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ESOL 4010B/6010B: Applied
Linguistics for ESOL
Fall 2009 | WH 306 | 3:30-4:45 PM Dr. Lee Campbell Office: WH 216 1. COURSE DESCRIPTION: A study of the nature, structure, and diversity of language, emphasizing the phonological, syntactic, and semantic patterns of English in comparison and contrast with features of other selected languages. Prospective teachers will explore the principles of linguistic systems and major theorists and schools of linguistic thought in anticipation of working with communities of non-native English speakers. 2. OUTCOMES: Students who successfully complete ESOL 4010 will
i.
Demonstrate knowledge of the nature and
structure of language, including general principles and terminology of
linguistics.
ii.
Demonstrate understanding of language
varieties.
iii.
Analyze how learners acquire English, both as
a first language and as a second language.
iv.
Apply what they learn to language issues in
teaching English to speakers of other languages. Students who successfully
complete ESOL 6010 will—in addition to the outcomes above—
v.
Demonstrate an understanding of a line of research on
second language acquisition by submitting an annotated bibliography of
articles or book chapters relating to some aspect of the linguistic analysis,
e.g., acquisition of vocabulary, communicative competence, some aspect of
classroom instruction. Some of these
secondary sources will then be referenced in the written project in order to
strengthen its analysis. 3. ESOL STANDARDS: ESOL 4010/6010 is one of the three required courses offered by VSU for Georgia's ESOL Endorsement. Applied Linguistics directly addresses the following standards for ESOL programs developed by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, rule 505-3-.18. a. prepare candidates who know, understand and use the major
concepts, theories, and research related to the nature and acquisition of
language to construct learning environments that support ESOL students'
language and literacy development and content area achievement. b. prepare candidates who demonstrate understanding of
language as a system and demonstrate a high level of competence in helping
ESOL students acquire and use English in listening, speaking, reading, and
writing for social and academic purposes. c.
prepare candidates who understand and apply concepts,
theories, research, and practice to facilitate the acquisition of a primary
and a new language in and out of classroom settings. d. prepare candidates who know, understand and use
standards-based practices and strategies related to planning, implementing,
and managing ESL and content instruction, including classroom organization,
teaching strategies for developing and integrating language skills, and
choosing and adapting classroom resources. e.
prepare
candidates who demonstrate knowledge of the history of ESL teaching; keep
current with new instructional techniques, research results, advances in the
ESL field, and public policy issues; such information to reflect upon and
improve their instructional practices; and provide support and advocate for
ESOL students and their families and work collaboratively to improve the
learning environment. f.
prepare candidates who demonstrate knowledge of history,
research, and current practice in the field of ESL teaching and apply this
knowledge to improve teaching and learning. g.
prepare candidates who serve as professional resources,
advocate for ESOL students, and build partnerships with students' families. 4. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK STANDARDS: ESOL 4010/ESOL 6010 is taught in accordance with the following College of Education's conceptual framework standards (CFSs):
I.
CONTENT
AND CURRICULUM: Teachers demonstrate a strong content knowledge of
content area(s) that are appropriate for their certification levels.
II.
KNOWLEDGE
OF STUDENTS AND THEIR LEARNING: Teachers support the intellectual,
social, physical, and personal development of all students.
III.
LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS: Teachers create learning environments that encourage positive
social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
IV.
PROFESSIONALISM:
Teachers recognize, participate in, and contribute to teaching as a
profession. 5. PRINCIPLES: LING 4000/ENGL 6000 is taught in accordance with the following guiding principles of Georgia teacher education programs: · Dispositions Principle: Productive dispositions positively affect learners, professional growth, and the learning environment. · Equity Principle: All learners deserve high expectations and support. · Process Principle: Learning is a lifelong process of development and growth. · Ownership Principle: Professionals are committed to, and assume responsibility for, the future of their disciplines. · Support Principle: Successful engagement in the process of learning requires collaboration among multiple partners. · Impact Principle: Effective practice yields evidence of learning. · Technology Principle: Technology facilitates teaching, learning, community-building, and resource acquisition · Standards Principle: Evidence-based standards systematically guide professional preparation and development.
