Michael Atkinson is a PhD student at the Centre of Dialogue at La Trobe University. His research focus is on how teachers and people in power can facilitate conversations that matter for people in socially vulnerable situations. He has been an adult EAL teacher for seven years and laments the divide that exists between EAL program management and what actually happens in the classroom. He currently teaches at the Centre for Adult Education in Melbourne.
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Di Tomazos
In spite of the number of targeted Literacy and Numeracy programs initiated, there is little evidence of improvement in the mathematical achievements of Indigenous students living in remote communities. For Indigenous students to excel in mathematics and science they typically need to 'school away' during their secondary years, a process that involves many cultural sacrifices both for students and their families. This presentation documents the efforts over five years to provide access to higher level mathematical concepts for students who choose to remain in a remote community for their secondary schooling. For EALD Indigenous students, mastering SAE is a necessary precursor to success in many subjects, but success in learning mathematics involves the mastering of a further language - that of Western Mathematics with its own ways of thinking and being. The way in which explicit access to the culture and language of Western Mathematics has been achieved is discussed.
Di is a primary teacher working for the Western Australian Department of Education for over 30 years. She was seconded to Murdoch University as lecturer in primary mathematics for several years during the 90s. She was a writer of the First Steps in Mathematics books and has trained and supported Specialist Numeracy Teachers across the state in the Getting it Right Strategy. She was WA's Principal Curriculum Officer Numeracy from 2009 to 2011, and then Deputy Principal Curriculum at Halls Creek District High School, a remote school in the Kimberley region with over 400 Indigenous students from Kindergarten to Year 12.
G2/H2 • Session Full • Sentence-combining skills: getting beyond 'write it the way you say it'120 minutes
Geoff Pearson
The question of whether to teach grammar or not to literacy students has long been a vexed one, especially as there is very little research evidence that the teaching of grammar rules has any impact on a literacy learner's writing skills. However, there is growing evidence that the teaching of sentence- combining skills, underpinned by judiciously selected grammar concepts, presented with minimal reference to grammatical terminology and with the focus on writing not rule-learning, can have a significant impact on improving writing skills. This interactive workshop will explore this issue, identify key grammatical concepts literacy teachers need to understand themselves first, and provide practical strategies for integrating these directly into the process of writing. Although specifically intended for literacy teachers, ESL / EALD teachers may also find the techniques of sentence-combining helpful in their teaching.
Geoff Pearson has been an ESL and literacy teacher for more than 35 years, focussing primarily on workplace programs in WA. A linguist himself, Geoff has always harboured a passionate belief in the value of grammar concepts in both ESL and literacy teaching, culminating in the advent of the 'Teach Me Grammar' Action Learning Program which started in Perth in 2011. Originally trained as an ESL teacher, Geoff continues to open-mindedly question the value of grammar knowledge to native-English-speaking adult literacy learners in order to identify how best to help literacy teachers use this knowledge to improve their students' literacy skills.
Vicki Hartman
This workshop will provide a snap-shot of the diversity of Aboriginal people today as seen through my personal journey of discovering my family heritage. It will explore how history and Government Policies of the day, still impact Aboriginal people/ learners in today's global world. Equally, it will explore the challenge we face as educators in supporting Aboriginal learners to be successful in a world where they need to be resilient and take risks in order to not only preserve what exists but also strive for what can be. Finally, the workshop will look at how Tauondi Aboriginal College supports the multitude of issues students are dealing with today.
Vicki Hartman currently works at Tauondi Aboriginal College as the Foundation Skills Mentor. Vicki is Co-Vice-President of SACAL and has been an executive member since 2010. Vicki was a successful recipient of the 2013 ACAL Scholarship to attend the Conference in Sydney.
