Teaching to Low-Level Students

One of the biggest challenges of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) is finding an effective way to communicate and connect to beginner students. It can be frustrating to give instructions again and again, trying to explain things in a way they can understand with their extremely limited vocabulary. It can also be difficult to control younger students because they have so much energy. It's important to exercise patience, empathy...and continue to enforce an English-Only Policy.

Connecting with Beginner Students

Building rapport: It is vitally important to connect with students, especially at the low-levels in which you need to demonstrate every day that you care about them as people. Be silly, be fun, show them that you’re open to questions. It's important to incorporate games or speaking and drawing activities for younger students. Give students the chance to write or draw on the board; if they have sanction to get out of their chair every now and then, they'll find it easier to sit through the rest of class.

Basic Communication: For beginner students, you need to do anything it takes in order to establish communication. Let them translate for each other, allow them to draw or write on the board if needed. Use simple English phrases that they already know, then expand on it. Students pick up these phrases from different kinds of pop culture including music, movies, and sports.

For example: a lot of students will know the term "yellow card" from watching sports, so if you tell them "yellow card" they can understand that it means "this is a warning".

The key to communicating with Low-Level students is repetition, repetition, repetition.

• Repeat the rules every day
• Repeat the book name
• Repeat important vocabulary words
• Repeat anything they thought was funny
• Repeat their names
• Repeat your name

*Remember to talk constantly: these students’ first words will likely be an imitation of you. Students will pick up on the words you say all the time. Although it may be tempting to use their native language (if you know how to speak it) with these students, they generally benefit more from needing to find other ways to communicate with you.

Establishing Rules: It's important to be clear and consistent about rules from the very beginning. Say the rules aloud and write them on the board every day. Encourage the students to say the rules with you until they know it by heart. After a few days, you should be able to ask, "What's rule number one?" and have all the students reply, "Be nice!"

If you have a native co-teacher, they can be your best tool for establishing rules.

Discipline: Implement a system immediately that rewards good behavior and disciplines bad behavior. Establishing a point-system can be helpful in rewards/discipline. An easy way to do this is to write everyone's name on the board at the start of class and give them points for answering questions, sharing their materials, or volunteering to read out loud. If one student is being noisy or not following the rules, use positive reinforcement with the students who are doing a good job instead of giving attention to the students who are misbehaving. If a student become disruptive say "Alice, thank you for being quiet" or "John, thank you for sitting nicely" and give the well-behaved students a point. Seeing this, all other students will become quiet or sit nicely in order to also earn a point. Points should only be removed in extreme cases, as it can be detrimental to take away merits a student has already earned. If students are naughty, you draw a separate box on the board and write their name in it. Erase the name letter by letter for every 3-5 minutes the student is well-behaved.

Establish signals that correspond with the rules not being followed (i.e a finger to the lips if a student is being noisy, pointing to the chair if a student is standing), be sure to also use verbal queues with these signals. Eventually, students will learn to follow the verbal queue alone. Having students interact with the rules is also very effective.

For example: if one of the rules is "sit down", start by using the phrase "sit down". Later, shorten the command to simply "sit". After hearing you repeat "sit down" for a while, the students will be able to make the connection and if you say "sit" they'll reply with "down" as they put their bottoms back in their chairs. As a bonus, the kids think this kind of call-and-response is great fun!

Transitioning to Higher Levels

Leveling up: As students develop their English skills, teachers need to compensate for this in their teaching style. Different materials are required as well as fewer leniencies in grammar and pronunciation. In the beginner levels, it's important for students to say anything in English, even if it's wrong or mixed up with their native language. And that's good! You want them talking! However, as they progress through their learning, it's important to start fine-tuning their communication skills early on, so they don't learn too many bad habits.

Materials: Now that your students can read, try giving them a vocabulary sheet (with pictures) with helpful words or phrases they can use. If they are learning something new and think it will be difficult for them, give them some examples! As time goes on, give them fewer full sentences to copy and more fill in the blank. This way, students will continue to learn sentence structure while also being encouraged to use their own ideas. They will struggle in the future if they become accustomed to their teachers writing their entire essay for them!

Speaking & Writing: Start correcting students' pronunciation and grammar when they speak. You don't want them to develop bad speaking habits! It's also best to encourage students to speak in complete sentences. Form the sentence for them and have them repeat it back to you.

For example: When students are beginners, they will just say "Bathroom?" As their English skills develop, this might evolve into "Bathroom, please!" To transition into a full sentence, model "May I go to the bathroom?" for them and have the students repeat it back to you any time they want to go to the bathroom. After a while, it will become habit for them to ask in the complete sentence.

In writing, make sure to gently correct spelling or grammar mistakes, especially the use of articles (a/an/the). At this point it's important that students focus on handwriting and learn to write legibly. If a student's writing is too messy, erase it and have them do it over. If it's still to messy, repeat the process until they write legibly. Students will hate this and complain a lot, but this is what gives them incentive to write more neatly in the future so don't let their puppy-dog eyes get to you!

The Joy of Teaching Low-Level Students

Ultimately, the most important thing with low-level students is to form a relationship with them. Unfortunately, this can be more difficult than befriending high-level students due to the language barrier. The most important thing when teaching low levels is for students to be comfortable with you. These students learn best by conversing with you or repeating after you, so it's okay to get distracted from time to time and have off-topic conversations. When students know you care about them, it's actually easier to discipline them.

With patience, you will find that Low-Level students are some of the most challenging, but some of the most loving and unique students you will ever teach.

*My name is Rachel and I have been teaching ESL in South Korea for over 3 years. I was promoted to Head Teacher of my campus in June 2018 and since then have been responsible for training new teachers as well as occasionally presenting at company-wide conferences. I got my start in teaching Kindergarten and transitions into teaching students of all levels from Pre-Elementary through Middle School. I now teach online to students of all ages!