Past Events

2023 Forums

Tuesday 14th November, 2023

Adding another string to your bow: bringing the EAL classroom to life with graphic facilitation

TasTESOL was pleased to host international presenter Emily Bryson as our second term 4 forum presenter.

From Scotland, Emily has an extensive background in EAL. She is a teacher educator, author and graphic facilitator with over 20 years teaching experience. This forum will provide EAL teachers with an additional ‘string’ to add to your teaching toolkit. Graphic facilitation is the use of simple, hand-drawn visual to support your teaching. It is simple, engaging and fun to use. Graphic facilitation is something that everyone can do, you don’t have to be an artist!

For more information on graphic facilitation in the EAL classroom and on Emily’s work, please visit https://www.emilybrysonelt.com/

 

Flyer for past forum  Bryson forum 14th November, 2023

 

Term 4 – Two for one: 1) Readers! 2) From the shelves 

by Mary Blake

This forum was held on Thursday 19th October, 2023. If you are interested in a recording, please contact contact.tastesol@gmail.com.

Readers! What’s happened to levelled readers? What are decodable or alphabetic readers? What are catch-up readers? What’s the best for you?

From the EAL Library shelves! A selection of EAL resources and then let’s discuss how to use them will be presented.

Mary Blake is renowned around Tasmania for her knowledge and dedication to literature. Mary took over running the EAL library in the mid-2000s and has moved the collection twice now: Once to Derwent Park in 2010 and again to Lindisfarne in 2016.

Mary has been an EAL teacher and EAL librarian for a significant portion of her career.

 

---

Term 3 – English language training and cyber safety education to AMEP parents

by Karen Grice

This forum was held on Monday 28^th August, 5pm – 6pm

Karen Grice is a Senior Educational Consultant for TAFE Queensland, inspiring teachers to create engaging and impactful learning environments. Karen began her teaching journey as an AMEP teacher, working with clients in the Special Preparatory Program, before moving into digital literacy roles to champion the use of technology in the language classroom. Believing in the transformational role of learning, Karen has worked in roles leading teaching teams and co-delivers trauma-informed workshops across TAFE Queensland. Karen has been actively involved in promoting community-based classes in the AMEP and recently lead a community-based cyber safety education program for refugee parents.

Cyber Safety for AMEP Parents is an innovative project that delivers English language training and cyber safety education to AMEP parents. Underpinned by the belief that community-based education can enhance the learning experience, the project was delivered to AMEP parents in 3 primary schools in collaboration with Community Hubs Australia. Using cohort-specific resources and hands-on learning opportunities, the project aimed to equip parents with the skills and knowledge they need to understand cyber safety risks, and learn how to monitor and manage their children’s online activity.

Term 1 – Joint Construction and Guided Instruction: Benefits for Tertiary English Language Learners

TasTESOL was pleased to host Emily Morgan, PhD University of Tasmania student, as our first forum presenter in 2023. Emily presented on Joint Construction and Guided Instruction: Benefits for Tertiary English Language Learners.

The Teaching/Learning Cycle and the Gradual Release of Responsibility teaching model have both been used regularly in primary classrooms with young learners, and their effects have been studied. While not all researchers support the use of these teaching models, the general consensus is that they provide a strong scaffold for teaching a wide variety of subjects, most particularly English. These teaching models have not yet been widely studied in the contexts of older learners or English as a foreign language. In her PhD research, Emily used the Gradual Release of Responsibility model to teach Japanese university students different English writing genres. Emily’s talk focused on her observations of the Joint Construction/Guided Instruction stage:

In this stage, students work as a whole class with the facilitation of the teacher to jointly construct texts or fragments of texts. This stage occurs after direct instruction and before pair or group work, as an intermediary opportunity to pool knowledge and consolidate understanding of the concepts before the teacher steps further away. One of the problems identified early on was students’ unwillingness to contribute, which at first seemed insurmountable. Ultimately, though, through persistence and adaptation, I found that the activities offered strong benefits to students and teacher, making it worth persevering with.

