Literacy Network

Word Clouds for Teaching Vocabulary

2012-01-18T13:34:00.001-08:00

Teaching vocabulary can be fun. New words are like a box of chocolates to be opened, cherished and savored. I recommend teaching them through play. Today I recommend a site that calls itself "a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide." Words that appear more frequently in the source text appear much larger in the cloud.
At right you see a word cloud made by the site wordle.net. It displays the words that appear most often in the blog of literacy (literacynetwork.blogspot.com). You can enter the web address of a site, cut-and-paste to create your own, personalized cloud. Or simply type in some text from wherever you like. I tried it out by pasting in the text of the Gettysburg Address. Then I tried one of my own emails. Tutors could try generating clouds using a learner's Language Experience Approach (LEA) story or a passage from a book that they are trying to read on their own. The visual arrangement gives you some insight into what kind of words they need to be able to read. It gives them a picture of what words they are learning to use.
With a few clicks you and your learner can rearrange the words, choose pleasing colors and change the font. Contrary to what my mother (and father, and grandparents) like to say, sometimes you just have to get your head in the clouds.

The English Language Learning Professional Development Network

2011-12-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

Executive Director Jeff Burkhart informed me of this cool new resource, the English Language Learner University. Developed by the U.S. Department of Education, it offers free on-line courses to help you become a more effective, better informed tutor or teacher. The courses dive into topics in second language acquisition, teaching English to emergent readers, assessment, principles of language teaching and the role of culture in teaching.

At left is a screen capture from a course I signed up for. All you need to do is create a user name and password, then a simple click registers you. Particularly interesting was a course that has not yet started titled "Teaching Adult ELLs [English Language Learners] Who Are Emergent Readers." As with other on-line courses, you can participate in text chat with instructors. There is also a message board for students to share questions and answers with each other. Why not give it a try? Click here to visit the site: http://www.ell-u.org/

Fluency: the Secret Ingredient in Reading

2011-11-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Reading involves several different parts moving at the same time—rather like walking. Those parts are phonics (also called alphabetics), vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Tutor training at Literacy Network leans heavily upon direct phonics instruction, since it is the thing many dyslexics need most immediately.
Fluency deserves our attention as a skill that learners can improve with practice. It involves the combination of accuracy in identifying the individual words, the rate at which they read and the conversational tone of voice—also called prosody. Better fluency leads to better comprehension, as it helps students to make the reading meaningful and applicable to their own experience.
In this post, I want to describe a technique I learned about at STAR (STudent Achievement in Reading) training this month at Madison College.
Repeated Reading is simplicity itself. It follows a style of teaching in which the tutor first demonstrates how to do something, does it together with the learner, then finally supports the learner doing it for himself. It starts with a discussion about what the learner wants to read, how long it should be and how fluently he/she wants to be able to read it. Ideally it should be a text at the learner’s instructional reading level—something that is a little more challenging than what they can read very easily but not so challenging as to be frustrating. The learner first reads the passage aloud to the tutor. He or she then hears the same passage read with fluency. You, as a tutor, are eminently qualified to model fluent reading for your learner. If you feel that a professional could do a better job, though, you can sometimes employ a recording of an actor to show the rate and prosody of a confident reader. Take, for example, the first ten lines of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is easier than it sounds at first. The Flesch-Kincaid reading scale rates it at grade level 6.8. You can find a recording in the public library or on the internet, for instance at this site: artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha8.htm. The public library has audio book versions of many popular works ranging from Shakespeare to my favorite children’s book series, Frog and Toad.
The learner then reads the text on her/his own repeatedly, trying to read in their own voice with fluency. This part could be an excellent homework assignment. Finally the student reads the text for you, the tutor. Reading repeatedly helps a learner gain confidence, and confidence gives people a reason to stay involved.

Advertising In the Service of Tutoring

2011-11-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

A tutor named Giso Broman wrote me recently about something he tried with his learner. He started thinking about advertising while listening to "Marketplace," a program on the local National Public Radio station. He thought about how advertising infiltrates our lives and wondered what he could do to use it in his lessons. Giso works with a learner who is relatively advanced and has an interest in business. Here is what he wrote:

My brainstorm came to me as I was listening to the weird, overly clever language that Kai Ryssdal uses on his program. These kinds of idiomatic turns of phrase are a big part of what L. and I have worked on together. I thought that, rather than look at a magazine's articles (which has worked well for us before), why not look more deeply at the advertising?

Kai Ryssdal
I'm sure I didn't "invent" this idea, but it worked perfectly for L. and I that I must admit that I feel pretty clever right now. The ads in Forbes magazine - L. is a finance guy - were surprisingly rich despite their brevity. There were some strange vocabulary words, but the more useful bit was talking about everything that each ad left out. "Who is this ad targeting? What kind of customer is this company trying to attract?"

L. very interested in business and marketing. I pointed out when a word, like "lustrous", wasn't necessarily going to be very important to memorize, and instead we talked more broadly about the themes, intended audience and subtext (without using the word subtext)… There are no right answers when it comes to ads and we had a very animated discussion of what we thought of each ad, each customer base and the underlying meanings, symbols and cultural significance of each. In describing this idea, I feel like it sounds incredibly complex and even trivial. In fact, though, it was our best meeting yet.
It's not something that would work for every learner, or indeed every volunteer, but L.'s level of sophistication and a little bit of vigilance on my part (like not getting overly philosophical) made this a really great exercise. The cultural elements (for example, Who is Sean Connery? or What is a "fountain of youth?") were an unexpected bonus. I was able to elicit a lot of really thoughtful opinions from L. and he was eager to flip through from ad to ad right up until the librarians flashed the "closing soon" lights.

Please Phrase It As a Question

2011-10-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Think about the game show "Jeopardy." The contestants read the "answer" on a screen. To make it more challenging, though, they then have to form the question that fits it. Forming questions in English can sometimes trip up and discourage learners. Practicing this skill can take the form of a fun game I saw in the website Dave's ESL Cafe. The site has games and other resources for teachers and tutors who want to swap ideas that have worked for them.

