ESL Teaching Strategy: Information, Instruction, Inspiration, Intuition

What is the difference between a good teacher and a master teacher? We probably have all endured teachers where we felt their calling was anything other than teaching. Other teachers could at least keep our attention, and make the class exciting and fun. But on occasion, there would be that master teacher that could somehow make us feel like we were the only one in the classroom, and we felt as if our brains had been opened as he poured a cup of knowledge into our souls. It might have been an elementary teacher, a coach, or, for a lucky few, a mom or a dad. Let's look at the main ingredients of a master teacher.

1. Information. Information makes up 40% of teaching. It is the sole reason for our role as a teacher. Take away our substance, and we will also lose our occupation. Yet, the fault in many teachers is in their resistance to remain a student. It can be easy to dust off the old lesson plans from year to year, and deliver the same information that was given 10 years ago - rusted and outdated.

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. ~Abraham Lincoln

The best remedy for an old lesson plan is a learning teacher. Let's make sure as teachers that our information - that 40% of teaching - is 100% of what it should be.

2. Instruction. Instruction makes up 30% of teaching. Imagine a road system that had no rules. Drivers could go as fast as they want, drive in any lane, never stop for a traffic light, and there were no guidelines for accidents. Yes, people could get to their destination, but it would be accompanied by chaos and confusion. As teachers, we not only need to impart information, but also give it with good instruction. As a student I enjoyed the classes where it was obvious that the teacher had good procedures in the classroom. He knew the most efficient way to pass out papers, collect papers, explain the rules of an activity, give tests, schedule a research paper with good deadlines, and keep the class as fair as possible. It was always a privilege to be in a class where I felt the teacher ensured that every little detail was accounted for.

3. Inspiration. Inspiration makes up 20% of teaching. Inspiration comes from success. The more successful a student is at something, the more they will want to excel in that area. I was watching my son play a skateboarding game on our Wii. As a six year old, he just could not figure out how to make that virtual skateboard do what he wanted it to do. However, I noticed that level 1 was super easy. It was easy enough to grant my son a small measure of success. He could not do level 2, but I simply had to encourage him to do better on level 1, and he soon was able to beat level 2. That measure of success was enough to keep him interested. In our classes, our students don't want to fail. However, if they fail many times then failure becomes the only thing they are actually successful at. Have you ever had a student that wanted to excel at failure? Instead, we need to keep our students tasting the wonderful joy of success.

4. Intuition. Intuition is that 10% of teaching that I believe separates the good teachers from the master teachers. Intuition is that ability to look into the eyes of a student and know whether or not he is learning. It's the ability to draw out of the student the knowledge that the teacher has given to him. It is that unique touch on the heart of a student that lets him know that you really care. Students have the distinctive ability to know whether or not the teacher is teaching for money or for the student. Teachers will never be able to fool a student in this area. For the master teacher, intuition goes both ways. The master teacher is able to know if the student is truly learning and what to do about it, and the student is able to sense the level of compassion that the master teacher has for the student.

What an awesome privilege to have to opportunity to help mold the early impressions of a student. Let's increase our relevant information, make clear our instructions, inspire through success, and captivate with our intuition.

For great ESL resources for both the student and the teacher go to http://www.ilesi.com/. ILESI stands for International Languages Educational Services Inc., and has established English training centers all over the world.

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Teaching ESL: How to Have a Successful English Corner

I must admit that after hearing "What-a is-a your favorite-a color?" for the 100th time, I was not too interested in English corners. The idea was to give the Chinese students an opportunity to speak to the Americans and practice their English. Hopefully, we could then persuade them to visit our training center and take classes. In theory, it was a good idea for everyone except for the Americans. I can still see the shy elementary school student being prodded by his Chinese mother to "show off" the few English phrases the boy had memorized. I felt sorry for the boy as I tried to keep an hour-long smile up and could relate to the boy's awkwardness.

After spending over 300 hours in English corners over the 7 years that I spent in China, I have found that there are right ways and wrong ways to have them. We were initially told that if we, the Americans, would simply show up somewhere, that a large crowd of aspiring English learners would bombard us with intense English conversations. This never happened. I helped to hold English corners in libraries, bookstores, parks, colleges, on a busy street and even at McDonald's. Each of these had to be built from the ground up, but can be developed into a very successful program.

We had two types of English corners - free talk and activity based. Free talk English corners were usually effective in colleges and libraries. Activity-based English corners were effective in each place, but required more work and preparation. Listed are a few tips on how to have a successful activity-based English corner.

Decide on the format of the English corner. We typically broke up the English corner up into 4 parts. First, we taught 8 - 10 "Frequently Used American Expressions." These were either idioms or collocations that we could act out and try to present in a vivid way. We never tried to explain the meanings, but instead we tried to act them out so the students could try to guess the meanings. Next, we usually taught a song that had simple words to understand. Then we taught a culture tip, and finally played a game.Decide to enjoy the situation. I knew that if I was bored with what I was doing, then my students would be bored too. I clearly remember trying to teach the idiom, "You're barking up the wrong tree." I had a student stand on a chair, while I pretended to bark like a dog up at him. We always did what we could to throw in some spice into the lessons, not only to keep the students coming back, but also to keep ourselves interested in the lessons.Be flexible. I vividly remember teaching for two years in McDonald's. We sectioned off a corner of McDonald's and had a weekly English corner at 3:00 PM on Saturdays. We brought a portable display to let people know what we were all about. We brought a professional sound system with two cordless mics. Whatever we needed to do to try to make the English corner a success. However, many times, something went wrong. Either there was a mistake in the worksheet or no batteries for the mics. Sometimes we would plan for 30 students and 100 would show up, and sometimes we would plan for 100 and 5 would show up. If you ever conduct an English corner, you'll have to be willing to "ride the waves."Follow the 10% - 50% focus rule. Typically in China, I would look at one of my classes and divide it into half based on their English level. Then I would take the lower half and come up 10%. This usually was a good focus for the material. I would try to give this 40% of the students the majority of my time and effort. For the top 50% of the students I would throw out nuggets (not McNuggets from McDonald's) of harder English to keep them interested. Then whenever we had pair work or group work, I would focus in on the lower 10% and try to give them some individual help. Be warned. English corners in public places will attract everyone. It was common for our public English corners to have both kindergarteners and college English professors all looking to learn some English.

I still have many great memories, and I made many friends through the work at the English corners.

For great ESL resources for both the student and the teacher go to http://www.ilesi.com/. ILESI stands for International Languages Educational Services Inc., and has established English training centers all over the world.

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