After my recent phone meltdown, the search for business has become very slim, so I have followed recommendations from friends here in TJ to help small groups of people with conversational English for 2 or 3 hours a day.
Kind of a life raft for those who have taken language classes, but really had nothing to progress with afterward, as it was for me with Spanish.
I have questions…
First, has anyone done any sort of loose instructional thing? Do you have any advice?
I want to encourage my groups to get out into the world for practical application, like the general things we do everyday (shopping, cooking, movies/television etc.), unlike being cooped up in a classroom. Has anybody tried this before?
Second, does anyone know an (ugh) decent Facebook page in TJ where I can post an announcement? I have posted to Craigslist, but my understanding is that people here generally use Facebook the way they would use Craigslist. However, I can’t even count how many different pages are based out of Tijuana, and definitely can’t guess where to start.
Create (or find online) some practice dialogues for the given setting. Probably two person dialogues would be best, a third person in these things often either adds unneeded complexity or the third person doesn’t get to contribute much.
After everyone works with the pre-scripted dialogue have them create their own conversation. This can be free-form or you can provide them with some sort of Cloze (fill in the blank) template. (Hello, can you help me find the _________.")
Also, two (or three) hours might be a long time on one subject. Even with committed adults you have to fight off boredom, so I would recommend adding some variety. Places for free chat, language games (Scrabble, Boggle, Hangman, etc. all gameplay/discussion done in English), English language telly or music. Or simply have more than one subject per session.
That’s a great idea with the games that center on language.
I also want to organize English-speaking outings, whether it’s just to do a little grocery shopping or dining out, so that we have context for subject matter (buying/selling, likes/dislikes, current events, etc.).
Primarily, I’m focusing on those who have taken classes, but never had the opportunity to practice out in the real world. I hear this from people all the time here. We live right next to the border, but some can’t cross, some can’t afford San Diego prices, or some have other reasons they aren’t able to interact/practice with native speakers.
I’m also trying to maintain an affordable rate, so that prices won’t keep people away.
The plan is to do it here. The main idea I had was a round-robin talk in the beginning, leading to splitting up into pairs. General conversation, with constructive input from me. This isn’t going to be a full blown English class, just conversation practice, and I’m pricing it accordingly – about 50 pesos an hour. What you might spend for a couple of street tacos.
Just to be clear, people here say it’s not for lack of learning English, but that there’s not really any real practice outside the classroom. So that’s what I’m helping with.
That’s a real difficulty with language learning. I took German, Russian, and 3-4 years of Spanish, but only in the classroom, so none of it stuck.
Maybe a reading, writing, and speaking combined component could be helpful? Have them read something, write about it, and do a presentation speaking about it with Q&A to engage the rest of the class, all in English? That’s asking a lot, and some people won’t like it, but I wish my language teachers had done things like that.
If anything, I would probably just use a whiteboard for them to write out sentences. I think presentations might be overdoing it? I don’t want to scare anyone off if that makes them anxious.
I remember one of our teachers used to have us read aloud from a chosen book and discuss as we progressed, to double-check comprehension. Perhaps that would be less scary?
And yeah…two semesters of Spanish here, and I didn’t have opportunities to do squat with it afterward. I’m having to relearn all over again.
Quite likely. I’d be terrified even today to do a presentation in front of my coworkers about stuff that I know very well even in my native language. That’s why I wish teachers had made us do it - it’d be scary in class, but in retrospect, it’s much scarier when your livelihood depends on it. Maybe an extra credit/volunteer thing, depending on your audience/students. But of course, the ones who would volunteer are probably the ones that need it the least. So, maybe not my best idea.
There’s also the extra time it will take to prepare a presentation. That sounds a little too much like homework and might prove a turnoff to some who would otherwise be interested in the classes.
We’re talking about Tijuana, where most Mexico natives have to work twice as hard and twice as many hours to even come near what people who have access to jobs in San Diego can earn.
Additional homework would be a severe turn off.
This is exactly my opinion about it. My main goal is to help those who already took the rote learning classes, but never had a real chance to practice with native speakers.
I have an agreement with my best friend that we correct each other during normal conversation…my Spanish, his English. We’re very familiar, so we know each other’s weak points.