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Challenges And Opportunities: Creating The Optimum Conditions For Teaching ESL

Speaker: Josefina Villamil Tinajero
Moderator: Juan Berner
Date: Saturday 13 April 2002

Dr. Josefina (Josie) Villamil Tinajero is Associate Dean of the College of Education and Professor of Bilingual Education at The University of Texas at El Paso where she also directs the nationally acclaimed Mother-Daughter & Father-Son Programs.

A consultant to school districts, publishing companies and universities throughout the United States, Dr. Tinajero has been a keynote speaker and presenter at numerous international, national, state, regional and local conferences. She is a noted author and featured speaker in the areas of emergent literacy for second language learners and on native-language literacy as a bridge between home and school cultures. She is the author of several reading/language arts and ESL programs used throughout the United States including Into English! and High Point (Hampton-Brown), McGraw-Hill Reading and McGraw-Hill Lectura (McGraw-Hill), Campanitas de Oro (Macmillan/McGraw-Hill). Her books The Power of Two Languages and The Power of Two Languages 2000 (Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.) are used at Universities throughout the United States.

This chat was organized by Richmond Publishing Mexico in association with the 12th Annual Mextesol Mexico City Regional Conference.

Dr Tinajero: Good morning everyone. I'd like to thank everyone and welcome anyone who is from outside Mexico who is participating. The chat is going to be about creating the optimum conditions for creating language acquisition in the classroom. What are some of the conditions that we might talk about today? What we're looking at is what makes our second language learners successful. What are the conditions that make them successful? What are the instructional materials that will help students obtain high levels of proficiency in English.

In ESL, the English acquisition time is important. Once in a while, a word can be given in Spanish, but the time needs to be in English. Are most of you staying in English? It should be about 90% or 100%. You should have students in small groups engaging them in activities that are familiar to them. Is it a challenge to get students to stay in English? I think it's ok to use Spanish in the beginning. However, I think that there are methodologies that can lower the anxiety over using English. One way is by using songs for the class to participate in. This will help students relax. Chants, songs, poems, etc. are opportunities for students to participate. Students are not being asked to talk, stand up, etc. To lower anxiety levels, have students sing songs they love to sing. Select songs students enjoy in English.

We have to create a positive attitude in our students. A negative attitude can hinder students from wanting to learn. When Spanish is spoken, we talk about Mexico, Spain, etc. In English, you need to expose students to wonderful opportunities such as surrounding the classroom with magazines, listening center, stories, songs, etc.

Hillary: One problem is getting students to use English, but aren't many teachers nervous about their own English?

Dr Tinajero: A lot of teachers are nervous about their English. It's important to create staff development in schools, such as study groups. Form groups of teachers where once a week for an hour teachers get together with native English speakers of the language to foster their own English. Read articles about methodology in English. Everyone in the room decides that they switch to English. Don't worry that grammatical construction, pronunciation, etc. are perfect. Remember that we are a community of language learners.

Celia: Communication is what's important.

Dr Tinajero: Switching to Spanish in the classroom is not the way that students are going to learn in the classroom. I encourage you to form communities of learners to learn about instructional strategies.

Kathia: With sixth graders, it's kind of difficult to get them to sing. They feel they are too old for that. Any ideas?

Paula: Can you suggest other activities to motivate adult students besides songs?

Dr Tinajero: We found out that students loved things like big books and songs. As a result, some of the teachers from kinder, etc. have moved up to higher grades. We have learned that teachers are inhibited. Select songs that students will enjoy, listening, singing along in English. Use poems, chants, choral reading. All the students are going to be reading together. If songs are not the thing for you or the students, select choral readings or poetry as a way to begin.

Celia: Don't you think that sometimes it is much quicker to teach when you can switch from English to Spanish, particularly when giving instructions?

Dr Tinajero: If you have a good understanding of English and Spanish, you can use cognates, words pronounced and spelled almost the same with the same meaning. One of the things you can do is have students look for words in a reading that they already know. I think there's always the tendency to go back to the familiar, to switch to Spanish. We need to stay in English as much as possible. Use whatever to make it understandable. Use visuals and gestures.

Dr Tinajero: I remember when I taught. If I was telling a story, I was drawing pictures all around the room. Students could retell the story from the drawings.

Paula: What kind of computer-mediated activities would you suggest to increase teachers' and students' opportunities to interact effectively in English?

Dr Tinajero: One of the things that's effective is the use of e-mail, but also journals, portfolios, or interactive portfolios with other students. Students love to get into e-mail, ask questions, interact with students, get into websites, look up information, and share information with the class and teacher. Also, they can look up visuals and pictures and then they can talk about them, but pictures that are interesting to them. Then they can talk about it, download pictures. They can talk about anything from around the world. Those are just a few ideas.

