Job Discussion Forums

[sarahsmith70]

Ok, here's the deal. I'm new to this TEFLing thing and need some help. My dos told me to use more spanish in class cause now and then a lower level student doesn't understand me. She said the school's owner worries we might lose students.Now I don't think I've lost any for that reason. But here's the thing, the dos, when she does teach, is a traditional grammar and translation type. Me? I lean more towards the communicative method. I don't believe in spoon-feeding the students in their own language, because that encourages them to be lazy and not to have to speak English. So what do I do?I don't speak Spanish well enough to do all my explanations that way, so I was thinking I'd be better to work on more coherent explanations and examples in English. Like I told you, I'm a new teacher, so totally am open and willing to improve myself-I just want some suggestions on how precisely to do that. Thoughts?

[Guy Courchesne]

Tough situation to be in...

With low level students, reading is an easier entry into the language. If you're working on tenses, you could try writing up some tables with a translation included, and work mostly from that sheet for the class. You can still have communicative practice activities, but more drill-like. Over the weeks, perhaps you can slip in some authentic reading material from the net.

[sarahsmith70]

Thanks Guy.

I have been telling them the Spanish verb tense that is closest to the English one they're learning. Maybe I should be doing more of that? Giving more examples both in Spanish and English?

When I give them a communicative activity I would never just tell them to start talking, especially at the lower levels. I give them a structure or something they need to find out or report on, and I try to give them examples of what I want them to do...

I'm kind of upset by all this. As above, I want to improve and am ok with criticism but I'm rather lost right now. I don't know exactly what the problem is;most of my students seem to be doing ok and I totally want lots of concrete ideas here.

[Guy Courchesne]

First, I usualy would not give that advice of translating so much, but it seems that's what your 'old school' DoS wants, so I think you're sort of stuck between a hard place and a piedra?

Without knowing much about your students, I'll say you can probably teach a considerable amount of grammar through translation and hopefully that's enough to let your DoS and the school owner see some results. Think...

Simple present - Spanish uses it more so you have to show its limitations in English.

Simple past - pretty much the same between the two languages

Future - start with 'will', then into 'going to' spanish uses something very very similar. "Voy a ir" for example.

Perfect tenses - also similar between the two languages, especially on questions. "Have you ever ridden a camel"

As far as my understanding goes for communicative activities, you're not going to get basic beginners creating, so why not stick to drilled practice? Give them a month of that and perhaps they will compain to your DoS (with a little prompting by you) that they want more conversation. Then you'll get your way.

Go arm yourself with a fair amount of texts that contain the grammar you're teaching. Check out the Idea Cookbook on eslcafe.com

[sunrader]

My sympathies. It's VERY tough to be in a teaching situation like this and it's understandable that you are upset. Two things: It's just part of the business that schools have to keep students happy even if the students themselves don't know what they need. And, you will ALWAYS have to deal with bosses telling you to teach in ways you don't agree with.

My advice is take a deep breath and try hard to take seriously what the dos is telling you. Stay open to advice. If they are worried about losing students, it's probably because they have the experience to understand this. Show the people in charge the respect they expect and keep the relationship a good one. You can always use the stuff you know and believe in a little later. Guaranteed you'll also learn something from doing things their way.

When you don't have the Spanish to explain, you probably do know enough to know how to compare the English point to a grammar point in Spanish or to use cognates whenever possible, etc. You probably also need to slow down your English and simplify it even more than you are - it's easy for beginning teachers to speed up without realizing it. (I had this problem when teaching college level ESL students.) Even at ITTO, you were probably told it's ok to use Spanish when an explanation only in English is proving to be a waste of time.

It's all ok, this is new to you, the beginning is going to be tough, but in a few weeks, things will look better and be easier. You obviously care about doing this well so hang in there.

[sarahsmith70]

Thanks to both of you for the thoughtful replies.

I agree that the dos has a lot more experience but I started questioning her judgement a bit when she told me that even in her intermediate groups she uses some Spanish because otherwise they just don't get it. Sounds to me like she's forcing just enough English into them, to make it seem they're progressing and to keep them coming back. For sure keeping enrollment up is essential but when teh truly good students are held back from their potential by giving them a lot in Spanish, the school eventually will lose out, no?

Does anyone know of any websites that explain English grammar points in fairly easy to understand Spanish? I found a few in English about Spanish but nothign the other way.

