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Tips on Teaching Non-Native English Speakers |
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Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish non-native English speakers
from native ones. This is because accent, the characteristic we normally
associate with foreign status, might be missing in students who learned
English at a young age. However, not having a foreign accent doesn't
mean the student is a native speaker. This student's writing might
still show signs of interference from another language.
Non-native English speaking
students may not participate either because it takes them longer to
formulate an answer or comment, or because they don't yet feel comfortable
speaking out in class.
- Look for physical suggesting that the student knows the answer
and might want to give it but is afraid to. Some of the clues
might be mouthing the answer, looking excited, etc. If you see
any such clues, call on the student.
- To give non-native English speaking students a chance to answer
questions, allow for some wait time between asking a question
and requesting an answer. In order to give this wait time, you
might need to stop outspoken students from blurting out the answer.
You might want to say "Hold on. Let's give someone else a
chance to answer."
- To build the confidence of less-fluent non-native English speaking
students, call on them when a question requires a one or two word
answer. As they build confidence, they will start to participate
a bit more.
- To make it easier for non-native English speaking students
to participate in class discussions, break the class into smaller
groups. They will find it easier to speak in a smaller, less threatening
setting. Click here for more tips on group-work.
Non-native
English speaking students might have difficulty understanding homework
assignments if they are only given orally. They may not know some
of the words the teacher uses and cannot look them up because they
don't know how to spell them. They may misunderstand numbers and are
also unfamiliar with terms often used in academic assignments, such
as analyze and integrate. To make sure your instructions are understood
try the following:
- Write the instructions for assignments on the board for students
to copy instead of just verbally stating them. Make sure the instructions
are clear and check to see that hey understand them.
- Consider typing your assignment and handing it out to the students
so that you can make sure they have the accurate information to
refer to. Even if you type the assignment, make sure you check
their understanding of it.
- Instead of asking whether students understand, have them paraphrase
what
they are expected to do. For example, you can say "Can someone
tell me what you are supposed to do?" Asking them to explain
the assignment will give you a chance to check if students understand
certain words or concepts such as "reaction paper."
Not asking questions doesn't mean they understand. They might be shy
or embarrassed to ask thinking that everyone else but them understands.
Besides, asking students yes/no questions, such as "Do you understand?"
helps them avoid admitting their lack of understanding. On another
note, non-native English speaking students might seem fluent because
their everyday speech is fluent, but they often lack knowledge of
academic terminology, such as "reaction paper," which can
hinder their understanding.
- To increase your chances of being understood, provide a written
outline of the main points of your lecture for students to follow
during the lecture and to use for review. In this outline, you
could include examples or explanations of difficult concepts.
- Instead of asking questions that require a yes/no answer, for
example, "Do you have any questions?" ask them to give
information. For instance, you could ask them to identify three
points, summarize a section, or to state the effect of something,
etc.
- You should be conscious of the different cultural backgrounds
of your non-native English speaking students. It might be beneficial
to explain that in America asking questions is valued and thought
to be a sign of curiosity and engagement in the topic being discussed.
If they come from countries where asking questions is not appropriate
or is seen as evidence of poor understanding, they need to learn
that in the U.S. it is okay for them to ask questions.
- Explain academic terminology, such as "pro and con",
"plot", "revise." To help them, write new
terminology or important/abstract concepts on the board, explain
them, and if possible give examples.
- To make sure students are not lost during lectures and if lost,
can catch up, provide periodic sum-ups. You could also take a
few minutes to go over the main points at the end of the class.
In addition, to provide some continuity between classes, summarize
the material previously covered and connect it to today's material,
if applicable. For example, you can say, "Yesterday we spoke
about minority groups. Can someone remind us of the five characteristics
of minority groups?" After these, you can say "Today
we will look at prejudice and its role in helping to form and
maintain minority group status."
- Lastly, beware of using slang, idiomatic expressions, and culturally
based references in your classes. If you use any of these, make
sure you follow up your use with explanations.
Taking notes is very difficult for non-native English speaking students
because it involves many skills. Students must first comprehend what
is being discussed; they must then be able to distinguish main points
from less significant details; lastly they need to struggle to write
down what they think is important while listening to the rest of the
lecture.
- Speak clearly and slowly, and avoid heavy use of idiomatic
expressions or slang, such as "read between the lines,"
"the eleventh hour," in a nutshell," which non-native
English speaking students might not be familiar with and so might
literally translate. If you use any of these phrases, make sure
you explain what they mean.
- Put vocal emphasis on important ideas or information to help
students identify what should be written down.
- Direct students' attention to important information. You can
inform them that what you are about to say is important, and they
should take notes. You should then repeat the information and
pause for students to get a chance to write it down.
