ESL teaching materials
Every student that starts learning English has a different background and a
different motivation.
This means that you can’t just send the same lesson materials to everyone in
the same week. The lesson won’t be productive and the student won’t get all
that much out of it.
There are several online platforms for teaching conversational English. iTalki
and Preply are just a couple of examples.
The primary reason students choose iTalki is to have a conversation. It’s
a platform for conversational English and students (generally speaking) haven’t
signed up to master the TOEIC or IELTS tests.
Doing grammar exercises and correcting your students every mistake will not
make you a popular teacher. They are there to practice speaking and listening
primarily.
What are good topics for conversational English?
Everyday topics of course, but it’s best to find out what they’re interested in
and plan accordingly.
Everyday topics may include:
- Family – nothing too personal of course. Do not make them feel uncomfortable
- Work – same as above. Don’t ask intrusive questions related to money, etc.
- Interests
- Travel
A lesson about family can be as basic or advanced as you tailor it.
For example, Beginner: “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” vs.
Intermediate/Advanced: “Tell me a story from your childhood about your
brother or sister.”
You should always send or assign lesson materials to students in advance. This
will give them extra confidence, show them that you’re prepared, and give
them something to look forward to. It will also help you retain students longer.
If you aren’t guiding and leading them, they’ll quit.
How are you different?
What’s your special sauce? How will you help them more than other teachers
will? How is your lesson different from other teachers?
Differentiate yourself by creating and providing lesson materials that stand
out.
Tell them how you are different and how your materials and method will help
them to progress faster than other teachers.
Simply sending them a PDF with 5 -10 questions will not pique their interest or
motivate them.
You don’t need to follow the lesson exactly, but use it as a guide for the
student. Give them something to prepare and look forward to.
Beginner to upper-intermediate students often prefer something more
structured. It’s important to show them that you have a plan.
For example, “We are going to work on small talk, pronunciation, and follow up
questions in tomorrow’s lesson.”
Upper-intermediate to advanced students on the other hand may prefer
something more natural and unstructured.
I’ve touched on feedback and evaluations in past blogs. However, it’s important
to point out quickly again that you shouldn’t current every mistake beginner and intermediate students make.
Listen and identify what types of mistakes they are commonly making and correct them. Be careful not to overcorrect.
It’s sometimes more challenging to do with advanced students. However the
same goes for them. They’re there to practice speaking because it’s not their
native language. Therefore it’s absolutely necessary that you correct them and
give them more natural phrases and expressions.
You should be jotting down notes during the lessons in order to give them
feedback at the end. This will show them that you were paying attention and it
provides tremendous value.
Student Talking Time (STT) vs. (TTT) vs. Teacher Talking Time
Many teachers feel uncomfortable with silence and start filling it with rants.
This isn’t going to make you a popular teacher! They are paying for this lesson
and they’re paying to practice speaking. You need to facilitate that in every
way possible. Yes, listening is another key skill, but talkative teachers aren’t
generally popular ones.
Just like many things in life the 80/20 rule applies here. Your students should
be speaking 80% of the time and you 20% of the time.
If you’re asking them questions and they’re answering with one-word answers,
then you should be prompting them to elaborate.
What types of things can you do to get them to speak?
Create a follow-up question wheel.
Just a simple wheel with questions words around it: what, when, where, why,
how, and who. Ask them a question with each.
Create a conjunctions wheel (be careful that the conjunctions are within their
level. For beginners this should be limited to: and, so, because, or)
For intermediate and advanced, you can add more conjunctions according to
their level.
Just point to a conjunction to encourage them to continue speaking.
Listening: play a short (and I do mean short) video and ask them questions
about it.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, give them quality feedback.
Include examples of things that you spoke about, constructive comments
about natural expressions, and hint at something that you might cover with
them next time. Make sure you give them an idea and sense that you have a
plan. This shows them that you understand what their strengths and
weaknesses are and most importantly that you have a plan on how they can
improve.
Final thought…
No matter which platform you’re using, give your students feedback via chat
throughout the lesson.