I'm not a quitter and want to make a go of this but right now I'm so bothered by all this that I can hardly think straight. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Guy Courchesne]

Try looking at this http://www.saberingles.com.ar/ and click through some of the links there. You'll have to go digging to pull out individual lessons, but it's fairly simple stuff.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[sarahsmith70]

Guy, excellent site, cheers!

Ben, you're right I think about how to deal with my dos. She obviously has a lot more experience, not to mention control, at the school and for now I do want to keep my job...

It's also true that no one approach will work for everyone all the time. I can understand putting the focus on grammar, especially at the beginner levels to give a solid base to build on. what i have more a problem with is being told that I must use Spanish a lot in class (basically translate everything, at least at the lower levels) when she hired a native English speaker. She knew about my low level of Spanish when she hired me and never said a word about translating. I should add that at times it's necessary or useful to use a bit of Spanish, which I've been doing, just not enough for her taste.

Thanks for the help everyone and I'm going to try to look on the positive side of this whole mess: more incentive for me to improve my Spanish!

[M@tt]

translation isn't all bad. can you imagine the level of language required to do bilingual translations? i'm sure your students can gain something from it as long as you structure it in a way that they will enjoy and that causes them to process things "deeply".

in my advanced class i once used short stories in English and had them translate them into spanish. then in small groups they compared their translations, and they had to note a number of places where they had come up with different ways of saying the same thing. in many cases, this was the first time students realized they had been using the wrong english structure for years to express something. in other cases, it made them realize that there's not a one to one relationship between the languages (especially in vocabulary, and especially in verb tenses). this turned out to be one of the favorite activities of the semester and i'm pretty sure they learned something from it.
good luck

[sarahsmith70]

[Samantha]

Sarah, did your training course address this issue? You appear to feel very strongly about it so this might be something to throw into the suggestion box at ITTO to assist future graduates of their program. It won't change the reality of expectations by some school systems here in Mexico, but it certainly will help the graduates know what to expect in the real world of teaching here. In the meantime, I wouldn't fight it because it is a no-win situation, as pointed out by some of the old timers here.

[some waygug-in]

A million and one pictures.

I'm not sure if this will help or hurt your situation, but my suggestion is to use as many pictures in your lessons as possible. That way there is no need for translation. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I have great sucess using picture cards, but it takes a bit of work.

You don't have to be the greatest artist either, stick figures will do fine.
Actually I find my students get a kick out of how bad my pictures are sometimes. But that's part of the fun.

A great game for this is "Sorry". You make matching cards with pictures and vocabulary that you are working on.

Ex: a banana
a strawberry
etc.

Depending on the level of the class, you can make the pictures more interesting as well, things like:
an angry chicken
a scary dentist
a boring teacher

or funny

stinky socks
bad breath

it's also a good way of practicing things like:

some people
some chairs
some food

a dirty, disgusting dog
some juice
beautiful teeth

Anyway, I'm sure you will have better ideas than this, but I hope this is somehow helpful.

Suerte

[MELEE]

Sarah,

Welcome to the board, I was rather busy last week so I didn't get to answer you. I wanted to point out (or remind you) that Dave also has some other teacher boards http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/ that talk about more classroom day to day type issues (as opposed to job condition issues) they are not country specific, but a great place for you to get a feel for the issue of use of the students first language (L1) in the foriegn language (L2) classroom.

I don't know why Dave has them set up seperate from this board, you have to register apart, the user names for this board don't work there.

I hope you got the situation worked out and are enjoying Mexico--What region are you in?

[sarahsmith70]

Thanks again for all the answers..some good ideas, especially using pictures. I myself don't learn well from pictures and don't tend to use them for htat reason. Good reminder that they work for many people.

Samantha: perhaps I should let itto know about this. THey taught us the very best way of doing things and while most people are too smart to assume the real world is like that, it would have been nice to get a better feel for exactly what does happen in Mexico. We got to observe classes, with Mexican teachers, and they were all in English...

Melee, I wouldn't say i've resolved the situation, but I am concentrating more on speaking slowly and clearly, using more pictures, more grammar drills and doing a bit more translation as well. the amount of translation my dos has is ridiculous and I won't go that far, but i hope if I pay more attention to how much students are understanding and react accordingly, with better prep, she will be satisfied.

Merry Christmas everyone!