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    How To Write ESOL Materials
    How To Write ESOL Materials
    How To Write ESOL Materials
    Ebook166 pages1 hour

    How To Write ESOL Materials

    By Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

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    About this ebook

    How to Write ESOL Materials by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is the latest addition to ELT Teacher 2 Writer’s series of How To ebooks for ELT writers. The author considers the specific characteristics of a range of ESOL teaching and learning settings, and explores the implications of these for the development of learner-centred resources. The main approach to materials development takes the context-specific needs of learners as the starting point, and will be relevant to ESOL practitioners working with refugees and migrants in all English-speaking countries, not just in the UK.
    There are activities and commentaries on developing resources for mainstream ESOL classes, ESOL museum resources, resources to support voluntary one-to-one ESOL sessions and prison ESOL. There are also sections on how to design online resources for learners with emerging digital literacies, and on creating materials that are inclusive.
    It’s an informal and practical guide to materials development that uses case studies, anecdotes and interviews with practitioners, as well as academic research, to suggest a plethora of creative ideas for writing materials for publication, and for the classroom. Along the way you’ll discover nuggets of information, such as what it means to be ‘ghosted’ in prison, how women ward off post-natal depression in traditional Palestinian culture and how you should respond if a Brazilian gives you a ‘yellow smile’.
    All royalties are being donated to the Refugee Council.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherELT
    Release dateSep 12, 2015
    ISBN9781310531484
    How To Write ESOL Materials

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      Book preview

      How To Write ESOL Materials - Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

      About The Author

      I’m a freelance writer and editor in print and digital media, and have worked in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) for 18 years. My first degree was in Russian. Then I did an MA in Social Research, specialising in migration and went on to study for a PGCE at the UCL Institute of Education when I was in my 20s. Following this, I managed the Language Centre at the University of Greenwich and have subsequently taught EFL in Spain, EAP at the University of Bristol and ESOL in a range of community settings.

      I started out in publishing in 2002 by writing A level Spanish textbooks, and I got my first break in writing for ELT when I was an ESOL tutor for Bristol Community Education Service. I was commissioned by Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery to produce materials for ‘The Stuff of Life’: a National Gallery touring exhibition. The Museum wanted to have a more inclusive reach and won Heritage Lottery funding to create resources that could be used to draw ESOL classes out of the classroom and into the museum.

      A few years ago I decided to take the plunge, go freelance and start writing full-time. I’ve been working as a freelance consultant for the British Council for two years, first as a Resource Specialist and soon after I started doing that, I took on the role of a Project Coordinator, commissioning and editing resources for the British Council’s ESOL Nexus website. The resources span a range of projects including low level and beginner’s ESOL, and materials to support ESOL teachers in prisons. The role involves writing, commissioning and editing lesson plans, interactive CPD modules, teacher’s packs, online self-access resources using authoring tools, and writing scripts for the original videos embedded in these. I worked for eight months on the ESOL Offender Learning project, which involved visiting prisons and running workshops for ESOL practitioners in custodial settings.

      I’ve also been working concurrently as a digital and print author for Oxford University Press for several years. I’ve authored materials for the Oxford Online Skills Program, shortlisted for the 2014 English-Speaking Union’s President’s Award, other online practice materials that support market-leading ELT course books published by Oxford University Press and an A1 level student workbook.

      If you would like to get in touch, please email k.aldridgemorris@live.co.uk

      Introduction And Aims

      What is ESOL?

      ESOL is distinct from other strands of English Language Teaching (ELT) and it also differs around the world. In the UK, ESOL means English for Speakers of Other Languages. ESOL learners are migrants settling and working in the UK, and comprise new arrivals as well as long-term residents.

      English language education for adult migrants in other English-language speaking countries such as the US, Canada and Australia is often described as ESL (English as a Second Language). Definitions are further muddied because this term also often encompasses what would be considered EFL provision in the UK; that is English as a Foreign Language for students on short-term study visas. The US website eslfocus.com describes the distinction as being:

      ESL – English as a second language – English language programs in English-speaking countries.

      EFL – English as a foreign language – English language programs in non-English-speaking countries.

      ESOL is different to other types of ELT provision in the extent to which it is determined by the socio- and geo-political context in which it is delivered. And this, of course, varies around the world too. The local ESOL classroom is impacted by global migration patterns and trends. For example, in the UK there has been an increase in the number of ESOL learners from EU accession countries (e.g. Poland and Hungary) in the past decade. The top two countries of origin and asylum in Australia in 2013 were Afghanistan and Syria (Refugee Council of Australia) and in the US the largest proportion of immigrants are from Mexico (Migration Policy Institute). And one current trend in Canada is that the government is actively recruiting healthcare professionals from India to meet a skills shortage in the healthcare system. So we see a varied ESOL landscape, with all sorts of factors in play.

      Therefore, while much of the focus of this module is on ESOL in the UK, the approach (which takes the context-specific needs of learners as the starting point) will be relevant to educationalists working in migration contexts in other English-speaking countries. I suggest that ESOL materials are most effective when they are designed to meet local needs, based upon a solid understanding of local teaching and learning contexts. By definition then, they won’t always have the global reach of for example, EFL materials that have been written for foreign students working towards internationally recognised qualifications. That said, migrants wanting to acquire English language skills, as part of the process of settling in their host country, will need to engage in the same types of language and literacy practices, and similarly need to learn how to deal with new systems, bureaucracies and institutions. You’ll be able therefore to take the underlying principles and apply them to migrant teaching and learning contexts outside the UK.

      ESOL materials

      ESOL materials come in a range of formats. They can be printed resources or online resources, lesson plans written for teachers to use in class, or to support informal learning outside the classroom, materials for one-to-one tuition, course books, CPD, self-study packs, online self-access learning objects, or apps. This module will explore some of the main issues related to writing for ESOL, by looking at the process of materials design for particular ESOL contexts.

      It’s an integrated skills approach and so the module is not organised around the development of discrete skills. I discuss how materials work well when developed in response to the needs of learners in specific ESOL settings. There are suggestions for tasks and activities which facilitate the kinds of interactions that allow for real language learning to happen.

      First and foremost I want this module to offer an overview of ESOL and practical ideas on how to write ESOL materials. For anyone wanting to delve deeper into the theories of second language acquisition or materials development, these will be signposted as we go along and there will be a full reference list. There will also be some overlap with the content in other modules in this series, and I will refer you to these too. This module will not explain how to write specific activity types, rather how to use your understanding of the different ESOL teaching and learning contexts to write materials that meet learner needs and to design online content that is accessible.

      The main aims of this module are

      - to consider the specific characteristics of a range of ESOL learning and teaching settings, and to explore the implications of these for the development of learner-centred resources.

      - to consider some overarching principles for the design of ESOL materials in the context of specific case studies.

      - to explore how ESOL differs from mainstream ELT and think about how these differences can inform our approach to writing.

      - to help you consider ways of evaluating the materials that already exist and using this as a starting point for your own materials development.

      -

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