esl-problem-solver

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CONTENTS
3-4 MUST READ: ESL 
Teacher’s Meltdown: 
Problems & Solutions 
5 MUST READ: Too Tired 
to Teach? 7 Tips 
to Detox, De-stress and 
Regain Your Energy 
6 MUST READ: When 
Things Go Awry: 
Problem-Solving 
on Your Feet 
7 MUST READ: 
7 Most Common 
ESL Problems and 
How to Solve Them 
9 LAST-MINUTE TIPS: 
ESL Nightmare! 
What to Do If You’re 
Called to Teach a Class 
at the Last Minute 
10 PROBLEM STUDENTS: 
4 Types 
of Problem Students 
and Strategies 
to Manage Them 
11 PROBLEM STUDENTS: 
ESL SOS! 
7 Most Common 
Behavior Problems and 
How to Deal with Them 
12 PROBLEM STUDENTS: 
Top 10 Tips 
to Deal 
With Indiscipline 
in the Classroom 
13 PROBLEM STUDENTS: 
Keep Your Cool: 
Tips for Handling 
Difficult Students 
14-15 NEW TEACHER: 
New Kid on the Block: 
10 Tips for the Brand 
New ESL Teacher
16 NEW TEACHER: Do 
This, Not That: 
5 Mistakes to Avoid as 
a New ESL Teacher 
17-18 BACK TO SCHOOL: 
Break the Back-to-
School Ice! 10 Fun 
Icebreakers for the 
Beginning of the Year 
19 TECHNOLOGY: 
Where There Is no 
Smartphone: Ways 
to De-Technologize 
your EFL Lessons 
20-21 COLLEAGUES: 
Make Your Life Easier: 
10 Steps to Good 
Co-teacher Relations 
22-23 COMPREHENSION: 
Why You Should 
Never Ask ‘Do You 
Understand’: 6 Tips 
to Help You Check 
Comprehension 
24-25 SPEAKING: Get 
Them Talking: 
3 Activities 
That Motivate Students 
to Speak 
26 VISUAL AIDS: Make it 
visual: Kick start your 
students’ creativity 
with these 9 tips 
for using images 
27 COMMUNITY: From 
Distance to Sharing to 
Critique to Feedback: 
Creating an Effective 
Learning Community 
 
29 READING: This is 
Boring, and Besides, 
I Don’t Understand It: 
Sure-Fire Ways to Turn 
Your Students 
on to Reading
30-31 READING: FAQ 
for Reading Teachers 
32 READING: They Can’t 
Read but They Can 
Learn: 3 Essentials in 
Teaching Illiterate Kids 
33-34 READING: Dyslexia 
in the ESL Classroom – 
5 Ways to beat it! 
35-36 WRITING: I Have 
Nothing to Say on This 
Topic: Sure-Fire Ways 
to Turn Your Students 
on to Writing 
37 WRITING: I Have 
to Teach Writing: 
Now What? Where 
to Start with Your First 
Writing Class 
38-39 WRITING: FAQ 
for Writing Teachers
40-41 LISTENING: What Do 
We Even Do All Term 
(or All Day)?: 
How to Structure 
the Curriculum 
for ESL Listening 
42 LISTENING: FAQ 
for Listening Teacher
43 TIME MANAGEMENT: 
ESL Lesson Pace: 
5 Tips for Class 
Time Management 
You’ll Thank Us For 
44 ASSESSMENT: 
Assessment 
in the ESL Classroom: 
6 Important Things 
You Need to Know
45 RAPPORT: 5 Ways 
to Use Your Cultural 
Differences to Relate 
to Your Students
3
ESL Teacher’s Meltdown: 
Problems & Solutions
FOR THE MOST PART, ESL TEACH-
ING IS SURPRISINGLY STRESS-FREE 
AND A GREAT WAY TO LIVE A FAN-
TASTIC LIFESTYLE IN A FOREIGN 
COUNTRY. BUT THERE ARE TIMES 
WHEN THE BLACK DOG PAYS US ALL 
A VISIT.
This is often brought on when the 
daily challenges that create a posi-
tive amount of stress all accumulate 
at once, and the pressure becomes 
too much. There are days when many 
ESL teachers just want to scream and 
explode in a fit of rage due to the pent 
up frustrations of a long day where 
nothing just seem to go the way it 
should. This article will examine some 
of the leading problems in the ESL 
workplace and try to find a solution.
ESL TEACHER’S 
MELTDOWN: 
PROBLEMS & 
SOLUTIONS
1 PROBLEM - LOW SALARIES
Always in the number one 
spot for ESL teaching gripes. Some 
schools offer appalling salaries to de-
cent teachers who always put the ef-
fort into classes. Unfortunately, ESL 
teaching isn’t one of the highest-paid 
professions out there, but in many 
cases, the wages do not suit the job. 
Simply compare the different wag-
es throughout different countries. A 
first-time ESL teacher at a language 
centre in Jakarta, Indonesia makes 
around US$750 a month, a teacher 
in Korea would be on over US$2000. 
Additionally, with most jobs out there, 
the rate of pay will go up with infla-
tion: not in ESL teaching. After a little 
snooping around, teachers will gener-
ally find that the wages have been the 
same for almost eight years in many 
cases. This is a cause of great con-
cern to many teachers.
Solution - Asides from Prozac and 
living frugally, one of the best ways 
to deal with the low pay is to get out 
there and find some extra teaching 
work. Pick up a few privates here and 
there, or look into teaching on the in-
ternet. But do it on the sly, and don’t 
let your employer find out as there 
may be harsh contractual implications 
for any outside work.
2 PROBLEM – LOW TEACH-ER’S ROOM MORALE
Yup, we’ve all been there. The harmo-
nious nature of the staff room that was 
present when you first arrived at the 
school has all but fizzled out. It start-
ed with one person, then a few weeks 
there were three people whinging and 
moaning. All of a sudden, a month 
later the entire staff room is infected 
with it and there just seems no way 
out. This low morale has an impact on 
everything, the way that staff mem-
bers view their job, their employer, 
and even the country that they have 
grown to love has turned into a cess-
pool of bitter hatred.
Solution – Discreetly bring the mat-
ter up with your academic manager 
or HR go-to person. They have been 
working in ESL teaching long enough, 
and sure enough, the low-morale is-
sue is a common occurrence that 
probably happens at even the best of 
language centres. Your HR manager 
or Academic Coordinator should pro-
vide you with some good advice, while 
acting on your concerns by putting an 
end to the bad vibes in the staff room. 
Once you begin to notice the negativ-
ity beginning to show, try to separate 
yourself from it and do your lesson 
planning in a classroom or simply go 
outside and take a walk. Falling victim 
to the low morale is something that 
can easily happen to us all.
3 PROBLEM – MANAGEMENT
Always another chief complaint 
from teachers that often arises is the 
issue of management. The reason for 
this is management are ultimately the 
ones who are in charge. Whether or 
not they’re right or wrong, the man-
agement are the ones who have the 
power to make the decisions. In many 
cases, language centre management 
has their eyes firmly fixated on one 
thing – the almighty dollar. This is true 
in most cases, and often this immense 
focus on money will have an impact 
on you directly. For example, a stu-
dent wants to study IELTS. They can 
barely string a sentence together, but 
they are insistent on doing an IELTS 
course and will not settle for any other 
course. You are the lucky chosen one 
who is dealt this cruel hand of teach-
ing this stubborn student for 60 hours 
when she can’t answer the question 
‘how are you?’ Other areas which 
management have a controlling hand 
over are contract negotiations, mar-
keting and course material.
Solution - Take it easy, it isn’t your 
problem. Give the student what they 
want, that’s what they paid for. Be 
honest with the student and tell them 
they are not suited for the class, and 
maybe, just maybe the student will 
listen to you. But otherwise, just sit 
back, dish out the work, and don’t let 
the right or wrong decisions of others 
get to you.
4 PROBLEM – LAZY STUDENTS
This one doesn’t usually bother me, 
but seems to bother some teachers 
immensely. Lazy students can be-
come a real pain in the backside, es-
pecially after you have gone through 
the painstaking effort to plan a class 
that is fun, while educational at the 
same time. Nothing can be more frus-
trating than this, especially when it 
takes places on the busiest day of the 
week, a Sunday.
Solution - Two solutions, the first – let 
them be, it will be their own demise. 
The second, bargain with them. Take 
away certain privileges for laziness, 
while rewarding them with activities 
and other treats for completing the 
work.
5 PROBLEM - ARROGANT FELLOW-TEACHERS
Sure, we’ve all worked with them. 
They are the type of people who 
4
speak inhe Queen’s English and 
proper British accent, who talk to their 
colleagues in an identical manner as 
they would address a misbehaving 
student. You must look out for these 
people, as generally they walk around 
with an inflated sense of self-impor-
tance. These are the people who dis-
cipline a teacher because a student 
left a paper in the room. These are 
the worst people to deal with in ESL 
teaching that can really make your 
blood boil, especially when they talk 
to you in a condescending manner as 
if you were a child.
Solution - Take a note of each of the 
encounters and think of the reasons 
why you personally felt it was of-
fensive, for example, he spoke in a 
way that showed total disrespect, or 
he lectured you in front of a student. 
Make a note of when the incidents oc-
curred and some details, and pass it 
on to the Academic Coordinator. It is 
their job to address your concerns di-
rectly with the arrogant sod, taking his 
ego down a few notches.
6 PROBLEM – SCHEDULES
Ah, it’s the time of the week 
when everyone crowds around as if 
it were the lottery. There’s a certain 
sense of dread and excitement at the 
same time. After having a number of 
classes finished this week, you know 
that either the classes will be imme-
diately replaced with more, or you 
could, by some stroke of luck, have 
a relatively easy week where you can 
slip off early and catch a film. But, you 
know what? It’s a lot worse than that. 
A teacher’s contract has finished, and 
it’s your job to teach a morning class 
from 9am to 11am, and a new evening 
class as well! A split shift! Jeez, I’m a 
teacher, not a bloody chef!
Solution - The golden rule... If you 
signed the contract that states that 
you would work those hours, there’s 
more chance of that dream wedding 
with Britney Spears than getting the 
schedules changed. But, if your week-
ly hours exceed the contracted hours, 
make sure that you are adequately 
compensated for the additional work.
7 PROBLEM - TEXTBOOKS NOT BEING RETURNED
A favourite complaint by ESL teach-
ers from over 160 countries, across 
five continents throughout the world. 
There is nothing more annoying than 
looking for your ‘Introduction to Aca-
demic Book Volume 3’, only to discov-
er that the serial hoarder has stashed 
it away with 17 other of the schools 
frequently used textbooks. And the 
worst part, he’s not around to unlock 
his freakin’ locker.
Solution - Make your life easier and 
photocopy the books yourself. That 
way you can draw in the books, fill in 
the answers, draw funny little mous-
taches on the people - whatever, re-
ally! The second option is to discretely 
bring the better to the Academic Man-
ager who will quickly bring about an 
end to the hoarder’s textbook stash.
AFTER A TOUGH DAY AT THE OFFICE, 
MANY ESL TEACHERS THINK THAT 
THEY WOULD RATHER BE DOING 
ANYTHING ELSE THAN TEACHING.
However, after the end of a day like 
this, a new day will bring a completely 
new set of challenges, some good, 
and some bad. Teaching isn’t the only 
career that boasts stresses, but every 
job in every field has their its benefits 
and disadvantages – while many are 
a lot worse than teaching.
5
Too Tired to Teach? 7 Tips to Detox, 
De-stress and Regain Your Energy
THE ALARM GOES OFF, AND YOU 
GROAN.
Getting out of bed is a feat of sheer will. 
You love teaching, and you enjoy the time 
you spend with your ESL students – most 
of the time. But they are not the prob-
lem. The problem is that you are so tired. 
Maybe it’s because you work 40+ hours a 
week, or you have a whole other set of re-
sponsibilities in addition to your classes, 
but hey, it happens to the best of us! 
Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to get 
out of that energy slump. But first, let’s 
think about why it’s important for you de-
stress and regain your energy.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT 
TO DE-STRESS
A stressed out human being is a ticking 
time bomb. The running from one class 
to the next, combined with personal and 
family responsibilities, not to mention 
things like the economic crisis, fear of 
losing your job, poor eating habits, few 
hours of sleep, etc. is one deadly cock-
tail. You cannot simply force yourself to 
go on. Sooner or later your health – phys-
ical, mental and emotional – will suffer 
for it. So, now that we all agree that it is 
indeed very important to take the time to 
detox and de-stress, let’s take a look at 
the steps. Set aside a complete weekend 
(a long weekend is better, and a week off 
will give you the best results).
TRY THESE 7 TIPS TO 
DETOX, DE-STRESS AND 
REGAIN YOUR ENERGY
1 GET UNPLUGGED
Turn off your cell and computer, and 
leave these and any other technological 
devices off for the duration of your detox 
period, ideally. If it’s not possible choose 
one time during the day for you to check 
in, like first thing in the morning for a few 
minutes, and then disconnect yourself. 
This may be difficult, but it will be well 
worth it. Remember what it was like when 
we were little and had nothing better to do 
than sit on the porch and watch birds fly 
from tree to tree? Go back to the basics – 
enjoy time with your family, long walks or 
a cup of coffee with a friend.
2 GET PLENTY OF REST
Allow yourself to sleep in. Indulge in 
a mid-afternoon nap. Or just lie on your 
comfiest sofa and look out the window. 
Let your entire body relax and enjoy the 
feeling that there is no rush, no place you 
have to run to right now. If you haven’t 
been getting enough hours of sleep, catch 
up on your zzzs. When your students see 
you again, they’ll notice the difference.
3 FEED YOUR SOUL
Read some of your most inspiring 
authors. Read magazines as you lounge 
on your favorite chair. But don’t read stuff 
for work. Read things that will take you 
back to a more relaxed, carefree place.
4 FEED YOUR BODY
With our hectic schedules and busy 
life, it’s far too common for ESL teach-
ers to grab a quick bite instead of sitting 
down to lunch, or chow down on what-
ever we can find first once we get home. 
So, during your detox period, eat good, 
nutritious food. And take your time. Savor 
it and enjoy the flavors. Yummy, delicious 
food does wonders to our mood.
5 GUZZLE UP THE H2O
It’s no big news that most of us don’t 
drink enough water. But few are aware 
that dehydration causes headaches, false 
hunger pangs and food cravings, among 
other symptoms. To find out how much 
you should drink in liters, simply multiply 
your weight in kilograms by 0.033. So, if 
you weigh 60 kg, that works out to about 
2 liters of water a day.
6 GET EXERCISE
Running from class to class does 
not qualify as good “exercise”. It’s stress-
ful. Take the time to really enjoy some 
stress-free physical activity. Go jogging, 
walking, hiking, canoeing, rollerblading or 
anything you really enjoy doing outdoors.
7 TRY MEDITATION
As an ESL teacher you need to keep 
your students on their toes. You need to 
provide activities that are challenging, but 
not too difficult for their level. You need to 
complete the coursework and help your 
students meet language goals, but also 
keep your students’ individual needs and 
learning styles in mind. This takes a lot 
of mental work! During your detox period, 
take the time to quiet your mind. A medi-
tation can be as simple as closing your 
eyes and freeing your mind from all of the 
clutter, or it can be guided step by step.
Find a quiet spot, free of any distractions 
and close your eyes. Breathe in and out. 
Let the tempestuous sea of ideas, prob-
lems and issues fizzle out till it’s noth-
ing but a calm ocean of opportunities. If 
you’re interested in learning more about 
meditation, the Meditation Society of 
America (www.meditationsociety.com/) 
offers some wonderful resources and 
techniques.
ABOVE ALL, TAKE SOME TIME OUT FOR 
YOU.
The person who stands before his or her 
ESL students every day is a combination 
of heart, soul and mind, and these work-
ing together as a whole are the source of 
what makes you unique and specialas a 
teacher. Do take care of that.
6
When Things Go Awry: 
Problem-Solving on Your Feet
AS TEACHERS, WE KNOW POSSIBLY 
BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE THAT 
WHEN THINGS GO WRONG, THEY 
CAN REALLY GO WRONG.
Being able to solve problems on 
your feet is one of the most valuable 
skills a teacher can have. There are 
so many variables as to what can go 
awry in a classroom that generally 
luck would have it, many things tend 
to go wrong at the same time. Face 
problems head on with these tips, and 
you will be able to handle the worst of 
classroom disasters!
HOWTO: 
PROBLEM-SOLVING 
ON YOUR FEET
1 STAY COOL
It may seem obvious, but when 
a situation goes wrong in the class-
room, the number one element that 
will serve you best is to simply, stay 
cool. Sometimes this is easier said 
than done. Problems that arise in 
the classroom can be embarrassing, 
mentally taxing, and downright ex-
cruciating. If you stay calm though, it 
will only help you to see the picture in 
front of you clearly, and also discover 
what the solution is. For example, if an 
activity is not going according to plan 
and is failing the objectives you had 
set for it, if you were to get worked 
up, you may just add to the problem. 
With a clear head, look at what the 
students are doing, and then examine 
what you assigned them to do. If the 
two don’t come close to matching, the 
next thing to do is to find the discon-
nect. Perhaps students weren’t clear 
on their directives, or they took it upon 
themselves to change the activity 
once they got into it. Don’t get upset 
with the class, but definitely intervene 
and rectify the situation.
2 USE HUMOR
Some classroom difficulties are 
easier to rectify than others. If you 
come across a particularly unsettling 
situation, like having technical difficul-
ties, try to intersperse some humor. 
Perform any solution you can think of 
to fix the problem while making fun of 
either yourself or the technical prob-
lem itself. It does wonders to lighten 
the mood, takes the pressure off, 
and gives you time to really assess 
the problem. Students are generally 
understanding when a technical or 
computer issue arises. Engage the 
class with a joke or funny story while 
you are working on fixing the issue. 
This way, the students’ attention will 
remain on you, and it won’t be an ex-
cuse for them to start side conversa-
tions, begin texting, or worse, become 
unruly or out of hand! Show them that 
you can handle the situation and if you 
can’t fix the problem, all is not lost.
3 BE PREPARED
There are all kinds of problems 
that can happen when you are not 
prepared or when you are not pre-
pared enough. If, for example, you 
are trying out a brand new activity 
and are uncertain as to how it will go, 
prepare yourself that it may not go 
as well as you hope and it may not 
take as long as you think it will. Try 
to troubleshoot new activities by no-
ticing any gaps or things that may not 
be clear for students. Estimate the 
time to be less and if it goes longer, 
then you be prepared for that as well. 
If it falls short, falls flat, or is just plain 
bad you can try a couple of things. If 
it falls short, you want to have enough 
planned so that you are not left strug-
gling to fill the class time. Always have 
an arsenal of quick games or activi-
ties that you can whip up if something 
falls short. If your objective is lost to 
the students, and they don’t jump in 
to the activity, you can try re-explain-
ing it or asking what questions they 
have about what they should be do-
ing. Give the activity a second chance 
to launch and see if there is anything 
that you can quickly tweak to make it 
more palatable. If you need to aban-
don an activity, do it in a way that the 
students will respect. Either admit that 
it didn’t go well and ask them for their 
feedback, or tell that you have other 
things planned for the day and that 
time is running low. You don’t have to 
prepare yourself in advance for things 
to flop necessarily, but you do want to 
make sure to always well-equipped to 
deal with equipment failures, student 
distractions, or logistics gone wrong.
4 BE FLEXIBLE
If things don’t go quite as you 
had planned, flexibility is a great trait 
to develop. Don’t take it personally 
that your activity flopped or that stu-
dents were particularly uncoopera-
tive. Allow yourself and the class to 
move forward without getting stuck 
in the bad juju of a situation that went 
wrong. It is really important to be their 
guiding light in all situations, but par-
ticularly during a storm. If you display 
flexibility and can switch gears it can 
be a remarkable example and learn-
ing moment for students.
5 ASK FOR HELP
There is no harm in asking a 
student or another teacher for help. 
Often with technical problems, your 
students may be just as savvy as 
you are, and you can enlist their help 
while you manage the class. If there 
are other teachers close by you could 
possibly send a student out to locate 
and bring back help. You will no doubt 
learn how to fix the problem, and nev-
er forget it. There is no harm in ask-
ing for or requesting help as long as it 
isn’t a weekly occurrence.
DON’T LET ONE GLITCH (OR SEVERAL) 
GET YOU DOWN.
Teachers are resourceful beings and 
we always find a way to rescue our-
selves and our students from painful 
situations. Don’t beat yourself up, and 
if all else fails, cut yourself a break, 
have a good laugh and trust that you 
pulled out the best possible solution in 
that particular scenario!
7
7 Most Common ESL Problems 
and How to Solve Them
AS FAR AS YOUR ESL CLASS IS CON-
CERNED, YOU COULD FACE A MUL-
TITUDE OR PROBLEMS – OR NONE 
AT ALL.
A typical ESL class, anywhere in the 
world, has its own set of typical prob-
lems and challenges. Is there any way 
to avoid them? Not likely. Is there any 
way to prepare for them? Absolutely! 
And here are the 7 most typical prob-
lems you’ll face as an ESL teacher, 
each one followed by some ways to 
deal with them.
7 MOST COMMON ESL 
PROBLEMS AND HOW 
TO SOLVE THEM
1 STUDENTS SPEAK MORE OF THEIR NATIVE 
LANGUAGE THAN ENGLISH
The lower the students’ level or ages, 
the more probable it is that they will 
speak their native language most of 
the time. Some will even chat in pairs 
or small groups, completely oblivious 
to what is going on in class.
