1
Tiina Hukari
Conference Report
May 8, 2008
On April 10-13, I attended the statewide California Teachers of English to Speaker of Other
Languages (CATESOL) Conference in Sacramento, CA. During three days of conferencing, I went
to seven different presentations, visited the publisher exhibits, and had lunch with friends from
graduate school and colleagues from Las Positas College. I had a blast! After getting my name tag
and bright yellow conference tote full of goodies, I was ready to tackle all the interesting
presentations I had chosen prior to arriving Sacramento. The following is a summary of each
presentation I went to.
Interactive Student Generated Speaking and Listening Activities by Sarah Young, Center for
Applied Linguistics
Although this presentation was geared toward adult school audience, I left the
presentation with full of great ideas. The presenter showed how she had used her own
classroom with students from variety of English abilities to create speaking and listening
activities in the classroom. She called this activity a “hot seat.” Each student got a turn in
front of a classroom to sit in a “hot seat.” While student was sitting in the “hot seat,” other
students were asking questions. The teacher sometimes guided the students by giving them a
grammar point to focus their questions on, but most often that was just to get the questioning
started. Sarah Young mentioned that she sat in the back of the room and did not get involved
unless someone did not understand a question or an answer. She wrote down all the
students’ questions during the activity. This is how she has created an amazing list of
different types of questions students themselves created. Yes, the teacher corrected the
students’ grammar when she typed the questions, but she did not in any other way alter the
questions. The presenter noted that many times the questions were related to age, native
country, and favorite school subject, but the questions got as creative as “How much did you
pay for your last haircut?”, “Do you like pupusas?”, and “When you speak good English,
will you change your job? Why?”
After 10-15 minutes of questioning and answering, the teacher stopped the activity
and did the following few things. She would quickly ask a few questions from the list to see
if the class was listening to answers that the student in the “hot seat” was giving. The teacher
2
would ask, for example, “What did Maria say about liking pupusas?” Teacher would spend a
few minutes doing that. When the teacher went home, she typed all the questions and
distributed them during next class. In class during next time, she went over the questions
with the students and made sure everyone knew the vocabulary. The class would then do
another activity with the questions. This time the class would divide into two lines for “line
dialogue.” The students would have the typed questions from previous time with them, and
they would take turns asking and answering questions from the list. This is how not only did
one person answer all the questions, but all the students also had a chance to answer the
questions. The teacher mentioned that this “hot seat” activity did not work well with class
that met twice a week. It was ideal for classes that met 4 times a week. I am sure there
would be a way to modify the activity so that it would work with a class that meets twice a
week.
Narrative to Expository: Revision Techniques for Multilingual Writer by Duane Leonard,
UC Davis
Duane Leonard is a good friend from graduate school. Our first conference
experience presenting is together at a Northern CATESOL Conference in San Jose and
during the same year in the state conference in Long Beach. When I saw Duane’s name in
the conference program, I knew I had to go and support him. Duane talked about using
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) tools of theme and rheme to teach students how to
write expository essays that is a required skill for them to be successful in a university
setting. The students are used to writing many narratives in high school, and with examples
from students’ own writing, the presenter showed how using SFL helped students to move
from narrative writing to expository writing.
Going to Duane’s presentation was also rewarding because I got to meet many of the
people from UC Davis that I had gotten to know while I was there. I was able to connect
with people who I had lost contact with. It was really nice to see everyone and hear how
they are doing now.
3
Eliciting Analytical Responses in Timed Writing Exams by Darlene Jantz, Rebecca Mitchell,
Robby Ching, CSU Sacramento
I chose this presentation because it seemed to be relevant to our final writing exams
that we give at LPC. It also seemed to talk about same types of issues as we do while we do
our holistic grading. Before the presentation, I hoped that I would be leaving with good
materials and ideas to share with my colleagues at LPC. I was right. This presentation was
informative and just plain fabulous. The presenters did an excellent job.
The presenters reminded us that all the writing is always linked to reading.
Sometimes we forget that. The presenters worked in a writing center in CSU Sacramento
where they have many basic skills and ESL students taking their writing exams. The
presenters showed examples of their original essay prompts and then showed how they had
revised these prompts to make them better. They also discussed how in their 6 point rubric
all the holistically scored essays always were given either 3 or 4. They decided to create a
document that describes each number and what skills that number consist of.
The presenters then talked about the process that they use to get students ready for
their reading that is used in their midterm and final exams. The teachers provide a notetaking chart for students which is used by students to write down important points about the
article they read. This chart can be used during the test, but the article cannot be used. The
presenters mentioned that students prepare more for their test because they know they don’t
have the article with them, and they also think, analyze, and annotate more because they
don’t have the article for the test. Sounds wonderful!
The presenters have found that students who use these charts for their midterm and
final exams understand the reading much better than before. Some of the other techniques
that teachers are using at CSU Sacramento to get students interested in the reading is
showing videos from YouTube, highlighting favorite quotes and sharing them with a class,
using visual images about the topic, giving only titles of the articles first and asking students
to predict the topic, and asking the school’s forensics team come and debate on the topic in
front of the class. This presentation was fabulous as I mentioned earlier, and I left with many
great ideas that I hope I can incorporate into my own classes.
