College of Education and Human Development

A-Robinson Hall
Suite A-323
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
(voice) (703) 993-8136
(fax) 703 ) 993-3336
josterli@gmu.edu

Summer 2002

George Mason University
College of Education and Human Development

COURSE OUTLINE

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EDCI 516-601Examines research in first and second language acquisition, including the interaction of a bilingual person's two languages, with implications for the classroom.

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Course Delivery:

The seminar format of EDCI 516-601 requires the active participation of all students. As an experiential course, it is structured around discussion and small group activities. Therefore, it is critical that all students keep up with the readings and actively participate in class. Students should be prepared to discuss the content of the readings in relation to teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students in grades PK-12, as well as to ask questions for clarification, exploration, or discussion.

In order to meet the needs of varied learning styles and needs, EDCI 516-601 uses a combination of instructional methods and technologies. These methods include: instructor-guided presentations (i.e., lectures assisted by PowerPoint or other visuals); student-guided presentations; video presentations; case studies; facilitated discussions that promote critical thinking; cooperative learning (i.e., small group structure emphasizing learning from and with others); collaborative learning (i.e., heterogeneous groups in an interdisciplinary context); and guest lectures; as well as the use of the Blackboard 5 web-based software.

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Students With Special Needs:

Students with disabilities that affect their ability to fully participate in the course or who require special accommodations are encouraged to advise the instructor in order to ensure their successful participation in this course.

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Course Outcomes:

At the conclusion of EDCI 516-601, students will be able to demonstrate:

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Relationship to Program Goals and Professional Organizations:

The relationship of EDCI 516-601 to GMU-GSE program goals includes the following:

EDCI 516-601 follows the guidelines and recommendations made by the:

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Standards

The following standards aim to provide consistency in teacher education programs across the United States in terms of what ESL teachers need to know and be able to do - that is, the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are essential for the effective teaching of culturally and linguistically diverse students.

INTASC standards
INTASC standards for teacher licensure represent those principles that should be present in all teaching environments, regardless of the subject or grade level, and serve as a framework for the systemic reform of teacher preparation and professional development programs.

TESOL's ESL Performance-Based Standards for P-12 Teacher Education Programs serve as a bridge to the general education standards expected of all students in the United States. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the TESOL Board of Directors approved the P-12 ESL Teacher Standards in October 2001. This 2-year project, chaired by Lydia Stack, this 2-year project is now being prepared for publication and implementation. The standards cover five domains:

1. Professionalism (i.e., understanding the nature of of L2 teaching as part of and in relation to the broader community, the broader teaching community.
2. Language (i.e., an understanding of what language is and how it is used).
3. Culture (i.e., understanding who ESL students are and how their communities, heritages, and goals shape learning and their experiences in learning).,
4. Instruction (i.e., understanding what occurs in the classroom setting and how to collaborate with with content-area teachers),
5. Assessment (i.e., using knowledge and student performance to make decisions about future planning and instruction).

TESOL's Vision of Effective Education for All Students

In addition, TESOL's vision of effective education for all students includes:

• Native-like levels of proficiency in English.
• The maintenance and promotion of ESL students' native languages in school and community contexts.
• All educational personnel assume responsibility for the education of ESL students.

The availability and access to first-rate services for ESL students. Effective education also calls for comprehensive provision of first-rate services and full access to those services by all students.

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Course Requirements:

EDCI 516-601 will meet face-to-face and will confer on-line (via electronic discussion list) at http://blackboard.gmu.edu/

EDCI 516-601 requires to:

EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN course requirements will be met as follows:

Schedule

EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN
Summer 2002

Required Texts:

Baker, C. (2002). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (3rd ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Collier, V.P. (1995). Promoting academic success for ESL students: Understanding second language acquisition for school. Woodside, NY: Bastos Educational Books.

Recommended Manual:

American Psychological Association (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

All papers and professional writing in the GMU's College of Education and Human Development should follow the APA Style Manual.

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FIELD PROJECT

Date Due: Seventh Session

Project Objectives:

The purpose of this project is to analyze second language acquisition patterns among EFL/ ESL/ FL learners. This project is appropriate for all EDCI 516-601 students, whether currently teaching or not. It requires no prior knowledge of linguistics.

The field project component of EDCI 516-601 is designed so that you begin to engage in active inquiry about teaching, one that requires you to think about teaching in the second language classroom (ESL/ EFL/ FL) and the students with whom you are working. It will help you develop a perspective that will contribute to your professional identity.

This project observes the following INTASC standards:

Standard 3, Diverse Learners
"The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to learners from diverse cultural backgrounds and with exceptionalities."

Standard 3.10 Knowledge: 3.13
"The teacher knows about the process of second language acquisition and about strategies to support the learning of students whose first language is not English."


