esl?

Thanks for your interest in and concern for my new esl student. Truth be told, all but three of my students are esl. I have one student from the US, one from the UK and one from South Africa. The rest are from Sweden, Finland, Germany, Estonia, Czech Republic, South Korea, Japan, and Russia. Most do not speak English at home as their primary language. Many have two "mother tongues" as the result of international marriages.

You've asked how I go about teaching English. We do have an esl teacher, but her time is limited. Primarily, it falls to me to teach all our academics and English to my new students. Once they've gotten a grasp on English (this seems to happen after about 3 months) it's easy to integrate them into our regular curriculum.

Prior to that, I teach the lesson to the whole class and then re-teach the lesson with much demonstration, to the new esl students. What works? I'm not an expert, but here's what I've found in the last two years. Some of it is a conscious choice. Much of it is intuitive. I had to watch myself carefully to see what I do!

*Pantomime This seems obvious, but many of the teachers are hesitant to use it. I'm not afraid to look foolish. And, the humor involved helps the new student and the class to join in a laugh.

*Carry on! Involve the child in the same daily activities of those around them. At school, this involves lessons, projects, etc. We don't stop our day to learn English. We just learn along the way. At home you can narrate what you're doing much as you would with an infant. Cook, sort laundry (great for colors), play games, drive, go to the park, etc.

*Use repetitive vocabulary, avoiding synonyms For example, there are many ways I can tell the class as a whole, "Time for break." "Recess time." "That's enough for now." "Outside!" etc. With new students I give the same phrase and pantomime "Time to go out" while zipping a coat. Every day. When it gets asked back to me, "Go out?" I can slowly add synonyms, "Yes, it's recess time. Time to go out and play."

*Avoid contractions I've realized that I do this not only with esl students, but with any non-native speaker I encounter--including my colleagues. (Actually, I often lapse into this with native English speaker when I've been esl-ing for too long.) I think it helps new speakers hear the negatives more clearly (do not rather than don't) as well as simplifying the language

*Provide breaks from English I structure our days so that we don't have an overwhelming amount of English at one time. We use art, math, music and play to take a break from English.

*Use what works, forget what doesn't Different children are inspired by different things. Some want to talk to their friends. Some want to read. Some want to be able to play sports. Finding what works for each child makes the most sense of all.

*Speak simply but properly My students often try to communicate with our new speakers in cave man speak, "Me go. You come." We acknowledge that they are trying to be helpful and thank them for being a good helper and a good friend. Then, we remind them that they will help x speak English if they speak English properly to them.

*Praise and encourage Of course! We carry on conversations at whatever level we can. We marvel in progress. My other students, most of whom have btdt, are quick to help celebrate new words and phrases. We are an empathetic class (even if it kills me...) and are quick to celebrate together. My post-recess "reports" as they peal off coats and tell me how much fun soccer was (not who won) often include English updates.

*Sympathize Our constant refrain is "English is a crazy language". This seems to help with homophones, exceptions to rules, etc.

I hope this is what the inquiring minds were looking for when they asked how I teach esl. I'm sure there are many other things we do that help build success. If something jumps out at me, I'll add it. This is just about getting a new student to speak. I teach them to read using a self-devised modified Open Court phonics program. Open Court is great for esl students because it connects a sound to a real-life event rather than to an English work. (ie /m/ sound is linked to ice cream "Mmmmm" rather than to monkey.) I hope this helps!