Describing a game called "Questioning the Teacher," Ankara-based ESL instructor Burcu Tunca begins, "Students are always curious about their teachers and each other, so this can be played in pairs or between class and the teacher. It is a good icebreaker both for children and adults and helps students to speak."
To begin, write some answers related to your life on the whiteboard or on paper. I, for instance, might write,

11
Gary Fisher
Scallops

and so on. My student would then have to guess what the right question is. "Is 11 your child's age?" No. "What is your shoe size?" Yes, it's eleven! Next question. "Who was that chess champion in the early 70s?" No, that was Bobby. "What kind of bike do you ride?" Yes!. "What is your favorite seafood?" You could then have your learner try to write some answers for you to think up questions for.
Inverting the question-answer format could make for a fun, low-inhibition activity. Give it a try.

The Joy of Homework

2011-09-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you feel this way, you're doing it wrong.

One of themost common questions tutors ask is, "Can I assign homework to mylearner?" The answer is yes. What kind? Whatever your learner cando. Give homework that fits in with their free time, their resources, the kindsof things they like to do. Homework is anythingthat lets the learner get more exposure to reading, writing, speaking andhearing English.

For reading homework TheMinnesota Literacy Council (www.themlc.org)has a site called StoryBy Story (mcedservices.com/phonics/phonics.html). It has some wonderfully organized phoneticstories to help a learner by focusing on specific sound concepts. Better yet,it has a basic lesson plan that tutors can use. At the end of the lesson planthey advise tutors,

· Assignhomework (10-15 minutes per day after instruction). Encourage spending time athome to study or read; however, it should not be required. Greater frequencyof practice keeps the mind working on learning between lessons.

· Read aloudand/or spell word lists to someone at home

· Read aloudphonics stories to someone at home

ESL tutorscan assign listening homework for learner that follows the above guidelines,namely: short, ungraded, enjoyable tasks.Those tasks can include watching 15 minutes of a sanely-paced, clear-speakingnews program like PBS' "The News Hour" when they get home from work.For the more beginner-level learner, Wisconsin Public Television hasprogramming before 8:00 in the morning learners may watch with their kids. The WisconsinChannel (wpt2.org/schedule.cfm)also has programs on outdoor sports and gardening plus documentaries on a broadrange of grown-up topics. A homework assignment might follow a plan somethinglike the following:

· Watch program“X” for 15 - 30 min. on ___ before work with the captions on. Use a notebook towrite down three interesting phrases you hear, whether you understandthem or not.

· Bring thosephrases, exactly as you heard them, to our next lesson.

· Don't worryabout mistakes. We will talk about what you saw and the phrases you wrote downand try to figure out they meant.

Remember:the chances of homework getting done decrease with the amount of time they takebut increase proportionate to the fun factor.

American Slang on Video

2011-08-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

There is no final frontier to English because it keeps changing and growing. Slang keeps pushing the frontier outward. Teacher Jennifer Recio Lebedev describes slang as "like a pair of flip flops. They're comfortable and easy to put on...but not right for every situation." JenniferESL's videos on YouTube help learners understand spoken slang and know when to use it. They also make a pleasant, productive diversion in an ESL lesson. Watching the very brief lessons could also make useful homework assignments. Remember: homework can be anything that gives the learner a chance to hear, speak, read or write English between lessons. Thanks for helping someone by tutoring.

The Prime Imperative

2011-07-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Tutor Sara H. asked a grammar question about how to teach a specific grammar skill that native speakers of English rarely have to think about. She wrote,"I'd like to have a lesson on imperatives/commands. I'm having a hard time coming up with a creative/effective way to do it. We work together in the library and she prefers to work there, which limits some options. I feel that teaching her this will help her listening skills overall." Here is my reply:

I read your June feedback form with interest. I noticed two things you mentioned in particular. One was that she would like to work on listening comprehension. The other was your stated interest in imperatives. Have you already considered using a game to teach both? Playing “Simon Says” sounds to me like just the thing to work on commands and listening skills at the same time. The library may not be the best place to play it, unless you can come up with a creative way to keep it very quiet and low key. Perhaps whispered Simon Says played on a table top by manipulating small objects. Commands could sounds like, “Simon says pick up the pencil. Simon says put the pencil on the book. Pick up the quarter—aah, ahh, ahh! I didn’t say ‘Simon Says!’”

I will attach links to a couple of helpful documents I found at the Azar Grammar website. One of them involves using a song to introduce the concepts. Click here to download a PDF file. You can also download it as a Word document. The other is a Power Point presentation with pictures to explain the difference between a request and a command. Here is a link to that one.

The Power Point presentation made me think that you could also introduce driving directions as a form of command. You could, for instance, go to Google Maps and make up a trip guide to go from her house to the library where you meet, or some other place she likes to visit. The guide includes step-by-step instructions to follow. You could question the instructions. Where it says, for example, “Turn Right at Olin Avenue,” you could ask questions like, “Should I turn at Lakeside Street?” and she can have a chance to say, “No, don’t turn there. Turn at Olin.” She can learn to listen and follow commands, question them and make negative commands.

It's all out there for free. Have fun! Tutoring is a blast.

2011-01-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

Kathi Ashmore asked a question recently that sent me scrambling for an answer. For asking a great question she receives the Favorite Tutor of the Week award. Her question:

"My student recently purchased an iPod and is interested in finding out if there are any ESL books that might have pronunciation exercises or listening exercises that she could load onto her iPod. Do you know of any?"

Wow, great idea!! And I rarely use double exclamation points. Yes. I can think of a place she can look. Here’s a good free site: http://elllo.org/. It’s the English Language Listening& Learning organization and it has over a thousand conversations on a wide variety of topics for listening. It was the first thought that came to mind. When I was there I saw a link for www.Audible.com. A quick search there turned up this book: Pronunciation In English by Kathy Hans. It’s a pronunciation book that’s listed as free. When I searched the term “ESL” many books turned up at prices well under ten dollars.

This website: http://www.delicious.com/Literacy_Network/listening has links to several listening sites you can visit. The very first one listed there is a podcast site.Further down you’ll see the BBC’s site, also a rich lode of learning opportunity.

I really have to get one of those iPod thingies that all the kids are playing with.

Multi-Level Reading for Adults

2011-01-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

Individual tutors have many questions about reading and writing. Two of the most common are "Where can I find adult-sized reading material that is written at an easier level for beginners?" and "How can I know whether material is at the right level for my learner?"
Marshall Adult Education has a so much useful stuff for literacy tutors that also works well for ESL that I hardly know where to begin. Tutors who want to work on reading and writing, vocabulary and even GED preparation can find lesson plans, stories and interactive games to play at home or on a library computer. Reading and writing stories give information for adults on nutrition, employment, child-rearing and a very wide variety of grownup themes.

