Literacy Links

Time Management

English Language Civics

by Jenny Sandlin

Professional Development Day a Success
This past November EL Civics administrators and adult educators came together in College Station for an EL Civics Professional Development Day. This conference, with over 70 participants, was sponsored by the Bryan ISD EL Civics Program in collaboration with the Brenham ISD EL Civics Program and TCALL. The event opened with James Douglas, EL Civics Coordinator for TEA, speaking about the goals of the EL Civics program, expected program outcomes, and project-based learning. After the opening session participants chose to attend one of three break-out sessions, covering "ESL Project Based Learning," "Integrating EL Civics Into Your Existing Program," and "EL Civics Technical Resources."

In the "ESL Project Based Learning" workshop, Marty Galloway of Texas A&M University introduced participants to the practical and theoretical underpinnings of project-based instruction as it relates to English language adult learners in EL Civics settings. In this session, participants learned about best-practices in project-based learning and created their own activities to use in their classrooms.

Mary Flores and Susan Pritchard from Brenham ISD Even Start, co-presented the workshop "Integrating EL Civics Into Your Existing Program." In this workshop, Mary and Susan discussed how they have enriched their existing family literacy programs with English Language civics.

I facilitated the final workshop, entitled "EL Civics Technical Resources: Surfing to Citizenship." In this workshop I gave an overview of the English Language Civics Education Resource Center web-site. This site is now an archive and is no longer hosted on the TCALL website. Resources for EL Civics can be found at http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/litresources/elcres.htm. I spent time at the beginning discussing how to judge whether a web-based resource is worth pursuing and addressing participants' questions about various resources. We then spent most of the time surfing the links on the website and then sharing what we found with each other, including how we might use the resources in the classroom.

The day ended with a question and answer panel starring James Douglas, Susan Pritchard, and Mary Flores.

The staff development day was quite a success judging from the very positive feedback we received from those who participated. Many teachers and administrators stated that they hoped to see similar staff development workshops in the future. A special thank you is due to Mary Blackburn of Bryan ISD and Susan Pritchard of Brenham ISD, who planned the staff development day, to Stella Earhart of TCALL who arranged all of the facilities, and to everyone else who helped make this day possible.

Education Resource Center - Ahora en Espanol!
We are excited to announce that we have begun translating the English Literacy Civics Education Resource Center website into Spanish. The website, a collaborative project between Brenham Community Education, Texas A&M University, and TCALL, is funded by an English Literacy Civics Education grant from the US Department of Education and the Texas Education Agency. This site is now an archive and is no longer hosted on the TCALL website. Resources for EL Civics can be found at http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/litresources/elcres.htm. Many thanks to our translator, Carmen Villa, for all of her great work!

We are also in the process of adding more links to the site, and hope to have more adult learner-oriented sites over the next few months. If you haven't visited us in a while, please stop back by soon and look for our new resources.

We want to be a helpful resource for you, so please visit the site and let us know what you think. If you have links, websites, or other resources you think we should include on our site, please let us know. Please send feedback to Jenny Sandlin at jsandlin@coe.tamu.edu.

Featured Websites

Immigration: Coming to America – Stories of Yesterday and Today. http://teacher.scholastic.com/immigrat/. This is a collection of online activities and lesson plans, as well as teachers' guides, for use in the classroom or independently by adult learners. These activities are sponsored by the Scholastic publishing company. Activities include an interactive tour of Ellis Island; an oral history scrapbook; an area where learners can read stories about five young immigrants from Haiti, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Sudan, and Mexico; and an area containing resource materials and background information on immigration in the United States.

The White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/. This is the official homepage of the White House, available in both English and Spanish. Teachers and higher level readers can use this page to find source materials on governmental issues. Here you will find the latest news from the White House; read about issues such as terrorism, the economy, Medicare, and Social Security; read, watch videos, or hear clips of major speeches by President Bush; look up official federal statistics; and learn about the structure of the US government and its officials.