Vermont

- April 2011 -
Submitted by Kirsten Kollgaard

News from CREATE at Saint Michael’s College
December CREATE conference 12 teams comprised of SMC faculty from both Applied Linguistics and Education and K- 12 ESL and content teachers from the Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski School. Districts met at a day-long conference in December, Teaching Academic English in Content Classrooms. Teams presented the results of their collaborative work and research in areas including:
• co-teaching and the use of systemic functional linguistics in high school biology, • teaching the language of inquiry-based science in the fifth grade, • the creation, refinement and pilot of a cultural math interview • teaching the language of art in an arts magnet school
• teaching the language of math to newcomers • pedagogy of assessment and instruction of ELs with learning disabilities • early research on a developmental continuum of linguistic complexity in middle school writing
• the development of a new SMC course to teach systemic functional linguistics for teachers
Through presentations and round-table discussion, participants explored their findings and future direction for their CREATE-funded work in 2011. January 2011 conference on SFL Project CREATE hosted a day-long workshop for partner school districts on the methodology of systemic functional linguistics, an approach which employs a functional analysis of language to help students and teachers understand how meaning is constructed differently in various content areas. Presenters Mary Schleppegrell (U-Michigan ) and Luciana deOliveira (Purdue University) demonstrated the application of SFL methodology to text analysis in elementary, middle and high school settings. Participants were excited by the ‘common sense’ approach to language analysis, and their interest has sparked the formation of additional SFL-related work teams to implement this methodology in fifth grade science and high school social studies and science in 2011.

News from St. Johnsbury
St. Johnsbury Academy ESL and International Students, together with Lyndon State College Host KIDZ WORLD IV. Saturday, March 12, 2011 St. Johnsbury Academy ESL and International students in conjunction with the college hosted the fourth annual multicultural festival for families. College students from Haiti, Honduras and Ethiopia joined Academy students from Turkey, Germany, Korea, Thailand, Colombia, Spain, China, Hong Kong, Mexico and Brazil from 10:30 – 12:30 to share their cultures with children ages 5 to 10. Students prepare displays, teach games, have crafts and share various delicacies from their countries. The event is co-coordinated by Dr. Lori Wardenschleg of LSC and Ms. Sandra Mings-Lamar of St. Johnsbury Academy. They began hosting the event in 2007. This year a record 150 children and their families attended.

News from Barre
Barre Offers Class for Teachers on ELL Instruction – One of the happenings in the Barre Supervisory Union is that Barbara Dall is teaching a class with the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, John Barone, entitled “Differentiated Instruction–ELL and Beyond”. The K-12 teachers taking the class examine their classroom curriculum, and practice creating standardized lessons that work from students’ readiness, interest, and mode of learning. The course came about as part of the district’s Title III grant. The in-class conversations revolving around ELLs– language acquisition theory, needs of ELLs at various grade levels, accommodations for schooled/ non-schooled populations, etc….– reinforce the need for mainstream teachers to work with ELL teachers to create the best possible first instruction for ELL students.

Interested in an ELL Reading Group? Teachers from Chittenden South Supervisory Union are Starting a Reading Group – You’ve heard of a book group, what about an article group? Would you like to meet once a month with a group of peers and discuss articles having to do with all things ELL? If so, then email Anne Wright Shank. Anne and some of her colleagues are putting together a reading group based on a book group model of meeting once a month and discussing professional articles instead of books. This will benefit districts with smaller populations since the ELL teachers don’t get as much interaction with other ELL teachers and lose the benefits that arise from teachers talking about their teaching practices in an informal setting.

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