ESL Teaching Tips to Solve Common Classroom Problems

ESL Teaching Tipsto Solve

Common ClassroomProblems

www.chantyta.blogspot.com 2

Will you imagine if this happens in your class while teaching?


Outline

ESL Lesson Planning Problems-Prep Time

-Finding Fresh Ideas

-Finishing a Lesson Early

-Unexpected Substitutions

-ESL Activities that are Falling Flat

-Mixed Levels In Class

Problems with Materials

-The ESL Textbook is Boring

-ESL Textbooks That Aren't a Good Fit

-Finding Materials


ESL Students

-Students Look Bored Or Don't Seem Motivated

-Students can arrive late

-Students Don't Listen, or Keep Speaking Among

Themselves in Their Native Language

-Lecture Hall Setting And Large ESL Classes

-A student refuses to join in with games

because they seem silly

-Students who only want to study one aspect of English

-Traumatized Students


ESL Lesson Planning Problems


Prep Time

There are schools in Japan where English teachers get all of ten minutes to find out who their students are going to be in the lesson, and then prepare their activities. This is an extreme example, but there are few ESL English teachers who would not like to have a bit more planning time. While you can't add time to the day, you can make efficient use of the time you have.


Finding Fresh Ideas

Keeping a file of language games for re-use is great, but it's just as important to find fresh ideas and ESL activities to keep classes fun. But where can we find ideas?


Finishing a Lesson Early

Every now and then a lesson will go faster than you thought it would, leaving you with ten or fifteen minutes to fill. This can be a panicky moment if you don't have a backup plan.


Unexpected Substitutions

Occasionally a colleague will become ill or have an emergency and you will have to cover an ESL class that would otherwise be left without a teacher. Sometimes you'll have a lesson plan to work form, sometimes you won't.


ESL Activities that are Falling Flat

Probably the worst feeling in the world is watching an activity you've selected fall flat with your students. It happens to the best English teachers, and how you handle it is what makes the difference between success and failure for the overall lesson. How you handle it will depend on exactly what is going wrong.


Mixed Levels In Class

You will probably never have a class where all the students are on the same language level in all skills.


Problems with Materials


The ESL Textbook is Boring

This is a fairly common problem, since no textbook is perfect and every textbook will probably bore at least some of your students some of the time. This is when you start digging out alternative ESL materials and activities.





ESL Textbooks That Aren't a Good Fit

Sometimes you will have an ESL textbook that is just too hard or too easy, or simply so out of date that it isn't appealing to students.


Finding Materials

Money and location can both limit your access to materials. There are ways around both these problems, however.

Talk to other ESL teachers and find out what they are doing. This is probably the single most helpful thing you can do. Don't limit yourself to other English teachers. Content classes often have materials and realia that are wonderful for ESL and EFL lessons.

Internet – Join a blog on ESL teaching tips and share with teachers there. Here is a teaching tips blog: http://teachingenglishgames.blogspot.com/



More materials log on…

Sites to Link Description

www.chantyta.blogspot.comVarious interesting things for everyone – more than

you expect!

http://englishwithjennifer.wordpress.com/A blog for teacher, focusing on methodology,

strategies, and classroom activities

http:// www.developingteachers.com/A site for developing language teachers with

teaching tips, lesson plans and articles

http://www.eslflow.com/ ESL Lesson plans and Ideas for teachers

http://www.col-ed.org/cur/lang.html#lang2Language arts lesson plans by Columbia Education

Center

http://dreamingenglish.blogspot.com/A blog of an ESL teacher with a lot of lesson plans,

teaching tips, professional development ideas, reading materials...

http://newteacherresourcecenter.com/An online new teacher support site with information

on lesson plans, learning styles and many issues faced by new ESL teachers

http://www.esl-lab.com/Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab. Listen to

everyday conversations with adults and Children’s voice

http://www.englishlistening.comListen to real people talking real English from easy

listening to advanced listening passages

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jennifer ESL?gl=ES&hl=en-GB

Online English lessons (videos) for learners and teachers of English by an experienced ESL

teacher

http://stonesoup.com/Magazine by young writers and artists (8-13):reading and listening to young writers and

artists’ essays


http://www.awesomestories.comA place for stories, materials, lesson plans to

enhance extensive reading

http://www.achievement.org/

The American Academy of Achievement online resource: written interviews, inspiring life stories of eminent achievers of our time,

transcripts, audio of insightful discussions with Academy members

http://www.thisibelieve.org/A public dialogue about belief: reading and listening

to inspiring essays discussing about life

http://www.betteratenglish.com A site for English learners, various materials

http://www.urch.com/forums/Test Magic Forum: students discussing about English

tests

http://www.englishtips.org/

This virtual library brings English textbooks including teacher books, student books, audio material

and other learning materials to your fingertips. Subscribe to this website to receive weekly

newsletters and download books, audio CDs, DVDs all for free

http://www.americanrhetoric.com Interesting speeches made by famous people

http://www.musicalenglishlessons.com/ Various activities to use music in English lessons

http://focusenglish.com/A website focuses on developing ESL/EFL learners’

conversational English skills

http://www.englishmedialab.com/English Grammar exercises, Video lessons, Quizzes,

Vocabularies Exercises

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish

BBC learning English

http://edition.cnn.com/studentnews CNN Students News

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/ The New York Times Students Connections

www.futureme.orgA magic site where you sent your today’s mail and

you’ll get it back after around 3 months


Problems with ESL Students


Students Look Bored Or Don't Seem Motivated

Activities that fall flat were discussed above, but sometimes it isn't

the ESL activity that is the problem. Sometimes it's the students' attitude. It's important to find out why the students are in class.


Students can arrive late

This can be really disruptive if you aren't prepared


Students Don't Listen, Speaking Among Themselves in Their Native Language

This always happens to an extent, but you can't let it take over the class.

yI GavÉgBitCasða

tEmn!ÉgTijvaenAÉNa

? ehIyéføbunµan

?¹TijvaenA Sorya. bu¨EnþvadUcCacegðótbu¨niþc.

……


Lecture Hall Setting And Large ESL Classes

Sometimes your classroom isn't a good setting for practising conversation or games, or the class just seems too big.


A student refuses to join in with games because they seem silly

There will always be students who think games are beneath them.

Clearly demonstrate the purpose of the game and show through the demonstration that it is a more effective way of learning.


Students who only want to study one aspect of English

conversation or reading or writing If the class is meant to be a well rounded class,

rather than specifically a class focused on a single skill, then try using games and activities that integrate more than one skill at a time, like shopping games, sentence relays, and role-plays.

Demonstrate to the student that most uses of English integrate all the skills you are studying in class. Role-plays and videos can provide evidence of this.


Traumatized Students

If you have students who have been recently traumatized due to war or political upheavals in their home countries, it is best to steer clear of any games that rely on personal information.


Conclusion

Lesson planning – helps teacher know where to start and where to finish the lesson. A good teacher must have an explicit lesson.

Teaching materials – Not all books are suitable for students. Hence, a teacher needs to choose interesting topics or materials for the students.

ESL students – read the students like a book trying to understand what their needs are and what their expectation is. REMEMBER you teach the students NOT the textbook.


Make yourself like water

‘Be flexible’


WE WE ARE ARE PROUDPROUD TO BE ATO BE A TEACHER


Documents

ESL Teaching Tips to Solve Common Classroom Problems