The stories can be downloaded as PDF files or printed out for portability. They all begin with anticipatory questions and simple definitions of vocabulary words to help learners think about and retain they are reading. They end with comprehension questions and writing exercises. The story featured here is at level 1.5 and is 150 words long. A sample sentence goes like this one:

“Fruits, vegetables, whole grains,chicken, and fish,” the doctor replies. “These are all good foods. Eat them every day. Plus water; drink lots of water.”
“What is junk food?” asks Jane.

A level 8.0 story about Sacagawea begins thus: "Although no two accounts of her life are the same, Sacagawea ... played a significant role in the settling of the west," and is about 560 words long. Note that the reading levels do not necessarily represent grade level equivalents but are relative numbers—like the numbers on a guitar amplifier.

At the home page you will find links to other sites addressing needs like getting a GED or specific kinds of employment. Clicking the Resource Center link will bring up match, science, social studies, computer training and sites where students can download free educational software. It's a Comstock lode of education resources. Thanks to educator Andy Poulos for bringing this site to our attention.

Mango, I Must Have You!

2010-12-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

Mango is a language learning website that you can take advantage of for free thanks to the Madison Public Library system. I checked it out on a tip from former Literacy Network Executive Director Greg Markle. You can take advantage of Mango by going to this link on the public library website. Put in your full library card number and it will lead you to a screen where you will create a profile, i.e. a user name and password. Once you log in you can use it to learn English, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Urdu or one of a dozen others.
Your computer will have to have up-to-date versions of Adobe Flash and Java in order to use it. If you don't you can follow the prompts to update them.
It has a few things in common with the well known application The Rosetta Stone, which Literacy Network has in its mobile learning lab. If you have a headset or a microphone available to you, plug it in and try the speech sampling feature, which lets you record your answer and compare it to a very clear native speaker's voice.
For the tutor who wants to learn a little bit of his or her learner's language or for the learner who needs a little more practice between lessons, Mango is a great deal. Do check it out.

One Tutor's Blog

2010-10-27T13:09:00.001-07:00

Debbie Lloyd just started as a tutor with Literacy Network and has just started her own blog about day-to-day work helping someone learn to speak English. Debbie Lloyd wrote me today, saying

Hi Brian,
I think things are going very well. We've met three times and emailed back and forth during the week we couldn't meet. She's so eager to learn and works so hard. I've given her "homework" each time and she's attempted all of it. Your Delicious.com Bookmarks have been very helpful. I've set up a blog (http://englishtutor-debbie.blogspot.com) to keep track of our progress and to make the links easier for her to access. Our goals and tasks have become more refined. I'm trying to mix her interests, her goals, and a bit of fun with each lesson.
Looking forward to working with her for another 5 months,
-Debbie
Please pay the site a visit. Quite a few new tutors have come through training this Fall. Debbie's blog gives you a chance to see what is working for someone who is doing the same thing you are. All of you tutors—you're not alone out there. Here's another chance to share the experience.

Readin', Writin' and Recipes

2010-09-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

When you and your learner want to read something practical, recipes come up as something easy to get your mind around. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created a website (click here) to help home cooks use the materials they want to use in order to make meals that are nutritious, affordable and, of course, tasty.
You can search for one ingredient at a time-onions, lentils, tuna fish-whatever you have on hand or want to work with. The screen capture at the right shows a recipe that came up when I searched on the term mustard (always in the last thing in an empty fridge). Also interesting: the recipe gives a rundown of nutritional information and cost per serving.
So, for the learner who needs to practice reading, learn vocabulary about cooking and/or make nutritious food on a budget, this is a great resource. According to Kelley Burd-Huss, Literacy Network volunteer, the site is terribly underutilized. It also recommends only whole, simple ingredients—nothing terribly processed. A lot of the stuff you can get in the WIC program is in there." After you have tried one of the recipes you can even rate it from one to five stars and - teachable moment! - write a review together with your learner.

Cross Cultural Communication Strategy

2010-07-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of tutors in recent weeks have come to me with problems related to learners who had done a no-call no-show (NCNS), meaning that their learners stood them up at the library where they were to meet. They waited a while, not hearing anything from their learners until they gave up and went home, understandably disappointed and frustrated. In the course of trying to advise them I came up with some communication strategies to share with you.

1. State your assumptions. Tell your learner what you expected to do when you signed up to be a tutor, for instance things like what and how you planned to teach, how often and for how much time. State that you promise to be on time and ask your learner to do the same.

2. Ask explicit questions rather than leaving matters implied. Ask what she thinks "on time" means - can it be as much as ten or fifteen minutes after the stated start time? How much time do you have to spend on homework? Do you listen to voicemail? When you do, do you respond to it the same day?

3. Give yourself the extra time you need to hear and confirm that you understand what she says. Lesson objectives are important, but managing personalities and cultures has to happen. In short, you should not be in a hurry to get through every objective on your lesson plan.

4. Do not take it personally if he or she fails to live up to your expectations. By this I mean don't assume that a student's failure to behave as expected comes from a lack of respect, motivation or commitment. People have desire to learn, but sometimes they lack the skill or the wherewithal to turn that desire into sustained action. Maybe this item should be #1.

5. Set yourself up to succeed. If you expect that your learner should communicate with you if they can't make it, then it's in your interest to make sure they can communicate. Have you taught them how to leave a voice message in English? During a lesson, get together with a cell phone and practice listening so the learner can understand what the outgoing message says. Then practice several canned responses. One should say, "I will see you tonight at the library." Another, "I will be fifteen minutes late. Please wait for me." Between lessons assign your learner a homework project to leave you a voicemail message at work or on your cell phone.

But what do you think? Do you have any strategies that you have used successfully to forestall a NCNS crisis? Please share them and I will share this advice with future tutors in training.

Fun New Resource: UsingEnglish.com

2010-07-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

The Favorite Tutor of this week's tutor tip is Community Literacy intern Emily Shayman. Emily found UsingEnglish.com. The website describes itself this way:"UsingEnglish.com provides a large collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, learners and academics. Browse our grammar glossary and references of irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms, ESL forums, articles, teacher handouts and printables, and find useful links and information on English."