Solution: Now, each ESL class is dif-
ferent, and they all have different 
goals, but no matter what their age 
or level, students must understand 
that they must at the very least try to 
speak as much English as they can, 
even if it is for simple greetings, re-
quests or statements. For younger 
students, turn it into a game. Create 
a chart with the students’ names and 
give those who did not speak their 
native language throughout the class 
a star. Or create a point penalty sys-
tem. Once a student reaches a certain 
number of points, they must do some-
thing in front of the class, like tell a 
story or answer questions from class-
mates. These might not work for older 
students. But they will certainly try to 
communicate in English if you pretend 
you don’t speak their native language.
2 STUDENTS TAKE CONTROL OF THE LESSON
You’ve probably seen this happen. A 
student comes into class all excited 
about something that’s happened and 
dying to tell everyone. They get every-
one else excited about the topic and 
before you know it you have a group 
of students who’ve completely taken 
over. Another common situation, par-
ticularly with youngsters, is when they 
propose all sorts of changes and/or 
improvements to an activity you’ve set 
out for them.
Solution: Take control back. In the 
first case, firmly, yet kindly, let your 
students know that you have to get 
the lesson underway. Tell them that if 
they finish their work, they can have 
a few minutes at the end of the class 
to talk about whatever has them so 
excited. In the second case, firmly tell 
them that you have already planned 
the lesson/activity, but that you willcertainly include their ideas next time. 
Don’t forget to thank them for sharing 
or providing feedback!
3 ONE STUDENT IN PARTICULAR 
DOMINATES THE LESSON
This is the type of student I like to call 
the “eager beaver”: they always raise 
their hands first or just blurt out the 
answer with absolutely no regard for 
the other students in the class. They 
are often competitive and like to win.
Solution: Never call out an eager 
beaver in front of the class. This en-
thusiasm should not be squashed: 
it should simply be channeled in the 
right direction. Say, “I know you know 
the answer, Juan, but I’d love to hear 
from someone else”. Also try this: let 
the eager student be your helper for 
the day. Tell him/her the job is to help 
classmates find the right answers or 
help those who are having trouble 
completing an exercise.
4 STUDENTS ARE TOO DEPENDENT
The other side of the coin is when you 
have students who constantly seek 
your help. They may ask you to help 
them complete an exercise or just 
blurt out they can’t/don’t know how to 
do something on their own.
Solution: It’s very important to em-
power students and help them feel 
that they can indeed do it. Say you 
give them an exercise in which they 
have to decide which article to use, 
“a” or “an”. Look at the first item “ap-
ple” and ask your student, “Is it a ap-
ple or an apple? What sounds right to 
you?” Once they give you the correct 
answer, tell them to try the next one. 
And the next one. “See you CAN do it! 
Good job!” Sometimes students feel 
overwhelmed by the blanks, and all 
they need is a little nudge.
5 STUDENTS ARE BORED OR UNMOTIVATED
Students eyes are glazed over, and 
you blame the boring coursebook or 
the Future Perfect.
Solution: It’s a hard truth, but the rea-
son your students are bored is YOU. 
It is your responsibility to engage stu-
dents and keep the lesson interest-
ing – no matter what you are teach-
ing. Teaching the Future Continuous 
tense? There are ways to make the 
topic more engaging. Talking about 
business? There are ways to make 
the topic more fun.
6 STUDENTS ARRIVE LATE OR DISRUPT THE CLASS
A cell phone rings, while a latecomer 
joins the class. You barely say two 
words and another student shows up. 
And the interruptions go on and are 
worse in larger groups.
Solution: Set the classroom rules from 
the start. Ask students to turn off cell 
phones and other technological de-
vices at the start of class. Give your 
students a five to ten- minute grace 
period for arriving, but tell them they 
won’t be able to join the class after 
that.
8
7 STUDENTS DON’T DO HOMEWORK
Some students never do homework or 
any work outside the classroom. This 
is often the case with adults who say 
they never have time.
Solution: Young learners and teens 
have no choice. They must do their 
homework and if they don’t, simply 
notify the parents that the student is 
not completing tasks to satisfaction. 
As for adults, give them options. Tell 
them to do at least one five-minute 
exercise a day (or a week). Ask them 
how much they can commit to. Be 
clear in communicating that that may 
fall behind and not meet their lan-
guage learning goals.
DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING TO 
CHANCE. HAVE A PLAN AND STICK 
TO IT. HAVE RULES AND STICK TO 
THEM. FOR IF YOU DON’T, YOU’RE 
LEAVING YOURSELF WIDE OPEN TO 
TROUBLE.
9
What to Do If You’re Called to 
Teach a Class at the Last Minute
You’re sipping tea in front of the TV 
hoping to catch up on some of your 
favorite shows. You’ve already taught 
your lessons for the day and have the 
rest of the afternoon off – or so you 
thought. Suddenly, you receive a fran-
tic call from your headmaster/instruc-
tional supervisor/insert person who as-
signs lessons here who is in desperate 
need for a substitute teacher. So, you 
set your cup of tea aside and say yes. 
You’ll do it. After all, you can always 
use the extra cash. But then you real-
ize the lesson you must teach is in less 
than two hours, and you have zero time 
to prepare. In less than five minutes, 
you go from peaceful and relaxed, to a 
nervous wreck! Although you can nev-
er tell when you will be asked to sub 
for another teacher, you can always be 
prepared ahead of time, for each and 
every case. Here’s how you can pre-
pare:
1 GATHER INTEL
Your mission, if you choose to ac-
cept it, is to teach a group of students 
you have never met before. The first 
thing you will have to do is find out as 
much as you can about them:
•	 Students’ ages
•	 English proficiency level
•	 Books and materials they are using
•	 Any recommendations/sugges-
tions? Or special cases? (Maybe 
there’s a foreign student who does 
not speak the group’s native lan-
guage.)
Do not assume you will be given this in-
formation up front. Your supervisor may 
be too busy or flustered, dealing with 
several other problems, and may only 
tell you what time the lesson is. Be sure 
to ask these questions and ask for any 
other information you deem necessary. 
Grab a pen and write all of this down.
2 FIND OUT WHAT YOU HAVE TO TEACH
In the big unknown that is a surprise 
lesson, this is obviously the most es-
sential piece of the puzzle: what ex-
actly will you do with them? There are 
two basic options: you can either teach 
them according to plan or you can re-
view what was previously taught to let 
the regular teacher pick up where he/
she left off. For obvious reasons, the 
second option is the ideal one, and the 
one that most schools accept. Howev-
er, you may be asked to continue with 
the lesson as planned. 
3 WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF OPTION 1
Say you are told you have to continue 
with the lesson as planned. You should 
expect to be given either the teacher’s 
lesson plan/notes or be told where to 
start the lesson, i.e., Chapter 10, Unit 
2. In any case, your lesson will never 
truly be like the regular teacher’s be-
cause he/she most likely has a series of 
habits in place. Don’t be afraid to make 
this lesson your own. You don’t have to 
be exactly like the regular teacher: you 
don’t have to imitate him/her. Don’t be 
afraid to bring your own personality and 
teaching style to the class. 
Now that this is clear, try this. Find out 
what the main learning goals are for 
this lesson in particular. For example, a 
quick glance at the book tells you that 
the main goal for Unit 2 of Chapter 10 
is to talk about plans for the future. So, 
as long as you meet this lesson goal, 
everything that you do in class, i.e., the 
activities you propose or the games 
you play, will be carried out to meet this 
main goal. When the regular teacher 
returns, he/she can be satisfied his/her 
students practiced and learned what 
they were supposed to.
4 WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF OPTION 2
Say you are told not to introduce any-
thing new and just review what they 
previously learned. Do not mistake 
this as babysitting. Yes, you can play 
lots of different games and do plenty of 
fun activities, but these should not be 
meant to simply pass the time. Take 
the book and find out what some of the 
previous learning goals have been. For 
example, you might see they learned 
to talk about events in the past just a 
couple of units ago. It stands to reason 
they could use a review of the simple 
past of irregular verbs. This should 
narrow down the kinds of games you 
can play and the types of activities you 
could use. 
5 GRAB YOUR SUPER SET OF TEACHING MATERIALS
Every ESL teacher should have a Su-
per Set of Teaching Materials, a box or 
bag of items that will help you teach 
anything, any day, any time, whether 
you’re teaching something new or re-
viewing. In my box, I typically have:
•	 Board markers, in an assortment of 
colors
•	 At least one pair of dice
•	 A basic board game with colored or 
numbered boxes, with no writing in 
it
•	 A few rubber balls, in different sizes
•	 A set of index cards with verbs (just 
the verb in its base form, no tens-
es), two sets are better than one
•	 A set of blank index cards
And this is justthe starter’s kit! The 
more experience you gain, the more 
you’ll add to your set. Be sure to in-
clude items that can be adapted to any 
language point or verb tense, like the 
basic board game. You change the 
rules to suit any group at any level.
Hope for the best and prepare for the 
worst? But what is the worst that could 
happen? The students won’t “like you” 
because you’re not their teacher? They 
won’t want to do the activities you pro-
pose? They won’t behave because you 
have “no authority”? If these scenarios 
are the worst that could happen, are 
they really that bad? 
DON’T HOPE FOR THE BEST. DO YOUR 
BEST. AND BEING PREPARED FOR 
ANY SURPRISE LESSONS THAT COME 
YOUR WAY CERTAINLY HELPS!
10
4 Types of Problem Students 
and Strategies to Manage Them
AS WITH ANY CLASSROOM SETTING 
YOU MAY ENCOUNTER PROBLEM 
STUDENTS IN ESL CLASSES.
Problem students are challenging be-
cause they may disrupt the learning 
environment, make your job more dif-
ficult than it has to be or just plain frus-
trate you and the other students. We’ve 
outlined four types of problem students 
and provided several strategies to deal 
with them. You will be able to spot these 
personality types from a mile away!
THE FOUR TYPES OF 
PROBLEM STUDENTS
It’s pretty easy to identify the prospec-
tive problem student from the get-go. 
Always go with your gut and diagnose 
the issue as early on as you can. That 
is half the battle. The sooner you rec-
ognize the problem student the sooner 
you can begin working on your strate-
gies to alleviate the issue and get the 
student on track.
1 THE KNOW-IT-ALL
Some students are overzealous, 
rambunctious, loud talkers or just plain 
annoying. This is usually the student 
who may be above his classmates in 
speaking ability, but not necessarily in 
overall language skills. They tend to 
display helpful nature, but may chroni-
cally interrupt, talk way too much or for 
two long, and in extreme cases may try 
to challenge you in front of the class. 
The best way to deal with this type of 
student is to provide appropriate times 
where he or she can be the leader, but 
set very firm boundaries. You need to 
make it clear to them that you are fa-
cilitator which basically means you are 
running the show. They can have their 
forum occasionally and often have a lot 
of good ideas and questions to contrib-
ute. You don’t want to shut them down 
completely. I’ve found that if you can 
disengage them in the class when they 
are getting off topic or stealing the spot-
light, they generally get the hint. Other 
times it may take a private conversa-
tion. That conversation needs to be 
treated delicately as this type of student 
usually gets a bruised ego pretty easily. 
Give them guidelines for how long they 
are allowed to have the floor, and show 
them each and every time that you are 
the decision-maker in the class.
2 THE PAINFULLY SHY
If anyone has worked in Asia or 
has Asian students, we have all en-
countered this student. They are usu-
ally female, afraid to speak, won’t make 
eye contact, and generally want some-
one to translate for them. This is a deli-
cate situation and it takes some grace 
and humor to reach them and pull them 
out of their shell. Give them time and 
take baby steps. If everyone is asking 
and answering questions, expect that 
they will do almost nothing until they 
reach a certain comfort level. Don’t 
pressure them too much, but try to get 
them to at least repeat after you and 
praise anything that they do contribute. 
The other trick to this personality is to 
use her classmates to break through. 
They will instinctively try to help, so let 
them. Students like this are more apt to 
start sharing with someone from their 
own country or someone very similar to 
themselves. Put her in pairs with some-
one who will be gentle, and chances 
are that student will reach her. You can 
also try to approach something that will 
get a reaction out of the student. Maybe 
she really likes to eat sweets. Try a little 
bribery. Or maybe she is very close to 
her family, so the lesson on family may 
get her to respond. Keep trying and 
don’t give up. Persistence is key with 
this one, and the student will eventually 
come around.
3 MR. INAPPROPRIATE
I’ve encountered this guy way too 
many times for my taste. This is the guy 
who is taking an English class to try to 
get a date either with other students or 
with the teacher. It is usually a man, 
but some women can also be inappro-
priately flirtatious in the class as well. 
First do not engage this behavior. A few 
times you may be able to laugh it off, 
but with this type of problem student, 
you are going to have to tell them what 
is appropriate (and not) for the class-
room. You may have to disengage the 
behavior a few times publicly, and then 
take him or her aside and give them the 
boundaries talk. In some cases the stu-
dent doesn’t realize why their actions 
are inappropriate. One tactic may be to 
teach a lesson on body language, pick-
up lines, or relationships. That way are 
able to approach the sensitive topics 
as a group and get some dialogue hap-
pening.
4 THE REFUSER
The refuser is different from the 
painfully shy. The refuser never wants 
to participate and feels that they don’t 
have to do the same level of work as 
everyone else. Often they don’t do 
their homework, will clam up during 
activities, and also may challenge you 
in front of the class because they are 
unprepared. This type of student can 
be really frustrating as you start won-
dering why they are in the class in the 
first place. One way to reach them may 
be soft public humiliation, meaning that 
you put him or her on the spot when 
they should be prepared and see what 
happens. With younger learners just 
being called out and not being ready 
is often enough for them to start ap-
plying themselves. You can also ap-
ply some discipline. Give the student 
double the amount of homework and 
follow through. Ask them if they need 
extra help and pair them with a student 
who can be a good role model. You can 
also try and set goals for this student. 
For every three days in a row that you 
participate you get 5 minutes extra of 
break time. The incentive should be 
small but meaningful and should also 
be applied to the whole class not just 
the problem student.
GENERALLY THE ESL CLASSROOM 
IS A JOY TO TEACH IN BECAUSE STU-
DENTS HAVE A REAL NEED AND 
DESIRE TO BE THERE.
Occasionally though, you may come 
across one of these problem students. 
Always be sure to keep your cool, ap-
ply patience instead of pressure and 
realize that you have the facilities to 
solve student issues.
11
7 Most Common Behavior Prob-
lems and How to Deal with Them
ESL STUDENTS COME IN ALL SHAPES 
AND SIZES.
They come into your classroom with vary-
ing degrees of motivation and even dif-
ferent skill levels. Most are well-behaved. 
And some are terribly ill-behaved. As an 
ESL teacher, you can handle students 
that are less motivated than most, even 
those that need a little extra help from 
you to get that particular task done. But 
we all know that handling unacceptable 
behavior is hard and can take its toll if it 
is something you have to deal with on a 
daily basis. The way we handle the day-
to-day problems will determine whether 
the same problems will keep cropping up. 
So here are the most common behavior 
problems in the ESL class and how you 
can effectively nip them in the bud.
UNACCEPTABLE 
BEHAVIOR: 7 PROBLEMS 
AND HOW TO HANDLE 
THEM
1 STUDENTS ARE RESTLESS/GET OUT OF SEAT
EXAMPLE: You’re having an animated 
discussion about ways to help the envi-
ronment and a student gets up to look 
out the window. Always give clear in-
structions, and make sure everyone un-
derstands and is engaged in the task. As 
soon as a student gets up to do some-
thing completely unrelated, walk over to 
the child, gently take their hand and walk 
them back to their seat – without inter-
rupting the lesson. If this behavior con-
tinues, talkto them about the importance 
of paying attention, participating in the 
activity at hand and controlling the urge 
to do something else.
2 PLAYING WITH TOYS DURING CLASS
EXAMPLE: Students are quietly complet-
ing a worksheet about parts of the body 
when you see a student playing with a 
doll. Gently take the toy, and place it on 
your desk or a shelf. Tell the child that 
they can share it with the others during 
the break. Make it a habit of encourag-
ing them to bring toys related to some-
thing you’re talking about in class (like 
animals). If there are certain things they 
are allowed to bring, they might not feel 
tempted to bring other toys.
3 NAME CALLING
EXAMPLE: You’re playing Bingo 
when you hear a student call a redhead-
ed child “Carrot Top”. Stop what you’re 
doing and have the child that has called 
out the offending name tell the class 
what the other student’s name actually 
is. Discuss with the class the importance 
of treating each other with respect and 
kindness and why name calling is unac-
ceptable in your classroom and every-
where else, for that matter.
4 TEASING/FIGHTING/ BICKERING
EXAMPLE: You have two students who 
can’t say two words to each other without 
starting a fight. Class began five minutes 
ago, and they’re already at each other’s 
throats. Make sure the students who 
don’t get along are sitting as far apart 
as possible. Discuss with the class the 
importance of ignoring teasing remarks. 
Talk about how arguing all the time is tire-
some, and we should accept differences 
in points of view. On the other hand, 
stress the importance of being consider-
ate towards each other and listening to 
what the other has to say.
5 THROWING THINGS
EXAMPLE: You’re writing some-
thing on the whiteboard and a pencil flies 
across the room. Tell the student that this 
kind of behavior is completely unaccept-
able. Go over the possible dangers of 
tossing objects around. Find out if they 
are doing what they’re supposed to be 
doing and redirect their efforts to the task 
at hand.
6 YELLING/SHOUTING OUT ANSWERS
EXAMPLE: You ask Tom a question, 
and Lucy yells out the answer. Tell the 
student that they’re not being courteous 
– they did not give the other student a 
chance to answer. Remind students they 
should raise their hands if they want to 
speak. On the other hand, remind them 
that it is not necessary to yell – if they 
wait their turn to speak, you will hear 
them perfectly.
7 HAVING PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS
EXAMPLE: You’re asking students 
comprehension questions about a text 
they’ve just read, and you see three stu-
dents in the back of the class holding a 
conversation. Ask the students if they are 
talking about the task at hand. Ask them 
to share their interesting conversation 
with the rest of the class, or tell them they 
can tell the others all about it during the 
break. Discuss why it is not appropriate 
to have conversations during class.
WHEN TO TALK TO 
PARENTS
As a good rule of thumb, I recommend 
contacting parents when a specific prob-
lem seems to be recurring (happens 
every day or several times a week). De-
pending on the gravity of the matter, you 
can either send a note or schedule a 
meeting. I’d save meetings for things that 
put the children’s well-being at risk, for 
instance violent behavior, verbal abuse 
or bullying.
There’s a line between being mischie-
vous and being outright malicious, and 
we can tell the difference. You can deal 
with mischievous behavior in class – 
malicious behavior should be discussed 
with parents.
PREVENTION IS THE 
BEST MEDICINE
Most of these problems will be avoided 
if you set clear rules from the start. Work 
together to establish your rules based on 
how you all want to be treated. Discuss 
the importance of treating others with re-
spect, as well as the fact there is a time 
and place for everything and that some 
things simply can’t be done in class. Don’t 
forget to establish what rewards they will 
receive for good behavior, as well as the 
consequences of inappropriate behavior.
Don’t yell, scream or shout. The best way 
to teach students to behave nicely is to 
lead by example.
12
Top 10 Tips to Deal 
With Indiscipline in the Classroom
It happens to every teacher at some 
point. Sometimes it is with the first class. 
Other times a teacher gets a few good 
years under his or her belt before it hits. 
Sometimes it seems like it happens in 
class after class. The problem that all too 
often rears its ugly head is lack of disci-
pline. Every teacher experiences it, and 
no teacher likes it. The good news is that 
there are ways to handle indiscipline in 
the classroom. Here are some tips to try 
with your students.
HOW TO DEAL WITH 
INDISCIPLINE IN THE 
CLASSROOM
1 SET EXPECTATIONS EARLYSet expectations early in the year. 
The old adage that a good teacher does 
not smile until after Christmas may or 
may not be true, but it is easier to lighten 
your leadership style as the year goes 
on rather than get stricter after being le-
nient. If it is too late to start the year off 
with a firm hand, you can always make 
a new start – with either a new calendar 
year or a new month or a new unit. Make 
sure your class knows that your are wip-
ing the slate and that your expectations 
of them will no longer be compromised!
2 MAKE RULES TOGETHERLet kids be involved in making the 
rules. Before dictating a set of classroom 
rules, ask your students how they would 
like their peers to behave. Have them 
discuss what kind of an environment 
they would like to have in class. By di-
recting a class discussion, your students 
will define a set of rules that meet both 
their criteria and your own. Because they 
have set the expectations, they are more 
likely to follow the rules and to keep one 
another in check, freeing you to do things 
that are more important.
3 CONTACT PARENTSDepending on where you teach 
and where your students come from, 
their parents may be an unexpected sup-
port when it comes to good behavior in 
the classroom. Often American parents 
will side with the child when it comes to 
conflicts in school, but if you teach stu-
dents from other cultures, and it is very 
likely that you do, your students’ parents 
will not automatically take their children’s 
side of things. In fact in many cultures, 
parents will automatically side with the 
teacher against their own child if there is 
a discipline issue. That is not to say that 
you should take advantage of either your 
students or their parents, just do not be 
afraid to approach your kids’ parents if 
the situation necessitates it. Be warned, 
though, you may not want the child to act 
as interpretor if one is necessary.
