Teaching ESL to Adults

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ESL Conversation Topic-Baseball
2007-09-02 01:19:00
I've never been very interested in team sports. Individual sports have been more my thing. However, a few of my private ESL students have been very interested in baseball, in particular.As I've mentioned before, the best conversation topics for ESL classes (or private tutoring sessions) are things that your students are interested in or things that will help them with daily life or on the job. To date, I haven't had any professional baseball players (maybe someday), but I have had serious fans. There's a certain enthusiasm that some students have when talking about some topics, like baseball.I've learned a great deal about baseball in the U.S. from conversations with one of my Japanese students, in particular. He knows more about the game in this country than I can ever hope to know!It's another one of those cases where I'm able to learn from my students and my students are able to improve their English language speaking skills by talking about something they feel passionate ...
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Providing Added Value to ESL Students
2007-09-01 01:38:00
A number of my private ESL students are working professionals. Many of them want to improve the tone of their writing, especially in emails. We often review their "sent" emails in class.However, sometimes my ESL students need to send particularly important emails before we have a chance to review them in class. I offer to review and edit such emails for my students free of charge. This doesn't take too much time for me and it delivers a valuable service to my ESL students.--end--
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Teaching "Marry" to ESL Students
2007-08-30 20:05:00
For some reason, almost all of my ESL students--all levels--say "marry with" when they're talking about marrying someone. They will say, for example, "I married with my wife in 2003." It's a logical way to say it, I think. However, the verb "marry" is never followed by "with."Another way to teach ESL students how to use this verb is with "to get married."Here are some correct ways to use "marry."He married her in 1999.They got married in 1999.She is married to him.They are married to each other.They got married to each other in 1999.He got married to her in 1999.They divorced in 2000.They got divorced in 2000.She divorced him in 2000.They divorced each other in 2000.But I digress....--end--
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Teaching ESL and Loving It
2007-08-29 19:19:00
Sometimes my "job" as an ESL tutor is almost criminal! I get paid to have great conversations with interesting English language learners from all over the world. I get to "travel vicariously."As a private ESL tutor, the majority of my students are advanced ESL students and mostly want to improve their speaking skills. I'm glad to oblige. I'm also fortunate that I've had a lot of life experiences and different careers throughout my life. I'm fortunate to know at least a little bit of most things. And it's particularly great when I don't know too much about something, because I can then ask my ESL students and they are happy to talk about things they know and teach me new things.If you're considering a career change, teaching ESL or EFL is definitely a great possibility.--end--
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ESL Conversations about Americans
2007-08-28 20:14:00
During my conversation lessons with ESL students who have been in the U.S. for a short while, I often ask them about their impressions about the U.S. What were they expecting before coming here? What did they expect to find? What ideas did they have about Americans ? (Of course, I usually wait to ask such questions after we've established some rapport. I want them to speak freely and not worry about offending me.) I then ask about their current experiences and observations. What turned out to be true? What's false?One of the general themes in the answers of all my ESL students is how diverse the U.S. is. They tell me that they thought that Americans were primarily white. When they come here, they see and experience our abundance of hyphenated Americans (Mexican-American, African-American, Italian-American, Japanese-American, etc.)--end--
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The Best ESL Conversation Topics
2007-08-27 19:43:00
For the ESL or EFL teacher, one of the challenging parts of a conversation lesson is getting some students to talk! The ESL teacher has to choose a topic that appeals to the majority of students. I'm fortunate because I teach English language learners one-on-one. Sometimes it's easier to get one person to speak than it is to get a whole class of ESL students. Getting an EFL classroom to speak may be easier. The challenge there is to get the students to speak in English!As I said, the best conversation topics are those of interest to the English language learner. The topics could be of interest because the student needs the skills for his or her job, or in order to more easily live in an English speaking culture. The best ESL topics will be those that are relevant to the student's life.When an ESL student knows that he or she can take what is learned in the tutoring session or in the classroom and apply it in real life, then the student will be more likely to want to participate i...
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Learning Vocabulary from Television
2007-08-27 03:01:00
I often encourage my ESL students to watch television. Although watching TV is usually a mind-numbing process, for English language learners, it's another way to practice English listening skills. It also (for better or worse) teaches about American culture. Sitcoms are particularly useful for learning new vocabulary and idioms. TV news can also be useful, although most of my ESL students tell me that they have trouble understanding TV news. The stories are often out of context so the English learner cannot use the context to understand what's going on.I was just watching a Sunday national news program. One of the stories was about adults who take care of their aging parents. One of the lines in the story was, "She took care of her aging parents until they both passed." Although an English language learner could probably figure out what this sentence means, it was interesting to me that the reporter said "passed" instead of "passed away." "To pass away" is the more common euphemis...
