Competency #9 -- Relevant website

I used Google.com and entered a search string of ESL AND librar*. The fifth hit was a document from the American Library Association website, titled, "Serving Non-English speakers in U.S. Public Libraries," published in 2007. This document will be very helpful to my project since it contains successful ideas from public libraries all over the country on their ESl programs, resources, and further resources.

Competency #8 -- Research visual

At the Modern Language Association website, I found the pie charts shown below. They show how the non-English speaking population of the US has gone up between 2000 and 2005 (last year figures were available), to now almost 20% of the US population. This demonstrates the need of increased ESL programs in our country. One fifth of Americans over the age of 5 speak a language other than English! Public libraries are in an ideal position to fill this need.

Most spoken languages in the entire US in 2000
English is spoken by 82.10% of people over 5 years old in the entire US. Languages other than English are spoken by 17.89%. Speakers of languages other than English are divided up as follows.

(Census 2000, Summary File 3, STP 258)

Most spoken languages in the entire US in 2005
English is spoken by 80.60% of people over 5 years old in the entire US. Languages other than English are spoken by 19.39%. Speakers of languages other than English are divided up as follows.

(2005 American Community Survey)

Resources:
2005 American Community Survey. "Data Center Results." n.d. (accessed March 22, 2009).
Census 2000, Summary File 3. "Data Center Results." n.d. (accessed March 22, 2009).

Competency #7 -- Image

ESL children come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. I had run across this picture earlier when doing research for my previous competencies, and to me it’s the perfect example of what I’d like to accomplish within this focus in my children’s services librarian career. A lot of people only think of Spanish speakers when they think of ESL children, but this picture, combined with my research for this blog competency project, has shown otherwise. These children each represent a different heritage or ethnicity, and they’re all smiling happily. They’ve had their library needs fulfilled, no matter what their native country or first language is. I want to put similar smiles on other ESL children someday.


I found this image again for this competency by going to Google Images. and using the search string children AND circle. I located it at The Write Choice Network: Services: Strategic Communication. accessed 3/22/2009.

Competency #6d – Databases – Citation Pearl Search

For this last search, I conducted a citation pearl search in Books in Print. I selected a citation I had found in Library Lit database:

Light and Lively Reads for ESL, adult, and teen readers: a thematic bibliography. By Rosow, L.V. Libraries Unlimited, 1996.

I selected browse by index/title and entered Light and Lively Reads for ESL, adult, and teen readers: a thematic bibliography. While I didn’t find this specific title, I DID find 2 other entries right next to where the first title would have been. Both of these began with the same phrase as my search title, “Light and Lively….” Hoping it wasn’t a coincidence since they were both by a second author, I clicked on them. YES! Both titles included the general subject heading of Foreign Language Study/English as a Second Language. From that subject heading, I sorted the list by Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)# and looked for other titles with the same DDC#, 428. I found the following book: English-Spanish Bilingual First Books, ISBN13: 978-1-56674-944-2, published by Forest House Publishing Company, Inc. That citation led me to another general subject heading, Juvenile Nonfiction/Foreign Language Study/English as a Second Language. From there I found the following books published within the last five years:
· Learn Spanish with Batman: Rogues Gallery. By Peterson, S., Slott, D., Templeton, T., et al. Published November 2007 by Berlitz Publishing. ISBN13: 978-981-268-181-2.
· My Filipino Word Book: English - Tagalog – Ilokano. By Fancy, R.L., Welch, V.J., Published February 2007 by Bess Press, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-1-57306-276-3.
· Three Tomorrows. By Brennan, F. Published January 2007 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13: 978-0-521-69378-3
· Space Postman/el Cartero Espacial. By Morton, L. et al. Published December 2005 by Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-0-7641-5875-9.
· The Big Shrink Play. By Hayes, R. Published October 2005 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 13: 978-0-521-67476-8.
· Tales from Longpuddle. By Hardy, T. et al. Published November 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 13: 978-0-19-422993-7.

Reflection on Search:
I enjoyed this search. I now know exactly what (DDC) number contains the information I’m interested in. Yes, I could have looked up the DDC#, but this was probably a quicker way to narrow it down. I like this method of searching because you have the knowledge that all the hits you receive will have already been classified as relevant by someone else in the past, and that knowledge alone makes me reconsider some items I would have otherwise skipped over.

Competency #6c – Databases – Specific facet first Search

For this next search, I decided to conduct a specific facet search in ERIC/EBSCOhost. I thought I would get pretty good results in this database since ESL is a hot topic in education circles.

My search strings:
S1: Librar*= 59,437 hits
S2: ESL OR EFL OR “English as a foreign language OR “English language learner*” = 10,083 hits
S3: child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 294,036 hits

I chose to start with the ESL set since it had the smallest number of results. I decided to restrict it by subject terms, using “Second Language Learning,” “Second Language Instruction,” and “Subject Language Learning.” This narrowed it down to 1,565 hits.