Student Services Director Amy Kemph recommends clicking on the Teacher Resources tab. There you will find:

Over 3000 idioms, including 175 beginning with the letter 'a'
Definitions of 2,710 current English Phrasal Verbs-such as make up, make up for, make do
159 free PDF lesson plans and handouts

And it has quite a bit more than just what you find described here. While wandering through the site I found a text content analyzer, a gadget that gives you statistics on the readability of any material you can cut-and-paste or type into a text box. You can use the analyzer to calculate things like relative lexical density, i.e. the total number of words divided by the number of different words. A passage from Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham, for instance, has a lexical density of 14%, since the whole story uses just a bit over 200 words, most of which are repeated. You can also get an estimate of the number of years of education a person needs to have had in order to properly understand the material. According to the site,

The Gunning Fog Index gives the number of years of education that your reader hypothetically needs to understand the paragraph or text. The Gunning Fog Index formula implies that short sentences written in plain English achieve a better score than long sentences written in complicated language. For reference, the New York Times has an average Fog Index of 11-12,

Navigate over to the site to find things that will be very useful, both for ESL and basic literacy. And while you are at it, have fun with all the features it offers.

Word Blindness and the Plastic Brain

2010-06-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

NPR had a fascinating story last week about a man who woke up one morning and found that he had lost the ability to read. "The Writer Who Couldn't Read," by Robert Krulwich also appears in the June 28 edition of The New Yorker. In the story Howard Engel experiences a stroke that damages the part of his brain that recognizes symbols—notably the letters of our alphabet. His condition is called word blindness, or alexia.
Because Engel made his living as a mystery novel writer, this development was particularly painful.

Engel finds out that he can, with difficulty, reteach himself to read because the part of his brain that processes tasks of writing escaped the damage caused by the stroke. Now he reads by tracing letters on the page, either by touching the page with a pencil or, amazingly, tracing the letters on the roof of his mouth with his tongue. It is well worth a listen and a read, both because it's a well-told story and because it teaches something about neuroplasticity, the concept that the brain can reshape and rewire itself to work around parts that have stopped working properly. After a little practice, it is much fun to work the word into conversations.

Click on the link above to see a version of the story with animated drawings by Lev Yilmaz. A longer version of the NPR story can be found by clicking this link. And, just to be complete about everything, you can find Oliver Sacks' description of the case in The New Yorker (subscription required to see the whole piece).

Livemocha: "The Rosetta Stone Meets Facebook"

2010-06-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

No doubt you have all heard of the growing importance of social networking through the internet. In an age where friend has become a verb, it seems only logical that social networking would evolve to be useful for purposes beyond filling up free time. Recently Literacy Network Volunteer Kelley Burd-Huss told me about Livemocha.com, which does for language learning what many more expensive computer programs do, but does it for free. You or your learner can study English, Spanish or many other languages with the help of native speakers who are trying to learn your language. It's "Facebook Meets the Rosetta Stone," so to speak.

To get the experience of Livemocha for myself I signed up for Spanish lessons. The experience stretched both my mind and my email in box. The site ran me through an introductory lesson of fairly straightforward basics-telling time, using present tense and so on. But within minutes of completing it a dozen emails had come in from other Livemocha users in Colombia, Mexico and other places in the Spanish-speaking world, offering encouragement and criticism of my efforts. Clearly, the social networking aspect is a major factor in how it all works.

The website's welcome page says,

The best instruction begins when people teach and learn from each other...[P]eople from different parts of the world offer their help and perspective. Livemocha has the world's largest community of native speakers eager to help and learn from each other-and that's what makes Livemocha so addictive and effective.

The screen capture of my in box at right shows just a few of the reviews of my work from that native speaker community. Note that these six all came in within two minutes of each other. The messages came from native speakers of Spanish, offering encouragement like, "muy bien! continua asi" ("very good! keep it up") and words to that effect, as well as some helpful, practical criticism. Also coming in the original email blizzard were some offers of friendship. Within a couple hours of my signing up I had "friended" and was sharing text chat with Dessy, the screen name of my first Livem ocha learning partner. We talked about our difficulties learning languages and our goals for how to use them. Now, a month later, my in box continues to take in messages from people who want to learn English.

If I had been this popular in high school I might have gone to prom.

Eventually one can sign up for higher-level lessons that cost money. However, the cost for the service, for the learning and for the companionship is mostly time. Since participants get peer feedback on their lessons, good form requires one to reciprocate. Reviews can be very short, and one can choose to leave an "audio comment" in lieu of or in addition to writing. The site makes it clear that they expect participants to keep their comments constructive.

As for equipment, if you or your learner would like to participate it is a good idea to get your hands on an inexpensive microphone headset. You can find models at Comp USA starting at $7.00 and costing as much as $200. A set in the $15 range will generally perform quite well.

While I was writing this message the Livemocha site was up on my computer and I had my headset on from leaving an audio feedback. To my surprise some pleasant tones started playing in my ear and a pop-up window informed me that David in Brazil wanted to share text chat. It is possible to change your status when you log in to the site. If you prefer not to be interrupted by pop-ups, you can change it to "busy."

This site is free and not hard to use. For an introduction to the site or for practice tutors can visit Literacy Network's Mobile Learning Lab during its open hours Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 to 6:00. The public libraries, with their computers and high speed internet connections would make an excellent place for learners to practice between group classes or meetings with their tutors. Kudos to Kelley Burd-Huss, This Week's Favorite Tutor for her tip.

Teaching Irregular Past Tense with a Concentration Game

2010-06-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

When we teach English, we like to make it free-spirited and communicative. Some things, however, just need to be memorized. In English, that includes irregular past-tense verbs: take and took or make and made.

Memorizing takes time and effort, but nowhere in the English Teacher Field Manual does it say that it can't be fun. Take the memory game 'Concentration.' Do you remember that game? Here's a variation: two players spread a deck of cards face down on a table. Then they take turns overturning two cards, trying to form pairs of present- and past-tense form of any verb. The one who makes the most pairs wins.

Click on the picture at the right for a table with irregular past tense verbs in English. It is a seven-page Word document that you can print on paper or card stock. Cut out the cards and play 'Concentration' with your learner.

Visit the web resources section of our website for this and other resources.

