ESL Teaching tips & Tricks:

HOW TO SAVE ON COURSE PREP TIME WHILE STILL HAVING FUN

Philip McAlary

As an ESL teacher, I had to be continually aware of time, including class preparation. My classes were set up in different time slots: 50 minutes, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, 2.5 hours, mornings and afternoons. Most English classes had a mandatory textbook provided by the school. I was required to teach the contents of the book for exam purposes. Teaching from an English text book is somewhat dry: following the book, writing on the board and explaining the definitions.

I combined formal text book education with informal approaches to English comprehension. I started off with the boring part of the lesson and ended with some fun and games. First, I would use vocabulary words from the schools' text book. For the last half of the class, I integrated the vocabulary from the text book and created word games, game shows, puzzles and music to liven the class. If you are teaching only conversational English, your class can consist of a variety of fun and interactive games with different themes.

However, preparation of these games can be highly time consuming. This is done on personal time! Some of the more popular English ESL games take considerable time to prepare.

A SECRET that I learned while overseas was to really utilize my role as the teacher. I was able to ask four of my brightest students, three girls and one boy, to be my assistants. They were thrilled to be invited for extra English work and to have the opportunity to help their teacher. These young ESL students have a very high respect for teachers and foreigners. Even their families were honoured to have their children assist.

When each of the students arrived to help with the work, they carried a gift of food to be shared with all. They were quiet and shy when they first came into my foreign home. I made tea, offered soft drinks and put out the goodies the mothers of each student had provided. Then we began to communicate about what needed to be done. 

I had decided on several proven and well-known ESL games. Since I was responsible for such a variety of classes, I needed to adapt games to different ages and English comprehension levels. Culture and geography play an important roll in the adaptation of activities.

Our supplies, (half given by the school and the other half I purchased inexpensively) consisted of scissors, colored paper, rulers, recipe cards, a dictionary, thesaurus, a school text, markers, colored pencils, glue, stapler, tape, large card boards, magazines and photographs. I gave directions to each student and we began the work. The evening progressed into adding popular music to the preparation of the teaching games.  

Slowly their shyness subsided and after conversations began, we all ended up singing along to an American CD one of the girls had brought with her. We had a great time. We cut, colored, pasted, wrote, drew pictures, cut up sentences, chatted, sang, laughed and ate food. We even ended up all dancing! The positive energy was amazing. I was so impressed by how hard and precise the assistants worked and yet they were so grateful to me. It was one of the best win-win situations I have experienced. These students saved me many hours of prep time and it was like having a party too!

You need to be creative with your preparation, as well as teaching classes. It is a great privilege for most foreign students to help their teachers. As a potential ESL teacher, you need to take advantage of these cultural benefits. Once you evaluate a situation as win-win, it can only be a positive experience for everyone involved. When you discover just how much fun prep time can be, you will do your best to expect nothing less.

Good Luck. Philip McAlary, ESL Teacher and Managing Director of OverseasEmployment.ca

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