Top Strategy for Teaching English Language Learners

In my blog posts, I have been focusing on teaching strategies for English learners, especially those who are at the beginning level.

By now you probably know that visuals, short meaning-packed sentences, background building, and repetition are key in reaching those who are just starting out on their English learning journey.

When we incorporate the above, we provide our students with comprehensible input, a term coined by a famous linguist Stephen Krashen. What it means is that our students should be able to understand from our presentation/instruction the gist of what we are saying. 

While providing comprehensible input alone is not enough for the information to stick, it is a good start and we can feel by the students’ reactions when it is working. Active response eliciting is part of teaching beginners – asking them to repeat words and phrases, in order to check for understanding and correct pronunciation.

In this blog post, I am sharing a video with you on how you can implement this strategy. I did a training for teachers at my school recently and demonstrated the different ways of teaching learners of another language by teaching them Lithuanian. I deliberately used another language so the teachers to realize what it may feel like to be in a classroom where another language is used as the means of communication and to show them that they, indeed, can understand and can learn if instructed appropriately. 

You will see and hear at the beginning that the listeners were not entirely sure about what to expect and likely felt apprehensive (just like our students do when they know something is expected of them but they have no idea what). However, soon I could see that their understanding was growing and they were eagerly responding.

Share this video: I hope you and your friends/colleagues will find it useful!

While this particular strategy might be difficult to implement in a large classroom with only a few ESL students (especially middle school and up), it is well worth it when you have a classroom of majority or just English learners or work one-on-one and in small groups.

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What is your favorite (and effective) way to teach your students? Share in the comments below!