All About Me worksheets for ESL adults help you design your class to meet their needs!
I always loved that back-to-school time occurred more than once a year when teaching adult ESL, and once I stopped trying to decorate my classroom like I was personally representing all of Pinterest, I enjoyed it even more! Who would be in my classroom, I wondered? What cultures would I need to research quickly to help them feel welcome and at ease? What types of English pronunciation difficulties might they have? Most of all, though, who were these people in my classroom? I could have learned so much more and faster with All About Me worksheets for ESL adults!
All About Me worksheets for ESL adults help you involve and engage them in your lessons because you learn their end goals, struggles, and strengths. You can find out why they are learning English and what their fears about learning English are.
What learning styles are they accustomed to and comfortable with? How might they react to being pushed out of their comfort zone? Nudges can seem overly pushy and be entirely unwelcome by adults who are afraid of losing their dignity or sacrificing their “face.”
Adult ESL learners are more likely to be false beginners than true beginners–they’ve probably tried to learn English in the past. For whatever reason(s), they failed, and they fear failing again, especially as they are now older and perhaps believe they are too old to learn. All About Me worksheets for ESL adults can help them notice what gives them success and what hasn’t been working and needs to be approached differently to make success possible. This is information that they need as much as you do.
Get need-to-know basic information from All About Me worksheets for ESL adults.
Some types of All About Me worksheets for ESL adults are going to net you the most basic information such as their name, what they prefer to be called, where they are from, the language(s) they speak, and what they are already good at. This is the easiest for them to fill out. I love it because it gives them a task they can generally complete easily as the information is about them and because it’s information that is useful for me. Knowing the languages, for example, helps me with grouping students, and knowing where they are from gets me thinking about any cultural differences that might come up.
Another great reason to have your students complete All About Me worksheets for ESL adults is that they provide excellent opportunities for your students to get to know their classmates in a structured way. A worksheet that asks about their favorites (sport, place to travel, food, music genre, etc.) or preferences (coffee or tea, music or silence) provides an easy starting point for finding things in common with their classmates.
All About Me worksheets for ESL adults can point you in the right direction for any research into the cultures of your students. Rather than going directly to Wikipedia or scrolling through countless dated articles aimed at tourists, find out directly from your students what their home city and home country are like. Knowing their family situation helps you tailor lessons specific to their needs. If you have a class of parents of young children, you’ll probably want to teach them about parent/teacher conferences, after-school activities, and fun local things to do as a family. All of that can inform the grammar and vocabulary you teach them.
Find out how and what they want to learn with All About Me worksheets for ESL adults.
Do your adult ESL students prefer worksheets, role plays, or discussions? Do they want quizzes and tests? Do they like working alone, with a partner, or in a group? How do they feel about reading aloud vs. reading silently? Knowing the answers to these and so many other questions can make the difference between your students feeling comfortable in your classroom and dreading being there. All About Me worksheets for ESL adults will quickly net you that information.
Sure you could just ask them, but how at ease will they be when put on the spot like that? Will they answer truthfully or give you the answer they think you want to hear, the one that they think will put the best light on them in front of their classmates? Plus, when it’s on paper, you don’t have to REMEMBER each answer that each student gives. You can look it up.
Something to remember when teaching adult ESL is that they have busy lives outside of your classroom that are quite often separate from learning. They may have a spouse they are supporting in some way, responsibilities connected to their children, their neighbors, and even their community. Perhaps they are caring for their own parents. All of this information is easily gleaned from All About Me worksheets for ESL adults, and you can use it to inform the lessons you create for them and to guide you in the types of discussions you initiate during speaking practice.
Try these All About Me worksheets designed for Adult ESL
Convinced and ready to use some All About Me worksheets for ESL adults with your adult ESL classes?
You can create your own, search the internet for some (fair warning: most are designed for children), or you can take a look at what I created specifically for use with adult ESL learners.
No matter your choice, enjoy getting to know your students!
Leave a Reply