My last post finished with a reference about continuing the rewrite of the ESL Scales. Yesterday the ESL consultants, Karyl Martin, our manager, and Bev White from Catholic ED met with Bronwyn Custance, the writer, to continue this process. We worked in pairs to track development of criteria (eg circumstances) across pairs of scales and to give her some advice about the recommendations coming from the reference group. When the consultants meet again in a couple of weeks time, we will try tracking individual criteria across all year levels. Bronwyn doesn't need my endorsement, but I think she is well on track with the draft. She has drafted Scales 1-10 to date and plans to do the next two within the first few weeks of next term. As well as having a detailed knowledge of the Australian Curriculum, her knowledge of grammar is tremendous. On top of all this she has the ability to manage such a big task with ease. With her at the helm, I am very hopeful the draft document can be trialled in schools in term 3.
It may interest you that the Aust Curric Literacy Continuum we are using as the framework for the new Scales is also being used in SPALL (Secondary Principals As Literacy Leaders) course. You may be aware that PALL, primary principals' version, had its Big 6 for Reading. It appears that the Big 6 in SPALL will be the elements of the literacy continuum (eg text knowledge, grammar, word knowledge). Therefore I anticipate that the new Scales will have a better reception in secondary schools than the current version had.
Based upon participant feedback after the last Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting, the consultants are planning for the next meeting to have a single focus: The Australian Curriculum. It will be held after school on Wednesday 30th May. Look out for fliers in Term 2 with more details or email me at ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au
Continuing the theme of Australian Curriculum, a couple of days ago I met with Mat Charleston, senior leader at Brompton Primary. I showed him some additional resources I have developed to show the links between noun groups and nominalisation and the new curriculum. It throws up some inconsistencies in the curriculum, but both of these language items introduced in TESMC are important to the literacy in all four Phase 1 subjects (ie Eng, Mths, Sci, Hist). There is also some material in module 1 of the new L4L course that makes more general connections with literacy in the Aust Curric.
We also started discussing how TESMC participants at his school could demonstrate they had "taken on" new learning from the course. I had developed a checklist for a classroom walk through, but Mat's proposal, which I have to admit is better than mine, is to have each teacher host a staff meeting in their classsroom during which they spend 10 minutes showing artefacts (eg genre posters, register continuum posters, teaching and learning cycles) and explaining how they use them with their students.
Happy Easter and enjoy the term holidays and I will try to post again in the second week of the school holidays when I return to work. I enjoy my job, but 4 weeks annual leave is a struggle at times.

I would like to acknowledge the sad passing of Brien Davies from Adelaide Secondary School of English. Brien was proud of his school and was always ready to share his work. For example, a few years ago he organised for teachers from my previous school to visit ASSoE to meet students and teachers and take way curriuclum materials. I always found him friendly and sincere and in all our conversations he showed he cared greatly about his students.

Last Friday I delivered the first three of nine TESMC modules to staff at Brompton Primary. Despite some of them preferring to discuss spiders and trees at various stages during the day, we had a very productive day. We meet again on 24th April to do modules four and five. One of the teachers gave me some student work to read through so I could give her some feedback. She was a participant in a PD session I'd run earlier in the term at the school about persuasive writing. I can already see that she and her students have given some attention to persuasive language devices and the most appropriate ways to begin sentences (foregrounding). I'm always more than happy to give this sort of feedback to teachers who are implementing new learning from PD I've run.

Today I have used the other side of my brain and started using formulae in Excel to calculate class averages and effect sizes. This suits standardised tests given and then repeated over time. If ESL students are doing TORCH or PAT-R reading tests then it is applicable. I doubt if it is as reliable if you are scaling pre-teaching and post-teaching texts unless they are scaled by the same teacher with a sound understanding of the Scales.

I have also finsihed a draft resource paper about recount writing. The paper had been started by some of my colleagues last year, but needed to be finalised and proofread. Hopefully it will join the other resource papers wriiten by the ESL Regional Consultants and published on the web. They can be found at www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy >Resouces>Resource Papers.

I have also started to put together teacher resource kits for ESL new arrivals. While the changes to free transport for new arrivals will probably mean a few more than the usual number opt to enrol straight into a manistream school in the city rather than an IELC, the kits are really for schools in Eyre and Western. At the moment there are students who are eligible to attend an IELC in Pt Lincoln, Whyalla and Wudinna, but ofcourse the nearest IELC is between 4 and 8 hours drive from these towns. I intend to keep one kit in this office for Western Adelaide schools to borrow and place two in Eyre & Western, probably Pt Lincoln and Whyalla. I intend to use DECD resources along with a few from our counterparts in Victoria.

I have also been writing my reports. Unlike many of you who are currently writing reports about students I am reporting about my work. This takes various forms. For example, as well as attending a performance management meeting this week I also need to report about what PD I ran this term and how many attendees each session had. This is in addition to reporting about teacher feedback about the PD. For the record about 200 teachers, SSOs etc have attended PD I have presented individually in the Western Adelaide Region. Another 50 have attended PD delivered by me in Eyre and Western. This is on top of PD that I jointly ran with other consultants. This includes the 100 staff who attended the whole day session about NAPLAN persuasive writing, all those who attended either of the two whole sessions about the Introduction to ESL Scope and Scales and the more than 40 teachers who attended the ESL Teacher Induction Day.

In the next couple of days, I intend to deal with my large volume of correspondence and start planning for next term's PD. We have another ERC meeting on Friday. The new version of the ESL Scales will form a big part of our work on the day so I'll probably be able to give you an update about this next week.

