(This posting includes handouts which you are welcome to use with your students.)*
See Select Category > ESL Reading Units Free: Reading for Insights (Introduction) for an introduction to these reading units. Reading Units: Reading for Insights (Introduction)
(This posting includes an attachment teacher’s script which you are welcome to use.)*
As mentioned in the previous two previous posting about the first two techniques, whole-class discussions can be an alien concept to some students. When trying to conduct a discussion with the whole class, it’s not unusual for the teacher to call on a student to answer but the student for some reason is unable to answer in a timely manner. It could be because he doesn’t know what to say, or how to formulate the answer in English, or isn’t confident in his oral skills. This can result in some awkward moments as the student is clearly experiencing stress and/or embarrassment, and the teacher doesn’t know whether to give him more time to answer, to ask some leading questions or to just move on to a different student. Meanwhile, the rest of the class might begin to become restless.
This technique is a kind of “escape” for students in that kind of situation. If, for some reason, they can’t answer within a reasonable amount of time, they can use one of these expressions:
When students use this technique, it can actually turn into a humorous situation. Almost any time a student has used one of these expression, it has elicited a lot of friendly laughter by the classmates and teacher. The classroom tension is immediately released.
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)
Imagine that you read Mari’s essay in which she developed her ideas exactly the way that you had hoped she would. But her grammar was very weak and even caused some confusion. You are torn about what grade to give her. You know that her grammar skills are not strong enough to succeed at the next level, so you don’t want to mislead her. But you also don’t want to discourage her since her content was so good.
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)
Most of us have had experience like this with an ESL student: Someone is talking for a half a minute or more, and the student is just looking at the person. When the person stops, the student just nods his/her head. The speaker isn’t sure if the student really understood.
There is a technique which students, both the listener and speaker, can uses in conversations to avoid that type of situation.
The technique expands on the one introduced in Part 1. Discussion Technique to Get Quiet Students Involved (Part 1) Instead of asking a clarification after each paragraph, in this one, the listener summarizes in one sentence what s/he thinks was said.
By doing this, the speaker is able to feel confident that s/he is being understood correctly and the listener can confirm his/her understanding.
Just as with the technique introduced in Part 1, after students have used the two attached handout-activities, they usually find the technique to be a “tool” that they can use not only in group discussions but also when interacting with teachers and others outside the classroom.
Common Sense Teaching ESL 