ESL Teaching

This week, I began co-teaching an ESL class on campus. The students that I teach are students who have just came over to the U.S. and they want to study at MSU, but have to pass the TOEFL test before they can be admitted. I also have students who are very close to passing the TOEFL test, and have been conditionally accepted to MSU, but they have to be enrolled in this class because they need to get their test scores up. These two groups of students are the majority of my students. There are also students who are the husbands or wives of MSU professors, who have came over to live in the U.S. and want to learn English. There are only a few of these students in my classes, but it is so interesting to see the wide variety of students that I have. Through all of my students, 10 countries are represented, so I'm sure you can imagine the variety of languages that are in the classroom. So far, I am really enjoying these students and this opportunity because I haven't ever had experience with teaching English as a second language before.


In this class, the students use a program called DynEd, which is a program that is entirely computer based. The nice thing about it is that when planning lessons, there are so many things you can do with DynEd, unlike some other computer based programs that only have one way that you can teach the lesson. I have not had too much experience with it yet because their classes actually started this week, but as I become more familiar with the program, I'm sure I will post some more about this wonderful program.


Here is a short (and boring) video that introduces you to the program, if you're interested. This was the best one that I could find!