Settlement Language Training PD

I am excited about the SCORM activities: they seem to me to be very easy to manage: I can keep track of the individual, as well as class grades, and use that information for planning further lessons, as well as assessment.

SCORM activities provide instant feedback for students which is exactly what the students want.

A hands on activity for beginners to practise correct spelling by identifying vowels, beginning sounds and ending sounds.

I really want to try building a SCORM activity to help my students improve their grammar skills. At this level (LINC 5) students still struggle with sentence structure.

At first they will watch a youtube educational video, like this one, for example: . Then learners will do a quiz to check their comprehension. Finally, they will reorder words to make questions in a Jumbled-Sentence Exercise.

In pairs or small groups, students act as teachers to correct their mistakes with forming questions properly.  This may also be used as a quiz.

I think it would be an engaging, authentic writing activity to have students message each other in the computer lab to try to find out answers to questions. At benchmark 2 they would have to be simple question like personal information questions such as "When did you come to Canada?". They could also be questions about an event such as "Where is the party?", "When is the party?", etc.

Introduce the basic rules of sentence stress to students. Provide students with a short passage related to the current topic (i.e. a passage containing immigration statistics if studying Managing Information). Students use the PoodLL voice recorder as they read the passage aloud for the first time. Ensure students save the initial recording. In a blog entry on pronunciation, provide a YouTube link on sentence stress, such as JenniferESL, as a supplemental resource. Encourage students to be aware of sentence stress in their daily speech, share their progress or newly discovered pronunciation resources with classmates on blog postings, and continue practicing the same passage. In a week or two, have students record themselves again. After comparing the two recordings, students can share their pronunciation successes on the blog, thereby creating social presence and a community of sharing.

Blogs can be very useful to assess students' writing skills. New students could share information by introducing themselves and identifying their goals for learning English on a blog. Students could also write to share their field trip or travel experiences.

I know how challenging it can be for my LINC 2 students to visit a website to read for information. So I always assign a simple reading task for them to start with. I added a weblink in my course for my students to learn about the hospital in their community. I got the students to look for the main menus on the first page and copy the words. And later on,  they compared the list with the class. More advanced students can be encouraged to click on a menu that interests them to read and learn more.

By using Skype, students can stay connected with each other and collaborate outside the classroom.   This is a great opportunity for students to practice their listening and speaking after school.