Teaching Adults English

There has been a rise in the number of Chinese individuals studying the English language in recent years. Teaching English to adults in China may seem like walking a tightrope between being able to properly assess the students' level of proficiency and coming off as condescending to those who start out at a much lower proficiency level. Here I will provide some advice for instructing Chinese adults at a beginner's level in the English language.

Find Out Where Your Students Stand With Their Beginning Skills

This is essential before commencing any course, but unlike with younger pupils of the same age, the proficiency levels of adults in English may vary widely, even within a single class. Before placing students into classes, your institution or training center typically administers an oral test to gauge their proficiency in spoken English. Create your own mini-pop quiz if you're teaching on your own.

Start with the most basic inquiries such, "What's your name?" or "Where are you from?"

, "How old are you?

, and then progressively make it harder from there. As soon as a student stops responding, you should have a solid notion of where to place them in terms of ability and course load.

Though these words are sometimes vague, a pre-lesson English proficiency test may help you sort your pupils into strong and poor categories. Testing children' reading, writing, and listening skills at these early levels may be done in a variety of ways, including those indicated above.

In the event that there is a significant gap in academic performance amongst students in the same class, you may want to suggest that some of them be transferred to another class. But if you think the disparities are bearable, you may put the more capable pupils to use by having them aid the weaker ones or by helping you demonstrate the games and activities.

Teachers should avoid condescending to their pupils but not be reluctant to revisit fundamentals. To assist A-0 students with pronunciation, it may be required to introduce them to the "International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)," whereas A-1 students may already be proficient with it. Either way, the first point is determining the pupils' current English proficiency.

Make Plans

The same applies to educating older students as it does to teaching younger ones. If a teacher doesn't prepare, they're planning on a lousy lesson.

TEFL lesson plans will become your closest buddy while instructing Chinese adults at a beginner level in the English language. Each lesson should focus on a specific linguistic concept (often a grammatical point) and have a central topic (usually a set of vocabulary). Suppose you're using the adverbs of frequency (never, seldom, sometimes, frequently, etc.) as "the target language," and hobbies as the topic of your lesson. Teaching kids to make statements like "I never play soccer" or "I occasionally play piano" should be the lesson's ultimate goal. An example of a possible lesson outline is as follows:

Introduce the essential idea first. Get creative with your representations of interests; use as many images, slideshows, objects, and so on as you can. If you're a teacher, you should avoid giving too much information at once. Five or six words is probably the most you should try to work with.

Now, I want you to introduce the frequency adverbial vocabulary. Repeatedly, it is essential to make use of several visual aids. Maybe a weekly timetable might help you figure out what each word means. Training drills are up next. Gap-filling writing tasks might be helpful. Listening exercises might be helpful for students as well. Help pupils as much as you can and correct their work if they make any errors at this point in the class.

Conclude with some kind of creative output. Encourage pupils to use the target language and terminology in their own writing as much as feasible. If students wanted to conduct a poll on their classmates' hobbies, they may ask, "How frequently do you do (hobby)?" Then jot down the solution. This encourages more conversation and collaboration amongst students.

Keep in mind that students with a lower English proficiency level may miss some of your explanations or comments as you go along. For this reason, images are essential. Similarly, instructing pupils what to do may not be an efficient method of education. Make sure you show the exercise being performed, either by yourself or with a very capable pupil.