[kristin_akiko]

Hi all. I've been teaching for over a year now, but I've recently had some new experiences and with that, some questions. I teach in Japan btw

I teach a beginner class 3 times a week. I guess it's a discussion class since there are no textbooks. Usually I'll teach phrases or expressions, do crosswords, q&a worksheets, or use role plays. Because my boss is kinda greedy, she'll let high level students into the class to make some extra $$$. On any given night I'll have 6-10 students in a class. Obviously when we do role plays I'll split them into groups or partners, but when we do q&a's I don't want to split them. When groups aren't an option, what can I do to keep the high level students from dominating the class?

My second question is kind of tricky. I have a private student who wants to learn to understand accents. He says my American accent is easy to understand, but he has international teleconferences for work every month and he wants to be able to understand them 100%. I've explained to him that it's often hard for me to understand English with an Indian, Chinese, etc. accent and I can't always understand Aussie and English accents. He says he can understand the main point of a speech but wants to understand all the little words in between. His English is very good. What we have been trying is for me to listen to his recorded business meetings and transcribing them on paper or me repeating them with my American accent so that he can shadow them and understand the verbal phrases and ticks that people use. But the process is time consuming and difficult. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can go about this so he's not wasting his time & money?

Whew, thanks!

[English-coach]

Alrighty then...

1) Trying to balance a class with different levels can be hard. The best thing is to control, a bit, when and who is speaking. If you are doing oral exercises, you can call upon the lower children and then ask the higher children to repeat or explain what the younger children have said. Also if someone doesn't understand something, get the higher levels to explain. They will probably enjoy the opportunity to help you and also to use their English more.

2) WOW that sounds like WAY too much work. Cut that out! haha Here is what I would suggest. A) I would find some good sources for listening. Get him to watch tv shows, dvds and find some podcasts in business English. Then what you could do it assign a podcast for homework. He listens to it and then needs to summarize it for the next class, making note of expressions that he didn't catch or understand.

Then you can go over a couple things together.

You transcribing meetings is just asking a little bit too much of you.

B) If the student really wants to improve he needs to really surround himself in the accents that are difficult for him. So like I mentioned before, movies, DVDs, music and podcasts in British or Aussie English.

Remind them that it is them that needs to make an effort to improve.
From what you say, it sounds like you are making more of an effort then they are.

Another idea would be...actually a GREAT idea would be for the STUDENT to transcribe the recordings. Get them to transcribe 10 minutes of it. That way THEY are making an effort to understand and repeating it over and over again and researching things.

Then come to class and you can correct and review and fill in the blanks.

I hope that helps.
All the best,
Diana

[kristin_akiko]

Thanks for the feedback Diana. The technique you described is exactly what we decided to try for this weeks lesson- he'll transcribe everything he can hear in his meetings and I'll fill in the blanks at our next class. I hope this technique will give him something a little more solid to study from. I will suggest watching movies and listening to podcasts in other accents.

My mixed level class is an adult level class (sorry, should have specified) and I am very grateful to them for teaching the lower levels what's going on in Japanese. I think I'll call upon the lower levels more often and let the more advanced cool off, since the class is geared towards lower levels anyway

Thanks for the tips!

[antony]

Quote kristin_akiko

Hi all. I've been teaching for over a year now, but I've recently had some new experiences and with that, some questions. I teach in Japan btw

I teach a beginner class 3 times a week. I guess it's a discussion class since there are no textbooks. Usually I'll teach phrases or expressions, do crosswords, q&a worksheets, or use role plays. Because my boss is kinda greedy, she'll let high level students into the class to make some extra $$$. On any given night I'll have 6-10 students in a class. Obviously when we do role plays I'll split them into groups or partners, but when we do q&a's I don't want to split them. When groups aren't an option, what can I do to keep the high level students from dominating the class?

My second question is kind of tricky. I have a private student who wants to learn to understand accents. He says my American accent is easy to understand, but he has international teleconferences for work every month and he wants to be able to understand them 100%. I've explained to him that it's often hard for me to understand English with an Indian, Chinese, etc. accent and I can't always understand Aussie and English accents. He says he can understand the main point of a speech but wants to understand all the little words in between. His English is very good. What we have been trying is for me to listen to his recorded business meetings and transcribing them on paper or me repeating them with my American accent so that he can shadow them and understand the verbal phrases and ticks that people use. But the process is time consuming and difficult. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can go about this so he's not wasting his time & money?

Whew, thanks!

Hi. Regarding your problem about accents, MACMILLAN Reward teaching books are very good. The book uses mainly British English speakers plus second English language speakers. I used these books when teaching in Thailand and the level of the students listening was quite impressive. The books are written for English teachers who speak English as a first language, the discs are used for listening for information (not for second language teachers to learn how to pronounce the words).

Hope it helps Tony.

[jammer113]

For the student who has trouble understanding... filling in the information will sort of be helpful, but it's so time-consuming.

But like you said, you struggle too, but you still understand. That's because you use both top-down and bottom-up techniques for understanding what is being said.

For top-down techniques, you basically already know the topic, you can already guess what's going to be said, and so you sort of fill in the blanks. Even if you don't know exactly, the range of choices is so limited, you can be pretty sure on any given word, even if the accent is difficult.

For bottom-up techniques, your brain analyzes every sound as it comes in and interprets them. As soon as you get a slightly different vowel because of a different accent, your brain either slows down and gets lost in the conversation, or just misses things all together.

It sounds like your student has good bottom-up technique, but poor top-down technique.

In part, watching movies and such will really help him get all the little words he normally misses. I personally suggest watching with English subtitles on, so that he can identify individual sounds with individual words.

But another thing that would be great is simply for him to voraciously read everything that has to do with his business. If he can build a large enough knowledge base about his business in English, then he can better anticipate what anybody is going to say on any particular topic.

Both of those suggestions has him doing all of the work, which is what he really needs. He just needs to spend hours and hours.