- It is useful to write down key ideas and concepts on the board
as you lecture. You will find that students will quickly copy
what you write because they know that if you write it, it must
be important.
- To reinforce good note-taking habits, at the beginning of the
semester, you can explain how note-taking helps them and how to
do it. To motivate students, tell them that in class lectures
you might discuss information not included in the book and collect
their notes throughout the semester. To help them feel more comfortable
taking notes, you can share some note-taking strategies with them.
- At the beginning of your lecture, you might want to provide
an outline of the information you will discuss in class. This
way students can follow your lecture easier and organize their
notes around these main points.
Non-native English speaking students might not understand the instructions,
especially if they are given orally. The instructions might involve
a series of steps they are not aware of, or they might lack the background
knowledge or the skills to do what you ask them.
- First write the instructions on the board, identifying the
steps.
- If you feel students might not have the necessary background
knowledge to complete an activity, identify the specific books,
encyclopedias, or websites they can check, and the specific places
they can go to, for example a specific section of the library,
to get the resources they need. Write this information on the
board.
- Model the activity you want students to do. For example, if
you want your students to interview James Madison about federalism,
make sure your model the types of questions they should ask. You
can model an appropriate and an inappropriate question, and explain
why. For example, you can explain how a personal question does
not help them understand this period of time and suggest categories
of questions that will, such as problems faced, his concerns,
his reasons, etc. After having modeled the types of questions,
you can break the students into groups for them to come up with
relevant questions to ask James Madison.
There are several reasons why group activities might not proceed smoothly.
Some of these reasons could be because students might not feel comfortable
with each other, might not be used to group work, or see the merit
of a discussion with their peers.
- Don't do group work at the beginning of the semester. Wait
a couple of classes until they are more comfortable with each
other to introduce group work.
- To encourage group work, create group activities that cannot
be completed without cooperation. For example, if you want a group
to summarize a text for the rest of the class, you can assign
a different part of the text to each student and tell them that
one person will be called on to summarize the information. Since
they don't know who will be called on, they must share their information
with each other.
- To make sure that everyone participates, you might want to
assign tasks (note-taker, turn-monitor, etc). The most outspoken
student could be the turn-monitor, who is responsible for ensuring
that everyone talks, preventing him from monopolizing the conversation.
You might also want to walk around the various groups as they
are meeting and engage students who seem to be withdrawn into
the discussion. Click here for more tips on group-work.
Passively listening for
a long period of time while struggling to understand the material
can be very exhausting for non-native English speaking students. Also,
it is difficult to retain large amounts of information given at once.
- Before lecturing, assign one or two questions for students
to listen for and find the answer to. This will motivate students
to focus their listening and pay attention.
- To help students absorb large amounts of information, try breaking
down the subject of discussion into smaller sections that include
follow-up activities using the information given. Examples of
such activities are: (1) five minute writing tasks where students
are asked to summarize a certain point, react to a certain situation
or action, predict what might happen next based on what has been
discussed, etc.; (2) asking students to apply a concept you have
been discussing, (for example assimilation), to a specific situation,
(for instance the Civil Rights Movement); (3) asking students
to argue an issue brought up in the lecture (for example affirmative
action)
- Also use slides, videos and other visual aids during your lectures.
These materials engage the visual sense, thereby giving variety
to your lecture.
- Prepare a gapped-outline of your lecture for students to fill
in as they listen. Click here
for an example.
Elaborating on a topic requires background knowledge of that topic
and specific information to discuss it in detail; non-native English
speaking students may lack both of these types of information. They
may also lack the language skills they need to discuss the topic in
detail.
- Since non-native language students lack a lot of background/cultural
information about a lot of topics, they need to build background
mental schemas on what is being discussed. You can help them by
scaffolding instruction before they are asked to elaborate on
a topic. This can be done through explanation of concepts, demonstrations,
the use of visual aids, presenters, and visits (if applicable).
Once students have developed mental schemas, they should be better
able to discuss things in greater detail and depth.
- To help them discuss a topic they seem to have problems on,
you can give them hints (leading questions, statements, non-verbal
clues), provide partial answers and give them choices. These serve
prompts allowing students to engage in the discussion even if
at a minimal level. For example, let's say you ask your students
to explain what civil liberties are and they can't.; you can help
them by making sure they understand that civil refers to citizens.
You might then ask them if they know a synonym for liberty, establishing
that it is freedom. You can then lead them to guess what the phrase
might mean by saying something like "Well since civil has
to do with the citizens of a country and liberty has to do with
freedom what do you think civil liberties might mean? If they
still don't get it, you can give one or two examples of civil
liberties, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion,
explain what these mean and ask "If freedom of speech and
freedom of religion are two civil liberties, what can we say civil
liberties are?"
