How do you know what to do in your classroom today?  
 
I teach for the Adult ESOL Program at Montgomery College in Maryland. I
use several things to help put together curriculum for my class
including state content standards, program goals, CASAS test
information, my own observations, and student requests. Mostly I use the
CASAS information as a guide as it shows their strengths and weaknesses
and because our program uses the competencies as benchmarks to meet the
state's content standards.
 
Do you strictly follow some plan, or do you take cues from the reality
of the present situation? 
 
I generally tend to follow a lesson plan, but as I gain more experience,
I'm learning to be flexible when things are working right and if
something comes up - such as a teachable moment or impromptu discussion.
I try to keep to the plan, but sometimes you have to have a little
variety in your routine to keep the students interested.
 
If you follow a plan (strictly or not), how do you develop your lesson
plan?  Describe how you do this.
 
If I have time and paper, I like to create my own materials, otherwise I
try and use the textbooks, supplemental materials, and realia on hand to
make my lesson plans.
 
I try to follow the Communicative Approach which basically says that
language is a tool and as a teacher, it is my duty to help learners use
language to solve their problems in the everyday world. Along with that
idea I follow some "blueprints" for lesson design that help learners
learn how to learn, while providing enough scaffolding along the way.
You can view these blueprints at American University TESOL's website
http://www.american.edu/tesol/Lessonplans.htm. 
 
The Communicative Approach also means trying to use authentic language
(or near-authentic) as opposed to the often contrived textbook language.
Examples: using real job ads from the newspaper, recording your own
dialogues (I suggest getting the Olympus VN-2100PC ~$50 to $60), having
students create their own dialogues, having students fill out real
applications, etc. It takes a lot of time at first to find and create
some of these things, but you build up quite a library after awhile and
you can often use them with multiple levels. And while I'm not a big fan
of textbook dialogues and exercises, they often make great controlled
exercises or the dialogues can be used in other ways the textbook
authors intended.
 
Bryan Woerner 
Adult ESL Assessment Operations 
bryan at cal.org <mailto:bryan at cal.org> 
 

________________________________

From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of Marie Cora
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 11:03 AM
To: Assessment at nifl.gov
Subject: [Assessment 589] Your classroom today


Hi out there!
 
Ok, how about this:
 
How do you know what to do in your classroom today?  Do you strictly
follow some plan, or do you take cues from the reality of the present
situation?  If you follow a plan (strictly or not), how do you develop
your lesson plan?  Describe how you do this.
 
For those folks working in the GED realm:  how do you know where to
start with your adult students?  Just from the practice test or pre-test
or do you do other things as well?  Once the student is placed in an
appropriate level, how do you know what to do today with her?  How do
you know what she needs?
 
Thanks!! for any of your thoughts!!
 
marie
 
 
 
Marie Cora
marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com <mailto:marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com> 
NIFL Assessment Discussion List Moderator
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/assessment
Coordinator, LINCS Assessment Special Collection
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/assessment/
 
 
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