Teacher Discussion Forums

I'm a volunteer teacher of a group of 4-5 students with various native languages. This is being called a conversation class, but I'm not sure it's a true conversation class in that we do do some writing and a tiny bit of reading.

The class is a once-a-week walk-in class so we don't do any assessment or testing (not that I'd know how!), even though we do have a fairly regular group now.

They seem fairly low level, but one of them is way behind the others. He looks up every third word in his translation dictionary and as a result falls way behind everyone else. It's difficult to get him to speak and when he does, it's virtually impossible to understand him because of his poor pronunciation. I suspect he understands a lot more than I might think, but it's difficult to assess in the class because I can't understand what he says.

Things I've tried have been directing easier questions to him and more difficult ones to the others to keep everyone interested and feeling good. My 'standards' for answers are lower for him, ie. if I ask for a response to be phrased as a question and he doesn't do it, I let it pass.

Are these wrong?

How would you handle this? Do I conduct the class for the rest of the students and let him work away on his own, as he's been doing? Do I slow down the lesson to allow him to keep up?

You are doing the right things. Do not slow your class down for one student, because you will lose the attention of the rest of the students. Has this student not been in the country for a long time? Is he from an Asian country? Are the other students just naturally more gregarious?

I used to teach mixed nationality classes in Vancouver, and almost all of the students from Korea, Japan , China, and Taiwan would spend the first few weeks GLUED to their electronic dictionaries. It is a security blanket thing. Do a few activities in which you require the students to work without dictionaries, but let it go for most of the class.

When you are doing pairwork, don't put this student with the same partner every time, or the partner will resent it. Partners can help draw him out of his dictionary, but don't make him a burden on the other students.

I would also offer this student some extra homework, such as an English journal, or other short writing assignments. It helps build confidence in speaking if the student feels confident writing. When you correct the student's work, do it in pencil, not red ink. Red ink is very confidence shattering for some students

Celeste, thanks for the reply and all your great feedback.

This student has been in the USA for almost 5 years but has no regular opportunity to practice. He has a one-on-one tutor, but I'm not sure how long it's been. I'm trying to get in touch with her.

Honestly, it's pretty discouraging. I think if we could just work on his pronunciation things would be a lot better, since as I said, when he does talk, it's incredibly difficult to understand him, which doesn't exactly encourage him to keep talking.

I'm not sure how to go about giving him pronunciation practice in my conversation class while keeping the others interested, though. I wish I had more knowledge and experience for these students!

I hear you - this student is from Korea and he and my other Korean student are quite dependent on their dictionaries. There's another student from China who has an electronic dictionary as well, but she uses it more frugally at least.

Thanks again!
~~Cathleen

I know a lot about the pronunciation issues of Korean students- I taught there for 2 years. Final consanant sounds are often not pronounced in the Korean language, and there is no consanant blending. (Thus a word like STOP would be pronounced Suh-to-puh) Korean students will generally have trouble with the sounds/f/ /v/ /z/ /r/ /l/. Often they will just replace them with other consanant sounds. This is because that is how English import words are written in Korean. (Coffee is pronounced the same as copy).

A book that you could use with your whole class is called pronunciation pairs. This will not impede anyone, but will focus in on pronunciation difficulties of all your students.

Cathleen

If your student is hooked on technology, I wonder if he has a Walkman. Maybe you could convince him to get a Beginning English tape (or something more imaginative - you'd know best) and listen to it regularly, say when he's out walking, or on on the bus. That would give him the focus and repetition that you can't offer him in class.

When I was learning a second language I found listening to some of the older (more literate?) pop songs forced me to listen more carefully to make sense of the lyrics, as well as giving plenty of repetition. Depends on his tastes, of course.

Norm.