Teaching ESL to my Arabic husband

goofysmurf · Post by **goofysmurf** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 6:11 pm

Hi, i am new here.
My name is Kristi. I am 29, married, and currently visiting Jordan.

My husband is Arabic, and knows some simple English.

I have been looking all over to find help ..
I need help to hep my husband.

I would like to start with nouns, verbs, and such. (parts of speach?)

Funny, my Enlish is poor... imagine me teaching him heehee
Anyway, he does not wish to learn via the computer, or a class here.

He wants me to teach him.
(Which i love the idea)

I know he is poor in reading comp, writing, rammar, spelling...
im assuming he is abotu a 2nd or 3rd grade level. (actualy maybe less)

can you all suggest some tips, links , and such?
thank you very much

joshua2004 · Post by **joshua2004** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:34 pm

I would suggest renting some movies and watching them in English with English subtitles. Then, every 20 minutes or so, after an entire scene or episode, stop and ask him some questions (in English) about what he understood. Stick with major points of the plot.

You can do this with cartoons he might like, or other simple shows.

Learning nouns, verbs, etc., is a good idea but, he might get bored real quick and want to quit! If you do do some grammar, keep it short and simple.

Tell us what level he is at so we can suggest some specific activities. Can he understand "What is your name?" "What do you do for work?" Can he formulate questions? If he can, then I would say he is intermediate.

EH · Post by EH » Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:03 pm

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but I'm going to say it anyway.

If I were you, I would NOT!!! teach my husband a foreign language. Or to drive. Or anything else that required me to frequently correct him. (And for that matter, I wouldn't want my husband being my teacher, either). Explaining the meaning of words that he has questions about is one thing, but actually sitting down and teaching whole lessons is quite another. A husband-wife relationship is not the same as a teacher-student relationship. If you do decide to be his teacher then please, for the sake of your marriage, be very careful of his dignity. I've found that many Arab men, in particular, lose face easily when corrected by a woman. Maybe your guy isn't like that. But maybe he is and you just haven't realized it yet. And maybe he hasn't realized it yet, either.

Probably the best thing you can do, if you insist on continuing with your idea of teaching him, is to find lots of self-study materials (worksheets, etc.) on the web and download them for him. Let him do it himself, and come to you with questions, if any. Practice speaking English only when he is in a really good mood and you can be playful and lighthearded about making mistakes and learning from them.

Good luck to you.
-EH

Mezzanotte · Post by **Mezzanotte** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:27 pm

hello,
I am actually teaching my husnand and, to my pleasant surprise, we're making good progress. what I did first of all was to buy a basic course book(vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing included). in addition to this, we watch subtitled movies and then discuss them (I'm thinking of making him writing somewhat of an essay based on the movie he's watched recently). another thing, which seems essential, is a bit of country-study.
good luck:)