We have a ton of awesome materials for conversational English. Attract and
retain students with engaging, quality content and students accounts that will
keep them motivated.
We give away lots of conversation material on our Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube channel. Follow us!
The time has come – or rather it was hastened by a pandemic – but in any case, a digital transformation in education has arrived.
Many teachers are needing to be quick studies, as they discover new tools and methods to streamline teaching and administration. And in doing so, many are coming to understand the power of a hybrid approach. Some of the biggest advantages of online course delivery are flexibility and the availability of options. This is where Synchronous and Asynchronous classes come in to play. Which method to use, and when, can make all the difference for a successful outcome for both teachers and students.
What are Synchronous and Asynchronous classes?
For synchronous classes, the instructor and the students are present online at the same time and in direct communication. Teachers instruct through video or audio conferencing, or live chat. The lectures and discussions are at a fixed time and students can only access the lecture if they are present online at the time it takes place.
Asynchronous classes refer to classes where the instructor and the students are not present online at the same time. The instructor uploads material, lectures, and assignments to a designated portal that students can access anytime, and from anywhere.
Both synchronous and asynchronous classes have advantages and disadvantages. Let’s dive in and cover some so that you can make a decision as to when to use what method.
Synchronous classes
Advantages:
– Interactive sessions
-Immediate answers to their questions
-Easier sharing of ideas between student and instructor, or among students
-More in-depth instructions
-Spontaneity and flexibility in lectures
In synchronous classes students and teachers can interact, ask questions, and present ideas spontaneously. For example, teachers may ask students to have a conversation about what they did on the weekend or present something to show they understand how to use vocabulary and expressions in context. The instructor can give them immediate feedback and the student can feel motivated and connected to their teacher.
Disadvantages:
-Rigid time constraints
-Dependent on connectivity and bandwidth
Unfortunately, synchronous classes can be a problem for students who have a hard time logging on at a certain time, or who have poor internet connectivity. And slow learners may find it difficult to grasp concepts during synchronous classes.
Asynchronous classes
Advantages:
-Flexibility: time and pace
-Less chances of technical problems
-Less formal compared to synchronous classes
-Immediately informed of digital quiz results
Disadvantages:
-Lack of real-time interaction
-Difficulty in staying on track or meeting deadlines
-Delayed feedback with some tasks
Asynchronous classes are convenient for students who struggle to attend online classes. They allow them to work at their own pace and on their own time. In asynchronous classes, the instructor assigns vocabulary, listening, reading, writing tasks, etc., and the students can complete the work any time prior to the deadline. There is, however, a chance that they will procrastinate and try to complete all the work right at the deadline. Other important things to point out are:
1. The instructor only provides feedback after the assignments are submitted
2. There are no real-time question-answer sessions
Pocket Passport provides teachers with tools to create extremely fun and interactive lessons and courses. And they can use materials and resources for both synchronous and asynchronous learning. Teachers can share illustrations to initiate conversations, show a video, assign tasks in breakout rooms, and a lot more.
Pocket Passport’s lesson and course builder gives teachers options to create bite-sized lessons that students can complete on their own time. It also gives educators tools to gamify lessons with badges and stamps as they achieve lesson and course objectives.
Conclusion
The best results come from using a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous classes. It’s important to provide students with real-time feedback and opportunities to practice the language on one hand. On the other, it essential to provide fun and engaging materials to acquire new vocabulary and expressions, practice listening, reading, and writing. When done properly there is unlimited potential to maximize students learning.
How will pictures and illustrations help my students to learn?
- Will pictures really keep my students talking?
- Can students learn with pictures?
- How will storytelling help my students remember vocabulary?
- Does storytelling help students understand the deeper meaning of words?
Many teachers dislike it when students are reluctant to speak out of fear they’ll make a mistake. Teachers and leaders need to facilitate conversation and learning. We need to break the silence, get students talking, laughing and communicating.
Students who lack imagination, can’t think of a word, struggle to create full sentences… storytelling can help.
There are students who know 10,000 words, but can barely utter a sentence. There are others who know 1500 words and sound fluent (at least to someone new to teaching).
