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Teaching Beginners


Teaching beginners can be very challenging but also very rewarding and fun. Many beginner teachers dread the absolute beginners, and I remember feeling the same way when I was just starting out. After teaching a few raw beginners I got in the swing of it and enjoyed teaching it.

This article will go over a few things about teaching beginners that will hopefully be of use to experienced as well as new teachers.

Relax
Probably the most important thing is to relax. If the teacher is nervous, students sense it and get even more nervous. Stay calm, take it slow and relax.

Come Prepared
Advance preparation is always a good idea but especially important for beginners for several reasons. With beginners, the order new language is introduced is extremely important. Beginners are working with a very limited vocabulary and need to rehearse what they know, with new concepts and vocabulary gradually and systematically.

If you aren't careful, it is very east to ahead of yourself, and then try to explain, only to find the explanation is too complicated as well and dig yourself in deeper and deeper and the class will be a complete disaster.

Make sure you know what you are going to do in advance and stick to it.

Positive Reinforcement
Reinforcement is essential to learning any skill. If students don't know when you are doing something right, and when they are doing it wrong they have no basis for improvement. Learning a new language is difficult and challenging, and students need all the help they can get. Catch them doing it right, and praise and reinforce correct usage.

Correction
There are two schools of thought regarding correction. One is that students need to vocalize and get their mouths used to making the sounds and correction can be done later. The other school of thought hold that correction is important right from the start. I tend to go with the former, but at the same time I don't think there should be any hard and fast rules.

According to linguists, accuracy in a language comes from being fluent and those teaching methods that stress correction initially, may hinder students from achieving fluency.

Beginner students need to be encouraged to speak as much as possible in English. Pronunciation, grammar and sentence structure will come with practice.

Work with what you have
Beginner students have a very limited vocabulary, and very limited knowledge of tenses and sentence structure. teaching beginners involves using the vocabulary they already have.

Teaching Techniques

Role plays as a class
Usually role plays are done between 2 people or with a small group but they can also be done with the whole class. The teacher takes one role and the whole class (in unison) takes the other role. This is a great way to get students talking in a comfortable way where individuals don't feel singled out.

Games and Movement
Keep things moving! When the class starts to drag and feels flat, get students up on their feet and moving around. Come prepared with extra games, and activities that you can pull out at any time to rescue the lesson.

Young learners love playing Bingo and once they get on to it, can't get enough.

Talking or Reading in Unison
Reading aloud is a great practice for fluency. Students need to practice the physical component of speaking the language.

Beginners Games and Activities >>>


NEW Activities for Beginners Book 1
Activities for Beginner ESL Students

Our newest book, Beginners Activities Book 1 is a collection of tested ESL Activities for beginners, including some of the most popular Activities from our online store.

12 Beginners Activities and Free Bonus ESL Game
Becoming A Better Teacher
Becoming a Better Teacher -- Where to Start?

This is the second in a series of articles on becoming a better teacher. This month I decided to survey some of the resources available for teachers. The local bookstore and a few searches online turned up hundreds of books on how to become a better teacher and they all seemed to me pretty much the same.

I found the whole thing frustrating and time-consuming. Do the authors that write these books know what they are talking about? Have the ever been in a classroom? You don't know.

One book I did find that I recommend is Teaching Secrets, by veteran teacher Christine Morrison, who has spent 30 years in the classroom and seen every imaginable classroom situation possible. Christine's book, Teaching Secrets, is well worth a read for any new or experienced teacher, is available at her website.

 
Ronald McDonald to Promote Fitness
THANKS!

1. HEALTHY KIDS: Are kids today healthy? Do kids need to get on their feet more? Write down three things that kids need to stop doing to become healthier. Write down three things that kids need to start doing to become healthier. In pairs / groups, compare your ideas.

2. McDONALD'S MESSAGES: McDonald's wants an image full of healthy living and eating. Do you believe their ads? In pairs / groups, talk about how true you think these Mc-Messages are:

  1. McDonald's food is healthy.
  2. McDonald's restaurants are real restaurants.
  3. Smiles and fantastic service are for free.
  4. Hamburgers do not result in obesity. Not exercising results in obesity.
  5. McDonald's "Happy Meals" are great for kids.
  6. Ronald McDonald's official title is "Chief Happiness Officer".
  7. McDonald's is the best place for kids' parties and free, cheap, plastic Disney toys.
  8. Horsemeat is not used in the hamburgers.
  9. French fries are always hot.
  10. McDonald's cares about children.

3. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words are most interesting and which are most boring.

Ronald McDonald / image changes / clowns / fast food / strawberries / snowboarding / colorful TV commercials / french fries / being on the move / obesity in children

Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.

4. STORY PREDICTION: In pairs / groups, use the words from the "CHAT" activity to predict the story in the article. Change partners and compare your stories. If you have different ideas, talk about which is likelier to be in the actual article.

5. McDONALD'S: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with McDonald's. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

Many thanks to for this great activity. If you haven't been to Sean's site you should!
 
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Coming Soon -- ESL Textbook CDs

In addition to our popular 'Culturally Sensitive' curriculum, which is used all over the world, LEWL will be soon be offering complete Textbook Sets on a CD. Each text book set contains a student reader, Teachers Guide, and Student Workbook.

This new product line, aimed at ESL Schools, offers a very cost effective and innovative way for schools to purchase textbooks. Schools purchase 1 CD, and print as many textbooks as they wish.


The first Textbooks CD to be released will be Beginners Book 1, and will include:

  • Student Reader (use over and over once printed)
  • Teachers Guide
  • Student Workbook

Beginners Book one will contains:

  • 40 90 minute Lessons
  • Quiz every 4th lesson
  • 2 Tests -- lesson 20 and lesson 40

Each Textbook Set will contain stories, characters and examples from all over the world.

We expect to have our newest product available on our website on July 30 2005.



Click here to be notified when our Textbook CDs are available AND qualify for a 30% discount.
How Our Language Got This Way
 

English, we would like to think, is the Latin of the 21st century. Just as that provincial Italian mumble came to drown out the established tongues of the ancient world - Egyptian, Persian, Aramaic, Greek - so English, originally the jargon of a few Germanic marauders, has become the tool with which the world is governed.

Because it is the first language of the world's greatest power, it is a second language everywhere: English can't boast as many speakers as Mandarin or Hindi, but the Chinese and the Indians are eager to learn it. Shakespeare seemed to have intuited this imperial fate in "Julius Caesar," where his prophecy applies equally to Brutus's Latin and his own English: "How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er, / In states unborn, and accents yet unknown!"

If this resemblance is a source of pride, however, it also raises an obvious fear: If Latin could die, so could English. The death of languages, even the most prestigious and powerful, is the mesmerizing subject at the heart of Nicholas Ostler's "Empires of the Word" (HarperCollins, 615 pages, $29.95). Latin started to split into mutually unintelligible dialects almost 1,500 years ago; it lived on in scholarly cold storage until the 18th century, but today even educated people don't feel any need to learn it. Other languages met with still more dire and dramatic ends.

Full Story >>>
 


Volunteer English teachers fall in love with Kinmen


A group of dedicated young English teachers who have been teaching in remote places like Kinmen finally headed home to the United States on Wednesday. Two siblings, Bao Yijie and Bao Diwen, not only taught English but also helped to promote tourism in Kinmen. In fact, after the elder sister returned to the States to study, her little brother took up the torch and came out to Kinmen.

Two years ago, the Jinche Educational Foundation and the U.S. Institute in Basic Life Principles launched a cooperative plan to bring young Americans to Taiwan's remote areas to teach English in partnership with local elementary and middle school teachers. Since these young people were skilled at English teaching and knew how to get along under difficult conditions, they were warmly welcomed wherever they went. In the past year, a group of 25 went to schools in Kinmen, Hualian, and Nantou. Now, 13 of the group are returning to the United States, and the Jinche Foundation held a special event on Wednesday to thank them for their efforts and give them a suitable send-off. At the same time, the ceremony also served to welcome six new teachers.



ESL Activities!
Beginners Activities



ESL Bingo

Intermediate Activities



A Trip to Canada		 Advanced Activities


Caribbean Mystery Cruise
MORE Beginners ESL Activities and Games >>> More Intermediate Activities and Games >>> More Advanced Activities and Games >>>
 
NEW - Beginners Games -- Book 1

Our latest book, Beginners ESL GAMES is a collection of tested ESL games for beginners, including the most popular and best selling ESL games from our online store. DETAILS >>>
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ESL for CHILDREN
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