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.