TESL Toronto Presentation by Svetlana Lupasco, May 25th, 2013
Short bio: I have been teaching adult ESL for 9+years. 3 years ago I started working with ESL Literacy and fell in love with it. I am a TESL Ontario Accredited Language Instructor and Teacher Trainer. I have been mentoring TESL students from different programs for the last 3 years.
What do you usually do in the computer lab with the ESL Literacy students? Work on a Word document? Watch a video on YouTube? Play a game on a favourite website? How about setting up a course which is filled with your students’ favourite activities that reinforce the classroom curriculum? How about having everything you need in one single place? Sounds good to me!
Three years ago something wonderful happened: by a stroke of luck I nailed a job as an ESL literacy teacher. Although the computer lab seemed to be a challenge in the beginning, it turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to grow as a teacher and explore the wonderland of the educational technology.
As a part of my Post TESL training, I have been creating a blended online course for my ESL literacy learners using a Moodle platform. It started with the idea to set up a course to support the activities we did in the classroom but in an online format. Along the way, I discovered different ways to transform the classroom curriculum into student- and teacher- friendly online resources which can be easily modified, updated and adapted to the needs of the students. I have been building the course gradually by closely observing my students working on it and testing out the activities.
During my presentation at TESL Toronto, I’d like to share my experience as an ESL Literacy teacher developing and working with a blended online course. As a result of my computer lab experiment, I was able to see which of the activities were more successful with the students and I followed my students’ requests and recommendations. At the moment I am still in the process of refining and modifying the content of the course but I hope that by September it be available on Tutela.
Hope to see you at TESL Toronto on May 25th!
Warm regards, Svetlana