Teaching ESL at the university level is very satisfying as it is so easy to find something to talk about with the students. They are old enough to have some life experience, even if they don’t have the English words with which to talk about their experience. Our task as ESL teachers is to tap into their life experiences and make it easier to “fit” new vocabulary and expressions into their repetoire. Money is one of those topics that finds a high level of student interest and willingness on their part to get involved in learning English.
The lesson was not just to touch the money, it was to compare the currencies of America, Canada and China. When the money was compared then they got to prepare presentations for the topic, “If I had a million dollars I would . . . ” Getting the students to talk was not even a bit difficult with this motivational set up.
Singing is one way to practice English. The truth is, it provides each student much more practice time. In a normal 90 minute class, each student would only get from 30 seconds to one minute of “talk” time if the lesson was well structured. Singing a three minute song still leaves the “talk” time in place but provides an additional amount of time for oral practice.
Of course, these kinds of interactive lessons are “memorable occasions” as one of Maureen’s students commented. And as with all memorable moments, the cameras built into cell phones come into a fair bit of use. Who says you can’t have fun while you’re learning or teaching?