I decided to switch the order of my terms and do a building block search.
S1: ESL OR EFL OR “English as a foreign language OR “English language learner*” = 10,083 hits
S2: S1 AND librar* = 240 hits
S3: S1 AND S2 AND child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 57 hits

The best hit was:
Literacy, Access, and Libraries among the Language Minority Population.
By: Constantino, R., 1998. Available through Eric Digest (ED417595)

This book is a collection of scholarly papers on “linguistic minorities and library use” (from abstract).

Some of my other relevant hits were (Periodicals) :
Selecting Books for Spanish-Speaking ESL Students
By Peck, E.
Publication: Library Media Connection, v25 n5 p41 Feb 2007. 1 pp.

Notes from the Teenage Underground: How Audiobooks Helped Us to Listen, Speak, and Earn a Cool Trip.
By: Mardikan, L., Shah, F., Shah, S.
Publication: Voice of Youth Advocates, v24 n5 p345 Dec 2001.

Librarian-Teacher Partnerships: Serving the English-as-a Second-Language Students.
By: Filson, A.H.
Publication: Journal of Youth Services in Libraries, v5 n4 p399-406 Sum 1992.

Embracing Diversity: One with One’s Bold New Partnerships.
By: Van Duyne, M.K., Jacobs, D.
Publication: Wilson Library Bulletin, v66 n6 p42-44,120-21 Feb 1992.

Picture Books and Older Readers: A Match Made in Heaven.
By: Henry, R., Simpson, C.
Publication: Teacher Librarian, v28 n3 p23-27 Feb 2001.

ERIC Digest Articles:
Literacy Acquisition through Literature. Report Series 7.11
By: Langer, J.A., 1997 (ED403587)

Elgin YWCA Family Literacy Project. Curriculum for ESL Parents and Preschoolers.
By, Rickabaugh, S., and others. 1992 (ED348889)

Library Programs, Library Services for Individuals with Limited English Proficiency. Fiscal Year 1987.
By: Neff, E. B.. 1990 (ED330368)

Reflection on Search:
I was very satisfied with this search. I knew that since ERIC was primarily an education issues database, I expected high relevancy and got it. However, the order that search strings are presented in ERIC made a major difference. I found some great articles in my second attempt, the building block search, with citations that I can use for a citation pearl search in another database.

Competency #6b – Databases – Successive Fractions

My second search was in Academic Search Complete Database using a successive fractions search method. My topic again is how to increase public library use for ESL readers in children’s services.

Because I expected my first 2 search strings to yield way too many results, I used the limiters of English only, published since January 2007, and full-text articles only. To start with what I felt was the broadest facet, I chose “children, (young adults), juvenile, youth, ya." I decided to truncate (young adults) into (young adult*) and ‘children’ into ‘child*’. My search string was:

S1: (child* OR “young adult*” OR juvenile OR youth OR ya) = 67,654 hits – way too many, so I went on to S2.

Since this is an academic database instead of library oriented database, I’m adding the term librar* to my S2 search terms for this database. It wasn’t necessary in the Library Lit search because librar* is a more unique term in this database.

S2: S1 AND (librar* OR circulat* OR patron* OR us*) = 26,875 hits – still too many so I went on to S3.

S3: S1 AND S2 AND (ESL or “English as a second language” or “English language learner*”) = 132,480 hits. My number of results is still way too high, so I decided to find a subject term to search within. I entered librar* and selected LIBRARIES -- Cultural programs.

S4: DE “LIBRARIES -- Cultural programs” AND S1 AND S2 AND S3 = 4,267,119 hits. However, among the first 50 hits were these results:

Family Storytimes for New Immigrants Combine Learning and Fun.
By Barry, Evette.
Publication: Feliciter, 2007, Vol. 53 Issue 1, p44-45, 2p

ESL Library Skills: an information literacy program for adults with low levels of English literacy.
By Macdonald, Katrina
Publication: Australian Library Journal, Aug2008, Vol. 57 Issue 3, p295-309, 15p

Language Learning in the Library: An Exploratory Study of ESL Students.
By Bordonaro, Karen
Publication: Journal of Academic Librarianship, Sep2006, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p518-526, 9p

Using Music to Support the Literacy Development of Young English Language Learners.
By Paquette, Kelli; Rieg, Sue
Publication: Early Childhood Education Journal, Dec2008, Vol. 36 Issue 3, p227-232, 6p

New Immigrants, New Challenges: High School Social Studies Teachers and English Language Learner Instruction.
By Cho, Seonhee; Reich, Gabriel A
Publication: Social Studies, Nov/Dec2008, Vol. 99 Issue 6, p235-242, 8p

Reflection on Search:
This was an extremely frustrating search for me. I never could get down to a manageable number of hits, and was ready to go to a different database when I tried the “subject terms” tab. However, this tab took me to a brand new search window and I had to enter my search strings over again. This time I received more hits than with any other search string in this search. I decided that this database is not conducive to a successive fractions search method.