Free Learning Website

2010-04-28T11:10:00.001-07:00

Literacy Network volunteer Kelley Burd-Huss discovered a great resource recently and brought it to my attention. The website www.gcflearnfree.org has interactive tutorials for everything from numbers and measurement to food shopping, job searching and computer use. It provides graphics and spoken instructions that are slow and easy to understand for a non-native speaker of English. Being a baker myself I took one tutorial which led me step by step to measuring and mixing the ingredients for a cake. You can hear and read the instructions, then click-and-drag out, for instance, a box of salt and pour out 1/8 teaspoon. At the bottom of the picture below see the text of what the narrator is saying. You have to try it for yourself to appreciate how much fun it is. It has great potential for tutors who meet with their learners at a library or other site with internet access.

The microwave instructions are fun, because they teach how to set the cooking time and power on a microwave's key pad then drag a cup of coffee or a frozen pizza slice into the oven. When you succeed your food comes out steaming. It helped that a clear, natural sounding voice offered instructions in the background. When I made an error the voice sounded like my own internal thoughts saying, "Oh, yeah. I need to push the time button and then enter numbers."

The same drag-and-drop skills turn out to be helpful in the tutorial on how to fill out a job application. The learner simply drags his address or job history onto the right part of the application. A voice (again sounding like someone's internal monologue) lets you know when you get things right and guides you to the right answer when you get it wrong. It even makes comments like, "That was a nice place to work. It was a shame the company went belly up." In addition to applying for work you can learn how to prepare for and behave in an interview.

For the learner who wants to begin using computer applications like MS Word, Excel or Outlook, more clear pictures, text and voice instructions walk you right through. Basic arithmetic and math skills, money, safety, health and even telling time are all topics that make excellent lessons for tutors in both basic literacy and ESL. The service is free, but you will need to create a user name and password in order to use it.

The same drag and drop skills turn out to be helpful in the tutorial on how to fill out a job application. The learner simply drags his address or job history onto the right part of the application. A voice (again sounding like someone's internal monologue) lets you know when you get things right and guides you to the right answer when you get it wrong. It even makes comments like, "That was a nice place to work. It was a shame the company went belly up." In addition to applying for work you can learn how to prepare for and behave in an interview.

For the learner who wants to begin using computer applications like MS Word, Excel or Outlook, more pictures, text and voice instructions walk you right through. Basic arithmetic and math skills, money, safety, health and even telling time are all topics that make excellent lessons for tutors in both basic literacy and ESL. The service is free, but you will need to create a user name and password to use it.

Phonics: It's In the Cards

2010-04-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

Scrabble-now that is the perfect game. You may have heard or read recently about Mattel's announcement that it plans to release a spinoff of the classic board game. Scrabble Trickster, as it is called, will allow proper nouns, such as Britney or, one might presume, Waunakee-a mortal sin in old-school Scrabble. The uproar from orthodox Scrabble players was heard around the world. This upstart game, however, is only the latest variant that Scrabble's publishers have tried. Scrabble Up and Scrabble Junior never caught on. You can find very lightly used copies of them in resale shops but almost never of the original, which people hold onto like family heirlooms. Today we explore using one early variation on the classic. Scrabble Slam, as it's called, makes a great phonics activity for lessons with tutors.

This Week's Favorite Tutor (the title bestowed upon whomever brings a new idea that becomes a tutor tip) Steve Bentin was working with his learner recently at Literacy Network. I saw them slapping down cards, changing each other's words with their own cards. In the picture above you can see Andre about to change Steve's word PERT to PEAT. Changing one letter at a time makes it possible for players to practice reading word families. It injects elements of speed and competitiveness into the activity. The intensity around the players was palpable. And, best of all, both said they were having fun.

If you'd like to find a copy for yourself, click this link search for a new or used copy on Amazon.com. They start at about six dollars. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping any tutor who wants to make their own hand-made cards to play the game. Play hard. Learn hard. Have fun. It is great to be a tutor.

Free On-Line Video Courses to Help Tutors

2010-03-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

Some free resources for tutors today, courtesy of Literacy Network staff. Jeff Burkhart, Literacy Network Executive Director, suggested paying a visit to MLOTS, the Media Library of Teaching skills. There you will find videos of tutors working with learners in very realistic situations. What I thought particularly helpful was the video of a professional teacher showing learners about present continuous tense with do-it-yourself pantomime (no Marcel Marceau face paint necessary). In addition to speaking skills you may find films explaining math or writing concepts.The site has links at the bottom of the page that lead to other sites with video lessons

Volunteer Manager Lynn Pawelski recommends another site with video help, Literacy DuPage, which advertises "Real Tutors, Real Learners." They offer videos of how to manage a first lesson, which is going to be marvelously useful to new tutors. Other videos tackle reading, writing and speaking skills. By all means, check them out. Both sites will have links in our links on Delicious.com.

Using the Learner's First Language: Good Idea?

2010-03-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

I had an exchange with a tutor with an interesting question about using the learner's first language during an English lesson. Julia Steege asked,

Because I can speak fluent Spanish sometimes I think it is easier for her when anything is slightly difficult to lapse back into Spanish. How do I deal with this? I want her to feel she can still use some Spanish, for clarification and sometimes to talk about our lives but I want to figure out better ways to challenge her to use only English

I thought it was a great question and wanted to share it with all of you. My answer is below:

Julia: Just a couple of thoughts related to your February tutor feedback .
One strategy used by a teacher of Ojibwa language in a Wisconsin reservation is very interesting. All classes are held exclusively in Ojibwa language. However, in her classroom hangs a rubber chicken. The chicken has a sign on it that says,
"FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY!" If a student can't say something in Ojibwa, he or she may grab the rubber chicken and hold it over their head while speaking English. After saying what needs to be said, the student hangs the chicken back on its hook. The unmitigated silliness of the rubber chicken gag gets learners off the hook, so to speak, when they can't express themselves. Perhaps you can have a policy like that, where one has to do commit some silly act in order to revert back to the first language.

An alternative idea would be to print three cards that say, "Temporary Spanish Pass" on them. Give them to her at the beginning of the lesson. They would give her three opportunities to lapse into Spanish, but after she has given you her three passes, tough luck, mi amiga. Another thought: get an egg timer and turn it over while you or she is speaking Spanish and turn it on its side when she finishes. She gets three minutes (or whatever is on the hourglass) of time to speak her first language during class. A chess clock would do an even better job, and I suppose that the iPhone has an app for that.

Whatever plan you come up with, stick with it. Be quick to show her that you understand her English, even when it's far from perfect. When you can't, though, you may resort to a bilingual dictionary.

