Impact of ESOL Background on Instructional Design

Instructional designers (IDs) often come from previous educational backgrounds such as instructional technologies, teachers, or academic support staff (e.g., librarians). Other times, they come from careers in health, business, or military. IDs’ backgrounds and experiences enhance their work on designing training, courses, or other related job aids and informational material. This blog describes how my background experience as an English

Summary of Surviving Your Dissertation Guide

The following is a summary of a book I read for class in preparation for my dissertation with my personal notes. I thought some readers might benefit from it who are going through their doctoral program or considering one. (Source: Rudestam, K. E., & Newton, R. R. (2014). Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process. Sage.) Chapter

The Multilingual Mozambican: Remembering my U.S. English Language Fellowship

The English Language Programs of the U.S. Department of State is celebrating their 50th anniversary of the Fellow Program. As a former English Fellow to Mozambique, I want to share my teaching English experience as part of the celebration. I wrote about my fellowship in a newsletter while working elsewhere. Sections of the article are provided below. Please note that this

Guest Blogging for the new AACE Review

I’m enjoying the challenge of guest blogging for the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education’s (AACE) new blog, the AACE Review.  AACE is the professional organization that produces the LearnTechLib database and several educational research journals (i.e., International Journal on e-Learning, Journal of Computers in Math and Science Teaching,  Journal on Online Learning Research). It hosts several educators’

ECTESOL Conference in Pensacola Feb. 3rd

The Emerald Coast TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference is this Saturday from 10-3 at University of West Florida International Center. The registration is $25 and includes lunch. The conference will feature professionals from northern Florida panhandle and the Alabama Gulf Coast. As a new Board member, this will be my first time attending. Here’s the schedule:

The Gingerbread Man Doesn’t Escape Common Core

Gagné’s 9 Events of Instruction for English Language Lessons

Note: Gagné’s instructional events have been widely adopted for instructional design purposes in multiple disciplines.  For example, K-12 school systems utilize his instructional events as a framework for lesson planning and evaluation. Teacher Preparation: Review the lesson and consider content that requires scaffolding (support) to English speakers of other languages (ESOL) such as bringing in realia or images of uncommon

My Popular Freebie Products on TeachersPayTeachers

Last week, I shared my best sellers on TPT. This week, I thought I’d share how many downloads I have on my most popular freebies on TPT. Access to these is free as a digital download if you sign up for TeachersPayTeachers. Please leave a comment on the product page if you download one after reading this blog post. Spanish Language

My Dissertation Abstract on MMORPGs to Improve ESL Skills

A Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game with Language Learning Strategic Activities to Improve English Grammar, Listening, Reading, and Vocabulary This mixed-methods-collective-case-study focused on the use of an online videogame combined with second language acquisition (SLA) strategic gameplay to improve English language learners’ (ELLs) grammar, listening, reading, and vocabulary. Its purpose was to determine whether a noneducational, massively, multiplayer, online, role-playing

How People Learn a Second Language

Excerpted from my dissertation: Rogers, S. A. (2017). A Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game with language learning strategic activities to improve English grammar, listening, reading, and vocabulary (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 10265484).) Learning a second language is an arduous task. Most scholars would agree that it requires a lot of practice (Krashen, 1982; Nation, 2014), language