Blessed Christmas!

Our job is not to make the Muslim a Christian.  Our job is to show them the love of Christ.
 God's Spirit will do the rest.

Pre-literate tips

Teaching Pre-literate and Beginning ESL Students

Make Sure Personal Connections Come First

Before teaching any aspect of language, get to know each student individually. Learners should want to communicate with you first before you can begin to help them learn to communicate in their second language. In the case of adult learners who are refugees, you must first attempt to step into their shoes and ask yourself why they would want to talk to you. They have encountered many people who have walked in and out of their lives and since their lives have been so transitory, you should seek to develop a sense of community in the classroom--which means they must see you as someone who they enjoy talking to. Delay the scripted lesson plan and make the class about people getting to know one another. For example, learn not only the students’ names, but also the names of their family members. In other words, talk about what matters to the students first.

Use Interruptions as Teaching Moments that Trump Whatever Lesson You Planned

If a student arrives late, use that as an opportunity to allow the class to discuss public transportation, numbers or as a review on telling time. If a student has a sick baby, use that as an opportunity to discuss medical issues, body parts or terms for various symptoms. If a student brings in photos of his or her family, use that to springboard into a discussion about family. The bottom line is to be spontaneous. The students will remember and learn real-life language as it unfolds naturally, far better than they will recall a pre-planned lesson that is more abstract.

Try to Minimize the Students’ Cognitive Burden

This tip is regarding teaching technique. When teaching pre-literate students it’s best not to write a lot of information on the white board and have students copy it down while you continue to explain concepts. We can easily forget that pre-literate students CANNOT multi-task with their current language proficiency level and it is important to break down tasks into smaller components. If students are busily copying down information from the board, they will not focus on what you are telling them because there are just too many things for them to focus their attention on.

Feed Their Stomachs Sometimes, Not Just Their Minds

Watch for cues that your students may be hungry and share snacks together as a class. Likewise, make sure students can see and hear the lessons. Some pre-literate students may never have had their eyesight or hearing checked. A student who appears resistant to learning may simply have needs that have not been expressed.

Try to Meet Students Half-way

Make an effort to learn words or phrases in the students’ language. They will appreciate your effort to learn their language, and they will see you more as a partner in the learning process rather than someone who has all the answers. For example, when teaching English to Arabic women I struggled to learn a few words of Arabic at the same time. My students enjoyed helping me learn a few new words each day, and I was able to gain more empathy for my students’ struggles to learn English.

Communicate Slowly, Clearly and Directly

Students typically do not understand subtlety in the second language, and there may be times when you need to explain a sensitive issue such as personal etiquette or hygiene. In such cases, it is helpful to use role play to get the point across in a non-threatening yet direct way.

Avoid Using Books that Are Too Childish

Even though your students are at a beginning level, it’s important to utilize or create material that is relevant to an adult. Every adult learner brings a wealth of life experience and sophistication to the learning process. Picture dictionaries can be used but avoid the cutesy beginning kids books.

Review Constantly

Remember that with beginners you are your students’ textbook and study guide as well as their teacher. Provide review sessions at the beginning of every class so students will practice what they’ve learned and acquire the language.

Be Animated

Don’t be afraid to make sound effects, play music, and take walks around the neighborhood to reinforce concepts. Sometimes the best learning doesn’t even take place in the classroom, and it doesn’t have to be serious to be effective.

Don’t Assume Students Know Why You Are Teaching Them

For instance, do a role play to demonstrate how bad it would be if they got lost and couldn’t communicate. This will show students why they need to memorize their phone number. If they understand why a concept is important they will be more likely to remember it.

Dialogs

Use dialogs creatively.

Dialogs are short and sweet, no more than 9-10 short lines, which demonstrate language functions like "requesting," "clarifying, and "giving directions".  They will help your students to talk more and you to be quiet!