G4 The role of task design in improving learner's affective responses and motivational intensity during classroom performance55 minutes
Craig Lambert
Although task-based approaches to organising L2 instruction have become increasingly popular over the last three decades, research has focused primarily on the effects of tasks on the negotiation of meaning or on the complexity, accuracy and fluency of L2 production. The role of task design factors in improving learners' affective disposition and motivational intensity, on the other hand, has been of continuous interest to practitioners and researchers alike, but it has received relatively little empirical attention. The present study considered the effects of tasks which operate on learner-generated as opposed to teacher-generated content on learners' affective disposition toward to the task as well as their motivational intensity during performance. Results suggest that tasks which operate on learner-generated content result in learners becoming more personally involved in task content and going beyond the tasks as set, to further elaborate task content during their performances. These results were consistent across proficiency levels and task types. The study provides a theoretical framework and heuristic for future research on task motivation.
Craig Lambert is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University. His research interests are in task-based learning, particularly the effects of task design factors on later-emerging syntax, speech processing and learners' affective response and motivational intensity.
Patricia Konigsberg, Coral Brockman, Glenys Collard and Prof. Ian Malcolm
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy calls for educators to support all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners to achieve their full learning potential. It calls for support to help learners embrace their culture and identity as Australia's First Nations peoples so they are empowered to shape their own futures. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and the Capability Framework Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander EAL/D Learners expect teachers to acquire ever increasing knowledge about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and cultures and to work with communities to develop improved understandings about Aboriginal English, language and two-way learning. To meet these expectations, the Department of Education has long been researching practice and training teachers in Aboriginal education. Our research is now internationally known, but challenges remain at the local level in ensuring that teachers are best prepared for Aboriginal EAL/D learners. This session will outline the journey travelled thus far with highlights in this domain. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators from a range of settings will be called upon to share their experiences. Workshop participants are encouraged to actively participate in discussions.
Patricia Konigsberg is an experienced teacher, linguist and educator and a co-leader in two-way bidialectal education. Together with Glenys Collard, she has been instrumental in the development of an EAL/D pedagogy for Aboriginal English speaking learners and in the development and publication of the Western Australian Department of Education's ABC of Two-Way Literacy and Learning resources, including the Tracks to Two-Way Learning.
Coral Brockman is a mother of 6 children and a grandmother of 26, an influential Elder in her extended Budimia/Willinyu family group in the Mid-West of Western Australia. She is an experienced teacher from early childhood through to TAFE, and in a range of contexts from remote areas to urban/rural schools. Coral is also a leader amongst educators who supports and advocates for Aboriginal English and two-way learning.
Glenys Collard is a South West Nyungar and matriarch within her family of over 290 people. She has been instrumental in leading the Aboriginal facets of research and materials development about Aboriginal English and in promoting an understanding of its importance in achieving equitable outcomes for Aboriginal learners.
Ian Malcolm is Emeritus Professor at Edith Cowan University, where he served as Professor of Applied Linguistics from 1991-2003. His research into Aboriginal English has provided the basis for two-way education. Publications he has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited include: English and the Aboriginal Child, Communication and the Teacher, Linguistics in the Service of Society, The Habitat of Australia's Aboriginal Languages, Aboriginality and English and Language and Communication Enhancement for Two-Way Education. He has been made an honorary life member of the Australian Linguistic Society, the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia and the Westralian Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Tracy Marr, Anne Velasquez and Julie Houghton
The workshop will showcase and provide professional learning, ideas and strategies around an integrated curriculum based on the Australian (and WA) Curriculum's school priority on Sustainability. The focus will be on meeting the learning needs of limited schooling and refugee learners new to Australia. The action research project which we have called SATSI - Sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and culture is part of the AuSSI Schools Initiative, a national program for all schools. We were attracted to this project on two levels, from a school leadership perspective we needed to find a way to integrate the curriculum while providing relevance to both staff and students. For students we could see many parallels between ATSI culture and the cultures of many of our students. Sustainable practices are a common universal theme we could all share.
