Teaching Strategies for ESL
Part 1
Honesty and integrity are central components in the learning process and something that every teacher deals with on one form or another with their students. Because cooperative and community learning is part of the classroom curriculum we must think about how the practice of copying each other’s notes or assignment impact English Language students and is this an acceptable or appropriate model. We must also understand the reasons why we are allowing students to copy and when it is appropriate. With that being said, I see nothing wrong with students copying each other’s notes that was giving during class to help them complete an assignment or prepare for a test. This is not cheating to me. If a student is absent from class they should ask another student who was not absent if they can copy their notes from the day they were absent. This way they might have missed class but is still obtaining some parts of the lesson. Now as for the students copying each other assignments or answers from a test or homework assignment that will not be acceptable. This type of cheating not only hinders the cheating student learning but it also hinders the ability of the teacher to give the student the necessary extra help they may need. When it comes to ESL students they often will need different teaching strategies to meet a variety of learning needs. The test and assignments help the teacher provide those strategies to meet each learner where they are currently. In the ESL classroom the teacher can create models of different writing and assignments as a guide for the student to follow as an example. Modeling can be used as a tool to jump start the thinking process to an assignment.
Part 2
The More-Than-Just-Surviving Handbook provide a variety of teaching strategies that can be used in the classroom and especially in the ESL classroom. The strategies that I would use in my ESL classroom would be labeling, Activities using environmental print, Games, and note-taking. My first strategy would be environmental print which would consist of names given to things that the students see in their every day life, for example McDonalds. With this strategy my students will work on sorting things by beginning letters and what sounds the letters make. I would also use print environment to create a book of for the students to read.
Labeling would be my next strategy where I would create labels for different things and areas in the classroom. I would make one label in English and then ask each student to create another label in their native language. I would have a dictionary on hand to make sure they used the correct words for the English language word. We would label things such as wall, board, reading center, and other relative things in the classroom. My next strategy would be games. I would use games as Wheel of Fortune and play it just like the game on television and when the student guesses a letter I would give them a piece of candy for the prize and when they guess the word they get two pieces of candy. I would also do charades which will involve the games and drama strategy. In this game we will place the words on a cards and the student will pick a card and try to guess what word the student is acting out. These would be words that we have went over and listed on the chart. My last strategy would be note-taking. When I think about note-taking I think about teaching the students to summarize their thinking and what they hear. They could do this by drawing a picture that represents what they are summarizing. I would also have my students use graphic organizers as a form to take notes.
All of these are important strategies for teaching ESL students, because my ultimate goal is to engage and get the students thinking and asking questions. So I am sure I will use a variety of strategies such as write a story and draw a picture to represent your story and prompts to get the students communicating and writing. Having a