Free Tax Preparation Sites

2010-02-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Here is a link to the brochure on tax preparation sites throughout the county. These sites are extremely helpful, free of charge, and are a great resource for low-income, disabled, and/or elderly persons. Please help me in getting this information out to families!

dane.uwex.edu/flp/documents/TCEVITABrochureJan2010.pdf"

Working With Advanced Learners

2010-02-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

As it often does, the tip for today came from an exchange with a tutor who asked a question: How do I work with a learner with high abilities and expectations? Here is the exchange:

From: Kristina Antic

To: Brian Anderson

Brian,

My other learner's name is Rosalina, but her nickname is Jacqui. I actually also wanted to ask you for some advice. After meeting with Jacqui yesterday, her English appears to be already very advanced, though I think some focused work on the more complex grammar structures ... would improve it immensely.

What I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around is how to proceed and structure my lessons to best achieve her goal. The biggest goal she shared with me is to be able to write in English as well as she is able to write in Portuguese (she was involved in journalism in Brazil).

I get the sense that she has a strong desire for perfection and structure, and I really can appreciate this and want to help her - I just need some guidance as far as how to break down this goal into more achievable tasks/chunks we can work on each lesson that will move her toward her goal. Any thoughts/ideas you have would be much appreciated... thank you!

Kristina

Kristina:

Okay, good questions. The words that popped out most in your message were structure and focus. Since Jacqui wants to perfect her English writing, I can think of a few tactics to add structure to your lessons.

Find a book to work from, something that focuses on writing skills for the more academically advanced ESL learner. Here are a few I found in our library: Writing Talk by A.C. Winkler and J.R. McCuen. Voyager 8 , published by New Readers Press The Write Stuff by Jones and Evanson.
Give writing assignments that focus on specific topic areas and/or grammar skills. For instance, assign an essay where she answers the question: “What will I be doing this year? Next Year? In Five Years?” in order to focus on the future tense.
Focus on Grammar. You can borrow Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Schrampfer Azar to find exercises that work on more advanced topics.
Focus on one thing at a time. If it’s a grammar exercise, you only correct the grammar errors (but notice the other kinds for future lesson planning).

You can also search the blog and the links from delicious.com, which have a link in the signature line below my name. Hope this helps.

Helpful Homework

2010-01-28T11:07:00.002-08:00

One of the most common questions tutors bring is, "Can I assign homework to my learner?" The answer is, as you may have guessed, yes. The next question, of course, is "What kind of homework should I assign?" Here is the best answer I can give: whatever your learner can do. Give homework that fits in with their means-their free time, their resources, the kinds of things they like to do. Homework is anything that lets the learner practice and get more exposure to reading, writing, speaking and hearing English.

For more ideas on homework The Minnesota Literacy Council has a site called Story By Story. It has some wonderfully organized phonetic stories to help a learner by focusing on specific sound concepts. Better yet, it has a basic lesson plan that tutors can use. At the end of the lesson plan they advise tutors,

Assign homework (10-15 minutes per day after instruction). Encourage spending time at home to study or read; however, it should not be required. Progress will occur more quickly if practice is frequent or on a daily basis.
Read aloud and/or spell word lists to someone at home
Read aloud phonics stories to someone at home
Write and read sentences using decodable and survival/sight word lists

For ESL tutors you can assign listening homework for your learner that follows the above guidelines, namely: short, ungraded, fun tasks. Those tasks can include watching 15 minutes of a sanely-paced, clear-speaking news program* like PBS' "The News Hour" when they get home from work. For the more beginner-level learner, Wisconsin Public Television has programming before 8:00 in the morning that I regularly view over the rim of a coffee mug. What do I watch? I must confess to being a sucker for "Dinosaur Train," but the Wisconsin Channel also has programs on outdoor sports and gardening plus documentaries on a broad range of highly grown-up topics. Assign listening homework that follows a plan something like the following:

Watch such-and-such program for 15 - 30 minutes on ___ before/after work
Use a notebook to write down three interesting phrases you hear, whether you understand them or not.
Bring those phrases, exactly as you heard them, to our next lesson.
Don't worry about mistakes. We will talk about what you saw and the phrases you wrote down and try to figure out they meant at our next lesson.

Remember: the chances of homework getting done decrease with the amount of time they consume but increase proportionate to the fun factor.
Thanks, as always, for teaching someone.

*Shout-fests like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly's shows are out of the question. Excessive bluster and cross-talk make them very hard to understand.

Cell Phone Cameras

2010-01-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

In recent months it has developed that more of our ESL and ABE learners are using cell phones and in many cases using them as their primary phone. As it often happens, a tutor came up with a great idea while thinking about how to apply concepts she was learning in training. Giving me an idea that becomes a tutor tip message earns Favorite Tutor honors for a period of one to four weeks. This Week's Favorite Tutor is Lori Andersen, and here is her idea.

During a recent tutor training I had suggested that tutors and learners try using each other's photo albums as inspiration for conversation. Lori said, "Why not use the learner's cell phone camera?"

Huh. Good idea!

Nearly every cell phone has some kind of camera installed on it. So, during the training the idea developed to assign your learner to take some photos to bring back to their next lesson. And you should complete the photo assignment yourself, in order to give yourselves something to compare when you get together next time. The pictures don't need to be artistic, just expository. And it should not be necessary to get all of them, but you both should try to get as many as possible. So, below is something you might use as a lesson plan element.

Homework assignment: During the coming week you will take photographs of:
Your car, or the bus stop where you go to work
The first thing you see when you walk out the door in the morning.
Your lunch (brown bag or order out)
Your coworkers
You, relaxing
Your children, playing
Whatever comes to mind

Every picture begs to have a story told about it. It begs someone to ask questions. My friends and I used to break out our wallet photos when we wanted to communicate while traveling in Japan. Photos of home and family gave us something to talk about when our language skills were very weak. Here is a link to Dave's ESL Café, which has a discussion forum of adult learners talking about their feelings about their cell phones. That might be a good topic for an essay or conversation in class.

You might also visit a page at About.com that describes how to use Flickr photos as conversation starters. It lists some useful and instructive questions you can ask about the photos there. Flickr.com is a repository of literally millions of photos available for the public to view. If your learner's cell phone shots don't turn out, Flickr's bounty of images might be a good plan B. Good luck, and please feel free to share ideas any time.

