Teacher Discussion Forums

[rosie383]

I completed CELTA a number of months ago, but haven't had a chance to use it yet due to family illness and bereavement.
I have now been offered a job teaching Turkish women in the local Turkish Community Centre.
I have to teach alone, probably 2 hrs per week, or 4 hrs if I have too many students for one class. I intend to also rent a room from them and teach a class of other women in parallel.
The women that I will be teaching did Entry level 1 last year and are very keen to continue. I have been asked if I will be teaching a course over 24 / 30/ 36 weeks. I honestly have no idea how I would work that out. Do I just get a textbook (recommendations anyone?) and count how many weeks it would take?
Any help at all will be very gratefully received.

[rosie383]

Can anyone help please?

Feeling a bit more confident now and have been reading over textbooks and my CELTA file. Went and met some of my students yesterday. The course will run for 4 hrs per week over 20 weeks.

I would still love a recommendation for a textbook please if you experienced teachers out there think it is a good idea. I think it would just help me plan the lessons a bit more and make sure that I don't miss out vital stuff.

My plan today is to go to the library and have a look at what books they have available, borrow some, and then buy whichever one I fancy the look of.

[magrit]

English File and Cutting Edge might be possibilities, though possibly more British orientated. You haven't said where you are and I'm less familiar with American style texts (Interchange ?). You'd have to check books are at the right language level (elementary?).

I suggest visiting your nearest specialist ESL book shop as well and see what's on offer (or a book shop that sells ESL books). It's likely they'll have more up to date material. Of course you'd then have to buy the book anyway if the library doesn't have a copy but sometimes libraries will order books. Anyway, if you can afford it doesn't hurt to have one or two supplementary books for ideas/ activities/ pair work /grammar, etc. on top of a basic course book. The course book should give you enough material for 20 weeks, though. How fast you go depends on the level of the students, what they can handle and what the overall goals of the class are (eg., an exam class with a strict limit - not a worry here, I'd imagine).

There are also a lot of materials available online and you might like to do some preliminary 'get back in touch' activities with the group. You've met some of the women so you'll have an idea of what they can handle and if the material will be too hard for them. You could always leave out or simplify questions:
http://esldiscussions.com/
http://iteslj.org/questions/

I also suggest starting off with some basic revision from Entry Level 1. I'm assuming you didn't teach that course, so can you find out what they covered? (If no one can help, the women themselves should have previous course notes). Good luck.

[rosie383]

Thank you so much for your reply. I've bookmarked the links you gave. About to go walking in the snow to take LO to school

I'm not a fan of Cutting Edge. used it during my course, along with Headway and wasn't overly keen on either. I borrowed a few books from our local library and am going to see which ones I like best and order a copy from ebay.
I'm in the UK BTW.