Teaching adult ESL with no materials or time?
Here’s what works when nothing else does.
Most recent posts:
- Your Adult ESL Students Have Gaps and That’s Completely Normal
I need to tell you something that might make your day easier. You know those gaps your students have? The ones where you’re teaching present perfect and suddenly realize half the class is shaky on simple past? Or you’re doing passive voice and someone raises their hand to ask what a past participle is? Those… Read more: Your Adult ESL Students Have Gaps and That’s Completely Normal - I Found My Old Gratitude Post…And Then I Found What Came After
I’ve been going through all my blog posts, fixing where images exploded into huge sizes and formatting got weird after I changed my site theme when I found this “gem” from September 2017: “3 Ideas for Inspiring Shared Gratitude in the Classroom.” I cringed while reading it. Not because it’s badly written or because the… Read more: I Found My Old Gratitude Post…And Then I Found What Came After
Older Posts:
Why Your Adult ESL Students Need Reflective Writing
I don’t remember why I asked the question, but I’d written it on the board: “What’s the most terrible sound you’ve ever heard?” Amara raised…
Summarization: The Reading Strategy Your Adult ESL Students Need, But Nobody Taught Them
I’ll never forget the day I brought in a stack of university textbooks to show my reading class what was eventually waiting for them. Fahad…
Clothing Vocabulary: Your Adult ESL Students Know “Shirt” and “Pants.” Now What?
I watched Carmen stand in front of the class, gesturing frantically at her sleeves while trying to explain why she needed to return a shirt….
Giving Directions in ESL: Getting Lost Without the Right Vocabulary
Picture this: Your student Mahmoud has been in the country for six months. His English is pretty solid in class. He can talk about his…
How to Stop Homework from Devouring Your Time
Stacks of homework papers used to sit on my table, glaring at me. Menacing little goblins. A good teacher would have graded all that already,…
Linguistic Investigations: Teaching Students to Teach Themselves
I’ll never forget watching “Layla” lean over a pile of sentence cards, using her finger to separate them and making that little clicking noise in…
The Discussion Group System That Saved My Sanity
All right, picture this…you’ve carefully arranged your discussion groups ahead of time. You’ve balanced your chatty adult ESL students with the quiet ones, mixed high…
I Don’t Regret Letting YouTube Teach My Grammar Class That Day
I hit play on the YouTube video, turned to face my class, and said, “Take notes. You’ll need them.” Then I sat down at my…
Stop Writing Questions on Your Game Blocks (Do This Instead)
“Ask someone a question. Any question.” Rashid pulled out a wooden block, checked the number, then grinned at the guy next to him. “Have you…
4 Fun Simple Past Activities for Adult ESL
You’ll want to try these four fun simple past activities with your adult ESL students! Whether your students are just now dipping their toes into…
Your Adult ESL Students Want to Steal this Game from the Kids
Have you heard of the game I Have…Who Has…? It’s everywhere in elementary schools, but most adult ESL teachers have never heard of it, which…
How to Sneak Test-Taking Strategies into Beginning Adult ESL Lessons
When we started working on color vocabulary, Ama’s face went dark. I didn’t know her well because she had just started in my class that…
The Emergency Sub Plan for When You’re Too Sick to Think…That Students Love
Picture this: You wake up with your throat on fire, your head pounding, and the kind of fever that makes you question whether you’re still…
“Learn English” Isn’t a Goal: 6 Things Your ESL Students Are Missing
“What’s your goal?” I asked the class on the first day. “Learn English!” they chorused back, smiling like they’ve just solved world hunger. “Graduate university!”…
Participial Adjectives: 2 Tests to See if They’re Sneaky Verbs
“Teacher, I am very exhausting today.” I looked up from my desk to see Maria standing there, clearly tired. She meant exhausted, of course. We’d…
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