4 INVITE VOLUNTEERSDepending on the age of your stu-
dents, you may even choose to ask par-
ents into the classroom as volunteers for 
a day. Children may behave better if their 
parents are in the classroom with them. 
Not only that, if your parents interact with 
each other, the stories of how a certain 
child may behave in class could get back 
to mom and dad through other channels 
ultimately saving you an awkward and 
unpleasant conversation!
5 INVITE ANOTHER TEACHERTrading teachers could be helpful 
in your quest for a composed classroom. 
If your students have gotten used to the 
way you operate class and what behav-
ior you may let slide, having a different 
teacher for one or more periods of the 
day may spur them to act a little more 
restrained. Not only can the atmosphere 
of class change, your students will ben-
efit from listening to another voice and 
another style of speech when another 
teacher stands in front of the class.
6 WHY, OH WHY?Think about the reason behind the 
rudeness. Is it possible that your ESL 
students may be acting up to make up 
for a self-perceived inadequacy in their 
language abilities? If there is even the 
slightest possibility that insecurity may 
be behind classroom misbehavior, try to 
look past it and address the real issue. 
Does your student need confidence?Does she need a feeling of success? 
Does he need to feel equal to his peers? 
By addressing the issue rather than the 
symptoms, you will have a healthier and 
better-behaved set of students.
7 QUICK LEARNER DETECTEDIt is also possible that a misbehav-
ing student is bored with class because 
he is a quick learner. Though it may 
seem counterintuitive, putting that child 
in a leadership role may give him the 
extra challenge he needs to engage in 
the classroom activities. He will not only 
not be bored: he will have some invest-
ment in making sure the other students 
in class behave.
8 ATTENTION SPANRemembering the attention span 
of children can also help you keep your 
calm when kids act up in class. As a 
rule, estimate a child’s attention span to 
be one minute for every year of his age. 
That means a seven year old will max 
out on attention at seven minutes. Keep 
the pace moving in class without spend-
ing too much time sitting in one place. 
Let your kids move around, go outside 
or work independently to keep the (stir) 
crazy bugs from biting.
9 RESPOND, NOT REACTIt is extremely important for teach-
ers to remember to respond and not re-
act. There is a big difference between 
the two. A person who reacts acts im-
pulsively and out of emotion. The person 
who responds, on the other hand, takes 
more time before acting and separates 
his or her emotions from the decisions 
he makes. It is a good rule to follow in 
all areas of life, but it is especially impor-
tant to remember when your class is just 
plain getting on your nerves. Do not let 
your emotions get the better of you but 
instead stay calm and make logical and 
intentional responses.
10 DISCIPLINE IN PRIVATEStill, moments will come and 
days will come when one or more of your 
students will misbehave. The best way 
to address the situation is quickly and 
with as little disruption as possible. Re-
frain from disciplining any child in front of 
the class. Choose instead to have those 
conversations in private. If you respect 
your students, they are more likely to re-
spect you.
ULTIMATELY, NO CLASSROOM IS 
PERFECT. YOUR KIDS WILL HAVE GOOD 
AND BAD DAYS, AND YOU WILL, TOO.
Do your best to keep your cool when 
your students start getting out of control. 
Tomorrow will be a new day with limitless 
potential and it may just be the right day 
to get off to a new start!
13
Keep Your Cool: Tips 
for Handling Difficult Students
IMAGINE THIS: YOU ARE TRYING TO 
GIVE A LESSON ON THE PAST PRO-
GRESSIVE TENSE.
You stand up at the white board talking 
about agreement between the subject 
and the helping verb and that this tense 
is used to describe a continuous action 
that was happening at a specific point in 
the past. While most students are listen-
ing and concentrating, a child in the back 
taps his pencil, kicks his feet against the 
desk, leans back in his chair and then 
falls over on to the ground. With the clat-
ter from the back come laughs from the 
front of the classroom, an end zone style 
dance from the student in question and 
a complete loss of concentration about 
any facet of English grammar. What is 
an ESL teacher to do?
Almost every teacher has had a diffi-
cult student in one class or another, and 
some of us are lucky enough to have 
one in every class.
Though we want to be good teachers 
and be sensitive to our students, having 
a difficult student in class is confusing 
and frustrating for us. We want to give 
our student the best education that we 
can, but we do not want to condone mis-
behavior and disruption. If you find your-
self in this situation now or in the future, 
take heart. Here are some tips for han-
dling difficult students that will help you 
teach better and enable them learn bet-
ter at the same time.
IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU
Though it may be a tough thing to hear, 
the first step is to remember it is not 
about you. As a teacher, you are there to 
educate, guide and help your students. 
You are not there to have a captive audi-
ence hanging on your every word. We 
teachers sometimes have to shift our 
focus and remember why we started 
teaching in the first place. It is so easy 
to be caught up in our natural patterns 
as a teacher, especially when they have 
been effective up until this point. Hav-
ing difficult students reminds us that we, 
too, need challenges and changes in our 
teaching style. If you can germinate the 
attitude in yourself that you can always 
improve, always learn, always find some 
way to be a better teacher, teaching a 
challenging student becomes an op-
portunity rather than a chore. Use the 
situation to your advantage to refine and 
deepen your craft as a teacher. All of 
your students, both current and future, 
will benefit from it.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK
Ann, a special education teacher, gives 
this advice when dealing with a difficult 
student. “Read your students.” What 
she means is to pay attention to facial 
expression and body language as you 
teach. Challenge yourself to spend more 
time facing your students than you do 
the white board. Look at them and no-
tice the difficulty coming before it hits 
you and your classroom in full force. 
As you do this, pay attention to why the 
misbehavior is beginning. Sometimes 
students are not challenged. They may 
be a quick learner and find themselves 
bored before the lesson is over. They 
may be a struggling student who has not 
understood previous lessons and is giv-
ing up on this one as well. There may be 
a learning disability coming into play. If 
you suspect this, talk to an expert on the 
signs of and solutions for different learn-
ing disabilities. Another reason they may 
be acting up is because of a cultural is-
sue of which you may not be aware. All 
of these situations and more can make 
class hard to handle for both you and 
your student. Take heart, teacher. There 
are things you can do to make things 
easier on you both.
CHANGE IT UP
Group work can be the most effective 
way of engaging under and over per-
forming students. Pair your most ad-
vanced students with those who are 
struggling. In this, your advanced stu-
dent will become more of a teacher, 
challenging her to explain and learn the 
material better. Your struggling student 
gets individual attention and, perhaps, a 
different explanation of the concept be-
ing taught. Sometimes, too, a student 
with the same native language as the 
one who is challenging may be able to 
explain something in way in which it is 
easier for the challenging student to un-
derstand. Though you are the teacher, 
you do not have to make all the learn-
ing happen solely by your hand. Use the 
resources you have in other students to 
reach the ones you are having difficulty 
reaching. 
You can also change things up by break-
ing out of your curriculum when nec-
essary to challenge students who are 
beyond what today’s schedule says to 
teach. There is nothing wrong with as-
signing special projects to advanced stu-
dents or letting them work at their own 
pace even if it is beyond where the class 
is. When a student is not challenged in 
class, it is not uncommon for that student 
to exhibit behavioral problems. A student 
who is challenged, on the other hand, 
will be more cooperative and tolerant 
when the class is studying something he 
understood long before that time.
Getting physical is another great way 
to help students who have difficulty sit-
ting and paying attention to a whole les-
son. When a student starts fidgeting, it 
is time to get your students up and mov-
ing. If you can, relate some physical ac-
tion to whatever you are teaching. Use 
Simon Says to teach the grammar of 
commands. Have a student follow your 
instructions and move about the room. 
Do partnering activities where students 
must move their desks or walk to anoth-
er area of the room. Anything you can 
do to engage the body with the mind will 
help these students be more attentive 
and absorbent to what you are teach-
ing. Even if you cannot relate something 
physicalto what you are teaching, take a 
seventh inning stretch to make the final 
part of the lesson more accessible.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO HELP 
ENGAGE STUDENTS WHO MAY HAVE 
BEHAVIOR ISSUES. THE MOST IMPOR-
TANT THING TO REMEMBER IS NOT TO 
TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Students do not 
refuse to engage because they do not 
want to learn. If you can find the under-
lying issue behind the disruptive behav-
ior, you can tailor your lessons or assign-
ments to best meet your students’ needs. 
As a teacher, you do not always have to 
do things by the book. In fact, the best 
teachers are often the ones who do not.
14
New Kid on the Block: 10 Tips 
for the Brand New ESL Teacher
STARTING YOUR FIRST JOB AS AN 
ESL TEACHER?
Don’t know where to begin? Worry no 
more: this article will give you 10 tips 
to put your mind at ease, whether you 
are about to stand in front of a class-
room of thirty children or begin a se-
ries of seminars for teaching English 
at a workplace. Everyone has to start 
somewhere, and with these 10 tips, 
you will be ready to go!
FEEL SECURE IN YOUR 
NEW TEACHING JOB 
WHILE USING THESE 
10 TIPS
1 ESTABLISH ROUTINES
It is very important to establish 
routines in your classroom for a vari-
ety of reasons. First of all, it will help 
your classroom to run more smoothly. 
Secondly, your students will be ex-
posed to the language involved in the 
routines over and over again. This set 
of vocabulary or phrases will likely 
seem second nature to them after a 
while. Ideally, they would then be able 
to use those terms outside of those 
routines as well.
These routines could be anything from 
your greetings to them (and them to 
you), attendance, or a review of the 
alphabet, for example. The key is to 
use the same terms over and over so 
that they know what to expect and be-
gin to use the vocabulary themselves.
2 MAXIMIZE ORAL COMMUNICATION
Let your students speak aloud as 
much as possible. This helps them on 
so many levels. It puts the language 
in their hands, and helps them to take 
ownership of it. The more they speak 
aloud, the more confident they feel in 
doing so. In a beginner’s class, oral 
communication may start out as the 
students repeating what the teacher 
says. In time, students will try it out 
on their own. It all starts with your 
encouragement. It is so important 
that you support them as they begin 
to grow in the language. If they feel 
secure, they will take risks and begin 
speaking.
3 PERSONALIZE IT
Bring yourself into the class — 
your likes, your dislikes, your family, 
bring the students’ lives into the class 
as well (at least as much as they feel 
comfortable). This will not only foster 
relationships among you all which en-
courages risk taking, but it will make 
for higher interest levels as well. A 
student will always be more invested 
when talking about something he/she 
enjoys. Have a day where everyone 
brings in a picture or shows one on 
their phone, so they can describe 
the people there and the setting. The 
emotional connection the student has 
with the photo may help him/her to 
feel comfortable when speaking.
4 GROUP WORK
Be sure to have students work 
in pairs or groups frequently. This 
also encourages communication. Stu-
dents who are reluctant to speak in 
front of the whole group may be fine 
with speaking in front of two or three 
of their peers. They will be less self-
conscious. Without a doubt, students 
will learn from each other when in co-
operative groups. If it seems possible, 
assign one student as the leader of 
the group. The leader will make sure 
everyone gets a chance to talk and 
be heard. Working in groups is also 
relationship building among the stu-
dents. As that comfort level rises, the 
reluctant students will be more likely 
to take a risk and speak aloud.
5 DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION
Unless you have a class with a very 
similar make-up, you most likely will 
have students coming to your class 
with many different English abilities. 
In the beginning, you will need to get 
a general idea of the students’ levels. 
After that, it is up to you and/or the di-
rector of your program as to how much 
you cater to individual levels, and how 
much you teach “to the middle.” You 
may want to break them up into small 
groups to address their needs indi-
vidually. If you have volunteers in your 
program, this would be a good way 
to use them. Some teachers teach a 
general lesson to the whole group, 
and then break off into groups with 
ability by level for reinforcement. How 
you do this will be up to you, unless 
you are told how to handle it by your 
supervisor. Start with the class as a 
whole, get to know them, and you will 
feel what is right to do as time goes 
on.
6 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
You may think your lesson is going 
well, but how do you really know as 
you are in the middle of it? It is nec-
essary to check for understanding as 
you are teaching your ESL lesson. 
You can do this in several ways. You 
can ask your students if what you 
said is clear. Usually, they will let you 
know. If they say that it is not clear, 
then you need to show it in another 
way. You can try a hands-on activity 
to show what you mean. You can role 
play with another student who does 
understand the concept. There are 
many different ways you can present 
the same material.
7 TAKE 5: USING ALL THE SENSES
In an ESL classroom, you need to con-
vey your message in a language that 
most of the students know very little of. 
What is the best way to do this? One 
tip to remember is to involve as many 
of the five senses in your lesson as 
possible. For example, if you are do-
ing a lesson on food, you could bring 
in the food to see, touch, smell and 
taste. The multisensory experience is 
bound to help students remember the 
vocabulary and the lesson as a whole 
better. It will also increase the comfort 
level of most, which makes them even 
more comfortable speaking English.
15
8 CURRENT EVENTS
Another way to get students 
talking is to do current events. You 
will need to supply the information to 
them initially, such as some very sim-
ple articles with lots of pictures. You 
can read the article to them, and then 
they can discuss it. As time goes on, 
they may even bring in their own ar-
ticles. It is always great if you can get 
an article that would affect them per-
sonally either in their current home or 
in their country of origin. Again, if they 
are highly interested in the material, 
they are more likely to want to speak. 
It’s all about getting in that comfort 
zone for English.
9 TRADITIONS
It is important to cover the tra-
ditions and holidays that the students 
may not be familiar with. Again, this 
can be done with videos and props. 
Make sure the students get a multi-
sensory experience. You may even 
want to bring in some food and mu-
sic, and recreate the type of celebra-
tion that would usually take place. 
This would certainly make the lesson 
more memorable for the students who 
hopefully will remember and be able 
to use the vocabulary.
10 SHOW THEM WHO YOU ARE
Show your students who you are and 
how you understand their struggles 
to learn English. If you know any of 
their native language, speak it, no 
matter how poorly. Your students will 
appreciate your effort to enter their 
world, and they will see that everyone 
struggles while learning a second lan-
guage, just like them. Don’t be afraid 
to use some humor as well. Laughter 
certainly is the best medicine.
USE THESE 10 TIPS AS YOU START 
TEACHING ESL, AND YOU WILL BE 
GREAT.
The greatest part of teaching is reach-
ing that untapped mind and helping 
them believe that they can do it, that it 
was inside of them all along. So what 
are you waiting for? Go out there and 
be the great ESL teacher that you are!
16
Do This, Not That: 5 Mistakes 
to Avoid as a New ESL Teacher
We’ve all been there. Every ESL 
teacher has to start somewhere, 
and there are usually a few bumps 
in the road before the path becomes 
smooth. Most of us,despite our best 
intentions at the beginning, do things 
very differently now that we have a 
little experience under our belts. If 
you’re a new teacher, you’ll need to 
learn some things through experi-
ence, but here are some things to do 
your best to avoid when you set foot 
in the classroom for the first time.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 KEEP IT STUDENT-CENTERED
Novice teachers may find themselves 
prone to lecturing even if that is not 
what they have set out to do. Most 
of us come across the term “student-
centered” in our preparation as teach-
ers, and of course, we try to design 
activities that will foster this approach 
to learning. When a new teacher finds 
himself or herself in the classroom 
for the first time, however, it can be 
difficult to put into practice what we 
know in theory to be best for students. 
Many a nervous teacher has found 
herself talking too much in front of the 
class. Sometimes, as new teachers, 
because of our sense of responsibil-
ity to control the learning that is taking 
place, it can feel odd to allow students 
to work together in groups or indepen-
dently while we sit back and observe, 
ready to help if needed. Sometimes, 
instead of giving students the space 
they need to work through a task, 
well-meaning new teachers will “hov-
er” and interfere with group work be-
cause they believe they should be di-
rectly involved with what students are 
doing at all times. The truth is, our role 
as an instructor is to facilitate, and 
that includes setting up well-designed 
learning activities that are experiential 
and somewhat independent. Knowing 
when to let go and let things happen 
is a skill, and it’s one that takes prac-
tice.
2 AVOID COMPLICATED LESSONS
We’ve all heard the saying, “less is 
more”. This applies to teaching, as 
well. Eager teachers will often try to 
cram as much as possible into a les-
son, wanting to be as thorough and 
as comprehensive as possible. While 
we do want to maximize our often 
limited classroom time, it’s important 
to remember that concepts need to 
be easy for students to digest. We 
can make this possible by breaking 
things into pieces. In other words, we 
want to avoid overwhelming students 
by trying to teach too many different 
concepts at once. Experienced teach-
ers know that students benefit most 
from a clear step-by-step approach 
to learning. Our job as teachers is 
to make things as uncomplicated as 
possible for students.
3 DON’T TRY TO REINVENT THE WHEEL
Most of us spent many late nights 
planning lessons and creating mate-
rials when we first started teaching. 
Some of this was necessary: after all, 
planning a class is a lot of work, and 
teachers are usually very dedicated to 
making sure they are prepared to de-
liver quality instruction. That said, it’s 
important to keep in mind that the best 
teachers know how to use their time 
and available resources efficiently. It 
is okay to use the Internet to get ideas 
for how to approach teaching points, 
and it is okay to share materials. In 
fact, savvy teachers aren’t afraid to 
find something that is already cre-
ated and tweak it to suit the needs of 
a particular class. Likewise, they are 
open to sharing what they’ve created 
with other teachers in the profession. 
In actuality, this strategy will usually 
benefit students, as it brings together 
the ideas of many instructors instead 
of just one.
4 YOU ARE NOT THERE TO BE FRIENDS 
WITH YOUR STUDENTS
There is a difference between being a 
friend and being friendly. Many begin-
ning teachers, especially young ones 
who may only be a few years older 
than their students (or in some cases 
the same age or younger), fall into the 
trap of becoming overly relaxed with 
students. It’s possible to be warm and 
open to students while still maintain-
ing a position of authority. Regardless 
of age or gender, in order to main-
tain control of the class and to keep 
students focused on learning, the in-
structor has to be mindful of his or her 
role as leader. This can be tricky to 
navigate at first, but it becomes easier 
over time.
5 REALIZING YOU WILL FAIL SOMETIMES
Teaching is a never-ending exercise 
in improvisation. Of course we want 
to go into the classroom with a well-
thought out plan, but it’s inevitable 
that sometimes things will not go as 
planned. There are times that moti-
vating students can feel like an uphill 
battle, and there will be days that no 
matter how much preparation and 
careful planning went into it, a lesson 
just won’t work the way the teacher 
had envisioned that it would. These 
are challenges that can be frustrating 
and disappointing to a new teacher, 
but they are also great learning expe-
riences. Diving in and trying things out 
in the classroom is really the only way 
to learn what works and what doesn’t.
While some teachers seems to have a 
natural aptitude for managing a class-
room, most of us will need to hone our 
abilities as instructors through expe-
rience and over time. Confidence is 
key, and knowing that nothing will ever 
go perfectly as planned is a must for 
new and experienced teachers alike. 
In the early stages of teaching ESL, 
some days will feel overwhelming. 
Stick with it -- it gets easier in time!
17
Break the Ice! 10 Fun Icebreakers 
for the Beginning of the Year
EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD ICE-
BREAKER — IT’S A GREAT WAY TO 
GET TO KNOW OTHER PEOPLE AND 
HELP PEOPLE FEEL RELAXED IN 
STRESSFUL SITUATIONS, SUCH AS 
THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW SCHOOL 
YEAR.
Here are a few icebreakers and some 
variations to the icebreakers to try dur-
ing the first week of school to build 
a good sense of community in your 
classroom that will last throughout the 
year!
TRY THESE 10 
AWESOME IDEAS 
TO KICK OFF YOUR 
SCHOOL YEAR
1 NAME CHAIN GAMES
By far and away the best way to 
learn and retain student names is to 
do a name chain game to start off the 
class. You can vary the specifics to fit 
the needs of your particular class, but 
my class usually goes like this: the first 
student says 1) his or her name, 2) his 
or her home country, 3) one interesting 
fact about himself or herself, and 4) his 
or her favorite English word. The next 
student must then repeat all of the in-
formation about himself or herself and 
then say the name and favorite Eng-
lish word of the preceding student. The 
third student introduces himself or her-
self and then says the names and fa-
vorite English words of the preceding 
two students, and so on until the last 
student. For a challenge, tell the last 
student not to write anything down! As 
the teacher, you can also go last in-
stead and impress the class with your 
knowledge of their names while si-
multaneously making the last student 
feel better. Make sure you quiz your 
students throughout the week to see if 
they can remember everyone’s names 
and favorite words. I’ve also made a 
practice vocabulary quiz using each 
of their favorite English words before 
which is a great way to transition them 
into your testing style.
Variation: Instead of having students 
say their favorite English word, have 
them choose a word that starts with 
the same letter as their name, a favor-
ite city, favorite food, etc... the options 
are endless!
2 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
Your students may familiar with this 
popular tradition in January, but a new 
school year should bring about new 
resolutions for students and teach-
ers alike. Have students partner up 
with each other and discuss what 
goals they have for themselves for the 
school year. Encourage them to be 
specific with the things they would like 
to accomplish and what they want to 
be different. Make sure that you as the 
teacher make some resolutions too!
Variation: While students are talking 
together, have them create a poster 
of their resolutions. Display the post-
ers around the room to help students 
remember their goals throughout the 
term.