Date – Monday 6^th March, 2023

Time – 5pm – 5:45pm

TasTESOL hosted LWA who showcased a suite of newly developed resources, funded by the Department of Home Affairs and aligned to the EAL Framework. The session featured a pre-launch look at:

• a new suite of multi-modal booklets for EAL learners with emerging literacies who have little or no prior educational experience
• the newly updated AMEPOnline website; a publicly available, interactive website with eLearning content, and
• new Digital Literacies Framework, Guide and companion Teaching Resources – a new framework, teacher guide, lesson ideas and materials to support the integration of digital literacies into real life learning experiences.

Useful Links

Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) – Background (homeaffairs.gov.au)

AMEPOnline (homeaffairs.gov.au)

EAL Framework “101”: A Beginner’s Guide to the Victorian EAL Framework Curriculum- VicTESOL

EAL Framework 101 (2): How to approach delivery and assessment of a group of units – VicTESOL

Term 3, 2022  English Language Learners and Trauma Informed Learning

TasTESOL is excited to announce that Victoria Wilson, who will shortly complete a PhD at University of Queensland in trauma-informed English language teaching to adults, will be presenting at our next online forum.

Victoria has been teaching ESL and EFL since 2004, starting her career in Japan. In 2011 she was living in coastal Fukushima at the time of the Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, which killed 18,000 people and left many more displaced. Victoria continued teaching in the disaster zone for several months afterward and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after returning to Australia. In 2014 she began teaching ELICOS at University of Southern Queensland and found that many of her students – both former refugees and international students – had experienced significant trauma. A lack of specialised research in how best to support their learning led her to start her PhD.

In this presentation, Victoria will discuss some of the effects of PTSD on learning and engagement and explore evidence-based strategies for minimising (post-traumatic) stress and maximising learning.

A copy of the Power Point Presentation is available here: English Language Learners & Trauma Informed Learning (PPP)

If you would like a copy of the recording, please contact contact.tastesol@gmail.com

Come along to hear a panel of representatives briefly report on what services their institutions provide and who their target clients/’students’ are. Is everyone in the CALD community included, or are some missing out? Join in the discussion, and get an overview of TESOL providers in Tas.

Venue: Elizabeth College Library (Building L). Enter from Warwick St, Hobart. Walk up the spiral staircase to the entrance on Level 2.

Date & time: 5pm – 7pm Thu 12th Sep 2019

See flier for more info

 

Saturday 11th May 2019, 9am – 3.45pm at Sacred Heart College, New Town, Hobart.

2019 Conference Program

TasTESOL 2019 Conference flier + form

2019 Keynote – Kathleen Heugh, Uni SA – ‘Translanguaging cautiously …’

2019 Workshop – Jacqi Bottger – ‘I have something to say …’

2019 Workshop – Lesley Cioccarelli – ‘Making screencast videos …’

2019 Workshop – J Lippold & A Ambesi – ‘… EAL prog dev at Lauriston …’

2019 Workshop – Melania Pantelich – ‘A student-centred approach …’

2019 Workshop – Mary Johnston 1 – ‘Sleep and your baby’

2019 Workshop – Mary Johnston 2 – ‘Healthy eating & back ache’

2019 Workshop – Mary Johnston 3 – ‘U4 Child Development‘

‘Decimating THAT literacy statistic: 48% to 0.48%’
Rosie Martin – Chatter Matters, Tasmania
Thursday 13th September 2018, 5pm – 7pm

13th Sept 2018 Forum – flier

English language learning in a mobile world
Adelaide, South Australia
2-5 October 2018

Hosted by SATESOL and ACTA

Driving attention to the reality of local and global mobility for TESOL learners and educators, this conference will contribute to the ongoing examination of the theories and practices underpinning the TESOL field, and will project into future directions, whether as policy, pedagogy, materials design, assessment or community involvement.
In the context of increasing mobility through digital technology as well as global unrest and greater recognition of the need for improved outcomes for Indigenous students, the conference offers an opportunity for a re-examination of the profile of our English language learners and the implications for TESOL practice.

See the flyer

Visit website  www.conveneit.com/secure/onsite/acta_2018/

‘Developing job-specific oral communication skills: Pharmacy students’

Louise Oxley, Assoc Lecturer, Student Learning (English Language), UTAS
Thu 15th November 2018, 5pm – 7pm
Derwent Sailing Squadron, 123 Marieville Esp, Sandy Bay

See flier for forum 15th Nov 2018