New!  Pre-Conference Institute

Listening and Speaking: Oral Language and Vocabulary Development for English Language Learners, K-8

Dr. Betty Ansin Smallwood, Instructor

Wednesday, May 2, 2012 from 5:00 pm 9:00 pm, with a light dinner included.

In this interactive workshop, participants will enhance their knowledge of teaching and learning processes that promote oral language and vocabulary development and will experience strategies to increase these skills. Participants will receive a textbook. This institute is Generously co-sponsored by the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Note: Registration for this Pre-Conference Institute is limited to 30. Due to the late addition of this institute, registration is by mail only with purchase order or check payment. First come, first served.

Course Overview
In this three and a half hour workshop, participants will enhance their knowledge of teaching and learning processes that promote oral language and vocabulary development and will experience strategies to increase these skills. The importance of this topic is captured by Wong, Fillmore, and Snow (2002): “Oral language functions as a foundation for literacy and as the means of learning in school and out. However, despite its importance for learning, many teachers know much less about oral language than they need to know.” The workshop uses research-based principles as an academic foundation of instruction for English language learners. Through hands-on activities, short readings, and new classroom videos, this lively workshop transforms the principles to practical, classroom strategies. The following topics are covered: classroom conditions for oral language development, strategies for promoting oral language development, listening comprehension, academic vocabulary learning, and story books/songs/chants/, and jokes. Participants will receive a workbook of training materials, with readings, activities, and resources.

Participants will be able to

• Describe classroom conditions that promote second language learning;
• Explain how language input and output affect second language learning;
• Examine teaching strategies that scaffold learning while increasing classroom interaction, comprehensible input, language output, and academic language learning; and
• Develop a list of teaching and learning strategies that enhance academic vocabulary development in classrooms, with particular attention to the needs of second language learners

Presenter
Dr. Betty Ansin Smallwood, a Massachusetts native, is the Director of CAL Solutions, Pre-K-12 ELL Education at the Center for Applied Linguistics. She has over 35 years of experience in the education of elementary and secondary English language learners (ELLs), including 17 years as an ESL classroom teacher and over 17 years as an ELL teacher educator in Massachusetts and nationwide. .