Here's some examples:

A. Hey, Joan! [function: get someone's attention]

B. Yeah?

A. Can you help me? [function: make a request]

B. Sure, what do you need? [function: get more information]

A. I need to move the table over there.

B. Okay. (student moves the table)

A. Thanks a lot.

B. You bet.

The next dialog includes strategies for clarifying and paraphrasing, which will prove very useful for our students:

A. Hey, Ka! Can you bring me a piece of yellow paper? [function: make a request]

B. Sure. Where is it? [function: accept a request/get more information]

A. In the paper cabinet, on the top shelf, in back. [function; 3-step instruction]

B. In the paper cabinet, on the top shelf, in back? [function: paraphrase and clarify]

A. Right.

B. Okay. (Student retrieves the yellow paper.) Here you go.

A. Thanks!

B. No problem.

Make up several so your students can choose which one they want to ask.  Eventually they will substitute other items or requests in  the dialog.

Step 1

Teach the dialogs - the meaning and the vocabulary. Teacher talk will be dominant at this point in the process, but it will be of short duration.

Step 2

Students practice the dialogs in pairs.

Step 3

Add physical action to the mix. It is critical to synchronize the action with the words in the dialog. This is the step that will begin to put the dialog elements into long term memory and make the application of the dialog to real life more obvious.

Have students actually perform the tasks in the dialog - help move a table, retrieve the yellow paper, pick up a box, address an envelope, find a stapler, answer the phone, bring me the scissors. Demonstrate various tasks that the students can do and provide them with the wording they need to talk about them. Remember - in these dialogs, some students are asking for help, and some are providing help, so students need to be able to do both parts of the dialog.

Step 4

Have students perform the dialogs with each other. Everyone has to listen closely now because they don't know what their partner is going to ask them to do. Thus, the clarification strategy is suddenly very useful because students who fail to paraphrase and clarify usually perform their tasks incorrectly, so the value of these strategies and the necessity of using them becomes obvious to everyone.

Conclusion

This 4-step process allows ample opportunity for every student to listen, speak and practice English for the duration of the class while the teacher has hardly had to say a word. The content of the dialogs, and the context in which they are used, do all the explanatory work. All the teacher has to do is guide the students by providing realistic and useful dialogs, and supplying vocabulary when needed.

Try it. You'll see the energy level in your classroom zoom up as students become more physically involved in their language learning, and as they see how immediately applicable the lesson is to their everyday lives. Having the opportunity to practice and master a new language strategy in a safe, yet not completely predictable environment, and being actively involved instead of passive - all of these potential attributes of dialog learning can be brought to the fore in a well-structured lesson or series of lessons. (Depending on class level, these steps might be completed in one class session or they may take a week or more.)

And don't forget - review review review! Spend 10 to 15 minutes during the next lesson reviewing and using the dialogs. As time goes on, you can stop the formal review, but continue to incorporate the dialogs and apply them in the classroom whenever a situation arises naturally. For example, ask students to bring you a pen when yours stops working, or to help you move the desks around before class starts, or to retrieve a book off the bookshelf. And don't forget that they have to be able to ask for help too, so don't let them get away with pointing and gesturing and shrugging their shoulders to get their point across. Instead, encourage them to use what they learned in the dialogs to ask for help when they actually need it. Make it clear that the dialogs are not just a classroom exercise. Rather, they provide useful strategies for living the real world.

Progress is frustratingly slow.

Progress in ESL classes is often excruciatingly slow for adult refugees because it is so difficult for them to retain information from one day to the next. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that their education has often been "interrupted" by war or other civil unrest, resulting in low education levels and study skills; they simply do not know how to study on their own and are completely dependent on teacher instruction. Another reason for their slow progress is that the war or civil unrest in their native countries has left most of them traumatized to some extent, and trauma has a negative impact on short-term memory.

What this means for ESL instruction is that the need for review is constant and ongoing and needs to be woven into every aspect of classroom planning and instruction.

Here are some simple rules to effectively teach adult refugees and immigrants:

Rule #1: Keep the information load down. As a Cambodian student once told me, "You teach just a little, but I learn a lot."

To help you keep the information load down:

Rule #2: When you introduce new vocabulary, use old, familiar grammatical structures.

Rule #3: When you introduce a new grammatical structure, use old, familiar vocabulary.

