3.5 Strategies for Success in the ESL Classroom
By Charles John Emond
ABSTRACT
A linguist and applied English lecturer, the author has developed specific methods for managing ESL classes and for teaching English through the use of the whiteboard. He has drawn upon a lifetime of teaching English to speakers of other languages and this article is specifically based upon his classroom experiences and the strategies he has developed during the past ten years of teaching English in Thailand at the secondary and university levels. The classroom methodology of using the whiteboard as a means of working with students on developing their writing skills as well as fostering critical thinking is carefully mapped out in this article and pedagogically grounded. In addition, this paper features ESL class management strategies which also foster critical thinking activities.
Keywords: Teaching, Writing, Whiteboard, Organization, ESL, Methodology ______________________________
Introduction
In the course of a lifetime of teaching English to speakers of other languages, I have developed and come to rely on a number of organizational and teaching strategies. These have been refined during the past ten years I have spent teaching English in Thailand at the secondary and university levels. This article is specifically based upon my classroom experiences and should be useful to all teachers, especially to teachers new to the ESL classroom. Some of these strategies are simple classroom management “tricks” while others, especially the use of the whiteboard are more pedagogical. The classroom methodology of using the whiteboard as a means of working with students on developing their writing skills and their critical thinking skills is mapped out in this article.
This non-research paper presents certain aspects of EFL classroom methodology which have worked well for me and which I would like to share with other teachers in this field. The classroom management practices were developed in response to the specific demands of my ESL classes and they follow my own personal approach to teaching and working with students. I believe that treating students of upper secondary and first year university age as adults is supremely important and so I strive to engage them as partners in the learning process. I do this by arranging the classroom as a conference, by using name cards in the way that international conferences often do, by writing out the agenda for the day on the whiteboard and allowing the class to influence what we do that class and when we do it and by allowing every student to access all his/her grade information and current class status at any time.
Critical thinking has been defined in a number of different ways and it has attracted considerable attention from educators both positive and negative. There are those who argue that it has no place in an ESL classroom as well as those who wouldn’t consider conducting a class without it. This is not a debate I will enter here and for the purposes of this paper I will