This module will help you to understand communication issues facing students from non-English speaking background (NESB).

ESL Teaching Strategies

• Write key words on the board and use visual and other non-verbal cues, wherever possible, to present key ideas
• Provide written notes, summaries, instructions, and pre-reading
• Use the students' native languages to check comprehension and clarify problems
• Communicate interest in students' linguistic development and set expectations
• Respond to students' language errors
• Use directed reading activities
• Use audio taped texts to combine aural and visual cues
• Establish a supportive environment for language learning
• Use cooperative learning strategies
• Encourage students to rehearse information or instructions orally
• Use peer tutoring

NOTE: The following content is adapted from English as a Second Language Learners: A Guide for Classroom Teachers
Available at: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/esl/policy/classroom.pdf

Whilst you watch the video, consider the following questions:

Basic Questions:

1. What advice would you give to a new academic having difficulties teaching a class with a large number of NESB students? Explain why.
2. Write ten unspoken questions from new NESB students during the first days of class.
3. How can instruction be adjusted to meet the cultural characteristics of international students?

Extended Questions:

1. How would you strike the balance between the need to provide enough content and ensuring that you are been understood appropriately by NESB students in class?
2. If teachers group students on the basis of language ability, how might this impinge on other traits such as dependency, collaboration, understanding or sociability?
3. If a class were composed entirely of NESB students, how would you evaluate academic performance taken into account linguistic communication limitations?
4. Point out some ways in which teachers could inadvertely support the stereotypes of international students by projecting classroom messages such as:
   • They rote learn and lack critical skills
   • They appear to focus excessively on the method of assessment
   • They don't understand what plagiarism means
   • They do not easily adjust to local conditions