You know how everyone assumes greetings and introductions are easy? Like students just stroll in on day one, shake hands, and magically know what to say? Yeah. No. For a lot of adult ESL newcomers, even saying “hello” feels like walking into the DMV for the first time. Lots of unknowns with too many expectations. […]
Way back when, in my high school German class, we were learning colors. Pretty basic stuff, right? The teacher was going around asking students what color various things were in German. “Welche Farbe hat Ihr Auto?” One student answered, “Well, I’m told it’s grün.” The teacher looked confused. “You’re told it’s green?” That’s when we
I once had a student who labeled everything in his home with sticky notes to learn vocabulary. Not unusual, right? Lots of language learners do that. But this student took it further. He photographed every single labeled item. Then, whenever he had downtime, like waiting for the bus, sitting in the library between classes, or
Let me guess. You’re staring at your lesson plan thinking, Really? Months of the year? These are adults. And yet…here we are. Because someone put ‘months of the year’ on the curriculum, now you’re supposed to make a whole lesson out of twelve words your students probably already half-know. Because here’s the thing…the months of
So there I was, day three in a hospital in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language. Nurses kept asking me questions I couldn’t answer, and eventually they started dragging in patients from other rooms to translate what turned out to be fairly simple stuff. If I’d known some basic body vocabulary? I
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. “The arms! The arms are… the arms are bad!” A classmate jumped in: “Too short?” “No! Too… fat?” “Wide. Long sleeves but wide?” “YES! Wide arms!” She meant the sleeves
“But everyone has a phone now.” You think this every time someone mentions spending class time on telling time, right? And look, I get it. When you’re scrambling to cover conditionals and the nightmare that is present perfect, dedicating class time to clock faces feels unnecessary. Here’s the thing. Numbers don’t come up much in
I’m rolling my eyes right now just remembering it. My students would dutifully memorize the days of the week, recite them back to me in perfect order, and BOOM! Standard met! Except they hadn’t really learned anything useful. They could perform this neat little trick on command just like I can recite the days of
So, you’re teaching adult ESL true beginners, and you need to teach the alphabet. You know there are millions of resources and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but everything you find is made for young children. Your adult students don’t need to be tracing a letter in a tray of sand. They need age-appropriate activities
I turned the page and hmphed at what I saw. Number vocabulary. Numbers listed in order, some blank lines, and a quick little listening exercise. My students could count, so why waste time on this? I moved on. Well, as it turned out, every other teacher at that school did the same thing. Even the