Speaking and Listening

2009-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Today we start with a resource for teaching listening skills. I had some fun today listening to podcasts. I visited the website eslpod.com where anyone can download files on a steadily growing number of subjects. Podcast Number 529 concerned insulting people, which promised to be interesting. It was. It featured a dialog in which a man and a woman were reacting to some rude behavior from teenagers. It taught idioms such as get on your nerves, give as good as you get and catch your attention. After the slow reading of the dialog, the moderator teaches all of the idioms. Finally the actors read the dialog at normal speed. The dialogs can be downloaded as MP3 files, burned onto CDs for between-lesson listening and, for the really technically endowed learner, loaded onto an iPod. For speaking skills we have a website full of conversation questions, the International TESL Journal. For instance, click here to see questions that can keep a conversation going on the topic of Christmas and the end of the calendar year. The first questions can be answered with a yes or no, such as these:

Did it snow last year at Christmas?
Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a child?
Did you enjoy last Christmas?

But they go on to be more open ended, for example:

Where do you think Santa Claus is from?
Where will you go on Christmas Day?
Who do you expect to receive presents from?
If you are not a Christian, does the intense focus on Christmas in the U.S. make you feel bad in any way (e.g., ignored, dismissed, angry, etc.)?

That last question makes me think that some of the questions may need a little reworking to sound more conversational. For instance, 'Did this year's Christmas bother you, with all the advertisements and noise?' The answers, though, may be surprising. Santa has many different names (Sinterklaas, Pére Noel, etc.) and a variety of origin stories. Other cultures have other holidays that celebrate generosity and human closeness. Wishing you great conversations and heaps of generosity, I and Literacy Network thank you for teaching someone.

Get Organized!

2009-12-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Graphic organizers help readers with comprehension and retention problems by arranging the events, details and characters of a story visually. At the 2009 GED/HSED conference I got an introduction to a multitude of formats to make the abstract visible. You can choose one you think might help your learner and, if the first one doesn't work, try another. Here is one organizer from the website
graphicorganizers.com/:

It organizes a story by asking the Who? What? When? Why? questions a reporter asks and leaves room at the bottom to draw a conclusion. Below you can see a similar organizer that takes on Chapter 11 of Huckleberry Finn,
a relatively complex story. In this case each minor event has its own question at the top of the box and below it the learner fills in the answers as he reads or rereads the story. The site linked here has 41 organizers — Venn circles, character studies, branching diagrams and others.

Another very nice website is freeology.com. In addition to graphic organizers you will find worksheets and word games to play. Like graphicorganizers.com it has many different ways to arrange story elements visually. One of my favorites, for its simplicity and directness, is the cause-and-effect organizer. Here is a screen grab of that item:

I filled in this organizer with details from the Wikipedia entry for the topic of global warming. You and your learner might organize some of the thoughts as you see at left. You could just as easily run the organizer backwards, starting with effects and then listing their causes beneath them. Everyone's mind works differently, which is why it's such a good thing that there are so many different organizers out there. Please give it a look and see what might work for your learner's mind. You might try it out on your own first, graphically organizing a story from the newspaper before you try it with your learner. Best of luck, and have fun!

Hello, ELLLO

2009-11-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

English Listening Lesson Library, or ELLO.org, is an extraordinary website for teachers and learners who want a chance to hear natural but easy-to-understand conversation. Four tabs across the top take you to four different areas.
The Views tab has literally hundreds of stories of real people sharing personal experiences on hundreds of topics. Each story has a transcript you can follow along with. The home page holds the most recent stories, but you can search for other topics you don't see at first. I searched for some very ordinary terms, e.g. childcare, safety, movie, dating. Each of those searches turned up more stories than I had time to listen to.
Speakers take care to talk at a leisurely pace and use clear diction. When a speaker uses an idiomatic expression a link pops up in the transcript. Click on that and an audio player pops up to give a concise definition. Here is a screen-grab of that audio player:

It's easy to pause the story for a quick explanation of the new vocabulary term.

Mixer, according to the site, is " a listening activity that features six speakers. Each speaker answers the same question. Students can listen to the answers for fun or test their listening comprehension by answering the questions."

Game lets you test your listening comprehension by clicking on one of four pictures. I, a native speaker, made a few mistakes on that one. The fact that some of the people have Australian, French or other foreign accents adds a measure of difficulty to the challenge.

STeP resembles a Voice of America program in Special English. It features someone talking with careful English teacher diction about a topic. Listeners can participate in a timed comprehension quiz.

News features a cartoon newsreader who reads imaginary news stories. Her lips move and illustrations change behind her while she reads each piece. Interactive quizzes test what the listener has retained.

In most cases you can download the stories to your computer or iPod as MP3 files . I downloaded one three-minute file in less than half a minute. Tutors or teachers should be able to download these audio files and give them to their students on CDs as homework, or simply as something to listen to while they drive to work or do the dishes. I often assert that homework is anything that gets your learner exposure to English between lessons. For those who don't have ready access to a computer with broadband, the public libraries are a great option. Elllo is here, its fun, it's rich with stories. I hope you get a chance to look at it.

Soap and Water

2009-11-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

I learned something very important during October, also known as Health Literacy Awareness Month. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA asserts that frequent and effective hand washing is the single most important factor in avoiding the flu. Most diseases, they say, are spread by hand contact.

Of course, good washing also helps prevent other infectious diseases such as coughs and colds. Here is a link to a video for you to watch on your own and/or with your learner. The health educators on the clip speak slowly and clearly and the images help a lot.

So, tutors and teachers, consider a field trip to the sink with your learners. The embedded video suggests washing for the time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice, which for me takes about fifteen seconds. Grade schools sometimes suggest the alphabet-in English, of course. What song can you come up with to keep your learner in the sudsy for the full fifteen seconds? My latest idea is to try doing an alphabet with some phonetic key words. You can print this list on a card and use it if you like:

A ant, B bag, C cat, D dab, E egg, F full, G go, H hand, I ill, J jar, K kid, L lip, M man, N nut, O on, P pill, Q queen, R rug, S suds, T tub, U up, V van, W wash, X ax, Y yellow, Z zipper

I kept the words limited to fairly concrete, easy-to-picture things for the most part, and you may notice that almost all the vowels are short. Short vowels are harder than long and need more reinforcement. As always, thanks for teaching someone.

