Washington Academy of Languages

Photo Credit: Debbie Chan

Recently, I was going to go to Bainbridge Island with a small group of WAL students as a Saturday activity.  But, due to some unforeseen reasons, my expectations were wrong.  The activity did not draw as many students as I thought it would, and the lone student who wanted to come, cancelled at the last moment.

So there I was…. at our usual WAL meeting spot at a Starbucks store in Pioneer Square, but with no students and no where to go!  What was I to do? Just go home, or go shopping in downtown Seattle to enjoy my free afternoon?  Nope, I thought. I decided that I STILL wanted to go to Bainbridge Island  – even if I went alone.

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Old computers

Originally uploaded by eurleif

I am often asked about learning a language through software. What are the strengths and perhaps shortcomings of learning with the aid of modern technology? Some learners prefer the dynamics of a live classroom where interacting with teacher and classmates is integral to their learning. Some learners prefer the convenience of studying at a time of their choosing and being able to control their own rate of learning. It seems to me that approaching a discussion in terms of individual value and preferences is one way to proceed and the end of such a discussion will sound much like the beginning of it. In other words, attempting to deal with the question in terms of individual preferences doesn’t really address the question I posed.

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creative reading

Originally uploaded by panta rhei.

On the one hand testing for reading seems easy. Take a passage, ask a few questions about it, and you have a test. On the other hand the test may not test what you want tested. A problem for a reading tester is to produce behavior that can somehow be measured. When people write and speak we see and hear but nothing overt happens when people are reading silently. So, for reading, what behaviors can be measured?

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Wow! I’m glad to say that our on-going student activity, called “Super Surprise Thursdays,” has really been new, fun, and different lately! What a great benefit to our WAL students, and for the guests that have come and graced the halls of WAL!

First of all, in March, we hosted Thom Harp, the director and co-writer of the upcoming feature film, Fortune Hunters (here’s a shameless plug by me: www.fortunehuntersmovie.com).

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Communication

Originally uploaded by Johannes de Jong_

Recently, I have been interviewing several ESL teachers and teacher trainers and I find I had to rethink a few matters with regard to teaching oral language. Since the 80s it has been politically correct to describe oneself as a ‘communicative teacher’ during job interviews. Every ESL teacher knows that. The communicative approach states that tasks should provide the learners language to use in order to communicate meanings without focusing on accuracy. In other words, fluency is encouraged as fluency leads to creativity and the independence of a language learner. A central issue with this approach comes from asking the question: How can accuracy and fluency come together? Any answer to that question involves the instructor deciding on a range of discourse skills taught to a particular audience. For example first graders who are playground-fluent in language may need a discourse emphasis on accuracy in an academic context relevant to their maturity level. Adults may need more discourse tasks having to do with fluency and integrating such skills into what they have learned in grammatical drilling (if that is the way that they had learned a little English abroad).

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In my last post, I mused about how WAL could possibly become authorized to accept international students. We had to have graduates in order to be considered a school by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but we couldn’t have students unless we were an approved school! A catch-22!

I was too young to let a mere contradiction disturb me. I had read that Nordstrom was training a group of Russian immigrants to be shoe salesmen (this was 1979). So around Christmas of 1979 I was able to convince Nordstrom (www.nordstrom.com) that I would give the shoe salesmen free English lessons; the price seemed right to Nordstrom. We were all successful: the salesmen learned English, Nordstrom made more sales because their salesmen had a fair command of the language and WAL had successful graduates. We earned Immigration approval to have international students the following March. In April we received our first students.

Once I reconciled myself to the fact that the Iranian halcyon days were over, I concentrated on Japan, Venezuela and the Middle East. We were fortunate to receive students from all of those geographical areas and the school was off to a grand start by mid April 1980.

While this story is not one of how the leopard got its spots, it is the story of how WAL became authorized to have international students. Of course, our school has been examined and reauthorized several times since that very challenging first time.

Little did I realize that the easiest part of beginning a school was beginning a school! Stay tuned.

– Dr. Paul Schneider, Director of Teacher Education Programs, WAL