I’m interested in hearing examples of innovative ways school librarians are working with English Language Learners — it’s for an article I’m writing.
If you have some good examples, please share them in the comments section of this post.
Thanks!
1 Comment
Leave a reply
My Amazon Author’s page
First off, Larry, I love your website and blog. Thanks for all the great information you provide!
I am a librarian in a technical college (part of Washington State’s 2-year community and technical college system) and work a lot with adult ESL students (Levels 1 – 6). About 25% of our library’s total circulation is ESL materials and about 40-50% of the workshops I teach are to ESL classes.
All ESL students receive a one-hour library orientation class as part of their 12-hour ESL Orientation and Goal Setting Class that all new ESL students are required to take.
In addition to the library orientation, the ESL instructors schedule separate workshops just for their classes. Some of the more popular workshops include:
Library Terminology Games (a variety of games teaching them words we use in the library and info about the library). The games use clickers, a Jeopardy-style buzzer system and of course, fabulous, fabulous prizes!
Practicing Library Situations – Using props and written dialogues which students can read (or use their own words), students practice basic library activities such as checking out and returning materials or renewing items by phone. Every student who volunteers to act out a situation with me gets a fabulous, fabulous prize.
Using the Library Online Catalog and Finding Materials in the Library – Hands-on workshop using laptop computers in which students practice looking items up in the library online catalog and then going to the shelves to find the actual item.
Online Job Searching – Guided hands on practice using a occupation database and job website with the library laptop computers.
I’ve also done lots of other workshops with ESL students such as Using an English Dictionary, Web Searching with Google, Using Online Encyclopedias, etc.
All the workshops are one-hour in length and have lots of hands-on activities.
For more info, read the chapter that my library director Eric Palo and I wrote: “It’s Showtime! Engaging Students in Library Instruction” that appeared in the book “Practical Pedagogy for Library Instructors” edited by Douglas Cook and Ryan L. Sittler and published by the American Library Association (ISBN 978-0-8389-8458-1).
If you have questions or need more info, let me know. –Debbie