Job Discussion Forums

[mignonettemanda]

Hi all. well i'm a freshman at wesleyan university, USA and i'm going to volunteer for World Vision to teach their staff in China English for a month. i'm only 19 yrs old but the people i'm gonna teach are like 10 yrs older than me. their english (as i was told) is about beginner level and my boss at WV told me to make the lessons 'fun' and 'educational'. btw im not gonna have any kinda computer facilities and i doubt if i'm gonna get a proper classroom with a board and so on.

I'm completely inexperienced in teaching English (esl or not) and so i desparately need help!!!

1. should i use english as the medium of instruction (i can speak chinese myself, just not very fluent)? i was told they want to practise oral english but then i'm a little worried that they wouldn't be able to understand me.

2. ive read games and activities in this site that are totally amazing, but do they work for adults too? how to get them more involved and articulate?

3. is it important to correct their grammar when they arent speaking proper english? or should i just let them talk as long as they can express themselves efficiently?

4. any suggestion how to teach oral english? my french teacher used to give us dialogues to read aloud in class and do role plays, but sometimes it got pretty boring and ended up being sheer memorization of vocab. is there any kind of activity i can teach how to speak english efficiently and without their getting bored in class?

thanks in advance!! i'd really appreciate any input

Smile

[PAULH]

[dmb]

[mignonettemanda]

thanks so so much! i was getting some hostile responses from another board so i was a bit dragged down. but the comments are really really helpful! thanks loads!

[Roger]

What puzzles me is their age in combination with them being "beginners". At an advanced age, people tend to have set ways and mannerisms. This applies espeically to learning teachniques. I am afraid your Chinese English learners will have a very definite expectation on you - you "provide' them with materials they "need to memorise".
I think you must from the start play hardball with them, force them to take notes on a few things, practise a lot and learn at home. They will not be used to taking notes as they are inured to being spoon-fed. Grammar will be a major problematic area - you will see!
They will lack the ability to listen because they are used to seeing everything their own teachers taught them - CHinese teachers are unbelievably unimaginative, following to the dot on the 'i' their textbooks. Thus, you will have to train them at HEARING and especially, LISTENING. Make them listen to each other - a major challenge, I assure you.

[Chasgul]

One eye-opener for you might be to take a few tests yourself before you do anything else - the results may shock you into re-thinking your own 'inherent knowledge'. Having done this myself, i can tell you that it can be a bit of a wake-up call.

[Babala]

You can go this website

www.bogglesworld.com

They have a special section for adult learners and you can get some great worksheets and ideas from there.

Good Luck

[tesol1]

English is divided into 2 aspects, language and skills. Additional components of these are accuracy and fluency.

Fluency is generally more associated with skills, while accuracy is more associated with language. Both of these, however, operate on a continuum, with controlled language practice exercises being entirely accuracy oriented (fill in the blank, etc.) while freer practice exercises (a dialoque that still contains a particular target language such as expressing routines, etc.) generally begin to incorporate elements of fluency, though still accuracy driven with respect to producing the desired target language. Skills exercises (reading, writing, listening, speaking) are primarily designed to promote fluency, but some issues of accuracy may creep in.

As a general rule, however, it is best to concentrate on accuracy when dealing with language and fluency when dealing with skills.

Most classes should, by the way, ideally consist of about 1/3 language and 2/3 skills according to current methodologies. This should be accounted for when planning your lessons.

Both language and skills exercises should be made as natural and useful as possible to keep the student interested. Obviously, the language exercises will be more artificial than the skills exercises, but can be made natural by providing freer practice of activities that realistically reflect daily activities (discussing one's day to day life with friends, etc.) Skills exercises on the other hand, can realistically reflect daily activities much better, such as reading a newspaper and discussing opinions about articles, writing an email to one's friend, family, or business associate, etc.

Accordingly, hot correction is better done with language exercises, and cold correction with skills exercises. Hot correction means immediately correcting the error. Cold correction means waiting until the end of the exercise to discuss errors. The reason these are best in their respective places is because language exercises are designed to develop accuracy, and immediate correction is essential. The role of skills exercise to develop fluency would, conversely, be undermined by disruption for immediate correction, so it is thus best to wait until the skills exercise has come to an end to discuss errors.

I'd concur with the others about keeping teacher talk time to a minimum, as well, giving the students ample opportunity practice as the focus of the lesson.

I agree with comments above that role plays can be boring. The important thing if doing role plays is finding topics that interest the student and/or situations that reflect daily life (which will allow the students to see the usefulness and become more willingly involved)

Speaking activities about subjects which interest the students, listening to stories that will keep them on the edge of their seats, or writing conclusions to stories which interest them are also ways to make skills exercises more fun and involving.

As for making language and grammar less boring, it can be done by personalizing the target language, making them see how its function applies to situations that effect them, like relating the second conditional to what they would do if they won the lottery, etc.

I hope this has been helpful. I will try to post more pointers as time permits.

Warmest Regards,
Ernest Woodford
Brewster TESOL Institute Course Director

[mignonettemanda]