Reading Research Paper Abstracts: What Do the Rhetorical Sections Communicate?

Silvia Benson, sbenson@faa.unicen.edu.ar

Universidad Nacional del Centro

Jorge Sanchez, jorgealsanchez@hotmail.com

Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

English is the world language of scholarship and, for this reason, the bulk of scientific knowledge is basically produced in English nowadays. Besides, scholarly journals specify in their editorial policies that an abstract in English should accompany all papers. An abstract allows readers to have an overview of the content of the research. However, readers, particularly those whose first language is not English, may have limitations in understanding the rhetorical information included in an abstract. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a set of reading tasks systematically designed to help Spanish-speaking advanced graduate students and scholars optimize their reading skills of empirical research paper abstracts in applied linguistics.

The main objectives of the workshop are (a) to raise participants’ awareness of the importance of the abstract as an academic discourse genre; (b) to assess the applicability of international models in the reading of research article abstracts in applied linguistics as well as in sociology; and (c) to grasp the rhetorical information included in the abstracts by means of different reading comprehension tasks. Throughout the whole workshop participants will work in pairs or in groups on these tasks. The definitions of ESP and abstract will be addressed to set a common ground. We shall look at the rhetorical sections an abstract includes and find the communicative purpose of each. Groups will be assigned different models and will be asked to analyze and evaluate their abstracts.

After focusing on linguistic exponents or signals, participants will work on completing abstracts and matching sentences. Finally, they will be provided with abstracts from the field of sociology and asked to apply to this field what they did with the applied linguistics abstracts. Similarities and differences between the disciplines will be drawn.

Presenter Bios

Jorge Sanchez teaches ESP at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and Universidad del Aconcagua.

Silvia Benson teaches ESP at Universidad Nacional del Centro.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION (ELTA)

Dialogue Journal Writing in the Internet Era

Jelena Danilovic, jelenadanilce@gmail.com

University of Kragujevac

Jovana Dimitrijevic Savic, j.dimitrijevic.savic@gmail.com

University of Kragujevac

Marta Dimitrijevic, marta.dimitrijevic@gmail.com

University of Nis

Dialogue journal writing (DJW) is a teaching tool devised in ELS classes in the United States of America as a means of improving communication between teachers and their students. It encompasses a regular, private conversation between the two parties by means of a notebook, that is, a journal, in which students write as much as they want and about whatever they are interested in. These underlying principles differentiate dialogue journal writing from other writing assignments students might be expected to do; because the focus is on communication, no grading or correcting is involved, which minimizes students’ anxiety and fosters the development of a personal relationship between the two sides in the dialogue, helping the teacher adapt the teaching process to the needs and interests of his or her learners.

Our presentation will show how DJW was implemented and facilitated by means of technology-aided practice in the form of e-mails over a period of an academic year in a B2-oriented English course with the first-year students of Spanish, French, German, and Serbian at the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac, Serbia. First of all, we will present the basic tenets of DJW, explore its potential for various classroom settings, and show how we adapted it for use with our students and what insights we gained. Second, we will underscore the feasibility of technology-based DJW and its benefits for both students and teachers. Finally, we will exemplify this practice and its outcomes by providing authentic data about the interaction and wrap the story up by giving details about the logistics needed for DJW.

Presenter Bios

Jelena Danilovic, BA, is English language instructor, Faculty of Philology and Arts, Kragujevac, Serbia.

Jovana Dimitrijevic Savic, PhD in sociolinguistics, is Faculty of Philology and Arts, Kragujevac, Serbia.

Marta Dimitrijevic, MA, is a lector of English, Faculty of Philosophy, Nis, Serbia.

INDIANA TESOL (INTESOL)

Inviting ELL Students into Critical Literacy

Katie Brooks, kbrooks@butler.edu

Butler University

Maggie Robillard, mrobilla@butler.edu

MSD Pike Township

Educators often expect English-language-learner students to succeed in the classroom without considering the ways in which the students’ experiences, cultures, and languages shape their schema (Cummins, 2001). Rather than recognizing culture and language as essential to English-language-learner students’ connections between their schema and essential content-area concepts, educators frequently view these languages and cultures as deficits to be overcome (Neto, 2002). In highly effective multicultural and multilingual classrooms, teachers, English-language-learner students, and native-English-speaking students negotiate their identities as they learn about each others’ cultures (Cummins, 2001; Van Sluys & Reinier, 2006). Integrating immigrant and globally themed literature into ESL and content-area classes has the potential to reframe the languages, cultures, and experiences of English-language-learner students as personal and classroom assets in our increasingly global society.

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to critical literacy through a read-aloud. Then they will sample a critical literacy invitation that will help them to explore a social issue addressed in the read-aloud book. Finally they will brainstorm their own critical literacy invitation based on a piece of literature that they currently teach or a picture book available in the workshop.

