TEFL - what resources can I use?

amz5

Hi,
I'm a primary school teacher with a good few years experience and I'm currently in the Philippines on career break doing volunteer work with children. I've been asked to do English with the staff in the evening too (also voluntary). I've done the TEFL course that qualifies already qualified teachers to teach at summer camps and I've also taught teenagers at a summer camp in Spain. However, I'm not so sure about teaching adults who are pretty fluent. English is the second language in the Philippines and it's very widely understood and spoken. All of the subjects in school are taught through English.

I hadn't planned on teaching English while I was here, and so I didn't bring any books of that nature. I have looked in the national bookstore and I really don't like the format of the books for teaching English. I'm not sure about ordering online as I'd imagine it'd cost a bomb to get books to the Philippines. I'm getting no suggestions here (I'm not in a school) so I was hoping someone could give me some ideas for websites or that someone might know of a place that I could order from/give me some suggestions.

This isn't really the work I'm here to do, just an extra, so I don't want to be preparing lessons for ages in the evening (unfortunately I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I probably will be doing that no matter what) so I'd really like some ready made lessons with a high emphasis on grammar ( )

Thanks in advance for your help

livinginkorea

With advance learners I always have the same problem - what book to pick and not many books out there to choose from for advanced speakers. Also, some of them would not want to pay for a book.

I used articles from the internet in my class. It worked very well (no politics or religion) especially if the news was a little odd or weird. Students could perform a role-play, discussion, etc after reading the article. Let the students do all the talking while you take notes and offer corrections at the end of class.

Before doing that I strongly suggest doing some sort of needs analysis to find out what exactly your students want from the class. There is no point in choosing a textbook if they have a different focus. Free talking is probably what they want to have.

Why do you want lessons with a high emphasis on grammar? Adults learn quite differently than kids and I would recommend focusing more on fluency to make the class more enjoyable. Unless they specifically asked for grammar (they have been studying it all their life so why now with a native speaker?), I would steer away from it. Grammar should be taught in a context, role or real plays focusing on a situation from an article could help a lot.

Let us know what you decide and how it goes.

peanuthead

Hi there, maybe don't use a book.

If you are dealing with adult learners, what I do is pick a

1. topic
2. grammar structure.

Say, for example the topic is 'health' and the grammar structure is 'modal verbs'.

I explain to them that we are going to talk about health, which we do and I ask them basic questions to get the mind working.

I then explain to them that we are going to use a grammar structure to talk about this topic. eg: with health I will give them a selection of hypothetical situations and they are the 'doctor', advising them on what they should/could/can't/musn't do etc.

Then I would go into the really abstract, ie: the pros and cons of traditional versus alternative medicines, here in Ireland I ask them about their opinions on head shops, the legalisation of drugs...

You can actually get them to write an argumentative/persuasive/informative piece on this too, for 'homework' if you like.

Although the only listening being done is that of to you and other students, you are covering the four skills plus vocabulary, grammar and culture in one lesson!!!

That can be done for lost of topics:

sport
environment
transport
conscience - good and bad
education
money

to name but a few.

Also, if you MUST use a book, get a CAE, CPE book (Cambridge certificates in advanced and proficiency in English)

hope this helps

amz5

Thanks for the advice. It's given me a lot of food for thought. I was considering using newspaper articles alright, so it's good to hear that you'd recommend them.

They have asked me to do grammar with them, they're better at speaking than writing as they do all their formal education through English even in primary school, so they can speak quite fluently and confidently. (The U.S. only left here in the 90s). They have to do all their reports in English (at this centre) so they want help with it from that perspective. They need to write all of their formal reports about the children in English - that's because that was demanded during the American occupation and they've continued to operate like that, which is very difficult for the natives despite being quite good at speaking English.

Teaching grammar doesn't appeal to me at all! I suppose I'd like the comfort of the structure of a textbook because I haven't been trained to teach adults or teach English to this level. The adults are aged 25+.

I'm delighted to see those responses. I've got plenty of ideas to keep me going from those ideas. Thanks a million!