Teaching English To ESL Students That They Can Understand

ESL students want to learn but don’t know what the teacher is saying. That’s why teaching English to ESL students that they can understand is so important.

To me, it’s a no-brainer.  If the students can’t/don’t understand the teacher and what is being taught, how in the world are they expected to learn?

What is a teacher to do who has a group of students who collectively speak seven different languages, yet the teacher only speaks one language-English?

It’s a challenge, but it can be done.

That is my real-life scenario.

In the following paragraphs, I will share my experience and how I deal with it and why I love teaching ESL.

Where To Begin?

The obvious answer is to start at the beginning, but where is that?

Before I became a teacher, one of the many jobs and careers I had was in sales.  A sales manager I worked with had a favorite saying that he said often:

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

It’s so simple but it’s the truth.

So, the beginning is to establish rapport with the class by showing them I care.

The way I do that is to Use Google Translate

By using a translator, I can say what I say in the only language I know and with a few clicks of a mouse I can change from one language to another so that all students can at least have a clue what I’m saying.

Yes, it takes time to go through the time it takes to translate what I’m saying into seven different languages.

I should point out that it’s not normal for me to have that many languages in one class.  Seven is the most I’ve ever had.  It’s usually 3-5.

It really doesn’t matter how many different languages they speak, they all want to learn English, which happens to be my specialty.

By using a translator and encouraging the students to use it to communicate with me, at least when they are beginners, which is the level I teach, it is my first step in creating a feeling of community in the class.

As divided as this world is as a human race, the first thing I aim to do as a teacher is to close the gap or differences and focus on our similiarities.

I teach adults.  I’ve taught kids in the past and have serendipitously come to realiize that my true niche is teaching adults

Having said that, because we are all adults, even though we speak different languages, we all, or at least most of us, have several things in common:

• Jobs
• Families and family issues
• Personal problems
• Life issues

Although there are others I could add to the list, even if it was/is only those items on the list, I can use those four items as the basis for everyting I use as subject matter in the class.

They understand the items on the list. The difference between them and me is, they undestand in their own language and so do I.

It doesn’t matter if I’m teaching grammar, vocabulary etc., all of those things can be applied to the four items on the list.

That is where we begin.

How Do We Go Forward?

We need to get to know one another.  They need to learn about me,I need to learn about them, and they need to learn about one another.

Using a translator, I let them know that’s what we are going to do.

I take a few minutes to write and tell them a little about me.  I display what I write on the white board at the front of the class that is written on a Word document, and for my students who are online/Zoom, I share my screen so everyone can read what I write and hear what I say in English as they read it in their language.

I display the writing a few sentences at a time so as to not overwhelm them with too much information at a time.

When I’m done, I put up some basic questions that I want them to answer to the whole class:

• What is your first and last name? 
• What country are you from?
• What is your native language?
• When did you come to the USA?
• What is one thing you like to do?

I call on each student, one at a time to come to the front of the room to answer the questions.

Keep in mind, they can see the questions in their own language.

Many of them freeze and have a difficult time answering most or some of the questions in English.

This is my first chance and the class’s first chance to help someone.

We all help each student to answer the questions.

After each person answers the first question, the class is instructed to say “Hi (Student’s name)”.

When each student is done answering the five questions, the class is instructed to say “Welcome (Student’s name)”. Then the class is instructed to applaud as the person returns to his/her seat.

The students who are online/Zoom, when it’s their turn, I pin their picture on the big screen so everyone knows and can see who’s talking.

I ask you, the reader, whether you are a student or not, who among us, will not or would not feel at least a little more comfortable with their surroundings aftet that exercise?

I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t/doesn’t like it and/or who doesn’t understand what we did and why.  Furthermore, whether they realized it or not, many of them learned at least a little bit of English in the process.

When Does The Actual Teaching Begin?

I thought you’d never ask.  🙂

The answer is, it’s already begun.

