Kia ora koutou and welcome to the June newsletter for English, ESOL and Literacy Online.
The highlight this month is the addition of the Secondary Literacy section on Literacy Online. Take some time to browse the materials here. Primary teachers may be interested in the literacy intervention work profiled by Chris Henderson in the literacy community section below. Please email Chris for further details.
All the best for the remainder of the term.
Nga mihi nui,
Dr Phil Coogan - Project director
Maria Lute – Project manager
Cognition Education for the NZ Ministry of Education.
In this issue
News from:
Literacy Online
English Online
ESOL Online
Literacy Online
Kia ora and welcome from Chris Henderson.
Overall teacher judgements
I hope that overall teacher judgements are proceeding well as you consider progress towards each student’s relevant standard at mid year. See material on increasing dependability and moderation from the TKI Assessment website to support your work.
Literacy intervention work
This is a Ministry of Education initiative involving three groups of schools which have met to establish a plan for a short intensive burst of literacy support for classroom students who are not meeting curriculum expectations for literacy. The strands and students are in their first year at school, after the second year at school, writing for Years 4 – 8 and English Language Learners.
The enthusiasm to make a real difference for these students bodes well for the students who will receive the support.
Literacy conference
The New Zealand Reading Association conference - ‘A literacy explosion’, is being held in Rotorua from July 17 – 20, 2011.
Māori Language Week
Māori language week begins July 4 with a focus on ‘manaakitanga’.
Ngā manaakitanga o te Runga Rawa ki a koutou katoa.
Chris Henderson
Facilitator: Primary Literacy Community
Kia ora and welcome from Denise Hitchcock
This month has seen the launch of the Secondary Literacy web space, a site where teachers can locate information about students’ literacy needs, find material relevant to literacy in the learning areas, learn about literacy leadership and locate information and links to NCEA literacy requirements. New material is being added to the site regularly. Your feedback on the current resources and what needs to be added is most welcome.
NCEA Level 1 Literacy Unit Standards
Annotated exemplars for each of the literacy unit standards have been added this month. These are examples of learner evidence with associated assessment documentation that illustrate the grade boundary between achieved and not achieved for each standard. These will help teachers and assessors to understand the requirements of the standards and the level and complexity of learner work required.
Kind regards
Denise Hitchcock
English Online
Secondary English
Kia ora and welcome from Mike Fowler.
A range of conversation threads has emerged in June in the secondary English Community. Text based discussions still form a large part of the online discussions particularly about thematically linked texts, which might be partially attributed to the introduction of the new ‘making connections’ achievement standard at Level 1. Also discussed was plagiarism and its possible implications for the use of teacher selected materials in student work. A collaborative writing project community members developed through Google docs has been shared with the forum. What constitutes a quality text literary research has been discussed, plus good advice about keeping writing simple and unembellished by modifiers.
There has been talk recently about the changes to University Entrance and the potential impact on senior English programmes. Much of the discussion has centred on changes to UE literacy, where a main pathway from 2013 could be that level 3 achievement standards from many curriculum areas can contribute to literacy attestation.
For more details on topics discussed in the secondary English community over the last four weeks, go to the weekly summaries for 31 May – 6 June, 7 – 13 June, 14 – 20 June, 20 – 26 June
Regards
Mike Fowler
Facilitator: Secondary English Community
ICTs in English
Kia ora and welcome from Claire Amos.
The past month saw discussion on the ICTs in English mailing list about e-portfolios and Using Screenr in English. Other topics included a new resource aligning the Registered Teacher Criteria and e-learning and a Netsafe Update.
Conferences
A great way to stay up-to-date with the potential of ICTs in English is by heading along to one of the many great conferences on offer. Upcoming conferences include:
NetHui 2011, 29 June - 1 July 2011 (which has an education stream on Thursday), SkyCity Convention Centre, Auckland,a three day event with multiple streams of community discussions and issue-specific workshops.