3 NAME THAT PERSON
Another great activity to get to 
your students to know each other a 
little better is a guessing game.Pass 
out small pieces of paper or notecards 
to each student and tell them to write 
down two facts about themselves on 
the card without writing their name on 
them. Collect the cards in a basket 
and mix them up before redistributing 
them to the students. Students take 
turn reading out the facts from the note 
card and the other students guess 
which person wrote the card.
Variation: Instead of writing them down 
on notecards, have them discuss their 
facts with a partner. After groups have 
had some time to discuss, come back 
together as a whole class. The part-
ners will take turns sharing facts and 
the rest of the class has to guess 
which partner the fact is about! Give 
a point to the partners who guess the 
facts correctly and a point to the part-
ners who are able to fool the class.
4 WOULD YOU RATHER....
Line students up in two lines with 
each line facing each other. Tell them 
to come up with creative “Would you 
rather...” questions to ask their part-
ners, such as “Would you rather eat 
pizza for the rest of your life or choco-
late?”, “Would you rather be a balle-
rina or a florist?”, etc... Give them a 
few examples to prompt them and see 
what kinds of creative questions they 
come up with. This will help to pique 
their creativity and get to know their 
new classmates. After a short time, 
have one of the lines move down so 
students will get to meet everyone in 
the other line.
Variation: In a large circle as a whole 
class, have Student A pose a would 
you rather question for Student B to 
answer. To make things even more in-
teresting, have Student B answer for 
a different student. For example, Stu-
dent A might ask “Student B, do you 
think student C would rather have a 
crocodile or a zebra for a pet?” The 
students will then guess for their class-
mate -- be sure to have Student C an-
swer to see who close Student B was!
5 FIND OBJECTS TO DESCRIBE ME ....
A classic get to know you activity is to 
have students go through their back-
packs, folders, pockets, etc... and find 
3 or 4 things that they feel describe 
them very well. Students then need 
to describe their objects and why they 
chose them as their defining objects. 
Put students into pairs to share their 
objects or share as a whole class so 
that way everyone can hear about 
their new classmates!
Variation: Send students around the 
building with cameras (phones work 
nicely these days) and take a picture 
of something in the building that they 
think defines them or could describe 
them.
18
6 WORD ASSOCIATION
A great speaking activity that 
helps to loosen up nervous students 
on the first day is a word associa-
tion game. One student says a word 
(choose a category like travel if you 
wish to narrow things down) and the 
next person must say a word asso-
ciated with that word, the next stu-
dent says a word associated with that 
word, and so on. If another student 
challenges the association, the stu-
dent must justify how those words are 
related. Make it a competition to see 
who can get the most points if you 
want to add a little friendly rivalry in 
the mix.
Variation: To make things more chal-
lenging or adapt this activity for a 
higher level class, put extra restric-
tions such as the word you say must 
begin with the last letter of the word 
the previous student said. For exam-
ple, if Student A says “Japan,” Student 
B might say “ninja.”
7 WHO AM I?
A great way to mix students up 
to arrange them into groups or just get 
them speaking to one another is to put 
nametags on the back of the students 
of famous people, teachers, movie 
characters etc... Make sure that these 
people will be well known by all of your 
students. Students must walk around 
with their nametag on their back that 
they cannot see and ask questions to 
their classmates about who they are.
Variation: If you wait a few days and 
do this activity on the 2nd or 3rd day 
of class, you can put a classmates’ 
name on their back and their peers 
will have to know that classmate well 
enough to describe him or her to the 
student. This is a great way to review 
names!
8 PICTURE STORY-TELLING
To get some of the more cre-
ative students included, give each 
student a blank piece of paper. Tell 
them to draw a picture of an event 
that happened to them recently, for 
example, a vacation they took, or a 
graduation ceremony etc... There can 
be no words on the paper. Put the stu-
dents into pairs and have the partners 
guess what went the event was based 
on just looking at the picture.
Variation: Before putting students into 
pairs, collect the students’ pictures 
and randomly redistribute them to dif-
ferent students. The students will then 
have to describe to the class what is 
going on in the picture. When they 
finish, ask the artist of the picture to 
say how close that student was and 
to narrate what actually happened in 
their life event.
9 I’M COOL BECAUSE...
If students are getting sluggish 
and you need them to move around 
the first day, do this activity. Have all 
of the students seated in a circle and 
you as a teacher stand in the middle. 
To start off the activity, you will say “I’m 
cool because...” and then finish that 
sentence with something that’s true 
about you, for example, you’re wear-
ing blue jeans, you speak 3 languag-
es, etc... Then, every student who 
shares that fact in common with you 
must stand up and find a new seat. 
You also will need to find a seat mean-
ing that one student will be stranded 
in the middle. This game is great for 
finding commonalities and getting in 
some good laughs!
Variation: Play “I have never....” in-
stead. When students are in the mid-
dle, have them call out things they’ve 
never done and have the students 
move who have done those activities.
10 3 COMMON, 1 UNIQUE
This activity is good for 
small groups. Randomly group stu-
dents into three or four and give them 
a time limit to discover three things 
that all members of the group have in 
common and one thing that is unique 
for all of them. When the time is up, 
have each group report to the class. 
Then, change up the groups and have 
them do it again with their new class 
members. If it starts to get too easy, 
start ruling out common answers like 
“We’re all from different countries” or 
“We all breathe oxygen.”
Variation: Try this with the whole 
class after doing it in small groups. 
If they’ve been good listeners, they 
should be able to recall many things 
that all students had in common. It 
may take awhile, but there are surely 
at least 3 things the whole class has 
in common!
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL CAN BE 
STRESSFUL FOR EVERYONE, BUT 
THESE ICEBREAKERS WILL HELP 
YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS GET 
TO KNOW EACH OTHER IN A FUN, 
INTERACTIVE WAY TO HELP BUILD 
THE CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT 
ALL YEAR LONG!
19
Where There Is no Smartphone: 
De-Technologize your Lessons
ESL/EFL websites are flooded with 
new techniques to add technology to 
the classroom, and help online has 
moved almost entirely in the direction of 
needing more and/or adapting teaching 
materials for a rapidly advancing tech-
nological world. Many teachers live in 
remote global areas where technology 
is not easily available or reliable, how-
ever. What options does the EFL/ESL 
teacher have in those places where 
there is no Smartphone, notebook, or 
tablet?
ADAPT TO ABSENCE 
OF TECHNOLOGY IN 
THESE SMART WAYS
1 WHERE THERE IS NO PRINTER
Not having access to a printer may 
seem like a serious dilemma for an ESL 
teacher, especially if she is from the de-
veloped world, but she just needs to 
apply a little creativity!
•	 Flashcards: have students (or 
bored local kids) draw and paint 
pictures on cardboard you saved 
from your cereal boxes or whatever 
consumer goods you are able to 
buy in your area.
•	 Worksheets: block print on paper 
if you have paper and access to 
a copier, or hand write on a giant 
sheet of paper or blackboard for 
students to copy exercises. The 
extra writing will reinforce concepts 
forthem!
•	 Tests: apply the same method as 
for worksheets, or give tests ver-
bally.
2 WHERE THERE ARE NO BOOKS
If your area has no printers, it probably 
has few or no books. What do you give 
them to read to practice?
•	 Make copies of pages of your own 
books or magazines and cut out 
good example sentences. (If you 
worry about piracy laws, remember 
that publishers never had what you 
are doing in mind when they copy-
righted the material.)
•	 Check accessible papers and mag-
azines for material in English to cut 
out.
•	 Copy vocabulary lists onto the 
blackboard for them to record into 
notebooks.
•	 Focus on speaking instead of read-
ing and writing if you have few writ-
ten options. They probably need 
that skill more anyway!
•	 If they have Internet and Smart-
phones, give them excerpts from 
e-books and tell them to read them 
as homework assignments.
•	 If they have no Internet but have 
cell phones, copy audio book mp3s 
to their devices and have them lis-
ten to them and answer questions 
or journal as homework assign-
ments.
3 WHEN YOU HAVE NO INTERNET
Plan ahead, and gather resources you 
need for upcoming classes while visit-
ing the city or wherever you can man-
age to link in. You might be able to print 
things in advance while at the Internet 
café as well. If you do not even have 
Internet close by, call people and ask 
them for advice! Call your friends or 
other ESL/EFL teachers in your net-
work to help create learning objectives 
and materials.
4 WHEN YOU HAVE NO SMARTPHONE
Increasingly, activities online are sug-
gesting integrating Facebook, Twitter, 
and other remotely available tablet and 
Smartphone social media applications. 
You can still apply social networking ex-
ercises, but in offline adaptations.
•	 Develop an exercise where stu-
dents have to interview a certain 
number of classmates in real life 
as opposed to on Facebook. They 
will actually have to get together in 
groups as opposed to chat online. 
If they live in an area with little tech-
nology, they are probably thrilled for 
a reason to get together anyway!
•	 If they have basic cell phones, 
have them text message conversa-
tions in English with partners and 
record their texts in a journal a few 
times a week.
•	 Instead of tweeting, have them 
write down three times a day “how 
they feel” or what “their status” is 
in a journal. They can share them 
with the class every week. It will be 
amusing.
•	 If they have access to cameras, or 
have them on their older model cell 
phones, have them take pictures 
of five new vocabulary words that 
they encountered in their worlds 
and “share and tell” with the class.
5 WHERE YOU HAVE NO PROJECTOR
Projectors make life much easier, but 
there are ways to get around the big 
screen.
•	 If you have a decent computer 
monitor, make the words on your 
PowerPoints really big and have 
students sit close together to watch 
your slide show.
•	 Draw! Use big pieces of paper and 
crayons. If you really live in a place 
without Internet, Smartphones, and 
printers, you are probably bored 
anyway.
•	 Take students on field trips to see 
and experience new vocabulary 
words and grammar concepts. If 
you are teaching fruits and vegeta-
bles, go to the market! If you are 
teaching present progressive, go 
to the playground or the gym and 
describe what you, your students, 
or others using the park are doing. 
“Anita is playing soccer.” “The child 
is swinging.” “They are drinking wa-
ter.”
IF YOU ARE CHALLENGED WITH 
TEACHING EFL IN A RURAL OR 
TECHNOLOGY-LACKING AREA OF 
THE WORLD, DO NOT SWEAT, BUT 
EMBRACE IT!
The reality is that you can still teach 
without a Smartphone despite what the 
Internet is telling you, and, if you apply 
a bit of creativity, your classes might 
even be extra experiential and learning 
friendly as a result.
20
MANY ESL TEACHERS, ESPECIALLY 
IN KOREA AND OTHER AREAS OF 
ASIA, SHARE THEIR CLASSROOM 
WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER FROM 
THAT COUNTRY.
These co-teachers help translate in 
class, share the marking, help with 
discipline, and often are tasked with 
helping the Native English Teacher 
negotiate the school bureaucracy 
and the local culture. This means that 
poor relations with a co-teacher can 
quickly make an ESL teacher’s life 
very unpleasant. Here are a few tips 
for smooth sailing with your co-t.
BUILD UP EFFECTIVE 
RELATIONSHIPS WITH 
COLLEAGUES USING 
THESE IDEAS
1 SMILE
Seems simple right? That’s be-
cause it is. Nobody likes a sour puss. 
Smile and be friendly. It will take you a 
very long way.
2 YOU DON’T KNOW WHO CAME BEFORE
It’s going to take a while for you to 
understand the context of your co-
teacher’s reactions, and the truth is, 
they might not be that enthusiastic 
about having you with them in the 
classroom. A lot of English teachers 
only stay a year and some make it 
clear that teaching is just a means to 
a year-long vacation for them. Even if 
you are an amazing teacher it will take 
a while for your co-teacher to be sure 
of the fact that you are not another ya-
hoo like your predecessor. Frosty at-
titudes might have less to do with who 
you are and more to do with what you 
represent when you first arrive.
3 DIFFERENT CULTURE-DIF-FERENT EXPECTATIONS
Coming mostly from western cultures, 
ESL teachers have a pretty firm idea 
of what the workplace expectations 
are in that context.
Expectations vary culture to culture. 
For example, in Korea, your principal 
has a massive amount of control over 
the teachers compared with most 
western nations. A suggestion from 
them is not a suggestion, it’s a direc-
tion. Now, places will make exceptions 
for you as a foreigner, but the sooner 
you learn what is actually happening 
the more able you will be to at least 
understand why you are getting odd 
looks for not attending that meeting 
where you won’t understand a word 
that is spoken.
4 TAKE AN INTEREST
Everyone likes to feel like their 
colleagues are interested in them 
and their lives. Ask questions (po-
litely) about what your co-teacher will 
be doing on the weekends and eve-
nings. Where did they grow up, do 
they like teaching, do they have any 
kids? Before you start asking ques-
tions though, try to get a sense for 
what types of questions are cultur-
ally acceptable. For instance, often 
things that are completely hands-off in 
the west (age) are the first questions 
asked in hierarchical cultures where 
age is important in determining social 
station.
5 GET INVOLVED
School staff will occasionally 
get together for coffee or drinks. Ask 
about these outings, try to finagle an 
invitation. In the event you are invited 
make every effort to attend. Also, get 
involved as much as possible with 
activities within the school. Does ev-
eryone gather for coffee at a certain 
time? Show up, try and participate in 
the conversation, or even just listen. 
Sometimes, just being present makes 
a difference.
6 GIFTS
This does not mean shower your 
co-teacher with presents. Little things 
like bringing in snacks and/or coffee 
for the office. Make the gifts small and 
fitting. Know that many cultures see 
giving these small tokens as a sign 
of respect and appreciation. Bring a 
small gift for your co-teacher on spe-
cial occasions regardless of which 
of your cultures those occasions are 
based in.
7 TAKE AN INTEREST IN THE CULTURE AND LANGUAGE
Ask questions about the culture. 
People appreciate it when you make 
an effort to understand and adjust to 
the culture around you rather than 
expecting everyone to adjust to your 
expectations and cultural norms. Try 
to learn snippets of the language from 
your co-teacher. There are some oc-
casions when a co-teacher seems 
stand-offish simply because they are 
a little shy about their English pro-
nunciation. Making a ton of mistakes 
trying to learn their language will help 
put them at ease with their own abili-
ties.
8 TRY TO SWITCH PERSPECTIVES
This can be pretty difficult, but when 
there is a conflict, make an effort to 
look atit from their perspective. Un-
derstand that it may very well be that 
this foreigner shows up, takes up 
some of their class time, doesn’t un-
derstand the way things work here, 
and is now blundering around and 
making a royal mess of things. It’s im-
portant to understand that you might 
actually be the bull in the china shop. 
Recognizing that (and stopping all 
thrashing) is the first step to figuring 
out how to disentangle yourself with-
out causing further damage.
9 THIS MIGHT NOT BE THEIR IDEA
Co-teachers are often the bearers of 
bad news. If your co-teacher is one 
of the few people in your school who 
speak English, they might just be the 
messenger, and I think there is some 
rule about shooting messengers. 
Things get lost in translation. Their 
boss might be coming down on them 
because you broke a rule you did not 
Make Your Life Easier: 10 Steps 
to Good Co-teacher Relations
21
know was there (or did and chose 
to ignore) and now they have to tell 
you. The fact that they are doing all 
of this in their second language and 
under stress means that the message 
might not come across the way they 
intended.
10 NO MATTER HOW RIGHT YOU ARE, 
YOU STILL MIGHT BE WRONG
Their proposal makes no sense. Your 
answer is perfectly logical ... to you. 
What they want would create mas-
sive amounts of extra, unnecessary 
work, possibly be detrimental for the 
students, and doesn’t make sense! 
Guess what? Within the context of 
their country and this job they are 
right. The key is to not fight for lost 
causes and to understand that your 
co-teacher is not being malicious. 
They are likely as frustrated by your 
resistance as you are by their insis-
tence. Don’t be bitter. It’s part of that 
adventure you were after. Shrug it off 
and move on.
CONCLUSION
Now there is a chance that even if you 
follow all of these tips, things will not 
be all butterflies and unicorns.
Some personalities just don’t get 
along. But, if you try all of these, you 
should at least be able to work with 
the person without one of you killing 
the other. Bad co-teacher relation-
ships are not that common. So, new 
teachers: go in with an open mind. 
That way, it’s more likely that you will 
have a year (or more) of happy friend-
ship ahead of you.
22
SOMETIMES IT JUST COMES NAT-
URALLY, BUT ACTUALLY “DO YOU 
UNDERSTAND?” IS THE BIGGEST 
TABOO QUESTION WHEN TRYING 
TO GAUGE WHETHER YOUR ESL 
LEARNERS UNDERSTAND THE 
POINTS BEING TAUGHT.
With such inviolable questions, learn-
ers feel obliged to answer “yes” but 
how do we really know that they do un-
derstand? Anyone can get around this 
by just answering “yes”. The phenom-
enon of just answering affirmatively is 
more common with adult learners who 
have more of a fear of being wrong, 
but it’s not uncommon with younger 
learners too who could be tired, un-
willing to answer the question or the 
fear of being teased by their peers for 
answering the wrong answer.
Learning how to ask concept check-
ing questions is one of the first things 
that ESL teachers learn in their TES-
OL or CELTA courses. However, even 
though we’re well-equipped with the 
knowledge on how to ask them and 
we know their importance, we often 
fail to do so and slip back into old ways 
and dirty habits of asking our stu-
dents “do you understand?” It is those 
teachers, who regularly use concept 
check questions in their classrooms, 
who are more effective in their teach-
ing and thus get better results. So, 
what exactly is a concept check ques-
tion? Concept checking is a method 
employed by ESL teachers to check 
the students have understood what 
has been said in quick and short ways 
without asking that question “do you 
understand?” This way of checking 
comprehension allows teachers to 
check whether the learners have fully 
understood, whether their teaching in-
structions are clear or not and it also 
helps to clarify points that are still a bit 
of a grey area of not. While concept 
check questions are not a difficult no-
tion, it does take time to get used to 
them, but just like everything else it 
will get easier the more you practice.
HOW TO CHECK 
COMPREHENSION 
WITHOUT ASKING ‘DO 
YOU UNDERSTAND?’
1 PUT YOURSELF IN YOUR STUDENTS’ SHOES
Everything taught or referred to in the 
ESL classroom needs to be checked 
for comprehension. Some simple 
things that we believe to be easy may 
just seem like a totally new tongue to 
your learners – well it is! Firstly, we 
have to remember that they’re not 
learning in their L1 so there are more 
chances that things will get lost in 
translation so to speak. To really un-
derstand how it feels to be your stu-
dent, imagine what it feels like to be 
listening to a seminar or lecture that’s 
completely above your head for ex-
ample, astrophysics. Even better still, 
jump online and play and try to under-
stand a college video lecture that’s 
totally out of your expertise area and 
see how much of it you can actually 
grasp – this is exactly how your lan-
guage learners feel sometimes when 
points are not explained properly. For 
many ESL teachers, they forget what 
it’s like to be a student and for others 
who have never studied another lan-
guage, they just have no idea.
2 NEVER TRANSLATE!
No translation is the golden rule 
of ESL teaching – translating basi-
cally goes against everything we’ve 
ever learned as ESL teachers. While 
it may seem easier just to give a quick 
translation when we’re met with blank 
looks, it can actually be more det-
rimental to their learning. The main 
reason why translating should be 
avoided at all costs is that from lan-
guage to language there are different 
ideas, concepts and behaviors which 
are alien to our learners – things that 
just don’t exist in their L1, therefore 
they can’t be translated.
3 CHECKING QUESTIONS WITH QUESTIONS!
The quickest way to check a learn-
er’s understanding is by asking other 
questions. This can be done when 
learning vocabulary, grammar or in 
reading comprehension. Checking 
new terms and information with short 
quick questions is a surefire way of 
gauging whether your learners have 
caught on and whether your instruc-
tion has been clear or not. For ex-
ample you’ve taught the word ‘pool 
boy’. How can you test they have re-
ally understood what a ‘pool boy’ is? 
Ask them short closed questions that 
require “yes/no” answers to determine 
whether they know it or not. “Is he a 
lifeguard?” “Does he clean the pool?” 
“Would he bring you a cocktail?” “Is 
it his job to serve you?” The above-
mentioned are a few example ques-
tions that could be asked to check if 
they know the true meaning. Asking a 
question that requires the word “may-
be” could also make the learners think 
a little more and it’s a good idea for 
more advanced learners and if time 
allows you could also get the learners 
to justify their answers.
Asking questions with “yes/no” an-
swers will take the pressure off the 
learners to give full answers. In this 
way you’ll give the learners more 
confidence as they’re only required 
to speak one word and there’s very 
little focus on one student. Addition-
ally, asking closed questions is the 
fastest way to check comprehension. 
You can move around the class and 
ask individual learners about different 
things or you could ask the questions 
to the class as a whole and have the 
learners answer in unison. Having 
the students answer in chorus at the 
beginning will make the learners feel 
more at ease with answering such 
quick fire questions without thinking 
too much.
Avoid using the target word in the 
question if possible. If you’re trying to 
convey the word “peace” you wouldn’t 
say “is peace quiet?” Write the focus 
6 Tips to Help You Check 
Comprehension
23
word on the board and ask simple 
questions such as “do we fight when 
we have it?” “can we touch it?” “can I 
have it in my mind?” “do most people 
want it?” Repeating the same word 
over and over again could become 
confusing and it’s easier just to have it 
in frontof them visually rather than be 
heard in every question.
