RAIS is the Alaska Catholic Social Service's Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service. Last summer I volunteered to tutor English for them, but I decided that I did not want to go into someone's house regularly during COVID. They said some of their clients live outside of Anchorage and maybe we can do this online.
Several weeks ago they got back to me. A refugee living outside of Anchorage wanted lessons. (I'm going to be vague to protect confidentiality.)
In Peace Corps training back in 1966 and 1967 we got killer training for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The trainer in charge of the TEFL lessons was like a teaching machine. She had a technique and a style that, in hindsight, was a really good way to teach a foreign language AND the lessons were good for teaching any class. I can't believe her name escapes me at the moment. I used to have nightmares about her watching me practice teach. [UPDATE March 11, 2023 - It was Phyllis!]
A 50 minute class consists of
- 5 minutes of pronunciation drill
- 10 minutes of vocabulary lessons
- 20-25 minutes of grammar drills
- 20-25 minutes of reading the lesson in the text out loud and questions and answers about the text
The pronunciation drill would be related to some of the words in the vocabulary lesson. The vocabulary would come from the reading in that chapter. The grammar drills focused on lots of oral repetition using the grammar we were working on. And, of course, it included the vocabulary and sounds we just did. There might be a sentence and after the students could repeat it fairly well, I'd give them words that they used to replace words in the sentence. This was a good way to see if they understood it or whether they were just parroting stuff they didn't understand.
We had a Level 3 English textbook at training that was used in Thai high schools. The readings in the chapters were about Thai history, US history, and British history. (I learned the basics of key Thai historic figures that way.)
When I arrived at my school, I found they were using the same book we had trained with. And the class was at a chapter that I had done a practice lesson on in training in DeKalb, Illinois. It felt like magic.
So, using what I learned then,I've started preparing my lesson plans, though now I can do that with Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint.). My student is highly motivated, already speaks fluent enough English, but grammar and vocabulary are limited and pronunciation could be improved as well. Lesson 3 is tomorrow morning (Saturday). So far he's put up with my very packed lessons with good humor. I think I will have to ease back a bit - I can't sustain that level of effort. But we've got lots of material to work with over the next month. I told him he's my boss and he has to tell me what he wants and then I'll do it. But, of course, his texts also alert me to sentences and grammar he needs to work on.
As I've been reading online to get foreign language teaching tips, I found one that both of us like: Learn the words to English songs you like. He's suggested the Beatles "Yesterday." So I'm going to see what sort of grammar and pronunciation lessons we develop using the lyrics as a starting point. (I used "Hello, Goodbye" once in Thailand. Very easy lyrics.)
I'll look at the grammar they use, and then try to substitute words to make a lot more useful sentences from the lyrics.
Learning to teach English as a Peace Corps volunteer meant we were learning Thai using the same method that we were preparing to teach our students with. That's a very humbling experience which gave me a much better understanding of what my students were struggling with. What looks so obvious to a native speaker seems impenetrable to a non-native speaker. Sounds they make in Thai, we simply couldn't distinguish at the beginning. So I had a lot more patience than I probably would have when my Thai students had the same problems I had and was still having trying to speak Thai. Thais only have eight final consonant sounds. Eight! B, D, K, N, NG, M, P. (I checked online and they include W and Y, but it seems to me that those really become vowel sounds.) But that means Thais have a LOT of trouble with all the consonants and consonant clusters (RD, ST, CH, NK, etc.)
So I've been looking at specific pronunciation issues that speakers of my students native language have.
That's been using a lot of my creativity.
I also learned in our first meeting that one of his sponsors is someone I've spent a fair amount of time with in the last couple of years.
Hi Steve (Anon still here as your system and recent upgrades within Apple have left me outside the naming protocols here).
ReplyDeleteGene and I took a first class in Irish this past autumn only to find ALL the others (30+ adults) in our beginners group had years of Irish in school. It was a disaster (as these things go), but we carried on and got our 1st-level pin in a group 'graduation' ceremony. Hey, the food was good.
Now we're left with 'How do we do this better?', as the process HERE is re-familiarisation with already learned materials -- an incredible amount of new words every week and little-to-no drill time. Your process makes sense and I wonder if you have the name of the program so I might try to find if Irish was ever taught using this process?
I put this out there as I am certain we all 'give a go' at Duo-Lingo and others and find it wanting as it is entirely auditory (and I NEED to see it to remember -- the way my memory works).
Not sure if that teaching method has a name. It's based on memorizing dialogues that are typical conversations. Added to that is the necessary pronunciation drills, vocabulary, and grammar substitutions, so you can see the many ways the sentence can be useful replacing different parts of the sentence. The Navy Language Institute in Monterrey uses that method. So does the Chinese Confucius Institute. It's great for learning quickly how to actually speak. Haven't looked at the Irish on Duolingo, but my frustration with Duo is there is too much reading and writing and not enough oral. Yes, I need to see it, but I need my mouth and tongue muscles to automatically say things rather than translate from English slowly. Good luck.
DeleteI used a book called Pronunciation Contrasts in English by Don L.F. Nilsen. I've no idea if it's still in print. It gives pages and pages of minimal pairs, that is words that sound almost alike, but aren't. The index which lists which minimal pairs work for different languages is wonderfully helpful.
ReplyDeleteI also used a lot of lyrics of songs. I'd type out the lines of the songs and cut them into strips, scramble them,and my student would listen in order to unscramble them. Labor intensive for teacher, but useful, especially in groups (which I gather you don't have). South Korean students especially loved John Denver.
I miss teaching ESL (now ELD in public schools in California). Enjoy!
Thanks for the tips. He picked Yesterday as a song he liked and we've used it to build many different sentences that he can use. He can hear the differences in same or different drills. Saying the hard ones (like th) is harder, but he's working hard. One problem is that when he knows it's a problem word - like the - he emphasized that word which doesn't sound natural at all. So we've doing it in the sentence where the 'the' is not emphasized at all and it's much better.
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