ESOL - THISISGRAEME

TAPA GPT on PATHWAYS AWARUA — Your AI Kaitiaki for the Tapatoru Programme

Dec 11, 2025

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in Education, AI in Education, learning design, Pathways Awarua, Tapatoru, Tapatoru Programme, Vocational Teaching

Introducing TAPA GPT — the AI kaitiaki for the Tapatoru Framework. Supports vocational tutors with culturally grounded, reflective, inclusive teaching.

How to teach academic writing in 160 pages or less…

Mar 9, 2018

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Graeme Smith

in Improving learner writing, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing frame

Here’s another thing that I’ve been reluctant to throw out until now… Twenty years ago I took over coordinating an academic writing course for speakers of English as a second language at the university where I had just been employed. The academic writing course they had was OK, but it was kind of hard to…

How I accidentally became a published writer in 1998 by authoring a book filled with blank pages

Mar 9, 2018

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by

Graeme Smith

in ESOL, Improving learner writing, TESOL, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing frame

Four score and seven years ago in 1998, I became a published author. It was an accident and I didn’t mean to. The published book was filled with (mostly) blank pages. That’s the cover up above. I found a copy yesterday because I have this banana box in my office that I’ve been trying to…

Teach better now – Where’s the new content for Assessment 7 of the NZCALNE (Voc)?

Jul 11, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Foundation, Foundation Learning, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, Professional standards, teach, Teach better, Teach Better Now

Kia ora and welcome to Collection 7 If you’re reading this then you are up to Assessment 7 in the new and improved NZCALNE (Voc). That means you are up to the final assessment task in the programme…! This next part is about assessing learner progress, reviewing your teaching and working out the next steps.…

AFTER: What are the reflection and review questions?

Jul 10, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, teach, Teach better, Teach Better Now

You’ll find the reflection and review questions to finish off this part of the programme below. Your answers are your own evaluation of what you’ve done and how effective it was. You can download the questions here in a form that you can print out and write on if you want to take notes. Otherwise,…

AFTER: How do I review my teaching and reflect on the next steps?

Jul 10, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, teach, Teach better, Teach Better Now

It’s time for some R&R. For us, that means to review and reflection. This is the last thing. You have to think about what you’ve done in this programme and reflect on different parts of it. You don’t need to be doing advanced academic qualifications or read a lot of research to be a reflective teacher.…

AFTER: Can you remind me what evaluation evidence I need to supply for the NZCALNE (Voc)?

Jul 10, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, Teach better, Teach Better Now

Let’s pause for a moment and take stock of what you should be collecting as evaluation evidence for Assessment 7 of the NZCALNE (Voc). You still have to do your own final review, but by now you should have collected two kinds of evaluation evidence. One lot of evidence is from your learner and takes…

AFTER: Why do I have to involve my boss in the evaluation?

Jul 4, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, Teach better, Teach Better Now

Collaborating with your boss or supervisor to review your teaching delivery is one of the requirements of the NZCALNE (Voc). It’s also good teaching practice. We can’t sign off on the whole qualification unless we have some evidence of this. For our purposes, a supervisor may include any of the following: Your direct manager or…

AFTER: What does a learner evaluation survey look like?

Jul 4, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in ALEC, Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), Professional Development, Teach better, Teach Better Now

Below you’ll find a generic evaluation survey that you may be able to adapt for your own purposes. Download the learner evaluation template There are two pages. One has questions based around a 5-point rating scale. It looks like this: The other has open questions like we discussed earlier and looks like this: You can…

AFTER: Should I get help to administer the evaluation to my learners?

Jul 4, 2017

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by

Graeme Smith

in Education, Embed literacy and numeracy, Embed numeracy, Embedded numeracy, Embedding numeracy, Literacy and Numeracy, NCALNE, NZCALNE, NZCALNE (Voc), teach, Teach better, Teach Better Now

There are lots of things to think about before you go ahead and do the evaluation with your learners. Here are a few questions that you need to ponder: Is their level of literacy going to impact on their ability to do the evaluation? Do they need a translator? Does anyone need a reader-writer? Would…

Tag: ESOL