Job Discussion Forums

[cormac]

Hi, I'm making a transition into teaching at University so I'll be having the 35-40 students of different levels of English.

But I was interested if anyone could give me some tips on books or other materials that would be useful when starting off? I've browsed some online stores and the majority are aimed towards children & teens, so I haven't found much directed at the University level. My university will provide a book but I understand it could very easily be useless.

Also while I recently completed a TEFL certification, I was wondering what skills or particular areas of study would be useful for university level classes.

I know its a bit vague but I don't have much detailed info yet. Thanks.

[Trifaro]

My advice is to forget about books and create your own handouts. You could compile the handouts into a "book" and ask the students to make copies if the school won't pay for the copies. If you do this, remember to put a # on each page. Simply tell the students - "Go to page 6."

Assuming you aren't assigned English majors and see each group once a week (perhaps once every 2 weeks), I suggest choosing a topic for the week, such as Restaurants, Hotel/Airport, Doctor etc...

1 side of the handout could have a list of the relevant terminology, such as Host, Menu, Waiter, Busboy, Order, Appetizer etc... The other side should have a simple dialogue for the kids to read. I would have 2 students stand in front of the class and read the dialogue, then go over the dialogue and elicit the definitions of new words from the crew. If no one knows then explain what the word means. Then, have the students form pairs and read the dialogue together 2 times (1st x is A and y is B, then x is B and y is A). Finally, have the kids form groups and create their own dialogues.

In order to mix it up a bit, toss in some Culture based classes. You could "teach" the kids about a holiday or sports. (Basically a short lecture; not for the entire 90 minutes, assuming your classes would be 1.5 hours long). I also advocate using Discussion questions a few times. While the kids chat you should circulate around the room and be charming.

I am also a fan of Mix & Mingle activities aligned with the topic. For example, if the topic in the last class was Travel/Hotel, I would begin the next class with a brief Review and then ask the kids to write down on a piece of paper where they last traveled. Then distribute the papers and have the kids find the person who wrote the paper they have. I encourage them to chat for a bit, asking each other - Where did you go? Who did you go with? What did you do? etc... They usually walk around holding up the paper saying "Is this your paper?" !!

You might also consider a Job Interview class in which the students form groups of 5 or 6. Choose the requisite number of people and have them be the Interviewees. Each of those brighter students would then rotate around the room "Interviewing" with each group. At the end, each group would explain why the would hire a certain person. This can also be done with a Crime = 5 suspects questioned by the Police. Inventions is another idea. Finally, you could also just have 1 class in which the students can do whatever they want, but in English = sing a song, play guitar....

In conclusion, I'll share with you and everyone else the 2 bits of advice that I've carried with me all these years - Be Loud and Walk Around the classroom.

Good Luck!

[cormac]

Trifaro, thanks very much for that. A really excellent read, and suitable for my personality.

[sharpe88]

Cambridge's Interchange series is good for adults/young adults

[Trifaro]

Here is a bit more advice, check out the Alta Bookstore here on Dave's and buy a few books that may give you some lesson plan ideas.

I have "The ESL Recipe Book", "The Standby Book" and a few others. They can help with games etc... Dave's "Idea Cookbook" has good ideas as well.

The British Council website is good too.

[rottenflesh]

[cormac]

Thanks folks. I appreciate the advice.

[Greg 09]

Agree with tossing out the textbook. I only use it in a remedial class I started for the kids who need basic help. Trifaro mentioned some great activities, most of which I've used with success.

I have a model that works pretty well for my students. Choose a topic, say friendship, evaluating a job offer or even something big like priorities in life. I then elicit their ideas during the "lecture" phase of the lesson, making them give me words and phrases. Sometimes I have to stimulate their thinking and/or willingness to speak by describing situations which will bring something out of them. I make them think and speak, and sometimes will have long pauses until someone blurts it out. It works, and they now know that I expect something, and I won't just feed them vocabulary or ideas.

One benefit of this method is that once I have sufficient information from them to continue the lesson, they "own" it. We're now working with their ideas, and not mine. I merely prompt them to think.

I then have them write their own ideas individually on paper, whether it be a list of priorities or a paragraph explaining what they think.

After this phase I break them into small groups for discussion. During this phase, I make them decide on a group list of priorities or ideas to present to the class. This brings out LOTS of discussion, arguments, debate and further information on the topic. This forces them to defend their positions and ideas, and to compromise. The disagreements are sometimes so strong that they've spawned formal debates given in front of the class.

After that, formal group presentations where each student is required to speak on behalf of the group. I give them a lot of freedom on how to present, and I get a lot of creative presentations!

Not only does this method give them a lot of talk time, but it encourages independent thinking, negotiation and compromise and presentation skills.

One thing to make sure of though, each group must have at least one of the class'' better speakers. You really need to handpick the groups.

I use other methods, but this one works very well for me and my students. They love it.

[TexasHighway]

Actually, I used the World Link series in my university classes and they are ok. It helped to establish a framework for my lesson plans and i would assign some homework from the book. Sometimes at the end of class, we would go over some exercises. Many Chinese students seem to think, if you don't have a textbook, your class is not useful and is a waste of time.

[Greg 09]

[TexasHighway]

Greg 09 wrote:

[Non Sequitur]

OP should keep in mind what he/she is being employed to teach.
If it's Western culture or somesuch, then the contributions are relevant.
If on the other hand you are providing oral English classes then there should be no 'lecture' component and you should be concentrating on minimising TTT (Teacher Talk Time).

[igorG]

What you are employed to teach is, in fact, to focus on. The subject of English comes with Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Then there are the specialty subjects, such as Business, IT, Science, etc, that some of us teach.

Now, if you teach Speaking, you may throw your books and use varieties of spoken exercises. Taking advantage of group activities is also advisable then, and I agree that you should limit the "teacher talk time".

However, it depends on the uni goals and what your students are to achieve with the courses. Agreeably, Oral English, or shall i say informal English, is to be practiced when as a designed subject, although students should learn to improve in this area by learning how to write their spoken attempts. It's suggestable to have students take notes sometimes prior to their oral exercises and sometimes when their peers speak. Then, correcting each other is also a way to improve in oral English. But if the uni has a FT teaching Writing, you may want to ease up on the Writing part.

Moreover, on the topic of Oral English, it is suggestable to have students responding to texts and that either written or spoken which means that Reading and Listening take place as well. This part may be excluded if there's another FT assinged to specifically to Reading and Listening.

Having mentioned Oral English, I see some unis hire FTs to focus on Academic English, which is a slightly different ball game and course books are advisable. Here, you need to prepare for power point presentations and all four Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking are essential as well as are some lectures. For this one, you need much more than just what has been said on the topic here. Access to computers, and extensive research skills development is neccessary too.

Finally, the specialty subjects are, from my experience, a pain, and that because students aren't usually chosen appropriately for these kinds of courses. Course books are fairly important to have as you don't want to work too hard to research your topics for classes, and then the uni support in a sense of material, access to computers and teachers' supplementary material iso ne of the keys to your success.

On the end, on mainland China it often comes down to the local staff memebers' and students' feedback on their FTs unfortunately. That's how FTs are evaluated, but forgive me if there are exceptions around.

[the_otter]

[cormac]