A library for ESL learners
Jul 16 at 12:12am by ObverseView
For the school library, we started collecting books when we first opened. Though it took many years, we built up our collection to about 500 books for children to read.
That was when we realized that if we wanted to grow bigger, we needed a barcode scanner to automate the entry of our books into the database.
That’s when the acquisition of books took off really. We worked hard to acquire both new and good quality used books from as many sources as we could find. Truthfully, we couldn’t have done it otherwise.
The new book dealers simply didn’t have the depth of stock to furnish our library, nor did they have a lot of classic books, while the 2nd hand sellers just didn’t have enough good quality books. Somehow, though, we built up our collection to about 1000 books for students.
I’m hoping that we could have about 5000 books or so in our collection, but it’s difficult to see how we could really develop that number of books without trying to monetize our resources. Ideas are lacking at this point!
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Proud of my students: Anansi Drama
Jan 21 at 1:01pm by ObverseView
Take a look at this wonderful drama written and illustrated by my talented students.
It’s a wonderfully illustrated story with cute pictures written after a traditional Anansi story from Africa. If you don’t know these childrens’ stories, have a look for the keyword Anansi in Google.
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Making a Library: Using Software and a scanner
Jan 13 at 10:10am by ObverseView
You may have seen the pictures of children using our little library on our website. We always try to promote reading among our learners, but one way we did this was to build our own lending library.
At the moment, it’s not open to all students as we have only 1000 books in the system, but we intend to add about 1000 more books at some point.
Instrumental in making this possible was our purchase of some library software and a barcode scanner which speeded up the entry of most of our books. About 1/3 had to be done manually since we couldn’t pull any records about the books, but with multiple books from the same publisher, it was still pretty fast.
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My Class Rules by James Lin: Little Writers #2 Series
Oct 28 at 6:06am by ObverseView
We are always thrilled to show off our students’ creativity. James has beautifully illustrated this in his homework today. So I’m featuring it in my ‘Little Writers’ Series. Enjoy.
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Jim’s Drawing: Quite amazing really
Oct 25 at 9:09am by ObverseView
狄克森美語招生中-兒童美語班,幼兒美語班: (02) 2808-3739 – Dickson English House
One of my students wrote this story for his essay in a recent exam. After the exam, I let them take the pictures home to color. I was astounded by the detail in the color that this 11 year old added. It included natural shading, dark and light tones, and variations in how the light reflected off the creature’s skin. Amazing.
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Six ‘Hows’ of Choosing Good Books For Your Children to Read
Jun 17 at 11:11am by ObverseView
This article was recently approved by EzineArticles, and I would like to share it with you.
Six ‘Hows’ of Choosing Good Books For Your Children to Read
Selecting a book for children to read can be quite a difficult decision. Often you will make mistakes about choosing books such as choosing books that interest you more, are too difficult for your child, don’t interest your kid. This article looks at six factors to help you choose books with more success.
How it looks
When choosing books for your students or children to read, one of the first and most important things you should consider is if the appearance of the book is attractive to children. The child will see the cover of the book first, so don’t choose something that looks boring. This will immediately lose their interest, especially for those who do not particularly enjoy reading anyway. Ideally, the book’s cover should be colorful and give some idea of what the book is about. If you can capture the child’s interest as soon as they first set eyes on the book, then half the battle is won.
How long it is
Another important factor to take into account is the length of the book. The more accomplished readers will have finished reading, when the rest of the children are still in the middle of it if the book is too short. If a book is too long, this can discourage children as soon as they see it. For children of ten and under, a book should take no longer than three to five days, and no more than eight to ten days for older children.
How many illustrations
Illustrations are very important to stimulate a child’s imagination. They provide a break between all those words, so that it doesn’t get monotonous. In fact, most children tend to look through the illustrations before they even begin reading the book. Good illustrations or photographs can capture a child’s interest, and often encourage them to want to read the book in order to understand what the interesting pictures are about. A drawing or photograph can also maintain a reader’s interest.
How big the words
Check that the font size and style of the book is suitable for young eyes. Younger children can find it difficult to focus on small type and tightly spaced sentences. For readers under the age of eight, it is easier for them if the type is larger than normal, and for those under the age of seven double-spaced sentences are best.
How it connects
Choosing a book that is part of a series can be a good idea to keep the children interested. That way, the children can get to know a character, and follow their adventures through a series of books. Reading books that are part of a series also makes a child eager to get to the next adventure, wanting to know what happens next, and can make them realize how enjoyable reading can be.
How interesting
Finally, choose an interesting subject. A good idea would be to discuss with the children what types of books they think that they might enjoy. Present some ideas to them, and then choose one that most have agreed on. You can always reserve the remaining subjects for another time.
