ESLEO

This course provides students with the skills and strategies they need to make the transition to college and university preparation courses in English and other secondary school disciplines. Students will be encouraged to develop independence in a range of academic tasks. They will participate in debates and lead classroom workshops; read and interpret literary works and academic texts; write essays, narratives, and reports; and apply a range of learning strategies and research skills effectively. Students will further develop their ability to respond critically to print and media texts.

Students are exposed to a variety of genres throughout the course and develop skills to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of texts which may include poems, short stories, novels, non-fiction texts, plays, videos, and songs or other media texts from a wide range of cultures and time periods. Students identify and use various strategies including building vocabulary, learning to understand and use features and organization of texts, and developing knowledge of conventions. Throughout the course, students develop into stronger readers, writers, and oral communicators while making connections to the workplace and international events.

Teachers differentiate instruction to meet the diverse learning needs of students. Instructors also use electronic stimuli including Discussion Boards, Google Docs, Skype, Google Hangout and Screencastify to assist students in reflecting on their learning, and in setting goals for improvement in key areas while developing 21st century skills. These tools facilitate and support the editing and revising process for students as they create texts for different audiences and purposes.

• Identifying and developing skills and strategies – through modeling of effective skills, students learn to choose and utilize varied techniques to become effective readers, writers, and oral communicators.
• Communicating – several opportunities are provided for students to write and communicate orally.
• Generating ideas and topics – teachers encourage students to design their own approaches to the material by maintaining frequent (often daily) online communication with students, by allowing some freedom in how students respond to topics and questions, and by encouraging students’ independent thinking through discussion posts.
• Researching – various approaches to researching are practised. Students learn how to cite sources and provide a works cited page at the end of longer assignments using MLA formatting.
• Thinking critically – students learn to critically analyze texts and to use implied and stated evidence from texts to support their analyses. Students use their critical thinking skills to identify perspectives in texts, including biases that may be present. Students will read the novel, “Piecing Me Together” by Renée Watson and learn about race, class, privilege, and friendship.
• Producing published work and making presentations – students engage in the editing and revising process, including self-revision, peer revision, and teacher revision all of which strengthen texts with the aim to publish or present student work.
• Reflecting – through the ePortfolio and other elements of the course, students reflect on the learning process, focus on areas for improvement, and make extensions between course content and their personal experiences.

Our theory of assessment and evaluation follows the Ministry of Education’s Growing Success document, and it is our firm belief that doing so is in the best interests of students. We seek to design assessment in such a way as to make it possible to gather and show evidence of learning in a variety of ways to gradually release responsibility to the students and to give multiple and varied opportunities to reflect on learning and receive detailed feedback.

Growing Success articulates the vision the Ministry has for the purpose and structure of assessment and evaluation techniques. There are seven fundamental principles that ensure best practices and procedures of assessment and evaluation by Canadian Global School   teachers. CGS assessments and evaluations,

• are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
• support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
• are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;
• are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the course and at other points throughout the school year or course;
• are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
• provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;
• develop students’ self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

For a full explanation, please refer to Growing Success.

The evaluation for this course is based on the student’s achievement of curriculum expectations and the demonstrated skills required for effective learning. The final percentage grade represents the quality of the student’s overall achievement of the expectations for the course and reflects the corresponding level of achievement as described in the achievement chart for the discipline. A credit is granted and recorded for this course if the student’s grade is 50% or higher. The final grade will be determined as follows:

• 70% of the grade will be based upon evaluations conducted throughout the course. This portion of the grade will reflect the student’s most consistent level of achievement throughout the course, although special consideration will be given to more recent evidence of achievement.
• 30% of the grade will be based on final evaluations administered at the end of the course. The final assessment may be a final exam, a final project, or a combination of both an exam and a project.

Teachers who are planning a program in English must take into account considerations in a number of important areas. Essential information that pertains to all disciplines is provided in the companion piece to this document, The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12: Program Planning and Assessment, 2000. The areas of concern to all teachers that are outlined here include the following:

• types of secondary school courses
• education for exceptional students
• the role of technology in the curriculum
• English as a second language (ESL) and English literacy development (ELD)
• career education
• cooperative education and other workplace experiences
• health and safety

With exposure to the English language in a supportive learning environment, most young children will develop oral fluency quite quickly, making connections between concepts and skills acquired in their first language and similar concepts and skills presented in English. However, oral fluency is not a good indicator of a student’s knowledge of vocabulary or sentence structure, reading comprehension, or other aspects of language proficiency that play an important role in literacy development and academic success. Research has shown that it takes five to seven years for most English language learners to catch up to their English-speaking peers in their ability to use English for academic purposes. Moreover, the older the children are when they arrive, the greater the language knowledge and skills that they have to catch up on, and the more direct support they require from their teachers. Responsibility for students’ English-language development is shared by the course teacher, the ESL/ELD teacher (where available), and other school staff. Volunteers and peers may also be helpful in supporting English language learners in the language classroom. Teachers must adapt the instructional program in order to facilitate the success of these students in their classrooms. Appropriate adaptations include:

1. modification of some or all of the subject expectations so that they are challenging but attainable for the learner at his or her present level of English proficiency, given the necessary support from the teacher;
2. use of a variety of instructional strategies (e.g., extensive use of visual cues, graphic organizers, scaffolding; previewing of textbooks, pre-teaching of key vocabulary; peer tutoring; strategic use of students’ first languages);
3. use of a variety of learning resources (e.g., visual material, simplified text, bilingual dictionaries, and materials that reflect cultural diversity);
4. use of assessment accommodations (e.g., granting of extra time; use of oral interviews, demonstrations or visual representations, or tasks requiring completion of graphic organizers or close sentences instead of essay questions and other assessment tasks that depend heavily on proficiency in English).

Note: When learning expectations in any course are modified for an English language learner (whether the student is enrolled in an ESL or ELD course or not), this information must be clearly indicated on the student’s report card.

This course can provide a wide range of options to address the needs of ESL/ELD students. Detailed analysis of the components of sentences aid ESL students in mastering the English language and all of its idiosyncrasies. In addition, since all occupations require employees with a wide range of English skills and abilities, many students will learn how their backgrounds and language skills can contribute to their success in the larger world.