New inexperienced esl teacher needs help!

[elissawhite]

Hello! I just got hired to teach english classes to IT internationals at a consultant company. I have no previous experience yet they were confident that I would do well because this is a field that I am planning to explore and I have alot of experience interacting with internationals. My class will consist of students from ukraine, philippines, romania, thailand, and bulgaria. Each student will have different needs. How do I assess their needs without an experienced listening ear? They all know english very well but have thick accents and unique needs. I am going to start off with conversation classes and mock interviews to get them comfertable speaking and to give them more practice. I will also start teaching them business idioms. Yet, I am still unsure how to assess them individually. Does anyone have some advice for me? I would greatly apreciate it!

~Elissa

[Harry Smith]

Originally Posted by elissawhite

Hello! I just got hired to teach english classes to IT internationals at a consultant company. I have no previous experience yet they were confident that I would do well because this is a field that I am planning to explore and I have alot of experience interacting with internationals. My class will consist of students from ukraine, philippines, romania, thailand, and bulgaria. Each student will have different needs. How do I assess their needs without an experienced listening ear? They all know english very well but have thick accents and unique needs. I am going to start off with conversation classes and mock interviews to get them comfertable speaking and to give them more practice. I will also start teaching them business idioms. Yet, I am still unsure how to assess them individually. Does anyone have some advice for me? I would greatly apreciate it!

~Elissa

Working on projects will help you a lot while teaching them individually.

[Tdol]

If they speak well, then they should be able to tell you what they are having trouble with. Pronunciation is obviously something you've seen needs work. If they're now living in the US, they may find that the langauge they learned is very different from what they're hearing, so they may need guidance and help with understanding natural language around them as they may have studied the artificial models used in a lot of teaching.