Project Guidelines

1. Students will take a 4 to 10 minutes audio language sample from an ESL/ EFL/ FL learner from any age or grade level by using sequence cards or any other activity to elicit language production. Make sure to identify the language sample.
2. Students will transcribe the language sample exactly as it was spoken (verbatim). This transcription does not have to be in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
3. Students will prepare a thorough analysis of language acquistion patterns based on the assessment of the language sample. In conducting your analysis you may want to review:
   1. Fairfax County Public School's Oral Proficiency Scoring Rubric;
   2. San Jose Unified School District Student Oral Language Observation Matrix (SOLOM);
   3. Ask NCBE No. 25: Which tests are commonly used to determine English and/or Spanishc language proficiency?
4. Students will include an exploratory action plan to correct possible language difficulties. This consists of materials and activities to address for language weaknesses, an assessment of the experience, and a reflection on the process and its implications for teaching.

Suggested Format:

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Classroom Lesson Plan
Due Date: Last Day of Class

Project Objectives:

Students working as members of collaborative teams will develop lesson plans based on both a specific, selected communicative language method for teaching an EFL/ ESL/ FL lesson, and a primary language subject matter lesson that is taken from the appropriate grade level curricular framework and linked to the ESL lesson objectives. This project will be posted on Blackboard 5 and presented to the class.

Project Guidelines:

For examples of communicative language methods, read "Communicative language teaching: An introduction and sample activities," which is located at:

http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/gallow01.html.

After selecting the communicative EFL/ ESL/ FL method, students must read two articles on the EFL/ ESL/ FL method. A brief review of each article you read must accompany a copy of the written group lesson plans to be submitted to the instructor.

Each team is to develop one EFL/ ESL/ FL lesson plan that is both age and grade appropriate and will link the subject matter of the lesson to the L2 lesson.

Team members should be prepared to discuss how the subject matter lesson is linked to the L2 lesson. Enough copies of the lesson plan (reviews of articles not included) for each member of the class must be made. Lesson plans should be comprehensive, i.e. thorough enough that class members can replicate submitted lessons in their own instructional environments.

Students will receive a group grade for the lesson plan, with all members of the group receiving the same grade. Individual grades will be given for article reviews.

Suggested Format:

How long is the class? What if they are not teaching? What should be included on the handout? How long should the article review be? What type of article should they look for?age subject matter lesson that is both age and grade appropriate and will link the subject matter of the lesson to the L2 lesson. Team members should be prepared to discuss how the subject matter lesson is linked to the L2 lesson. Enough copies of the lesson plan (reviews of articles not included) for each member of the class must be made. Lesson plans should be comprehensive, i.e. thorough enough that class members can replicate submitted lessons in their own instructional environments.

A "group grade" will be assessed for the two lesson plans, all team members receiving the same grade. Individual grades will be given for "reviews of articles".

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REFLECTIVE PAPER

GUIDELINES FOR EDCI 516-601
Last Day of Class

Project Context and Goals:

It is essential that international teachers in the field of second language education (ESL, FL, EFL) remain current on the research regarding second language acquisition in order to inform their teaching practice with the most recent methodologies. By conducting this research project and recording their findings and reflections, students will complement the course work and become more familiar with topics of particular personal/ professional interest in second language acquisition. Students will become familiar with the use of both traditional and computer-based resources.

EDCI 516-601 Reflective Paper:

The focus paper for this course is designed to help you to be a critical and sophisticated consumer of research on second language acquisition. A focus paper is a shortened literature review that might be done as the first step in reflecting on your own classroom practices as a teacher, or conducting a research study, on a topic of interest to you. Each of the readings for this course presents a literature review, synthesizing a wide variety of studies on the topic of focus.

Your task for the short focus paper is to create your own research synthesis, by critically analyzing the sources that you have read on the topic. Through this analysis of some of the research on a given topic, you will become more aware of both the knowledge base to date and the limits of the research on that topic. You will include reflections on possible implications of the research for your own classroom. No matter what the topic is, much more research needs to be conducted in order to understand how we humans acquire language. This paper will provide experience with what is expected in good academic writing at the graduate level. The short focus paper should be approximately 8 - 12 pages, word-processed, double-spaced and follow APA Style (See below). A bibliography in APA Style is an integral part of the EDCI 516-601 reflective paper, as it is for all work submitted in the Graduate School of Education.

Directions:

SOURCES:

Traditional publication sources:

A minimum of TWO articles you review for this reflective paper should come from among a variety of print journals; try to include at least one article from a peer-reviewed research publication.

