Many teachers who are new to adult ESL are not new to teaching and/or not fresh out of university. Perhaps you’ve decided the field you were in was not your passion, and you’re trying something completely unrelated. Or maybe you’re a long-time teacher, but you’ve always taught kids. You’re new, but not new-new. Below are […]
I’ll never forget my first attempt at a “free talking” session with my A1 class. I had twenty questions printed out. TWENTY. I’d spent the better part of an evening finding good conversation starters, organizing them by difficulty, and feeling pretty smug about my preparation. These were just backups, you know, in case there was
I used to stand at the front of the classroom, waiting. Just…waiting. I’d asked a simple comprehension question about the text we’d just read. The answer was RIGHT THERE. Third paragraph, second sentence. I could see it from where I stood. And every single student was re-reading the entire text from the beginning. For E-VE-RY
You know that student who swears they’re studying vocabulary every single night but still bombs the quiz? Yeah, I had Mesfer. This guy was COMMITTED. He proudly told me he was learning 30 words per day. Eeevery. Siiiingle. Daaay. That’s 210 words per week because weekends are for quitters, apparently. His vocabulary scores? Yeah, not
“I can’t speak because I don’t have anything to say.” Hui wailed this in class one day, and honestly? I felt that in my bones. Here was this Chinese student with an IELTS score that made no sense. Reading? Solid. Writing? Good. Listening? Fine. Speaking? She bombed it. Com-plete-ly. Her score was so low I
Somehow, in every Intensive English Program I’ve taught in, practical English gets shoved aside. We rush through it, almost dismissively, trying to hurry students into higher levels, you know, the level they need to pass those English proficiency exams. It’s like we forget they’ll be living in an English-speaking community for YEARS while they work
No math teacher would try to teach math without using math terminology, right? You wouldn’t expect a physics teacher to explain gravity without ever saying “mass” or “acceleration.” A music teacher isn’t going to teach scales while avoiding the words “sharp” and “flat.” So why don’t grammar teachers teach grammar vocabulary by using it right
I’ll never forget the day Yuki raised her hand in my intermediate class and asked, “Teacher, why do we say ‘the United States’ but not ‘the Japan’?” I froze. Unfortunately, my mouth was already open, so I looked pretty dumb standing with nothing coming out. I had been speaking English my whole life, and I
Nothing kills a discussion faster than asking “What do you think about technology?” and watching a room full of adults suddenly find their phones fascinating. You know the feeling. You throw out what you think is a decent question, and you get… crickets, if you’re lucky. Stone cold silence otherwise punctuated by an exasperated sigh
“Teacher, why is past participle here?” I stared at my student, then at the textbook, and then back at my student. I had no idea what a past participle was. I hadn’t heard that term before…and I was supposed to answer a question about it?! Yeah, welcome to adult ESL, where you’re one page ahead