Rule #4: Review, review, review. Every day should contain a review of the previous day, and the previous week, and the previous month. Vocabulary and grammatical structures should be constantly recycled, and should spiral to reinforce learning and keep information fresh in your students' minds.

Rule #5: Application is important to set new information into memory, so allow students to get plenty of oral and written practice, and minimize teacher talk.

In order for our adult ESL students to use English effectively when they leave our classrooms, they have to get lots of opportunities during class to practice using English. Every ESL program recognizes this critical need of refugee and immigrant students and encourages all ESL teachers to "minimize teacher talk" in their classroom so that student talk can be encouraged. The more opportunities students have to practice and get feedback on their use of English, the better for them.

Easier said than done, however, many beginning ESL teachers would say.  Next month we will look at a strategy for helping your students to talk and you to stay quiet!

In the meantime, remember:  you are a very small part of their learning to speak in English and survive in this country.  However, you are a very BIG part in forming relationships with the students and helping them realize that someone cares about them.

Reading-How to start

You have made a start. You have taught some basic words and survival skills. But how can you teach pre-literate adults how to read?

Unfortunately the task of reading is an abstract concept. You need to balance survival activities with some direct instruction in the skill of reading.

The alphabet is the place to start. But it's not just about putting the sounds together. A student who is illiterate in their first language probably has no "concept of word" -- they can't divide a sentence up into the chunks that we think of as words.

In all alphabetic languages, the concept of word is the hurdle that has to be jumped before the student is ready for alphabetic instruction. A student has to be able to divide up a sentence into words before they can divide a word up into sounds. You can teach phonics until you're blue in the face and it won't do any good if the students aren't ready for it.

There are many ways to increase students' awareness of print so that they can learn the "concept of word". You need to work with familiar texts--short texts that the students know or can easily memorize. These can be proverbs, tv ads, songs. . . The students already have heard the words, so you practice the task of reading. Have the students read chorally. Make the students follow along with their finger while they recite, even if they can't sound out the individual words. Fingerpointing, in itself, is a difficult task. Demonstrate on a blackboard how to move from word to word.

Taking a sentence, cutting it up, and putting it back together again is a good activity. Just cut up slips of paper and put a word of a sentence on each slip. Have the students move the slips until a sentence is formed. Give more words to your more advanced students.

Word banks are also helpful for these true beginners--keep a collection of the first sight words that the students know in a little baggie, and increase it until you get to about 100. Heres a list of the most frequent sight words used in English.

http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch-words-all-freq.html
Flash cards with these words can be used as a start or end fill in time every week.
One teacher I knew gave each student a metal ring at the start of the program. As the students learned a new site word, she would give each a punched card with the word to put on the ring. The students could take the rings home and review the words on their own.

Another teacher wrote words on juice can lids. Then the class had a competition to see how many words they knew. They would have 5 minutes each to throw the words into a basket. They would have to say the word correctly for it to count. The person with the most words in the basket was the winner!

These activities should of course be mixed in with oral language, and very practical, concrete, day-to-day survival skills. Making up stories about a refugee family surviving in Cleveland can also interest the students. Make it simple. Have a family cook a supper, go to a grocery store, ride a bus, see a doctor... Each segment of the story only needs to be 5 to 10 sentences. But because it is about their lives, the students will relate to it and want to know what is happening next. You will be teaching vocabulary, reading and survival skills in the one story.

Below is an example. These six sentences can teach or review a number of ideas, walking, food stamps, money, dinner, cooking, washing, etc.

Mother walks to the store. She carries her food stamps and her money in her purse. Mother buys chicken to cook for dinner. She uses her food stamps. She buys soap for washing clothes. She uses her money.

Literacy continued

First : to answer some questions from last time.


Here are two websites that give examples of alphabet cloze exercises and a list of site words (dolch words).

http://bogglesworldesl.com/cloze_activities.htm

http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm

To continue our discussion on literacy.
Here is a list of differences and some similarities between literate and non-literate English learners. Note that only one item is the same. Both types will learn best when content is relevant to their lives.

