Does anyone have advice for working with ESL students?

English is one of the hardest languages for a non-native speaker to learn.

Even as ESL students get a better grasp of the language, don’t expect them to inherently grasp nuance and humor and regional sayings, etc. Heck, take a backswamp kid from louisiana and put him in a room with a kid upper Michigan.....hilarity will ensue. And they’re native speakers.

When we learn foreign languages, we’re generally taught formal versions. ESL students are generally taught the same. Their base understandings of English are formal and grammatically correct. If they don’t have previous exposure, they might not realize that ‘pop’, ‘soda’, ‘coke’, and ‘soft drink’ all mean the same thing, depending on where you’re at in the US.

When helping them, try to put aside any regional sayings or pronunciations and explain the topic correctly. For example, a teacher from Boston would have to explain, “look, I know my accent is ridiculous, but it’s pronounced ‘caR’, not ‘caHH’.” Even explaining and helping understand the differences in accents will be huge in their development. We all sound different. We take for granted that we can generally point out what region people are from based on their accents or phrases/sayings. As ESL students progress, their fluency will be helped by being able to differentiate those regional distinctions.

I’ve taught ESL and gained foreign proficiencies as an adult. Those are just a few tips; I hope they help. It’s certainly a challenge, but worth the effort. Best of luck.

I am a product of TTT. I’m in my 16th year of teaching English: Honors, Gifted, Regular, SPED, and ESL. Remember, you’re teaching kids, not labels. They all want to learn: all of them. Three years ago, I got a new 9th grader right out of Vietnam. He spoke not one word of English. Rosetta Stone was all I could think to do. My principal allowed him to take an iPad home so the family could also benefit from Rosetta Stone. I bumped into that student over these past weeks. He’s working at Olive Garden, and his English is awesome! Oh, please don’t use the term “foreign” language. “World” language works just fine.

I volunteered last year at my church teaching ESL. And i used the white board. I wrote. They wrote. And the class said they learned more when I taught verse the year prior.
Good luck!!!