ATDG: And chats like this? Are they good for students?

Dr Tinajero: Chats are wonderful. One example was students interacting with an author. Children in a classroom received the book in advance, then they interacted in a chat room format with the author. They loved to interact with the author and to learn about the characters. The kids had a lot of questions. They had questions in English because the book was in English. The author understood what they were asking. Every time they asked questions, there was a built-in lesson.

ATDG: Can it be dangerous using a chat area?

Dr Tinajero: Some chat rooms are dangerous. But where it's moderated it can be excellent for students to interact. Bilingual students from El Paso can interact with ESL students.

Hillary: Can Dr. Tinajero recommend any good sources of choral readings and poetry, i.e. books, audio?

Daniel: Or websites?

Dr Tinajero: There are hundreds of things to select from. One of the most effective things is to select literature books, both fiction and non-fiction. Many can be excellent opportunities for learning. We use literature-based instruction in the U.S. very effectively. Also select poems that are thematically related to lesson plans. If you do a search, you can find poems, chants, choral readings, etc.

Paula: I suggest that Daniel visit Dave's ESL Cafe on the internet. How about "international" chats, I mean, students studying EFL in one country, chatting with students who are studying Spanish in an English-speaking country?

John: Do you know any chat rooms like this that we can use?

Dr Tinajero: No, I'm not familiar with chat rooms that address that particular area.

Thon: Dave's ESL Cafe is an excellent place. I think one can start a chat room there!

Paula: Another good site is Tower of English (www.towerofenglish.com) for resources, chat rooms, etc. for both teachers and students.

Carlos: And its-online (www.its-online.com)

Mart: What is the better way to develop English language in preschool without using Spanish?

Dr Tinajero: The best way to develop English in preschool is through a lot of shared readings such as big books. They might not be reading, but the teacher is providing the rhyme and rhythm. Children are integrating new vocabulary by being read to every day. Children love finger plays. As you use your hands, the words become comprehensible. They connect what you're saying with what they're seeing. Student-made readings are one of the best things you can do.

Dr Tinajero: One example is a song with pictures. Songs can have modifiers, adjectives, etc. You don't need to explain these things but children are assimilating them. Children hear them many times and they learn the sounds. A song can also be a chant.

Thon: The Sesame Street site is also a very good site! I've seen the Muppets, and Muppet Babies sites. They even have a song section where you can listen to music and sing along!

Dr Tinajero: The ESL classroom should be an exciting place where children hear songs and have fun. You, the teacher, control that. Children take the songs home and they teach them to their brothers and sisters.

Daniel: How often does Richmond do these kinds of chats?

Park Warden: This is the first chat of 2002! We hope there'll be more over the coming months.

Midori: My question is "even though chatting is kind of talk, can it be considered a writing skill?

Dr Tinajero: Definitely. It can be considered a writing skill when students write. They have to think about all the knowledge that they have, integrate grammatical constructions, and they're always enhancing their knowledge of the language.

Paula: Chatting also contributes to their socio-cultural competence, as it provides a wonderful source for authentic audiences and tasks.

Thon: Besides being a wonderful and exciting way to motivate students to write in English, a chat is also a very good way to develop conversation, reading, and further reading.

Dr Tinajero: As students acquire more knowledge of the language they're going to integrate it in their writing. A good way of enhancing English proficiency is through writing. It's an excellent writing experience for students that's authentic. It's of interest to them and they have a positive attitude toward it. Develop an environment that's exciting. As a teacher control the attitude toward the language by using pictures in the classroom to help students make the connection.

Daniel: How can we get the ESL magazine?

Dr Tinajero: To get the ESL magazine, visit www.eslmag.com. It uses a lot of pictures. It gives excellent visuals.

John: Can I ask Dr Tinajero how different she thinks ESL is from EFL?

Dr Tinajero: In the U.S., we never talk about English as a foreign language. English is a second language in the U.S. We have a large number of children learning English as a second language in an environment where English is the accepted language. Let's say students wanted to learn French. It would be a foreign language in the U.S. There are some differences because you won't have the critical mass of people to interact with in an EFL environment or access to the resources to learn the language.

Paula: As Dr. Tinajero said, I think the main difference is that your students don't have the opportunity of benefiting from the environment.

Thon: Does it mean that ESL and EFL students are linguistically different?

Dr Tinajero: I don't know that they're linguistically different. I think the attitude that you have toward learning English as EFL or ESL is more important. If you don't have that critical mass to interact with, you can still provide access to native speakers through authentic material and fun activities.

