From my experience of teaching English as a second language, only my high intermediate and advanced classes use English only.    Their vocabulary and understanding makes it possible.    In all my other classes I allow them to use their native language in groups to help each other understand what is being taught.  I have found than it  is necessary for the student to understand what you are teaching in both lguages.  This makes it possible for the student to use and understand what is being taught in English, which in turn allows them to understand and interact with native speakers.

 

Ron

 

You will be teaching teachers....

 

....but are they going to be teaching English?

 

If so, they should do two things at least: learn English from you, but first learn to learn English in English, and not rely on Spanish.

 

I am not a teacher-trainer, but was taught by some who stressed the importance of that (long term) for the students � benefit.

As part of our course, we were taught Mandarin by a teacher who spoke no English whatsoever until the end of the final lesson. She did that in order to (1) show us that students can grasp a 2nd language (to some degree) in "immersion" learning (2) to show us that teachers can teach only in the target language.

If they are not learning to be English teachers, and maybe as you have said "beginners" they are not doing that, then I see no harm in a minimal use of their mother tongue.

I use a little Japanese to teach Japanese kids, but I feel that the important thing is not to let that grow into a lesson where the Japanese begins to equal the English. As long as the learners understand the importance of using English as much as possible, and aim for that, it seems a little pedantic to say "only immersion is real teaching".

Perhaps teachers with many years of experience (I have only 5 or so), will have better and better-explained advice for you.

 

I hope so.

First of all: stop panicking :-)  Secondly, speak English.  Not only, so if you know some Spanish, you can translate the odd word. But indeed, they should not speak Spanish for that one hour a day (or so). Remember that the grammatical structures of these languages are very different!

So they should not learn to translate, but develop a �feeling � for English.  Using two languages leads in my experience to mostly translating.  I teach Afghanies, Iranians and Iraqies one hour a day, five days a week and from just six weeks, and for some up to 12 weeks.  I take pride when other departments praise the �clients � for their progress in English in that short period of time.  My main goal is to get them over the fear of speaking and making mistakes.  I know only a dozen or two Persian words, so that �s an advantage for me.  But we do use dictionaries. In short, I did translate that "mistakes are only learning opportunities" :-)

Next, have them talk English from minute one.  My SS repeat every word I say.  I speak slowly, well articulated, and then I repeat the same sentence a bit faster and next just in the normal Aussie slang way.  They copy me, and before I know it, they bring in their own variations.  I use lots of pictionaries (I also have an Interactive Whiteboard, so I can use the fabulous stuff from this site), the word families, and the "1000 most common sentences in English".  So as soon as we know a few words and the first verbs (be, have and do) we start the sentences.

Please feel free to contact me in my private mailbox. 

Cheers, and remember, panick never taught an English lesson.  But we did.

Yours in teaching, Peter

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is broken down in pdf as a syllabus:

 

 

 

Cheers,

Douglas

 

EDIT:  also:   http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=38533

 

 

The problem with adults (especially in a monolingual class) is that they constantly refer to their mother tongue and translate.  They also want to WRITE everything down ...... you won �t be able to change them!  Just try to speak English as much as possible, slipping in the occasional word or explanation in their language.  Just play it by ear, see how they react. 

 

At the Chamber of Commerce, where I worked,  we did a lot of in-company teaching so you have to be careful, they are PAYING, and they want results ..... and often quickly (which always makes me laugh!!) each student is different and they all have their own methods and capacity of learning.

 

Good luck and contact me if you have any more questions.

 

Janet

Sometimes I translate some words when I really want them to understand something, but very rarely, I tell them I �m not a walking dictionary and encourage to use one. I speak only English all the time, and I have never had any problems.