I’ve gained important perspectives from students over the years. The following insight was shared with me by a student after a group-work activity, and it altered how I organized groups.
Typically, during my first year of teaching ESL, when I wanted students to get with a partner or form groups of three or four, I instructed them to do that and let them choose whomever they wanted to work with. However, early in my second year, this happened.
If you’d like to read the discussion about teaching conversation skills on LINCS, in which I was “interviewed” through posted Q & A for Dec. 6-9, here is the link: LINCS discussion about student-centered conversation lesson.
David Kehe
(This posting includes a POWERPOINT presentation and HANDOUTS which you are welcome to use with your students.)*
“I wish I had more chances to practice my English outside of class.”
“How can I meet some native-English speakers?”
“I went to a party last weekend. There were about 20 people there, but nobody seemed to want to talk to me. I just kind of stood in the corner looking at my cell phone. Why didn’t anyone talk to me?”
“I sat next to someone, and I wanted to talk to him, but I was afraid that I would be bothering him, or he wouldn’t say anything. What do you think?”
I’ve been asked these types of questions frequently by my students. Naturally, some of them were low-level students with little confidence in their skills, but surprisingly, often more fluent ones also asked me for advice.
For students from some cultures, starting a conversation with someone they don’t know might be a new concept to them. (See Best Subject for an ESL Integrated-Skills Class (Part 2 of 4: Reading aspect)
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)
Spoiler alert: You will hear quite a bit of laughing when students are doing the activity in pairs. 😁
If I say to you, “My cousin gave me a jigsaw puzzle,” and you say, “Pardon?” I’ll know you didn’t understand. But I won’t know which word you didn’t understand. It will help me if you let me know specifically which word you didn’t understand, so you might ask, “Your cousin gave you a what?” Then I know you didn’t understand “jigsaw puzzle.” Or you might ask, “Who gave you a puzzle?” Then I know you didn’t understand that I had said “my cousin.” This unit will give you practice in asking questions about specific information which you did not understand.
The practice for this technique involves a brief introductory exercise and a 3-step pair work activity. (You can find the complete set of exercise to download and use with your students in the link below.)
Common Sense Teaching ESL 