New Teacher suggestions
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New Teacher suggestions
What advice or suggestions do you have for a senior in the undergraduate ESL elementary education program? I have one semester left before I student teaching, and I wanted to know what you wish you knew or would have done before you started teaching. Thanks!
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Senorita Daniels
- Posts: 202
- Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:11 pm
Get copies of the texts your co-workers use (especially if your kids are in that room) so you can see what they'll be working on in class. That way, you can see if they will be learning any animals that aren't common in your area, or if you'll be talking about shapes in math. Then you can focus on what is going on in the rest of their classes.
Your supervisors want to give you a one-size-fits-all curriculum which will be a dis-service to your students. ESL students come from such varied backgrounds that you almost have to design a separate curriculum for each student. That's a little bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.
But you also need to follow your schools curriculum in order to keep them happy. Email or PM if you have any further questions. I can give you some ideas about helping your students learn to write.
But you also need to follow your schools curriculum in order to keep them happy. Email or PM if you have any further questions. I can give you some ideas about helping your students learn to write.
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Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
Michael Halliday came to visit UBC in May, 2007 and gave an evening talk to a general audience. He said that he had taught Chinese for a number of years. In his first adult class he had 20 students and being nervous thought that there were 20 ways to learn because he found so many differences. After a number of years of teaching he narrowed that down to 8 manageable ways of learning. If you include these 8 ways of learning in your classes you will cover all the ways needed by an adult foreign language class.
1.Some people learn by ear. They are speech oriented so you can give them lectures and talks or have them hear others speak in person or on tape.
2.Some people learn by seeing. They are writing oriented so need to see everything they hear. You can write on the board while you talk or have notes prepared for them to follow along. You can show them pictures, tables and graphs to make things clearer for them.
3.Some people learn from the top down. You can give them a course outline, let them see where they will be going. You can present the overall idea for the individual session so they can see where they are going.
4.Some people learn from the bottom up so you can start at a place they can see is the beginning or is simple and add on for them. A review of what they have learned will help build up their idea of where they have been.
5.Some people attend to sound or form and are expression oriented. These people need things to be broken down for them and to be given reasons for the language. They are usually searching for patterns or rules.
6.Some people attend to meaning and like to learn things that go together to make meaning immediately. They want sentences or whole texts. They want to know how to say, “How much does it cost?”
You can use the details to expand what they want to learn.
7.Some people are actors. They want to perform. They want a chance to practice and want practical situations.
8.Some people are planners and they want to reflect on what they learn before they use it.
If you use all 8 ways to design a lesson, you will have covered what adults and I suspect, children want in a foreign language lesson. You can separate students according to their ways of learning and provide more experiences in their desired method of learning. You can allow them to reflect and not to perform according to their comfort level and so on.
1.Some people learn by ear. They are speech oriented so you can give them lectures and talks or have them hear others speak in person or on tape.
2.Some people learn by seeing. They are writing oriented so need to see everything they hear. You can write on the board while you talk or have notes prepared for them to follow along. You can show them pictures, tables and graphs to make things clearer for them.
3.Some people learn from the top down. You can give them a course outline, let them see where they will be going. You can present the overall idea for the individual session so they can see where they are going.
4.Some people learn from the bottom up so you can start at a place they can see is the beginning or is simple and add on for them. A review of what they have learned will help build up their idea of where they have been.
5.Some people attend to sound or form and are expression oriented. These people need things to be broken down for them and to be given reasons for the language. They are usually searching for patterns or rules.
6.Some people attend to meaning and like to learn things that go together to make meaning immediately. They want sentences or whole texts. They want to know how to say, “How much does it cost?”
You can use the details to expand what they want to learn.
7.Some people are actors. They want to perform. They want a chance to practice and want practical situations.
8.Some people are planners and they want to reflect on what they learn before they use it.
If you use all 8 ways to design a lesson, you will have covered what adults and I suspect, children want in a foreign language lesson. You can separate students according to their ways of learning and provide more experiences in their desired method of learning. You can allow them to reflect and not to perform according to their comfort level and so on.