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ESL Students and Self-Confidence
2007-08-26 06:14:00
As a private tutor of adult ESL students, I think the most important thing that English language learners get from our sessions is increased self-confidence. Most of my advanced students have excellent grammar skills, a pretty good vocabulary and fairly decent pronunciation. The thing that ESL students are lacking is self-confidence. They're afraid of making mistakes out in the world. Just by providing a safe place for them to have conversations and practice their English speaking skills, their self-confidence improves immensely. I've noticed that it only takes three to four months of regular practice with me for their speaking skills to significantly improve.--end--
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Transition as a Verb
2007-08-25 07:37:00
One of the things that is so fascinating to me as an ESL teacher is that the English language is continually evolving (or at least changing). As most of us were taught as children, "'ain't' is not a word." And yet, it's now in the dictionary. Although most educated people don't use it, or if they do, they use it selectively.In the past, we also only used the “generic” “he,” “his,” and “him.” That changed to "he or she" and sometimes "s/he." Now, using “they,” “their,” and “them” as singular pronouns is commonly used in informal conversation and writing. It is perfectly acceptable to most people and “Usage Notes” are discussing it in dictionaries (see Longman Advanced American Dictionary).This word came up in one of my ESL lessons with an advanced ESL student. I was pretty sure that "transition" could be used as a verb. She had never heard it used as a verb. We looked in my dictionary and it was not there. Yet, I felt fairly certain that I'd hear...
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ESL Blog and Blogger's Navbar
2007-08-24 01:01:00
As most of you may know, the ESL blog you are reading here is hosted on "Blog ger." Blogger is a free service that belongs to Google. It's a really great way for anyone to have their own blog, whether it's about teaching English as a Second Language or anything else in the world.The one very unfortunate thing for many people, especially teachers or others who work with children, any many others of us, is that the Navbar (the line across the top of the page that says "Search blog," "Flag blog," and "Next blog") is required by Blogger. It used to be optional when I started this ESL blog.It used to be a great little resource or interesting for internet surfers because it would randomly pull up another Blogger blog that had been recently updated. You might find someone's blog in another language, certainly about other topics besides ESL of EFL. It was like a little mini-travel portal (a wormhole?) that would take you to another part of the world.Unfortunately, now the "adult content" ...

Using "A" or "An" for Acronyms and Abbreviations
2007-08-22 20:19:00
Articles are very difficult for ESL and EFL speakers to master. There are only three: a, an, the. However, there are way too many exceptions. Aside from the exceptions, one of the extra challenging areas is determining whether to use "a" or "an" when using acronyms or abbreviations. ESL students are taught to use "a" before a word (noun) that begins with a consonant and "an" before a word that begins with a vowel. But what do you do with something like "RFP" or "MA"? Both of these begin with a consonant, so it seems that an "a" should be used. However, when looking at acronyms or abbreviations, we don't look at the first letter, we "hear" the first letter, or we look at te first sound. The first letter in "RFP" is an "R." When I say this letter, it sounds like "arr". The first sound is a vowel. The same applies for "MA." The sound is "emm." Another vowel beginning sound. So for both of these abbreviations, I would use "an."For example:She has an MA in English.I need to complete an ...
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Fees for Tutoring ESL Students
2007-08-21 20:14:00
I received an email from an elementary school teacher who is planning to take on her first adult ESL student. She wrote to my other website Teaching ESL to Adults to ask me how much to charge for her ESL tutoring services. She is somewhere in the United States. She didn't provide her city or state.To find out how much to charge for ESL tutoring services, especially in the U.S., I recommend visiting www.craigslist.org and looking at their "Lessons" section. You can limit your search to "ESL" or "English" to find out how much other tutors are charging in your area (or nearby) and use that as a basis to charge your private ESL students.Another tip for finding new ESL students is to peruse the above section of Craig's list for students. Often, adult students looking for a private tutor will post their request. I've actually gotten a few students this way in the past couple of years.--end--
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Contractions and ESL Speakers
2007-08-20 23:45:00
Many of my private ESL students are advanced level ESL speakers. Many come to me because they want to sound more like a native English speaker. Together, we work on many ways to improve their American English pronunciation and reduce their native accents. We look at intonation, pronunciation of words and of individual sounds, we look at voiced and unvoiced sounds, etc.We also look at reductions and contractions. Most advanced ESL students are very familiar with contractions. They've been taught about them many times. However, very few of my students use contractions. As a matter of fact, when they are reading aloud to me, they will even take apart a contraction. "I'll" becomes "I will" when they are reading. So it is often very difficult for ESL speakers to consistently use contractions.And yet, the use of contractions during speaking is one of the best ways to move toward sound more "native." With a lot of practice and reinforcement, non-native English speakers can move towards s...
