Advice for teaching low-beginner student

[catht]

I'm a volunteer tutor in the US working one-on-one with a woman who is at a very low level of proficiency with English.

The agency I work for gave her the Laubach series to work with, so we use that for each lesson. Although it comes with a skillbook, workbook, stories, puzzles and illustrations, it gets a bit boring.

I also wonder if it's a little worrisome that, although she is now able to read quite well about Bob's pup jumping in the river in Indian Valley while Mr. Oliver puts a fish in a box, she still doesn't understand the most basic phrases or words such as "how are you."

My experience and knowledge, while limited enough, is absolutely nil when it comes to beginners. I have to use the Laubach books but can supplement with additional things, so I'm in search of advice of how to make our lessons a little more communicative and varied, and how to guide her to having a more functional, meaningful vocabulary.

~~Cathleen

[sillysally]

[will mcculloch]

Hi Cathleen ..and Silly Sally !

The best way that I have found to encourage low level students is to help them develop their own vocabulary in a way that

.... is personally interesting / motivating to them
.... where they can see their own improvement
.... using a method that encourages sentence building and fluency.

I had the same problems too when working only with set books - and as a result came up with an idea called " Word Surfing".

You can find out all about it at

http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk


ok, hope this helps - let me know.

Best wishes

Will

p.s I started a Word Surfing game yesterday in the Student section - but so far no-one is playing! ...maybe your students will be the first?!?

[Alice Mary]

Hi Catht,

I don't know if you're still looking for a response, several months after posting your question, but I'm certainly interested in this question because I'm in a very similar situation.

I've just started 1-on-1 tutoring a low-level beginner, a woman from Sudan. I'm a volunteer, I've never taught ESL before and I haven't had any TESL training (though I do have some general teaching training, and experience as a math tutor).

Catht, you indicated that neither you nor your student are finding the materials very relevant to her life. I think the best place to start, then, would be to find out from her what subjects she'd like to cover. Maybe she'd be interested in learning about language related to shopping, finding her way around town, taking the subway or bus, cooking, looking for a job, filling out forms, visiting the doctor? Then, once you've decided on some themes, you should be able to find materials - not just official ESL resources, but also things like grocery flyers, catalogs, maps of your city, bus schedules, and so on. These resources will help the lesson feel, and be, more relevant to her real life.

The first time I met with my student, M~, there was a translator present, and through her M~ told me she'd like to talk about grocery shopping. So I structured my first lessons around that (I've only had 4 hours with M~ so far - see, I'm a total beginner!)

I didn't have any resources to start with, so I cut up some supermarket flyers and pasted pictures of food onto index cards. I brought those and an intact flyer to the first lesson. With the cards, I first got M~ to practice the names of things, using the question/response structure "What is this? This is a _____?" Then I gave her half the cards and kept half for myself, and we took turns asking and answering "Do you have any ____? Yes I do / No I don't." Then we looked through the intact flyer, and she practised answering and asking the question "How much do _____ cost? They cost ___ dollars and ____ cents." (M~ already could read numbers fairly well.) Then we went into her kitchen, and did the same sort of things with the real items there.

The next time we met, we walked together to the supermarket. Along the way I got her to practise the phrases "We are walking down the stairs, we are going through the door, we are walking on the grass, we are crossing the street," in response to the question "What are we doing?" each time - introducing each phrase as we actually did it.

I hope maybe I've managed to give you some ideas. Good luck! Also, I'm watching this thread now, and I'd be very happy if anyone else would share some ideas or advice.

Cheers!
-Alice

[Roger]

An ADULT person that does not comprehend an universally recognisable question such as "HOW ARE YOU?" needs special attention, perhaps not so much from a teacher but from a psychotherapist.
Let's be frank - adults often are more difficult to teach than children. THey have suffered dramas and tragedies and emerged with some damage from them. Their motivation does not necessarily pick up just because the lesson "is interesting". What is "interesting", anyway? That is a personal matter, and has a lot to do with how much a person can relate to his or her milieu. Migrants may be blocked due to being uprooted, or because they are refugees.
Even under the very best circumstances some won't pick up any language at all. Some of us teachers don't acquire the local languages of the places where we work; what prevents us doing that? MOtivation? Laziness? There may be a combination of reasons.
In any case, there is no reason to despair. Perhaps that student is not gifted enough for a second tongue. Considering he or she is adult, this should not be so surprising!

[Alice Mary]

Roger - Catht did say her student was a low-level beginner. The phrase "How are you?" is not universally recognisable - it's just a bunch of sounds until someone teaches you what it means. Granted, it's often one of the first things taught in a foreign-language course - but I think the point Catht was making was that the curriculum she was using didn't start in a sensible place.

When I met with my student, M~, a couple days ago, we actually went over the phrase "How are you?" She told me that in her English class, they taught her when someone says "How are you?" you say "I am fine." I asked her if she understood what it means, and she said no.

Also: it's certainly true that what is "interesting" will vary by person. That's why I suggested Catht ask her student what topics she'd like to work on. The list of topics I gave were just suggestions, topics that would probably have some relevance to the student's daily survival.

[Lorikeet]

Hi Alice Mary,

I just thought I'd say that I thought your grocery lesson example to be very well thought-out and useful to your student. I think she's lucky she found you! Using pictures, realia and real-life field trips is a great idea for low beginners.

