ESL/EFL TEACHING IDEAS

[Madam H]

wow, madam H is really a teacher. i remember my days in a public school in las pinas. My head in the English department is so strict when it comes to this Visual, Auditory and kinesthetic objectives. I've done it for 3 years and it works. The sad truth is there are good teachers in the Philippines but the students speaking ability is so poor. some cant even construct compound sentences. got any solution for this madam H. I am a newbie but i've read all your posts and now let me call you (if you mind) a walking teacher encyclopedia. i like your posts ma'am you sound like my favourite professor La Salle.

Darfur,

Sorry, medyo isang buwan bago ako nakareply! Ha! Ha!

We just started classes a little more than a month ago, and I'm having my most challenging year, it seems, right now. At my school, we have a four-day cycle, so instead of a Monday-Friday schedule, we have Days 1,2,3 and 4. This is to ensure that when holidays happen, the students don't miss out on the subjects that fall on those days. Notice that in Thailand, most holiday substitution days fall on a Monday? So if Language Arts falls on a Monday, students will be missing a lot of that before the school year is over, thus, the 4-days cycle.

My days 1 and 2 are so full, I could hardly breathe. And when days 3 and 4 come, that's the only time I can catch up with marking papers and lesson planning. Plus, I was organizing a field trip to Ayutthaya with my High School Thai Studies classes. We are going Thursday kaya medyo nakahinga ako ng konti today dahil medyo tapos na ang prep! LOL

And to top it all, I have 6 preps to do every 4-days cycle: this year I teach Grade 7 Social Studies, Grade 7 English, Grade 10 Thai Studies, Grade 11 Writing for College and Thai Studies and Grade 12 Thai Studies. Whew!

Haba ng explanation, no?! 

Anyway, I'm thankful that you seem to be getting something out of my posts. I'm not sure though, if I could live up to the "teacher encyclopedia" title you bestowed on me!  Honestly, I am not much of a resource person when it comes to grammar. Thank you Erick for saving me whe you posted your own ideas here!

Erick and Yllorco would be the best people to ask for grammar-related questions. But I will try my best to share what I know when I have experienced it, or done it in my classes. My ideas just basically come from learning from other colleagues of mine. But I find the best teacher is still the students. It is their needs that prompt good teaching, I suppose.

'Gald to be of help. And please, do spread the good news we all share here in siam pinoy - and that is - the sharing and showcasing of the best among Filipinos in Thailand! We believe so much in the Filipino, and for good reason!

 

[Madam H]

I apologize if some of these activities cannot be done in your particular circumstance, but I enjoyed these as much as the students did:

1. field trip to and English speaking restaurant - this may require chaperones and advanced planning; the objective is to have students interact with the English speaking food servers to ask about, order, and commend servers on the food they want to eat. It is especially interesting to listen to them ask about prices or dishes, talk among themselves [they were grouped] about what they wanted to eat. pizza and pastery are always an easy dish order for themselves.

2. newscasting/role playing - precisely because a news segment is only 2 minutes long, all of your students can participate. they can prepare the script as well as the visuals to go with it, like cutouts or posters, or even a short video. allow them to choose the type of news they want, with editing from you of course. set up a news booth with the name of a local news station, provide a real or fake mic, spotlight and video the whole thing to review choice segments.

3. interview with a vampire - er....i meant farang. have student prepare a set of 4 questions that they can ask an english speaking person. pair them up, so if you have 40 students, you only need to contact 20 people. some of these people can stand to be interviewed twice, so you cut the number down to 10. you may even invite a non school person to talk about himself/herself. the content and questions can be prepared in advance.

4. tableau - choose an interesting book excerpt [depending on the age level, but i would choose the harry potter series]; if your class is co-ed and nearing puberty, like mine, they will get a kick out of the romantic scenes between harry and hermione or harry and cho. avoid the classics, too heavy for their age.

that's all i can remember, or have the power to post right now. more next time. i hope!

BP,
'Hope you will find the time to add to this post of yours. These are highly interesting activities, very hands-on, and teachers, if your school is one that values positive feedback from parents, I suggest you roll your sleeves up, perhaps get other teachers to work the logistics out with you, and then put these into action!

Have fun!

[Madam H]

For many of us, the challenge of teaching in Thailand doe snot come from our lack on enthusiasm or desire. At times, it is the big classes of 30-40 that makes teaching a challenge. Sometimes, it's because we only meet our students twice a week. Other times, it is because the students have very low level of English or the class has different levels of English.

