[JayEdie]

As I have never taught ESL before, I would like assistance in finding a good starting point and also with materials.

Classes start on September 13th and I have been given no materials.

Does any one know where I could get an inexpensive, or better yet free, start up kit?

Thanks,

Jay

[Mikepass]

Hi Jay

You probably need to be a little more specific with your request. What country are you in? What age and experience level are you teaching? How big are your classes? And anymore info that may help people help you.

[ICAL_Pete]

There is so much to learn, you simply can't make a good job of it by reading a couple of pages online unfortunately.

I would recommend that first you start off on a TEFL course to get some good basic ideas down. This will make your teaching more effective and give the students what they have paid for (if you're working already you can take an online one).

Until you get start that, here's some ideas.

1) If you are in a school the chances are that you'll have a coursebook. Is that right? If so, read it carefully before each lesson so you know what you'll be teaching and you will have a chance to prepare the grammar which comes up.

2) If you don't have a coursebook, do a needs analysis to find out what you class needs to learn.

3) Seek advice off your DoS!

[English-coach]

Hi Jay Edie,

If you don't have a course book provided for you, my advice would be to choose one that you like and work from it. It will make your classes easier to prepare and it will take some pressure off you in the beginning.

I agree though, we need more information if we are going to be able to help you better.

[alawton]

You can do it! The internet has many resources. You can also go to a half price books or any book store and get some cheap ESL workbooks. What level are you teaching?


Andrew

[JB]

Jay, you can do it. Build your lesson plans as you go and you will improve

[yekdeli]

It is amazing to me that so many people seem to be in the same boat. I was there last year too...and continue to "do it all" this year, with even more students.

My school did not have an E.L.L program in place, and no real idea of what the job should consist.

It is all fine and good for someone to suggest a TEFL course, but the reality is that many times, you need to hit the ground running and just "make it work".

I got a lot of great ideas online. Here are a few sites:
Easy Things for Beginners (Interesting Things for ESL Students)
http://www.manythings.org/e/easy.
ESL Teacher Handouts, Grammar Worksheets and Printables - UsingEnglish.com
English Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation Exercises for ESL Teachers and Students

All of these have some free worksheets, tests and games available.

In addition, if your school does NOT have a current set of texts to work from, or a curriculum to follow...you may have to wing it...and set this up yourself.

I recommend the books from Pearson/Longman "Cornerstones" if you are teaching k-5. If you are doing middle school, their "Keys to Learning" is very good too. I don't work for them...I just found these books to be life savers. If your district has ELL money, have them purchase books.

I don't know what age you are working with. I taught high school Social Studies for 13 years before the move to ELL, and now teach kids in grades from Kindergarten to 7th grade. It is very different teaching K and teaching 7th graders.

There are also a lot of great high interest "reading" books from Oxford and Cambridge Press. "People, Places and Things" from Oxford and "Connect" from Cambridge are great.

Follow my advice and try alibris.com for buying books, they often have textbooks for LESS than half price, used. Or abebooks.com.

You have to be resourceful and pick people's brains. Best of luck!

T.Flannery

[JB]

T.Flannery, Yekdeli- thank you for your email and post. Those sites are great.

[JayEdie]

Thanks for All the Great suggestions!!

However, I must not have been descriptive enough with my original post.

I will be teaching Adults in a "Free to Student" GED / ESL program offered by my church.

I will not need any certifications to do this. I just need materials, lesson plans, etc.

When I agreed to teach in the program, I assumed I would be teaching GED Prep, but the director decided he needed me more in ESL.

This creates an issue as I do not even speak a second language remotely near fluency and have no prior experience teaching non-English speaking students.

I do not want to, and really can't, back out now, so I guess I will stumble my way through for a while.

[JB]

Jay, mine is a volunteer situation as well.

Feel free to email me and we can exchange numbers

[JB]

Anyone have a good template or worksheet for basic pronunciation?

Thanks, jb

[MeNut]

You don't need to set up a website. Make an ESL folder in Favorites and bookmark the pages you want your students to do. That way thay can just click on the page in your folder and it will take them right to it.

For my advanced students, I have a folder with verb pages in it and another folder with vacabulary, etc.

[JB]

Menut- your absolutely right, I set up a favorites folder for ESL on each of our computer lab's pcs.