Get Memorable Methods from Our Print Collection
of 15 Teacher-Training + Peer-Sharing Handouts
 

Here is a definition from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher education: 
 

“Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school and wider community.”
 

In addition to formal coursework and supervision, an eclectic way both novice and experienced educators used to progress in their training or professional development was by participating in sessions at professional conferences.  The best of these practical workshops supplied printed handouts that summarized key concepts, connected theory to practice, and/or offered immediately applicable free samples, templates, or models. These durable  resources were most useful when presented and practiced through actual (as opposed to virtual) interaction with others.  Even so, they might well stand on their own by delivering maximal value to both teachers and learners.

Below you will find PDF’d copies of concise to extensive workshop handouts that have been used with live audiences at CATESOL (California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages), reading, adult ed, literacy, and related educational conferences in the 20th and 21st centuries. There were/are several types: [1] “commercial presentations” to help users take advantage of “best practices” features of published products, [2] well-organized, generic-concept and creative-idea offerings to be applied to a variety of educational situations, and [3] go-giving exchanges in which  content and progress evolve(d) from participant interaction.    
 

To view, download, print out, reproduce, and/or make productive use of any of the following, click on an underlined topic and get started.

 
Alphabet Answers = Everything to Know (Now) About Teaching & Learning Alphabets:  This 12-page workshop handout gives an overview of the first resource book of the “Everything to Know (Now) About . . . “ series — entitled Alphabet Answers A to Z [ISBN 978-1-934637-01-2].  You'll find the complete text from three of its sections: A = The Names of the Alphabet Letters, D = Alphabet Rhythm + People-Letters, and F. Alphabet Bingo or Letter Lotto, and an informative Table of Contents that can serve as a curriculum outline for teaching alphabetic writing systems.  It ends with descriptions of related alphabet-teaching products.

Beginners’ Before Speaking with Pronunciation Principles (BegBefSpwPrPr). This four-page workshop handout used a high-beginning listening/speaking text called Beginners’ Before Speaking with Pronunciation Practice—and More [ISBN 978-1-934637-25-8] for examples only.  More significant were its discussion topics, which led to participant interaction and decisions. These were [1] reasons to teach oral skills at all, if any, [2] possible learner obstacles to overcome, [3] what to teach in oral skills, [4] how to teach what you’ve decided on, and [5] how to know when you’ve reached your objectives.  This brief handout is crammed full of info and ideas about elements of oral-skills curricula and methods for teaching them.  

Connections in Word-Level Language Instruction. No matter what information, concepts, or skills are being targeted, the pedagogy of any language-related unit is likely to include these four elements: [1] content, [2] materials, [3] methods, and [4] levels of difficulty.  Using word-level language , especially phonics & spelling, as its subject matter, this 12-page action-oriented handout attempts to answer four significant questions about language teaching/learning.   It delivers reasons (to teach the selected content)—along with particulars of what to teach (in detailed outlines).  It summarizes types of materials as well as non-technological methods that work.  It ends with “a word from our sponsor.”

De Unam Pluribus =  Creative Multi-Skills Language & Content Lessons Based on One Set of Materials. After an intro and a Table of Contents, the reproducible materials offered in this ten-page handout are a set of 16 two-sided multi-cultural “Famous-People Cards.”  These double as a Bingo or Lotto Grid.  What follows are eight very different suggestions for pronunciation, vocabulary, and memory lessons based on the same three pages of content.  Next come suggestions for using materials like these to teach or reinforce language-related skills: classification, organization, description, sentence-level grammar, paraphrasing, summarizing, and a lot more.  

Getting the Main Idea: A Multi-Level Reading Curriculum Workshop.  Created in the last century, this 10-page Teacher-Training Handout delivers a lot of helpful present-day content.  It begins with three timelessly productive principles of—or assumptions about—reading instruction in any language.  With content directed at teachers or trainers, it offers a reproducible model for a classic “Following Written Instructions” activity.  In an easy-to-read three-page article, it summarizes “best practices” answers to the question “What are Reading Skills & Strategies?” It ends with reading-for-meaning, outlining, and summarizing activities designed to assess comprehension of the important information in the article—along with an always useful “answer key.”

Grammar Scenarios, Part One: Working with Multi-Leveled Learning Groups. One feature of grammar instruction that’s  become almost axiomatic is the use of phrase and sentence structures within natural or invented situations that interest learners.  Based on brief excerpts from the first chapter of Scenario Book One: Beginning to Use English Grammar in Context [ISBN 978-1-891077-47-0], the first seven pages of this User-Training Handout start with an introduction to an updated grammar series.  Next comes a list of seven complaints teachers often have about traditional grammar materials and methods—the first being the dilemma of “too hard” vs. “too easy” in multi-leveled language classes.  Subsequent pages are packed with sample solutions.

Grammar Scenarios, Part 2: Addressing More Complaints About Traditional Texts & Methods. Some other common problems with traditional grammar texts are that they’re too “academic” for practical use—or too “watered down” for cognitive learners; that they don’t provide users the necessary motivation to embrace what they learn—especially in correcting or going beyond their “fossilized” habits; and that they are daunting in scope but still tedious in practice.  With more excerpts from Scenario Book One: Beginning to Use English Grammar in Context [ISBN 978-1-891077-47-0], these eight handout pages propose solutions that involve explanations, graphic organizers, active whole-class information games, world maps, dyad learning, vocabulary classification, and simple grammar-based composition writing.  