On Monday I worked with a group of six enthusiastic teachers from Allenby Gardens Primary. It was pleasing that the school had arranged for them to be released for half a day to give due consideration to this new learning. Just as impressive was that one or two part-timers attended in their own time. During the training one or two admitted that they had done the training previously but had not assigned Scales as part of the whole school process and therefore forgotten most of what they had learnt. However, by the end of the session they were remarking that they need not wait until then to practise their new skills. In this situation I also suggest that teachers cement their skills by explicitly teaching language choices in context. This has the added bonus of improving student learning! This is the real purpose in becoming familair with the model of language behind the ESL Scales.

Yesterday morning was the Secondary ESL Teachers Network meeting at which Richard Waugh from Glenunga International High gave a presentation about the use of graphic novels in Year 8-10 ESL and Yr 11 Language B. He successfully displayed how the teaching of graphic novels links to the new Australian Curriculum's general capabilities, the English strands of Language, Literacy and Literature and the Achievement Standards at Years 8-10. Lyn Bellwood from Catholic Education delivered a valuable presentation about how to refine tasks in Year 12 ESL and ESL Studies to give students a better chance of achieving the A standard. I have a copy of her PowerPoint. My email is above so please contact me if you'd like a copy.

In the afternoon I was part of an ESL Team meeting whcih included managers from central office, Community Liaison Officers, ESL psychologists and ESL ASOs as well as the eight ESL Regional Consultants. One task was to continue to work in groups to plan improved transition for students entering a mainstream school from an Intensive English Language Centres (these used to be known as NAP centres). The secondary group has already been able to develop and implement a new process to support students making their transition from ASSoE into mainstream high schools. Basically, ASSoE students who are identified as potentially "at risk" in their first term in mainstream now have an individual transition plan written for them. The plan is written by staff at the mainstream school with support from their ESL Regional Consultant. The school than implements the plan during the student's first term and it is reviewed in their second term. The intention is to reduce the number of newly arrived students "slipping through the cracks" once they move into a mainstream high school.

Today I have spent most of the day preparing supplementary resources for modules 1-3 of TESMC. The group of teachers I am delivering this course to includes a few early years teachers. They are understandably expecting examples aimed at younger students so I have turned my hand to making 2 way information gap activities and sequencing activities involving lady birds, catepillars and rabbits. The last 24 hours have certainly tested my ability to provide support from Reception to Year 12, but that is my brief.

Finally, what's in a name? Well enough for the ESL Program to decide to begin making a change from English as a Second Language (ESL) to English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD). Many of you are probably aware that other states use to EALD instead of ESL. The Australian Curriculum also uses EALD. However, apart from coming into line with most of the national and international community, the term far better reflects the experiences and resources that our learners have. It seems odd to continue to use a term that does not ackowledge that many of our students knew several languages or dialects before English. So don't be alarmed if over the coming months you see the term ESL gradually being removed from DECD and being replaced by the more accurate AELD.

I am an ESL Regional Consultant with DECD the South Australian department of education. Along with a colleague, we provide English as a Second Language (ESL) services to other regional office staff, school leaders and teachers in schools in the western region of metropolitan Adelaide and a country region in the west of the state. Primarily we offer training to staff about the needs of ESL students, how to more effectively teach these students and how to track their improvement. We have a focus upon strengthening students' academic progress and their wellbeing. We have being doing this work for 2 years and during that time we have used a range of methods to keep in touch. In my personal life I don't use social media, but appreciate its appeal. Let's see if this blogging experiment works. I don't intend for it to replace the other forms of communication we use, but just  to provide another option. If by chance someone outside DECD finds any of these blogs useful than that would be an unintended bonus.

Earlier this week I worked as one of several presenters of Tactical Teaching Reading session 2 at Woodville High. The day was well organised and fully resourced and supported by school leadership. The day built upon a similar day last year when staff were trained in the reading processes in session 1 of the course. After the session staff spent the rest of the day doing joint curriculum writing to implement some of the reading strategies from session 2. From an ESL point of view, it was encouraging to see teachers considering how they might differentiate the teaching and learning of reading for a range of students including ESL students. Some of the strategies are similar to strategies in the old ESL in the Mainstream course.

I also had an opportunity to work with a small but compassionate group of Woodville staff in the afternoon to write transition plans for migrant and refugee students who enrolled there from Adelaide Secondary School of English at the being of this term. This is a new process that's aimed at not letting relatively newly arrived ESL students "fall through the cracks" when they enter a mainstream school. Each student now has an individual plan to meet their needs as identified by ASSoE staff. Woodville High staff will now implement the plan and I will return next term to check each student's progress against the plan.

On Thursday I assisted teachers at Fulham North Primary assign ESL Scales to student work. The school has an appropriate scaling process in place and it is well known by most teachers. At most, teachers were only one scale "out" in their assessment. On most occasions I could confirm their scaling. The scaling data provides teachers with another tool to monitor student progress especially in oral and written work.

Friday I took a trip to the Barossa for the Western Adelaide Regional Leaders Conference. I can recommend googling Debra Masters and "Visible Students" or "Assessment Capable Students". Debra is a colleague of John Hattie and gave clear examples of how students in some NZ schools were taking control of their learning. They could articulate the assessment criteria, their own progress and the strategies that could help them continue to progress even when they had fallen into the "pit". They didnt seem to view lack of success as permanent but just another opportunity to show resolve and learn something new!!

Next week is the first Secondary ESL Teachers Network meeting for 2012. The program includes the use of graphic novels in ESL classes. I'll also be running modules 1-3 of TESMC with staff at Brompton Primary. The leadership there have been exceedingly supportive. As well as paying for the course they have arranged for the use two student free days to run five of the nine modules. We have already had some discussions about how they want the course tailored and what difference they what it to make for students especially their ESL students. If you or your school is interested in doing a TESMC course go to http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/ >Professional Learning.