Feedback on our primary ESOL Online Mailing List Community by Janet McQueen https://padlet.com/pandjmcq/zro6my40cs2e This community is dedicated to supporting the effective teaching of English language learners in primary schools. What has been most helpful for you this year? How has this online forum triggered you to trial a different approach? What have you discovered? What could we improve on? Do you feel safe contributing? Please double click on the page to add your comments below. en-us 2015-11-30 03:39:37 UTC 2025-11-15 01:04:15 UTC hello@padlet.com Email List tania_savage https://padlet.com/pandjmcq/zro6my40cs2e/wish/84063013 I am not sure how this is solved however the amount of emails that say good idea or I agree are actually creating unnecessary email traffic. I often wonder why this group does not have a presence on the VLN instead. It would also be a way of adding to peoples technology skills.

The overviews are great.

]]> 2015-11-30 23:00:53 UTC https://padlet.com/pandjmcq/zro6my40cs2e/wish/84063013 I think the list serves fulfil a great function and are much appreciated Thank you facilitators.     The biggest problem with the the list serves is that they are run and controlled and censored, by facilitators on behalf of the Ministry of Education who it appears does not really want to encourage honest free and frank discussion and debate on the real issues that need to be explored if we are going to address the many challenges we currently have in our schools let alone the ones that are coming -  2/3 of NZ Maori, Pacific and Asian by 2030    I appreciate that in theory the Facilitators who are great, are independent from the Ministry BUT as they an the organisations they work for want their contracts to be renewed it appears -seems to me that more censorship than is necessary is exercised over the contentious matters. The fact that the list serve is stored on a Ministry site that requires a password is also another problem along the same lines. Appearances do matter.    However, as Einstein said -Problems cannot be addressed and solved at the same level that they were created. Thinking outside the boxes we have created so we don’t up set anyone is always a problem unless the Minister and the Ministry publicly calls for creative open frank discussion and debate on theses and its own approaches and performance. However, as Prof Gluckman the Govts own Chief Science Adviser says -Successive Govts have increasingly not wanted to hear about Best Evidence and Science/ Evidence based research, but only the ideologies that the Minister and the Party in power support. Consequently, protecting the Minister now appears to be the main job of the Ministry in any area of Government- as is the function of people who work in  Ministers Offices as evidenced by their responses to Official Information Requests-See extensive  findings of the Ombudsman  on this matter      A very good example of this in Education is the debate or lack of it on the effect of National Standards  and progressions designed for monolingual native speakers of English on Bilingual/ ELL  learners and on the importance of Language Experience and Shared Reading in their early literacy development. As I visit our students in many schools, teachers and Faculty of Ed students, they all tell me that they have had to dramatically  shorten up the time they can spend on these vital early literacy  approaches now, as getting through the book levels as quickly as possible is now the prime task. The end result is what? Is this correct?  What do list serve members think? / Issues like this need to be discussed and debated without censorship surely?     Yours in confidence that the best solutions come from vigorous discussion and debate not compliance     John McCaffery- Faculty of Education University of Auckland.  https://padlet.com/pandjmcq/zro6my40cs2e/wish/84364009 2015-12-02 04:41:42 UTC https://padlet.com/pandjmcq/zro6my40cs2e/wish/84364009