Fall is Here

October 2008

Dont give up on the sun just yet- we are really having a late summer here in Seattle. Sure some days rain and have those cloudy gray skies, but we are still having 70 degree clear skies mixed in. It has been really, really nice, like mother nature is just easing us along to winter. I dont remember too much about fall last year but the leaves do turn nice shades of red, orange and yellow. Maybe I am a true Seattlite now that I can still wear shorts on these blustery days. I guess I am not ready to give in so easily to fall.

Yet fall is here- there is no denying that and October is the busiest month of the year to be working with schools. The colleges are on quarter systems and it seems shortly after classes start its time for teachers to start looking at new texts and placing book orders. It is a constant cycle of new and review. Luckily, we do have some key additions to our offerings that teachers can really enjoy using. Now that I have had a chance to meet with some of the schools to look at new products for fall, there is one that is really standing out.

The first one if Criterion with Longman Academic writing series. I remember my pedagogy of writing class as one of the most enjoyable and more time consuming of my MA. Teaching writing is so intensive and demanding on teachers, especially in ESL. You have to develop writers on so many different levels and in an 11 week course, I cant imagine how tough it is!! I also remember having to highlight errors and then categorize them by type and then tally them up to help the student to identify their top priority errors. I only tutored one student for my teaching project but it took so much time! Plus, I was overwhelmed at how many grammar errors there were in a high level ESL student writing that I couldnt even comment of the ideas because I just couldnt understand.

Anyway, this new program can do a lot of that work- from identifying, to categorizing, to tallying and even prioritizing. The best thing is that reasons and examples are provided to students so they can self correct. When I think back on my own chicken scratch and bumbling examples while just trying to stay awake, I would have killed for a program like this. Just run the first or any draft of the paper through the system and then give it to the teacher. Wonderful!!

http://longman.criterion.ets.org/

Life's Not a Beach in Hawaii

September 2008

I am lucky to have Hawaii as part of my territory, and its true I do get to visit a couple of times a year. And its funny that nobody will ever believe me that the hardest I work all year is when I go to Hawaii. My last trip was 5 days- from Monday to Friday, and from the moment my plane landed the insanity began. Once again, it is my own fault for scheduling myself my first appointment 30 minutes after landing. Of course at the time it seemed feasible, until I remembered baggage claim, renting a car, traffic and worst of all- needing water! I barely had a moment to stop and buy some water before getting to the classroom.

My appointment at the schools were very interesting. Hawaii has the largest population of ESL students of any of the states I cover- over 13,000. As we learned during our stay, the teachers are working to create the ELD standards and they are far from being finished. Without the standards, you cant create the assessment, or vice versa, and cant have continuity among levels, movement etc...It is the same problem I have encountered over and over again. Teachers are really struggling to do something for their students, but they cannot. So lest you think the only thing that people working for publishers think is to SELL SELL SELL, we do not. What good will the best program be for a teacher if they have no foundation of skills and standards to base the instruction upon?

Of course, amid my sprints from classroom to classroom, dashing up stairs, running in and out offices leaving notes, and bags and my car, I occasionally caught a whiff of plumeria or the sound of the breeze rustling in the palm fronds. Most of all, the sun was ever so delicious after cold days in Seattle. Let me just repeat, how tough it actually is to work on the road- sleeping in hotels, trying to remember to bring the right things, finding parking, finding the right door, etc and all while being on time and meeting everyone possible in the short amount of time you have so you can really be productive. It is really hard work.