Category Archives: Techniques
Top Tips for Teaching Business English
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It’s a common misconception that teaching Business English is a lot more difficult that teaching general English. Granted it will take a bit more research depending on what business sector your students are from, but preparation is the key to seeming confident and knowledgeable in front of your students. The following tips should help you feel more prepared when you take on a Business English class for the first time.
1. English Needs Assessment
Before you start any course I highly recommend a needs assessment session in the first lesson. Not only will it break the ice and get people talking, it’s also imperative to find out what the students are hoping to achieve from the course. This way, with the information you have collected you can pick out interesting lessons in the books (instead of following it from Chapter 1 all the way through). For example, one group I taught was mostly secretaries and admin staff so they wanted to focus on phone conversation skills and email writing.
Another important thing to ask students is about any specialist vocabulary they need in their day to day work that you can teach them. That means you’ll be able to go back and do research straight away and find out similar terminology that they may need in their sector. This comes hand in hand with researching the company your students are from as well as reading up on their sector and finding specialist terms.
2. Books
If you’re asked to buy or choose books for classes I can recommend the In Company series by Macmillan. I found them really good with the audio CDs and the worksheets at the back of the teacher’s book. These worked well from Pre-Intermediate to Advanced, although if you think that your students will be moving up classes a lot, the topics tend to be the same throughout the books. Another series I have used is Powerbase by Longman – this was good for absolute beginners and elementary groups. I had my own material as well of course to complement the book, and the internet is always full of ideas and activities.
3. Areas to Focus On
One area which I would definitely recommend you focus on is Telephone Talk through role plays. What I found useful were role play cards where, for example, one person is a receptionist and the other wants to speak to someone in the company and leaves a specific message. Put students back to back when doing these exercises. It will force them to listen to each other more carefully as in a phone situation. Role play activities are excellent practice too which will allow them to act out common situations such as meeting someone for the first time, or what to say at a dinner party. Make sure that all these activities are as relevant to their real job as possible.
Another very important topic is Email writing. Give your students the tools and confidence to start and end emails in a professional way. Go over phrases that they will come across and get them to practice writing each other emails that they would need to write in their every day jobs.
It’s always more beneficial to tailor the lessons to students’ specific needs rather than follow a book too closely. I recommend you be open with your class and ask them what they would like to learn and get regular feedback about how they feel they’re progressing. During lessons also keep a note of other areas or terms which may need a bit of work on as they come up. I hope these tips have been of use!
About the Author:
Nadia Zehni has extensive experience teaching English as a Foreign Language in England, Malta and France. She is a regular contributor to EnglishForums.com, the world’s busiest EFL community, which receives over 30,000 visits a day. It?s an excellent resource for EFL teachers looking for information about grammar, phonetics, EFL jobs and teaching tips. English students on the other hand can learn English by posting questions and getting help from volunteer EFL teachers, as well as speaking with other learners. To benefit from this fantastic resource sign up for free at http://www.englishforums.com!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nadia_Zehni
How to Control Your Class
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Even the most skilled teachers will have days when they lose control of their classroom. All it takes is a single rowdy kid and before you know it, you’re sitting at your desk unsure of how to regain the control you had ten minutes ago. How do you take control of your class back from this kid? Here are a few suggestions to help you out:
1. Use your voice.
This doesn’t mean that you have to yell. There are a great many teachers who think that the best way to control a class is to make sure that their voice is always the loudest. In many cases, however, it is the quietest voice that gets the most respect. This doesn’t mean whispering, it means that you tell your class simply, in a calm voice or even a lowered pitch, that you will not tolerate the continued misbehavior. No matter what age your students might be, they still need to hear that what they are doing is unacceptable.
2. Take action.
The idle threat is useless. It is the threat that they know you will carry out that carries the most weight. Younger kids react strongly to public discipline-names being put on the board, having to sit outside of the class during story time. The punishment itself does not have to be harsh-having them sit on a chair next to your desk at the front of the room for ten minutes is hardly corporal punishment-but it is public. Older students, however, sometimes need the larger punishments-detention, sent to the office, disciplinary meetings with parents. Asking a senior to sit outside of the classroom won’t carry the same weight that it will with a child in the second grade.
3. Resist the urge to react.
Students, no matter how old they are, act out because they want to see your reaction. When you react to what they are doing, they feel rewarded. Instead, continue with your class’s lesson as you planned. Eventually even the positive attention the student has been receiving from his/her peers will go away when they see that you aren’t going to do anything about it and they will want to get back to work. If you allow yourself to show anger or frustration then the behavior could grow worse. Take deep breaths and keep your cool.
These might seem like very basic ideas for class control, but many teachers forget about them when faced with a classroom full of unruly students who refuse to give the teacher the respect that she/he deserves. Sometimes all you need is to take a moment to let the class act out and they’ll calm themselves down. Other times you’ll have to put every student’s name on the board. Every class is different! Take your time. You’ll figure out which methods work best for you and your class.
For more information on classroom aids, visit http://www.classroommicroblog.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Parks
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Instructional Video of the Week: Teaching Listening: Gist & Detail
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Learning English and having conversations in the classroom can be very different from what a student will experience in the real world. Different dialect phrasing and structure may hinder the students understanding. By giving lessons focusing on gist and detail it builds the students skills in picking out key parts in a conversation and collecting the information they need to understand what is being spoken about.
This video gives guidelines and presents an example lesson that focuses on gist and detail. In this lesson they are able to hone their listening and comprehension skill when listening to a conversation between two native speakers. The activity requires the student to piece together the events being talked about what the conversation is about.
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Teaching Grammar
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Many lesson types may be integrated including more than one segment and held together by a unifying topic. These may include skills (reading, writing listening, speaking) and systems (grammar, vocabulary, phonology). School syllabuses and course books typically reflect this notion. In the past, research suggested that a large proportion of the grammar taught in a grammar lesson was not in fact learnt. It was further suggested that students’ grammar seemed to improve during a skills lesson. Many teachers decided to abandon the grammar lesson in favor of an integrated skills approach. However, more recently there has been an acknowledgement that focusing on language systems (grammar, vocabulary, phonology) will indeed benefit the learner even if the learning of certain discrete items may not occur.
Language Analysis
Here is a Checklist for analyzing a piece of language for teaching purposes.
• Firstly, does the structure have a name? (e.g. present simple, comparatives. embedded questions, etc.)
MEANING / CONCEPT: What brief (but accurate) answer could you give to a
student who says, ‘When can I say’………..’?’ Again, it is a good idea to attempt to predict any problems with meaning that the learner may be faced with. This may be much easier in a monolingual class where you compare it with the mother tongue. In some cases you may be able to present meaning with the use of pictures.
FORM: How is it formed (put together)? Keep this as simple and as clear as possible.
Use boxes tables and simple grammatical terms suitable for your students’ level. If you foresee any problems for the learners at this stage, then it is a good idea to list them and to try and find solutions at the planning stage.
PRONUNCIATION: If you say a sentence using this form at a neutral speed, are there any words that students may have difficulty hearing? Are they perhaps squashed up (weakened), linked with other words, are sounds lost? Are there any sounds or clusters of sounds your students might have problems with? Which words are stressed?
Are there any special features of intonation that will need teaching?
FUNCTION: One particular form may have different functions in different contexts.
(e.g. ‘That’s John’s car.’ could function as a request – to go and open the door to a visitor – or a warning – to avoid crashing into it- or the language doesn’t change, but the context and therefore the function does.
APPROPRIACY: Would you say the register of the sentence is formal / informal / neutral? Is it language normally found in the written or spoken mode?
