Teaching basic English to immigrants

[lynbrown]

My church is doing some voluntary work helping newcomers to learn the language, and i am going to be a tutor. Is it best to read together from newspapers, explaining what the words mean, or should you go for grammar first? Its only an hour a week so can only be superficial - but how can i best use the time? They all have a slight knowledge already.

[mimififi]

As an English teacher, though not TEFl trained, I would say it is best to keep it topical and relevent to everyday life. Grammar can be confusing to an English person and can often muddy the water when just teaching convo. Basic grammar of course is essential, but do not let it dominate or bog the lesson down. You need to see thewood for the trees and an emphasis on correct grammar can inhibit people from trying to speak the language for fear ofmaking mistakes.

God Bless you in this cause. I'm sure you will find it very rewarding.

[Drusilla1S]

Teaching the most frequently used words in English may also help. This site lists them in groups of hundreds.

http://www.duboislc.org/EducationWatch/First100Words.html

I hope you enjoy the experience. Good for you!

[sexyrussian]

I am someone who has had to learn English from knowing absolutley nothing.I was taught basic words first like boat,cat etc and then more complicated words like dinasour,hallucinate etc.It is only once you learn the actual words that you can begin to undestand the grammer.In the end the best way to learn a language is to be surrounded by those speaking it.

[Tefler]

Each subsequent lesson could start with revision of subjects done before, then go on to a new function if the student is confident with the former one - but repeat the previous lesson if the student isn't getting it, because otherwise you'll overload her/him.

If you want to get into a bit of grammar, may I suggest you get hold of the book 'Teaching Tenses' by Rosemary Aitken (ISBN: 0952280868), which is very user-friendly to a novice in the field. Maybe it's something the church would get a couple of copies of for the team of tutors?

Good luck and have fun!

[Tefler]

Long post - divided into two. Please read this and the next one together.

I am a teacher of English as a foreign language (TEFL). Trying to teach words out of context would be both extremely difficult (how do you teach 'the' to somebody with limited English?).

Better, I think, would be to take a functional approach. Decide what circumstances your student is likely to need English in and work with those situations. These will include introducing her/himself and others; asking for and giving directions; buying things from shops; giving and following instructions.

You could start off by scripting a role play, for example in a shop. Get the student to play the role of customer and you are the shop keeper. Practise the script together a few times - paying attention to pronunciation and intonation. Then, when you think the student's feeling confident, cover up her/his first line and do the role play again. Then cover up the first two lines. Proceed like this until the whole thing is being done from memory.

Then introduce other things which the student needs to buy (bring the things with you to the lesson, so that the word and object are associated together). See if she/he can go through the role play again, substituting the new object/s. Next, have something 'go wrong' - for example the shop's sold out of something, or the fruit is rotten or something. This helps to prepare the student for when interactions don't follow the script.

[Tefler]

Sorry, Lyn, for somehow I managed to post my previous messages in the wrong order - oops!

[lynbrown]

Thansk for all kind suggestions - i now have a lot of good ideas to work on.