Call and response activities are relatively easy to plan and are very effective for teaching simple phrases. For example, every morning at the start of class, you can say “Good morning!” to your students. Your students should say “Good morning!” in return. You can follow this greeting with questions like “How are you?” to elicit a common response from the class. These activities help embed common phrases into the minds of your students; repetition is a valuable asset when it comes to learning any new language.
One of the most important ways in which your ELL students learn the basics of language is by listening to you speak. Incorporate a number of activities each day that involve speaking to your students. You can read them simple books, tell them a story about your weekend, talk about current events or show pictures and talk about how they relate to one another. Speak slowly enough for your students to interpret your words and use short, simple sentences. Speak with your class every day to help them build familiarity with the rhythm of English.
It is tempting to speak to your class off-the-cuff, since they will eventually pick up on the subtleties of language as time goes on. However, effective ELL teachers know how to bracket their statements to make them more clear to the class and to give the class an opportunity to use them. For example, instead of talking about your upcoming weekend, you can say, “I think I’ll go to the movies this weekend. I am planning on going to the movies. That is my plan. A plan is tells me what to do next. What is your plan for today?” This gives much more information to the class about the word “plan” and allows them to incorporate it in their conversations.
Some of your students will learn quickly and others will require extra help. Splitting your class into conversation groups that can discuss reading material, in-class stories or develop presentations allows students to experience the English language in a more informal setting. They also have the opportunity to speak more than they might during lectures and can receive help from their fellow students with pronunciation or grammar use. Supervise group work to ensure students are not picking up bad habits; group work is one of the most effective ways for students to build on a lecture or story that has just been presented.