4
Get Away from the Copy Machine by Deborah Brooks, Merritt College
The title of this presentation was intriguing, so my friend and I thought we would go
in and see what this presentation was about. It was the last session of the day, and I was tired
and my friend was hungry, but we decided to stay. We arrived a few minutes late and this
tall energetic woman was moving back and forth in front of the room asking people in the
audience questions. This was not what I had expected. We sat down and started to listen her
grammar questions to people: “Do you like sport? – Yes, I do.” “Can you sing? – No, I
can’t.” and around the room she went. Then she noticed us and said to us, “No one in my
classroom is just listening. Take out your notes!” My initial reaction was to stand up and
leave the room, but I decided to stay. Even though I was uncomfortable with her
presentation style, it was too interactive and aggressive for me; I learned a few good things
that I can use in my own grammar class. One of the things that the presenter does in her
class is games. Rather than making copies of game boards, she asks students to draw their
own. The teacher gives directions, and the students need to understand and follow them.
This is a great way to do some listening practice in a grammar class. The teacher uses
marker caps from old markers as play pieces. Rather than throwing away the whole
whiteboard marker when it is not working anymore, she throws the marker away but saves
the caps. Brilliant! The game boards can be used for any kind of grammar point. She also
talked about asking students to write sentences and then students walk around the room
asking questions and answering other students’ questions. The one thing that stayed with me
was when the presenter said that all the sentences that she uses in the classroom are true. I
know think about my own example sentences in the classroom and make sure that they are
always true. So, even though we had a rocky start with the presentation, my friend and I
were happy that we stayed.
The Community College Basic Skills Initiative and the ESL Learner by Mark Wade Lieu,
Barbara Illowsky, Stephanie Kashima, and Rick Santos
I chose this presentation because I know that LPC has been working on their basic
skills initiative. I was hoping to get some new interesting information about the initiative.
This presentation was geared towards the ESL part of the initiative. I have to say that I was a
little bit disappointed because I did not really learn anything new about the initiative. This is
good kind of disappointment because it means that our college has done a nice job informing
5
me about the initiative. There were some people who had no idea what was going on. The
main question, of course, was about money.
I did learn something new during the presentation. I did not know that the literature
review for the initiative was called a poppy copy. I also did not know that the committee
called “best practices” “effective practices.” They seemed to prefer the second choice. I also
learned that this initiative is not supposed to be about money, but it must be about students.
The committee kept repeating this over and over again, and I think it was good for everyone
to hear. I also learned that the Academic Senate president signs the final copy of the report. I
thought that was interesting. Each college initially received $100,000 for the initiative. The
money can only be used for non-credit and non-degree applicable courses. The Action Plan
for next year was due on May 1, and without this action plan the college would not receive
the second round of financing. The committee will have a many nice opportunities for
people to learn more about the next phases of the initiative. In June 9-10, there will be a
professional development event in Cañada College. The initiative also provides a summer
institute in August 10-13 in Newport Beach. This institute focuses on pedagogy, basic skills,
ESL, and CTE. There is no cost of the attendees which means that registration, hotel, food,
and transportation are all covered. The maximum amount of people who can attend from
each college is 5. This means 1 full-time person with 4 adjunct faculty members. This
sounds wonderful. I hope someone from our college will be able to go.
Community College Level Rap Session
I attended the Community College Rap session on Saturday. I wish that I would have
gone to another presentation during this time. This session was not time well spent. The
topics were not applicable to our college, and mainly the session was used to complain about
community colleges. However, I had nice time with a colleague from LPC, and we had our
lunch while listening to others.
Graded Readers in Low-Level Community College Reading Classes by Allie Joye,
American River College
I chose this presentation because it was different from other presentations that I had
done during the weekend. It seemed like all the presentations were about writing, and I
thought it would be nice to hear something about reading. This presentation was about how
6
to use graded readers in ESL classes. The presenter had brought stacks and stacks of
examples that she uses in the classroom, and also most of them are used in their college’s
ESL program. The presenter shared her knowledge on how to use the graded readers in an
ESL classroom, how to choose good graded readers, what her favorite readers were to use
and why, and also how students reacted to the accomplishment of finishing their first
English novel. The presenter also shared many of her own materials with the audience on
two selected novels that she uses in her class. This presentation was excellent because it
gave many good ideas for me to think about when I next time teach a full length text with
my own students. I know that I can use some of the materials and ideas from this
presentation in my own class.
It is hard for me to choose one thing that was the best during this conference. I enjoyed
being there. I liked being surrounded by other professional ESL teachers from different levels and
hear them enthusiastically talk about their work. It showed me again how important it is to be part
of a conference and share our knowledge with each other. I also really enjoyed that I had a chance
to meet with people that I normally don’t get to see. It was nice to sit down and have lunch with
colleagues and talk about our work and life. It was really good to hear that everyone is doing well
and happy with their jobs. I also enjoyed tremendously all the presentations I went to. Some of them
were not quite as interesting and relevant, but I still got to be part of them and I know I learned
something from each one of them. I am proud of myself that I was able to do seven presentations in
two day. I was tired at the end of the weekend, but very happy that I was going home with bag full
of handouts and brain full of new information and ideas. This was an excellent conference, and I
hope to get to go to many many more in the future.
My plan is to share this information with my ESL colleagues. I am going to make
photocopies of all the handouts that I received from different presentations. I am also going to make
a copy of my notes. This report is going to be posted with other conference reports, so I hope that
this will be read by other people than just our ESL faculty. I am also more than happy to share my
information and knowledge with anyone else who is interested in knowing more.