Beyond Basics: ESOL Beginning Literacy

The prerequisites of this course are:

1. You must have taken ESOL Basics (online for face-to-face) or have at least one year of adult ESOL teaching experience prior to taking this course. If you have not taken ESOL Basics, please go to: http://www.valrc.org/trainings/courses/esol.html to learn more about that course and sign up.

2. Be currently teaching/tutoring. A requirement of the course is to deliver a lesson that is developed during the course and you must be currently working in a classroom in order to do this.

3. It is also highly recommended, although not required, that you have already taken Beyond Basics: ESOL Lesson Planning since some of the assignments build upon the work done in the ESOL Lesson Planning course. Please go to: http://www.valrc.org/trainings/courses/bblp.html to learn more about this course and sign up for it if you haven’t taken it.

This course is an in-depth follow up to our popular ESOL Basics course. Teaching adult English language learners who have problems with reading and writing--perhaps because they never went to school in their home country and are not literate in their native language--may seem like an intimidating prospect. It is true that it's not always easy. However, as anyone who has taught such a group of students knows, working with literacy learners is also very rewarding.

Beyond Basics: Beginning Literacy will give you the tools you need to work with literacy learners. We've culled the latest research to familiarize you with what literacy learners bring to the classroom, provide the best approaches for working with these students, and help you better prepare for your classroom time.

Course Objectives

The participant will be able to:

• clearly define who is a literacy learner,
• adequately prepare for class,
• conduct a needs assessment with literacy students,
• use or create activities to help literacy learners develop print awareness,
• use or create activities to help literacy learners develop sound-symbol correspondence,
• better manage a multilevel literacy classroom,
• utilize technology to assist literacy learners, and
• assess literacy learners' progress.

Each lesson addresses a different aspect of teaching beginning literacy. Course activities include readings, assignments, and discussions. Throughout the course, you will have a chance to reflect on and discuss important weekly topics with your classmates and share ideas and experience through the discussion board. Assignments put your new knowledge to work, allowing you to make your ideas concrete and apply them to your particular classroom. The lessons are developmental and sequential.

Lessons and resources included in the course:

• Who Is a Literacy Learner?
• Preparing to Teach Your Literacy Class
• Developing Print Awareness
• Sound/Symbol Correspondence
• Multilevel Strategies
• Assessment and Future Research Directions in LESLLA

Completion of the course is designed to require a minimum of eighteen (18) hours of your time, approximately three (3) hours for each week. However, you may find that you want to spend longer with some topics.

Because the course is designed for busy professionals, it is scheduled over several weeks to allow time to work through the materials and complete the course according to your schedule.

In order to receive the certificate for participating in the Beyond Basics: Beginning Literacy training, you must complete all assignments, respond to all discussion questions, and complete each assignment.

You and your colleagues across the state will be working via the Internet with an instructor who will help answer questions, provide resources, and help you evaluate your progress throughout the workshop.

We begin each lesson with an overview of what you will learn. Each lesson includes

• information to review;
• important resources including websites to visit, explore, and/or bookmark;
• online discussions for you and your webmates to reflect upon and participate in; and
• assignments to complete for review by the online course facilitator and your fellow participants.

As part of the registration process, we ask that you go through a short tutorial on online learning in order to better prepare yourself for success.