 Hello everybody, thank you so much for joining for this open ed 2022 session today. My name is Amy Song and I am your host for today's session entitled English is also foreign discussion with an ESOL practitioner. ESOL being English to speakers of other languages obviously. This tongue-in-cheek title is to signify how overlooked ESOL learners and education is and why good ESOL education matters and how we can make use of OER to help accomplish that. To talk about this topic with an with an appropriate approach I wanted to bring an experienced practitioner of open and ESOL to talk about their approach. So I'm joined by Tim Krause an ESOL instructor from Portland Community College who has produced over 20 ESOL OERs over the course of its time in open. My goal is to not only provide exposure about ESOL at open ed as it is not a topic that is frequently spoken about but also about but knowing that the viewers of this presentation are likely already familiar with ESOL and or open pedagogy I wanted to specifically address the the intersection of both and practice. We only have 25 minutes to get today so I want to get the ball rolling so I want to start by more formally introducing ourselves and then we will jump right into the conversation. So my name is Amy I am the Customer Success Manager at Pressbooks. I am also an English every second language learner so I am an immigrant and at one point I learned how to speak English and I think that if I were to have learned English now I would love to have access to good and free and accessible educational material so that is what prompted me to do this presentation for you all today and I'll turn it over to Tim. Thanks Amy. Hi everybody my name is Tim Kraus and as Amy said I teach at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. I've been teaching there since about 2015 teaching ESOL of all levels and all different kinds of skills and I also teach online for the Open University of Catalonia in Spain where I focus also for ESOL classes but with a much more narrow focus on English for business so it's my pleasure to be here and share a little bit of my experience working with Open Oregon and Open Educational Resource Materials over the past five years or so. Thank you so much Tim that is a great introduction and you do some incredible work so I'm excited to share today. So this is our outline for today's discussion we have four questions and Tim and I will be going through them and then as you know with these pre-recorded 25 minute presentation formats at Open Ed after the recording has ended I will take some questions from the crowd or and I'm happy to take them during the chat as well while the conversation is ongoing. So with that said we can dive right into the topic and we are recording just with our faces now so I'm just going to I want to pull up the questions and my first question is what does good ESOL education look like and what can it do for learners? Thank you yeah that's a really great question and in my opinion I have an easy answer I think good ESOL education is whatever serves the students needs right it's whatever the student needs and for example it can change it can vary a lot so for example most of our beginning students especially those who recently moved here are really seeking communication skills that serve everyday life like everyday things like things that we might take for granted like going to the doctor riding the bus going to the grocery store right that's the what's the focus really for a large group of our students but other students are coming to our college are seeking more academic study they're getting ready for academic studies after ESOL either at you know community college or at another university so their needs are a little bit different and so for example we need to not only teach more academic language but we also need to help them understand what is it like to be a student at a US college so what are the expectations how should they talk to students and classmates and teachers what's kind of vocabulary do they need what are the experiences they will have after ESOL so you know you might hear the word adulting like people are learning how to be adulting well we're yeah student team as well right we're teaching student team about what's it like to be a student in the US and some examples of that might be something like critical thinking which can vary a lot from culture to culture writing forms which change from culture to culture of what's a good essay for example the structure things like that can be really different so we want to help students understand not only language vocabulary and grammar but there's a whole lot more to academia there's one more group there's a third group of students who come into our classrooms and they're already highly educated you know they know student team they know basic they know you already have a good command of English for example and they probably already have an advanced degree from their own country but they come here and they need to get a degree from here or a license from here or just be able to become more fluent to start working here and so their focus might be more vocational something like that instead of life skills or academics so when we talk about well what is good ESOL I think it really needs to be what does the student need what are the modalities a student works best in what are the what is the content the student needs what is the accessibility the student needs you know for example what's their level of digital literacy stuff like that right so yes what can we provide to be most successful and sometimes for example the commercial textbooks aren't are not exactly what we need and through OER we can we can make what we need yeah that's that's an amazing answer especially because you're so experienced in teaching for lots of different kinds of levels and you're talking about different groups of students who who are looking to learn English so I think that's a really great approach not only for ESOL but I'm currently learning French right now and I think that's you know in every language that's so you know important and probably a very integral part to teaching and learning language so sort of related to that but sort of shifting gears into the open education side of things what do openly licensed materials afford you as an ESOL instructor that you can't do a copyright material so you were just talking about those textbooks that are not necessarily catered to they're not necessarily made with let's say a student's best interest in mind where that's sort of what you're alluding to so I guess to wrap up that really long question if I could sum it up into two words why OER yeah well it's a good question because really this is twofold and I think a lot of people know the first answer a lot of people know that OER me openly education resources are generally free or low cost like the cost of printing at you know at the bookstore something like that and so that cost savings is a huge factor and it is like the probably the foremost factor you know commercial publishers are you know in it to make money that's their purpose OER textbook creators are really has education as the focus and not not making money and those those textbooks can be really expensive even in