TESOL--Nodding with Kate Kinsella

I am at TESOL in sunny Philadelphia this week. I seldom find myself nodding my head while listening to a speaker, but I've nodded my head at all three presentations I've seen by Dr. Kate Kinsella this week.

If you aren't familiar with her work, check it out. Below are some links:
Many resources from the Santa Clara County Office of Education

Or do a search for her name.

I had the opportunity to speak with her briefly at a dinner hosted by National Geographic, and I was excited by our conversation about needing to find a balance between theory and activity. When you are at a conference like TESOL, you see a broad range of presentations--many very theoretically based and many activity based. True pedagogy, though, is somewhere in the middle between those two, and I think that's where a lot of teachers are lacking balance. They want to ask, "But what am I going to do with the students?" without thinking a lot about why they are doing what they are doing. Teachers often feel as if keeping the students busy is a sign that learning is taking place. On the other hand, teachers who spend all their time thinking about theory don't think about lesson delivery. Balance.

She is working with multiple publishing companies, and I have seen three programs of hers, and there is a common thread running through all of them--rigor for students at all stages of language acquisition. There is also a structure to the teaching piece. I love her push to have teachers be more thoughtful about the language of their instruction.

So here are the three programs:

From Scholastic: English 3D
From National Geographic: Academic Vocabulary Toolkit
From Oxford: Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas

If I get some time to do a more complete review when I get back from TESOL, I'll put those up here and link them in the other section, but I'm excited about all of these series.