Tracy Marr - Project leader and a secondary EALD teacher. Tracy has been teaching across different education settings, special education, primary schools and mainstream secondary school and is currently teaching as an EALD teacher with both limited schooling students and ATAR bound EALD students.
Julie Houghton - is a secondary EALD Science/English specialist who currently teaches a class of beginner limited schooling students across all subject areas.
Anne Velasquez is EALD Society and Environment Specialist/English teacher who is currently teaching a beginner Intensive English class in all subject areas. She has an interest in functional grammar.
Sabena Lund
In this workshop participants will work in small groups to consider ways in which they can bring community together to develop a vision for literacy in their region. The presenter will share her experience of the development and implementation of Learn for Life: Circular Head Community Literacy Plan 2014-2019 in regional Tasmania. The plan was developed by the Circular Head Education and Training Consultative Committee (CHETCC), a Special Committee of the Circular Head Council. CHETCC is comprised of representatives from education and training providers as well as business, industry and community. The literacy plan relied on the input of people of all ages and backgrounds within the Circular Head community: young people, parents of young children, adult learners, other adult community members, teachers, community workers, business people and service providers. The consultation process involved: individual interviews (face to face and telephone), focus groups and a community forum. Recent projects within Learn for Life include: Reading bug egg family literacy project, Web portal for regional training offerings, Cogmed working memory training pilot program for adult students with learning difficulties, English conversation group for migrants, Budgeting / financial literacy program, and Youth social media campaign to encourage engagement
Sabena Lund has worked as an adult and family literacy coordinator in Circular Head, Tasmania for 5 years. She has extensive experience in adult education, training and community development in a range of settings.
G8 'Change the world one mind at a time': Partnerships and school-based programs to enhance language and life-chances in remote Indigenous community schools55 minutes
Dr Mark Fielding and Donella Beare
In response to the inexorable processes of globalisation and the new global knowledge society of the 21st century, St Stephen's School has been exploring what it is to be a global school. Over the past five years, the school has set as its strategic intent to 'change there world one mind at a time' with a particular focus on the people and countries of the Indian Ocean Rim. Part of this initiative involves building relationships with remote indigenous community schools in Western Australia as partners for enhancing cross-cultural learning experiences and growing people.
Memoranda of understandings (MOU) were signed between St Stephen's School and Yiyili Aboriginal Community School and Purnululu Aboriginal Independent Community School located in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The MOUs established long term partnerships between the Schools allowing for reciprocal student service visits, staff learning technologies and pedagogical support and the provision of online, in-school vocational education and training courses. These courses will be offered to secondary students and indigenous staff via an online blended learning platform focused on the 'global ready' courses of business, ICT and languages (Certs I-IV). These programs, and the other partnership initiatives, will not only strengthen the language and learning environment of the indigenous schools, they will also provide the option of students remaining in-country while undertaking a program of VET studies that will enhance career pathways and life-chances while maintaining close links with family and country. This partnership will also create a culturally rich context in which all students can learn essential intercultural competencies from the relationships built around trust, friendship and understanding.
Dr Mark Fielding is Director of Global Programs at St Stephen's and lectures in the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Australia. He is an award-winning researcher on the internationalisation of education in Australian schooling and was recently awarded a New Voice Scholarship in Educational Research Leadership by the Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL). Mark is an international speaker on international education and was recently invited to attend the Commonwealth Government Ministerial Round Table on International Education.
Mrs Donella Beare is Director of the St Stephen's Institute, the research and staff development arm of St Stephen's School. Her interests and passions centre on teacher training and professional learning and she has spoken at a number of national conferences and professional development functions.
