Introduce the problem and the language needed to
work on it
To maximize language learning outcomes, ESL teachers
need to prepare adult students for the language demands of
the problem-solving activity. Activities to prepare students
vary according to their proficiency levels. (See Rhem, 1998,
for activities that can be done in small groups.) These may
include prereading or prewriting exercises, discussions to
link the problem with the students’ knowledge and experiences,
or preteaching vocabulary and structures that will be
useful in finding solutions to the problem.
For teachers, selecting problems for students to work on
may be the most difficult part of problem-based learning.
Ideally, problems should
be related to the students’ lives to increase interest and
motivation,
require students to make decisions and judgments (the
problem they work on should be an actual problem, not
just an information-gathering task), and
include a question or set of questions that are openended
and likely to generate diverse opinions.
Teachers might survey students for their ideas on problems
or conflicts that they face, or have faced, in their daily
lives or that they are aware of in their community. Below
is a problem that students at the high-beginning or above
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levels might work on. Although it is teacher created, it
mirrors the problems many refugees and other adult learners
face when they arrive in the United States and need to
support their families while learning English.