Plagiarizing is a big problem. Most students plagiarize for a variety
of reasons. First they may not know how to summarize and paraphrase,
they might have started the assignment late and don't have the time
to do the research and the writing, and lastly plagiarism might be
acceptable in their culture.
- First make sure to explain that while in America copying someone
else's work is not acceptable and is likely to end in expulsion,
in some other countries, for example China, students are expected
to use other's ideas without documenting them. To help students
recognize the difference between correctly using someone else's
ideas and plagiarism show them examples of text plagiarized and
paraphrased. If you wish to see such example, go to our research
writing web page http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~esl-rc/HTML/writing/exmenu_research.html
- A lot of time students plagiarize because they do not know how
to summarize or paraphrase. To avoid getting plagiarized papers,
show students how to summarize and paraphrase.
- To minimize plagiarism and help students get to work on your
paper with enough time, ask the students to hand in work at different
stages of the writing process. For example, you can ask them to
hand in their narrowed topic along with the sources they will
use one month before the paper is due. Then the following week
ask them to submit a detailed outline. Finally ask them to hand
in the final paper together with at least one of the drafts they
may have written. Requiring the different drafts together forces
them to work on a paper more than once and makes it less likely
that they will just buy a paper from the internet. If students
are required to hand in work at different stages of the writing
process, they will be less likely to plagiarize.
This is probably because they are using their own cultural thought
patterns (patterns for organizing and presenting information) instead
of the one English uses. English uses an organizational pattern that
can be best represented by a straight downward arrow implying that
the writer focuses only on his point and does not divert from it.
Other languages don't necessarily use this pattern. For example, a
paper written using an Oriental organizational pattern will appear
to be a series of sentences circling a main idea that is never explicitly
stated. According to Kaplan the organization pattern Oriental languages
use can be best described by an arrow spiraling from an outer ring
to an ever smaller one.
- Using the English and the Oriental patterns given here as examples,
tell your students that different languages use different patterns
of organization and encourage them to become aware of the pattern
they are using. Doing so will help them be more conscious of what
they do when they write and what they should be doing.
- You can also ask that they hand in an outline before they write
their paper to make sure that they will hand in a well-organized
paper.
Making errors is part
of the learning process. Non-native English speaking students make
two types of mistakes: global and surface errors. Global errors are
those that can impede meaning. Sentence structure errors are examples
of global errors. These types of errors should be addressed since
they make the students' writing difficult to comprehend. Surface structure
errors are local errors that do not impede meaning. Examples of surface
errors are mistakes with mechanics, spelling, missing helping verbs
and the like. The emphasis should be on students' acquisition of what
is called "communicative academic writing proficiency",
not on the correcting of surface errors. However, this doesn't mean
that you should accept papers full of errors and grade them as if
there were no errors. You could deduct points for surface errors but
don't penalize students if their papers are understandable, organized
and developed properly.
- When correcting students' papers, you should focus on global
errors, not so much on surface ones.
- You might also want to provide guidance throughout the writing
process. For example, when assigning the paper, state your expectations
clearly. Before they hand in their paper, it might be a good idea
to do some peer-editing in your classroom to help students practice
looking for errors in their partner's essay, which is easier than
finding errors in their own papers. In time, this provides them
with the editing practice they need to edit their own work. When
students hand in their work, it is important for them to know
when and what types of mistakes they make and to try to correct
them, so it is a good idea to give them a chance to write a new
draft. At this point you can demand that they get help with their
papers at the ESL Resource Center or the Writing Center. You can
also request that tutors sign their papers as proof. When they
turn in their new papers, you can request that they hand in all
the drafts stapled together, in this way emphasizing the need
for revision.
Often nervousness
and anxiety affect our ability to communicate effectively. Sometimes
we stutter, speak fast, have a slow word-recall mechanism, etc. When
this happens to non-native English speaking students, their ability
to communicate effectively suffers; they might speak too fast and
jumble everything up or they might use the wrong words or mispronounce
them. All these things can make it very difficult to the non-native
English speaking student to communicate and for others to understand
him. However, that is not to say that snickering should be tolerated.
- Ask the student to explain himself by repeating what he said
but in a different way. To make sure you understand, paraphrased
what she says.
- Ask if anyone in the class can explain what the student is trying
to say. You can encourage the student to get help from someone
who speaks his native language.
- For speeches or presentations you can send the student to the
ESL Resource Center to practice, or you can suggest she go to
your office for a trial run.