The study of linguistics--and especially the study of language variation and acquisition--has historically been highly sensitive to the role of teacher disposition in language learning. Linguistics strongly advocates an objective approach to language free from preconceptions and prejudice. 6. MATERIALS AND REQUISITES: Two textbooks are required:
In addition, students will be required to read and understand the English Language Proficiency standards written by the WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment) Consortium at < http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.aspx>: ·
Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A
Resource Guide, pages RG9-RG33, at <http://www.wida.us/standards/Resource_Guide_web.pdf>. ·
Performance Definitions for WIDA's Levels of English
Language Proficiency at <
http://www.wida.us/standards/RG_Performance%20Definitions.pdf> ·
English Language Proficiency Standards for English
Language Learners in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 at < http://www.wida.us/standards/PreK-5%20Standards%20web.pdf> ·
English Language Proficiency Standards for English
Language Learners in Grade 6 through Grade 12 at < http://www.wida.us/standards/6-12%20Standards%20web.pdf> Last, students will need to possess or be able to access the technology enabling them to take quizzes and complete a final exam on BlazeView, VSU’s online instructional medium. BlazeView will also be used to submit the observation of an ELL and draft portions of the linguistic analysis. 7. LIVETEXT: All students must have access to LiveText,
which will be used by the instructor to assess the course's written project,
the linguistic analysis. Access to LiveText can be
purchased at the VSU bookstore. Linguistic
analyses must be uploaded to LiveText in order to
be assessed: ESOL candidates who don't post their analyses to LiveText will lose 50 of 100 possible points. 8. ASSIGNMENTS, POINTS, AND GRADING: Class members will be scored on the following assignments:
Final grades for the course will be determined on the following 100-point scale (attendance is worth 5 points—see below):
In order to receive a C in the course, members need to complete the proposal for the linguistic analysis, the linguistic analysis, and the observation of an ELL. And, again, the linguistic analysis must be uploaded to LiveText in order to be assessed. Assignments will be graded on a 5-increment numerical scale according to which
This is not a percentage system; for example, if you score .6 out of 1 on a quiz, BlazeView will report that you got 60%. That’s a C according to this grading system, not an F. 9. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: To plagiarize is to "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source" (Merriam-Webster). Students are expected to quote, paraphrase, and cite sources properly in written materials. Plagiarism is plagiarism whether intended or accidental, so members should ask questions if they need to. Students may study together for quizzes and may consult with one another for the analysis, but in the end they must complete their assignments individually and must not pass off another's work as their own. 10. LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS AND PROPOSAL: Every member of ESOL 4010/6010 must at least complete a proposal for a linguistic analysis, the analysis itself, and the observation of an ELL in a classroom. In general, linguistics is the objective study of language, but in practice it's usually the objective study of some relatively small piece of language or relatively small set of pieces of language. The linguistic analysis assignment is basically this: interact with an English language learner (not necessarily in a school setting), transcribe a portion of the learner’s language (in conversation with you), and describe the learner’s language in the objective terms of linguistics. The ELL must be a PK-12 student at any level (PreK-K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, or 9-12). Students simply engage the learner in conversation—as a part of conversation practice for the student or as a part of tutoring the student. Record a portion of this conversation and transcribe this, about 10-20 minutes of it. Then analyze the salient linguistic features of the transcribed portion, as well as any other features you might have noticed elsewhere. Students might also want to examine written materials produced by the learner or have the learner read an appropriate passage and perform some language function with respect to it. Examine carefully chapters four and five of the HLL text and read the appropriate WIDA standards for the student selected for the analysis. The conversation in which you engage with the ELL may be more or less academic: you may use it to ascertain the social-conversational proficiency of the ELL, and/or you may wish to investigate an area of academic language use that WIDA describes: language arts, mathematics, social studies, or science. The specifics of the final written analysis will be presented and discussed in class. Suffice it to say here that students will describe the background of the human subject whose language is to be analyzed and then analyze salient features of the learner’s language: segmental and suprasegmental phonology, morphology, syntax, idiomatic language/communicative competence, and vocabulary. See below the scoring rubric for the analysis of learner language. It’s important that all students immediately start the process of finding ELLs to work with for their analysis and observation. The proposal for the linguistic analysis--in which students discuss the student whose language they will analyze--is due about a month after classes start. Depending on the specific circumstances of your ELL, you might need to get permission from the ELL’s teacher and guardian(s). A draft of the transcription is then due about a month later. Do give yourself plenty of time to do well on this assignment. 11. OBSERVATION OF ELL(s): Candidates ESOL endorsement must during their three courses obtain field experience at all PK-12 levels. To help fulfill this requirement, students must schedule observational visits to an ESOL classroom or a classroom in which an English language learner is mainstreamed at a PK-12 level different from the one of their subject for the linguistic analysis: PreK-K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, or 9-12. Members should complete at least five hours of observation and take notes on the salient linguistic features of the classroom (again, see chapters four and five in the Lightbown and Spada text on ESOL classroom observation, and read the appropriate WIDA standards for the student chosen for observation). Students will edit the notes, add some reflections, and post them to BlazeView late in the term. This document is relatively brief, perhaps three to four pages. For both the linguistic analysis and the observation, students are responsible for locating ELLs. Often the best way to find ELLs with whom to work is to contact elementary, middle, or high schools directly, explain that you are working on your endorsement, and ask if you can tutor or engage a student in English conversation for practice. Schools are usually happy to give people a chance to help their English language learners. The instructor will provide students with a letter supporting your request. Notes on the observation of an ELL
