Teacher Discussion Forums

[roz h]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to this discussion link, but what day-to-day issues of living do people generally find ESL students living in English speaking countries tend to have the most trouble with? I'm looking at a fairly advanced group of english speakers here.

[Lorikeet]

If they are advanced, they probably don't have trouble with the elementary shopping at a grocery store, going to the bank kind of activity. I'm not sure how advanced they are or what country they are in, but here in the U.S. some things I might contemplate would be more advanced topics in banking (understanding some of the rules about checking accounts, CDs, credit cards, reading the small print [warnings, caveats]), medical problems (vocabulary for seeing the doctor, on-line information about medications/diseases), government (tax vocabulary, applying for licenses, getting your kid into school, USCIS (or whatever the latest acronym of the old INS is), unsolicited mail and how to read it (Congratulations! You are already a winner! All you have to do is send this form in by May 10! And then we'll have your address for even more junk mail, and buy a couple magazines, okay? And oh yeah, you won the chance to buy a magazine at 10% off, and you'll be one of a million possible winners...

You could give them a questionnaire with some ideas on it, and ask them to rate their importance. That way they can't just say no . Also have a spot for them to add things they would like to study. Then post the answers here .

[Tara B]

Phone conversations, especially business (as opposed to social), are usually quite difficult even for advanced students.