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Help needed with students that are total beginners... where to post?

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RenateJungRan:
Hi everyone!

As I'm new on this website and don't know where to post my question, I guess I'd start here ;) My apologies in advance if it's in the wrong section.

I have two years teaching experience, but mainly with adults (some highschool and middle school students, but they were all able to speak a little bit conversational English).

I recently started teaching a kindergarden student and an elementary school student, but the problem with both students is that they both barely can speak English. They are both not able to understand or make sentences in English and only know a few words. The kindergarden student started studying English 3 months ago and the elementary school student about 2 months ago. They both don't know any basic classroom commands...

As this is the first time for me to teach students on such a low level, I would appreciate it if someone has tips on how to teach them. The problem is also that I do not speak any Korean....

With the kindergarden student I use the books:

- English Land 1
- Smart Phonics 1
- Coursebook "Smart Phonics 1"

I have to check the titles of the books I use with the elementary school student, as I just selected them yesterday for her and I don't remember the titles;;^^

If you have any tips, ideas or maybe links to video's for me I would appreciate that a lot. I have tried to search on Youtube, but unsuccesfully (but must admit I'm not really good at searching;;^^).

If I need to post this somewhere else or you have any additional questions for me, please let me know! Thanks for reading my post!  :D

lukea:
Hi, I was wondering if you have found a way to teach beginners? I'm teaching high school students and four out of my six classes can't speak any English. My co-teacher wants me to teach them Elementary/Beginner English, but I don't know where to start, or how to get through to them.

Sorry I couldn't help with your question.

Tpre022:
OP, I don't have time for a long post, but I'll give one suggestion and hopefully others will help out too. I've taught absolute beginner kindergarteners without a co-teacher, and I think a really good place to start is flashcards for vocabulary building. Get a set of say, animals, foods and emotions cards. Go through and drill them, be patient. Play some basic 'games' like showing them 3 cards, saying one, getting them to point at the one you said. Once they've learned ~30 nouns, you can start on basic verbs and simple sentences using the nouns they already know. It's good to get the nouns down first so they can concentrate on forming sentences and not on remembering what everything means.

Remember, memorizing is hard work, take it slow.

It sounds like you're teaching 1 on 1, is that right?

TheWB18:
I'd second the flashcards.

Oh, and something I still re-learn every few weeks.  Kids' attention spans, even by 2nd grade, seem to be no more than 5-10 minutes on a particular activity.  So a bunch of 5-8 minute activities, drills, songs, and coloring sheets is a good mix.  Goes for 1st grade too, especially so early in the year.

s2alford:

--- Quote from: Tpre022 on March 07, 2012, 12:17:47 pm ---OP, I don't have time for a long post, but I'll give one suggestion and hopefully others will help out too. I've taught absolute beginner kindergarteners without a co-teacher, and I think a really good place to start is flashcards for vocabulary building. Get a set of say, animals, foods and emotions cards. Go through and drill them, be patient. Play some basic 'games' like showing them 3 cards, saying one, getting them to point at the one you said. Once they've learned ~30 nouns, you can start on basic verbs and simple sentences using the nouns they already know. It's good to get the nouns down first so they can concentrate on forming sentences and not on remembering what everything means.


--- End quote ---

Wow, this is excellent. Thank you! I just started teaching quite a few absolute beginners this week as well and I've been despairing and wondering where to begin with them. I've been teaching more advanced students for the past 6 months now and I just wasn't prepared at all for dealing with kids that hardly know the alphabet.

Your advice sounds perfect for getting off to an easy, and hopefully engaging start. Cheers!

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