Memorizing words is very different from being able to use them correctly and effectively.
There was one person who you may have heard of that is especially well known for thinking and creating with images.
And that’s my story for today…
Have you ever heard of this guy?
He was a very quiet kid.
He hardly spoke at all until he was three years old. His parents thought that something was wrong with him and they consulted a doctor.
He was even told that he would never amount to much.
When he was about 5 years old, his parents gave him a magnetic compass.
And that is where it all began.
He was fascinated by the fact that no matter which way he turned the compass, the needle always pointed in the same direction. This new “toy” made him curious. It made him wonder about magnetic fields, which led him to become interested in physics.
That’s how his lifetime journey of exploration started. Many years later, he wrote about the compass saying: “That experience made a deep and lasting impression on me. ”
His name: Albert Einstein.
Most of us are not that level genius. But we do have the same capacity to be curious about new things. We love novelty.
Albert Einstein once said what?
He once said that all of his most important and productive thinking was done by playing with images in his imagination, “imagination is more important than knowledge.”
His work on gravity was influenced by imagining riding a free-falling elevator.
Everyone is born with an imagination. Storytelling is engrained in us. We are all storytellers to some degree.
We are nothing like Albert Einstein, but visual images do help connect our thoughts. They can help us retain things by sequencing ideas together and putting words in context.
New words are novel and we should explore and create with them.
The mind and imagination are wonderful things. Our job as teachers and leaders is to give our students opportunities to use words.
Don’t just ask them to memorize a random list of words and expect them to pass the test you give them. Give your students opportunities to grow. Ask them to tell you a story about their weekend (I mean a real story with adjectives and suspense, etc.)
Here’s some food for thought:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rethinking-thought/201602/new-look-visual-thinking
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936760,00.html
Keywords: overcoming shyness, how to overcome shyness in the ESL-EFL classroom
High Frequency Vocabulary
What things do you consider when planning a lesson or course? How useful is
the vocabulary you’re teaching?
Did you know that your students can understand 90% of English with less
than 12% of the average native speaker’s total vocabulary?
There are over 600,000 words in the English language (of course this differs
like everything according to which dictionary or other source you refer to)
That’s pretty much impossible for anybody to learn.
Of course, almost nobody knows all 600,000 words.
So, how many words do you think the average university educated
English speaker knows?
About 20,000.
However, in order to understand 92% of English on TV, in movies, magazines,
online, in books and newspapers you only need to know the top 2800.
Who in their right mind figured this out?
Well … a guy named Charlie Browne … Actually …Dr. Charlie Browne led some
research (you can learn more and download all of the lists yourself using the
links below).
He based it off of about 273 million words taken from a variety of British and
American sources.
They discovered that 2800 words would give you 92% coverage of general
English (this is known as Zipf’s Law)
Basically, Zipf’s Law states that some words are used much more frequently
than others.
And that the most frequent words make up a larger percentage of everything
we read, watch, listen to and hear.
So we often use the same words over and over again.
So what exactly is the NGSL word list?
The NGSL is a list of 2800 of the most frequently used words in everyday
English.
The list does not include proper nouns, numbers and dates.
The NGSL is ordered according to frequency. In other words, how often the
word is used throughout the English language.
This can be quite challenging for ESL and EFL students as is.
It’s a powerful tool, however we caution it should be used with thought and
planning.
Let’s look at some examples of why you need to order the words according to
your needs, student levels, interests, course goals, etc.
Words such as political, process and policy are all in the top 400 words.
Other words such as telephone, weather and cook are not as frequent. These
words are listed after the top 1000.
For beginner and low intermediate students, we don’t recommend assigning
vocabulary based on frequency. This is putting the cart before the horse so to
speak.
A group of experienced ESL-EFL teachers have re-ordered the NGSL wordlist
to make it friendlier for lower level students. We refer to it as PESL and is
simply the NGSL reordered to be more ESL friendly for beginner students.
This is just one example of how we are a simple and practical approach to
teaching and learning English.
Learn more about the NGSL, NGSL-s and research involving his high frequency word lists: http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/