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English Only for ESL Students
2007-08-19 00:11:00
I'm not very fond of the term "English Only." In my home state of California, "English Only" used to be (and to some extent, still is) the slogan of people who felt it would be better do eliminate bilingual classrooms for children. For many reasons, I don't believe this is a good learning strategy for children who must learn not only a new language, but also different subject matter content (history, science, math, etc.).So when I used to teach adult ESL classes and I found myself reminding students, "English only!" I felt a little strange saying these words. However, it was a useful reminder for students paying a lot of money to learn American English.I'm a private tutor now, so I don't find myself saying, "English only," too often, because I only have one student at a time. I had the opportunity today as two of my students who know each other had an opportunity to chat as I took a short break between students. They are both advanced level students, but they still chose to spea...
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Steps for Teaching Past Tense Pronunciation
2007-08-17 07:17:00
When I teach my ESL students how to pronounce regular past tense verbs (those ending in "-ed," I follow a step-by-step process.Here are the steps I follow:1) First, I teach the concept of voicing, or voiced and unvoiced sounds (aka voiceless sounds).2) Next, I teach how to pronounce /t/ and /d/.3) Finally, I teach the rules for which past tense verbs end with /t/, /d/, and /id/ sounds.I find that that this methodical approach works best to help my ESL students really learn past tense pronunciation. It takes more time, but I find it very effective.Here's more info on English Past Tense Pron unciation .--end--
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Saying "Goodbye" to ESL Students
2007-08-15 02:19:00
One of the great pleasures I get from teaching ESL students in the U.S. is that I get to "travel vicariously." I really enjoy meeting people from other countries, learning about other cultures, and generally, meeting new people.I just had my last meeting with an ESL student that I have been meeting with two to three times a week for the last year. It was such a pleasure "working" with him. I put working in quotes because this was indeed a case of "do what you love and the money will follow."My student's English improved significantly while he was here. He was really determined to improve his English and he did a lot of studying outside of class. He worked with me primarily to improve his speaking skills, which he did significantly.I really learned a lot from him, as well. It was a great pleasure meeting with him and I will miss our discussions.I love my job! (Mostly.)--end--
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Comment on "How English is Really Spoken"
2007-08-13 07:51:00
A couple of days ago, I wrote How English is Really Spoken . Steve, from www.eslspider.com and www.healthyexpat.com submitted a comment about his experiences. I’m not sure if people have a chance to read the Comment s, so I wanted to post Steve’s comment more prominently. “I think every ESL instructor faces the same situation. There is textbook English and there is real world English. You can tell the students what you know to be the truth, often it is best for them to come to a truth on their own. The way I deal with this is to simply play a scene from some English movie which is popular with the students at the time. Provide a copy of the script if possible, simply Google for it and print off a copy for each of the students. Perhaps they can write the script as they hear it. Then show the official copy. In this way they can hear and see the real world English, I then show a scene from some Shakespeare movie (recent famous actor is best). So, I ask....which is English? Let them...