Literate Learners
Learn from print
Tend to be visually oriented
Make lists to remember
Spend years learning to read
Know they can learn
Learn best when content is relevant to their lives
Can distinguish between important and less important points

Non-Literate Learners
Learn by doing and watching
Tend to be aurally oriented
Repeat to remember
Have limited time for learning to read
Lack confidence in their learning ability
Learn best when content is relevant to their lives
May accept all content as being of equal value

One more important point about non-literate students:
Non-literate students may have difficulty with other visual concepts. Simple drawings for houses, furniture, and so on may not be recognized. For some, two-dimensional pictures may not be viewed in the same way. Therefore, maps, charts, graphs, floor plans, and other simple schematics which help literate people organize information will all be challenging for nonliterate students to figure out. You have to teach students the skill of how to read schematics.
Using a pointer or your fingers, show how to track vertically and horizontally to locate information.


Literacy Basics
When students are pre-literate and have had little or no exposure to literacy education, they will need to start with some literacy basics before attempting reading and writing activities. Some students may have difficulties in seeing shapes and patterns. Try using non-print sources to help with this such as wooden block puzzles and use Cuisenaire rods (these are just colored rods of wood or plastic that are used in teaching math) to represent words. If you don’t have access to rods, just use colored card stock. The idea is to get across that each one stands for a word. Young children’s puzzles that have a picture or word under the shape you pick up can help greatly.
You may also need to work with paper orientation, pen holding, directionality, and tracing before starting any kind of writing or copying.

HOLDING A PEN OR PENCIL
Demonstrate for students how to hold a pencil between the thumb and first two fingers about an inch above the point. Check that the end of the pencil is pointing back towards the shoulder of the writing arm, and the pencil is held an inch above the point. The index finger controls the pressure and should rest on the pencil. Demonstrate both right and left handed. Students should imitate you. Often students grip the pencil too tightly, so help them to relax their hands by
shaking them out every so often.

MAKING SHAPES
Demonstrate and have students practice drawing lines, circles, and patterns. Start with having students tracing over models you have prepared and gradually move to them producing the model on blank lines.

DIRECTIONALITY
Students need to recognize left-to-right and top-to-bottom directionality. Draw lines on the board or paper from left to right. Have students copy, air drawing from left to right and / or drawing with fingers on the table. Provide paper for students to trace lines from left to right. Repeat for top-to-bottom directionality.

PAPER ORIENTATION
Students need to know how to orient their body to paper on a table. For right-handed students, the paper should be perpendicular to the edge of the table. The left-handed paper position is about a forty-five degree angle from the edge of the table.

TRACING
Provide a number of worksheets for each student with their own name printed on them. Don’t expect students to recognize or write their names at this point. Have students trace over their name. Keep observing them and note how they are holding the pen.

I know these sound very basic but for some of your students, they may be necessary. Again, this is why it is important to know what their background is in literacy.

Literacy

We are teaching a huge variety of students. Some may be able to communicate their needs orally but not read and write in English. Others may be a beginner in all skills. Every student is going to have varying experiences and this affects the materials you select, your instructional focus, and the rate of your students’ progress.
PRE-LITERATE
Pre-literate students come from an oral language tradition. For this reason, the concept of communicating through reading and writing can be difficult to grasp. Holding a pen and opening a book are all new experiences. It is important for pre-literate students to have a foundation of oral language skills before focusing on reading and writing.
NON-LITERATE
Non-literate students come from a culture with a written language, but they have had little or no exposure to literacy in their first or second language. They did not have any formal schooling and did not learn any native language literacy. For non-literate students, instruction should still emphasize the connection between spoken and written language.
SEMI-LITERATE
Semi-literate students have some but minimal literacy in their own language. They may be very nervous and hesitant and lack confidence in their literacy skills.
NON-ROMAN ALPHABET LITERATE
Students may speak and are literate in a language that does not have a Roman alphabet. Some writing systems are alphabetic and some are not. Chinese is symbolic where symbols represent a word or idea rather than separate sounds. Arabic is alphabetic where the symbols represent sounds, but it is not a Roman alphabet. Students from these backgrounds can transfer skills from one language to another even if the script is completely different. These students have usually had some schooling in their native language. If you have an opportunity to watch your students read or write in their native languages, note their comfort level. Do they write with ease? If so, they probably have good native language literacy skills.


