Term II Fall 2012 Class-Culminating Team Project

In the VESL class students learned about how start a business through a MiraCosta College Small Business Development Center presentation by Shannon Ilas, which was followed up with an entrepreneurship project. Working on teams to analyze local area demographics, students wrote business plans, gave their businesses names, created logos, came up with slogans, made business cards, and more. The project culminated in poster presentations made to students in the morning ESL classes. Business ideas were wide-ranging, from the “Magic Broom” housecleaning service, an elder care service, to “Pangea,” a multicultural café/art gallery. In the end, “Chat Bar,” a lounge where patrons use tabletop iPads to meet and chat with other patrons, a concept based on bars in Spain where tabletop telephones are used to call anyone in a bar at another table.

Olga explains her team's winning business concept, "Chat Bar."

Marta displays her team's thoroughly-researched business proposal for a full-service salon, "Go-Go Gorgeous."

 

 

Winner of Best Virtual Model Project:  Midori!

Best Soft Skills Video Project

Mercedes, Ana, Lilia, and Jay made a hilarious video on soft skills, which was chosen by the class as the best project.  See the video (and the excellent acting and production skills, not to mention their fluent English!)

 

VESL @ MCC

Hi!  I'm back teaching VESL again after taking on another class (Level 6 evening) for a couple of years and extra duties (NCESL Dept. Chair).  Last Spring I co-presented at the CATESOL Annual Conference at a special institute on "Technology in the Classroom," which was a joint effort of the Teaching English in the Workplace and Adult Level Interests Groups and was well received.  Talking about all the past projects of students in my VESL class in the past made me really excited to teach the class again.  I'm getting back into the hang of things with an excellent class!  The posts you will see above are from Fall Term II, 2012.  As usual, my plans were overly ambitious, especially for a term with so many holidays, but the posts are samples of some of the best VESL students in California!

Congratulations to Ali!

Ma (Ali) Bowen, a recent high school graduate from China and student in VESL this spring, won the Brooke Brummit scholarship for a noncredit ESL student planning on enrolling in credit courses at MiraCosta. Ali will take credit classes starting this summer. She even tested into English 100!

Congratulations, Ali! Best wishes for continued success in your educational pursuits -- you'll love MCC and will be a star student without a doubt!

Term 4, Spring 2010 Students' Work

Special thanks to Shannon Ilas who, with ease and expertise, took over VESL class for me during my maternity leave.

Here are students' blogs:

Irasema http://irasemavesl.blogspot.com/
Federico http://federicovesl.blogspot.com/
Michael http://michaelvesl.blogspot.com/
Mabel http://mabelvesl.blogspot.com/
Juana http://mccesldsjuana.blogspot.com/ (also her blog for a past ESL Digital Storytelling class)
Remy http://dickensvesl.blogspot.com/
Leticia http://leticiaveslspot.blogspot.com/
Riya http://itsariyavesl.blogspot.com/
Ali http://alivesl.blogspot.com/
Maria http://marievesl.blogspot.com/
Vang http://vangvu57.blogspot.com/

I will be taking a hiatus from VESL while taking on a new role as assistant department chair. I ill miss teaching this course but feel confident that it is in good hands -- Eli Clarke and Jose Lopez-Mercedes will be team teaching VESL @ MCC in the fall.

Fall Tem 2 2009

This term, under the guidance of instructor Eli Clarke and me, the VESL class is participating in a class exchange with students in a VESL class in Malaga Spain. We are doing all kinds of career- and culture-related projects, including video, which can be viewed on the blog we are using for the exchange. Your comments are welcome!