Kenneth is a teacher with many years of experience in ESL at Dickson’s English School in Tamsui, Taiwan.
You can visit the school website at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/ to find out more about what our ESL students are doing, how important fluency is, and how much fun we’re having. For other advice and help, check out the columns at http://www.nozkidz.com/english/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_Dickson
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I’m working on additional articles for parents and teachers, some of which can be found here.
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Reading and Your Child – Start Early, Encourage Gently, and Create a Life-Long Reader
May 21 at 11:11am by ObverseView
Most people know by now that a child’s education begins long before kindergarten or pre-school. Children can learn through play and interaction with others long before formal schooling begins. Science has indicated that learning starts even before birth.
Exposing your child to reading is the easiest way to encourage the enjoyment of it. This ideally should begin whilst they are still in the womb. You’ve probably heard that the unborn child can hear their mother’s voice as well other sounds around her, and the child will react immediately to that voice after birth.
Reading books aloud before your child is born will be of great benefit to him or her. Although they may not understand the words, the cadence and rhythm of reading will soothe the baby, as well as occupying the developing senses. This pattern of speech is relaxing to the fetus, and ultrasounds have shown that after a mother has read aloud even a few times, her baby will react with pleasure as she begin to read aloud again, hours or even days later.
The rewards of being read to whilst in the womb stay with babies after they are born. By continuing to read aloud to her baby after birth, a mother can encourage her child to see books and their strange markings as sources of fun, excitement, and amusement. Eventually the baby will be able to focus on the pictures, verbalize the words, and begin to recognize the patterns in those mysterious marks that we call letters and words.
When you read to your baby, make an effort to encourage him to apply all his senses. Books made of soft cloth are ideal for a child to grasp, especially those with different textures. There are books with squeakers inside to imitate ducks, frogs or other animals that will delight a child and give him positive feed-back from being actively involved in reading a book. Books that encourage a child to participate and illustrate such actions also allow them to involve their five senses in the process of learning to read.
As a child grows older you can encourage him or her turn the pages for themselves, or point out things in the illustrations that are mentioned in the book. You can also teach them a few sounds of the alphabet by pointing them out in the book. When a child learns something from a book, and feels proud of himself, he will forever associate positive feelings with the printed word!
Your involvement is the key to instilling a love of reading. Children naturally want to be near to their mothers and fathers, and love to do things with them. If reading is one of these things, it will automatically be associated with closeness and other good things.
As they grow older you can play alphabet games with them to help them learn their letters, using billboards on the streets, signs or license plates. You can reinforce the sounds of letters by playing guessing games using the objects that are all around you. Teaching your child to love reading can be so much fun for both of you!
Kenneth is a teacher with many years of experience in ESL at Dickson’s English School in Tamsui, Taiwan. You can visit the school blog at http://www.nozkidz.com/en/ to find out more about what students are doing, how important fluency is, and how much fun we’re having. For other advice and help, check out his column at http://www.nozkidz.com/en/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_Dickson
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Article Websites
May 21 at 11:11pm by ObverseView
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Pleiades Journal of Teaching Young Learners of English
May 12 at 2:02pm by ObverseView
Pleiades Journal of Teaching Young Learners of English
Welcome to Pleiades Journal of TYLE, an academic Journal devoted to Teaching English to Children and Teenagers. This journal focuses upon young learners of English as a group (or groups) similar to, yet distinct from in meaningful ways, the general ESL/EFL population. Pleiades Journal stresses not only those articles that maintain such a critical focus upon actual research on these target groups but also seeks to place such research in an actual framework for teaching and learning.
Here you can:
* find our abstracts, articles, news, and calls for papers;
* join our discussion group or mini-forum (click for more);
* submit an article for a consideration;
* purchase a copy of Issue #1;
* find conference information.
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Issue #1 |
stories
Sep 27 at 6:06pm by ObverseView
A recent report on The China Post Stated
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=27713
88% of students feel intense pressure to learn English: study
“According to a recent poll, a vast majority of students feel immense pressure to learn English.
The survey, organized by the People First Party caucus in the Taipei City Council, polled 1,180 fifth and sixth graders about their reasons for learning English. Eighty-eighty percent responded that they felt intense pressure to learn the language while 84 percent studied English at cram schools outside of their regular schoolwork.”
Actually, this plays very nicely, albeit somewhat late!, into the discussion of students learning of English… and their exam performance.
Are we placing too much emphasis on ‘traditional’ learning methods, at the expense of creating a positive environment for children to learn English?
Kenneth
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