4 PICTURES
It’s true what they say – pictures 
tell a thousand words. The great thing 
about pictures is that everyone sees 
the same thing. If one student sees a 
lemon, the rest of the students see a 
lemon too. Pictures, if chosen wisely, 
can clearly show the image of animate 
objects. Pictures are especially good 
with younger learners and beginners 
as there’s a lot of repetition. If you’re 
trying to teach the meaning of steak, 
hold up two or three pictures showing 
people eating different foods and ask 
the question, “Which picture shows 
the people enjoying a steak?” The 
learners will then answer picture A, B 
or C.
In order to work with pictures for con-
cept checking you’ll need to be super 
organized. While quick and short ver-
bal concept check questions are easy 
to come up with on the spot for the 
more experienced ESL teacher, pic-
tures are not – and even if you wanted 
to quickly sketch them on the board, 
it wastes a lot of unnecessary time. 
When planning a lesson, it’s neces-
sary to decide which words will be the 
key words and which words they’re 
unlikely to know. Time needs to be 
taken to gather the resources – the 
traditional methods would have ad-
vocated flashcards but these days it’s 
much easier to use the internet and 
powerpoint if you have access to them 
in your classroom.
5 MIME IT
For younger learners a great 
way to check they’ve got it is by ask-
ing them to mime. Young learners 
respond well to actions and the total 
physical response is an effective way 
of learning. Call out the words and 
have your students act them. It can be 
used for simple actions, but it can also 
be used for things, especially if they’re 
in pointing distance from your learn-
ers. A quick action or a simple point 
of the finger will let you know whether 
they’ve caught on or not. This method 
will also improve retention in the future 
as it’s been proven that putting words 
together with actions helps in the ac-
quisition and retention of vocabulary.
6 OPPOSITES/SYNONYMS
Using a little bit of variety in your 
concept checking methods will make 
them more effective. Another great 
and quick method of checking compre-
hension is to ask your students for the 
opposites of words. Or you could ask 
them if something is the correct oppo-
site, “is empty the opposite of clear?” 
“No?” “What is?” Using synonyms and 
opposites will not only check their ac-
quired knowledge, it will also help in-
crease their vocabulary banks at the 
same time.
REMEMBER FOR YOUR LEARNERS, 
THINGS IN ENGLISH DON’T COME AS 
NATURALLY AS THEY DO IN THEIR 
L1.
When teachers inundate their learn-
ers with difficult instructions or com-
prehension questions it could leave 
them feeling slightly inadequate and 
exposed which will have a negative 
effect on their learning. A good ESL 
teacher will continue to check their 
comprehension in quick non-obtrusive 
ways to ensure understanding and 
learning is taking place no matter what 
their level or age is as our number one 
goal is to have our students learn and 
learning can’t take place if there’s no 
comprehension.
24
Get Them Talking: 3 Activities 
That Motivate Students to Speak
One of the greatest challenges we 
face as EFL teachers is getting our 
students to actually use the language 
in class. Many students are very shy 
about using English, worried about 
their grammar, accent, or many other 
mistakes. Because fluency is so im-
portant for daily communication in any 
language, we as teachers need to find 
some way to get them talking. Reward 
systems and tying class attitude and 
behaviour scores to participation cer-
tainly helps address this problem, but 
forced participation is never as produc-
tive as when participation voluntary. To 
this end, it is worth the teacher’s time 
to use speaking activities that get the 
students excited and participating for 
that reason instead of coercion.
Games are one of the best ways to 
accomplish voluntary participation, 
even among the lower level and shy 
students. Adding an element of com-
petition, especially on an individual 
basis, encourages students to try their 
best and helps them lose their inhibi-
tions around speaking English in front 
of their peers. So here are three tried 
and tested speaking games that have 
proven to be effective and a ton of fun.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 MATCHING ACTIVITY
This activity only really works for 
topics in which there are specific an-
swers for specific questions or specific 
responses to certain situations. Some 
preparation is required on the part of 
the teacher. Create a set of question/
situations and the correct answers/re-
sponses. For a class of 30 it’s best to 
have 15 of each. Print four or five sets 
of these (more for advanced classes) 
and cut them up so that each question, 
situation, answer, or response is on its 
own small slip of paper. Be sure that 
you keep them in sets (ie. one full set 
of answers and one full set of ques-
tions – not all the questions in one pile 
and all the answers in the other). 
In class, hand out one set of answers 
and one set of questions. Students 
then circulate and try to find the coun-
terpart to their card. When they do, 
they find a teacher and read out the 
question and response as a dialogue. 
If they are correct the teacher marks 
each of their slips (the students keep 
the completed slips) and hands them 
two new slips from the next set of 
questions and answers. Students then 
go and try to find a match for their new 
slips. Mark the slips to make sure stu-
dents do not try to use the same slip 
to match with several different people. 
The marks also serve as points. Con-
tinue this process for either a set time 
limit or until all of the slips have been 
handed out. When the activity is over 
the student with the most marked slips 
is the winner.
For higher level classes, stipulate that 
all communication when trying to find 
their partner must be done in English.
2 PYRAMID GAME
This game requires very little 
preparation on the teacher’s part. All 
that is really needed is four increas-
ingly complicated dialogue pieces. To 
help with student clarity, I either draw a 
pyramid on the board, or have one on 
a presentation slide. Divide it into four 
levels. Each level is associated with 
a two or four line piece of target lan-
guage that the students have learned 
in the unit. From the bottom to the top 
they should be easiest to hardest. All 
students start at the bottom and must 
work their way up. They do this by find-
ing another student on their level and 
going through the dialogue together. If 
one student can’t complete their part 
of the dialogue they remain on that 
level and their opponent advances to 
the next level. If they both successfully 
complete their half of the dialogue, 
they play rock, paper, scissors to de-
cide who advances. Once they have 
completed all four levels , they come 
and find the teacher. The teacher can 
ask them any question from the entire 
unit, or preceding units for high level 
classes. If the student gets it correct 
they play rock, paper, scissors against 
the teacher. If the student wins they 
are a winner. If they lose they go back 
to the bottom level. Continue the game 
until you reach a pre-set number of 
winners.
Some versions of this game associate 
each level with an animal or action. 
The students who are on that level 
must act like the animal so they can 
locate one another.
To extend the amount of time this 
game takes, the loser of each battle 
can go down a level. Also, if a student 
playing rock, paper, scissors against 
the teacher loses, the entire class 
goes back to level one.
This game can be very difficult to mon-
itor, as the students are all over the 
classroom and all talking at once. One 
method to help with this is to have the 
students police themselves. Tell them 
that if they see pairs playing rock, pa-
per, scissors without first completing 
the dialogue theycan tell you and you 
move the students down a level and 
require them to complete a dialogue 
set in front of you to advance. Also, 
emphasise that if one person cannot 
complete the dialogue then the other 
person advances without any need to 
go through the rock, paper, scissors 
process.
Students seem to appreciate the ele-
ment of luck that rock, paper, scissors 
introduces into this activity.
3 SENTENCE ELIMINATION GAME
This game is one that works espe-
cially well for low level classes as it 
does not require using English freely. 
The teacher must prepare a presenta-
tion with one sentence on each slide. 
I usually create a conversation based 
on the topic and using the dialogue the 
students have most recently learned. 
Ideally, use relatively short sentenc-
es. If you can get several one or two 
word responses in there it keeps the 
students on their toes. To make things 
more interesting you can add several 
other picture slides between the sen-
25
tence slides. One is simple an ‘out’ 
slide. If a student gets that slide on 
their turn they are out. One is a slide 
that does not affect the student that 
gets it but the one who is next. If that 
student is still in the game, then they 
are out. If they were already out then 
they are in. The final kind is a ran-
dom action (make kids jump and say 
something or whatever). They must 
do it within five seconds or they are 
out. Whatever you do, you will need 
at least one slide per student with a 
few extras.
Once in class, have all students 
stand up. Set an order among them. 
When each student’s turn comes they 
have the choice of reading one or 
two words from the sentence on the 
screen. Not more or less. Whoever 
is forced to read the last word of the 
sentence is out. Depending on what 
other slides you have included, there 
is also a sense of randomness when-
ever you change the slide. Keep go-
ing until there is only one student still 
standing. They are the winner.
CONCLUSION
I have found these games are great 
ways to get the students speaking 
for the last half of class. I usually tell 
them there will be a game if they are 
well behaved and participate and that 
increases the speaking level even be-
fore the game comes out. Be aware 
that all of these games can get a bit 
noisy as the excitement builds. Frank-
ly, that’s part of the fun and it’s what 
helps the kids forget their inhibitions. 
So, try one out and enjoy the laughter!
26
Kick start your students’ creativity 
with these 9 tips for using images
USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IS 
ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA AND USING 
IMAGES TO GET YOUR STUDENTS’ CRE-
ATIVITY GOING MAKES FOR ENJOY-
ABLE, INTERESTING AND REWARD-
ING LESSONS.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 A GOOD START TO THE WEEK
For the first lesson of the week a nice 
warmer is to use some newspaper pho-
tographs that represent news stories 
from the previous week. Select pho-
tographs that are linked to a variety of 
news stories. Make sure you choose 
photos that have a range of difficulty: 
it’s always good to have a couple of 
more obvious ones. Put your students 
into pairs and stick up the photographs 
around the classroom. Ask the students 
to go and look at the photographs in 
their pairs and discuss which news sto-
ries they think they are related to. They 
should then make a list of the photo-
graphs and write down the stories that 
they refer to. If they don’t know ask 
them to create a story idea to match the 
photograph. The pairs should then join 
up with another pair and discuss their 
ideas. Class feedback usually brings 
out some fun and interesting ideas. The 
nice thing about this warmer is that it 
can be used every week with different 
stories.
2 DISCUSS AND DEBATE
Images can also be used to prompt 
a discussion or debate. Choosing a 
strong photograph which represents a 
controversial topic can be a great lead 
in to discussion or debate lessons. For 
debate lessons choosing two images 
that show contrasting views on a top-
ic can be a good starter. For example 
choosing a picture of a beauty pageant 
alongside a picture representing child 
exploitation can evoke a strong debate.
3 USING NEWSPAPERS
Put students into groups of 3 to 4 
and give them a mixed assortment of 
newspaper photographs and headlines. 
Ask the students to match the correct 
headline to the photograph. Another op-
tion is to just give out the photographs 
and ask students to make up their own 
headlines and then give them the cor-
rect headline and compare.
4 CATCHY CAPTIONS
This is a fun activity and should 
bring out the humour in your students. 
Give out some photographs of varying 
types. Maybe you could find pictures of 
animals or people in strange situations 
or with strange expressions on their fac-
es. Students should then come up with 
captions for the photographs. This could 
be made into a competition with voting 
for the funniest captions.
5 CHARACTER CREATION
Photographs can be used to help 
students create characters in creative 
writing lessons. Give out some images 
of people with differing ages, situations, 
nationalities etc., try and choose strong 
images of interesting looking charac-
ters. Ask your students to use the photo-
graph they are given to create a charac-
ter profile. This is a great way to get your 
students to use character adjectives. 
They should describe what they see but 
also what they think the character’s per-
sonality, lifestyle and occupation is.
6 CHARACTER CREATION EXTENSIONS
One way that the above idea can be ex-
tended is to get your students to team 
up with another. They can then put both 
their characters into a situation where 
there is a conflict and write a short dia-
logue. The students can then role play 
their dialogues in front of the class. An-
other extension is to write a monologue 
using the character they have created.
7 A SENSE OF PLACE
Images of places can be very evoc-
ative and can promote the use of some 
great descriptive language. Choose 
some photographs that are strong visu-
ally. Maybe they show extreme weather 
or idyllic scenes or you could choose ur-
ban scenes of people living on the street 
or at a festival. The students should 
work in pairs and first of all discuss what 
they see. Then ask them to think about 
how someone would feel in that place 
and come up with a story idea based in 
the setting. They could then work on de-
veloping the story.
8 USING PICTURES TO PRAC-TISE GRAMMAR POINTS
Pictures can be useful when teaching 
grammar. For example giving students 
pictures of people doing various activi-
ties and then asking them to describe 
what they see will encourage the use of 
the present continuous. Using pictures 
to encourage the correct use of preposi-
tions can also be useful. Give students 
a picture of a room and in pairs ask 
them to describe the position of different 
objects -- encourage peer correction.
9 PICTURE DICTATION
In an Upper Intermediate or Ad-
vanced class put students in groups of 
3 or 4. Give one student in the group 
a picture of a famous painting and ask 
them to describe what they see. The 
other students should try to draw a rep-
resentation of what has been described. 
They can then compare their drawings. 
Continue until each person in the group 
has had a chance to describe a paint-
ing.
You can also use picture dictation for 
lower level groups to practise vocabu-
lary of position and prepositions. Use 
pictures that show a room and again 
in groups of 3 or 4 ask one student to 
describe the objects in the room and 
where they are situated. The other stu-
dents should try and draw a plan based 
on what the student says. It is advisable 
to choose the strongest student in the 
group to describe first.
USING IMAGES IN YOUR CLASS-
ROOM WILL MAKE LEARNING FUN. 
GIVING STUDENTS AUTHENTIC AND 
INTERESTING IMAGES FROM WHICH 
TO PRACTISE THEIR SPEAKING OR 
WRITING SKILLS WILL ENCOURAGE 
THEIR CREATIVITY AND LANGUAGE 
USE.
27
Creating an Effective Learning 
Community
A lot has been written about diverseclassrooms and their advantages. 
From many years of experience as an 
instructor in diverse classrooms, I can 
attest to this: there is nothing quite 
as energizing as the flow of ideas, 
sometimes heated, that comes out of 
a classroom among people of vary-
ing levels of maturity, cultural back-
grounds, and socioeconomic status. 
However, that is not to say that these 
classrooms are without disadvantag-
es. 
An inherent concern in the diverse 
classroom is initial student alienation 
from each other. What, after all, does 
the eighteen-year-old female fresh-
man have in common with the male 
veteran in his thirties readjusting to 
being a civilian? Or to the student 
with gang/criminal history trying to 
straighten out his life? To the young 
immigrant student longing to break 
free from the confines of his parents’ 
boundaries? How does the instruc-
tor create a community of students of 
such varied background and goals? It 
is a challenge, but it can be done. 
HOW TO CREATE AN 
EFFECTIVE LEARNING 
COMMUNITY
1 INITIAL ICEBREAKING ACTIVITIES
Group activities should be incorporat-
ed from the first day, in learning about 
the class together. On the first day, 
have students work in groups to come 
up with three to five critical questions 
they have about the class -- they can 
then read the syllabus to find the an-
swers or ask the instructor. Further 
ice breaking activities related to the 
course content or college life can be 
incorporated in the early days of the 
class in surveys to find out peers’ col-
lege majors, for example, or past ex-
periences related to the course con-
tent. For example, as the first writing 
assignment, I had students write their 
“literacy biography,” in which they dis-
cussed their own experiences with 
reading and writing. All students were 
reflective on the topic, and in this way 
they also got to learn each other’s 
backgrounds -- if they had second 
language/cultural experience, for ex-
ample, or if they shared the same in-
terests in reading material. 
2 INSTRUCTOR MODELING 
Instructors must model the be-
havior they wish to see in students: in 
this case, authentic concern for each 
student and her experiences. If the in-
structor treats each student as if her 
contributions to the class discussion 
are valuable -- and invariably they are 
-- then the other students will act ac-
cordingly and take an interest beyond 
the students of similar background 
that they might normally gravitate to. 
For example, a number of students 
had unexpected opinions on the top-
ics of our criminal justice system and 
treatment of drug offenders -- unex-
pected and perhaps unacceptable, 
in a traditional college setting. But by 
modeling listening to their opinions on 
the topic, even if they weren’t entirely 
socially acceptable -- e.g., opinions 
on the criminal justice system, drawn 
from personal experience of involve-
ment with that system--respect for dif-
ferent viewpoints was modeled. 
3 GROUP WORK/ DISCUSSION 
Discussion of course readings is one 
of the activities that can really get 
students exchanging ideas with each 
other. The discussions are based on 
core class readings, on topics such 
as language use and learning, from 
writers like Amy Tan and Richard 
Rodriquez, both of whom have writ-
ten compellingly of their experiences 
in growing up in bilingual homes and 
of language learning. Language is of 
course a universal -- everyone has 
experience with it, and it is through 
dialogue here that students can be-
gin to exchange opinions and experi-
ences. For example, many students 
have had the experience of suffering 
through foreign language classrooms 
with less than effective instruction (it 
is a source of constant amazement 
to me that California youth who may 
have taken Spanish from kindergar-
ten onward leave high school without 
being able to communicate in the lan-
guage at all.) Because students have 
this shared experience, and probably 
have reflected on it, they can discuss 
why the instruction was so ineffective 
and what might have improved it. 
4 CORE TOPICS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONCERN 
Once students are comfortable dis-
cussing more universal topics, they 
can begin discussing specific social 
issues that are still of general con-
cern. For example, one of the course 
readings was written by a man serv-
ing a life sentence for an unpremedi-
tated murder committed when he was 
a young man. He wrote compellingly 
about how the prison system, focused 
on punishment rather than rehabili-
tation, was ineffective in addressing 
crime -- mostly committed by people 
such as himself: young males with 
poor impulse control who would not 
in their lives commit another crime. 
Because most students have some 
experience with crime -- either as 
victim, or a relative of a perpetrator, 
sometimes themselves a perpetrator 
-- all were concerned with the topic 
and had varied perspectives on it to 
share. Entering a dialogue with each 
other on a topic of importance deep-
ened understanding of the topic and 
each other. 
5 EXTENDING THE DIALOGUE: ONLINE 
DISCUSSION BOARDS 
The dialogue can be further extended 
to online discussion threads, if your 
class has a companion website or 
“learning management system,” as 
many do today, such as Blackboard 
and Turnitin, websites set up spe-
cifically for classroom use and which 
can be modified by individual class 
need. I posted some of our topics on 
the discussion threads portion of the 
site, asking students to post once to 
28
the topic and to at least two peers’ 
responses. This got students more 
involved in the topic and deeper re-
sponses their peers were developed 
as students were more able to reflect 
than in a face-to-face discussion and 
did not have to worry about turn-tak-
ing as they did in class. In addition, 
introverted students who had trouble 
speaking up in class were drawn into 
the dialogue more. Most students 
went beyond the required participa-
tion because they became committed 
to the dialogue. 
6 INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS AND RESEARCH BASED 
ON STUDENT INTEREST 
Once students have become accli-
mated to the academic dialogue, they 
are ready to develop the dialogue 
more through independent research 
and writing on a topic of individual 
interest. It is here that students are 
really drawn into what it is to be a col-
lege student. Some students chose 
to write about topics we had been 
discussing, such as gun control, but 
others chose to research a topic of in-
terest to themselves -- cleared by me, 
the instructor, for appropriateness 
(they invariably were.) One young 
man, a returning student, researched 
the value of the four-year, liberal arts 
degree, focusing on the drawbacks 
(expense, time, lack of focus on stu-
dent need and interest, all leading to a 
high attrition rate). This research gen-
erated a great deal of interest from his 
peers and led to students considering 
focusing their college goals early and 
learning ways to limit expense. In ad-
dition to generating interest in other 
students, students who posted their 
writing received feedback on ways to 
improve their work from their peers-
-critique they were receptive to as 
they now knew and were comfortable 
with each other. 
7 CAUTIONS: HEATEDNESS. MIXING UP THE GROUPS.
Are there some concerns in students 
sharing diverse opinions? Of course. 
A major one is the concern of con-
versations getting overheated, which 
quieter students in particular may find 
uncomfortable. Usually a reminder 
from the instructor to respect each 
other in exchanging opinions is all that 
is needed. In addition, a problem I en-
countered last semester was groups 
“solidifying” early, with students work-
ing over and over again with the same 
peers -- usually those they happened 
to be seated near. In teaching the 
class again, I would make sure that 
students changed the groups every 
day. 
THERE ARE CHALLENGES AS WELL 
AS BENEFITS TO WORKING IN A 
DIVERSE CLASSROOM. 
However, with teacher planning andeffort, students can move beyond ini-
tial discomfort to sharing their experi-
ences enough to feel comfortable in 
the dialogue with each other and cri-
tique of their each other’s work that 
make an effective learning commu-
nity. 
29
This is Boring...: Sure-Fire Ways to 
Turn Your Students on to Reading
One of my first teaching experienc-
es was in a continuation classroom 
in California, which is a classroom 
filled with students who have expe-
rienced school failure in some way: 
truancy, poor grades, behavioral 
concerns, etc.
The goal is to get the students back on 
track and into the regular classroom. To 
do that, it would seem to take a specially 
designed program targeting individual 
student needs and interests. However, 
when I arrived, I found students already 
experiencing reading failure attempting 
to read William Golding’s “Lord of the 
Flies,” a mid-twentieth century novel 
on the nature of war, as school boys 
stranded on a island during WWII await 
rescue. They gradually form the same 
kind of separate cultures and war struc-
tures that their parents had and which 
had landed the boys on the island in the 
first place. This is powerful material and 
is on the list of recommended books for 
high school reading. However, it was not 
ideal for these specific students: it was 
in British English, not American, and 
therefore somewhat “foreign” to them 
from the start, due to the vocabulary and 
grammatical differences of the two dia-
lects -- it is also in academic language 
and filled with unfamiliar language and 
symbolism. Finally its themes, while uni-
versal, were still at an abstract level the 
students could not relate to. So the book 
had a number of problems that made it 
a poor choice for the class in that it did 
not interest students, and therefore they 
did not read it nor develop their reading 
skills. How, then, may a teacher address 
a class of reluctant readers? There are 
a number of ways:
1 GO WITH STUDENT INTER-ESTS
I was recently talking to my daughter’s 
karate instructor, a very bright young 
man and excellent teacher who is not, 
however, educated beyond the high 
school level. However, he told me that 
he wanted to start reading more than 
he did, which wasn’t much as he didn’t 
enjoy it. But he wanted to read some 
“good books,” and because my daugh-
ter had told him I had published a novel, 
he asked about that. I explained to him 
I wasn’t sure that it would be of inter-
est to him as it was a story of roman-
tic suspense, involving heroines in peril 
and the heroes who save them, and so 
forth — a genre for a largely female au-
dience. He appeared somewhat dubi-
ous but insisted that he wanted to buy 
the novel on Amazon. This is a common 
concern with developmental readers —
they believe that there are “shoulds” in 
reading, that it is to be taken like medi-
cine and not enjoyed, and as if reading 
something within their own range of in-
terests is “cheating” or wrong somehow. 
