Pls. HELP ME out with this: I need strategies to engage my ESL students in our SPEECH class.?

Question

This question would actually cover linguistics (language acquisition) and phonology/phonetics... (speech = oral/aural comminications, in particular)
so these are my activities: pronunciation drills, tongue twisters, dictation drills, impromptu speech, oral reading,
American Accent Training:lecture n activities,cable tv watching,song listening&singing,and inclusion of TOEIC listening:exam and analysis...We do most of the activities in isolation...but most of my materials could be categorized as high level, or above intermediate. the problem is my students level is not restricted...so studetnts of all levels come in and out...among those who stay for quite a while seem to force themselves to stay focus,when inevitably they get dizzy,although i know,i sometimes get so serious too...but my most of my students who stayed and survived with me in class,were actually improving and progressing...So it gets me to wonder,do i bore them,or is it just too difficult,what activities should we do?

I'm sorry let me elaborate d pros n cons of d activities we do:

pronunciation drills:(every Monday)once a week...i'd say,it's doing well

dictation drills.it's good...they'd get to think about accuracy in encoding/decoding orally transmitted messages

tongue twisters...(i'd still like to insist this especially in the shifting of specific vowel sounds,lax to tense...)as long as i'm able to carry on with my explanation on how to articulate specific sounds...i get 100% attention

IMPROMPTU speech...this has become a highlight of my class,yes it's true,it may cause intimidation,but somehow students who survived,are challenged,in d end they're helped.

ORAL reading...i focus on their pronunciation and their delivery... (but they'd get dizzy)if we do it monotonously,i mean if without varied activities.

American Accent Training...interesting to high level students.but a headache to low level student.s

Singing: gooooood
TOEIC Listening: ok
Movie Watching/Cable TV Watching:ok

Answer 1

I agree with Fancy regarding tougue twisters for second language learners.

Here are some ideas below:

* Have them read an article from a newspaper or magazine- something that they find interesting.

* Have them talk about subjects they love, like football or cooking ( examples). Boys can read out football comments and girls read out instructions for a recipe.

*Try to put the students in groups according to their levels and have them do group work such as collecting interesting poems or short stories to read out loud. Each member of his/her group reads part of the story or a poem.

* Have them make their own English magazine and everyone takes part in building it with different things from poems, news articles, jokes, quizes, recipes and other similar stuff.

* Field trips: Go to places like restaurants, cultural places where only English or given foreign language is spoken and have then order in that language- places where they can use the language.

*Another fun activity is to have them make up a spontaneous story. One person starts off a story with a sentence, then going round the class each student adds another sentence to it building the story up. They will find this fun and it will really grab their attention.

* Have them bring in a favourite item or photo and talk about it. You can have them bring something that starts with a particular phonic sound or different phonic sounds given to each. They can each take a phonic card with its sound out of a box, and the one they get will be the one they have to represent with a item or something in a photo they have.

* Videos should be of a interesting family series - which is short and they can watch each week or every two days or documentaries about the issues with the environment or anything interesting.

* You can organise different themes each day- like one day the subect being about hospitals, or forests, amusement parks, and shopping etc. This is a great way to build up their vocabulary for different areas they may most likely visit. Teaching aids could be a video and given items etc. about the particular given theme.

Answer 2

Survived? Dizzy? Its time to rethink. If you are hitting them with things that are above their level to that extent you need to teach who is in front of you. Tongue twisters are just cruel for ESL students, native english students can have trouble with those. Impromtu speech can be intimidating for anyone in ANY speech class. Try adding some team and group work. If all of your students speak the same language (Spanish, Hmoung Etc) or at least groups of them do, have them do bilingual excercises, where one person gives the speech in their native tongue and the other gives it in English. Start with simple stories and work from there. Use recorded speeches as models and then have them give the speech, Americanrhetoric.com has a world of speeches on audio that they can listen to as models. Many ESL students learn language from TV. Record an episode of a family type program, write a transcript, Show them the program once, turn the sound off and let them say the lines.

Answer 3

I feel that it is a real touchy subject. I think that of course anyone should have the right to speak their language in their own homes of course and during their personal time. I also feel that they should work on adapting to their surroundings. Their are those that can't bare to hear someone speaking anything other than English. I understand that but I also understand the immigrants. As far as ESL students, I think the constant practice of speaking English would increase their level of understanding and speaking of the language. This is a long winded answer but i am speaking from a sort of experience. My two step kids, ages 16 1/2 and 14 are from Haiti. I am American and so is the rest of my family. I have seen these kids go from absolutely no English to knowing some stuff that they shouldn't. they came in Sept 2001. My daughter has actually "lost" most of her language. She understands it but she has a hard time expressing certain things in Creole, where as my 16 year old son speaks both and still has a very hard accent. He also hangs with alot of Haitians in school. O.K. that is all that I am going to say, even though I have much more to say (-:

Answer 4

I taught English in Korea and something that worked great there were little skits that the students acted out...they were about everyday activities...going to a restaurant or supermarket...how to order a pizza to be delivered...things you would want to know how to do...there are several companies online that you can look up that provide the kits or you can make your own...they work well with students of varying levels because you can make the scenes as tough or easy as you want...the students are given the words to study beforehand, you can/should review them...the biggest problem is with idioms or 'cultural prases' which seem to confuse non English speakers...

Answer 5

Fun activities may keep then engaged. I have a good friend who taught ESL classes. He had great success with music and song lyrics. Have kids bring in pop music, in English of course, and have everyone sing along to the lyrics in class. Or bring in music yourself that they would all be interested in.

Challenges and competition with their peers are also good motivators. I got that from that old book "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Definitely worth a read.

Answer 6

You have been given some great ideas already. Singing with them in english can be fun and it will help them learn the subtle nuances and inflections of pronunciation. Maybe do hand movements to keep it fun. Reading out loud to them will help that as well. You can also have them read skits and act them out. Another idea: make a simple, easy checklist for the students to take around to helpful staff members who can critique them reading something short and fun out loud.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

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