Job Discussion Forums

[kpennell]

Hello All

I am going to be teaching in Colombia starting in December. I imagine myself mixing between private lessons and institutes. My question is this.

What type of things would it be wise to pack for teaching?

Printer, whiteboard, grammar books?

What other kinds of things do people usually bring so they can teach private lessons effectively. I am looking for supplies ideas.

thanks

[Guy Courchesne]

A laptop with a wifi card might make for less baggage and an easier time, replacing all three items. I assume you're going to a city and not a FARC base...

[Jetgirly]

If you've got favourite worksheets or other printed resources, scan them and save them on a USB memory stick (or in your Yahoo or Hotmail email account) so that you can print them wherever/whenever. You might want to bring a grammar book to use as a reference with your students during private lessons. I would rather use the space in my luggage for clothes and other personal stuff than a printer! Print from an internet cafe if you have moral issues with using the school computer to print personal documents. I brought 100 postcards from my hometown (bought at a bulk price from the supplier) and wrote "thank you" notes to my students when we finished classes; they really appreciated that.

I don't know how much experience you have living overseas, but I will confess that I didn't believe anyone when they told me that you couldn't buy three-hole punched paper in Spain. Nobody bothered to mention that they used A4 (which I had never heard of) instead! I just thought they meant that Spanish people didn't hole-punch their paper or something. Anyways, the lesson I learned the hard way was not to buy expensive stationary supplies that are dependent on either A4 or 8.5 x 11 (until you're 100% positive of what they use in that country!)

[Glenski]

Don't know your credentials or what sort of students you will have, but I'd recommend at least Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan. Wouldn't hurt to have a dictionary unless you have online access.

[Aramas]

If you're just travelling point to point rather than all over the place, a laptop is certainly the go. However, if you want to wander at all, you really don't want to carry anything that would cause you inconvenience when (not if) it's stolen. Carrying a $2000 laptop in a developing country is like pushing a wheelbarrow full of freshly baked hams through a famine zone. You deserve to lose it. Even if you go straight to a job, do you really want to worry about an item that's worth several months' pay?

Before you go, get a list of useful books and materials, then try to source them online (eMule, Bittorrent etc.). Carry a set on USB pens and upload another set to online storage. You can access them anywhere and have them printed out relatively cheaply - even if your luggage ends up in a bargain bin at the local market. If there's any music you miss you can pirate that too - just like any other decent human being. Corporations should charge US/European prices in developing countries when they pay people there the same wages.

Try packing only what you need for one night, then remove half of it. That should do you for a year.

[sojourner]

Kpennell,

Glenski is spot-on, on the need to have a good book of grammar with you whilst o'seas. I have never actually read the Michael Swan book that Glenski referred to, but a lot of people that I have come across seem quite impressed with it. Anyway, regardless of the grammar book that you happen to choose, make sure that the section on verb-tenses is pretty clear - in particular, that it contains plenty of "time-lines"; a very useful teaching device, indeed !


Besides grammar, you should be also concerned on how you'll be teaching pronunciation. Consequently, you might want to consider getting hold of Ann Baker's books and tapes on pronunciation : "Ship or Sheep" and "Tree or Three".

Another book ( very light, I might add !) that you might want to consider squeezing into your backpack or suitcase is "Lessons from Nothing", by Bruce Marsland. This book might provide you with some ideas for lesson planning should you ever find yourself in a school that happens to lack many of the resources that are covered in CELTA and other TESOL courses !

As Aramis suggested, do a thorough search on the Internet for suitable teaching resources. It's possible that books by Swan, Baker, Marsland, etc, might be available online ! Aramis stressed that one should travel as lightly as possible - I agree wholeheartedly ! There's nothing worse than having to fork-out $100, or so, in excess baggage charges, and then having to use a taxi, rather than a bus, to get to your hotel !

Good luck !

Peter

[kpennell]

I just bought the swan book and "the grammar book" by Marianne Celce-Murcia. I am currently taking the English International Distance course, and leaving for colombia in now under a month!

thanks for the advice everyone, I think a printer is out of the question.

[pollitatica]

I think a lap top is very helpful. But you might also consider buying a lock so that when it's in your apartment and you are not, you can lock it to something. Most of them work by locking it to something that you can't move. Or by looping it through your desk or something. It wont keep it from getting stolen, but it should be a deterrent at the least.

The lessons from nothing book is great. I have it. There's also one in that same series called "Teaching Adult Second Language Learners," which is fantastic! It breaks each chapter into topics (food, clothing, etc) and gives you lesson and activity ideas for each topic. It's very useful. The "Young Learners" books are pretty nice for kids, but not as good as the other two books.

[tanuki]

Peter Wilberg's book "One on One" is another goodie.

Good for not only what it says, but also for kind of "humanising" the larger classroom (as the folks at Pilgrims in the UK like to say).

There are eighty-gazzilion websites out there with free printable resources that get sent to your inbox every week. Set up an email address JUST for this kind of stuff and then do some Google searches and sign up for anything and everything you can find. If it turns out to be garbage, then just hit the "unsubscribe" link!

For example, go to http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/ and click around on all the textbooks that you like. There should be a homepage for all these books with their own supplementary vocab exercises/lists, online practice games, etc. Sure they're designed as expensions on each of those textbooks, but so what! You can take a sneakaroonie at the langauge, pre-teach it and then give the students the website to go and play that practice game at home if they like.

You can also sign up for all the "in your mailbox" stuff for all of the individual publications you like too. In fact, try this with any and all of the textbooks you like (Cutting Edge, Inside Out, Reward, English File, etc.). Go nuts! Knock yourself out!

Two good places for resources off the top of my head are Bogglesworld (back up again. Yay!) http://bogglesworldesl.com/ and OneStopEnglish http://www.onestopenglish.com/. I've been using both of those for more than a few years now.

Also, check out: http://esl.about.com/ for tons of info (depending on how new you are to this).


And this one will give you ideas for conversation classes. Adapt to your heart's content (based on your students' interests, ages, etc.), don't just slavishly print and distribute:

http://www.geocities.com/eslconversationtopics/index.html

Also worth considering paying the excess baggage on are:

The "How to teach..." series is also pretty good. "...Grammar" by Scott Thornbury and "...Vocabulary" by Jerry Harmer and Scott Thornbury.


Hmmm... what else???

Maybe "Dictation" by Mario Rinvolucri. It's an oldie and dictation is a methodolgy that has come in for a lot of flack, but he presents it in a way I've never seen anyone else do better on to date.

Maaaaaaaybe "Grammar Dictation" by Ruth Wajnryb...BUT... only ONLY ONLY if you're an experienced teacher or you could get yourself into more hot water that it's worth with the grammar nazi style students.

There are, of course, tons more I'd like to mention, but, well... I don't have time right now and you don't have the weight allowance!

Hope it all works out. Best of luck!

[billybuzz]

Don't forget the pocket phone jammer !