Hello, everyone. It's the last day of the year. I thought I'd start a discussion by listing my New Year's resolutions and linking to some LINCS resources as a starting point. So I turn on my computer and see that Steve Quan has beat me to the punch! Great minds and all that...
At any rate, here is my first resolution-
1. Lose weight, eat better, sleep more, exercise more, and just get healthier -- a perennial goal, but a good one .And it relates to the very important ELL topic of health literacy. I found this resource, Virginia Adult Literacy Health Toolkit, living at http://www.valrc.org/toolkit/ and reviewed in LINCS at http://lincs.ed.gov/professional-development/resource-collections/profile-724
The toolkit was written and compiled by Kate Singleton in 2013. One resource she links to is the REEP World online page. I particularly liked the feature there where you click on a photo or drawing of a health-related item such as capsule, pharmacist, or warning label and you hear the word. In the next exercise, you click and drag the picture or photo next to its written representation. You also find out immediately whether your answer is correct or not. In a third exercise you hear a word and choose the word you heard from a list of similar words.
So - whether or not I will keep this resolution, at least thinking about it got me looking good health literacy resources for teacher online.
By the way, Goggle says it was this was the number 1 resolution in 2014!
Miriam Burt
SME, Adult ELL CoP
Comments
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for sharing this with us. I have the same resolution and I can believe what Google says!
I wonder if people in other countries have to resolve every year to get healthier the way we do here in the U.S.? Has anyone ever asked your students this? I would be interested to hear because my stereotype is that we are so much less healthy here than most places.
The Virginia Adult ESL Health Literacy Toolkit is an excellent resource: very comprehensive and very practical. If you want to read more about it and other resources for teaching people how to get healthy, take a look at our discussion from last year with Kate Singleton, the author of the Toolkit:
Introduction to Health Literacy in ABE and ESOL
Check out Kate's famous Picture Stories for Adult ESL Health Literacy. They are little cartoons that have very few words. They tell a brief story that can be discussed and used for other activities. There are suggestions for how to use the stories and some background health information that will be helpful for the teacher to know. There is one about how people often get less healthy when they immigrate to the U.S. It's called What Happened to my Body?
Best, Julie
Thanks, Julie, for your link to discussion and Kate Singleton's resource.
I think it would be a great discussion to have in the classroom - new year's resolutions in the United States and in other countries. So much cultural information could be shared while language is being developed. I echo Julie's question. - has anyone had this discussion? It reminds me of an activity in the Parrish and Johnson brief on Promoting Learner Transitions to Postsecondary Education and Work: Developing Academic Readiness Skills From the Beginning. An intermediate-level activity in the article suggests having students talk with a partner about customs around holidays in their country and then the pair creates a Venn Diagram of similarities and differences in the customs.
Has anyone discussed this in the classroom? New Year's customs around the world? At least a sharing of how one says happy new year, might be fun.
Onnellista uutta vuotta, all!
Miriam.