Job Discussion Forums

[simon44]

I've been teaching ESL in south-east Asia (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand) since 2002.

I was recently assigned to teach conversational English to young teens in a very remote and rural boarding school in Myanmar.

Although I've taught in Myanmar for several years (in Yangon), the experience of teaching at this rural school has had a profound effect on me, because I have never encountered such dedicated students in all my teaching career.

To understand the scenario, go have a read of a post I made on another forum at

https://community.tes.com/threads/feel-good-thread-the-best-students-ever.748571/

(Mods, hope it is OK to post that link).

So hear is the problem. I have asked for feedback from my class of 30 students (14 year olds) as to whether they understand the lessons that I teach. I made it a secret questionnaire, and each student could indicate if they were 'lost', or understood about 25%, understood maybe 50-60%, or understood 90% of my lesson.

I teach several different classes, based on their ability to understand English. In the top stream, almost all my students ticked the 90% box. But for the weakest stream, while many students ticked the 90% box, a significant % (25%) ticked the 'I only understand 25% of what you're saying', and a couple of students ticked the 'I am totally lost - help!' box.

This concerns me. Were I teaching a class of lazy teens in Thailand (often the norm!), I might gloss over this (yes I know, not the trait of a good teacher). But this group of Myanmar students are so dedicated and so keen to learn to speak English, that I feel compelled to try to help the slow learners.

I don't have the option of moving them to a lower stream, and I cannot move the more able students to a higher stream.

I'd appreciate practical teaching strategies as to how I can help the weakest students to improve their understanding. Right now, I have started to provide them with a vocabulary list of the important words that I use in each lesson, where I write the English word and the equivalent word in Myanmar language.

Neither do I have the option to provide extra lessons to these students. They have to improve their learning in my class, or they will fall by the wayside. I would have a hard time to accept that scenario.

So what can forum members suggest? I'm open to any suggestions because all of my students are trying very hard to improve their English (because their future or family livelyhood might depend upon whether or not they can master the English language).

[nomad soul]

Do an Internet search on teaching ESL multilevel class. There are plenty of resources and teaching tips.

[santi84]

Why are they slow? Do they come from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to their peers? You made need to implement fundamental literacy strategies in addition to basic scaffolding of regular ESL lessons.

This is a fairly long document (book) but a great resource for looking at the "why" of very slow learner groups due to literacy deficits in L1. It is Canadian source and designed for Anglophone countries but much of it applies to elsewhere.

http://www.language.ca/documents/ESL_Literacy_Jan_8_2015_web.pdf

[Knedliki]

I had a similar problem to this in a middle school. The reason was the different primary schools the students had come from. Some of them had obviously never learnt the basics such as phonics, they couldn't even read the alphabet.
One thing I did was to do a lot of group work, and make sure each group had a strong student in it so they could help the others.

How much freedom do you have in the class, could you give the stronger students a project to do while you work on some basics with the weaker ones? Just an idea.

It's hard to keep everyone happy though.

[simon44]

These students are taught English reading/writing by a local Myanmar teacher, but have zero experience of speaking with an NES. In some cases, it is probably shyness on their part to speak with me.

First, I'm going to check with the local class teacher to see if those students who say they understand little of my conversation, are also weak at reading and writing English.

Thanks for the good advice here.

[Trina Marlow]

Seems interesting topic

[currentaffairs]

Often a so-called slow learner may have low confidence or get frustrated with his/her pace of learning. One of the most important things to do is to establish a good learning environment in the classroom and to ensure that they feel comfortable with you, i.e. the line of communication is open.

Mixed ability classes are often difficult to teach because you can have different streams of learning. One possible option that many go for is to pair up weak and strong students. The idea being that the stronger student will help the weaker along..

Your handouts and vocabulary lists are useful especially for some students who will probably dutifully study them at home.

It is good that you have identified the weaker students because in many classrooms teachers can remain oblivious to the students in need of help through oversized classes and relatively limited contact time.

[Hod]

[JoThomas]

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

I am not deleting the posting immediately above at this point, but I am warning all concerned to stay on topic and avoid the personal asides.

[JoThomas]

I highly recommend reading this, Simon.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber

[nomad soul]

Check out Dornyei and Czizer's following 10 Commandments for Motivating Language Learners, which were a useful guide for me regardless of the English language domain I taught. These tips support students' engagement and build their language confidence:

1. Set a personal example with your own behavior.
2. Create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.
3. Present the tasks properly.
4. Develop a good relationship with the learners.
5. Increase the learner’s linguistic self-confidence.
6. Make the language classes interesting.
7. Promote learner autonomy.
8. Personalize the learning process.
9. Increase the learners’ goal-orientedness.
10. Familiarize learners with the target language culture.

Source: http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/uploads/1998-dornyei-csizer-ltr.pdf
.

[currentaffairs]

Differentiation by task and outcome are two well-known methods used in the classroom, but there are more to consider:

http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/MethodsofDifferentiationintheClassroom.aspx

[spiral78]

[Hod]