Moodle Moot NZ11
Moodle Moot NZ11 is organised by HRDNZ (Moodle Partner) and the venue is Unitec in Auckland: Tuesday 26th-Thursday 28th of July, 2011. This isexpected it will be the largest NZ Moot ever!
EduCampNZ
EducampNZ is a user-generated 'unconference' focused on e-learning and education. It is about growing our learning, networking, and, of course, having fun! Everyone is invited to participate in some way..."
The events are free (gold coin koha for the host school is welcome), community-generated by volunteers, and anyone is welcome to come along anytime to share and exchange ideas.
To register your interest for future “unconferences”, or find out more, go to the following sites:
- Tai Tokerau: 2nd July, 10am to 3pm:
- Auckland: 6 August, 10am-3pm:
- Tauranga: Saturday 13th August, 10am-3pm
To find out what happened last year, check out Fiona Grant's video of the day.
Ignite evening
- The inaugural Emerging Leaders' Symposium also took place in the April holidays. This will be followed up by an Ignite Evening which will take place at Albany Senior High School on 6th July at 6:30pm. Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes. It's fast; it's furious; it's fun. Register here to secure your place.
- Forward this email to other emerging leaders in education you know.
ULEARN11 is on in the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua. CORE Education is working hard to ensure Ulearn11 will continue as normal this year. CORE aims to continue the momentum of past conferences ensuring that those strong networks created over the last 6 years of Ulearn conferences continue. Check out all the details here.
Regards
Claire Amos
ESOL Online
Secondary ESOL
Kia ora and welcome from Breda Matthews.
This month on ESOL Online discussions have taken place on a range of topics including:
- ELLP and student managements systems.
- Links to the video ‘Effective Teaching for Pasifika students’.
- Discussion of support available and resourcing for ESOL unit standards.
- The value of ELIP and ELLP.
- Discussions of the requirements of revised ESOL unit standards.
- A discussion of terminology for naming qualifications, courses and learners.
Professional readings
The launch of the Gifted and Talented Forum and an AKTESOL meeting at which Dorothy Brown spoke prompted me to consider how we can ensure that our classrooms are cognitively challenging for our learners.
Two readings available on ESOL Online examine aspects of this topic.
- In Content-based Instruction: Research foundations, Grabe and Stroller summarise the research evidence around content based language instruction.
- Using cognitive strategies to develop English language and literacy: describes ways to develop students' English language and literacy skills and to make academic content challenging, interesting, and accessible.
As ESOL teachers we are familiar with multi-levelling our classes to cater for different language levels and cultural learning styles. However I have wondered if I provide appropriately for GAT students and if a focus on language learning needs prevents me from identifying GAT students. This page, from Gifted and Talented Online, lists some of the common characteristics of GAT students that we should take into account when assessing students. This page contains links to:
- Specific characteristics and components of Samoan concepts of giftedness and talent for educators to consider, based on research undertaken within Samoan communities in New Zealand by Jessie Fuamatu (2008).
- Gifted and talented Tongan students in New Zealand.
- An article from The World Council for Gifted & Talented Children (WCGTC) Newsletter. (July 2007) which identifies factors that teachers, parents and caregivers need to take into account when identifying giftedness in immigrant children of Asian-Pacific origin.
Community resources and links
The New Zealand premier of the documentary “Hope” is on Friday 8 July, at 8.00pm at the Academy Theatre, Lorne St, Auckland. Amal is one of only 7 survivors of 400 people from the boat ‘Siev x’ which sank on its way to Australia in 2001. Her life as a survivor in Australia is told by acclaimed documentary maker, Steve Thomas. He will attend the NZ premiere to speak and answer questions. For booking details contact Janfrie Wakim.
Of interest to older students: Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) is offering places for refugee and academic migrant students to study ESOL for zero fees. This funding is provided by CPIT and for 2011 replaces the TEC Refugee Study Grant and Academic Migrant Study Grant. If interested contact the ESOL enrolment administrator , Louise Flintoff.
Kind regards,
Breda Mathews
Facilitator: Secondary ESOL Community
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