Talk:ESL/ESL class summaries and lesson plans

Page intended for pedagogical discussions about teaching ESL and strategies for student success

Teaching first time English learners

One of our teachers recommends (edited for anonymity):

Keeping the lessons as simple as possible is helpful. It's tempting to try to add on other examples to try to work in more vocabulary, but it's easy for it to just become overwhelming. When I taught the basic class before we spent almost an entire class on spelling and the alphabet, or an entire class on numbers. Several weeks later when we were using numbers in a different context we spent a good chunk of time reviewing the letters or numbers students were having trouble with. Working in more than one topic is good so that students aren't bored to tears drilling something, but just worth circling back to review it later to make sure it sticks. It is a slow process.

[Editorial note: repetition is the key to learning]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. For example, to help improve pronunciation is fine but don't try to get rid of an accent. If students can improve pronunciation by 70% I'm thrilled. We can always circle back later and review to improve more and I don't want students to get frustrated (some sounds alone take time to practice like "th").

Similar to avoiding frustration, make sure the students are having fun. If they aren't they will stop showing up and we won't be able to have an impact on their language learning. It takes some time to get the students comfortable with being in class and not feeling like they are on the spot. We are getting more of the students out of their shell now and they are more willing to participate, ask questions and practice. The goal is to get others more involved and build up their confidence. I like making sure the volunteers can work with each student one on one for some amount of time. It helps students feel more comfortable with speaking and asking questions. During this time lots of genuine excitement when they get things right, and calmly explaining any mistakes and not being critical about them.

Lastly I found working from the Step Forward books helpful. It's not perfect and has minor typos here and there, but it makes lesson planning easier and gives you a back up plan if the students are flying through the topics. The students have been a bit more responsive to the lesson's we've been doing with the book the last few weeks.

One last thought, speak slowly. No matter how slow you are speaking it's probably not slow enough. I naturally speed up my pace during class and need to remind myself to slow down.