aren’t due until the end of the course, but the instructor strongly
encourages students to complete the observation long before that due date. 12. DRAFTS OF PORTIONS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS: As students draft their linguistic analyses, the instructor will invite students to post drafts of portions to BlazeView. These are optional drafts, but they are strongly encouraged and will be awarded 2.5 points each if they seem to the instructor to be bona fide attempts at the target. The instructor will either make individual or group comments on the drafts. These, then, are formative assessments. 13. QUIZZES: There will be 15 quizzes posted on BlazeView to reinforce key concepts from readings. These objective quizzes will be worth 1 point each and must be taken by the deadline (there will be no excuses as answers will be provided as soon as the quizzes are scored). Do these quizzes individually: do not collaborate. Certainly class members may study together, but don’t collaborate on the quizzes. 14. LECTURES, EXERCISES, AND ATTENDANCE: As the schedule below indicates, the instructor anticipates running the course in a two-part system: the instructor will (almost always on Thursdays) introduce an area of linguistics with a lecture (with questions and discussion as well). Then Tuesdays will be devoted to in-class exercises and activities designed to bring concepts to life and test students’ understanding of readings. Because much of the material in an introductory linguistics course strikes students as new and difficult, faithful attendance is crucial, and students will be awarded up to 5 points for it on this scale: 0-2 absences: 5 points; 3 absences: 4 points; 4 absences: 2 points. There are no excused absences. 15. EXTRA CREDIT POINTS: Because the course has much to cover, it will spend only two weeks introducing English and contrastive phonology and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This isn’t enough time for students to master the IPA, so the class will continue to work on the IPA throughout the term. The instructor will provide words to transcribe into IPA, and students who wish to continue to practice their transcribing skills will submit their attempts weekly (via BlazeView) for extra credit/make-up points. In order to complete International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) exercises on Word and in order to use IPA symbols in their linguistic analyses, students must choose Lucida Sans Unicode for their font. Lucida Sans Unicode provides access to all the consonant and vowel symbols (IPA symbols and alternates) students might need in transcriptions. Other fonts—the instructor believes—aren’t complete. 16. GRADUATE STUDENTS: As
outcome v. above indicates, graduate students (enrolled in ESOL 6010) are
required to complete an annotated bibliography of articles or book chapters
on a line of research in second language acquisition. This must be submitted as a part of the
linguistic analysis and will be scored with the last two criteria in the
scoring rubric (see below). Depending on the length of the
chapters and articles annotated, the bibliography should include eight to
twelve items. Alphabetize entries
according to the last name of the first author, provide the full
bibliographic information in either MLA or APA form, and then present a 100-
to 200-word summary of the most salient points of the work with respect to this course’s linguistic
analysis and/or the observation of the ELL: concentrate on what the
chapter or article has to say about PK-12 ELLs. Some of these sources may be cited in the linguistic analysis and listed in the works cited (MLA) or list or references (APA). 17. CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION: Students can communicate with the instructor in a number of different ways: ·
Students may
meet with the instructor during his office hours or by appointment. The instructor lives in the Tampa Bay area,
so he is usually on campus only T, W, and R. ·
For private
communications (private questions, problems, emergencies, and so on),
students may use his BlazeNet email account (address at top of this
syllabus)--not BlazeView mail. ·
For questions
about the course, its requirements, and assignments--questions that other
students might be interested in--the instructor will create a discussion area
on BlazeView. Please use the discussion area (not the instructor’s BlazeNet
email) if you have a question about the course that doesn’t concern a private
matter. Other students might benefit from reading the reply. ·
The proposal
and drafts will be posted to discussion boards on BlazeView. The instructor will comment there and
students may reply. ·
For extra
credit work, the instructor will ask that students submit transcriptions by
attachment via BlazeView mail. Use a Word document—not Works—in Lucida Sans
Unicode font. The instructor will post answers to BlazeView. ·
The instructor
will create a gradebook on BlazeView in which
students will be able to check their scores on the various assignments as
they are released. Just click on My Grades. ·
Students must
upload their linguistic analysis to LiveText at the
end of the term in order for it to be assessed according to the scoring
rubric below. 18. TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: The following schedule of readings and due dates is tentative; class members are expected to keep up with changes announced in class. How English Works is abbreviated HEW; How Languages Are Learned is abbreviated HLL.
19. SCORING RUBRIC FOR
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS: The following rubric will be used to score the
linguistic analysis. Its criteria are
based on the WIDA performance definitions for levels of English language
proficiency. |
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20. ACCESS: Class members requiring
course accommodations or modifications because of a documented disability
should discuss this need with the instructor at the beginning of the
semester. Class members who require assistance but who are not registered
with the Special Services Program should contact the Access Office. |
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