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ESL and Telling the Time
2007-08-11 02:45:00
One basic thing that English language learners need to know is how to tell the time. I was talking to one of my ESL students today. We were practicing prepositions of time (in/at/on). I asked what time he left for work. He said, "I left at 8:05." However, when he said "8:05," he said, "eight-five." He left out the "oh."It's actually a little strange to pronounce the "O" in 8:05 as the letter "oh." One might expect it to be "eight-zero-five" since the "0" is a number. However, native English speakers say the time from one minute after the hour through nine minutes after the hour with "oh" instead of zero.--end--
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Tongue Twister for Relative Vowels
2007-08-08 20:19:00
I'm working with an advanced ESL student from Mexico. Her English is very good. We're concentrating on accent reduction and pronunciation skills. For the last couple of weeks, we've been working on "alphabet vowels" and "relative vowels" (essentially "long" and "short" vowel sounds). Most recently, we're working on the relative vowel sounds. I use the book Clear Speechto teach these sounds.Another of the challenges she has is differentiating between the "b" and "v" sounds. I remember from studying Spanish that as a native English speaker, I have trouble making the b/v combination sound that Spanish speakers use.I've found a great tongue twister to work on both the "b" sound and all the relative vowels (as well as the t/d issue). "Betty Botter" is helping with all of these issues.You can read more about Using Tong ue Twisters for Pronunciation on my other website. "Betty Botter" is also written there in its entirety.--end--

How English is Really Spoken
2007-08-07 05:19:00
One of the challenges I occasionally have with advanced ESL students is that they disagree with me about how the English language is used. There's a difference between the correct, formal English language and how the language is actually used by native speakers. This is one of the reason's that many EFL positions will prefer and even require native English speakers, as opposed to non-native speakers who may even have an advanced English degree.English language learners who study in their home countries are often exceptional when it comes to grammar skills. This is why it makes it a bit of a challenge for them when they try to communicate with native English speakers. And it makes it a challenge during some of my tutoring sessions. I have to develop enough trust with students so that they know I'm not leading them astray, and that people really do speak without using proper grammar sometimes, even highly educated people.--end--
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Using the Telephone in the U.S.A.
2007-08-05 00:11:00
A basic survival skill that my students of English as a Second Language need to learn when they come to the U.S. is how to use the telephone. I know from my own experiences traveling abroad how difficult this very simple, yet important, task can be!In the U.S., we have so many variables to consider. For example, is the phone call in the same area code? What is the area code? Do I need to dial the area code? Why is the area code different from one street to the next? Do I need to dial "1"? If so, why isn't the phone number written with a "1"? What number do I dial for emergencies? Are there differences when I use a pay phone, a land line from a home, from an office ("dial '9' to get an outside line"), or a cell phone? Etc, etc.I'm not going to try to answer all of these questions here. This is just a reminder to teachers and tutors of ESL that this is a basic survival skill we should be teaching our students.--end--
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Job Interview Greetings
2007-08-03 01:36:00
I'm working with another ESL student on job interview preparation. Actually, the "job interview" is at a professional conference. My student has five short interviews with potential employers. With such short interviews, first impressions are particularly important.When I practice with students, I try to create as "real" a situation as possible. So in this interview practice session, I extended my hand in greeting. My ESL student's handshake was a little weak and tentative. So we went over this little bit of body language and practiced a firm handshake.It's these little things that English-speaking Americans (and probably other English-speaking countries' people) take for granted. However, these little things can make or break someone's first impression. As such, I feel that it's important to include these non-verbal forms of communication in my ESL lessons.--end--
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Teaching "A" or "An" to ESL Students
2007-08-01 02:14:00
If a noun begins with a vowel, then the article "an" is used. If it begins with a consonant, then "a" is used. This basic rule is fairly easy for ESL and EFL students to learn. However, the more difficult point to teach is that we need to look at the pronunciation, not the spelling of the word. For example, "Lunch lasts for an hour." "Hour" begins with a consonant, but in American English, the "h" is silent, so the beginning sound is a vowel sound.Another area students have problems with is in using initials or acronyms. For example, "Did you submit an RFP to the foundation?" Although "RFP" begins with a consonant, if I say the letter "R," it sounds like "ar". The beginning sound is a vowel sound.I find that lots of exercises or drills are useful for reinforcing this point.Also note, that I am assuming here that the difference between definite and indefinite articles has already been taught.--end--
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“Watched” versus “Seen” for ESL
2007-07-30 05:09:00
When practicing the Present Perfect tense with my ESL students, the past participle “watched” invariably comes up. It usually comes up when my student is forming a question, for example, “Have you watched Harry Potter yet?”I don’t know about other English-speaking countries, but in the U.S., this question means, “Have you watched the Harry Potter video or DVD on your television set yet.” We usually use “watched” when we are talking about a video.If I want to know whether someone has gone to a theater to watch Harry Potter, then I will ask, “Have you seen Harry Potter yet?”“Watched” is for movies on video and DVD.“Seen” is for movies at the theater.--end--
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Correcting ESL Students
2007-07-28 01:26:00
As an ESL tutor, it's part of my job to correct my English as a Second Language students when they make errors. I use my professional judgement about how often to correct students and what to correct them about. When my primary objective is to get students to speak, I might make less corrections than for other students. I don't want to discourage them from speaking by adding to their fear of making mistakes.However, as a native English speaker going about my daily activities, I never correct people who aren't native English speakers, UNLESS they ask me to. I was talking to one of my advanced level students today and he asked why Americans never correct his English. He wants them to. I explained that for some reason we feel that it is rude to correct people whose first language isn't English. Or we just don't think about it at all. (We'll leave out the small percentage of English monolingual speakers who feel people don't belong in the U.S. unless they can speak perfect Englis...