Journals for consideration may include: TESOL Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Studies in Second Language Acquisition Research, Bilingual Research Journal, Educational Leadership, AERA, Journal of Educational Research, Phi Delta Kappan, or others.

On-line sources:

A minimum of TWO additional articles should come from sources on the Internet. Conduct a net search on the web for information relevant to your topic.

Helpful sites include: http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ or the ERIC databases (accessible from the GMU Library homepage).

Helpful Hints for Writing a Short Focus Paper:

Organize your thoughts carefully before starting to write. I recommend an outline or web as one way to see how the sources that you have read are going to weave together. Your task is first to read all sources critically, and then to write an analysis that summarizes these readings into a critical synthesis.

Do not organize the focus paper around the references, by first discussing one author and in the next paragraph another author, and so forth. Instead, organize your focus paper around issues through which you can weave a number of sources together into the discussion of each issue. A useful technique is to use headings; many articles that you will read for this course are organized in this manner. Headings help the reader to identify the overall organization of your paper, and they help you as a writer to communicate what you intend to be the focus of each section. The final section of the paper will give you a chance to summarize your own reflections on research implications for classroom practices.

FYI Only: Titles of Past Reflective Papers

• A brief introduction to first language attrition.comprehensive look at foreign language anxiety:
• A new challenge for FL educators.
• Bilingual classrooms and instructional approaches to maintain bilingualism.
• Bilingual maintenance.
• Bilingualism and language impairment.
• Children growing up bilingually.
• Code-switching.
• English as a second language in Japan.
• ESL students with learning disabilities: Is there a misrepresentation?
• Finding a voice: Empowering parents of ESL students.
• How do I ensure academic success in second language learners?
• Implications of reading in the language acquisition process, specifically multicultural and bilingual literature.
• Instructional approaches in the L2 classroom.
• Language acquisition: From Pidginization to Creolization and beyond.
• Motivation and strategies for second language learning.
• Self-esteem and second language learner.
• The effectiveness of bilingual education.
• The politics of bilingual education.
• The role of comprehensible input in second language acquisition.
• Technology in the L2 classroom.
  
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15-HOUR FIELD EXPERIENCE
GUIDELINES

To be completed at an International School

Important Note:

• EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN has a 15-hour field experience requirement. This means that in addition to class work, each student must spend a minimum of 15 hours observing K-12 EFL/ ES/ FL classes at an International School;
• FAST TRAIN students must arrange for their own placements. The field experience is normally completed at the international school in which the FAST TRAIN student is teaching in a classroom other than their own, unless other arrangements are made with the instructor;
• It is possible to use one observation activity to satisfy the requirements for two or more FAST TRAIN courses as long as separate reports for each course are submitted.

Objectives:

As a result of this graduate course component, teachers working at international schools will:

1. Gain first-hand familiarity through field observations of L2 (e.g., EFL, FL) teaching roles, goals, methods, and curricula in elementary and secondary schools, and related educational facilities, including writing of field observation reports;
2. Observe the application of second language teaching strategies and methods embodied in the classroom procedures of the cooperating teachers.
3. Understand the multicultural/ multilingual dimensions and mandates of international schools, including addressing the learning needs of a culturally and linguistically diverse student body;
4. Develop the ability to think critically about current educational issues by analyzing advantages and disadvantages of certain educational approaches during school-based observation of lead teachers.
5. Will have opportunities to discuss their school-based observations with each other, practicing teachers, and university instructors, comparing and contrasting teaching methods and styles at different levels and with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.
6. Observe and gain valuable insight into:

Method:

As a requirement of the GMU Graduate School of Education, participants will engage in 15 hours of school-based field experiences. Students will engage in observations, interactions with students, and in teacher interviews in the school setting. A final written report should consist of three principle sections and be a total of 4-5 pages in length. Guidelines and suggested report format are described, as follows.

Report's Suggested Content and Format:

Following is the suggested format for accomplishing the written report that will accompany your field observations.

It is suggested that, in addition to a short introduction where you briefly describe the field setting, you have three (3) principle sections, as indicated in the sections numbered I, II, and III below.

Part One -- Narrative Report

Targeting your Observation Notes: Some Recommendations

The following guiding questions may serve to target your observation notes. Your written report should synthesize the information gleaned from your observations. You need not cover all the topics listed; they are merely guides for your observation notes:

The remaining observation time should be spent engaging in classroom interaction with the teacher and students. This is hopefully an interactive - rather than a passive - experience for you. Suggestions follow for some possible interactive experiences:

Lesson Observations/Teacher Interviews:

A. Describe briefly one of the lessons observed - Use the following guidelines to focus your notes (You do not have to answer all of the questions here):

1. Describe class - size, grade, subject, school, etc. How many FL/ ESL/ EFL and/or bilingual students were in the class?
2. What were the lesson's objectives? Were they posted for the students?
3. What are your objectives for today's lesson?
4. How do the objectives for today's lesson relate to the goals of the course?
5. How was the lesson introduced? Presented?
6. What instructional activities were used? How cognitively demanding were they? Were the activities context embedded, or context reduced? (Examples?)
7. What other instructional methods were used? (e.g. grouping).
8. What type of student/teacher interactions took place? (e.g., formal, informal, personal, direct, etc.)
9. Student/student interactions?
10. How did the teacher assess the students' second language acquisition?
11. What recognition, if any, was made for the following student characteristics and abilities:
    1. Prior knowledge, cultural and educational experience. How did the teacher connect students' prior knowledge, life experience, and interest with learning goals?
    2. Learning styles and strategies. What instructional strategies and resources did the teacher use to respond to students' diverse needs?
    3. Expectations/attitudes, confidence and initiative;
    4. Familiarity with the type of task?
    5. What resources were used to develop second language abilities? Instructional technology? Manipulatives?
    6. How did the teacher engagestudents in problem solving, critical thinking, and other activities that make subject matter meaningful.

B. Pre- and Post-Observation Teacher Interview -

Ask the Cooperating Teacher to conference about one of the EFL/ ELL/ FL lessons in order to ask her/him questions. For your planning purposes, a pre-observation interview may last 15-25 minutes, but you should be mindful of the teacher's time demands; the follow-up interview should only take 5-10 minutes. As you prepare for the interviews, you may want to use some of the questions below as a guide (add your own, or delete, as appropriate).

1. Pre-Observation Questions:
   1. How do you think children and adults best acquire/ learn a second language? (There are two extremes: learning rules, memorizing vocabulary, practicing correct grammar, etc. vs. focus on meaning and not language forms. Most teachers fall somewhere in between);
   2. What are your general SLA goals for your EFL/ ELL/ FL students? What skills and knowledge do you want them to develop? Are you following a standard curriculum for ELL/FL language development that contains goals and objectives?
   3. How do you like to present new material? What types of classroom activities do you prefer?
   4. How do you see your role in class? (In terms of a continuum between teacher-centered on one end, and student-centered on the other.)
   5. How do you see the role of students? How much responsibility do you provide for and expect of your students? Do you expect the same responsibility from each one?
   6. Do your students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds affect your teaching methods? If yes, in what ways?

2. In terms of the upcoming lesson:

   1. What is the objective of the lesson?
   2. What types of SLA strategies will you use with the ELL students?
   3. What types of assessment strategies will you use?
   4. What types of materials will you use?
3. Post-Observation:
   1. What was the teacher's impression of the lesson?
   2. Did s/he think the objectives were accomplished?
   3. Why or why not?

This final section provides you with the opportunity to draw together theory and practice by reflecting on the observations, activities and/or interviews. You should comment on how the information gleaned applies to second language acquisition research issues and practices we have examined and discussed in this course.

• What did you like most about this particular class and/or the instructor's teaching effectiveness?
• What specific suggestions would you make to improve this particular class and/or the instructor's teaching effectiveness?
• Did you learn anything in the pre- or post-observation sessions that influenced or modified
  your responses?
• Overall, how would you rate the instructor?

It is suggested that you select three or four issues and target your comments in order to avoid redundancy. As you think and write about these school-based activities, you should refer to the EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN readings and discussions. (For example, were they reflected in the lesson, or the teacher's belief system? How? How did this experience affect your own beliefs and future practices?)

This section will probably be one to one and a half pages. One paragraph should state how this knowledge may be applied to your current or future teaching situation.

BE SURE TO THANK THE TEACHER FOR HER/HIS TIME.

[Field Experience Reporting Form]
Upon Completion -- to be mailed or faxed to instructor

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Graduate School of Education
Center for Multilingual/ Multicultural Education
FAST TRAIN Program - MSN 4D1
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444

FIELD EXPERIENCE REPORTING FORM
EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN
Summer 2002

Name:

School:

City, Country:

Course: EDCI 516-601-FAST TRAIN

Title: Bilingualism and Language Acquisition Research

Professor: Jorge P. Osterling, Ph.D.

Clock Hours: 15

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Rubrics

Please use the following rubrics to assess and grade EDCI 516-601 course assignments. Please remember that you could also lose points in formatting (APA), grammar, mechanics, spelling.

Classroom and On-Line Participation Rubric
(20% of Grade)

Reflective Paper Rubric
(20 % of Grade)

Course Field Project Rubric
(30 % of Grade)

Classroom Lesson Rubric
(15 % of grade)

Field Experience/ Observation and Report Rubric
(15% of grade)