Sathy Allen, Michelle Andrews and Leah Kontos
The make-up of an EAL classroom can be diverse both culturally and linguistically. Many EAL classrooms are populated with learners who have minimal first language literacy or interrupted schooling. One aspect of EAL pedagogy which is increasingly gaining the attention of researchers and practitioners is Language Recycling. What is it? How does it happen? And what can teachers do to provide the best conditions for it to take place? Our belief in the axiom that learning is remembering, is the motivation we use to ensure that new language items are reviewed and recycled constantly across all modes of speaking, listening, reading/viewing and writing with the aim to achieve automaticity. As the title reveals, the workshop offers explicit communicative pedagogies which emphasise integrating intensive language scaffolding in literacy and numeracy through all dimensions of teaching and learning. The workshop is designed to give participants the opportunity to be part of a 'mock' classroom to experience how vocabulary is recycled. The activities will focus on literacy and numeracy; and how the language encountered in literacy is recycled to deepen learners' understanding and use of the target language.
Sathy Allen is the Student Learning Leader (Curriculum-Primary) at Collingwood English Language School. She holds a Masters in Education (TESOL) and has been a classroom practitioner for 23 years. Sathy taught in the mainstream in Darwin (Northern Territory) for 8 years before she moved south to teach EAL in Melbourne. Her experience in teaching primary-aged learners in various EAL settings makes her passionate about EAL teaching and sharing best practice with peers.
Michelle Andrews is currently the Primary Curriculum Leader at Blackburn English Language School in Melbourne. After completing her postgraduate studies in TESOL, she began working in the New Arrivals Program in 2004 teaching newly arrived Primary students, as well as taking on different leadership roles including Student Wellbeing Coordinator. She is passionate about making a positive contribution to the settlement of new arrivals, and optimising their language learning to prepare them to engage effectively with the mainstream curriculum. Leah Kontos is currently the Professional Learning Leader at Blackburn English Language School in Melbourne. After completing her studies in TESOL, she began working in the Northern Region New Arrivals Program in 2003 teaching newly arrived Secondary students. She has also taken different leadership roles including AIZ Leader in mainstream schools. She has participated and facilitated different projects like Creativity in Schools for new arrival students. She likes to inspire her EAL students to become lifelong learners.Alexander Nanni and Joseph Serrani
This presentation centres on an approach to human rights education that has been implemented in an English for academic purposes course at a Thai university. The term begins with readings and lectures about the history of human rights, providing a basis for student's individual investigation of human rights issues in a particular country. Once students have begun the research process, they present stories of individuals from their chosen countries who are affected by human rights issues. Through these narratives, students learn about diverse lived experiences of individuals from countries around the world. This approach is inspired by the tradition of counter-storytelling, which has long been used to promote social justice by presenting the stories of oppressed or marginalised individuals. While this approach to human rights education was applied in an EFL context, it could be applied in any course aiming develop student's awareness of global human rights issues.
Alexander Nanni is the director of the Preparation Centre for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College in Salaya, Thailand. He completed a M.Ed. in TESL at Rhode Island College in 2009 and is currently enrolled in the Ed.D. in Curriculum, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership program at Northeastern University.
Joseph Serrani and Alexander Nanni
This presentation focuses on a pilot project for teaching empathy in an intensive English for academic purposes program at a Thai university. In a term-long project about societal collapse, students investigate the social and environmental problems historical societies faced and their root causes. Drawing on the teaching of empathy in sociology and other fields, teachers challenge students to deeply understand the experiences of others. Students then research the problems of a contemporary society and apply the concept of empathy in order to discover a path to a mutually beneficial future. Students describe the barriers to understanding and cooperation within and between societies, and by closely examining the reality of others, learned barriers are broken down and the perception of a shared humanity emerges. Educators in a range of disciplines can utilize the concept of empathy as an approach to exchanging ways of being.
Joseph Serrani is an instructor and level coordinator at the Preparation Centre for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College. He has taught in a variety of English language programs over 10 years and served as program manager for community and language development programs in Thailand.
