Bridging The ESL Divide

by | Feb 16, 2012 | Blog, Education, Teacher's Corner

Like many international schools in Asia the classroom’s in my school seem to be swarming with English language learners.  We have an ESL department that works hard to bring students up to mainstream requirements, yet I find myself constantly battling a divide in my classes between strong English speakers and English language learners… By the way, what’s the deal with all the different terminology, ESL, ELL TEFL, LEP, etc.  It seems like every school has their own phraseology for this population.  Maybe I should create my own new term and see if anyone can tell the difference.  How about IPLLSP for In-Progress-Language-Learning-Student-Population?  Sounds good to me. Here are list of strategies I recommend to improve your IPLLSPs? Divide and Conquer–Avoid placing similar level IPLLSPs in the same grouping.  Hopefully they’ll be challenged to work with others who can raise their language ability. Keep Talking–Too often we allow these students to fall back on their written ability.  We need to ask questions and expect responses. Discussion-Based Teaching–This year I’ve started a discussion-based model in many of my classes from Philips Exeter Academy in the US.  Known as the Harkness Method it emphasizes community-learning and the Socratic Method.  Everyone is expected to speak and if done correctly it creates an environment were all levels of IPLLSPs can participate.  Philips Exeter does a training seminar over the summer for teachers who are interested in learning more. Translation–Allow for monitored translation time in discussions so everyone can catch up and reset. Slow Down–I know this sound a little contradictory to the idea that the students should be mainstream.  But sometimes we speak too...

Harvard Study: What Makes Young Leaders…

by | Feb 3, 2012 | Leadership News

Is the student who organizes tag during recess or chooses to help a classmate with math on track to be a senator, a CEO, or a community leader? He—or she—may well be. Behaviors like embracing novel experiences, supporting peers, even pestering parents for lessons can predict whether a child will emerge as a leader in adulthood, according to researchers who say they are the first to plot a pathway from childhood experiences to adult leadership. The research may also help educators encourage leadership—a commonly heralded “21st-century skill”—if teachers know what behaviors to look for and support, they say. Theories abound about what makes one child develop into a leader and another not, says Ronald E. Riggio, Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology at Claremont McKenna College and editor of a special issue of the Leadership Quarterly, which last year published four studies of leadership development based on data going back to 1979. “There are these crazy ideas like pushy mothers or pushy fathers” feeding adult leadership success, he says, adding that research on leadership is often retrospective beginning with questions like, “What was Churchill’s mother like?” Rather than looking backward, the new studies use longitudinal data to test hypotheses about the relative importance of factors such as the role of parents, inner motivational drive, intelligence, childhood social skills, and personality traits like extroversion in shaping future leaders. To do the studies, researchers contacted the parents of every child born in Orange County, Calif., in 1979. They then tracked a sample of 106 subjects (whose parents agreed to participate and who stuck with the study) from the...

Leadership Myth #5: CEOs Need To Be Great Leaders

by | Jan 30, 2012 | Blog, Education

I came across an interesting article this week that lists 5 common myths of leadership.  Number 5 reads: The Position Myth- “This is truly the greatest misunderstanding of what leadership is. Think about it, if you are a top CEO, a president of a company or a manager, are you really a great leader? Some people might naturally be great leaders at these positions and that is how they earned them but NO, just being at a top position does not all of a sudden make you a leader.” [Read The Rest Here] Can this be true?  When I think about the “people at the top” I’ve always assumed they must be “highly effective” leaders that have gone from “good to great.”  Too heavy on the leadership puns? So is it really necessary for the leadership in a school to be highly effective?  It makes sense that you’d expect leaders at the top to be the best at leading an organization.  Before I began pursuing leadership in schools I would have thought the same thing, but recently my opinion is beginning to change.  Instead of great leadership at the top maybe all that’s needed is a manger who can pick leaders. Obviously it might seem like a sensitive topic to talk about our superintendents and I’m not going to be the first to throw mine under any buses, but when you look at your school’s superintendent, headmaster or CEO do you see a great leader?  If so, in what ways?  If not, what’s wrong?  Be anonymous if you prefer or offer public...

So Where Can I Find Great Leaders?

by | Jan 24, 2012 | Blog, Education

Every year around September a wave of excitement and anticipation fills the living rooms and faculty lounges of international schools as schools around the world begin to post their recruitment needs for the following year.  To any experienced international teacher or administrator it’s an accepted lifestyle choice that you’ll see your closest friends come and go as they move onto new and hopefully better jobs. This last year my wife and I “tested the waters” to see if this was the year to leave and we were sucked into the black hole of resumes and recruitment fairs.  I found myself immersed in conversations with other teachers discussing what schools had posted their job listings.  What I found interesting is how in the midst of these conversations, myself and others would make a snap judgement of the quality of a school.  For example “Did you see blank school is looking for a new blank teacher?”  “Oh that’s a great school–they pay their teachers really well.”  Or  “that’s a great school because they are building a brand new campus.”  Of course the judgement cuts the other way too as I’ve heard people say “it seems like a good school, but…well their 1:1 program is PC based…so that’s a problem.” The truth, it seems, that except for the most competitive teaching candidates many of us are attracted to a school because they either are interested in us, pay well or have a nice website (come on you know you’ve done it).  What does this say about the current recruitment climate when teachers sign contracts at schools not because there is a great match,...