9:30 - 10:00                                                                                                               

Why stay up all night grading? Teaching EAP student writers to use grammar feedback

Gretchen Owens                                                                            Room 202

Writing teachers spend an enormous amount of time giving EAP students feedback on, amongst many other aspects of their writing, grammar.   Many students, however, are unprepared to effectively harness that feedback to help them improve as writers.  As a result the fruits of teachers' long hours of work are often under utilized.  The presenter will address ways to encourage students to notice and use feedback about grammar on final drafts of written assignments.  Several easy to implement techniques that encourage student autonomy will be shown.

Engaging The Learner Through Literature

Tasha Wientjes and Christine Casper                                                Room 203

Would you like to learn more about how to incorporate literature into your ESL or EFL language classes?  The presenters will introduce engaging, student-centered activities and techniques that go beyond discussion questions to arrive at a deeper analysis and interpretation of literary texts.  In addition to providing a rationale and addressing potential difficulties, they will demonstrate how these techniques can be put into practice to promote an aesthetic response to literature, language awareness, and critical thinking skills. 

10:00 - 10:30                                                                                                             

Let's Have Fun with Grammar!

Yuko Ito & Akiko Nakano                                                                  Room 202

Students tend to get bored in grammar classes. However, teachers can make their grammar lessons more interesting and engaging for students through the use of comics as classroom materials. Comics provide short, authentic examples of language which can be examined for their creative use of particular grammatical structures. The presenters will discuss these and many other reasons comics are effective for grammar teaching and will introduce various activities that provide an interesting and motivating context from which to teach the three grammar dimensions of form, meaning, and use. They will also address difficulties with locating exploitable comics and provide some suggestions for solving these problems.

Paving the way for communication: Adaptation and elaboration of textbook activities

Benjamin Finateri                                                                             Room 121

Imagine you are hired to teach a class and you are required to use a textbook that you are unsure is ideal for your purposes.  Perhaps it fulfills some of your teaching needs, but it does not contain material that encourages communicative activities relevant to your students' needs.  Of course we've all been there or will be there someday.  The presenter will introduce ways to improve or elaborate upon basic textbook materials, making them consistent with your teaching goals.

Computers and Composition: Making the Connection

Tina Sander                                                                                         Room 203

As we head further into the 21st Century, we draw closer to the day

that computers will be fully integrated into the classroom. To help you prepare for this day, the presenter will reveal and introduce a resource, a web portfolio that her Computers and Composition class created (http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~eng708/), which includes software evaluations, article reviews, book summaries and responses, and useful links. The presenter will also briefly introduce and review software such as Daedalus and Inspiration.

10:30 - 11:00                                                                                                             

“So where do we start?  A beginner’s journey into critical pedagogy”

Clif Ross and Sandhya Adnepos                                                         Room 202

In the new millennium, critical pedagogy is increasingly viewed as a viable, if not necessary, alternative to traditional pedagogies. What is “critical pedagogy” and how can new teachers begin to apply it in the classroom? What are its benefits and drawbacks? The presenters will give a brief overview of the history and core issues of critical pedagogy, share their experiences of practicing critical pedagogy in the classroom, and offer some easy-to-use practical applications for classroom use.

Communicative Techniques and Activities for Low-Beginning ESL Learners

Elizabeth Porcella                                                                               Room 121

It is a challenging task for teachers to engage low-level ESL learners in communicative interaction. The presenter will discuss some guidelines and helpful tips for setting up communicative techniques and activities with low-beginning ESL learners in an adult education context. Communicative techniques and activities from the presenter’s experience, from interviews with ESL teachers in adult education and from research will be presented.

News Videos as a Useful EFL Teaching Aid: A Practical Presentation

Tomoko Kako & Tomoko Kawamata                                                            Room 203

Do you know the great advantages of authentic videotaped news in an EFL classroom? They bring an air of cultural reality and authentic English into your classroom, and enable you to teach four skills of English. The presenters will jointly present the advantages of using news videos as well as criteria for material selections. There will also be a demonstration of a practical activity.

11:00 - 11:30                                                                                                             

Developing Cross-Cultural Awareness

Akane Tanaban                                                                                   Room 203

Developing cultural competence is an important yet neglected component of language learning, especially for EFL/ESL students who come from cultures very different than those of English speaking countries.  After a brief overview of language used to talk about cultural differences, the presenter will introduce an activity for an intermediate-level class to enhance students’ awareness of cultural differences; thus, building students’ critical awareness of culture, and at the same time increasing communicative competence.