Competency 6a -- Databases -- Building block Search

I chose LibraryLit for my first search, and used a building block search method. My topic is how to increase public library use for ESL readers in children’s services.

My facets for this search are circulation, children, and ESL. The terms for each of these facets are:

• Circulation, patron, user (truncated to circulat*, patron* or us*)
• Children, young adults, juvenile, youth, ya (truncated to child*, young adult*)
• ESL or English as a second language or English language learners (truncated to English language learner*)

Here are the steps for my building block search:
S1: Circulat* OR patron* OR us* = 38568 hits
S2: child* OR (young adult*) OR juvenile OR youth OR ya = 25921 hits
S3: ESL OR (English language learner*) OR (English as a second language) = 79 hits
S4: S1 AND S2 AND S3 = 5 hits.

Results:
Out of those 5 hits, one is a survey of studies done on ESL learners in a school setting and another is a review of an English pronunciation CD-ROM set which specifically states they would NOT recommend the set for English as a second language learners. However, the other 3 hits are relevant to my search. They are all books containing recommended booklists:

Accessing the classics: great reads for adults, teens, and English language learners. By Rosow, L.V. Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

Light and Lively Reads for ESL, adult, and teen readers: a thematic bibliography.
By Rosow, L.V. Libraries Unlimited, 1996.

Reference books for young readers: authorative evaluations of encyclopedias, atlases, and dictionaries. Edited by Sader, M. Bowder, 1988.

Reflections on Search: Truncation was very effective here, and so was the use of parentheses to enclose multi-word phrases. If I was going to search further at this point, I would check on whether L.V. Rosow has written anything else, and within the thesaurus heading of “Immigrants/Reading.”

Competency #5 -- Tagging

I used librarything.com to search for “English as a second language” and found 39 tags from 20 users. I selected a resource titled ESL Teacher’s Activities Kit by Elizabeth Claire. I chose this because almost all of the other resources listed under this tag seemed to be more appropriate for a classroom setting than a public library setting.

The tag cloud for ESL Teacher’s Activities is: activity book(1) english as a second language(1) English language learning(1) ESL Adult(1) flashcards(1) food(1) games(1) multiple skill levels(1) reference shelves(1) speaking(1) staff books(1) staff room(1) teaching(1) total physical response(1)

The link to librarything.com’s page on this resource can be found here.

Competency #4 -- RSS feed

I added the RSS feed from the Abby (the) Librarian blog. In Abby’s own words, this is “the blog of a new public librarian posting about good books, children's programming, and anything else library or kid-lit related.” New books, old favorites, book reviews, circle time ideas, and children’s literature news – What more could a prospective children’s librarian ask for?

Competency #3 -- podcast

Since my topic is diversity in public libraries and their collections, I found this podcast through youtube by using the three search terms of podcast public library. Youtube showed the original podcast that showed Abilene Public Library patrons how to access the brand new podcasts. However, when I explored their listing of podcasts a little further, I found the podcast titled "01-28-09@the library column" that discusses ways to celebrate diversity, especially since February is Black History Month.

http://aplspace.podomatic.com/

Competency #2 -- Blog

I used GoogleBlog at http://blogsearch.google.com/ . I found Inma Alcázar’s Sharing Learning blog. Ms Alcázar is an ESL/EFL teacher who posts teaching tips, plans, and ideas to her blog on a regular basis. Since we've been discussing this very topic in class this week, one post that really caught my eye was her Web 2.0 tools for ESL/EFL teaching from January 29, 2009, where she discusses how to incorporate Web 2.0 concepts into ESL/EFL classes:

“Nowadays, our students are digital natives, that is, "children who were born into and raised in the digital world", children who spend a lot of time surfing on the net, chatting with their friends, playing computer games... This is not learning, but what about changing this? What about teaching them to use the tools they can find on the net to learn English? I am sure that if every student could use these tools in order to learn English and acquire knowledge, not only at school but also at home, anywhere, his language would improve very quickly.”

This started me wondering what kind of ESL/EFL games my own local library has in their collection.

Inma Alcázar’s Sharing Learning blog can be found at http://myeslcorner.blogspot.com/.

graphic from http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/141279479_cc71ac4c2e.jpg

Texas Woman's University

I’m a graduate student in Library Science at Texas Woman’s University. This blog has been created to fulfill requirements for a spring 2009 class: LS 5013 (Information Storage and Retrieval, also known as ISAR). My goal is to work in either Children's or Young Adult Services in a public library. My topic for LS 5013 this semester will be multicultural diversity and ESL activities in the public library setting, especially for children.