Language Presentation
After you have gone through the above process of analyzing a piece of language you then need to think of the most effective way of presenting the language, bearing in mind that if you have anticipated particular problems (of form, meaning, pronunciation, appropriacy) then you will need to plan in ways of helping your students with these aspects.
Teaching Tenses: Time Lines
Time lines are a useful way to graphically represent the different verb tenses to your students. We go about showing the flow of time on a line with time flowing from the left (Past), through the present and into the future. It is on this line that we depict actions that took place and which will take place either side of the present (Now). Time markers (word or phrase) distinguish the future from the past and make the time reference very clear. It should however be kept in mind that time lines may appear confusing to certain students. A useful activity may be to encourage students to create their own time lines when dealing with new tenses.
Problems teaching Grammar
Many new teachers are daunted by the prospect of having to teach grammar to a class as they feel that their knowledge in this area is extremely limited. Many students who have studied some English are often aware of the various tenses and related terminology.
If a student asks you about a grammar point that you are unsure of, tell them that you will get further clarification and shed some light on the language item during your next meeting. This will give you an opportunity to do some relevant research – but make sure that you do get back to your student! It may be comforting to know that you do not have to know all the English Grammar in order to teach it.
You will learn as you attempt to teach it so always ensure that you plan your lessons adequately. The teacher’s books which often accompany course books are often extremely useful in assisting the teacher explain and understand certain grammar points.
Author: Jason Geyser
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4418356
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Best Practices for Teaching Academic Writing to ESL Students in the Mainstream
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When it comes to building academic writing skills for ESL college students in the mainstream, teachers will be doing their college students a huge service when teachers are able to build literary connections to the writing skills and concepts they wish their students to learn.
Teachers cannot assume that their ESL students understand abstract concepts as well as their native English speaking peers due to the gap in their background knowledge.
Provide Engaging Beginnings
Engaging beginnings activate students’ prior knowledge. They make use of what students already know before any new knowledge is presented to them.
Many academic writing assignments are based on academic texts. The extent to which ESL students will succeed with mainstream academic writing assignments will depend on how well they are able to apply their understanding after reading an academic texts. Many academic texts assume students have the cultural, social and textual knowledge to understand the “gist” of the text. Teachers can facilitate this process for ESL students by first eliciting what students already know about a topic. This helps builds confidence A good way to engage students with the academic text is to provide brainstorming and prediction exercises, which is also a good thing for diverse classes.
Choose Texts And Writing Tasks With A Multi-Cultural Theme/Topic
In every mainstream class, there is plenty of room to explore topics of diversity and multiculturalism.
Not every writing assignment needs to fall under the “academic” style of writing. In fact, there are many academic multicultural and life-story theme topics, that are important for addressing issues of diversity, language and identity where teachers can explore different modes of writing such as a literary essay that is also based on personal experience.
Teach Strategic Writing
ESL students sometimes struggle with applying their knowledge of a thesis to academic writing. Using the “power of three,” teachers have a better chance of helping students understand how to write a thesis. In my classes, I teach my students “the rule of three” for strategic essay writing. A good thesis statement includes three “P’s.” It is a three-Pronged, Parallel, Preview of your essay. (Thinking in Threes, Brian Backman, 2005)
Example of strategic writing in action: “Television has a positive effect because it helps you learn; it gives you information from all over the world and it allows you to relax.”
The reason why many students hate academic writing is because they don’t feel they have something worth saying and writing and ESL students are no different. It’s not that they don’t have background knowledge to cope with academic ideas and concepts, they just have it in another language! As teachers and instructors, we need to bring the assignment closer to home!
This article is only part of a presentation regularly offered by Dorit Sasson as part of her in-service training programs for teachers of English language learners. For more information about speaking engagements and in-service, contact Dorit Sasson at sassondorit@gmail.com or visit the Teachers’ Diversity Coach, at http://www.DoritSasson.com and click on the “speaking” page.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dorit_Sasson
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6064398
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