11:30 - 12:00                                                                                                             

Generating Cross-Cultural Experiences from Literature for Older ESL Learners

Mavis (Yi-Fen) Chen                                                                           Room 202

What is one of the main purposes for older learners to learn a new language?  To socialize and share their experiences with others!  Stories provide older learners with good opportunities to acquire linguistic competence (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation) and generate discussions on the social and cultural issues raised by them. The presenter will demonstrate how stories can be used as a departure point to explore senior learners’ life journeys of cross-cultural experience. Examples will be given from a non-academic, high-intermediate ESL class at City College of San Francisco. 

1:30 – 2:00                                                                                                                 

TAs’ & ITAs’ Experience in Academic ESL composition Classes

Deborah Loue & Léa Wang                                                                Room 202

Have you ever wondered about or encountered difficulties as a teaching assistant in an ESL composition class? The presenters will report the results of a questionnaire given to American teaching assistants (TAs) and non-native speaker international teaching assistants (ITAs) in academic ESL composition classes at SFSU. The challenges they faced will be discussed and some practical suggestions for improvement will be also provided.

Teaching Metaphor in the ESL Classroom

Leslie Teruya                                                                                       Room 211

Cognitive linguistic research reveals that metaphor is natural and pervasive in all interaction. Awareness of conceptual metaphors - basic metaphors that underlie metaphoric expressions and many idioms - can be a valuable aid for ESL learners in understanding metaphoric expressions.  This presentation will explain how abstract concepts are understood through metaphoric mapping and how conceptual metaphors underlie most metaphoric expressions, according to conceptual metaphor theory. Some ideas for activities and techniques for the ESL classroom will be discussed.

Corpora and Concordancers in ESL/EFL Class: Truly Authentic Language for Class Activities

Erkan Karabacak                                                                               Room 203

A corpus is a body of authentic language, and concordancers are

search-engines that create a list of words in context from a corpus. Although many language teachers are not aware of the possibilities of using corpora and concordancers in class, these resources are very useful and can provide students with access to authentic language as well as help them become independent learners.  The presenter will briefly discuss corpora and concordancers and how they are a valuable foundation for designing activities.  Examples of activities will be shared.

2:00 - 2:30                                                                                                                 

Let’s give students a boost: Quick and easy activities you can do in 10 minutes

Rie Sato                                                                                               Room 202

What would you do if your class suddenly became quiet, with little interaction going on?  Or if you finished your lesson early without any backup activities planned?  In either case, you would have to come up with something that is interesting and stimulating for your students.  The speaker will present some communicative activities that will encourage students to interact with each other and develop oral fluency.  The activities are short and easy so you can use them with little preparation, either as a back-up, ice-breaker, or refreshment for your students.

Note taking for academic success

Noriko Nishimoto                                                                               Room 211

Have you ever dropped your jaw when you saw how your students take notes? Scribbling, chicken scratch, unimportant words … no key words or important points!  If you’re skeptical about your students’ note taking abilities, why not attend this workshop to learn how to teach these skills explicitly?  Help your students overcome note-taking handicaps by teaching verbal and non-verbal cues that English speakers use in lectures.  You’ll learn specific teaching methods used in an intermediate ESL classroom.

TPR Storytelling: A Creative Method for Low-Beginning Level ESL Learners

Frank Lev                                                                                           Room 203

Teaching low beginning level English can be very challenging. TPR storytelling is a useful method well suited to low-level learners of all ages, which creatively incorporates group work and cooperative learning while developing the four skills. And it’s fun! The presenter will give an overview of this very detailed method of teaching English. The presentation will also explore ways to expand and apply the method including drama and video activities

2:30 – 3:00                                                                                                                 

“Chunking” Activities and Vocabulary Learning Strategies: A Practical Guide to Facilitating Vocabulary Acquisition

Sean M. Arnold                                                                                   Room 203

Research on second language vocabulary acquisition indicates that learners who use a variety of direct and indirect vocabulary learning strategies acquire vocabulary more effectively than learners who do not.  So, how can teachers train students to use more learning strategies to enhance vocabulary acquisition?  The presenter will briefly give an overview of language learning strategies.  Then, the presenter will demonstrate how “chunking” activities can be used to facilitate practice with vocabulary learning strategies.