Paula: I think the difference is in the teaching and learning processes to access the language. You have more help if you are in an ESL environment.

Isabel: What is the ideal number of students in an ESL classroom?

Dr Tinajero: Most of my classes have had from 15 to 25. Anywhere from 20 to 30 would be ideal. You can still be very effective even in a very large classroom by using groups of 4, 5 or 6. There's a lot of interaction going on in those groups. You have to find ways to be effective in larger groups.

Paula: It helps to use cooperative learning techniques when you have large groups (+30) and have them help each other.

Dr Tinajero: Having students all doing the same thing at the same time will be difficult in large groups. You serve as a facilitator. I could have 100 students in one class and still be effective. The determining factor will be how you break them into groups.

Daniel: Do you use something like the Montessori system in your class?

Dr Tinajero: Are you talking about Montessori in the way that it's hands-on, highly interactive? I don't know what kind of aspect you're talking about. A lot of instruction is driven by the students themselves. I think in that sense, yes. I think students have to be engaged in ways where they can connect with what they're doing, to make the connection between the language they're learning and what they're doing so that they can internalize the things they're learning. They'll discover by working together and solving problems.

Midori: I find this very motivating to my students, very related to their real lives and a very inductive way they can go to writing.

Lolis: Is it good for preschool students to write words even if they don't know how to read?

Paula: The more senses a student activates when learning, the more significant and meaningful the learning can be. If they not only read, but also listen, speak, write and touch, they may remember it and learn it better, as Dr. Tinajero says.

Dr Tinajero: We've struggled with that in the U.S. One thing we know is that when students write language they're learning, it gives them opportunities to make connections. As students write, it helps them learn the expressive parts of it better. You should have students write, even if it's inventive, writing just certain letters, even if they're not writing in native-like fluency. Students even early on want to start writing. That's part of the emergent learning process. Ask them to retell a story in writing. It's a pathway to spelling.

Thon: I agree with Dr. Tinajero. After all, knowledge is a big world. Learning languages is just part of the whole, but it is nonetheless connected to other kinds of knowledge.

Dr Tinajero: One challenge for you is to take one or two ideas and make your classroom the most exciting class in your school. Choose a cartoon, songs, download pictures, write about them, things that are exciting for your students, find out what they're doing in their science class, etc. Have them come up with songs. Don't worry about the content. Students can read a story and then in pairs retell the story or stories they've read about in their own language and retell them in English.

Kathia: Just a comment, the latest methodologies are great and enrich classes a lot, but traditional teaching can also help a great deal.

Dr Tinajero: The traditional teaching can help some, but it turns students off sometimes. When you're teaching skills, they should be in the context of whatever you're teaching. If I'm teaching adjectives, I want students to have fun with them; I don't want to explain them, not to the extent that it will turn them off.

Paula: I agree with Dr. Tinajero. Methodologies have changed, because our students have changed too. They learn differently because they are exposed to more information and from different channels than we were or our parents were. They need a different way of being taught because they learn differently.

Dr Tinajero: I've seen students that are not motivated because it's boring and tedious. That doesn't belong in a class where children are learning a language.

Thon: I think we as teachers, the experts, know how to combine old and new methodologies and if we always keep our students in mind, then I think we will find interesting ways to teach them. We don't need to turn our classrooms into grammar-translation, but there are always ways to make things fun.

Daniel: What are the adjectives you would use to describe a good teacher?

Dr Tinajero: Having a positive attitude, you are knowledgeable about best practices, you are skillful, you have a tremendous skill for being able to teach in the classroom. You have to be caring, especially when dealing with students trying to learn a new language, you have to be enthusiastic about what you're doing. Those are some of the adjectives I would use.

Thon: And very patient too, right?

Eugenia: I think that a good teacher should be open-minded.

Dr Tinajero: Yes, also patient, always telling students "great", etc. Give them a positive message, a pat on the back.

Isabel: If we aren't enthusiastic with our students they aren't going to have enthusiasm for learning English.

Lolis: Thank you very much! Dr. Tinajero.

Moderator: Thank very much for your participation in this RICHMOND CHAT!!

Paula: Thank you Dr. Tinajero. Thank you all.

Thon: What a wonderful opportunity to talk to Dr. Tinajero!!!

Dr Tinajero: I've loved this experience.

Eugenia: Goodbye from Argentina.

Paula: Goodbye to all in Mexico and Madrid and wherever else you may be.

Midori: Thank you very much for this presentation and CONGRATULATIONS!!

Dr Tinajero: Thank you.