ESOL whether textbooks aren't as expensive maybe as other disciplines it still can be a cost barrier and it could be a barrier to enrollment in fact some students might need to make a choice it could be a deal breaker whether they take a class or take two classes for example because textbooks can be so expensive but money isn't the only thing money is important part of it and the cost savings are real places like open Oregon where I work with open Oregon educational resources they document all the cost savings for like whenever we get a grant to make something we have to report the enrollment and and so they have numbers that prove how successful this is but on the other side of things is what we were talking about a little earlier the content and the control I don't want to say control of content but the ability to curate the content that your students need is really important and I don't think yeah I think it's maybe underestimated a little bit by people who are new or not familiar with OER using OER really allows teachers to deliver the content the students need and so like we're saying what is good OER it meets the needs of the students well how do I do that if I look at a commercial textbook maybe it's got some of what I need but not but there's a lot that I don't use and so there's a little bit of waste there maybe if you don't use a whole book things like that right yeah and making an OER or using an OER allows us to customize the experience for our students and that might be as simple as just representation like who are in the photos right are you represented in the photos or are these photos of people that are not representative of students in the classroom or the local culture see that OER can also be tailored geographically maybe there's something I need or want to share in Oregon that might not be appropriate or pertinent to somewhere else in the country or even around the world for that matter right yeah a culture in the United States you know would be very different than culture in Australia or New Zealand or something like that and it also allows me as I mentioned to focus on specific skills that I think my students need that may or may not be in a commercial book or a book that you know is existing but beyond that so that's that's where you're starting with but also the thing I want to mention too is that OER is so nimble right it's very nimble if you buy a commercial textbook you might have to wait a year or two for another edition that changes but with OER I can make changes right away a good example of this is I have a reading book that I have an article about the Olympics that were recently you know couple of years ago and it was a really popular article but it's getting less and less relevant right now so it's easy for me to take out that one story and replace it with something new and I have a brand new edition there is no reprinting of a whole run of thousands of books or something like that it's really flexible and because it's flexible student teachers can also um what do I want to say customize or personalize their work um through downstream editing so all of my work for example you could take and it's in google docs or press books or whatever format it's in you can take that format and you can edit it and not only you know this is good for fixing typos for example but it's also also really good for fixing not for fixing for um updating content or just changing something that you might think oh this will work a little better for my students so I have the ability to edit OER and you don't have that that you don't have that ability with commercial textbooks so yeah those are the things that I'm thinking about you know as as some of the really strong advantages for OER over commercial textbooks for sure and um I'm going to sort of promote your book here I suppose but I know you have a couple of books about Portland in particular and OER about Portland which is so interesting because not only is that inspiration to other ESOL practitioners about what what kind of material they could produce or if they're in the Portland area they could you know use your book or reuse your book but this idea of localization that you're mentioning which is like a I suppose like a fancy OER term but also kind of it's a you know it's a sensible word um how important that is and to really customize that learning experience so for example you know if you have a grammar book in the US it might be different than an ESOL grammar book if you were to teach in you know the UK for example or in Canada um so so that's that's such a that's such a great point that you bring up um and then I this question is related so you can totally repeat your answer if need be but um what is a crucial or major consideration in an ESOL that is perhaps in an ESOL OER that is perhaps different when you're comparing it to OERs of other discipline I took me a while to think about um this idea when we first um talked about this question I don't think because I don't on the surface I don't think there is much difference between OER for ESOL and OER for other disciplines I mean some of the major considerations are the same for example um for me when I'm making a starting a new OER project I think about how will the students get get the material so in that term in that sense I'm thinking about what platform will serve the material best so there's a lot of platforms out there press books it's one of them google docs you know google sites all kinds of things that you can use and I need to stop and think okay what is the best way to serve the material that I'm making first right right you know what will support that material because every platform has strengths that maybe some other platforms don't um I also like to think more recently about digital and analog I used to be all like oh wow digital digital we're all pushing for you know don't print don't wait don't save the paper save the ink let's just have it on your phone or have it on your your um your device and I think that's great in many ways but especially in ESOL but I think everywhere we have many students coming to college who um may not may have some barriers to internet access and so an analog format or a printed format is sometimes very beneficial especially in ESOL when we have students who might have low digital literacy skills they're coming to here not really knowing a lot about using the computer or using the internet so thinking about that that can be that should it be digital or should it be a print should it be both ideally both another thing I think about is how am I going to meet the accessibility concerns in terms of students with disabilities and online that might be you know tagging pictures and doing the right formatting so that screen readers can read it and then offline it could be the simp also things like contrast I'm printing and things like that um and then other thing that's come up recently is uh what am I providing in the OER like what is this a textbook for students or is this a teacher facing book that it's just a collection of things that you will print and hand out or display on the screen but you don't give it to students it's for the teacher to use in class I've I've tried all of these things is it an interactive workbook or is it really