Presenter Bios

Katie Brooks is an assistant professor of secondary education in the College of Education at Butler University.

Maggie Robillard is a doctoral candidate in language education at Indiana University.

THREE RIVERS TESOL

Using Technology to Enhance and Expand ELL Instruction

Mahmoud Amer, m4her1@yahoo.com

Clarion University of Pennsylvania

Janet Pierce, jpierce494@comcast.net

Franklin Regional School District

The presenters will offer information on how to use PPT, WORDLE, and TAGUL to enrich ESL/EFL instruction at K-12 and adult levels. Participants will be given the theoretical constructs for using these technological tools as well as demonstrations of how to use the tools. Handouts will explain the process so participants can return to their own classrooms and use these tools to enhance and expand their ESL/EFL instruction.

Many of the available and accessible technological tools today are undervalued as means to helping English language learners in K-12 and adult learning settings. For example, though most educators are familiar with Microsoft’s PowerPoint (PPT) as a tool for presentations and slideshows, PPT can be used to help English language learners develop advanced reading skills. PPT can be used to create interactive reading passages that offer English language learners plenty of opportunities to not only learn reading skills but also take an active role in how the story is structured. Readers become characters in the story who make decisions and, based on those decisions, the story lines change. It helps them understand concepts of voice and gives them control of the story and their learning. Interactive reading passages can be designed in a variety of ways. Designing these stories does not require advanced knowledge of PPT. In addition, sites that allow students to use words, such as WORDLE and TAGUL, offer students reinforcement with spelling, prompts for speaking, and summarizing tools.

Presenter Bios

Mahmoud Amer is a professor at Clarion University, Pennsylvania.

Janet Pierce is the ESL K-12 Instructor/ELL Coordinator at Franklin Regional SD. Both are board members of Three Rivers TESOL.

VIRGINIA TESOL (VATESOL)

Welcoming Newcomers to Your Classroom and Community

Elisa Tucker, elisa.tucker@lcps.org

Loudon County Public Schools

When people think of teaching English language learners, they often think of this special group―students who have recently arrived in the United States and have little to no English language vocabulary or skills. The presenter has taught newcomers for several years, primarily through a pull-out program in a public elementary school in Virginia (with an English-language-learner population of approximately 20%). This presentation offers elementary teachers a variety of tools and techniques for instructing newcomers by combining language-learning research with best practices. We will consider newcomers’ motivations and concerns as the basis for beginning instruction and then establish an understanding of expectations by reviewing WIDA’s CAN DO Descriptors for beginning language learners. We will explore how to incorporate themes, skills, and grade-level content into instruction while making the language-learning process fun. We will discuss involving the school community and setting up a welcoming environment as two methods to help lower the affective filter of newcomers. We will discover the importance of promoting literacy skills and incorporating a balanced reading program from the very first day. Practical tips on engaging learners through a variety of modalities will be shared. We will cover how to schedule and manage classroom tasks and develop appropriate assessments. Last, we will discuss a school-related curriculum for language minority parents, the Parents as Educational Partners (PEP) program.

Presenter Bio

Elisa Tucker received an MEd from George Mason University and is an elementary English-language-learner teacher and mentor in Virginia. She was honored as a teacher of the year in 2007.

VENEZUELA TESOL (VenTESOL)

Powerful Web 2.0 Tools for the ELT Classroom

Evelyn Izquierdo, izquierdo_evelyn@yahoo.com

Universidad Central de Venezuela

The use of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has speedily increased during the past 20 years. They have led us to a new global citizenship, a new way of thinking, and even a new way of behaving, which have influenced all knowledge fields, including education. As a matter of fact, UNESCO’s ICT Competency Standards for Teachers (2008) recently pointed out that both students and teachers must utilize technology effectively in order to live, learn, and work successfully in an increasingly complex information-rich and knowledge-based society. Students have new ways to access information and learn; they have naturally developed cognitive skills that make the use of digital technology much easier. Thus, they are called “the net generation” or “digital natives,” people who have grown up with technology, mainly the Internet (Prensky, 2001). Consequently, teachers have to develop digital competences to satisfy the demands of that new generation. Making the teaching-learning process more effective, interesting, dynamic, updated, and adapted to the new learning times is a must for us. This presentation will offer an overview of digital literacy and a basic training on powerful Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, etc.) to enhance ELT teaching practice.

Presenter Bio

Evelyn Izquierdo, MS in EFL, is an ESP teacher at Universidad Central de Venezuela, e-tutor, Web 2.0 trainer, president of Avealmec, Webhead, e-moderator of social networks, and VenTESOL communications coordinator.