Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi!
I have been almost hired to revamp an old ESL program (if my plan is accepted by the board, then I will be hired.) We will be working on 12 week cycles, with 4 to 5 hours per week. Students are adults, approximately 20 to 40 years old, living in the US. I was thinking about working with New Interchange books for 4 hours per week and including the CD-rom as an optional fifth hour per week for them to come in on their own time to do. Our teachers will be volunteers with only basic training, so I feel that I need a book that will not cost them a whole lot of prep time and that has a good teacher's book to guide them. The program is through a non-profit organization, so costs to students will be minimal, probably just the cost of the book. The program used to have open enrollment, which apparently didn't seem to work too well. Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance...
Jeanne

Hey Jeanne!

A couple of ideas for you.

Divide your volunteer teachers into two groups. Those who would be able to explain clearly grammar and structure questions and those who have a more artistic bent and would be able to handle listening/speaking classes. Then put the students in a program that has them doing about one hour of grammar / structure and two to three hours of listening / speaking each week. The l/s teachers should have some theatrical background and the ability to animate students to really practice their English in rôle plays. The g/s teachers need to have a clear idea of how to outline grammar and how to practice it in the class. Being a program in the US, students have a great advantage, as they can do real homework in the real world (my favorite exercise has always been giving them a list of stores and sending them out to these stores to find me things like watch batteries or curtain weights!)

The CD-ROM thing, well, two academies that used this "students come in and work on computers when they want and then have an hour with a native teacher" have gone out of business here in Spain. Students want the native teacher, they want to communicate, and the computer is only a communicative device in chat-rooms, and as we all know, the English used in chat rooms is hardly the English that is used on the street. I would make sure that all hours that students are studying there were a teacher available and that that teacher were not a "chatty kathy", talking ratios should be 75% student, 25% teacher.

Just a couple of thoughts....

peace,
revel.