Are you wondering how to teach ESL to beginners? Teaching ESL to complete beginners is very rewarding. You can see a dramatic improvement in proficiency from the start of the course to the end. However, teaching beginners can be as challenging as it is rewarding because it requires specific teaching strategies and methods in order to be effective.
Here are five strategies for teaching beginner ESL.
1. Comprehensible Input
Comprehensible input is a term coined by linguist Dr. Stephen Krashen. It means that teachers provide students with information that is easily accessed because the instruction is just above their current proficiency level. The goal is for students should be able to understand most of what is presented to them. Comprehensible input helps students acquire the language subconsciously and in a more natural way. Here are a few ways to apply this in your language classroom:
- Use visuals and gestures – Visual aids are vital for contextualizing new language and concepts. Picture dictionaries are fabulous for teaching sets of vocabulary words, and you’ll find that beginner ESL textbooks are filled with pictures and graphic organizers. Another effective technique is Total Physical Response (TPR), which is acting out the language for better comprehension. For example, teachers can act out emotions and verbs while explaining what the words mean. Using realia (real-life objects) is also a fabulous and effective technique for beginners that is very engaging.
- Adapt your speech – When speaking to beginners, it is important to slow down your speech and enunciate clearly. Repetition can be helpful, as well. However, it is possible to speak too slowly and to repeat too much, so use your best judgement. In addition, make sure that you don’t speak to adults as if they are children.
2. Limit Teacher Talking Time
Beginners can get overwhelmed if the teacher spends too much time presenting a lot of material in front of the class. You’ll want to break up your instruction to allow for plenty of student practice and activity time. This technique is sometimes referred to as “chunk-and-chew.” Students will get new information in manageable chunks and then spend time working with the new language before learning a new chunk.
3. Get Volunteers or Assistants
If you can, get a volunteer or two to help out in your classroom. Choose wisely – you don’t want someone who is just going to do students’ work for them or someone who is just going to translate the whole time. You’ll need to set expectations from the beginning on what exactly the volunteer’s role is. It can be very useful to have reliable volunteers to help students who are struggling, especially if you have a large class.
4. Group Students Strategically
If I don’t purposefully mix students up in my class, my students tend to sit in the same seat and work with the same people every class period. Once you know each students’ proficiency level, mix them up! You can mix levels if everyone is doing the same task or differentiate instruction to meet the needs of each level. If you teach a class of students with different home languages, experiment with mixing up language groups.
5. Follow Best-Practice Lesson Planning Strategies
Make sure you are planning your lessons strategically. At the start of the lesson, include a warm-up to build context and link to prior learning. Then present the new material in manageable chunks, have students practice it in a controlled way, and move to more open-ended activities once they’ve gotten a grasp. See my blog posts on ESL warm-up activities and how to write an ESL lesson plan.
Now that you know how to teach ESL to beginners, try these tips in your class!
For no-prep ESL lessons for beginners, check out these resources:
