Beyond needs assessment, what strategies do you use to encourage the sharing of more personal experiences and observations by learners during in-class discussions?
Some stand-up comedians produce lots of material based on observation of daily life annoyances or awkward situations. My students enjoy watching these videos and will often voluntarily share similar situations and foster debate, which tends to lead to them sharing some more personal experiences.
I find that my students would talk better if I walk into class with an issue that I've "heard on the street". This is where social network such as Facebook can provide useful information. At times I find them advising me on "personal problems", of course it gets a bit tiring to come up with a problem that would lead to the learning objectives.
When you open a discussion on, say the ''bad English'' that you heard people used during the week for instance, these learners will share more with you. They will even find out from you the use of some words or expressions that they are themselves not sure of. I believe societal games, when carefully adopted to fit into the lesson activities could go a long way to help the adult learners in their second language class. During the game, they are able to express themselves freely with one another. They are able to ask the teacher series of questions for answers.
I think it could be related to the need of an adult student, with some future employment opportunity in a country of a different language than the one of their origin. This experience could be integrated through student exchange programs between institutions that collaborate in making this type of link.
Hands-on and practical applications! For example, I had an adult education instructor who taught a Saturday math class as part of the GED prep. To teach fractions he used recipes and he would have the participants double, triple the ingredients to increase the number of servings!
In my institute (India) , there are quite a number of persons among the staff who haven't finished their schooling but have learnt a spattering of English (second language) while at work; from students, faculty members and visitors. Some of them approached me with a request to "teach" them English. We have had more than 35 sessions in Basic English across 2 months. The first requirement is to make them comfortable and also the learning environment friendly. We would always start with coffee and biscuits. Secondly, all the examples, illustrations, sentences for homework etc. contain situations, usage of words etc. from their own life contexts and home scenarios. Thirdly, ask them to WRITE the answers in English on the whiteboard (when they present their homework the next day). This particular method, forces them - as it were - to take a pause, think and then approach the whiteboard. At the end, I also learnt quite a lot about my own staff as individual persons, their life styles and their struggles / challenges in life. The biggest impact, however, was that they weren't scared of English any more.
- Badges
- Science topic