just a reader you know those kinds of thing what is the format that you need that will serve the material in order to meet the students needs and then lastly one of my list I think which is a global consideration is how how is it best shared with other instructors or other schools because that's the purpose of OER right that we share everything sure yeah yeah and so like well how am I going to get this out there for me open Oregon is behind me we have a database and all that kind of stuff but there are many repositories right around the country and around the world that you can list and find things for OER for ESOL and for others so that's those are some questions that I think are universal but um one thing I think that might be a little more specific to ESOL is that maybe our range of what do I want to say this mar um range of subject matter might be a little wider than some disciplines like I'm thinking yeah for sure a book about chemistry is a book about chemistry but um a reading book in ESOL might cover 10 different topics right yeah absolutely yeah especially if you are involved in content-based learning where you really want like really want to focus on giving authentic and genuine and interesting content that is really useful right that's not stale you know or has you know has been reused a million times so exactly and I think something that I really appreciated about your books and the reason I wanted to talk to you specifically is because you you know you have books about you know Portland but you also have like a like a learner friendly version of a Christmas Carol so there's you know so many different there's different varieties and I think that with the beauty of open being that it's you know shareable and reusable oftentimes um there's such a breadth of material that you can take from and take inspiration from and I think that uh that's that's super important I'll give you a couple examples to the breadth there of is beyond like a Christmas Carol in Portland like you said I also have a curriculum based on Shark Tank the TV show which is oh my gosh also around the world right so many different languages and then I'm working on a reader right now of short stories from what we call the Outer Circle of World Englishes so World English is places where English is one of the standard languages in the country um and things stories that people there are writing in English not just from the United States or or something like that so it's really you know all over the map literally yeah honestly yeah literally that's so funny um so that might be a that might be what's different I think in ESOL and maybe it's not really so much a challenge I think it's an advantage actually that we can draw on so many different things again to come back to meet the needs of our students what is relevant what is culturally relevant what is linguistically relevant what do they need absolutely and I think that uh you know globally there's um a lack of attention on ESOL learners especially because English is almost expected oftentimes so I think to take the time to really localize and to think about who's who is going to be reading this material uh is is super super crucial when we think about it from like um like a justice standpoint as well I remember we were talking about that prior to this call so and and from a practical standpoint because when you mentioned that um teaching English the foreign language for example teaching teaching English in Japan is really different than teaching English to as a second language or to speakers of other languages here um the their the motivation is different the the goals are different the strategies are a little different and so again OER can meet those different needs whereas a commercial publisher may not be able to have two different versions of one book you absolutely that's a very that's a very fair point as well um and I'm a very good point to to add uh we only have about five minutes so I wanted to ask you my last question before I show you some of your beautiful work um I just wanted to ask my last question being how can others advance the OER work and yes so all and what does this community need? Sure sure get involved right that's what I would say yeah get involved and think of it this way um we need more materials so that we have more diversity of things to choose from because every teacher teaches a little differently and you know I may think Shark Tank was a great idea you may think oh I want something completely different so we need choices we need choices so get involved but I also want to clarify one thing about that is when I talk to teachers who are just getting into OER just hearing about it they're often really intimidated by this oh I have to make I have to write a book I have to like create all the stuff from scratch yeah and really the truth is there you don't have to that's what OER is about is that you can there's a lot of good material out there that you can choose from and just use it as is adopt it like a book or take it and personalize it a little bit or however much you want you don't have to start from scratch but if you do is if you want to you certainly can but I just want to make sure that people know there are different ways to sort of dip your toe in the OER world yeah that's that's a that's an awesome recommendation I think it's a really uh I think I think it's really the fact that we are open ed and we're talking about you know remixing especially in a discipline that's often overlooked I think is super important and I think something that all I think ultimately that ESOL learners can really benefit from so thank you so much for all your answers you're so wonderful and I'm so happy that that we got to have this competition today yeah it's my pleasure thank you so going back to our presentation here hopefully you can see my slides this is our Reasers page these are all linked so this will take you to 10s ESOL OERs I've already switched screens a bunch of times so I won't switch again for the sake of our viewers but there are over 20 resources on here all on different platforms and available in different modalities which I think is really wonderful so please please please if you're interested go and check them out I'm sure many of them if not all of them are opening licensed so you are welcome to read them and adapt them to your liking there's also a couple of other places where you'll be able to find 10s 10s books the open organ repository is where a lot of 10s books were produced and a couple of selections of his books down here that I think were I chose some that had a high interactivity so lots of h5p activities that you can draw from as well as some with very pretty covers that touch on different language levels as well so I thought they were great did you have anything to add about your book stem only to please explore OER explore my work for everybody's works try it and I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by the success you'll have thank you so much again and if you do have any questions about the presentation this is a little bit about me and thank you very much to everyone once again for joining us for this open ed session and I hope you have a lovely rest of open ed 2022 and thank you again time goodbye thank you