Decoding and Comprehension

Jim Cummins

Responding to an article by Jim Cummins, Stephanie Wilton Kumagai bases her insights on experience teaching in Japan and Costa Rica as well as her SIT learning.  Her final presentation for the academic year MAT, “She Said What?!,” is a demonstration of the teaching skills required to turn miscommunication in intercultural classrooms into productive learning.

In his article “The Challenge of Learning Academic English,” Jim Cummins examines how English and academic subject teachers can support English language learners and other students who struggle with reading.  As the academic level becomes more challenging in the middle years of elementary school, these students often fall behind their classmates and find it difficult to catch up.

Cummins suggests there are two primary ways in which students fall behind

Anna: Politics of English

MAT student Anna Rozzo has experience teaching in the U.S. and Morocco.  Anna took the new Politics of TESOL elective course this spring, and shares her thoughts, reactions, and key learnings regarding the class below.

This course covered many topics that are essential to my professional development as an ESOL teacher.  I am now better informed about terminology and have a deepened understanding of Kachru’s circles. Besides examining professional terminology and reviewing the various types of ESOL models popular in the world today, taking a serious look at such issues as globalization, linguistic imperialism, language “development”, and sustainable teaching was an important part of this class for me.  

New Elective: Politics of English

This spring the MAT program introduced a new elective.  Taught by visiting faculty member Beverly Burkett, the course has proven popular.  Here, Bev talks about the experience of developing the course, its content, and what she is learning through teaching it.

The new course, The Politics of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages came about partly as a result of a discussion at the end of our Approaches class in the Fall. My students asked me how teaching has been a political act for me; how, particularly in my experience in South Africa, teaching has created change.

Revan: Emigrating from Iraq

On April 22, the Brattleboro Reformer ran a front-page article highlighting the life of MAT graduate Revan Hedo and his family after they moved to the U.S. from Iraq.

Iraqi refugees thank Vermonters for their help
By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff

Wednesday, April 22
BRATTLEBORO — When the first Iraqi-American was born in Brattleboro last year, his parents were in limbo.

While the child was guaranteed a life in the United States by virtue of his birth, his parents were worried that one day they would have to return to the Middle East — with or without their son — when their visas expired.

Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute

Susan Barduhn, in addition to everything else she does, directs the Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute, known on campus as TTI.  She entices us with this announcement of the courses available in June.

The Teacher Training and Professional Development Institute serves teachers from around the world who want to continue their professional growth.  Originally attracting MAT alumni who wanted to come back to campus for a week or two or to study online with some of their favorite professors, TTI now have a much larger following.  Last year, whole teams of senior teachers came from language institutes and universities in Peru and Japan.

Wangari Maathai Speaks in Brattleboro

Taking Root

On Saturday, April 11, Nobel peace laureate and World Learning Trustee Emerita Wangari Maathai answered audience questions and signed copies of her book, The Challenge for Africa, at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro.

Current MAT student Elisabeth Yesko was among many who attended the event and shares her thoughts and impressions here.

Maathai’s work has been documented by filmmakers Lisa Merton (MAT alumna, 1989) and Alan Dater.  This film will be broadcast in the US on PBS stations in April 2009.

For more on Maathai’s work, visit The Green Belt Movement.

English Language Education in US Public Schools

The past decade has seen a dramatic increase of English Language Learners (ELLs) in US public schools.  The debate about how to best serve the needs of immigrant populations continues.  The March 14 New York Times, story “Where Education and Assimilation Collide,” part of the “Remade in America” series, examines one school outside of Washington, D.C., which runs an insulated ELL program.  It was a wonderful article for generating discussion and I encourage anyone interested in this issue to read it.

For me, the article provokes more questions than it provides answers.  Below, I share my questions after reading the article.  I welcome your ideas, questions, and discussion.

Kevin: My Photo Exhibition

An American, a Korean, and an Omani walk into a bar…  It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it was a typical Friday evening in Brattleboro.

TESOL Conference Experience

MAT Students and Professor Pat Moran in Denver at TESOL 2009

This year seven current MAT students presented at the TESOL pre-conference Graduate Student Forum (2 papers and 5 poster sessions).  Thirteen SIT students attended the conference.

For many of us, it was our first TESOL conference experience.  What I kept hearing over and over again during and after the conference from my classmates was “wonderful,” “exciting,” and “exhausting.”

Initial Internship Impressions, Costa Rica

Back row from left: Geoff, Stephanie, Michael, supervisor Mary. Front row: JiHye, alumnus Katsuhide Yagata, un amigo tico, Lara.

Hello from Costa Rica!

For three weeks now the five of us have been in a village called El INVU (Instituto Nacional de Viviendas y Urbanismo) which is about two hours from the national capital, San Jose.  In the community where we are living, we have been teaching two evenings a week in addition to teaching English to Costa Rican teachers of English at a local university during the day.