However, it’s time to move on to our first lesson in a book, although the book isn’t the textbook.

Armed with the use of the translator and a picture dictionary, the first two pages of the dictionary are titled “Meeting and Greeting”.

We’ve already broken the ice with the activity/exercise I just described.  Now, it’s time to take it to the next level.

There are 13 terms on those pages and each term has a corresponding picture.  We go over each term together and of course I use the translator.

Three of the terms are:

• Introduce yourself
• Introduce a friend
• Shake hands
  

As we go through the two pages, learn the terms, and I model each of the terms, then I have them all introduce themselves to at least three others in the class and to introduce at least three other students to someone else in the class.

I preface that with I want them to introduce themselves and others to people they don’t know.  I encourage them to try to do it with people who don’t speak their native language.

It always starts of slow and I usually have to prime the motor a bit, but once it gets started, you can feel the energy level and the comfort level increasing as they interact.

By the time the exercise is finished (I usually allow 5-10 minutes), several friendships have begun and the community I am aiming for has begun.

Again, I ask you, who doesn’t understand being introduced to one another and introducing oneself to others?

It’s a universal language that they are learning how to do in English.

How much more basic does it get.

Are We Now Ready To Hit The Books?

Not yet.  In fact, we not open a book at all on the first day.  There’s plenty of time for that.

There are four basic elements to an English class, whether it’s ESL or to people who already speak English:

• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking
• Listening

There’s more to it tha that but those are the basics.

As the teacher, I’m observing their level of spoken language (some actually speak quite a bit of English), who listens and follows directions, as well as who doesn’t.

The only reading we’ve done is what I’ve written, so, I can kind of cross that off the list, although the reading they did was silent.

They don’t know it yet, but they will be reading aloud shortly.

Before they read aloud, they are going to write, or at least try to.

Nowadays, everyone, or at least most people have cell phones.  Cell phones usually are able to connect to the internet.

I encourage all of them to use the translator and to write at least one complete sentence in English, up to three if they can about any of the 13 terms we covered in the picture dictionary or anything else we’ve done in the class that day.

I give them 10-15 minutes to do this and I encourage them to help each other with their writing and to read what they wrote to each other.

I do my best to not help them with this.

I want to see where we stand.

After they finish writing, I have each of them read what they wrote to the class.

They can either write on the board what they wrote or they can enter what they wrote into the chat function on Zoom.

Either way, I want the class to see what each person wrote as each student reads what s/he wrote.

I ask the class to help me correct the mistakes.  Usually, there are few if any who feel comfortable enough to speak up.  I am usually the one to make all the corrections.

Each of them can see what they wrote after the corrections are made.

It is then that I let them know that is how we will begin most classes-by using the picture dictionary, writing and reading.

I firmly believe that the best way to gauge a student’s learning is by how well they are able to put things into their own words.

Writing is the best method for measuring that.

Furthermore, I also firmly believe that learning to write in a language supports learning to speak a language.

Lastly, I also believe in the concept of not only learning to write but writing to learn.

We as a class will cover a lot of ground throughout the term and the students will be writing about it as we go.

Who better to teach something to someone that they will understand than that person himself/herself.

This is what I refer to as teaching English to ESL students that they can understand.

I’ve seen it in action time and time again. It works well.

To Bring This Lesson To A Close

I’ve described what is how I begin my relationship with students, how we all begin to know one another, and how I start class almost every day.

I hope the underlying message is that students learrn as much from each other and have the ability to teach themselves as much, if not more than I can teach them

As adults, we are all responsible for facilitating our own learning. It’s the same for kids, but I’ve found that adults are much more receptive to that concept than kids are.

It’s one of the main reasons I love teaching ESL to adults.

I hope you can also see why instilling an environment of WE rather than teacher vs. students, and creating a community of learners is more effective than an everyne-for-him-or-herself environment.

Watch the YouTube video that corresponds with this article here

Leave questions and comments in the space below. I will promptly respond.