Teaching adult ESL for the first time

[readme123456]

Hello,
I am an English teacher in China, with previous experience of teaching children 5-15 years old only. This Tuesday I am starting a new 12 lessons course of adult conversational English. I looked through ESL Cafe's forums and found some activitiess I might use as an unexperienced adult ESL teacher. But I still have the fear of coming to the class, saying 'Hello, you people!' and absolutely not knowing what to do next.
The book I was given to use as a source of conversational topics only is New Interchange 3 by Jack C. Richards. I was told that these students' English level is already high enough for the book to be too easy, and I should not use the book too much anyway.
I ask for advice from those who already taught adults of intermediate level; what should I do on the first lesson, which will be 2,5 hours? I will prepare a survey hand-out for them to choose, how they want to be taught, I will ask them about their home towns, their jobs, reasons for learning English. I have 1 or 2 game activities in mind. But I am very unsure about the whole thing and how I should behave; I really fear the possible 2 minutes long silent pauses.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

[Sally Olsen]

You really can't prepare more than you have done. Your surveys will lead you onward in your lessons.

The most important thing now is to relax and enjoy the class. Look at each person in the class one after another as you talk and introduce yourself - give your background and whatever personal information you want them to know but don't dwell on the fact that this is your first class with adults other than saying that you are looking forward to the discussions and learning about each one.

When you have looked at everyone focus on the smiling ones for the rest of the lesson and that will give you confidence.

But get them talking as soon as possible. They can work on the survey in pairs and talk about the answers they are going to put down. Then they can meet in groups of four and introduce their partner to the other two trying to remember what their partner said.

Set up a signal (flashing the lights on and off or a small musical note) so that they change speakers every five minutes.

You can move around the groups and listen in, asking a question now and then to show that you are lilstening and it will help you to get to know the level of the students and probably keep them speaking more English than their own language.

In future lessons, group people together by interest and during the course try to design some exercises that will be specific to their interests. That will mean that different groups will be working on different things during the class at times. It is a bit more work for you but will be more beneficial to the students and they will be more satisfied in the end.

I wouldn't discount the book because some people feel more comfortable having a plan and seeing the progress that they have made. Some adults also want homework. They can check with each other to see if they got the right asnwers and ask you about anything that they don't understand. But you can have different books for the different interests.

Don't worry if you don't know the answer to a question they might ask. I never answer questions directly at first and try to get them to discuss possible answers or reasons for an answer. You want them to learn to think, not just fill in the blanks so they have the right answers but don't understand the structure behind the answers. Even vocabulary can provoke discussions. Which word would really be best in this situation?
You can always come to this forum with questions you really don't know the answer to in between lessons or the Applied Linguistics forum.

Don't worry, be happy!

[readme123456]

I finished the first class today, and it was much better than I expected. Students are young, around 20-30 years old all of them, and there were 10 people in the class, which felt like the perfect number. We introduced ourselves for the first hour, than discussed the poll hand-out in pairs, like Sally suggested. All of the students chose to spend most of the class time on pure conversation, and they told me that they don't want to watch videos, listen to audio, read newspapers, because they've been studying English since middle school and still can't talk freely. So, the items that got the most points were conversation and games/activities. Then, during the second half, everyone introduced their friends to classmates, some came up with interesting stories about their partners, like a 30 year old daughter and two divorces. And the whole 2,5 hours passed by.
Next time I plan to introduce some games, like Marooned and Psychiatrist to make them talk more. I also want to bring up some grammar points from the book, so we can actually study it during the conversation.

I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on this and future lessons.

[eslweb]

I think you're doing a great job so far, if you can connect with your students you have won half the battle... I have a couple of thoughts that maybe helpful.

1. Scour the newspapers, because reading input on topical issues can be very helpful and give you a good place to start a discussion

2. A lot of students appreciate verbal grammar there are some good examples on my Website: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/Pronunciation.html

3. I don't know if you have easy access to books, but most adults have some business experience and I find that DecisionMaker by Cambridge University Press is a good way to get them talking about ethical and business problems:
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/elt_projec ... id=2500199

4. Its good to have plenty of games and fillers to keep the class moving:
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/intermediate/fillers.html

5. I'd split the class into a minimum of two parts and give the students set-breaks... Sometimes you find people talk more when they are relexed and getting a drink or something.

Let us know how you get on.

James

[readme123456]

Thanks, James,

just one question so far: what do you mean by splitting them into two groups? I understand I'd have to split them into several if we play games or having a discussion, did you mean something else?

[eslweb]

I actually meant two parts rather than two groups.... So I am saying split your lesson up into different sections with different subjects and activities.

Yes, you are perfectly correct for games, you are going to have to split them up into more than two groups depending on the size of your class. Games are either done in pairs or in groups of about 4 people.

James

[readme123456]

Ok, I see; yes, there's a 15 minutes break that every teacher has to have during the 2,5 hours.
I also want to ask if you could advise on what activities would be suitable for when I divide them by interests, like Sally suggested. For example, I have a couple of students who are working with electronics or are engineers, and some who are into arts, design and music. What projects/reports could they prepare and present?