G11.1 The use of English as a Second Language (ESL) educational resources to promote functional health literacy to migrants25 minutes
Mary Johnston
Three health-related language books were developed for non-English speaking residents of Sydney Local Health District. These are titled 'Talking Good Health', 'Understanding Good Health' and 'Good Old Health'. Each book has a different target group and each unit within the book is devoted to one health issue which is relevant to the target group. Each lesson is reviewed by health experts. Accompanying sound files were developed to help to reach students who are illiterate. Contact details of local health services, which may be of potential use to students, were also provided. The resources incorporate health related language instruction and education in preventive health strategies as the key teaching content for the teachers and were utilised during ESL classes in SLHD. These provide ESL teachers with effective relevant lessons to teach non-English speakers health related language and, on behalf of the health service, to teach preventive health strategies.
Mary Johnston is a Cultural Competence and Health Literacy trainer in the Sydney Local Health District. She has also worked as an ESL teacher in high schools, for TAFE and for the Adult Migrant English Service. After studying Health Promotion she moved into the Health Sector where she worked as a cultural competence trainer, in health promotion and as a development worker. She developed online training courses and a VETAB accredited course to train health workers in cultural competence, to work effectively using interpreters, to work effectively with refugees and to orientate new health workers to the health service.
G11.2 Learner autonomy as an element in Chinese Education Reform: A case of English language course25 minutes
Dr Jinjin Lu and Dr Yingliang Liu
The current round of China's Basic Education Curriculum reform has been discussed since it was initiated formally in 2004. Promoting students' learning autonomy has been emphasized in the documentation of the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China. Although, the new guideline has been implemented in China for over ten years, very little is known about the quality of students' basic education and their learner autonomy development. The paper uses the English language course as a case to examine the relationship between the different locations of students' attendance of their basic education and their learner autonomy development at university level. The result shows that secondary education locations play a more important role in students' learner autonomy development at university level. A 'Have A Go' model is proposed to improve students' transition between high schools and universities in the English language learning process.
Dr. Jinjin (Helen) Lu is a full time research fellow at RIPPLE, Charles Sturt University. Her research interests include leaner autonomy, language learning and teaching, curriculum and pedagogy. She is a multilingual lady who was born in China and received her postgraduate and PhD in western countries. After completing her Bachelors Degree in English Literature in China, Helen moved to USA and Australia to complete her Masters of Science Education in the University of Wisconsin- Platteville and finally finished her PhD at the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania. She has had extensive teaching and research experience in China and Australia. She has been an editorial board member for international journals, such as International Journal of TESOL and Learning and International Journal of Innovative Interdisciplinary Research.
Dr. Yingliang Liu is currently an associate professor of English in the School of Foreign Languages at Wuhan University of Technology (Wuhan, Hubei Province, China). She teaches academic reading and writing to undergraduate and graduate students in the English department. After earning her Ph.D in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona) in 2009, she worked as an assistant professor of English for Academic Purposes at Georgia Gwinnett College (Lawrenceville, Georgia) until 2012, teaching ESL students. She has over 15 years of experience in the field of TESOL as a classroom teacher and researcher at a variety of higher educational institutions in China and U.S.A. Yingliang's research interests include second language writing and reading, non-native speaking teachers, and TESOL pedagogy. She is the associate editor of International Journal of TESOL and Learning. She has presented widely at national and international conferences, and has published books and research papers in academic journals.
Elizabeth Gunn
This session explores the differences and similarities in the ways that students and teachers perceive and use the apps that are installed on their mobile devices. Are these two groups on the same page when they talk about 'apps'? Looking at app usage from a social literacies perspective, the session explores ways of realising the educational potential of mobile phone apps, thereby increasing student engagement in literacy and numeracy education. The session will demonstrate how an ethnographic approach to understanding people's use of digital technology leads to a spirit of exchange between teachers and students and provides opportunities to develop insights about the meaning and purpose of digital literacy in the age of ubiquitous mobile phone usage. Practitioners who wish to harness students' class-time fascination with mobile devices will welcome the linking of theory and practice in relation to this aspect of digital literacy and come away with practical ideas for developing literacy and numeracy skills.
