My FIRST ESOL class
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My FIRST ESOL class
I just started teaching a class of 14 students who have been living in the US for at least 15 years, can speak English very well (at least "street" English) but are terribly illiterate. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Their main reason for coming to this program is to eventually get a job. Is there anything I should do in particular? I have class 3 days/week for 3hrs each. Anyone have any suggestions because I am trying to present myself as someone who has done this before, meanwhile I'm shaking inside. Thanks to anyone for help.
Prepare yourself.
Hello.
If you are considering teaching as a vocation, then I would suggest that you prepare yourself. You will probably learn more than your students in this experience. Mark clear objectives for yourself and for your students. You will spend many more hours preparing activities and materials for those objectives than you will spend in class working on them, at least for the first few years. At first you may pretend to know what you are doing and get away with it, but you will have to accumulate knowledge to keep it up, or you might just get into trouble years down the road when someone in administration finds out that you are simply pretending. Get yourself some personal discipline, for every hour of class you have you might want to spend an hour preparing. The time ratio might be different for each teacher, but preparation is part of the job and it's where you have total control over what will happen in the class. An over-prepared teacher never gets bored in class, never flails about in the darkness looking for answers (oh, Never Trevor, watch out!).
Read every entry in every topic in the Idea Cookbook here. Get your class schedule out and fill in those class hours with activities. Make the photocopies necessary for a week's classes. Be well organized. Be methodic. Show your authority by being authoritative. Admit you are wrong or that you don't know, find the answer together with your students. Teach them to read and write.
peace,
revel.
If you are considering teaching as a vocation, then I would suggest that you prepare yourself. You will probably learn more than your students in this experience. Mark clear objectives for yourself and for your students. You will spend many more hours preparing activities and materials for those objectives than you will spend in class working on them, at least for the first few years. At first you may pretend to know what you are doing and get away with it, but you will have to accumulate knowledge to keep it up, or you might just get into trouble years down the road when someone in administration finds out that you are simply pretending. Get yourself some personal discipline, for every hour of class you have you might want to spend an hour preparing. The time ratio might be different for each teacher, but preparation is part of the job and it's where you have total control over what will happen in the class. An over-prepared teacher never gets bored in class, never flails about in the darkness looking for answers (oh, Never Trevor, watch out!).
Read every entry in every topic in the Idea Cookbook here. Get your class schedule out and fill in those class hours with activities. Make the photocopies necessary for a week's classes. Be well organized. Be methodic. Show your authority by being authoritative. Admit you are wrong or that you don't know, find the answer together with your students. Teach them to read and write.
peace,
revel.