Learn to Teach ~ Teach to Learn
English as a Second Language (ESL)

Overview Combining language arts and technology, students engage in cross-class and cross-school tutoring that provide them with teaching and learning experiences. English proficient students interact with limited language proficient students who often are "new immigrants." Tutors help with cross curriculum subjects like history, native language, and science, and improve their own literacy skills while learning to teach.

Classroom Activities
Community Activities
Career Activities
Use graphic organizer to define community & service learning.
Prepare for tutoring & interviews with mentees.
Reflect on tutoring & interviews in journals.
Write community poems.
Review tutoring assignments.
Create peer interview template.
Report on interview.
Create lesson plan.
Assess lessons with teachers & peers.
Photograph tutoring sessions
Assemble photographs & related material for boards & computer slide presentations.
E-mail peers to schedule tutoring sessions.
Learn about peers' needs from Bilingual & ESL teachers.
Meet & interview peers.
Conduct response groups to help edit peers' work.
Discuss with peers how to improve sessions.
Contribute to Dreamwriters ESL newsletter & web site.
Show boards & presentation (or download, 4.75 MB) at School to Career Showcases & Service Learning conferences.
Research careers & interview skills on Internet.
Telephone agencies & offices to schedule interviews.
Interview professionals in fields of teaching. law enforcement, & technology.
Photograph interview subjects & Report results.
Respond to visitors' questions about careers during computer slide presentations.

Learning Standards English Language Art

Understand, analyze, evaluate & respond effectively to visual presentations.
Engage in effective discussion.
Understand & employ structures of written language.
Learn & use the writing process.
Make effective presentations.
Employ different genres of academic writing.

School to Career Competencies

Learn responsibility.
Develop writing, reading & communication skills.
Use technology to enhance academic work.
Connect school to career choices.

Assessment Students and teacher assess project and various activities daily by sharing and reviewing journal writing, lesson plans and reflections, interviews and reports, essays and discussions. Response groups become essential to evaluate tutors' and peers' progress.

Software or Materials Used Textbooks: History, Science and ESL; worksheets, interview guides, tapes, audio cassettes, display boards, recorders, video camera, digital camera, pictures, paper cutters and edgers, glue and other craft related materials, graphic organizer, binding machine, Microsoft Office, Print Shop Press Writer, CD burner & zip drive.

Web Sites Occupational Outlook Handbook, English as 2nd Language

Keywords Peer Tutoring, Teaching and Learning, Service Learning, ESL, English as a Second Language, Response Groups

Final Words This project helps students learn about themselves while working with peers. When engaged in peer tutoring, students learn to appreciate their own strengths and try to improve their weaknesses. Peer tutoring also lets students understand and accept diversity, by learning to respect one another and sharing different cultures, beliefs, and customs.

Teacher Tip From the start, address the why and how of tutoring. Students soon catch on to the meaning of teaching and learning. They also become aware of their responsibility to present results to the community. Like everyone, my students were initially nervous, but once they started, they wanted to show their accomplishments to classmates and school staff. Group diversity and individual creativity make for a successful project.

E-mail contact Adelina da Silva adasilva7@verizon.net

Teacher Bio Adelina da Silva, Boston Public Schools Lead Teacher at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, has taught ESL for eighteen years. Contributor to Citywide ESL Standards, she serves as her school's ESL facilitator and Girls' Soccer Coach. Adelina is also a member of the Boston Writing Project at University of Massachusetts, Boston. Among her awards are Golden Apple Teacher and Schott Foundation Gender Healthy/Respectful Schools Grant. She is a published poet who writes in Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese, and English.

Subject Areas ESL Literacy

Grade Levels 9 - 12

Students Bilingual

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