Elizabeth started her teaching career in an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory quite a few years ago. Since that time she has always been interested in the cultural dimensions of literacy education and practice. She has taught students from many different backgrounds; most recently from the Middle East, North Asia and South America. The most interesting aspect of teaching for her is in finding out about students' particular interests and circumstances and using that knowledge to customise relevant learning activities.
Prof. Bill Barton
All education contributes to making our society more understanding, more peaceful, and more tolerant. But how does numeracy or mathematics education contribute to this wider aim. This workshop will invite participants (anyone who teaches numeracy in some context) to share ideas, discuss difficulties, and brainstorm new ways of approaching this important responsibility.
Bill was born in New Zealand, and throughout his childhood moved around the country. At the age of 14 he went to Khartoum where his father had a UNESCO position and so began his love for travel and interest in other cultures. He returned to finish schooling in Auckland, and then entered The University of Auckland where he majored in mathematics, first for a BSc, then a Masters. Returning to New Zealand he completed a post-graduate teaching Diploma and began several years secondary school teaching while also studying for a Masters degree in Education. He has a PhD in Ethnomathematics and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate mathematics education at The University of Auckland. His research interests are two-fold: the way widely different languages express mathematical ideas, and the area of undergraduate mathematics education.
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Dr Samantha Disbray and Ros Bauer
In recent years, Community Learning Centres have emerged as a new community partnership model providing adult education in remote Indigenous communities in Australia (Kral and Heath, 2013; Kral and Schwab, 2012, to appear). This paper presents a reflective case-study of one such centre in Yuendumu, a Warlpiri community in Central Australia (Musharbash, 2008). It draws on an account of learning that is broad, diverse and situated in meaningful activity (Banks et al. 2007; Gutierrez and Rogoff 2003). It illustrates how a flexible and responsive approach at an adult learning centre facilitated meaningful learning and the achievement of a range of local goals, including but not exclusively pathways to employment (Young, Guenther and Boyle, 2007). Research findings question key assumptions about very remote Indigenous contexts in Australia, encouraging models of learning, education and training that resonate with local realities and meet local aspirations (Balatti, Black and Falk, 2009). Finally, we consider the potential for locally driven adult learning spaces are becoming more important as government policy increasingly retreat from provision of secondary education in remote Indigenous communities.
Samantha Disbray is a linguist and researcher at Charles Darwin University, Northern Institute.
Ros Bauer is an adult LLN practitioner working between Melbourne and Yuendumu in the NT. Her special interests are Indigenous learning and resource development using digital technologies.
Brendan Fitzgerald
We're living in a digital age but many Australians are being left behind and don't have the skills to make the most of being connected. In Australia 1 in 5 adults are not online - that's almost 4 million people. To help change this, Infoxchange and Australia Post have joined together to create Go Digi. Go Digi is a national four year digital literacy program with the goal of supporting more than 300,000 Australians to improve their digital skills. This paper/interactive workshop explores what you can do to support the program and ensure that it is of value to your learners and communities in this National year of Digital Inclusion.
Brendan Fitzgerald Digital Inclusion Manager, Infoxchange Brendan is the Digital Inclusion Manager for the Melbourne based Not for Profit social enterprise Infoxchange where he leads a number of programs including Australia's first national digital literacy program Go Digi (www.godi.org.au). Brendan has extensive experience in developing and delivering community based ICT programs. He was one of Australia's Ambassadors to the UN sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2013. Prior to joining Infoxchange he was a member of the Senior Management Team at the State Library of Victoria for eight years. As the Manager of the community focussed Vicnet Division he convened the ICT Disability Working Group.