If the student’s main interest is karate or 
some other sport, that is a good start-
ing place as there are many fine novels 
and other reading material written on 
that topic. It is likely then the reader will 
identify with the topics and/or characters 
and will have the vocabulary base to un-
derstand the material.
2 EXPAND THEIR INTERESTS
Once students are comfortable 
reading within their own interests, it’s 
time for instructors to expand those in-
terests. You might suggest to your stu-
dent, “Because you enjoy reading mate-
rial about sports, you might like Bernard 
Malamud’s ‘The Natural,’” which is a 
classic novel about baseball set in the 
early 20th century, but which also draws 
in a lot of American culture at that time, 
literary symbolism of heroism, as well as 
the history of baseball. From this read-
ing, students might develop an interest 
in the history of baseball, for example, or 
other books by Malamud. The instructor 
can then refer students to the library or 
online or traditional bookstores.
3 GO WITH STUDENT LEVEL
Connected to going with student 
interests is going with their own level, all 
part of banishing the “should” phenom-
enon. I’ve seen really novice readers 
struggle in private tutoring sessions with 
reading the King James version of the 
Bible, which they brought in to work with 
(not in a public school context where this 
would be inappropriate) because they 
thought this was a reading “should.” The 
Bible is difficult material for an accom-
plished reader as it’s written in Elizabe-
than English and is set in a context and 
society far removed from our own. In ad-
dition, even experienced readers of the 
Bible typically study only a page or two 
at a time. One young man I remember in 
particular whom I was tutoring through a 
private literacy program would grimace 
and complain over the text, “Mrs. Levy, I 
just can’t deal with this.” He was bright, 
could decode written English, but had 
poor comprehension skills. I finally said, 
“William, you don’t have to deal with it 
yet remain a religious person. But there 
are millions of other print materials in 
English.” It was as if a light came on for 
him, and I realized he may have come 
from a home where the Bible might in-
deed have been the only book available. 
We spent the rest of the session search-
ing the stacks and came away with sev-
eral books at his level.
An alternative for students who really 
feel they “should” be reading something 
spiritual or religious is to suggest stories 
excerpted from the Bible and written in 
contemporary English. There are also 
editions of the Bible “translated” into 
contemporary American English.
4 MAKE IT INTERACTIVE
As with writing, reading can be a 
lonely pursuit, and students are often 
used to working in groups, and indeed 
learning itself has traditionally been a 
group process. So understandably stu-
dents might balk at the notion of spend-
ing long periods of time alone with a 
text, not sure if they are even under-
standing it. As might be predicted, their 
attention starts to wander, and the text 
is forgotten. To counteract this problem, 
the teacher can take a number of steps 
such as allowing students to read a por-
tion of the text and then asking ques-
tions, reading aloud while the students 
follow along (particularly powerful for 
nonnative speakers as they can hear 
how the text should sound), or setting 
up the students in groups with compre-
hension and discussion questions.
SO DOES READING HAVE TO BE 
BORING, INCOMPREHENSIBLE, AND 
PAINFUL? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
With some guidance from the teacher 
in selecting reading appropriate to stu-
dent interest and level and making the 
process interactive, students, too, can 
discover the joy of reading.
30
FAQ for Reading Teachers
MY FIRST READING CLASS WAS A 
CHALLENGE.
I was filled with questions on how 
to apply the instructional methods I 
had studied, and I found that my fel-
low teachers were my best resource 
in getting me through that first year. 
Later, with teaching experience came 
a new role. Now I was answering 
questions for each year’s new crop of 
teachers. Here are some of the ques-
tions I asked and answered over the 
years, and you might have too, about 
teaching reading.
CHECK IF YOU KNOW 
THE ANSWERS TO 
THESE FREQUENTLY 
ASKED QUESTIONS
1 SHOULD STUDENTS READ OUT LOUD IN CLASS?
We start reading out loud very early in 
our own academic careers. As early 
as kindergarten we take turns with our 
classmates reading one paragraph 
or one sentence at a time from our 
text books and handouts. Learning a 
second language, however, doesn’t 
demand the read aloud skill. In fact, 
reading out loud says more about a 
student’s pronunciation skills than it 
does their reading skills. When stu-
dents read aloud skillfully, it is easy to 
mistake their good pronunciation and 
fluency for comprehension, which ac-
tually has very little to do with whether 
a person can read out loud. In addi-
tion, if you think about the practical ap-
plications of English inyour students’ 
futures, very rarely will they ever have 
to read out loud. For these reasons, 
I do not have my reading students 
take class time to practice the skill of 
reading aloud. My preference is that 
students read longer passages at 
home and that class time is for com-
municative and comprehension activi-
ties. When students do need to read 
in class, I have them read silently and 
use more effective methods to check 
their comprehension. That’s not to say 
we never read out loud -- it’s just not 
something I make a point of spending 
class time on.
2 HOW DO I MAKE READING COMMUNICATIVE?
Communicative classrooms are those 
that focus on language use – primar-
ily verbal. When you are teaching 
students how to read long (or short) 
passages from a text book, communi-
cative activities are not as instinctual 
as they may be in, say, a speaking 
class. Still, reading can be communi-
cative. Discussions are an easy way 
to incorporate verbal language use 
into a reading class. Have groups of 
students make predictions about a 
reading selection based on pictures 
and headings. Do post reading dis-
cussions to see if students can reiter-
ate the points in an article or retell the 
events in a piece of fiction. Jigsaws 
are also great for encouraging com-
munication between students. Have 
three students read different sections 
of an article (one to two paragraphs is 
usually enough) and then have them 
explain their sections to students who 
did not read them. If you break your 
article into three parts, put three stu-
dents together to discuss the article. 
One student should have read each 
part. They can then tell each other 
what they read and piece together the 
overall content of the article.
3 HOW DO I CHECK STU-DENT COMPREHENSION?
With a little creativity, you can check 
reading comprehension in lots of fun 
and communicative ways. Try se-
quencing events of a story. Have stu-
dents retell the major events of a fic-
tional piece in comic strip style. Have 
students write about characters in 
their reading piece or write a letter to 
that character. Have students act out 
what they read or draw diagrams of a 
place or item discussed in the reading 
selection. Have students write their 
own comprehension questions with 
multiple choice or true/false answers, 
then have the class answer all of the 
questions. 
4 SHOULD I TEACH VOCAB-ULARY, TOO? IF SO, HOW?
Nearly every ESL teacher, no mat-
ter what class they are teaching, will 
be a teacher of vocabulary. Without 
vocabulary, one cannot know, under-
stand or use a language. But for read-
ing teachers, vocabulary instruction 
should be secondary. At every level, 
reading passages will contain words 
that are unfamiliar to your students. I 
have found that teaching vocabulary 
on an as needed basis works best in 
my reading classes. I challenge stu-
dents to guess the meaning of unfa-
miliar words in a passage before us-
ing an English only dictionary to find 
the definition. If your students make 
notes on the meanings of certain 
words in a reading passage, make 
sure they are on a separate piece of 
paper. This will encourage students to 
remember what the word means and 
not rely on their notes or translation 
for comprehension.
5 HOW DO I MAKE READING PRACTICAL/REAL LIFE?
The more you can include realia in 
your classroom, the more practical 
your instruction will be. Think about 
the goal of your students. Will they 
pursue academics in English? Will 
they use English in their place of busi-
ness? Are they studying for some oth-
er reason? Once you have pinpointed 
why they are learning English, think 
about the types of materials they will 
need to read in that environment. 
Academic students will need to read 
text books and take exams. Business 
persons will have to write letters and 
emails. Use these materials whenev-
er you can. You will have to teach dif-
ferent strategies for reading – reading 
a text book with headings and subject 
specific vocabulary is different from 
reading a business proposal. Teach 
your students how to read the materi-
als they will encounter after your class 
and they will have a strong skill set for 
real life reading when they complete 
their ESL programs.
6 WHAT ARE SOME UNEX-PECTED PLACES TO FIND 
GOOD READING MATERIAL?
If you are teaching English as a sec-
ond language in the U.S. or other 
English speaking country, reading 
sources are all around you. You can 
use almost anything to teach your 
students practical reading skills. I 
have used common items like ce-
real boxes and ice cream containers 
and others that were not so common 
like movie schedules, weather maps, 
greeting cards and transcripts from 
chat rooms. If you are looking for in-
teresting reads for your students, pay 
31
close attention for a day or two of all 
the things you read. You will probably 
find that you read far more than you 
realize: traffic signs and instructions, 
product manuals, television program-
ming guides, magazines, cooking in-
structions and many others. Make a 
list of all these things you read, and 
then think about which ones will tie 
into your curriculum. For example, I 
had my students read an ice-cream 
container before reading an article on 
the Ben and Jerry’s corporation. (Of 
course, we shared the pint, too.) If you 
are teaching overseas, you might find 
good and creative reading material a 
bit more difficult to find, but still take 
note of what you read. You can find 
many English materials online even if 
you can’t bring the original source to 
class.
WHETHER YOU ARE NEW TO TEACH-
ING READING OR ARE ANSWERING 
QUESTIONS OF YOUR COWORKERS, 
I HOPE YOU FIND THESE ANSWERS 
HELPFUL.
32
They Can Learn: 3 Essentials 
in Teaching Illiterate Kids
IF YOU ARE TEACHING ESL/EFL 
TO 5-10 YEAR OLD CHILDREN 
IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY, OR 
TO IMMIGRANT CHILDREN IN A 
DEVELOPED ONE, YOU MIGHT FIND 
THAT THEY ARE FUNCTIONALLY 
ILLITERATE.
Most children globally do not learn to 
read until a few years later than de-
veloped country kids, and immigrant 
children or children of immigrants 
have probably been moved around 
quite often and have received little to 
no formal education. Young children 
love to learn, however, and they learn 
fast. Teaching English can even help 
them learn how to read and write. If 
you find yourself tasked with teach-
ing enthusiastic illiterates, read these 
3 essential tips to reach your learning 
outcome goals.
APPROACH 
ILLITERATE STUDENTS 
IN AN ADEQUATE WAY
1 AMEND YOUR MATERIALS TO TALKING 
AND LISTENING
Most ESL/EFL documents available 
on the Internet and in guidebooks, or 
that you already have developed for 
other classes, are reading and writing 
intensive. Convert them to talking and 
listening activities. You can use a little 
bit of writing to emphasize points, but 
focus on the sound of the words con-
nected to their meanings.
For example, if you have flash cards 
for fruit, either convert them to pic-
tures or table them for real fruits and 
repeat each word 5 times. Go around 
in a circle with your students and have 
them repeat the words over and over. 
Then make a game of it: have them 
compete for who can pronounce the 
word first after just showing the food 
or card. You will see that they can-
not write the word or read it, but they 
know it and can say it just from talking 
and listening!
For grammar do the same – show, do 
not tell. When teaching to be, make a 
game using “I, you, he/she/it” and one 
or two simple adjectives, like colors or 
“skinny”. If a lot of students have blue 
or red on that day, teach what blue 
and red are if they do not know, and 
then ask “Am I red?” (you are wearing 
blue pants and a black shirt). They will 
look at you confused. Then say, “No, I 
am blue!” pointing to your blue pants. 
Then point to a students’ red shirt and 
say, “You are red!” or “He is red!” They 
will just catch on after a few and you 
can take turns.
2 DESIGN ALL TESTS AS ORAL
You will need to amend all tests to 
be oral exams.If you can make them 
fast and do one-on-one evaluations, 
great. An oral test is better because 
they should practice their speaking 
back to you. If you do not have time 
for one-on-one evaluation, create a 
hand out accompaniment to an oral 
test where they have to match pic-
tures to the words you are saying. 
For emotions use smileys. For action 
verbs show action pictures of people 
or animals doing things. You can de-
sign a test with a PowerPoint alterna-
tively, asking them to pick A or B for 
the right answer to your questions.
3 GET PARENTS INVOLVED
These kids do not read because 
their parents either did not teach them 
or cannot teach them. Either way, you 
want to get them involved. Children of 
this age might learn to read and write 
in elementary school, but if they are 
not receiving support at home they 
will probably struggle. Here are a few 
ways to get parents more involved:
•	 Make them come to class every 
once and a while and participate. 
Chances are these parents could 
benefit from learning English as 
well and might be interested! It 
will actively get them involved 
with practicing at home.
•	 Give homework that involves 
reading and writing and tell them 
to ask their parents for help. 
Homework that involves inter-
viewing family members is good 
as well.
•	 One day in class make books that 
they can take home and share 
with their families. A great re-
source for free downloadable and 
printable color-in books is http://
www.readinga-z.com/.
•	 Be explicit. Tell parents on the 
first day of class that they need to 
be involved!
TEACHING KIDS CAN BE AN 
E X T R E M E L Y R E W A R D I N G 
EXPERIENCE.
Their natural exuberance for learning 
and their boldness to try new things, 
ask questions, and probe without shy-
ness gives them a tremendous stu-
dent potential. Don’t let their inability 
to read and write and hence learn tra-
ditionally scare you away!
33
Dyslexia in the ESL Classroom – 
5 Ways to beat it!
EVERYBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO 
LEARN AND BE WELL-EDUCATED 
AND LIKE IN ANY CLASSROOM WE 
CAN FIND PEOPLE FROM A NUMBER 
OF DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS IN 
AN ESL CLASSROOM.
Often people are quick to pre-judge 
others with dyslexia and often they’re 
cruelly labeled with ‘lazy’, ‘unwilling’ 
or sometimes even ‘stupid’. Many oth-
ers are quick to dismiss students with 
dyslexia and brand them ‘impossible 
to educate’. These students are nei-
ther lazy nor stupid and they’re defi-
nitely not impossible to educate. As 
teachers we need to be prepared for 
every kind of student and understand 
that each student has different learn-
ing needs – in other words we need 
to revert back to the very beginning of 
our teacher training days and remem-
ber what we were taught about adapt-
ing our lessons.
Firstly, we must examine dyslexia to 
understand what it is and how it af-
fects our students. While many people 
are under the assumption that dys-
lexia just affects reading and writing 
skills, it actually affects all four skills. 
Each case of dyslexia varies from the 
next and the symptoms can be differ-
ent among students, however, there’s 
one difficulty that all dyslexic people 
encounter and that’s with the written 
word and their failure to decode or 
recognize and interpret letters. Oth-
er signs of dyslexia can be reversed 
shapes, skipping words or phrases 
while reading, incoherent and incon-
sistent spelling, word blurring, confu-
sion between left and right, illegible 
writing and even difficulties pronounc-
ing certain phonological sounds. The 
biggest misconception with dyslexia is 
that it can be cured. While it can’t be 
cured so to speak, we can help train 
the brain in order to manage dyslexia 
properly. So how can we help promote 
learning among dyslexic students and 
facilitate their learning so they get ev-
erything they need out of their ESL 
lessons?
FACILITATE DYSLEXIC 
STUDENTS’ LEARNING 
IN AN EFFICIENT WAY
1 RECOGNIZING CONSO-NANT BLENDS
One of the biggest problems that 
dyslexic students face is recogniz-
ing and distinguishing different let-
ters. While it’s difficult for them in their 
own language they probably have an 
even harder time with their L2 – not 
because their L2 is more difficult, but 
because they not only have to man-
age their dyslexia but also try to learn 
English at the same time. If you’ve 
caught on to the fact that your student 
has dyslexia from the onset then you’ll 
be more prepared.
Using a simple 10x10 squared grid, 
randomly place three different sounds 
in the different squares for example, 
SN, SP, ST. After this ask your student 
to count how many SN sounds they 
can see and so on. This will help your 
students scan across the lines looking 
for specific information and learning 
how to recognize the letters within a 
smaller cache.
Another way to practice consonant 
blends is to make flashcards. Each 
consonant blend will be made up of 
two different cards – one with only 
the sound e.g. CL and the other with 
a word that features the consonant 
blend and a picture e.g. CLIP. Have 
the students match the cards and read 
the words after having matched them. 
This activity can be used not only with 
dyslexic students but any lower level 
student that is learning phonological 
sounds and word recognition.
2 PRACTICING SPELLING
While most dyslexic students 
can train themselves to read without 
too much trouble they still continue to 
have problems with spelling, which is 
made worse when learning English 
as it is not a phonetic language and 
there are too many exceptions to the 
rule. There are number of fun different 
ways to help a dyslexic student im-
prove their spelling which in turn will 
also be beneficial to your other stu-
dents as spelling in English is notably 
harder than most other languages.
Chunking is a great way to help stu-
dents learn to spell longer words cor-
rectly. Take one word, break it up into 
different sounds and write the sounds 
vertically down the board. E.g. com – 
mun – i – ca – te. Have the students 
read out each sound one by one with-
out telling them that it makes a word. 
Once the students have learned the 
different sounds and memorized the 
simple two or three letter combina-
tions have them put them all together 
as one word. This activity will give 
students more confidence in tackling 
longer words and dealing with spelling 
difficulties.
3 PICTURE IT!
For more advanced students, 
who really feel silly breaking down 
words, mnemonics could benefit them 
especially if they’re visual learners. 
Mnemonics is the art of visually form-
ing an association with the word. The 
first trick could be to visually recog-
nize through their eyes. E.g. Tenden-
cy – the word tendency has the let-
ters EN on either side of the D which 
helps students add to the layers of 
the memory which will help them 
learn how to spell the word easier. 
Try to encourage students to use their 
imagination when they picture words. 
With the word ‘possession’, you could 
explain to the students that the S let-
ters are protecting the letter E. If they 
turn the S letters into $ signs the word 
would look like po$$e$$ion and we 
could remember it as a ‘valuable pos-
session’. Having the students make 
up little quirky phrases to match the 
word’s spelling is also a fun way of 
helping students learn how to spell 
words correctly. For example the word 
‘because’ could be broken down like 
this: Big Elephants Can Always Un-
derstand Smaller Elephants. While 
learning spelling through mnemonics 
could be more time consuming, it will 
34
help students draw their own associa-
tions and create their own rules and 
of course the more imaginative a stu-
dent is, the more fun it will be.
4 RECOGNIZING YOUR BS, PS & DS
Because the written language is di-
rectional and those suffering from 
dyslexia often get muddled up be-
tween right and left, it’s easy for them 
to get confused with the way the let-
ter should go round or even with the 
direction in which the letter should be 
read. In Englishand other languages 
that use the Latin alphabet there are 
a number of letters with mirror images 
meaning that if you placed a mirror 
on a letter, it would represent the ap-
pearance of a different letter. The let-
ters that are mixed up the most are 
p-b-d. It can be really frustrating for 
students when they experience diffi-
culties with directions and they need 
to be taught a couple of useful tips 
as to how they should approach it. If 
you can, have your students always 
remember the word ‘bed’ – this can be 
done by holding your thumbs together 
and pointing your fingers upwards. 
The left hand will represent the ‘b’ and 
the right the‘d’. This will not only help 
dyslexic learners, but it will also help 
those learners who are beginners or 
who have a different written script in 
their L1.
Using flashcards is also a great way 
to help students differentiate between 
the p-b-d sounds. Have a number of 
small flashcards with only pictures 
that represent words starting with 
the troublesome letters. For example 
you could have pictures of a pin, pan, 
dog, dinosaur, ball, bat and so on. 
Go through the flashcards and have 
the students say the word that corre-
sponds with the pictures. Afterwards, 
using exactly the same order as be-
fore, go through the pictures again, 
this time having the students not only 
say the words but to write them too. 
Remember while we can’t cure dys-
lexia we can train the mind to deal 
with it and as the old adage goes, 
‘practice makes perfect’.
5 CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS
Words in English are made up of dif-
ferent syllable and can often be clas-
sified with the beginning sounds for 
example ‘pro’ and ‘con’. Classifying 
words and then practicing with the 
same groups of words but with differ-
ent exercises will help not only stu-
dents suffering from dyslexia but your 
regular ESL students too. First write a 
group of words in a box that can either 
be connected to the words beginning 
with ‘con’ or ‘pro’ for example, profes-
sional, program, prohibit, pronounce, 
confess, concentrate, conceal. Have 
the students classify them into groups 
under the corresponding categories 
of either ‘pro’ or ‘con’. Have the stu-
dents then break the words up into 
different syllables and write them us-
ing dashes to separate each syllable. 
Finally, to give the students some ex-
tra practice in recognizing and writing 
the words, have them directly associ-
ate them with written lists to describe 
the word. For example you could write 
the words ‘doctor, teacher, lawyer’ on 
the board and the student must write 
down the word that is related to, in this 
case it would be ‘professional’.
