Chapman, Maine TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

In this unit we learned about teaching special groups. We can classify the special groups into 5 groups; Beginners, Individual, Young Learners, Business English, and Monolingual and Multilingual group. The beginner group can be divided into subgroups; Absolute beginners, false beginner, adult beginner, young learner beginner and beginners without the Roman alphabet. Some tips to bear in mind with all beginner subgroups are; keep the language simple, be visual rather than verbal, get students talking, ask lots of questions , verbal repetition drills, use pair work, be supportive and praise students, respond to individual needs, be patient, play lots of interactive games and don’t overcorrect. Teaching individuals (also known as one-to-one) has the obvious advantage that there is no variety in language level, the motivation is often high and the needs can be defined clearly. A disadvantage might be the dynamics of the classroom, having only one student forces the teacher to be the students partner when doing pair work, teacher has to help and prompt more, some activities will be impossible to do. The course book gave lots of example activities possible to use when teaching individuals. Teaching the young learners can be most rewarding, a child curiosity works as a great motivator. Children are already used to listening and repeating words from their parents and other family members. Most children are less self-conscious about making mistakes which is essential in language growth. When teaching young learners we should always use English, speak slowly and clearly, use elicit techniques like mime and gestures and we should play games. Some things to bear in mind when teaching children is to not put them on the spot, don’t expect student to have all their materials and don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself. We also learned the ‘DOs’ and the ’DON’Ts’ when disciplining the young learners Teaching Business English (BE) or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a growing field for ESL world. First off, teaching BE or ESP should not scare us for we are not there to teach the clients business, but English of which 90% will be general English. However there is a slight difference in the approach of teaching BE. Typical process starts with a level test followed by a needs analysis form and after which we discuss the needs as a group and negotiate needs. The teacher is then to plan out the syllabus for the next 15-20 hours and present the methods. Frequent tests and evaluation is needed throughout the course and finally a post course evaluation. There are three ways you might come across teaching BE; individually or one-to-one, teaching a course at a company and the company coming to your school. Common problems were discussed in this unit and the ‘dos and do nots’. Finally we looked at monolingual and multilingual teaching; the advantages and disadvantages of both groups.