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Margret Sockhill and Oliver Ryan
This presentation documents classroom practice at Milpera SHS and St. Peter Chanel primary school in Brisbane. The teachers created opportunities for building intercultural awareness and developing literacy through a writing project between the two schools, which also incorporated digital stories and voice recording. Using an enquiry based approach, students from widely differing cultures searched out similarities and found common ground which set the scene for genuine and purposeful writing. The relationships established in this project empowered the students to become cultural experts, to share their knowledge and to learn from each other. The project was designed to help Australian students understand the place of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Australian society. At the same time, migrant, refugee and asylum seeking partners were able to learn many different aspects of Australian life, language and culture.
The impact of these writing partnerships has been evidenced by the writing process itself and the students' reflections captured in the post project voice recordings.
Margret Sockhill is a classroom EAL/D teacher for students aged 11 -15 at Milpera SHS in Brisbane. Students at the school are of migrant and refugee background who need to access language and settlement services prior to joining a mainstream high school. Margret is interested in language and literacy development of students with limited prior education who are learning English. She has a Masters in TESOLEducation and a recent publication in JAAL (Oct. 2014) (Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literature). Margret was a presenter at the ACTA 2014 conference in Melbourne; the Camtesol 2015 conference in Phnom Penn and the Tesol Lao 2015 conference in Vientiane, Laos. She is a member of QATESOL for EAL/D teachers in Qld.
Oliver Ryan has been teaching EAL/D English and a variety of other subjects at Milpera State High school since December, 2012. He studied and completed a Bachelor of Arts at Queensland University of Technology in 2008 and finished a Graduate Diploma in Education (Senior Years) in 2011. During his time at Milpera he has taken three junior classes (ages 11to 14) from Post-Beginner to Year Level Prep 2 and helped prepare them for the academic challenges of their destination high schools and assisted them in settlement in Australia.
Ruth Walker
This workshop will report the findings of a national survey of community providers that has focused on how work-based learning and foundation skills are being delivered by community providers. The survey and associated research seeks to fill a gap in current understanding of the extent to which community providers are supporting the LLN needs of Australians. The survey will take a snapshot of the range of conditions, strategies and practices used by community providers in the facilitation of foundation skills including: the qualifications of trainers, the characteristics of learners, the curriculum/training packages being used, funding arrangements, classroom and workplace practices: approaches to pedagogy and assessment, and the outcomes in terms of assisting transitions in life, work and education for learners. Participants will have the opportunity to explore and discuss particular strategies and practices and benchmark their own experiences and practices against the research findings. Implications of the research findings for LLN planning will be discussed.
Ruth Walker has eighteen years' experience in VET as a trainer, compliance officer, consultant, researcher and auditor across a range of institutions including TAFE, Community Colleges, Schools, NSW DEC, Swinburne University of Technology and ASQA. Her research interests include: VET teacher training, measures of quality in VET, the role and contribution of community education to VET and LLN/VET practitioner collaboration.
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Rahul Sangar and George Willoughby
This presentation describes one response to this growing need: a term-long project that uses media and social media to foster the development of students' communicative competence as well as their knowledge of other ways of being. The project, which was first developed in an intensive EFL program at a Thai university in 2014, continues to evolve focussing not only on language skills but also on understanding diversity in the region. Students find and interview individuals from different ASEAN nations, often exchange students, to discuss a news story on social justice, politics, or cultural concerns within an ASEAN country. This creates a cross- cultural dialogue about a meaningful topic, giving students an experience of their peers concerns and enabling them to produce more informed content while they are improving their language skills.
Rahul Sangar has been involved with the media for over 15 years, working in all aspects of the industry. He has been a reporter, producer, and presenter in various mediums. Currently, he is lecturing at the Preparation Centre for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College, where he has combined his love of the media with his passion for teaching EFL by developing hands-on media-based projects for the students. In addition to teaching at the preparation center, he teaches media law and ethics at the Department of Fine Arts and Architecture at MUIC.
George Willoughby is currently an instructor and level coordinator at the Preparation Centre for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College, Thailand. He has previously With the ASEAN Economic Community integrating in 2015, cross-cultural communication in the shared second language of English is becoming paramount.