A native English person who has 
dyslexia has a hard time with the 
language -- imagine a person who is 
learning English. Dyslexia is not a life 
sentence, although in some cultures 
parents fail to recognize it in their chil-
dren due to a loss of face or seeing 
as a parenting failure, but with a little 
bit of hard work and a lot of patience 
and right learning methods dyslexic 
learners can also enjoy learning Eng-
lish. If dyslexia is left undetected or 
untrained it could lead to a whole new 
kettle of fish such as social problems. 
In fairness, we need to adapt lessons 
for everyone and even those students 
who don’t suffer from dyslexia could 
benefit from the techniques that are 
used by teachers.
IF YOUR DYSLEXIC STUDENT IS IN 
A CLASS, YOUR LESSONS SHOULD 
BE VARIED.
Try not to bombard the students with 
just worksheets or exercises to ben-
efit a student with special needs, in-
stead integrate it with other methods 
and remember the golden rule of ESL 
teaching, have something for every-
one and something for every style.
35
Sure-Fire Ways to Turn 
Your Students on to Writing
FEW THINGS CAN BE SO BORING 
AND DEADLY AS THE WRITING 
CLASS FILLED WITH RELUCTANT 
WRITERS. AND FEW PEOPLE ARE SO 
UNMOTIVATED AND RELUCTANT AS 
THE RELUCTANT WRITER.
Reluctant writers often have had poor 
experiences with school in general 
and writing in particular. They see 
writing as a painful, confusing, and 
pointless exercise — a viewpoint 
they’re not shy to express, at length, 
whenever asked, and frequently when 
not. You might throw up your hands 
in despair — how does anyone teach 
anything to such a class? However, 
there are methods to address the 
writing – averse class and turn its stu-
dents into a group of aspiring and mo-
tivated writers.
TYPICAL PROBLEMS
1 NEGATIVE PAST EXPERIENCES
One of the major problems students 
have with writing is negative past ex-
periences. These experiences might 
include teachers who didn’t care 
about their ideas, or told them they 
were “wrong”, an over-focus on cor-
rectness such as comma placement 
and less on what the writer had to say, 
an over-focus on really nonessential 
material, such as setting up the head-
ing of their work. After years of having 
their work covered in red ink, many 
students simply give up. This is not 
to say that grammar and punctuation 
are unimportant, of course. But they 
should be introduced to students in 
their correct place — as tools to writ-
ten communication, rather than the 
purpose of writing itself.
2 NOT SEEING THE PURPOSE OF WRITING
Related to the over-focus on issues 
of correctness is not seeing the larger 
picture, the purpose of writing. Many 
students see writing as a pointless 
exercise, something one does only in 
school which has no relation to any-
thing in “real” life. Talking to students 
about the many functions of writing 
— to contest a bill, to express love, to 
critique a movie, to create stories and 
song lyrics — will help students begin 
to see the many functions of the writ-
ten form beyond what could possibly 
be expressed in a text message or a 
tweet.
3 NOT HAVING THE TOOLS TO WRITE
Another problem for novice writers is 
just not having the tools to write — not 
even knowing where to begin, often. 
When given an assignment, many stu-
dents just sit over a blank page with 
no ideas and real notion of even how 
to get an idea to write about. Or they 
may, with much trepidation, actually 
write an introduction of some sort, but 
then just freeze, not knowing where to 
go from there. These are some of the 
explanations for the blank-faced stu-
dent sitting over a blank page.
4 LONELY, NONINTERACTIVE PROCESS
A major concern in writing instruc-
tion is that even today it is taught and 
practiced as a solitary pursuit — most 
written pieces are individual, not col-
laborative efforts, often written while 
alone. Humans are by nature social 
creatures, and many of today’s stu-
dents in particular have been raised 
in various groupings at school, home, 
daycare, and so forth. Therefore, 
these students crave the interaction 
they just don’t get while writing.
5 NOT HAVING EFFORTS RECOGNIZED
A last concern is students not having 
their efforts recognized. Again, the 
purpose of writing is to communicate, 
and if the teacher just files the student 
writing after grading it, the whole pur-
pose of writing it seems thwarted. Stu-
dents, like people everywhere, want 
their efforts validated, some recogni-
tion that their ideas were understood 
by another person.
METHODS TO TURN 
WRITING APATHY 
INTO WRITING 
ENTHUSIASM
1 DISCUSS WHAT MAKES GOOD WRITING
I like to begin the term by discuss-
ing what makes good writing, when 
students have read something and 
thought it was well-written, that they 
enjoyed reading, that they wish they 
had written, etc. Usually at some 
point, a student (usually with down-
cast eyes) states that she is not a 
good writer and therefore is incapable 
of judging good writing. I’ll then say 
that I can’t paint, but I know a good 
from bad painting. This opens up 
the door to students’ experiences as 
readers and what they value as read-
ers — which are usually not comma 
placement and spelling but rather 
vivid details, ability to organize them, 
the ability to communicate a theme or 
main idea through such devices as 
repetition. Not coincidentally,these 
qualities of a clear main idea, organi-
zation, and details are the very quali-
ties that are generally recognized by 
experts as “good writing.” I’ll at this 
point hand out the grading rubric for 
the term and show how many of the 
qualities students have identified as 
“good writing” are actually on the ru-
bric.
2 DEMONSTRATE VALUE OF WRITING
As often as the first day of class, rec-
ognizing that many students in the 
class are reluctant writers, I’ll ask how 
many in class really don’t like writing. 
Somewhat sheepishly, many students 
put up their hands. I’ll thank them for 
their honesty, and then we’ll move into 
what they don’t like about writing, and 
they’ll usually catalogue the reasons 
mentioned in this article, one of the 
main reasons being not feeling that 
writing means anything, that it has 
any value. This gives me the oppor-
tunity to discuss the things that writing 
can do for them: lodge a complaint, 
36
express a viewpoint, declare love, etc.
3 EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF WRITING
After students have participated in the 
discussion of good writing and stud-
ied the rubric, they are ready to judge 
strong and not so strong writing. I’ll 
pass out representative papers, gath-
ered with permission from students 
in past semesters and with names 
removed, and have current students 
use the rubric to “grade” the paper. 
Then I’ll tell students what grades 
the papers actually received. There 
is usually a remarkable consistency 
in the student and teacher grades 
(sometimes students will actually 
grade more accurately and according 
to the rubric than I did, perhaps be-
cause my objectivity was skewed by 
the writer’s personality or effort.) This 
exercise further cements students’ 
view of themselves as writers, able to 
judge quality in writing.
4 TEACH THE WRITING PRO-CESS AND GIVE STUDENTS 
THE TOOLS TO ACHIEVE
Once students are “fired up” about 
writing, it’s time to learn the writing 
process. That writing is a process of 
stages from brainstorming to drafting 
to editing surprises many students 
— they are under the misconcep-
tion that the professional writers of 
those beautiful essays in their books 
cranked them out in one sitting in one 
draft. Showing students the process 
most writers go through is helpful.
5 MAKE WRITING INTER-ACTIVE AND RECOGNIZE 
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
To make writing more interactive, 
have students work with each other 
as much as possible — brainstorm-
ing ideas together, reading drafts of 
their papers aloud, proofreading each 
other’s work. These activities are like-
ly to have students looking forward to 
rather than dreading writing class.
TEACHING A CLASS OF RELUCTANT 
WRITERS IS A CHALLENGE INDEED.
However, through such activities rais-
ing awareness of what good writing is 
as well as the purposes of writing and 
making the whole process more inter-
active, students will transform from re-
luctant to enthusiastic writers.
37
I Have to Teach Writing: Where to 
Start with Your First Writing Class
YOU WALK INTO YOUR WRITING 
CLASS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE 
SEMESTER. YOUR STUDENTS ARE 
SITTING PATIENTLY WITH THEIR 
TEXTBOOKS AND LAPTOPS, WAITING 
FOR YOU TO BEGIN. BUT WHERE DO 
YOU START?
What do your students already know? 
And what do they still need to learn? 
Whether you are new to teaching writ-
ing or have dozens of classes under 
your belt, you can use these ideas on 
the first day of class to help get your 
students’ words on the page.
WHERE TO START 
WITH YOUR FIRST 
WRITING CLASS
1 THE BASICS
Of course, one of the most com-
mon activities for the first day of writing 
class is a timed, in class writing. You 
can give your students a writing prompt 
and set 20-30 minutes aside for them 
to fill up the pages. Doing so will give 
you a good idea of your students’ skills 
when it comes to writing. This type of 
writing is also common on standard-
ized tests, something your students will 
probably encounter in the future. Your 
students, on the other hand, may not 
want to write another essay when they 
have been writing this type of composi-
tion for language tests and for admis-
sion into language schools. In addition, 
in class essays don’t always give you, 
the teacher, much information about 
your students as individuals, and get-
ting to know them is an important com-
ponent of successful ESL programs. 
Timed writings on the first day have 
even more drawbacks when you strive 
to create a communicative environ-
ment in your classroom because your 
students are not talking, interacting 
or using the language they know in a 
communicative manner.
2 HAVE A CHAT
You do have options beyond the 
in class essay for the first day of writ-
ing, though. You can get your students 
talking to one another and give them 
some writing practice in the process by 
having students interview one another. 
Assign pairs of students to ask one 
another questions and then write their 
partner’s answers, turning in the writ-
ten interviews at the end of class. Stu-
dents will enjoy getting to know each 
other, and you will still get a measure 
of the level of writing they are com-
fortable with. When students hand in 
their interviews, make sure each one 
includes the writer as well as the per-
son he interviewed. As students talk, 
you can walk around your classroom 
and jump in on different conversations. 
It will give you a chance to get to know 
your students a little bit and will also 
set the communicative tone for class. 
While better than the in class essay for 
the first day, interviews still have limita-
tions. Some may see them as a waste 
of time since they do not touch on the 
writing curriculum, and your students 
aren’t necessarily learning anything 
about written language in completing 
them. Plus, if you have students who 
have very limited proficiency in written 
English, interviews may be too compli-
cated or challenging for them on the 
first day of class.
3 GROUP PROCESSING
An even better activity, which 
may allow you to get to know your 
students, help them get to know one 
another and touch on the writing cur-
riculum, is getting started on the writing 
process. I always tell my students that 
there is P.O.W.E.R. in writing as a pro-
cess (Prewriting, Organizing, Writing, 
Editing, and Rewriting). They learn in 
my classes that good writing does not 
come from just sitting down and put-
ting words on a blank page, but that 
the process of writing is fluid, chang-
ing and flexible. If you plan to teach 
the writing process in your class, as 
many writing teachers do, starting your 
first class at the beginning of the pro-
cess with prewriting (or idea generat-
ing) may be the right plan for you and 
your students. Students at all levels of 
English proficiency can do prewriting 
activities. Some activities are simple, 
like brainstorming a list on a certain 
topic. Everyone can participate no mat-
ter what language level they are at, 
and students have a chance to share 
a little bit of who they are and get to 
know one another and you in the pro-
cess. Other activities can touch on 
language proficiency (like answering 
journalistic questions about a given 
topic — who, what, where, when, why 
and how) or encourage creativity (idea 
mapping, also known as cluster map-
ping). Through this type of activity, your 
students have some common ground 
on which you can build, and they can 
use the ideas they generated when 
composing their first written piece.
ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT WILL WORK 
BEST FOR YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS 
ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS, AND 
THE MORE CLASSES YOU TEACH 
THE EASIER YOU WILL BE ABLE TO 
DISCERN THAT ANSWER.
The biggest key to any successful ESL 
program, though, is being flexible. Tak-
ing the effort to read your students’ 
body language and determine their 
emotional states will do more for a fun 
and beneficial ESL experience than 
anything else. And the more tools you 
have ready in your back pocket, the 
easier it is to adjust your plans when 
you need to!
38
FAQ forWriting Teachers
Writing might be my favorite ESL 
subject to teach.
I haven’t always been confident, 
though, when it came to teaching writ-
ing. I learned from my peers, from my 
teachers and from my colleagues. It’s 
from the knowledge and experience 
of all these people that I became the 
teacher that I am today. These are 
some of the questions with which I 
struggled most (plus some others) 
when I first started teaching writing.
CHECK OUT 
THE ANSWERS 
TO IMPORTANT 
QUESTIONS 
ABOUT WRITING
1 HOW MUCH SHOULD MY STUDENTS BE ABLE 
TO WRITE?
It is difficult to put a word count on 
an ESL writing assignment. Because 
different students study English for 
different purposes, what they really 
need to know depends on how they 
intend to use English after complet-
ing their language studies. For stu-
dents pursuing higher education in 
English, they should at least be able 
to write a five paragraph essay with-
out struggle. Students who can write a 
five page research paper will be even 
more prepared for their writing needs 
in college. Students who will use Eng-
lish for business purposes after their 
language program will have different 
writing needs. They should be able to 
compose simple business correspon-
dence – memos and emails – and 
maybe more complex items such as 
grant applications depending on their 
jobs. As long as students who com-
plete your program can do what they 
need to do, you can feel good about 
what you have taught them. 
Until they make it to the end of their 
programs, you can use these guide-
lines. Beginning students should be 
able to write a paragraph, intermedi-
ate students should be able to write 
three to five paragraphs, and ad-
vanced students should be able to 
write five paragraphs or more.
2 SHOULD I CORRECT EVERY GRAMMAR MISTAKE 
IN MY STUDENTS’ WRITING?
It’s tempting to mark every error in a 
student’s written work. Many times, 
students have asked us teachers to 
do just that. They want to know every 
error that they have made. On top of 
that, we have learned so much about 
the English language that grammati-
cal errors naturally jump out at us from 
the page. It feels good to mark them 
knowing that they will be corrected. 
The problem with noting every error 
on the page, however, is that students 
get discouraged in their writing. Even 
students who ask for extensive edit-
ing get discouraged when their pag-
es are continually filled with red pen. 
When this happens, students are less 
likely to challenge themselves or use 
more complex writing in their compo-
sitions. They simplify what they write 
to avoid mistakes. The best strategy 
is to choose certain types of errors to 
correct on a page, and correct those 
errors consistently. For beginning stu-
dents you might want to focus on plu-
ralization and conjugation errors. For 
advanced students you might want 
to focus on comma errors. Match the 
skills you are expecting to the level of 
your students. Save more complex 
corrections for more advanced stu-
dents, raising your expectations as 
they advance through your program. 
Eventually, your students will learn to 
write with minimal errors, but never 
expect perfection from anyone.
3 HOW DO I GRADE WRITTEN WORK?
Grading essays isn’t like checking a 
multiple choice essay. There are no 
clearly right or wrong answers and no 
way to calculate a percentage for a 
written piece. My personal strategy for 
grading written pieces is to use a ru-
bric. A rubric is a chart specifying your 
expectations for an A paper, a B paper 
and so on. A rubric usually has three 
to five categories which it examines. 
Noting where a student falls on each 
of those points and then averaging 
them will lead you to an overall grade 
for the written piece. 
4 SHOULD I INCLUDE TIMED WRITINGS IN CLASS?
Whether or not to include timed writ-
ings in class can be a difficult ques-
tion for writing teachers. Timed writ-
ings sometimes seem like a pointless 
waste of valuable class time. How-
ever, doing timed writings in your 
class will actually help prepare your 
students for writing challenges in their 
future. Most ESL students will go on 
to take the TOEFL test or other similar 
measures of language competency. 
As part of this test they will have to do 
a timed writing. Giving your students 
timed writings in class also teaches 
them test taking strategies for essay 
exams at the collegiate level. Your 
benefit to including timed writings in 
class is getting a pure measure of a 
student’s writing skills without influ-
ence from friends, native speakers or 
classmates. With all these potential 
benefits, I admit I do schedule some 
class time for timed writings. I do try 
to keep them to a minimum – one or 
two per semester. We have far too 
much material to cover in my classes 
to spend much time on in class writ-
ing. When I need to, I have students 
do timed writings during open lab time 
or during office hours. That way we 
don’t lose class time but my students 
still get to practice writing in a timed 
setting.
5 SHOULD I LET STUDENTS USE DICTIONARIES IN 
CLASS OR FOR ASSIGNMENTS?
Using dictionaries in writing class can 
be a double edged sword. When ESL 
students, or any language students 
for that matter, do not have an English 
word to express their ideas, they can 
get “stuck” in their writing. They may 
struggle to find the exact word they 
are looking for and not be able to get 
past that thought in their writing. Allow-
ing students to use bilingual dictionar-
ies helps them avoid this hurdle. On 
the other hand, not allowing students 
bilingual dictionaries in class forces 
them to be creative with the language 
that they do know to get their ideas 
across, one of the primary goals of 
language. Because of all these things, 
I decide the dictionary question on a 
per student basis. Some students will 
39
not overuse a bilingual dictionary, but 
having that resource makes writing 
must less stressful. Others will be-
come overly dependent on a diction-
ary if I allow it in class. Determining 
what each student needs, then, is the 
key to answering the dictionary ques-
tion.
6 WHAT ABOUT CANNED ESSAYS? HOW TO 
RECOGNIZE PLAGIARISM?
A canned essay is one that a student 
has memorized and can write from 
memory. Sometimes students memo-
rize canned essays for standardized 
testing. The most famous perhaps be-
gins with a description of the student’s 
home country in the spring. I discour-
age canned essays in my students by 
providing unusual and specific writing 
prompts. Checking for plagiarism is 
another way to avoid canned essays. 
Recognizing plagiarism on a cold read 
can sometimes be nearly impossible. 
Many websites offer free services for 
plagiarism checks. Copy Scape and 
Grammarly are two of the most com-
mon. To check for plagiarism, have 
your students submit an electronic 
copy of their essay and then copy and 
paste what they have written to one of 
these free plagiarism checking sites.
40
How to Structure 
the Curriculum for ESL Listening
YOU HAVE JUST BEEN ASSIGNED 
YOUR FIRST ESL LISTENING CLASS.
Yes, you heard right (pun intended): 
a focus on listening, just listening, not 
conversation and pronunciation as 
well, which is usually the case: that 
is, listening is usually incorporated in 
the larger context of a speaking skills 
class. So a major question is: “What 
do we even do all term?” And maybe 
even “Why this class?” (Your students 
might actually have this concern as 
well.) Not to worry: there is plenty of 
rationale for an ESL Listening class, 
and there is much to do to keep you 
busy all term.
REASONS FOR 
FOCUSING ON 
LISTENING ONLY
There is a rationale for an ESL class 
focused on listening, besides just a 
desire to round out the ESL program 
and hire more teachers.
1 STUDENT NEED
Most people have a need to im-
prove listening skills: native and non-
native speakers of English alike, and 
there are academic, professional, and 
personal reasons to develop good lis-
tening skills. People takephone mes-
sages, follow directions, and listen 
to customers, friends, and cowork-
ers talk all day long, face to face and 
on the phone. Not listening well and 
therefore not understanding can dam-
age relationships.
2 FOCUS
In a broader speaking skills 
class, there is a tendency to focus on 
teaching conversation and pronuncia-
tion — which all relate to listening, of 
course. However, because it tends to 
be harder to assess and teach, the at-
tention to listening can get lost. And 
courses designed to teach pronuncia-
tion, or accent reduction, and conver-
sation and speaking skills are actually 
pretty common. Courses with a focus 
solely on listening are rarer, although 
as necessary.
3 TESTING
The standardized testing stu-
dents need to do well on for admis-
sion into an American university, such 
as the TOEFL or Test of English as a 
Foreign Language, are in part based 
on listening skills: as part of testing 
their conversational and academic 
English skills, students are required 
to listen to recordings of speakers en-
gaged in conversation or giving a lec-
ture and respond to the tape in such a 
way that the test raters can determine 
listening comprehension took place. 
So test preparation in a pre-university 
ESL course on listening skills is ap-
propriate.
So now that we’ve seen that a focus 
on listening for an ESL class is impor-
tant, the question becomes how to 
teach such a class: what are appro-
priate strategies and materials?
METHODS AND 
ACTIVITIES FOR A 
LISTENING CLASS 
ASSESSMENT
To conduct a successful listening 
skills class, the teacher will need 
some information about the students: 
levels, needs, and areas to work on. 
Are students more at an intermedi-
ate level, or are they definitely ad-
vanced? Do students have mostly 
academic, professional, or personal 
needs in improving English? Should 
they work more on listening for the 
telephone or face-to-face situations? 
Are students more interested in listen-
ing for a classroom, work, or personal 
environment? All demand different 
listening skills and therefore different 
strategies. For example, there is more 
focus on specific details and following 
directions in a work situation than in 
personal relationships. Academic lis-
tening usually requires the ability to 
take notes while listening to a lecture.
The instructor should be prepared to 
administer at least two assessments 
at the beginning of the term: a skills 
assessment and needs assessment. 
These can be informal: two such as-
sessments for listening I usually give 
are having students fill out a short 
questionnaire regarding what they 
would like to learn in their ESL listen-
ing class and why as well taking notes 
on a short news story I dictate to them 
which gives me a rough idea of how 
well they understand main ideas and 
details.
TEACHING GENERAL 
LISTENING SKILLS
So now that you have some rationale 
for your class and understanding of 
what your students need to learn, the 
question becomes how to teach it. 
There are a number of good strate-
gies for teaching ESL listening skills.
1 LISTENING FOR MAIN IDEAS
Listening for the main point is mostly 
what we do in our everyday conversa-
tions, of course. We get the main idea 
of what our friend is telling us about 
her family problem, or we understand 
the main concern in a news report 
about the economy.