Thank you

[eslweb]

Well for business students, presentations are a popular way to improve skills. You can give them a free run on subject choice the first time round. Also a lot of adult participants want to role-play meetings to build up their confidence.

You could give your students problems to solve, for example: What magazines they should choose for your Language centre library. This would lead to interesting discussions about areas of interest and encourage them to bring in some magazines. They might also want to do a TV programme, which you could record with a camera-phone or digital camera if some of the students have them.

You could also pair up people with very different interests and get them to explain something about each interest to each other.

Hope that is food for thought!

James

[readme123456]

Yes, thanks for giving out these ideas, I'll think them over. If anything else comes to mind, please post it here, it's the more the better for me.

Today I wanted to go over the grammar point of unit 1 in their book, which is 'I like it, when...', 'I'd prefer someone, who...', etc. Again, it took more time than I imagined, although there were no major problems, it just took sometime for everyone to explain their partner's preferences. During the second half we played Psychiatrist, and students switched identities with desk mates, while the psychiatrist tried to guess, what's the matter. Then everyone tried to read some tongue twisters, like 'Brad's black bath brush broke', 'Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?'. We ended the lesson with another psychiatrist deriving the problem, which was everyone having comics character / superhero personalities.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Sally Olsen]

I think I might try to build in some way of showing the students how much they progressed by the end of your session. Could you get them to tape record a conversation in pairs in another room. Give all the groups a specific topic. You can listen to the tapes and note some common errors to cover during the class and relate those to the book if possible so they have something to see. Did they all get the book?

It would be interesting to get the interest groups - engineers, music, art, etc. to present something to the group so that means that you have to set up a project. I usually do a project first for them to show them the kinds of things that should be included, how a presentation should be given, what kinds of things to include, how to use visuals, etc. and then give them time to develop and present something and have questions periods afterwards. It can be very quick - just 2 minutes for the first one gradually working up to something more professional and longer. The groups will usually inspire each other and they will do more complicated presentations each time. I think I would keep those groups stable over the time of the class because they can then get to know each other better and perhaps even work outside of class if they get keen.

Have you thought of starting a chatline for the class during the week to carry on the conversations. You can participate by recasting their submissions into more professional language. I usually do this by questions such as, "Do you mean that you want to know about.....". "Am I right in thinking you that you are interested in...." or "I think that you have two questions here or two ideas here...."

[readme123456]

Sally,

I want to go into the projects area, so I maybe need some ideas on its details. One of my students plays a classical Chinese instrument, so she could cover it in her presentation, and I've been thinking of giving a quick example presentation for an acoustic guitar, so she could see the similarities. I'd just talk about the parts of the guitar, what is important for a good sound, which parts are usually problematic in cheap instruments, I could also bring some pictures. What else should I include in my example?

What do you mean by a chatline? We do talk at the beginning of the class about some topics they bring up.

Thank you

[Sally Olsen]

I think you need to read some notes on how to give a presentation. Perhaps you can Google Business Presentations as I understood that your students were from business. The Toastmasters Club also has good hints on how to give a presentation. I can send you a form that gives you area to mark the students and you can show this to them beforehand so they will pay attention to the areas - their posture, their enthusiasm, the strength of their voice, their organization of the their subject matter, interesting examples and so on.

A chatline is a computer exchange between the students during the week. You can open a class chatline on Yahoo and just the class will have access to it. I used to give 10% of the mark for thoughtful participation on the chatline, continuing the discussions that we had in class. The students often made many errors when they were writing and so I would recast their writing so they could see how it would look. I didn't comment on grammar mistakes as such but if they were thinking, they would see the difference between my writing and theirs. We have kept up the chatline and keep up with one anothers lives and interests as we have spread out around the world. In essence, we have become friends rather than just classmates and teacher.

[CraigPeterson]

I've been teaching a conversation class with adults for the past several months. Two actually, one at a basic level and one with advanced students. I think the most popular class we've had so far was a debate class! I started by getting the students to name different contraversial issues, which were written on the board. After we had a good list, I split them into two groups. Once they are in 2 teams, give them each one side of the issue. Give the teams a few minutes to discuss their argument, then let them loose! Even if the students didn't agree with the point they had to defend, they really tried hard to win. I decided who was the winning team, and they got a point. Some of the topics we discussed got somewhat heated, but it added to the fun! We even did some ridiculous topics like: pirates vs. ninjas, to lighten the atmosphere after a serious topic.

Best of luck,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Craig Peterson
ESL Song Source - Find A Song For Your Class!
www.eslsongsource.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[readme123456]

Thank you everyone for your ideas and comments. Sally, I found some tips on building a presentation and realized that I have a lot of work to do for my own sample presentation! I plan to hand out a list of hints on creating a presentation, go over it with the students, explain everything they are not clear about and give my presentation during the next lesson. It will probably take the most of the class time, so we'll finish with some discussion on my presentation and on their future projects, if time permits. Then, starting from the next lesson, they will deliver their presentations, and maybe I'll use the chatline to help them prepare beforehand.
Do you think it is an ok lesson plan, or I should involve them more, cut on something maybe? Will it be interactive enough or at least helpful for them?

Craig, I'll definitely use the debates idea in my classes, thanks.

[Sally Olsen]

Sounds good to me. Hope that they are interested. Tell us how it works.