Published on 01/12/2009

The teacher can ask students to evaluate their skills in ESOL and then the teacher can create questions to check the skills. This is a two-page handout.

ESOL SKILLS (a check list)

ESOL SKILLS (a check list) What Every ESL Student Should Know
What is your job? (What will be your job?)
What did you study in university (what will you study in university)?
Why do you want to learn English? What do you want to learn?

University Skills
__ How to use a library
__ How to organize studies
__ How to take notes
__ How to skim a book and give a summary
__ How to find a review of a book
__ How to ask for help (in class)
__ How to find a “study buddy”
__ How to type a paper
__ How to make a map
__ Computer skills (pen drive, back up, make a free web site, make a blog, Facebook page)
__ How to make foot notes and create a bibliography (APA format)
__ How to give a tour around the university campus (this is useful because you can become a guide)

Business Skills
__ How to create an agenda for a meeting
__ How to run a meeting
__ How to invite people to work on a team
__ How to propose an idea to a committee
__ How to persuade others
__ How to make a presentation (powerpoint)
__ How to work together to solve a puzzle
techlearning.com/article/8270
__ Business vocabulary
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Communication
__ How to make “small talk”
__ How to talk to someone next to you in an airplane
__ How to make a phone call
__ How to buy stamps
__ How to complain
__ How to describe a problem
__ How to ask for help
__ How to talk to an rude person
__ How to write a letter (correct format)
__ How to address an envelope
__ The “telephone” alphabet (A Anna, B Boy, C Charlie)
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Health
__ How to answer questions about health.
__ How to ask questions about health
manythings.org/ts/health.html
__ Parts of the human body

Writing: __ How to write a paragraph that compares two cities. Grammar, spelling, and vocabulary mistakes that do not interfere with meaning may be present. OWL.english.purdue.edu

Learning: __ How to ask the teacher to teach a set of words or a new grammar point.
__ How to say, “I didn’t understand. Could you please repeat it?”
Listening: __ How to prepare for listening.
__ Practice listening at npr.org (search “this I believe”).   esl-lab.com/

Speaking : __ How to make a summary of an article on the Internet.
__ How to tell another student a summary (“This article is about a dog that was rescued and now it is living with a family of three children..”)
__ How to translate a SUMMARY of a news story. (“This photo shows a group of _____“)

Special for Asian Stduents: Some computers do not download Asian characters. Which computers have Korean, Thai, Chinese and Japanese characters?
__ How to tell a story (when they look at a photo or a series of photos)
cal.org/CAELA/esl_resources/Health/
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Pronunciation
__ Know the difference between pin pen, Dip tip,sick thick    hot hat   they day     ferry very
Run ran climb crime   eat it   thought taught   not nut manythings.org/e/pronunciation.html
__ Guess the word: If I show you HE     can you guess the part of the body?
How about HEA?       How about HEAR__?
__ manythings.org/vocabulary/games/e/
__ How to use the IPA pronunciation chart
__ The rules of spelling occur/occuRRing, happen/happeNing (when to double letters)
Vocabulary
Groups (families) of words
__ Parts of a car, __ Parts of a tree
__ Parts of the airplane / computer
Parts of the house /   ; : ‘ . , [ ] ) ( * @ !?
Things in an Office   / Kitchen
Things in a Living Room / Tools
Things in a bathroom / bedroom
Thread / string / rope / cord / cable / chain
How to do a sudoku puzzle.
How to start a conversation (for shy students)
Multi-language Picture Dictionary
The Internet Picture Dictionary is free and online pdictionary.com/
Click on “FLASH CARDS”
__ How to find and explain lyrics
__ How to use the Internet to describe our country
__ Reduce ignorance by sharing each other’s cultural traditions
__ Vocabulary from history (proverbs, origins of words, why do we say “make a bed”?)
__ How to tell jokes manythings.org/jokes/
__ How to take quizzes to improve my vocabulary manythings.org/voa/

__ How to persuade: I know how to create a group on Facebook and then invite people to join the group. Facebook.com/groups/create.php -- I can tell my Facebook contacts …

__ Students know the currencies of other countries. Example: RMB = RenMinBi = People's Money (also called Yuan). What are the currencies of Thailand, Korea, Czech, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Japan, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and other countries in the school?

Cultural Understanding: International English means knowing many facts about other cultures.
__ Does everyone in Korea like to eat dogs?
__ Do people in the USA think that Rio de Janeiro is the capital of Brazil?
__ How do you pronounce “Brno”?
__ Do people in Brazil live in a rainforest?
__ Is everybody from Sweden blond?
__ Do Japanese people speak Portuguese?
__ Do you know many cities? __ Take the TRAVELER IQ (search the Internet)
emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000380.shtm
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Students can ask teachers to use these methods: More “student talk” and less “teacher talk”. ESL classes should be student-centered, giving students an opportunity to interact with each other in pairs, in small groups, and with the teacher.
Ask the teacher to use lots of visuals and lots of gestures. The students learn best when they have many cues to meaning.
__ Look for reading, writing, listening and speaking to be integrated systematically into every ESL lesson.
__ Look for wait time. The ESL teacher should wait patiently for a student to answer verbally. "Wait time" in the ESL class is much longer than in a regular classroom of native speakers.. Remember that some students translate in their heads before they speak.
__ TPR (Total Physical Response) When the teacher gives commands, the students give a physical response. If the lesson is about learning the parts of the body, the teacher may ask students to touch their heads, raise their hands, show their thumbs, etc.
Pronunciation practice.
__ Ask the teacher to write what she is saying so that students make the connection between spoken words and their written form.
What you should not see:
__ Students doing worksheets that seem unrelated to anything they have done before.
__ Students sitting inactively while the teacher talks.
__ Teachers giving spelling tests. While spelling is important, students must learn the words and their meanings before giving attention to the discrete aspects of language.
In summary, the ESL class should be a lively environment where students have opportunities to learn the English language in increments appropriate to what they already know.
Internet Resources
cambridgeesol.org/resources/learner/index.html

What else do you want to learn? ___________________________________
Find more handouts at http://www.FreeEnglishLessons.com