Teachers of ‘Adult Migrant’ early beginners!
Now that the assessments are done, and the farewell parties are over, are you wondering what new energy you’ll bring to your classroom next year?
If you’d like to add some interactive (but safe and non-threatening) group work to support learner friendships, confidence and independence (plus learning strategies), I’d love you to look at Starting Tabletop English and Tabletop English, the latest resources from The Book Next Door.
These resources were inspired by friend/colleague Dorothea Milenti, who was having great success with her ‘Tabloid English’ group work with Course in EAL learners (that’s pre-beginner or early beginner, for those outside Australia). She had found that her ‘station rotation’ activities led to huge gains in confidence and independence in learners, but was looking for more fun, interactive, meaningful tasks to use. I already had notes for some low-text board games and quizzes, so this was perfect timing.
What’s in the resources?
Each resource has 12 different sets of activities (10 activities in each set), covering reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening – but all with some interactive component, encouraging learners to have meaningful mini-conversations. The activities are aimed at learners who are still developing literacy skills in English, and may need to take time to respond to text (so speed is not part of the activity).
These are low-tech ‘print and laminate’ or ‘print, cut up and laminate’ activities (though of course you can extend them to include digital literacy, as learners take photos of completed tasks to send to an absent friend, or record their voice for at-home practice). They’re all available as pdf files, except for the PowerPoint templates, which you can use to create your own matching activities. There are also 12 Giant activities for wall or whiteboard display, if you want to show the whole class how an activity works, in a hands-on way.
The activities have been extensively trialled. (HUGE thanks to Dorothea and colleagues at North Metropolitan TAFE here in WA). There has been some great feedback on how the activities support learner engagement, so I’m now releasing them to the rest of the world…perhaps not at the best time of year, but keep them in mind for January…
What levels will Tabletop work for?
Australian teachers will understand the variety of learner levels in a Course in EAL classes. I suspect I had confident or ‘repeating’ Course in EAL learners in mind when I created Tabletop English, as some triallists found the activities were challenging for new Course in EAL learners. This led to the development of Starting Tabletop English – the same or similar activities, but in a simpler version for the pre-beginners or early beginners, or helpful for a multi-level class.
However, since then I’ve heard that Starting Tabletop English has been used for Initial Course in EAL and Tabletop English has been used with EAL 1 learners (and even as revision for EAL 2). Please download the preview samples and decide what might work for your learners, or try out the samples with them.
Is there mapping?
Australian teachers will also ask how they can map the use of these resources to our certificates. I’ve been creating some (obviously unofficial!) mapping to the new Course in EAL and EAL 1, and I’ll post that next – my suggestions only, I must emphasise, and your feedback is welcome. I’ll also post more about the different activities, and create some ‘how-to’ videos – but probably after the holiday season.
You can find the samples on the Payhip site: click on the resource you want, then look for a rather small ‘Preview’ link at the top of each resource description.
Hope you’re having (or plan to have) a wonderful, well-deserved break!