[LarryLatham]

Alice Mary,

The phrase "How are you?" is not universally recognisable - it's just a bunch of sounds until someone teaches you what it means.

When I met with my student, M~, a couple days ago, we actually went over the phrase "How are you?" She told me that in her English class, they taught her when someone says "How are you?" you say "I am fine." I asked her if she understood what it means, and she said no.

I have to ask. What does it mean? I'm afraid I don't know, even as a native speaker. Or let's take, "Good Morning." What does that mean? Should I use it only on mornings when the weather is good? Or when I happen to be feeling good? Can I really attach meaning to such phrases (there are quite a few), or are they simply rituals? If they're rituals, then they must be simply learned, without explaination, along with some ideas about when to use them. If you try to explain the meaning of these things, don't you quickly get into a kind of instructional quicksand?

Larry Latham

[dduck]

I have to ask. What does it mean? I'm afraid I don't know, even as a native speaker. Or let's take, "Good Morning." What does that mean? Should I use it only on mornings when the weather is good? Or when I happen to be feeling good? Can I really attach meaning to such phrases (there are quite a few), or are they simply rituals?

Certainly, most people don't know exactly what it means. Its means is "I wish you a Good Morning" It becomes more apparent when you study other European languages. Also, when you say "Good Night" you're saying "I hope you sleep well".

I don't say "I'm fine", I just say "Good" in the sense of feeling good. To me, they kinda mean the same thing.

Iain

[LarryLatham]

Larry Latham

[dduck]

Larry Latham

Fine, don't believe me. But ask yourself, why does it have to be difficult?

Iain

[Alice Mary]

I'd say the question "How are you?" - while often used in a purely ritual way - does have real meaning. It depends on who's asking you, of course, and in what context. Say, if you had a terrible cold, and a close friend called you up and asked "How are you?" you probably wouldn't reply "I'm fine" - you'd say "I'm sick as a dog," or something like that.

Of course, all this is really hard to explain to someone who has an English vocabulary of maybe a couple hundred words.

In my case, it came up when I was really trying to ask M~ how she was doing. All we really managed to determine was that she didn't know what I was asking - I couldn't figure out how to get the rather abstract concept across. Any ideas?

[Lorikeet]

I suppose I shouldn't leave myself open like this but....after 33 years of teaching ESL, sometimes to zero-level English speakers, sometimes to advanced, etc., I find that using "incorrect" English is not always a bad idea. That said, I certainly don't want anyone to think I spend all my time speaking some sort of ESL pidgen to my students. I spend lots of time modeling regular American ('cause that's where I teach) English at native speaker speeds, etc. However, for explanations at the lowest level, when understanding is really critical, I have been known to say something like, "English--Okay? You okay? English good? Monday okay, Tuesday okay, Wednesay okay (accompanied by a motion showing a little bigger for each day)" Hee, you get the point. Sure looks bad in print .

[dduck]

I'd say the question "How are you?" - while often used in a purely ritual way - does have real meaning. It depends on who's asking you, of course, and in what context. Say, if you had a terrible cold, and a close friend called you up and asked "How are you?" you probably wouldn't reply "I'm fine" - you'd say "I'm sick as a dog," or something like that.

Of course, all this is really hard to explain to someone who has an English vocabulary of maybe a couple hundred words.

In my case, it came up when I was really trying to ask M~ how she was doing. All we really managed to determine was that she didn't know what I was asking - I couldn't figure out how to get the rather abstract concept across. Any ideas?

Good points Alice. Our cultures (I'm British) have rules of politeness. We are often required to ask about the well-being of the people we meet, because of these social rules. Sometimes we don't care whether the person lives or dies, but we suppress our indifference, or dislike with the polite reply, "I'm fine". (Personally, I've always hated meaningless drivel like this, so I take great delight in saying exactly how I feel. I think it's a great way to start a REAL conversation.) In my opinion, "How are you?" is the same a "How are you feeling". Your example Alice, is perhaps more "Joey" from Friends but it has, for me, the same essential meaning. Also, French, German and Dutch use "How's it going?".

How do you get the point across? Well, it's a bit difficult to explain if you don't understand why exactly people say it - you think it has only ritualistic value. If you accept that the expression does have REAL meaning between friends you can explain it to your students, by substituting the expression with another of equivalent meaning. Usually, I just cheat and use Spanish

Iain

[LarryLatham]

For a student like Alice Mary's, "How are you?" surely must be treated simply as a greeting. It doesn't differ much from "Hello", "Hey", "Hi", "How're ya doin'?", "Whazzup?", "What's happinin'?", or myriad other similar greetings. Not that all of these need to be learned right at the get go. All in good time.

However, her student clearly does not have the communicative wherewithal (at least not in English) to understand any 'explaination' of the nuance differences between the greeting, "How are you?" and the genuine inquiry of a friend, "How are you?" Such an effort would surely become quickly mired in total confusion for the student. It seems to me that the greeting ought to be memorized and understood only in terms of on which kinds of occasions it should be used. Then Alice Mary can move on to other areas of language study. She and her student can get on with the development of her student's communicative competence. Language study is not linear, as you all know of course, and greetings will come round again, perhaps in a somewhat deeper involvement. Only much later in this process will the discussion of nuance differences be appropriate, it seems to me.

Larry Latham