If you are unsure where your students are in literacy, try the following activities.

If students are pre-literate, you may find them unable to complete any of the tasks.

1 Can my students write their names in English?
2 Can my students identify any basic sight words from cards?
3 When pointing to the following letters, do my students have a concept of what sounds they make?
4 Can my students complete an English alphabet cloze exercise?
5 Can my students copy sentences in English?
6 Can my students read simple sentences in English?
7 Can my students write simple dictated sentences?
8 What are my students. educational backgrounds?

Whatever you discover about your students. levels, what you teach must have meaning for them.
Start with oral language and begin to make connections to the written word.

Next month we will look at some more differences and ways to teach.

Starting conversations

It is hard for a newcomer to start a conversation with an English speaking neighbor or co-worker. Here are 5 questions to get them started. These also help them to understand how they might respond to questions asked of them. Practice them in class and give them an assignment of trying them out on someone they meet. Let them report back their experiences to the class

What is your name?
Where do you live?
What do you do?
Are you married?
Where are you from?

But then what? Here are some suggestions for continuing the conversation.

What is your name?
It's a pleasure to meet you. Where are you from?
That's an interesting name. Is it Chinese / French / Indian, etc.?

Where do you live?
How long have you lived there?
Do you like that neighborhood?
Do you live in an apartment or house?

What do you do?
Which company do you work for?
How long have you had that job?
Do you like your job?
What's the best / worst thing about your job?
What do you like best / least about your job?

Are you married?
How long have been married?
Where did you get married?
What does your husband / wife do?
Do you have any children?

Where are you from?
Where is ....?
How long did you live there?
What is your country like?
Do you like living here?

These questions will help you ask for more detail.

What do you like doing in your free time?
How often do you (listen to music, eat out in restaurants, etc.)?
Where do you (listen to music, eat out in restaurants, etc.) in this town?
Why do you like (listening to music, eating out in restaurants, etc.) so much?

Can you play tennis / golf / soccer / etc.?
Do you enjoy playing tennis /golf /soccer /etc.?
How long have you played tennis /golf /soccer /etc.?
Who do you play tennis /golf /soccer /etc. with?

What kind of films / food / vacations do you enjoy?
What's the best place to see /eat / go on vacations?
What's the best type of film /food / vacation, etc. in your opinion?
How often do you watch films / eat out / go on vacation?

What do you do on weekends / Saturdays?
Where do you go to ...?
Could you recommend a good place to (go shopping / take my children swimming / etc.)?
How long have you done that?

All of these questions also helps your students to understand how they might respond to questions asked of them. Practice starting conversations in class and give them an assignment of trying them out on someone they meet. Let them report back their experiences to the class

Tips for Working with immigrants and refugees

Understanding Language and Literacy
English is difficult to learn (more difficult than many languages) and will take most people(including youngsters) many years of instruction and practice to become fully proficient.

Refugees and immigrants may have difficulty with written English for many reasons:
1) They use a different alphabet (e.g., Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, etc.).
Their native language may be written with characters or small pictures (e.g., Mandarin, Cantonese).
2) Their language may be read from right to left (e.g., Arabic, Farsi) or vertically (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) instead of left to right and horizontally.
3) Their language has no written form (e.g., Dinka) or a writing system is just now being developed (e.g., Somali Bantu).
4) While many immigrant seniors have high levels of literacy in their native language, many have not had the opportunity to complete formal schooling in their native language, which makes learning to read and write in English more difficult.
Good Practices
Hands-on approaches to learning are most helpful because they allow a teacher to assess how well the student has understood instructions.

It is important to understand that many immigrants and refugees may be experiencing a sense of loss. They may need help adjusting to their new circumstances.

Teachers can help them become familiar with the culture of America.

Be sensitive to age and gender related roles with those from different cultural backgrounds.

Promoting Effective Communication
One important lesson is to teach students how to indicate a lack of comprehension and how to ask for help. This will go a long way toward bridging the communication gap.

