by Jake Hollingsworth // Seoul, South Korea // www.JakeHollingsworth.net
Stop teaching your students new material.
Think for a moment about how you learned to speak English. If you’re like me, a native English speaker, it’s almost as if you never actually learned English. It’s just something you have always known. At least that’s what it feels like.
And it feels that way because from a very early age, you and I heard nothing but English around us. We learned to imitate what we heard, and we spoke nothing else. Then we began writing and reading in that very same English language. English was our world. As far as we knew, there was no other way to communicate other than English.
Now of course we accumulated new words and phrases, but that isn’t how we got so good at it. We became fluent English speakers because we used the language again and again and again. English became so much of a habit that we don’t even think about it anymore. We just open our mouths and out it comes.
What does this mean for ESL teachers? It means that if we want to help our students, we should begin teaching them less new material and give them no choice but to use what they know. Again and again and again. It’s our job to create an environment where no other form of communication exists.
Here are a few ideas to give your students no choice but English…
1) If you understand their native language, don’t acknowledge it. Once they know you understand them, it takes away any urgency to communicate in English.
2) When I ask my students what a new vocabulary word means, often times if it is an object in the classroom, they will simply point. It’s good that they understand, but I want them to tell me. I cover my eyes with my hand and tell them I can’t see what they’re pointing at.
3) Instead of allowing my students to use a dictionary, I tell them to think of another way of saying their idea. I give them no option but to somehow find a way to verbalize what they are thinking. There are many ways to say the same thing in English. (big, large, huge, not small, gigantic, over-sized, etc.)
What about you? Is your classroom an environment where English is encouraged? How do you create urgency for your students to communicate in English?
