How to Teach English As Second Language for the 6th Grade

Sixth graders' proficiency in their native language will help them in learning English.

Students of the sixth grade have a strong level proficiency in their native language, but are likely still beginners in English. Lucky for all, the ability of a student to develop her English ability is correlated with her native language ability. When teaching ESL to students of the sixth grade, you should design a course suited to their proficiency in language ability in general while still keeping their English ability in mind.

Instructions

Planning

1. Assess your students' English ability. You will need to know your students' current level before properly designing an ESL course for them. Prepare an assessment that tests students on both the oral and literacy aspects of learning English. For oral assessment, you can administer a speaking test that consists of eliciting English statements from students. Ask students questions that gauge students' oral abilities. For literacy assessment, you may use a cloze assessment. In a cloze assessment, the teacher gives students a passage of around 250 words in which every fifth word (starting from the second sentence) is removed. You then tell students to fill in these blank spaces with suitable words. By the end of these assessments, you should understand the ability of your students and will be able to make proper course preparations.

2. State course goals. In your course planning, you should state the goals of the course and how you plan to help students achieve these goals. You also should state how much students should progress before certain dates. For sixth grade students, basic literacy fundamentals and communication skills (the equivalent of that of third grade native English speakers) are adequate goals.

3. Design tests. You should spread out tests so that they correspond to the dates you have set for achieving specific goals. Design these tests with your specific goals in mind.

4. Create lesson plans. Lesson plans should give specific instructions as to what to do during each class. Create lesson plans that allow students to improve on areas to be tested by upcoming tests.

Instructing

1. Warm up. Begin class by warming up. Warming up can be either review the material from the previous class or leading into the material for the current class. A warm up may be a combination of reviewing and previewing.

2. Instruct students. Follow your lesson plan and teach students the new material. Start with theory and then move into examples. For example, if teaching the basic tenses (past, present, and future), you can draw a timeline showing when to use which tense. Then you can give example sentences: "Yesterday, I went to the bank and post office, but tomorrow I will only go to the post office."

3. Elicit response. To confirm that you students understand the new material, use methods that force students to use the material in class. Methods of eliciting response are asking questions, giving worksheets and assigning group assignments.

References

• Asian EFL Journal: "Chinese Literacy -- Learning Strategy Impact on English Reading Development"; Clay Williams; January 2010
• "ESL Literacy Instruction"; Lee Gunderson 2008
• "Children and ESL: Integrating Perspectives"; Rigg and Enright; 1986
• "Teacher Change and Professional Conversations: A Case Study of an ESL Instructor's Changing Beliefs and Practices Regarding Literacy Learning and Instruction"; Paola Bonissone; 2002