Don’t assume that once something is explained, it is understood. Many students may be afraid or ashamed to admit their lack of understanding.

Use plain language when speaking and writing. Lots of white space and a legible typeface make reading easier.

Promoting Cultural Understanding
Many immigrants and refugees need help understanding the concept of time in America because it is different from their cultural sense of time.

Many foreign-born individuals need help understanding the informal ways that people in the U.S. speak to one another.

Gender and age-related roles in some cultures are more formal and may have an impact on how men and women speak to each other. Some difficulties may be women in a position of leadership (teacher) or younger people addressing older ones directly.

Be open yourself to looking at situations through the eyes of another culture.
Want to know how it feels? Take a trip to the Asian market on Superior and E38th St. Very little is in English. Look at the rows of items in the grocery store and feel what a refugee feels looking in one of our grocery stores.

Take a Bowl of Fruit
How can a bowl of fruit be turned into a language lesson? (one that you can also eat!)

To name the individual fruit is one activity but you have missed a wonderful opportunity to use language if you leave it at that.

You could:

• Associate fruit and colour a banana is yellow
a pear is green/yellow
an apple is red/green
strawberries are red
grapes are green/purple
But this simple activity has brought in a range of grammar points: the use of the article-a/an/no article
is singular/are plural
Activity : Make a list of common words than have an as the article
eg ice-cream, umbrella, elephant, egg
Do not labour the use of the article as it has very difficult grammar rules. It will be revisited over and over in a variety of contexts.

• Plurals For beginners even something as basic as adding “s” for plurals needs to be practised. 1 banana 2 bananas
1 orange 2 oranges
• Adjectives soft, hard, ripe, over ripe, unripe, sweet, sour, juicy, crunchy, fresh

• Structure with like and don’t like
Do you like ………….? Yes I do
No I don’t

Then change the subject to other members of the family.

What does your husband/son/daughter/mother etc like?
Does he like………….? Yes he does
No he doesn’t

• Junk Mail Use supermarket advertisements to talk about fruit and prices
Respond to How much are……………?

• Shopping lists
What fruit did you buy last week? (past tense)
I bought ………, …….., ………. and ………..

What fruit are you going to buy this week? (future tense)
I’m going to buy …………, …………….., ………………. and ……………..

What do you buy every week? (simple present tense)
Every week I buy …………….., ……………….., …………… and ………………

Extend to: I sometimes buy………, I never buy ………….
Change the subject to another person
• Do it all again with vegetables!

Take a Bowl of Fruit Survey-Conversation activity for the class
Answer for yourself, then ask your tutor and two others.

Record their answers with a √ or a x.

Do you like….?
√ Yes I do x No I don’t

apples

bananas

oranges

pears

grapes

strawberries

Write a sentence for each person e.g.

Mary likes bananas but she doesn’t like oranges.

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Tips for teaching ESl to refugees and immigrants

For adult refugees, progress in ESL classes is often excruciatingly slow because it is so difficult for them to retain information from one day to the next. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that their education has often been "interrupted" by war or other civil unrest, resulting in low education levels and study skills; they simply do not know how to study on their own and are completely dependent on teacher instruction. Another reason for their slow progress is that the war or civil unrest in their native countries has left most of them traumatized to some extent, and trauma has a negative impact on short-term memory.
What this means for ESL instruction is that the need for review is constant and ongoing and needs to be woven into every aspect of classroom planning and instruction.
Here are some simple rules to effectively teach adult refugees and immigrants:
Rule #1: Keep the information load down. As a Cambodian student once told me, "You teach just a little, but I learn a lot."
To keep the information load down:
Rule #2: When you introduce new vocabulary, use old, familiar grammatical structures.
Rule #3: When you introduce a new grammatical structure, use old, familiar vocabulary.
Rule #4: Review, review, review. Every day should contain a review of the previous day, and the previous week, and the previous month. Vocabulary and grammatical structures should be constantly recycled, and should spiral to reinforce learning and keep information fresh in your students' minds.
Rule #5: Application is important to set new information into memory, so allow students to get plenty of oral and written practice, and minimize teacher talk.