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Making Copies for ESL Students
2007-07-26 01:55:00
I use several different textbooks and other resources for my private ESL students. You can see a list of the books I highly recommend for ESL teachers and tutors on my ESL Textbook Evaluation page. When I'm tutoring ESL students one-on-one , I draw from at least two or three different resources. I often have handouts for my ESL students. I make copies of various grammar points and exercises that I give them. Because I draw from different resources, I rarely recommend a particular grammar or textbook for them to buy. This allows me flexibility and saves the student money. However, I've found that my copying costs can add up over time.In any case, I never charge my students for copies I make for them. This is part of my cost of doing business, so I always save receipts and deduct this as a business expense on my tax return.--end--
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Tag Questions for ESL Students
2007-07-24 05:39:00
"Tag questions" are one of the more difficult areas for ESL and EFL students. They know that you are asking a question, but the difficulty is in figuring out whether their answer should be a positive (yes) or a negative (no) answer. This is the first problem.Understanding intonation is the other difficult area of tag questions for ESL students. As most native English speakers know, when a tag question is used, it can be used in two ways: (1) when the speaker doesn't know the answer to the question and is asking for an answer, and (2) when the speaker is not really asking a question, but rather, is asking for agreement from the listener. For example, "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" The speaker isn't really asking for a weather report, but rather, is making a comment and asking the speaker to agree with him or her.Whether the speaker asking a tag question is really asking a question or just asking for agreement is a matter of intonation (another difficult area for English langua...
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Vocational English as a Second Language
2007-07-22 05:08:00
Vocational English as a Second Language (VESL) is a form of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). VESL classes are offered by adult schools, trade schools, and non-profit organizations. The classes focus on English that is used in a specific vocation. For example, a non-profit may have a class for childcare givers, so the language and skills taught will center on the purpose of taking care of children.For ESL or EFL teachers, there may be some extra challenges involved because there is often a wide range of English language levels of the learners. However, positions teaching VESL can also be very rewarding. One thing that feels good about teaching VESL is that you know that the language being taught is highly useful.--end--
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How to Use "Used to"
2007-07-19 22:32:00
Teaching ESL students how to talk about the past doesn't only include teaching them the past tenses, but also how to use "used to." When talking about the past this expression is used to talk about things that were true in the past, but are no longer true. (You may notice that I used "used to" in the previous sentence. In this sentence, "used to" is not being used to talk about the past. As you can see, this can be confusing to ESL and EFL learners.)Not only can "used to" be used to talk about something in the past that is no longer true, but it is also used to talk about something that happened regularly in the past, but now no longer happens.Here are some examples of the two uses:I used to live in Los Angeles.They used to be married.Bill Clinton used to be the president of the U.S.I used to drink coffee.They used to exercise at the YMCA.She used to watch TV every day.See Teaching ESL to Adults for more ESL teaching tips.--end--

Conversation Topics for ESL Students
2007-07-19 00:09:00
Many of my ESL students are very advanced and primarily want to work on their speaking conversation skills. That means we have to find something to talk about. As the ESL teacher, it's my responsibility to introduce subjects, ask open-ended questions, and generally ensure that the ESL learner speaks.There is such a variety of ESL speakers, not only in terms of the range of English language skills, but in their inclination towards speaking. I have some advanced level ESL learners whose total speaking time during our sessions is significantly less than the total speaking time of some intermediate level students. My total speaking time is probably the same in both cases. The difference is that some advanced learners can tend to be perfectionists and spend significant time thinking about how to very correctly say what they want to say.In my ESL tutoring sessions with students who want to improve their speaking ability, I really try to come up with conversation topics that are of great ...
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