Ideas for the First Few Sessions

Lynne's Ideas for Your First Few Sessions

• Check in with Lynne to let her know how you're doing, and if you have any questions. (By email: esl@joneslibrary.org, phone: 259-3093, or in person: 1-5 M, 9:30-1:30 T-F).
• Help your student get a library card (if he/she doesn't have one yet).
• Explore the programs on the computer in the ESL computer room to see if there's anything that would be suitable for your student to try. Any time is OK; get the key from Lynne or at the circulation desk.
• Go to the Jones Library web site and check out the links for independent study for ESL students. See if any of them would be suitable for your student to try with you, or for homework. http://joneslibrary.org/esl/info/adult.html.
• Try to get some feedback from your student on how things are going. Questions that are specific are usually more successful than open-ended ones. Try, for example:
  • Are the lessons very easy/hard for you?
  • Are you getting too much/not enough homework?
  • Is it helping you to study (the topic/skill/particular book you're using) or would you like to try something else instead?
  • Am I speaking too fast for you (or using too many difficult words) or do you understand me OK?
  • What things have you learned in the last few weeks during our lessons?
  • What has been the most useful thing you've learned?
  • What would you like to learn more of? (learn next?)
• Explore some field trip possibilities instead of spending every lesson in the library.
• Explore the possibility of sending email to each other if your student already has a little written proficiency. You can have your student send an email to Lynne too, if you like. Some students may want to learn how to use email or the internet to keep in touch with family at home or catch up on the news in the native language.
• Show your student how to leave you a phone message, and make it into a homework assignment. It's OK to leave a message for Lynne too.
• Try the timeline activity with your student. Draw one for yourself too.
• Share photos of your family/home and encourage him/her to share some with you.
• If your student writes a little, ask him/her to write a few sentences each day in a journal. Provide written feedback or corrections, (if your student asks for them) when you get together.
• Learn a few words in your students' language (hello/goodbye, colors, days of the week, please/thank you, etc.) If possible, see if your student can teach you how to write your name in his/her language.
• Try a "contact assignment." Tell your student to find out some information that would require him/her to ask somebody a question (in English). Library workers, for example, are very nice about cooperating with these assignments. More advanced students may be able to get information from someone over the phone.
• If your student likes to cook, see if you can get him/her to give you a cooking lesson.
• Find out if your student knows how to use a phone book or look things up in the newspaper. If not, teach this, and make an assignment.
• Collect forms wherever you go, and help your student practice filling them out. For example: job applications, bank forms, accident report forms, credit card applications, (voided) blank checks, etc.
• See if it is helpful to your student to make a tape of whatever you've worked on during the session so that he/she can go over it between sessions. The tape could include words for pronunciation practice, new vocabulary/idioms, examples of a particular sentence structure, a read-along recording for literacy practice, etc.
• Get permission from your student to talk to his/her supervisor at work, (or ESL teacher at school) to get suggestions about specific topics or language skills to work on with your student. If the student is attending an ESL class, the teacher may be willing to let you observe the class to see what (how) the students are learning and give you ideas about how to supplement this.
• Look through the boxes of worksheets below the ESL collection. See if there's anything that would be useful to your student--take whatever you like.

If you think of an activity that you think I should add to this list, please send it to Lynne Weintraub at esl@joneslibrary.org!