So what to do now?

One surefire way that has worked for me all the time, whether the problem is the number, the levels, or the lack of motivation is... to TELL STORIES.

Whenever students hear the words "Let me tell you a story...", it never fails to make students sit up straigther in their seats, some lean forward to hear what you have to say, others stop themselves in midsentence...

You can use stories for the following:

1. Speaking: ask students to predict what's going to happen by stopping every now and then to ask them to predict what will happen next.

2. Listening: when students are interested, they not only hear the story, they also hear how words are strung together and how words are used to create pictures. And so unconsciously, they use their listening skills.

3. Writing : just before the end of the story, you can stop and have small groups of students write what they think the ending will be. Or after you've told them the ending, you can ask students to write a different ending to the story.

4. Reading: Using a big book, ask one student at a time to read a few parts of the story. Or, you can have phrases, sentences or dialogues written up on the board, and ask students to read them out loud at appropriate times.

Stories, since time immemorial, never fails to generate interest and much thought even after they have been told. Somehow, the words, the phrases, the dialogues, always seem to linger way after students hear them. That's because while you are telling the story, many of your students will be conjuring up their own pictures in their heads, and imagining the characters interacting with one another.

Here's one to start with...

In a village far from the city, there was a school. In this school, there was a bus that takes the small children from their homes to the school in the morning, then takes them back home at the end of the day. In this bus, there's a school driver whom everyone fears. He never smiles. His eyes are big, black and always seem to hold some dark secret in their depths.

One morning, just like any other, the bus driver picked the children up from their homes. On the way to school, right in the middle of the fields, the bus suddenly stopped. Then the bus driver got out...

[ICAL_Pete]

Check both the ESL Activities and Classroom Techniques sections in the ICALwiki for great teaching ideas!

[TARSIER]

For most of us who are teaching Mathematics to Thai learners (or other learners of English as Second Language), the challenge is on having the learners learn mathematical concepts in English. Usually, our students have limited ability in English that we sometimes find it impossible for them to learn the concepts in English. To help us (teachers) and our learners, the following ideas might be a great help:

1. MAKE LEARNING MEANINGFUL. Remember that the students already have the grasp of those mathematical concepts in their first language and all we have to do is connect the concepts in English with their exisiting knowledge. There are so many ways to solve mathematical problems but solving them in our own way might corrupt the interest of the students. Study how Thais solve those mathematical problems and present it the way they do it so they could find connection. Different ways in solving the problems can be shown for enrichment but considering the language ability of the students, be consistent on a single way.

Another way to make learning meaningful is using examples which are familiar to the students, thus, problems which are existing in their environment. Be careful when adopting problems from foreign textbooks -- contextualize them.   

2. USE DIAGRAMS AND MANIPULATIVES TO TEACH CONCEPTS. When teaching fractions for example, do not just stand in front and tell the students the definition of fraction and have the students memorize or recite it. To teach that fraction is part of a whole, use diagrams and manipulatives that would help the students understand what is "HOLE"and what is "ART."

3. INTEGRATE LANGUAGE WHILE TEACHING. As a teacher in a bilingual program, I have observed that most of my students are already familiar of the mathematical operations but the problem is they could not express the how's and why's in English. For example, Somchai can do basic algebraic operations very well but he could not express how he did it. I consider this moment as teachable moment for Somchai. I usually address to the class how to answer questions that start with How and Why.  To answer the HOW's, I ask them to enumerate the process like what they did first, second and so on. To answer the WHY's I teach them to start their answer with the word BECAUSE.

4. HAVE THE STUDENTS SUMMARIZE THE CONCEPTS THEY HAVE LEARNED THROUGH DIAGRAM. When ending a unit, the best way to approach learning is to have the students summarize the concepts and vocabulary words they have learned.

That's all for now... Any other suggestions?

[Eslcorner]

Hello guys,

Am inviting Filipino teachers in Thailand to share their self-made ESL/EFL teaching resources on ESL Resources Page of www.eslcorner.net . This page contains printable ESL resources needed to teach ESL kids.

You can upload anything you want to share to your fellow ESL teachers from around the globe like (Riddles, Quizzes, Lesson Plans, Worksheets, ESL Games etc.) Let's prove that kahit papaano eh we can share something different. You will be credited as ESLCORNER.NET's page contributor by sharing your ideas.

Please visit http://www.eslcorner.net for more information or email me at roy@eslcorner.net