Thread: ESL

I'm not an ESL teacher - but from 1991-1999, I taught at American schools in the Middle East.

During my last year in the Middle East, I worked in Beirut. I remember being told by the school secretary that I had a new student. For the sake of this story, I will call him Omar, which is not his real name.

Omar was a transfer from a private French school. He had previously been in a private Arabic school.

I went to the playground and found Omar.

"Hello," I said to the boy. I held out my hand and we shook. "I'm Mr. Chin. I'll be your third grade teacher."

"My name is Omar," said the boy. He grinned at me.

"Well it's good to meet you Omar," I said. "I understand that you came from a French school."

"My name is Omar," said the boy.

"That's nice," I said. "Did you learn your English at the other school?"

"Omar ... Omar ..." insisted the boy. He tapped his chest with a thumb. "My name is Omar."

A horrible thought occured to me. "Omar, do you speak English?" I asked.

"My name is Omar," said the boy.

(sigh)

It was an interesting year.

Hello, this is jjshalom. I am teaching English in Tel Aviv, Israel. If you get your TESL Certificate you may travel, like me to other places and teach. Most places will pay for for your apt..etc. good luck and shalom

Amy,

I'm a first grade teacher. Three years ago I had a little girl from Mexico who spoke no English. She made great progress and I learned a great deal from her.

The next year I had a little girl from Russia, she didn't know any English either. She made great progress as well.

I've only had one ESL student that didn't make good progress, and I feel he struggled because he was very immature and didn't have as much parental support.

By the way, my husband and I lived in Murray while my husband completed his masters.

Glenda 1st TN

Yes. I have experience here. It's important to make the child feel welcome socially first and foremost. If an ESL child doesn't perceive the atmosphere to be inclusive, he or she will never learn. Pair the child with a buddy or buddies and make him/her feel special.

I have taught ESL in the past. Now I teach Spanish. I still teach ESL outside of class, though.

I teach English to Swedish kids at the age of 16-19. Always an adventure.

I am new here, and was looking for other ELD/ESL teachers. I teach beginning ELD to 6,7,8 graders and 8th Grade US History to English Learners.

Originally Posted by brikena

Yes. I have experience here. It's important to make the child feel welcome socially first and foremost. If an ESL child doesn't perceive the atmosphere to be inclusive, he or she will never learn. Pair the child with a buddy or buddies and make him/her feel special.

One of the worst things that can be done, though -- and it happens often enough in the United States -- is to make the kid feel so special for so long that he thinks his English is good before it really is. At many schools they overpraise the kids and inflate their grades. Then, when they finish high school and want to pursue further education, they take a placement test, land in low intermediate ESL, and feel like they've been sucker punched.

Originally Posted by Amy

Any ESL teachers on board here? Any classroom teachers have non-native speakers of English in their classrooms?

To get into the Full Day Kindergarten program in my district, a child has to have designated Special Needs, be First Nations (aboriginal) or have ESL. In my class of 18, I have 1 boy with special needs and 17 ESL children who speak Cantonese, Mandarin or Vietnamese. Most of these children were born here in Vancouver; some speak a bit of English, most don't. When I do an assessment, I get a lot of children who smile and say "yes" to everything. What colour would you like to colour the flowers? yes What's your name? yes

I teach a LOT of oral language and we work on language patterns, common phrases, asking and answering questions---talk talk talk. Generally, the level of English improves dramatically in that first year. I have one boy who is adamantly Not Going to Learn English. It's unclear right now whether it's that he CAN'T learn or that he WON'T learn. I think it's that he WON'T learn. At home, T does what T wants (he's a little surprised that he's not allowed to behave like that with me) so I think he's showing me how powerful he is. :roll: