Creative Writing for the Elementary Classroom (1 hour)
Holly Harper
EFL writing activities in elementary school text books are almost completely short, closed answer assessments, therefore any further written production must be supplemented by the teacher. Are elementary students capable of producing more open and creative writings? Daily journals and other forms of free writing are often assigned, but stories are primarily solicited through spoken dialogue. This was the wondering that began a 4-day process which ultimately led to a written story constructed by 3rd and 4th grade students. Scaffolded through collaborative writing, the students were eventually capable of producing an original story with unique plot lines and characters. This activity and others that will be mentioned in the workshop, present a strong argument for the achievability of creative writing in elementary EFL classes.
Presenter: Holly Harper has been involved in KOTESOL conferences for a number of years, yet only recently began getting involved in the Yongin chapter. She earned her MA TESOL at Dankook University in Yongin and recently began working in Pyeongtaek at the Gyeonggi-Do institute for Language Education. She is passionate about multicultural education, critical language education, and young learner literacy. She enjoys reading, watching movies, and playing board games.
Going Native, Digitally: Engaging with Social Media Language Learning (1 hour)
Elizabeth May
With our students being the first generation of digital natives it is time for us, as educators, to join them in their homeland, the online world. We should be ready to consider a different set of 21st century skills and to move on from world Englishes, to a more unifying and vital skill for our students; one which they, as digital natives, will potentially use every day, every hour, for the rest of their lives… the English of social media and digital interactions.
With the vast majority of communication now happening digitally, through tools like Kakao, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, shouldn’t we be preparing our students to be able to communicate using these mediums? Yet the style of English used in these online interactions isn’t often represented in our classrooms. We teach genres of writing, which now seem painfully out of date. It is likely that our students will never actually write letters to complain, yet direct tweeting a company is now commonplace or commenting on their Facebook wall. In order to best serve our students and how they are likely to ACTUALLY use English in their everyday lives and into the future, shouldn’t we be meeting this need?
In this session, we will focus on why we should be embracing hashtags and memes in our classrooms, what kind of content should we be focusing on, and how can we teach this content in the classroom in such a way that our students can become successful English users digitally. The workshop will involve a lot of audience discussion and interaction, audience members should also bring an internet capable device (smartphones will be perfect!). ^^ #BeThereOrBeSquare#FOMO
Presenter: Elizabeth May is a Lecturer at SangmyungUniversity, in Seoul. Previously she has taught in a variety of settings covering all age groups in both public and private institutions in South Korea for the last 7 years and previously in Thailand. She has been awarded her MEd (Applied Linguistics) and MA (Education), with a research focus on technology in education, and more recently on the blended learning approach to language education. Elizabeth has presented at a wide variety of conferences and events across Korea. She also currently serves on the Seoul KoTESOL chapter executive board. Elizabeth can be contacted at elizabethjmay@yahoo.co.uk
