Helping ESOL Students Succeed

Posted by Thadra Petkus Nov 17, 2008

Teachers should strive to continuously broaden their perspectives of society, education, and their role in each. Just as a teacher never stops learning, she should continue to develop and fine-tune multiple perspectives. While teaching Adult Education ESOL classes, I was bombarded by many cultures, including those from Brasil, Colombia, Haiti, Turkey, Lithuania, and Japan. I was faced with the task of communicating with my students with nonverbal cues and visual aids to clarify class expectations. Early in this experience, I realized the importance of posters, flashcards, hands-on games, real life objects such as telephone books and checkbooks as well as the all-mighty overhead projector to share my endless transparencies.

I engaged my students with laughter and body language. I welcomed students nightly with handshakes and smiles. I endeavored to create a welcoming environment, realizing that attendance for my class was not mandatory: it was up to me to keep them coming back.

I've witnessed that the older an individual is, the more difficult it is to acquire new language skills. Adults work all day and attend nightly classes to improve their English skills so that they can obtain better jobs, assist their children with homework, and truly feel at home in their new environment. Now that I work with children, I realize that many of my students have parents similar to my adult students. In my classes, I have numerous mainstreamed ESOL students. Of these students, most of their parents still have very limited English skills.

I remind myself of these students' struggles and work to maintain a similar level of warmth in my high school classroom. One of the most pro-active, positive and simple ways to accommodate diverse multicultural students is to provide a nurturing environment where students feel like an important and integral part of the learning environment.