Monday, March 31, 2014

ESL, EFL, ESOL, or ELL?

I've written a blog post before about the difference between the acronyms ESL, ELL, ESOL, etc. (It can be accessed here.) This particular post has proven to be one of my most popular posts, standing as one of my most-accessed posts found organically via internet searches. Having a background in linguistics, however, I'm not naive to the fact that with time, terminology trends change. So, I'm curious: Which acronym/s do you use most often to refer to your non-native English speaking students? Take my poll at the right to share your opinion! I'll post the results after I close the poll at the end of the month.

Friday, March 28, 2014

TESOL 2014 in Portland, Oregon: Phonics in English Language Learning Contexts

I'm currently attending the TESOL 2014 conference in Portland. It is common each year I attend to recognize "themes" or areas of growing interest based on the presentation topics and the number of attendees drawn to each presentation. One of the popular areas of interest I've noticed at this conference has been phonics as it relates to language competency and enhancing learning in various language skills.

I attended a session yesterday by three TESOL graduate students from Florida State University. They presented on the use of an explicit phonics program over the last year in their Intensive English Program at FSU. I was happy to see that the results of their implementation have been positive.