How can we teach students to under-
stand what the main ideas are? To be-
gin with, it’s important to teach listen-
ing for stressed words and phrases as 
they signal main or important ideas. In 
addition, teach listening for key words 
and phrases as these also signal im-
portant ideas. Often the speaker will 
use these key phrases the main ideas, 
even in informal discourse: e.g., “The 
point I really want to get across — ” 
or “Here’s the thing — ”... In a more 
formal speech or lecture, the speaker 
may signal a main idea with “The main 
point to take away here is — “ or “I’d 
like you to in particular note that — ” 
Being able to follow the main points of 
a discussion or speech will go a long 
way in listening comprehension skills.
41
2 LISTENING FOR DETAILS AND SPECIFIC INFORMA-
TION
Of course it is also important to be de-
tail-oriented in listening, as in listening 
to someone’s directions for operating 
something or for getting driving direc-
tions. Sometimes the specifics of a 
news report will be important: when 
a storm or other weather event is ex-
pected and where or details of an ac-
cident that may affect traffic routes. 
To teach specific details of a news 
report, for example, I find it helpful to 
have students listen for the journal-
istic “who, what, where, when, and 
how”: who the report is about, what 
it’s about, where it took place, and so 
forth. For taking note on directions, 
listen for numbered points other key 
words as speakers use these to signal 
the important details: “first you grind 
the coffee beans, second you pour in 
water..” for making coffee, for exam-
ple. Understanding details as well as 
main ideas are important for overall 
listening comprehension.
3 DICTATIONS
Dictations are traditional to the 
ESL/foreign language classroom but 
problematic in that they’re not “au-
thentic.” They can, however, be use-
ful in teaching note taking skills: the 
instructor can give a minilecture on 
an academic topic, and students can 
take notes on it as they would an ac-
tual lecture. This is of course also a 
chance to teach note-taking skills: lis-
tening for and noting the main ideas 
and key details, effective use of out-
lines, and use of special symbols and 
abbreviations for notetaking, all of 
which are valuable in an academic 
setting.
The instructor can also dictate a 
phone call and have students either 
take a message for a third party (does 
anyone do this anymore with exten-
sive use of voicemail?) or, again, the 
students can practice notetaking skills 
related to the phone call — we do take 
notes during our own phone conver-
sations, such as names, dates, times, 
and topics associated with an impor-
tant meeting.
4 CONVERSATIONS
Most of students’ listening will 
go on in face-to-face conversations 
with peers, of course. There are spe-
cific listening skills related to this task: 
listening for specific social cues, for 
example, such as a signal to start a 
conversation (e.g., “Can we talk?”), to 
change topics (“Oh, by the way, I did 
want to mention...”), and to close (“I 
should let you go now.”)
5 INTERVIEWS
The instructor can also conduct 
periodic interviews — at course be-
ginning, midterm, and final, for exam-
ple — to get acquainted with students, 
note individual skills and learning 
needs, and observe student progress. 
Interviews can be on both personal 
topics, such as open-ended questions 
about hobbies the student enjoys or 
more specific questions about fami-
lies, to get an general idea of every-
day listening skills -- questions can 
also be asked about the student’s 
professional goals, again to get better 
acquainted with the student but also 
to find out student understanding of 
academic and workplace vocabulary.
LISTENING SKILLS CAN BE AMONG 
THE MOST CHALLENGING TO TEACH 
IN AN ESL CLASSROOM BECAUSE 
OF THE DIFFICULTY IN ASSESSING 
STUDENTS, MAINTAINING FOCUS 
ON LISTENING, AND DEVELOPING A 
SOUND CURRICULUM.
However, there are a number of as-
sessment and instructional strategies 
for listening that will keep students 
busy and progressing all term long.
42
FAQ for the Listening Teacher
IT TAKES A CERTAIN TYPE OF PERSON 
TO BE AN ESL TEACHER.
By nature, we have adventurous spirits 
(especially those who teach overseas). 
We are good communicators and have 
a knack for understanding what people 
are trying to say. We are creative, enthu-
siastic and have a gift for teaching. But 
the best teachers have one more thing 
– experience. The good news is, not all 
experience has to come from the school 
of hard knocks. Some experience comes 
through the advice of others, of those 
who have gone beforeus and tackled the 
same challenges we are now facing. I for 
one am thankful for all my fellow teach-
ers who helped me become the ESL 
teacher I am today. Here is some of their 
advice (and a little of my own) that may 
also help you in your teaching journey.
CHECK THE ANSWERS 
TO THE COMMON 
QUESTIONS 
ABOUT LISTENING
1 HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I PLAY THE SAME 
LISTENING SEGMENT?
Different students will need different 
amounts of repetition when it comes to 
listening segments. Generally speaking, 
three times through a listening activity 
will be enough. On the first time through, 
students will just be getting their bear-
ings – trying to determine the context 
and overall purpose of the conversation. 
On the second time through, students 
will be able to get more details. After the 
second time listening, they should be 
able to answer general comprehension 
questions and have a good idea of what 
the speakers were trying to get across in 
their dialogue. On the third time through, 
your students should be able to listen for 
specific information and details. Giving 
them comprehension questions before 
the third time through a listening piece 
will help them hear the answers, and al-
most all listening students will prefer that 
to getting the comprehension questions 
after they finish listening. Even with all 
that practice and guidance, some stu-
dents will still struggle with a listening 
segment. When this is the case, mak-
ing a recording available during office 
hours or at a listening lab will give these 
students the control to listen as often as 
they need to so they are able to get what 
they need to from the listening segment. 
The important thing is to stay calm and 
patient when your students struggle with 
listening exercises. Odds are they are far 
more frustrated than you are anyway.
2 WHERE DO I FIND LISTENING MATERIAL?
You can find listening material just about 
anywhere. Some of my favorite sources 
are YouTube and other online videos. I 
also like to use clips from movies (Netf-
lix is great if you have wifi in your class-
room) and television shows. Keep in 
mind, though, that most of these videos 
will be very challenging for your students’ 
listening skills, even advanced students. 
For beginning and intermediate stu-
dents, I am more careful in selecting my 
listening materials. Sometimes, the best 
source is a recording you make yourself 
from an original dialogue. Getting a cou-
ple of friends together to do a reading of 
a simple conversation is quick and easy, 
and it may be all that your students are 
able to understand. Plus it helps them 
to hear voices other than your own and 
those that don’t belong to ESL teach-
ers. You can also help your lower level 
students by providing a transcript of the 
listening segment, whatever it is, so they 
can follow along. It will decrease their 
listening anxiety and aid in their com-
prehension. Being more selective in the 
videos you use can also help lower level 
students. Choosing segments with clear 
and slower pronunciation, like news pro-
grams or children’s programs, may fill 
your students’ need for challenging but 
not too challenging listening material. 
Of course, ESL teachers have many op-
tions for listening curriculum and material 
if they choose to purchase books and au-
dio resources and they have the budget 
to do so.
3 DO MY STUDENTS HAVE TO UNDERSTAND 
EVERY WORD?
The short answer is no. No one under-
stands every word of what they hear, 
even native speakers. Listeners use 
tools like making inferences, making pre-
dictions, questioning, visualization and 
context clues to fill in any comprehension 
gaps they might encounter. Teaching 
your students to use these tools as they 
listen in English, just as they do in their 
native languages, will help them have a 
good level of comprehension without re-
quiring them to understand every single 
word in a listening passage. The hard-
est part, though, may be countering your 
students’ desire to understand every 
word they hear. Some students will think 
that they cannot achieve good compre-
hension if they do not understand every 
spoken word. Teaching them that this is 
not a realistic or reasonable goal may 
be harder than teaching them the skills 
to actively listen, but doing so will serve 
them better in the long run.
4 WILL MY REGIONAL ACCENT AFFECT MY STUDENTS?
To be completely honest, yes. Your re-
gional accent will affect your students 
and their knowledge and comprehension 
of English. “But I don’t have an accent,” 
you might say. The truth is that everyone, 
no matter what part of the English speak-
ing world they come from, has an accent. 
Some are more pronounced than others 
(the American south or London, for ex-
ample), but everyone has one, and the 
ESL students in your listening class will 
learn to pronounce English words the 
way you do. That means, depending 
on where they are studying and where 
you are from, they may have a more 
pronounced dialectal accent which may 
hamper comprehension of other English 
speakers. As a teacher, your goal should 
be to minimalize your own accent to help 
your students learn the best English 
possible. ESL teachers should there-
fore learn to approach what is known as 
“newscasterese” in their pronunciation. 
If you have watched news programs in 
different areas of the country, you may 
not have noticed that the reporters don’t 
seem to have an accent. Part of a report-
er’s job is to approach as neutral English 
pronunciation as possible. Because of 
this, their own accents are often neutral-
ized. When you teach, you should also 
try and approach this neutralized English 
pronunciation. It may take some prac-
tice, and a habit of watching the evening 
news, but it is worth the effort since your 
students will become better English com-
municators and you will become a better 
English teacher.
TEACHING LISTENING CAN BE ONE OF 
THE MOST CHALLENGING CLASSES FOR 
AN ESL TEACHER, OFTEN BECAUSE IT 
IS THE MOST CHALLENGING CLASS FOR 
ESL STUDENTS. Ultimately, being patient 
and understanding will be the best strat-
egy you can take for teaching listening 
in English.
43
5 Tips for Class Time Manage-
ment You’ll Thank Us For
TIME IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE, ISN’T 
IT? NORMALLY WE NEVER HAVE 
ENOUGH AND OCCASIONALLY BUT 
NOT OFTEN, WE HAVE TOO MUCH.
In the world of work in general, every-
one is obsessed with time. Deadlines, 
due dates and schedules have people 
running about. In the ESL classroom, 
time is also our tyrant. We have to 
keep in mind that our students have 
goals to accomplish within a certain 
timeframe. They need to progress as 
fast as possible in order to gain the 
proficiency they need to work, travel 
or in the case of children to prepare for 
and take tests. Time is a tricky thing 
to manage in the classroom. Should I 
go faster or slow down? What do I do 
if the level my student is currently in 
is too challenging? Many more ques-
tions like these come up regularly. 
Well, time can be our friend or foe. We 
need to learn how to manage it. Read 
on for some great tips on how to mas-
ter the art of managing time.
TRY THESE 5 TIPS 
ON HOW TO MASTER 
THE ART 
OF MANAGING TIME
1 ANALYZE TIME AND GOALS
We all work with goals, right? We 
don’t just ramble on and on in Eng-
lish in hopes that our students will 
“pick up” a word or two. Students are 
placed in a level where material will 
be used to accomplish certain goals 
in a program. Remember that there 
are things we need to agree on with 
the student ahead of time. The dura-
tion of that program and the specific 
language goals should be top on the 
list. The student might expect some-
thing entirely different from what can 
realistically be achieved -- that’s why 
communication is so important.
2 CLUSTER
Very often when we analyze our 
language objectives for a lesson we 
consider and plan for them individu-
ally. This is fine if time is not an issue. 
But, what happens if it is an issue? 
There is an interesting solutionfor 
that: clustering. Basically, what you 
should do is look ahead through the 
whole chapter/unit you are teaching, 
and gather or cluster all goals that can 
be taught together. Make separate 
language goals that combine well into 
one larger goal. This might require re-
arranging the goals, but that shouldn’t 
be a problem if you are organized. 
This will definitely save time.
3 SET CLEAR GOALS FOR EACH LESSON
What exactly are you going to teach? 
How many goals are there for each 
lesson? This might seem like a funny 
question but very often teachers are 
not very clear on this. Make sure you 
pinpoint precisely what your objective 
for the lesson is and that all the ac-
tivities target that goal. Teachers of-
ten add or change things as they go 
along, typically when they have a lot 
of activities in the lesson. They steer 
away from the objective path and get-
ting back on track takes time.
4 TIME FRAME FOR EACH ACTIVITY
Ok, so our goals are clear. We know 
what they are and how many we have. 
How much time should you spend on 
each goal? Here is another interest-
ing question: should you spend the 
same amount of time on each goal? 
That depends on a lot of things, for 
example, what the goal is. You clearly 
won’t spend the same amount of time 
on everything. If you have illustrations 
or flashcards to teach vocabulary, 
you’ll probably need less time than 
with a grammar point. Once you are 
clear on goals and general time, make 
sure you focus on specific time needs 
for each individual goal or cluster of 
goals.
5 SKIP UNNECESSARY CONTENT
We all use material when teaching, 
generally a course book, and we may 
add other materials too if necessary. 
Course books are great as general 
guides, however, what happens quite 
often is that teachers follow the course 
flow and content to the last word. 
Again, if the program the course book 
provides is exactly what your student 
needs, and you have the time, great. 
If time is pressing, you might want 
to skip all unnecessary content and 
just focus on the goals your students 
need.
AS ESL TEACHERS, WE NEED TO 
LEARN TO MANAGE A LOT OF 
THINGS, TIME IS JUST ONE OF THEM.
It is important to remember not to 
make rash decisions. If you start fall-
ing behind, take a minute to analyze 
why. Also, discuss the different op-
tions with students to see what they 
would prefer, then give them your pro-
fessional opinion. Remember Ben-
jamin Franklin’s words, “Lost time is 
never found again”!
44
Assessment in the ESL Classroom: 
6 Important Things to Know
AS YOUR ESL COURSE PROGRESSES, 
YOU MIGHT START ASKING YOURSELF 
SOME QUESTIONS.
How are my students really doing? Are 
they truly meeting all the objectives? At 
this point, you realize you need to find 
out. This is when assessment comes 
to mind. I’m quite sure it rings a bell, 
right? But, what is assessment exactly? 
Well, to make it simple, assessment 
is information gathered by the teacher 
and student to manage instruction. It is 
also important to mention that there are 
different kinds of assessment and each 
has a different purpose. We all include 
different kinds of assessment in out les-
son plans. Teachers as well as students 
need that kind of feedback to know 
what to focus on more, what needs to 
be worked on and what doesn’t. Now, 
here comes another question: what 
kind of assessment should be included 
in the lesson plan? If you want to know, 
read on.
INCLUDE ADEQUATE 
ASSESSMENT IN YOUR 
LESSON PLAN
1 WHAT IT IS FOR
In the ESL classroom, what do 
our students or their parents, in case 
of kids, want? I’ll give you the answer, 
though I’m pretty sure you already know 
what it is: progress. They want to per-
form more and better, to be able to use 
more words and expressions, and the 
list goes on. How do we know for cer-
tain students are making progress? By 
using assessment, of course. It is how 
we collect data on student understand-
ing. It provides information that we can 
use as feedback to make changes in 
our teaching.
2 WHEN TO USE IT
Basically, we can use assess-
ment at any point, but we should keep 
in mind there are different kinds of as-
sessment and each is used at different 
times. Let’s focus on two forms of as-
sessment. Formative assessment can 
occur any time and mostly in the short 
term. Learners are trying to understand 
new content and to integrate it into what 
they already know. Summative assess-
ment, on the other hand, usually takes 
place at the end of a large chunk of 
learning, and the results are essentially 
for the teacher’s or school’s use.
3 HOW OFTEN WE SHOULD DO IT
Assessment should be done as often 
as needed, precisely because it should 
be goal oriented. Formative assess-
ment is ongoing and done very often 
by using activities that can provide the 
feedback we need. Summative assess-
ment is usually less frequent since it 
usually takes place after a large num-
ber of goals are accomplished.
4 WHY WE SHOULD DO IT
There are many reasons why as-
sessment is necessary:
•	 To reconsider instructional activi-
ties, strategies, and course content 
taking into account student com-
prehension and how well they are 
performing.
•	 To adapt the teaching to the needs 
of the students -- student-centered 
classroom.
•	 To help students achieve more.
•	 To identify the strengths and weak-
nesses of the student and focus on 
what needs to be improved.
•	 In the case of summative assess-
ment, to evaluate student learning 
at the end of an instructional unit 
and to confirm it meets a specific 
standard.
5 WHO ASSESSES
Once more, the answer here 
depends on what the goal of that as-
sessment is. Essentially, formative as-
sessment can be done by teachers and 
students. Self-assessment and peer 
assessment on behalf of the students 
has proven to be very beneficial during 
learning. In this type of assessment the 
teacher is more like a coach or guide. 
Summative assessment is mostly han-
dled by teachers.
6 HOW SHOULD WE DO IT
Different kinds of assessment use 
different types of tools. In the case of 
formative assessment some examples 
are: interactive class discussion, a per-
formance activity like role play, a quiz 
or a log.
Some examples of summative assess-
ment are: standardized testing, final 
exams, projects students have been 
working on throughout a long period of 
time and research projects.
MOST OFTEN, ASSESSMENT IS THE 
CAUSE OF GREAT ANXIETY IN THE 
CLASSROOM , FOR TEACHERS AND 
STUDENTS ALIKE.
Despite our anxiety, we have to remem-
ber that assessment is a valuable tool 
in the ESL classroom. Always keep 
in mind that it’s all about the student. 
Teach your students not to be afraid 
and explain that the feedback will make 
their learning much more need-orient-
ed. Knowing how to assess students in 
order to improve instruction is the key in 
a learner-centered classroom. As Maya 
Angelou said, “When you know better 
you do better.”
45
5 Ways to Use Your Cultural Differ-
ences to Relate to Your Students
Cultural differences between the ESL/
EFL teacher and student often create 
a barrier to teaching and learning, but 
the teacher can erase those barriers 
and even turn cultural differences into 
something value-added by using them 
to help teach.
Here are 5 ways to use differences to 
bring you closer to your students and 
their learning objectives.
HOW TO USE 
YOUR CULTURAL 
DIFFERENCES 
TO RELATE 
TO YOUR STUDENTS
1 ENCOURAGEMENT
Students need a lot of encour-
agement. If you are living in a foreign 
country and learning another language 
yourself, or if you have studied another 
language in the past, you can relate to 
your students when they get frustrated. 
Tell them that it was hard even for you 
to learn another language and that they 
just need to keep trying. For example, 
you might confide that it took you five 
years to learn Spanish and your gram-
mar is still awful. Better yet, when you 
are teaching an English idea that has 
no rules, compare it to how their lan-
guage is so muchmore orderly! If only 
it could be so easy. For irregulars in the 
past tense, you might say, “Oh, I wish 
English was as structured as your lan-
guage, but we will just need to memo-
rize.” Or, on the other hand, “If you think 
these past tense verbs are hard, I had 
to memorize eight variations for each 
word to speak your language! You only 
have two to think about.” The compari-
son helps them put the situation into 
perspective, and it also brings you, for 
whom it seems so easy, to their level.
2 TO TEACH BASIC VOCABULARY
It is very helpful to use comparisons of 
your culture to your EFL students and 
use interesting stories to explain cul-
turally specific English vocabulary. It 
makes students analytically relate ideas 
in their heads, and they both remember 
and understand the definitions better. 
This trick can be used in most catego-
ries – foods, clothes, family, activities, 
parts of the house, pets, etc. For ex-
amples:
•	 Foods – “A croissant looks like your 
medialuna (translates from Span-
ish to “half moon” and is a sweet 
croissant) but is usually more salty.” 
Comparing directly to their cultural 
equivalent.
•	 Family – “I have three uncles and 
they were born at the same time. 
My grandmother had triplets!” Inter-
esting story that will help them re-
member family terms.
•	 Activities – “Basketball is like soccer 
but you use your hands instead of 
your feet and everything is in the air. 
Plus it is on a smaller court.” Com-
paring directly to something they 
know.
3 TO PRACTICE VERB TENSES
Use stories to compare how things 
are done differently or the same in your 
culture to get students to practice verb 
tenses. For examples:
•	 Present tense: “When I was your 
age” I worked at a store. What do 
you do every day?
•	 Simple past: “When I was a child” 
I ate bananas every morning. What 
did you eat?
•	 Future: “When we are old” we retire 
from work and play golf. What will 
you do?
4 TO PRACTICE BASIC CONVERSATION
You can frame your comparison ques-
tions from #3 to focus on verbs or also 
to focus on particular grammatical con-
cepts. Prepositional phrases can be-
come clearer when students want to 
relate an idea to you – when they are in-
terested in the conversation. Use similar 
questions as when practicing verbs, but 
focus on explaining first and then cor-
recting their prepositions. For example:
•	 To: “I go to the supermarket to buy 
vegetables. Where do you go to?” 
You can explain the difference be-
tween the infinitive “to” and the 
prepositional “to” and they will com-
pare where they shop in their home 
country. They will want to complain 
about how US vegetables are not 
fresh probably, or how supermar-
kets have so much selection.
The key is to use topics that you know 
will create a comparison in their minds 
to link the ideas and make them want 
to communicate. It makes the concepts 
stick more because they analytically try 
to understand to be able to communi-
cate.
5 TO PRACTICE FREQUENCY ADVERBS
Comparing home countries to your 
culture is extremely useful in practic-
ing “usually”, “never”, “always”, “some-
times”, etc. For examples:
•	 “We sometimes go to church here 
in America. How often do you go to 
church in your country?”
•	 “People never go to the store with-
out shoes here. Do you always 
wear shoes?”
IF YOUR EFL STUDENTS ARE GETTING 
FRUSTRATED BY ENGLISH AND 
LOSING THEIR PATIENCE TO LEARN, 
TRY ENCOURAGING THEM THROUGH 
RELATING TO THEIR CULTURE!
These tools also serve to disguise 
grammar and vocabulary teaching in a 
context of you, the teacher, being curi-
ous about different home countries and 
cultures. Learning is always more fun 
when it does not seem like work, but like 
something we want to do!