Experimenting with the linguistic experience: the language lab

Within the first few years at my school (and that was a few years ag), I was required to earn the Dalton teachers certification.  The course itself took two years, and was given in modules covering the various aspects of Dalton education, including multiple intelligences, freedom within bounds, co-operative learning, and responsibility. I took a lot …

“But they don’t understand!” part two

One of my very first classes consisted of Japanese, Chinese, Israeli, and Dutch children.  Only one of them was American, and so the great challenge of communication with these children was immediately apparent.  How to talk with children who hardly spoke any English?  Obviously, translation was not one of the possibilities, so I quickly put …

“But they don’t understand!”

Many an ESL teacher has thought the above, at one time or another.  The question is, what does one do when faced with a class that - apparently - does not understand what one is trying to communicate?  The easiest solution, of course, is simply to translate whatever it was that the class didn't understand …

What to teach? Making a plan of action

One of the first problems I came across as a budding early ESL teacher was the question: what do I teach? Of course, I needed to teach them numbers, colors, food, animals, and classroom vocabulary, but - what exactly did these children need to know? What was going to be the curriculum? I decided that …