Taboo, Taboo

2009-09-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today's tip comes from brand new Literacy Network Tutor, Marjorie Matthews. In pre-service training last week she talked about her experience using the board game "Taboo" to build vocabulary and descriptive speaking skills. I asked her to write it up as a tip for you and she kindly obliged.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, "Taboo" is a word game that challenges players to guess what word is on a card that a player called the giver is holding. He or she gives clues but must not use any of taboo words also on the card. For instance, one card may have a word like tobacco but the giver would be fobidden to use the words smoke, cigarette, chew, cigar or pipe to describe it. It stimulates learners to find ways to work around a vocabulary gap, How much fun is it? Boatloads. Here's how Marjorie does it:

It had occurred to me that the game Taboo could be a fun way for my Saudi friends to learn some new words, so I took the game to their home. We did not "play" the game, but used the cards. First we talked about the meaning of the word "taboo." Then we went through some of the cards one by one. The word at the top of each card has five words underneath that are all closely related and act as clues to the meaning.

So either they would look at the "clues" and try to guess at the meaning of the word, or I would explain the meaning and they and I would discuss how the five clue words relate. Sometimes this got into culture, for example, the word tuxedo was followed by formal, prom, jacket, rent and wear, and we talked about prom (a uniquely American thing.) The word bench was followed by sit, play, judge, seat, and park.

After we played, I noticed that my learner used some of the words, which had been new words for him. He had written a story about walking by Lake Mendota, and didn't know the word bench, and replaced "wooden chairs" in his essay with benches. I think they enjoyed learning new words this way. It is always nice to try to think of new ideas and approaches to make learning fun. Pictionary cards might work too - except they have unrelated words, which don't act as clues.

Kudos and a big thank-you to Marjorie Matthews, This Week's Favorite Tutor!

On-Line Dictionary

2009-08-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

Here is something new for you: an on-line dictionary for learners of English. Merriam Webster's Learner's Dictionary (click here for a link to the site) holds 3,000 of the most essential words a learner needs to get by as a second-language speaker. It also has audio of the word being read aloud. This can also be helpful for the native speaker who needs help figuring out the connection between how a word is written and how it sounds.

Users may look up any word they need and save it to their personal dictionary for future reference. There are several very nice things about this idea. First, there are some words a reader just keeps coming back to. For instance, I can't tell you how many times I have had to look up the word inchoate. It sometimes takes several repetitions to get a word down pat. And second, a learner can see his or her personal lexicon grow over time. Words can be added or removed from the learner's dictionary with the click of a button. Within a minute I had a personal dictionary that included the literal meanings of the words truth, bend and whopper, but also included the phrases to bend the truth and to tell a whopper. Mastering idioms like these two helps a second language learner sound more natural. Besides, it brings a lot of fun to language learning.
Additionally, the website will read aloud any words you ask it to. I like this idea for both ESL and basic literacy learners and for that matter, for tutors who need to settle arguments about how words are pronounced. I found, for instance, a good example for the pronunciation of the nearly unspellable words inchoate and ophthalmology.

New Resources in Literacy Network's Library

2009-07-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

I’m writing to inform you of some of the good things that have come to Literacy Network. These resources live in our library. Some will go out for one-month loan and some are free for the taking. Let’s run down what you will find next time you visit our library.

News For You – This news weekly, printed by New Readers Press, comes tailored for beginning readers of English. Both English Second Language and Adult Basic Literacy learners will find up-to-date stories about the issues of the day. This week’s issue addresses national health care legislation and France’s cultural issues with immigrants, as well as human interest stories. All of its content is written at about a third grade level, easy enough for most beginners to follow but still informative. We get 50 copies per week, so anyone who needs one should be able to find a copy on the library's check-in table.
Hands-On English – A bimonthly publication for English second language tutors and teachers has helpful techniques and games. Each issue also has a reproducible multi-level dictation. You will find it in a white binder on the check-in table .
Patterns In Spelling – This old standby teaches spelling using word families in a way that organizes and makes sense of English spelling. It is great for both ESL and ABE. A grant from New Readers Press has made it possible for us to buy updated copies to replace worn ones in our library.
Future Intro, English for Results – We have books one through five in this series. Each one comes with an audio cassette to give learners something to practice with between lessons.
English for Everyday Activities Audio CDs – Clear-voiced models read the descriptions of activities pictured in the books of the same title. They include getting on the bus, making a salad or cleaning the house. The pleasant voices are accompanied sometimes with dialog and sound effects, such as vacuum cleaners or someone saying ‘Yecch, this cucumber is mushy!’ When you hear everything read together it has the pleasant effect of someone reading a bedtime story.

Please come down and see what you can use. Thanks for teaching someone.

Onset and Rime But No Ancient Mariner

2009-07-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Onset and rime is a common practice in teaching people to read with phonics. It helps students learn to blend the sounds by giving them the first sound, such as /h/ and then blending on short endings, such as ug, um, un, ub to make hug, hum, hun and so on. You can find books in the Literacy Network library that practice it, including Focus on Phonics (Gail Rice, New Readers Press, 1979) and Patterns In Spelling (Tim Brown & Deborah Knight, New Readers Press, 1990). These time-tested resources can be found in local libraries as well. They are appropriately aimed at adult learners.

You may find other resources as well, some of them pitched at a younger audience. Many of us also remember 'The Electric Company' TV show from the 1970s. They frequently featured videos of people blending sounds. Lisa Hepburn, Madison Public Schools Resource Teacher described them as 'the ones with the profiles of people's heads and the word chunks flying visibly out of their mouths.' I like Lisa's description but would have more simply called it a multi-sensory approach to onset-rime practice. Here’s a link that will take you to ten such videos: www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=electric+company+blending&aq=f.

An internet search for resources in onset-rime practice will turn up loads of material, much of which is aimed at children. If you choose to use 'Electric Company' skits exactly as you find them, consider your learner's style of learning. Ask yourself whether he or she would enjoy working with them or would find them too childish. And ask your learner, too. Even if you do not use them in class, watching them can give you a feel for how to make onset-rime practice light, rhythmic and fun.

A few weeks back I gave everyone the Literacy Network's delicious.com link which now has 72 bookmarks. I have put together a collection of five helpful websites with games, worksheets and general information for teaching onset-rime and other phonics skills for grown-ups:

http://delicious.com/Literacy_Network/onset-rime.

I hope you find them useful.