Introduction
Hello,
My name is Alan Cohen. I am both an English as a Second Language teacher and a writer. I teach students (mainly adults) in Massachusetts. I am interested in talking with other teachers about the different methods they use to teach writing.
My classes consist of conversation, pronunciation and reading. I also do some dictation exercises. Some students find these exercises uncomfortable at the beginning but after awhile find this activity very useful.
Sincerely,
Alan
Hello,Alan.Before I begin to explain something about different methods of the teaching I want to tell you a little about myself.I’m very sorry for my primitiv language opportunities and my sometimes not good phrases and expressions.If you will have the time and wish you can use this site for the correcting my mistakes.I’ m former russian language teacher from Russia and of course I have the experience in the teaching in the russian language’s special programms and I want to say you ,that the process of the mastering of the other language is very difficult and multifaceted.Wenn I worked in the russian High School I taught the students at first several years the russian language and literature and like russian teacher I paid a a lot of attention on the level of the reading and writing without mistakes.In the russian schools during the process of the learning native language the students must write endless amount different grammatical exercises,dictations,presentations,compositions and other grammar works.The russian students in the russian schools have very big homework in the area of the russian language and literature and the teacher has a lot of work during the checking and finding out the grammar’s mistakes in the exercise books.We,the teachers, worked very hard,very much on the creating good and sound knowledges in the grammar.The children must remember by heart endless amount of the difficult russian words,rulers.There are special grammar dictionaries etc.etc.Therefore I can say you my opinion in this question: You have to give your students the opportunities for the improving the language through the dictations.And my opinion:more,more and more. Now I want to tell you about my language problems in the english language.You see ,How I can express my senses and you see my mistakes ,wenn I try to write or explain something on english.Maybe for you these efforts will be funny and you will lough on me,but English is not my native language and only with help of theendless dictations and reading and writting I can improve my level and my skills.Exuse me again for my not good language.You can correct my mistakes.
Comment by MikhailG — November 26, 2006 @ 14:37
hi all my name is Haleh. I am studying English in West Thames college. I have been living in London only 5 months. I will be grateful to have afriend here to speak or write because I want to improve my English
many thanks
haleh
Comment by haleh — February 23, 2007 @ 09:44
Hello! I’m Sarah and I had the experience of teaching ESL here in the Philippines as a part-time tutor. Based on my experience, the thing about teaching ESL or learning any language for that matter is to situate one’s self in the student’s position. I found out how easy it is to teach a foreign language that I speak but difficult to actually learn a language so foreign to you. I studied Korean language in school, and with this I understood what basic problems students encounter in learning a language. If not for my teacher’s carefully guided lessons and structured activities, I don’t think I would have remembered anything at all.
It’s much easier said than done though because I noticed that it’s not enough to focus on English as a foreign language and avoid teaching what English speakers normally learn in school. I have tried introducing English literature to my upper intermediate student, and so far it has been yielding positive results. He appreciated English more and came to understand how certain vocabularies are used in different contexts. He became more familiar with different sentence structures that he normally wouldn’t encounter in an ESL prepared text. Media is also one popular tool too. A clip or two from Youtube creates interesting topics for discussion.
These are just one of the many things that I have tried doing, and I’m still in the process of proving their effectivity. I hope we could communicate and exchange ideas ^_^
Comment by Sarah — September 20, 2007 @ 09:36