ESL Best Practices

ESL instructors are fortunate to have tremendous freedom to experiment with various classroom methods, lesson plans, and learning activities in their search for the optimal instructional design delivered with the greatest efficacy. I am a strong proponent of exploring educational technology and any instructional tools or interventions that might help me improve learning outcomes in my ESL classes.

In crafting instructional design for my language courses, my first goal was to get students connected to the language, so I designed activities that required the students to function entirely in the L2. In my experience, learning activities involving human interaction and collaborative group work are the most likely to resonate with students and produce a powerful impact that leads to real learning.

Two approaches I have explored since completing my Ph.D. are telecollaborative language exchange and the use of film and media to teach and lean foreign languages.

As a foreign language teacher, my instructional priorities focus on developing communicative competencies in the target language (L2) and inspiring students to foster a lifelong connection to the L2 and its native speakers. A second language can provide enrichment and opportunity, but retaining communicative skills can be challenging for many students. The unprecedented power and functionality of today’s learning management systems (LMS), e-learning applications, and videoconferencing programs make virtually anything possible.

I believe language teachers can harness these tools in cooperation with ESL instructors at universities abroad to synergize meaningful opportunities for language students to gain meaningful L2 immersion and practice with a native speaker through structured teletandem programming.

But, how do international language exchanges help ESL instructors in the US? Simply stated, EFL teachers and learners abroad have the same communicative goals as ESL teachers learners in the US. Language partnerships can help foster high-quality immersion and practice opportunities for students since the instructors can cooperate synchronously and asynchronously to tailor activities for optimal performance and outcomes.