What materials do you use with students?

I’d love to hear about what materials tutors are using with their students these days?

Do you use a book?

Worksheets?

Flash cards?

Something else?

Just talk?

Post your $0.02 here! :)

Since I use an iSight camera, I have discovered that I have to write everything on paper, backwards for it to be seen correctly online. Couldn’t they create a camera that would correct this? So to help with this problem, I have written everything on plastic page sleeves with permanent or dry erase markers so I can flip it over, and then my camera shows the writing as correct. I have to either read backwards as I look at the words OR just look at my computer. I have also used charts with colorful pictures, flashcards with only pictures, and sentence strips with pockets to hold them. I also use kid’s books written in Spanish and English to use for either language. Some of the books are fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and songs. Puppets and games are included, such as Simon Says, Treasure Hunt, Bingo, Lost (maps), etc. I love drama, so I include this as well.
Music is always good for an introduction to a dramatic lesson, too. I am working on developing worksheets that students can access on my .mac
site, as well. Aaaaahhh! I still have so much to do, since this is my first time tutoring online! I don’t know this , but can I drop a movie or slideshow or document into a chat window, using Flash, like I can in iChat? That would also be great, if I could.

Hey Candida. I love the wide variety of stuff you use to tutor people with. Really cool and creative.

A couple of follow-ups to your questions:

-The thing about writing backwards is very interesting. We’re definitely looking into ways to make this easier.

-Dropping movies/slideshows/documents into the chat tool is also something we’re talking about. In talking with tutors we’ve definitely gotten a sense that many would like to have the ability to use a number of different forms of rich media in their tutoring sessions.

Thanks for your reply!

When I started my program in Swedish, I almost sank completely in thinking of what materials I should use to teach. Eventually, I decided to write my very own textbook :-) So, the whole program turned out to be a little experimental. But I think my students loved it. The most interesting part was giving a lesson and correcting my book at the same time. Every time, my group got a brand new lesson and an edited version of the previous class.

isn’t there a whiteboard to work with? This is the best way to write and interact with students. I am new here but noticed the whiteboard.

Susan in Italy
;-)

I have made up my own guide to spanish grammar, it’s the one I’ve used to teach kids here and it really works, I also suggest e-books or audio books to talk about and improve vocabulary. I try not to give homework since we’re all grown ups and have much to do in our lives, but at least listening to an audiobook and jotting down words they don’t understand to talk about afterwards during the lesson, does help. Or if they read books, talking about them. I also use a lot of real things to teach the names of them. I start with simple everyday stuff like pensa and scissors, but you should see when I have half the kitchen utensils on my table to show them to the camera!!!! haha

Sue

My favorite tool for teaching ESL/EFL learners is my collection of selfmade powerpoints, complete with animation and sound effects. The problem I have found posting them on whiteboards is that although you can interact with them, they become static, and you lose the really fun bells and whistles that can make your students smile. The only fix for this has been to e-mail the ppt and have the students open it themselves. If the new, improved edufire could fix this, you’d be WAY ahead of the curve…hint, hint..

In short Sandy, the answer is “yes”. :)

In fact, from the testing we’ve done so far we’ve found that teachers preparing some form of visuals have had very good luck with their classes. You interested in trying out a class?! :)

Boy, am I! Sadly, I cannot take a class before noon GMT-4 time, and there were no offerings left that would work for me. I would have loved to try one, and will have my eyes peeled for the next round! Ich mochte lernen Deutsch, Jon!

Although I very new to online teaching (I’ve done it before through email), I usually use a book the student already has (most common are “Teach Yourself Beginners Dutch” and “Teach Yourself Dutch”). To reinforce that I love to use Dutch music and of course stories (both written and told by myself. In fact, I love the game “true story – false story”, where the student needs to tell which of the two is false).

For Spanish (and to a lesser extent Dutch) I prefer having short conversations, everything concentrated on what the student likes or needs at that particular moment. Next to this I do reading sessions for pronunciation (only funny or weird stories, anything that entertains the student).

I’ve done this in classroom situations for a while now, and I bet it’ll work for online instruction as well.

Hey, Ramses, True Story, False Story sounds like fun. When I was in college, my public speaking teacher made us create a story that was either true or false, but it had to be convincing either way, so the audience couldn’t tell. That was so much fun! You sound like a fun teacher! Good luck to you!

Yeah, that’s exactly the same. When I went to a language institute in Málaga (Spain) the teacher would let us put post-its on our foreheads with the name of a famous person on it. We had to ask yes/no questions and could ask as long as the answers were ‘yes’. If an answer was ‘no’ the next person could ask question. I’m planning on doing this in my Spanish classes (of course the more advanced ones). Unfortunately I don’t think this is really possible in 1-on-1 situations.