- To avoid snickering, at the beginning of the semester make
it clear that making fun of other students will not be tolerated.
If it happens nonetheless, ask to speak with the responsible student
or students after class to reinforce the rule and maybe assign
some type of work as payment for the breaking of the rule.
Textbooks are often dense
with information, and for non-native English speaking students reading
so much information is often a daunting task. They are also often
unable to identify important from non-important information and often
feel overwhelmed and give up on reading all together. This is especially
so if they are not familiar with the layout of the textbook and how
to use it effectively.
- At the beginning of the semester, you might want to introduce
the book pointing out the different parts of the text, such as
table of content, index, glossary and how each of these can help
them. You can also explain how each chapter is organized and how
knowing this can help them study more effectively. You can also
direct students to the website http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~eslrc/HTML/101course/reading/exmenu_index.html
for them to learn study skills and how to use their textbook effectively.
- When you assign a chapter, it might be a good idea to explain
what students should focus on. This is especially important if
the chapter is long and conceptually challenging.
- You might also consider pacing the reading instead of assigning
a whole chapter at once.
- If you have assigned reading, start the class with a five to
ten minute activity related to the reading to find out what students
understood, clarify any questions they might have, and find out
what they have considered important. You can ask them open or
multiple-choice questions, give them true/false statements, have
them give you examples that illustrate a concept, etc. You can
also identify the main points in the reading and have students
explain them, adding or clarifying information they might have
missed or misunderstood.
- You can use the book in class; for example, you can have them
analyze and explain a chart.
- If the reading is concept laden, use examples to clarify concepts.
- You can provide students with a gapped outline for them to fill
in as they read, thereby focusing their reading.
In-class presentations are a challenge for both teachers and students.
They normally take-up a lot of class time, can become a bore after
a while, and if not planned adequately can fail to meet any educational
goal.
- First make sure that there is an educational goal for the use
of presentations. Why are you requiring them? If it is for students
to share what they learned during their research, then all presentations
should be about new topics related to but not previously discussed
in class. If it is for students to develop presentations skills,
then time should be set aside to teach and practice these.
- If presentations are based on their research papers, make sure
students understand that their presentations are not an oral redemption
of their papers. Inform them that they should try to summarize
their findings and highlight one or two examples. If they do this,
they might be able to keep their presentations around five minutes,
thus minimizing the amount of time spent on presentations. If
students go over 5 minutes, they should be made aware and given
some time, maybe one minute, to wrap up.
- Post-presentation question and answer periods should also be
timed. Open-ended post-presentation discussions can easily turn
into a conversation. If a post-presentation discussion goes off
on a tangent or turns into a conversation, stop it and bring it
back to the question. You can show or ask the speaker to show
how what is being talked about connects or relates to what you
are studying. For example, you could ask "What theory does
her story confirm?
- If the time issue is stuck to as much as possible, teachers
will be able to conduct 3 presentations a day (45-50 minutes)
and leave some time for another activity, so as not to overburden
students with so much listening.
- To break down the monotony of continuous listening, you can
schedule one or two presentations at the beginning of the period
and one at the end and do an activity in the middle.
- Maybe many students tune out because a lot of the presentations
have to do with material already studied in class. In this case,
there is no need to listen since no new information is given.
To avoid this, teachers might consider accepting only topics that
while relating to the theme of the class, do not go over information
already covered; this would ensure that all presentations contain
new material.
- To help your non-native English speaking students who are not
comfortable with the language give a presentation that is understandable,
require that they go to the ESL Resource Center, where they can
be helped with their delivery and pronunciation.
- To make sure that students know what is expected of them, list
your expectations on the board and remind students of them at
the beginning of each class session where students will present.
It is a good idea to
use concrete personal stories to illustrate an abstract concept or
theory. However, using personal stories to clarify concepts can become
entertainment and stay at that level, unless something is done to
move them from the personal. In order for personal stories to serve
as springboards to the understanding and application of a concept
or theory, students must be helped to apply the personal to the impersonal,
move from the concrete to the abstract. Personal stories should be
integrated into the lesson; students should be required to do something
with the personal stories themselves besides just telling them.
- After explaining a concept or theory and illustrating it with
an example, in groups have students share personal experiences
(theirs or someone else's) related to the concept or theory being
studied. Then for homework have them analyze their stories, explain
how they relate to or exemplify the concept or theory. They might
want to look at the historical, political, economic and/or societal
causes and effects, etc. Then two or so student volunteers can
be called on to share their analysis.
- You can also ask students to pick a personal story or share
one with them and have them show how that story supports/doesn't
support a certain concept or theory.
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1. I don't know how to identify non-native English speaking students
in my class.