ESL Tutoring "Real English"

Class 1
Learning to speak English is very difficult in school. I am attempting to teach "real English" without traditional methods. I have learned through a wonderful mentor that teaching vocabulary words one by one, writing them out and learning how to spell them is useless for speaking.

We speak in phrases or sentences normally, so we need to also study words in phrases.
Eg. punch, out
If you learn these two words separately and know how to spell them and know the parts of speech, it won't help much when speaking.  So, you need to put them into phrases to really know them.
Eg. That guy punched me out last night.  (meaning "hit in the face")
OR
Did you forget to punch out yesterday?  (to record your time when leaving work)

So punch and out are used totally differently!  So what is the use of learning them as single words?
Additionally, you can write down related sentences to further deepen the meaning of your vocab.
Eg. I forgot to punch in today. I didn't punch out today. Did you punch in today?
Furthermore, you can write similar words (synonyms) if necessary for your vocabulary phrases...
Eg. Punch in / punch out = clock in / clock out.  
Oh shoot! I didn't clock in today. My boss gets mad when i forget to clock out. I always forget to clock in when i get to work.

**Moral of this lesson:  LEARN PHRASES / SENTENCES not individual words **

Then use that phrase in many different ways to really get a deep meaning for it, and find some synonyms so you can learn even more vocabulary on that topic.  The grammar you will learn automatically within the phrases. And the spelling you will learn after reading the new words over and over again.

Coffee Shop Lingo #1
You gettin' coffee? Oh yeah.
I'm buyin'. / Don't worry, I got it.
Thanks man.
Whaddya havin'? / Whaddya gettin'? /
I dunno yet. You?
I feel like a latte/cappuccino.  

two years later ...

after two years of trial and error, storytelling for kids learning English as a second language is certainly the real deal. its an ideal and natural precursor to speaking and reading as kids get to listen and repeat their favourite parts and also feel interest in the particular book that you are telling the story about.

this blog will serve more now for my general observations as experienced in an Asian English school...an ESL teachers journal perhaps. let's hope the next post doesn't take two more years...and i can get a new keyboard that has its caps lock key in working order... till then ... go away scary goblin, go away 111

The Story Continues ...

It's been about three weeks since my first storytelling experience and the 'ride' continues...

Step by step, progress is being made and here are some of the highlights:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - used a big book children could interact with.
2. The Three Little Pigs - drew pictures of the characters and houses on paper, cut them out, then used them as story aides on the whiteboard. I passed around a little grass, sticks and a brick for realia. After the story, I showed students the original cartoon from Disney. It's a hoot.
3. Pinocchio - a mini-breakthrough. Upgrades included printing professional looking characters in color; laminating them and sticking a magnet on the backs. Realizing that I could use any story I wanted to teach the kids a specific moral, in this case of course 'telling the truth' and 'doing what is right'. Including selected activities to do after the story to reinforce the moral, vocabulary or a fun part of the story - in this case we talked about 'wishes' and made a wish tree. Kids loved it.
4. The Story of the Asian Moon Festival - Gosh, I really proved to myself that I can whip up a story fast! (humbly speaking) I had the inspiration to do the story of "Chang Er and Houyi" to my Taiwanese kids and frantically searched for the right photos to print off (a Chinese King, a princess, a dragon etc..) and then had to laminate and cut and learn the story well enough to say it spontaneously. Well, it worked out. The kids loved listening to a real Chinese story and I had another breakthrough of telling Taiwanese kids stories from their culture in English. Then they could relate even more.
5. The Tiny Seed - I used another Big book, but it didn't quite go over  as well as I thought. I'm thinking because their weren't any characters in the story. I tried to make the tiny seed speak and asked the kids what was he thinking, but it just didn't fly. So, the next day i changed to another classic...
6. Mickey Mouse, The Brave Little Tailor - This time, I had the idea to print off each page of the book instead of look for individual photos from the internet. Today was the first day I tried this method and it worked so far. I'll try new classes tomorrow. When you do this method, you can tell the story first with only actions. Then you can give the kids the pages and let them put the story together piece by piece on the whiteboard. I even made it a race to see who could put them in the correct order the fastest!

So that's where I'm as of now. But, I also want to say I made some nice contacts over FB. Some kind people shared links and videos of storytellers and research of how storytelling even heals sick children in hospitals. There is one lady who built a storytelling school in Afghanistan I believe. So I realized storytelling is one awesome culture full of beautiful people and things...

Boy, I can't wait to find out what's going to happen in Chapter 3 !

How I "Caught the Spirit" of Storytelling

It happened about 2 weeks ago.
It was a simple case of reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to my new ESL class.
They absolutely loved it.
I loved it too.
We made funny gestures. We laughed.
They followed my phonics chants like gold. "P-P-P Plum..."
I let them put their finger in the holes of the over-sized book, so they
could feel where the caterpillar crunched and munched his way through...
I didn't follow the story line but instead found myself creating scenarios spontaneously...
Father Sun, and Mommy Mom were helping the caterpillar along the journey...
I made a magical cocoon around my body like a tornado and then busted out of it like a typhoon.
The kids loved the action!  haha

Plus, they were doing phonics, vocabulary, grammar, spelling and comprehension all along the way!
It was a miracle to me.  They were fully engaged, even mesmerized at some points.

Then later, I realized, "Who isn't mesmerized by a great story or a great movie?"
I remember barely blinking an eye for 2 hours while watching movies like The Matrix or Avatar.

What's the magic ingredient i thought?...Anticipation!
We can't wait to see what happens next, and this is why a good movie or a good
storyteller holds its audiences attention, no matter what the age.

So, I feel like a new life has just opened up to me ... and it has me, well, fully-engaged!
And as with any great story, I can't wait to see what happens next.

ps...luckily i recorded it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkHnl55C3A