Grammar Scenarios, Part 3: Letting the Materials Teach For You. Let’s face it: we all get tired; we could use and might appreciate help in teaching complex subject matter such as English grammar. The last section of the Grammar Scenario User-Training Handout uses ancillary material to address the challenges  posed by lack of time, energy, or helpful native-speaker models.  This time, sample excerpts are from Scenario Book One Answer Key & Teacher’s Guide  [ISBN 978-1-934637-01-2],  They include instructions, visuals, correct answers to exercise items, explanatory markings,  and—most helpful of all—examples of appropriately leveled native-speaker speech and writing.

Independent & Successful: Empowering Newcomers with Skills & Knowledge. This six-page workshop handout exemplifies participant-controlled workshop design.  It begins with discussion of the concept known as “teach a man to fish.” Then language-acquisition and acculturation challenges form a “pizza crust” to be covered with possible ingredients of effective pedagogy.  The offerings end with eight innovative step-by-step lesson plans to try out (based on  American geography but effective with many kinds of  content).  These include literacy activities, the use of maps, pronunciation lessons, puzzles, street directions, ranking, sequencing, main-idea statements, and more. 

PhonicSpelling, Part 1: Overview of a Unique Cost-Effective Resource. The 232-page How-to Teaching & Learning Resource Book,  PhonicSpelling A to Z: EVERYTHING to know (Now) About Phonics & Spelling Instruction  [ISBN 978-1-934637-37-1] is an amazingly complete and varied collection of pedagogical information, instructions for presentation and practice, creative ideas, and (reproducible) classroom-ready materials.  Excepted from a longer User-Training Handout, these ten pages offer [a] an overview of the product (covers, intro, table of contents), [b] the full text of its last chapter (Z = phonicSpelling Summary & Quiz), and [c] explanation of related word-level instructional ancillaries that go well with this innovative resource.    

PhonicSpelling, Part 2: Classroom-Ready Reproducibles with Game Instructions. These six pages from the middle of the User-Training Handout for PhonicSpelling A to Z: EVERYTHING to know (Now) About Phonics & Spelling Instruction  [ISBN 978-1-934637-37-1] provide 12 reduced-sized pages from the resource book itself: these offer a plethora of pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary lesson ideas, which address Language-Sound Awareness, PhonicSpelling Vocabulary, Initial-Consonant Sounds & Letters, Spelling by the Rules, and other productive subtopics of word-level language instruction.  Some of the intriguing, reproducible classroom-ready offerings are a Name Syllable-Grid, a Vocab-Find Puzzle, a deck of two-sided illustrated Playing Cards, a Game-Path Board, instructions for use of commercial (tile and dice) Spelling Games, and ideas for classroom versions of Hangman.

Simplifying Reading Material in Reusable Classroom Kits. This six-page Workshop Handout  functioned as an introductory precursor to the more comprehensive How-to Teacher-Training Resource, Paraphrasing Language [ISBN 978-1-891077-10-4].  It outlines common types of reading material for adults and how they might be used productively in language instruction.  Next comes an archived  journal article on “Simplifying the Language of Authentic Materials.” Finally, there are complete instructions for creating three very different kinds of sets of reusable classroom materials, along with references to several other ideas in Doing Without the Photocopier [ISBN 978-0-9627878-4-3]. 

Use Whatcha Have, Part One: Five Productive Ideas for NOT Discarding What’s Valuable. These first eight pages of an extensive Go-Giving Teacher-Resource Workshop handout begin with an intro to the concept  of Use Whatcha Have, Give Whatcha Got, Take Whatcha Need, and the like.  More important for immediate applicability, however, is the four to six ideas for how to maximize use of each of these kinds of materials: A = Cluttered Pictures, B = Individual Items, C = Visuals of the Same Kind, D = Sequenced Pictures/Text, and E = Equivalent Amounts of Information.  Next to a list of readily available items, each page is filled with clear, step-by-step suggestions for what learners might enjoy doing with them.  

Use Whatcha Have: Focus on Word-Level PhonicSpelling. This very extensive (18-page) handout has the same format as those used in other Go-Giving Teacher-Resource workshops.  Its particulars, however, involve pre-word and word-level topics of instruction such as alphabet letters, sounds, pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary.  Some of the language-related skills addressed are: classifying, categorization, visual perception, phonemic awareness, communicating  word or phrase meaning, accurate listening, knowing and remembering, visualizing or identifying, condensing or summarizing, comparing and contrasting, following game instructions, strategizing, cooperating or competing, matching or eliminating, listing and organizing, and much more.

Use Whatcha Have, Part Two: Five More Ideas for Maximizing What You Value. The last eight pages of Authors & Editors Go-Giving Teacher-Resource Workshop handout “cover” a larger variety of materials that you may have on hand or that can be produced with little effort. These are: F = (Matching)Cards & Decks, G = Information-Gap Puzzles, H = Knowledge-Game Boards, I = Bingo & Lotto Boards & Cards, and J = Cultural-Content Realia.  The three to five intriguing ideas for each of these categories include such proven, “best-practices” ideas as making productive use of Flash Cards, Classic Card Games, Dominoes, Info-Gap Jigsaws, Realia Collections, Scavenger Hunts, and more.

 

 

For a list of titles with (many of) the above listed features, you can click here: 
Alphabetized Authors & Editors Product List.  
More information about  products is available in the print or
Online Authors & Editors Creative Language Teaching & Learning Catalog and
at the Authors & Editors Online Store. 
No-cost materials can be downloaded from Teaching Tools, Tips, & Techniques--as
can the Try-Before-You-Buy samples attached to product descriptions.