Has anyone here taught someone English? How would one go about it?

[Isabella]

I am thinking of offering to teach a young adult English.  She is from Taiwan, and is here in Australia on a working holiday visa.  She works a few hours away from my town, but comes most weekends and stays with her aunt, who is also Taiwanese, and married a local a year ago.  The aunt is trying to teach her English, but honestly, the aunt's grasp and pronunciation is not perfect by any means, but she gets along very well herself.  

 

She mentioned that the niece is finding it very hard to grasp, and is starting to get disheartened and sometimes refusing to copy the sounds that the letters make from her aunt.  I said that perhaps it's better that someone else teach her that is not family, although I didn't volunteer myself, as I wasn't sure if I would be able to.  

 

The aunt told me she's trying to get her to learn the sounds that the letters make, and gave me for an example, that c says k,k,k - s,s,s.  Then she asked her later the sounds c made, and the niece had no idea.  She also said that niece was learning the short sound of 'a', but then couldn't get the sound in the word 'crack'.  It just sounds very complicated to me, and disjointed.  I said maybe she'd be better learning the short sound 'a' and using words beginning with that sounds, a bit like a small child learning 'a' for 'ant', 'apple' etc, etc.

 

I would like to help the niece, but not sure which way to go about teaching English as a second language, assuming they'd accept the offer.  It doesn't help that I have no way of communicating with her, whereas her aunt can at least explain things in Mandarin.  They speak Mandarin obviously all weekend, and where she works she is able to speak Mandarin too with her friend.  It would possibly be better if she was immersed in English and wasn't able to speak her native tongue.

[Gil]

Are you talking about teaching her to read in English or to Speak and understand spoken English?

 

[mom2bee]

That's a tough one. I taught/tutored a Turkish woman in English conversation and reading, but it was easier for her to learn to read Englisj because she was literate in Turkish, which is also a phonetic language when written.

 

This Taiwanese woman is going to have to grasp and master an entirely different concept about the written word--that it can be 'encoded' and 'decoded' by sound. She'll have to wrap her head around and really get that the symbols themselves represent sounds not ideas. C = /k/ or /s/ is a HUGE difference from 'cat' = [picture of a cat]. I don't know this woman at all, obviously. So it will be difficult for me to judge.

 

I guess that I would separate spoken language and written language. Is there a reason to prioritize Reading alongside of speaking/understanding? If not, then I would start with conversation and vocabulary. At the very least, I would wait until she can speak about 12 phrases/100 words in English, use something very systematic, like Spalding/Phonograms to teach her to read in English. Reading could be taught in such a way that it supports pronunciation.

 

Perhaps recommend ReadingBear to the Aunt. It is something that the woman can spend time with on her own and is very good about building vocabulary and giving at least a passive understanding of English language and basic sentence structure. Perhaps the young woman can her work her way through Reading Bear while doing Conversational classes with a Native Anglophone?

[Isabella]

Are you talking about teaching her to read in English or to Speak and understand spoken English?

 

 

Both.  She doesn't seem to speak much at all, and obviously doesn't read or write.  Seems like she learnt some at school but she didn't pick up much, and is shy about speaking what she does have.

[Um_2_4]

I have taught some who moved to the US. I did start with the sounds and I do think having a native teach her would help. Also I gave them homework of watching at least 30 minutes a night of English tv with the captioning on, preferably not the news as it is too fast and no story line to follow. They had satellite so it was just too easy to watch channels/news in their language. I did speak their native language, but I did not use it to teach them (meaning I spoke only English with them), but it made it easier to compare letters and tell them this English letter sounds like this Arabic letter. I am not familiar with Mandarin, but maybe someone here could point you out to some resources to help her learn the sounds.

 

I just waited till they go the sounds down 90% before moving on to reading words (better pronunciation came with practice and time). Then I worked on needed daily vocab for them by topics. There are many websites out there with free printables/lists, etc. Just google ESL worksheets or the like.

 

And to be honest, maybe she isn't interested in learning if she can get by speaking Mandarin. It sounds like she is not being "thrown into the pool" so to say with regards to learning English. I have known several that just were surrounded by other speakers of their native tongue and had no true NEED for English and it took them a really long time to learn and some are still very weak in it and do not go past basics (time, money, asking for help, etc.)

[Isabella]

That's a tough one. I taught/tutored a Turkish woman in English conversation and reading, but it was easier for her to learn to read Englisj because she was literate in Turkish, which is also a phonetic language when written.

 

This Taiwanese woman is going to have to grasp and master an entirely different concept about the written word--that it can be 'encoded' and 'decoded' by sound. She'll have to wrap her head around and really get that the symbols themselves represent sounds not ideas. C = /k/ or /s/ is a HUGE difference from 'cat' = [picture of a cat]. I don't know this woman at all, obviously. So it will be difficult for me to judge.

 

I guess that I would separate spoken language and written language. Is there a reason to prioritize Reading alongside of speaking/understanding? If not, then I would start with conversation and vocabulary. At the very least, I would wait until she can speak about 12 phrases/100 words in English, use something very systematic, like Spalding/Phonograms to teach her to read in English. Reading could be taught in such a way that it supports pronunciation.

 

Perhaps recommend ReadingBear to the Aunt. It is something that the woman can spend time with on her own and is very good about building vocabulary and giving at least a passive understanding of English language and basic sentence structure. Perhaps the young woman can her work her way through Reading Bear while doing Conversational classes with a Native Anglophone?

 

See, I think her aunt is mixing the two (reading and speaking) together, which doesn't make sense to me, and neither to the girl, obviously.  That's a great idea…focusing on speaking first.  And with that, it doesn't matter so much that I can't speak Mandarin, as that's the whole idea…to get her to listen only to English.  I guess it'll be pretty basic to begin with…very stilted conversations, but she'd have to pick it up quicker than with her aunt, I'm sure.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Isabella]

I have taught some who moved to the US. I did start with the sounds and I do think having a native teach her would help. Also I gave them homework of watching at least 30 minutes a night of English tv with the captioning on, preferably not the news as it is too fast and no story line to follow. They had satellite so it was just too easy to watch channels/news in their language. I did speak their native language, but I did not use it to teach them (meaning I spoke only English with them), but it made it easier to compare letters and tell them this English letter sounds like this Arabic letter. I am not familiar with Mandarin, but maybe someone here could point you out to some resources to help her learn the sounds.

 

I just waited till they go the sounds down 90% before moving on to reading words (better pronunciation came with practice and time). Then I worked on needed daily vocab for them by topics. There are many websites out there with free printables/lists, etc. Just google ESL worksheets or the like.

 

And to be honest, maybe she isn't interested in learning if she can get by speaking Mandarin. It sounds like she is not being "thrown into the pool" so to say with regards to learning English. I have known several that just were surrounded by other speakers of their native tongue and had no true NEED for English and it took them a really long time to learn and some are still very weak in it and do not go past basics (time, money, asking for help, etc.)

 

Great ideas, thanks!  Yes, up to now (she's only been here a month), she has had no real need to learn, but the friend she works with is leaving soon, so she will be at her job with no-one that understands her, and she doesn't understand them.  So it's kind of getting important to start learning properly!

[Seasider]

This may sound rather naive, but I always thought that Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons would be a simple and straightforward way to teach an illiterate adult how to read.

 

However, (from the point of view of an ESL nonprofessional) it seems like it would be easier if you had some sort of working spoken vocabulary before starting the reading process.

 

Just my two cents.

[wintermom]

Wouldn't Australia offer ESL courses for immigrants in the community? Unless you have loads of free time, I'd let her take a course where she can get the books, materials and have some sort of accountability, receiving a written record of having taken a recognized course. This young adult could also get plugged into completing secondary education and eventually post-secondary ed to transform their life. 

[Orthodox6]

The numerous ESL websites may have helpful suggestions.  Better though, I think, to find a local organization with a program already in place.

 

Sadly, many people acquire their English language speaking skills by watching the cr*p broadcast on television.  It is a quick and effective teaching method.

[DawnM]

http://esl.about.com/od/teachingenglish/u/teach.htm

 

I find this website to be fairly comprehensive.

 

Learning necessary words and phrases is the easiest place to start.   Teaching basic Interpersonal Skills (BICS) in slow, repetitive methods works over time.  The CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) comes later, when a learner feels more confident in the language itself.

 

You can learn a lot more about BICS and CALP from Jim Cummins and I see now he has YouTube videos to explain how language learners develop language, which might be very helpful for you to watch.

 

 

 

There are also ESL YouTube videos where teachers actually teach ESL.  There may be a way to watch them with her (or watch them separately) and then discuss the content of them together.

 

I too agree that perhaps a local ESL program would be best.  Perhaps you could offer to tutor her on the side with whatever materials she needs help with from the class, or offer to practice conversational English with her based on the lessons from the class.

 

Dawn