How to Teach ESL Life Skills

Real life scenarios, like a trip to the supermarket can make ESL lessons more interesting and useful.

Understanding grammar is an important part of learning English. However, if you teach adult immigrants, it is more important to teach them skills that help them do everyday life tasks. Not only will they find this information more useful, they will learn important vocabulary that they will remember.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Create lesson plans around basic life skills, for example, making a doctor's appointment, shopping at a supermarket or preparing for a job interview.

2. Introduce basic vocabulary. If you are creating a lesson plan about shopping at a supermarket, include vocabulary such as produce, cashier, debit, credit, check, organic, even paper or plastic.

3. Write a scenario-based story or conversation. Include the vocabulary you just taught. For example, a person shopping for items at the supermarket may have a conversation about an item that is on sale, or you may want to write a conversation between a customer and an employee where the customer is looking for an item and the employee provides directions on where to find it.

4. Encourage class participation by asking students how the real-life activity you are teaching is conducted in their country. Where would they by their groceries? How would they visit a doctor?

5. Make lessons fun. Whenever possible, treat it like a game.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't assume that this information is basic, and your students know this stuff. Debit cards are not common throughout the world.

• If you are writing a lesson plan about a job interview, understand there are many cultural differences. For example, in many countries it is permissible to ask questions about religion, age, political beliefs and other things that are illegal in the United States.

References

• The Internet TESL Journal: Effective Ways to Use Authentic Materials with ESL/EFL Students