Teacher Discussion Forums

I am teaching an adult beginner (VERY beginner) class for a company who employs non-english speaking immigrants to work in their shop making cabinets. I also work in another position within the company so I know shop talk. However, I need help coming up with ideas and games that are full of energy to keep their attention. Since they are adults I don't want to be condescending nor intimidating. Basically their English skills are nil. Understanding commands is difficult and they can barely read or write yet. I've only taught intermediate/advanced classes before so this is new to me. Please help.

C-Rassi

Since you are working for a company, it seems the best thing to do would be to find out what they need to know to do their job better. Do they have to understand the supervisor's directions? Do they have to ask for equipment or explain problems that occur? Using the tools that they need on the job, asking them to show you how to do things, or to explain what they do might be useful. If they have to fill in forms or write information down, you can find out what they need too.

Thanks Lorikeet,

I have thought of that and have been implementing those things but I also want to help them interact with others outside of work. I've got a good idea of subject matter but I think my problem is coming up with activities for those subjects. Some of them are so concerned with getting the grammar exact while others can't even read. Most of them are on the same page but keeping their energy levels high is challenging. Any ideas?

Rassi

Well, I guess I figured if you were working for a company, you would want to do whatever the company wanted. (I did some materials for a company once, and that was what we did.) We also did some work on miscommunication, body language, interrupting politely, asking for things, what is considered polite, etc. Anything like that would be helpful outside as well as inside the company. What kinds of things were you thinking of?

Yeah those are all great things too-I'll definately incorporate a lot of that. I was also thinking of simple daily tasks like grocery shopping, giving/getting directions, interviews, telephone communication, asking questions (who what, where, when, how, they surprisingly don't know the differences) and in the meanwhile teaching correct grammar, pronunciation, listening, etc. Some of them can't even read while some of them can write fairly grammatically correct.
I'm quite lost as to where to begin. Some are at Kindergarten level while others at at grade 5, so, I thought concentrating on speaking and listening might be the best concentration for this course.

For this kind of immersion teaching, I'd recommend having a look at Cambridge Interchange. Its US English based and is aimed at people who are complete beginners. There's quite a lot of free resources and ideas at: http://www.cambridge.org/elt/ic3 (Sadly we were trying to use it for students and in this area it failed miserably)

James
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/

deleted

Wow! All of you have been so helpful. I know the goals of this company as I've been working with them for some time but they leave everything else up to me-they're very lenient because they're very unexperienced with how esl works. I could educate them too but I just don't have time.
That Cambridge site was great - I actually have a CELTA degree but that course only geared us up for beginners that were more like intermediate.
The organization skills (as mentioned from Revel) are in place-it was the content that was lacking. I am from Saskatoon and our resourses here for ESL are next to nil, so these forums, idea cookbooks, and blogs have been uplifting.

I have realized that right now grammar isn't the issue-it's getting the point across as, Revel pointed out. So now that that's settled I've been finding lots of activities and games, and key learning points. There's blogger under the Activities and Games form called Serge Toper. His site is pretty good - for anyone who hasn't seen it.... http://topergames.blogspot.com/

Over and Out

I agree that games are the key to practising the language enough times for beginner students to get the hang of it without getting bored. As it is vocational, roleplays with a little amusing twist should also be relevant and fun.