P I Z A Z Z

P I Z A Z Z

People Interested in Zippy And Zany Zcribbling

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eleslieob/pizzaz.html

Oregon Web Site a Boon to ESL Instructors

By Tom Mueller

The hardest thing about this Website is entering the long URL intoyour browser. But if you save it as afavorite, you’ll only have to do that once!  The site achieves its author’s goal,which is to provide an easy-to navigate site full of simple, creative writing and oral storytelling activities. You even get handouts for use with English-as-a-second language(ESL) students of all ages and at all skill levels—beginning through advanced. Permission is given to use these resources for in-class, nonprofit use.  Author Leslie Opp-Beckman teaches at the Universityof Oregon and its American English Institute. She has set up this site with links both to lesson plans that she has designed (or borrowed with authors’permissions) or to lists of supporting sites to help you design your own activities. For example, if you go to the poetry section and click the Persona Poems link, you will find a template for students to follow in developing their own eight-line poems that say some things about themselves. This is great for pairwork and is a good way for students to exchange information about themselves at the beginning of a class or semester. Take a peek inside the bag of tricks section and you’ll find links such as Writing Roulette and Rolls of Fun. The former lists sites containing word games that can be used as story-sparkers for authors of all ages.The latter contains a zany icebreaker activity where students race against the clock to write as many words as possible on a roll of toilet paper.

Tom Mueller has 20 years of experience as a literacy practitioner. He works as an ABE/GED teacher for a health care workers’ union inSyracuse, N.Y. 

Courtesy of Proliteracy America