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[PeterDragon]

I'm hitting up this forum for advice, because I'm not in Taiwan and have never been there. I am, however, adjuncting for a joint Taiwanese and American university Masters program hosted in the states. I've been assigned to teach the lowest level of ESL to the most remedial Taiwanese students enroleld in the program. The broad course objective is that the students will finish their academic year--- which just began--- with better skills in English conversation and higher TOEIC scores.

When measured against their TOEFL equivalent, these students' TOEIC scores seemed to indicate that they could speak, read and write English on a second or third grade level. Apparently, measuring TOEIC scores against TOEFL equivalents does not make for an accurate assessment. (Shocking, I know.)

My eight students (small class) have a much lower ability then their test scores seem to indicate. Only one of them can carry on a basic conversation with me without resorting to his cell phone dictionary, and even he can't easily understand graduate level classroom instructions, written or spoken. At least one student, and possibly half of the students, can't speak, read or write English at all, and are only able to copy English letters and sound out pre-school to kindergraten level English phonics. So basically, much of the curriculum I thought I'd be using is above them, possibly entirely useless. Even giving the simplest instructions to them has proven hard and disasterously time consuming.

My program director is, needless to say, alarmed to hear this. As best as both of us can figure, these students went to bad cram schools that taught them how to fake their way to the minimum TOEIC score they needed with rote memorization, but didn't teach them actual English. My director, a bilingual Taiwanese American, will be sitting in on my Saturday lesson to assess the damage. Afterwards, we'll meet to modify the syllabus and decide the best way to redirect the course and the course material. He'll want me to come to the table with ideas.

I've been doing some brainstorming on my own, but I'd like to hear what people with more experience in this sort of thing think. Can I promote my best performing student to "lead student"/translator without making him uncomfortable and causing resentment? Can I do Total Physcial Response, CLT, listen and repeat, and other activities normnally used in elementary and kinder English without making my graduate students feel offended or belittled? What curriculum, especially with some Mandarin language instructions, might work well for them and me, given that I don't know any Chinese?

I teach my second lesson to these students in a few days. I'll probably need to replace most of my syllabus and curriculum, and am grasping at straws. Thanks in advance to anyone who can throw a few more straws my way.

[forefit]

This reminds of a young lad I use to teach, he wanted to learn some basic English before he headed off to New Zealand to study English. He was on the same level and I was in the same situation. You may not want to do this and they may not like it but you may have to go back to teaching them how you use to teach kids.

Now I don't mean throwing stickyballs, running round the classroom etc etc. I mean use a syllabus from an elementary book and try to follow and create your own worksheets. It seems that these students are in the US (is that correct?) therefore they are in an English environment where they are surrounded by English. These students are likely to learn and understand this a lot quicker because their constant exposure. I feel if you stick at it you will be impressed with their progress at the end of the year.

[PeterDragon]

Yes, they're in America. And I think you may be right about teaching them using a children's syllabus. I should probably dig up/dust off some of my old stuff from when I taught kids in South Korea.

You're also right that the American environment is an advantage. My students seem especially interested in learning this city's public transportation system so they can visit local attractions, go shopping and restauranting, and generally enjoy the same autonomy and mobility they had back home. They also seem to be fairly aware of how low their English is, and academically motivated to learn to write/speak in complete sentences and build their vocabulary and grammar to the point where they don't need to rely on dictionaries and translators for everyday usage.

Since this campus is in a densely developed urban area, with grocery stores, malls, theaters, bus stations, etc. all less than one block away, I'm hoping to get program approval for a one hour field trip each week that gives my students a chance to use English in a real environment.

I'm still astounded that this year-abroad program has standards that let them get sponsored student visas. My director has actually been telling me for months that he plans to raise the entry standards considerably next year. So in a sense, these students are lucky, getting into this immersion experience just before the doors close shut.