George Willoughby and Rahul Sangar
Students transitioning to higher education face the challenges of presenting themselves professionally and of developing the necessary digital literacy to succeed. EFL students face the additional challenge of studying in an additional language. The project seeks to use inclusive pedagogy to empower students to face these challenges. The project, which was created for EFL students preparing to enter an English-medium liberal arts program in Thailand, gives students the chance to introduce themselves in a series of video logs, showcasing their skills and ambitions. By sharing their vlogs with the class, students also celebrate diversity, highlighting the variety of their peers' backgrounds. The project enables students to learn from one another through a digital medium, and, in the process, develop effective competencies in their common language, English. This project facilitates students' exchange of diverse ways of being and could be applied to a wide variety of contexts.
George Willoughby is currently an instructor and level coordinator at the Preparation Centre for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College, Thailand. He has previously taught in the UK, Czech Republic and Vietnam. His research interests include the use of media and technology in the EFL classroom.
Rahul Sangar has been involved with the media for over 15 years, working in all aspects of the industry. He has been a reporter, producer, and presenter in various mediums. Currently, he is an instructor at the Preparation Center for Languages and Mathematics at Mahidol University International College, where he has combined his love of the media with his passion for teaching EFL by developing hands-on media-based projects for the students. In addition to teaching at the preparation centre, he teaches media law and ethics at the Department of Fine Arts.
Dr Ekaterina Tour
Diversity in the classroom can enhance learning because students learn with and from each other. Digital technologies and new literacies are often viewed as providing rich opportunities for such learning. Yet, in EAL classrooms in many contexts, technology is rarely used to engage students in collaboration. Although a teacher's role in this problem has been acknowledged, little is known about how teachers' personal digital literacy practices influence their teaching with technology. Informed by Literacy Studies, the paper reports the findings from a larger qualitative study. The study found close relationships between technology use in personal and professional domains of three EAL teachers. The participants' digital mindsets, comprising assumptions about affordances of digital technologies, shaped the ways in which the teachers used digital technologies within and beyond classrooms. Technology-supported collaboration, cooperation and dialogues required creative and elaborated assumptions about certain affordances; however, these understandings had different significance for the participants. The paper explains why engaging EAL students in linguistic and cultural exchange with the help of technologies continues to be challenging and suggests implications for teacher- educators and EAL practitioners.
Ekaterina is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her current research projects investigate how people use digital technologies and new literacies for everyday life, work and studies in different language contexts. She is an author of a number of publications in the field of digital media, literacy and TESOL published locally and internationally.
H12 Pormpuraaw State School: Closing the Literacy Gap through Advanced Teacher Subject Knowledge55 minutes
Denyse Ritchie
For those working in remote indigenous communities, where English is a second or other language, learning diversity is a major element in classroom management and practice. It is critical that educators in these communities understand the linguistics and phonetic structure of the language they are teaching and the complexities and similarities to other languages.
This presentation will discuss the success of Pormpuraaw State School, a remote Australian indigenous school in far north Queensland and the teaching model used to 'close the gap'. It will discuss the correlation observed between teacher knowledge and understanding of phonetics and linguistics and the positive outcomes on student outcomes and the positive flow-on on effect on student behaviour, engagement, confidence and attendance. The presentation will also outline the specific processes used over a five year period to achieve these outcomes.
Denyse Ritchie has been a teacher, university lecturer, teacher trainer and author. Her specific focus is in teacher training. Denyse believes that success or failure in literacy learning both as a first or other language is directly related to teacher knowledge and understanding of phonetics and English linguistics.
She, along with her team of professional trainers, works in many remote indigenous communities, mainstream schools, international schools and has contributed to studies in Macau and Indonesia on the direct effects of teacher knowledge in English linguistics and phonetics and student outcomes. In Macau she has won an award for her work in teaching ESL.