English Language Trainers Wanted: Leipzig November 3 through Nov 28

ESL Projects English Team Trainers
1

location: Leipzig
time: Mondays through Fridays from 8.00 am through 3.45 pm (8 lessons 45 minutes each)
number of students: 12
purpose: refresher course with a focus on office correspondence, applying for new jobs and improving oral communication skills

The course starts on Monday, November 3 at 10 am. All 12 students will be given an online assessment test to gauge their level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. It’s very likely that the majority of the group will be A2 learners.

You you can use the following books and materials which will be provided by the school. In addition you should use and incorporate our English Test Package which you will get via email.

The course should be shared by 2 to 3 trainers.
More details via the forum.
I look forward to working with you.

Best regards,
Torsten Daerr[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, talks: News update on the radio[YSaerTTEW443543]

2

Here are the main conditions of the contract:

  • Your contracting partner is English Team Leipzig

  • You will be receiving email invitations (Google Calendar) for each day you teach. You will need to either accept or decline each of those invitations in order for the contract to be valid. We therefore highly recommend you start using Gmail (GoogleMail) if have not yet done so.

  • Once you receive the email invitation, please click either on ‘accept’ or ‘decline’. Do not click on ‘maybe’ because this will only lead to confusion.

  • You can bill English Team Leipzig either at the end of each week or at the end of each month. You need to send a paper invoice with your original signature in order to get paid. Your invoice needs to contain your German tax number and your bank details. Alternatively, you can get paid via PayPal which is faster and cheaper. PayPal also enables you to create, store and manage your invoices.

  • Within 12 hours of each day you have taught, you need to post a summary of your class on the forum along with a recommendation as to what topics your trainer colleague should cover with the group the following day. Please note that This online report/summary/recommendation is a requirement for you get paid.

  • Your pay rate depends on number of factors such as your formal qualifications, your teaching experience and your willingness to share ideas and recourses with the Team.

  • You should be at the customer’s site at least 20 minutes before class. In case you are running late, please call the customer (not the students!) as soon as possible and explain the situation.

  • Please don’t share any private contact details with the students.

  • Dress code: Please dress like a business professional rather than a university student. For man I recommend wearing a plain white shirt and a pair of dark business like trousers instead of jeans.[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, talks: Job candidate is explaining why company should should hire him[YSaerTTEW443543]

3

Hello Torsten,
As I mentioned to you before I would like to be involved in this course, obviously location is very good for me and also I would like to be involved with a group from the start. Please advise.
Scott

4

Hi I’m Ande, currently living in Dresden and trying to find work as an English Language Instructor.

5

Hi. I’d be very interested in this if it’s not too late. I also noticed you had some classes with employees of a department store in Dresden. I’d be keen to get involved with either of these classes. I’m a native English speaker with some experience and a TEFL certificate.

6

Hello Andrew,

Welcome to english-team.com and many thanks for your interest in working with us. Yes, we still have teaching openings for you and it would be great if you could email me your phone numbers.

Best regards,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, talks: Weather forecast announcing hot and dry conditions[YSaerTTEW443543]

7

Re: Leipzig Course -

Hi Scott,

here’s a summary of what we did on the 1st day. Eleven out of twelve female students attended. Most of them are A2, but one student, Melanie, is at a higher level.
One student, Heidrun, is a complete beginner being the only one that didn’t study English at school. The others have all studied English for 3-6 years, mainly at school.

The lessons included:

An introduction of myself and I told them a bit about English-test.net

I explained that I’d like them to introduce their neighbour…

First I elicited/introduced some model questions for introductions and basic interview questions from Ss and wrote them on w/b. I also elicited and introduced some basic, relevant vocabulary to help them along.

e.g: This is_(name)_____ , she comes from__(Leipzig).

Introductions were read out by Ss. Next we brainstormed other things to ask in order to get more information, (Ss had right to ‘pass’). Some of the questions for interviewing each other were:

Are you married/divorced/single/widowed/living together?
Do you have any children/pets?
What are your hobbies/interests?
Do you speak any other languages? (Melanie speaks French)
Why do you want to learn English? (To improve my chances of finding a job was the overall answer)
How old are you?
What’s your star sign?

I monitored Ss interviewing each other and micro-taught as necessary.
Ss then switched roles. After this Ss read out the information about their neighbour.

Mistakes were then discussed and I got Ss to help each other when possible. We discussed any mistakes and model answers were given as necessary, e.g. Her likes to do sports. She don’t has a (pet). Ss were eager for me to translate as much as possible into German, but I explained the dangers of translating too much.

Then they got the chance to interview me in order to practice asking the questions again. Ss were very reluctant to participate.

We went through the alphabet and I got Ss to repeat the letter sounds. I asked them to give me examples of words with the sounds. We covered ‘Articles’ and hw we use them. Ss had to give some examples after I modelled a sentence for each article.

I asked Ss to write: How much time do you spend watching TV every day?
Describe your job/profession using 10 key words. Ss had to swap partners for this. They then went on to tell me about their partner’s job and how much time they spend watching TV. Before the describing part, I elicited some relavent adjectives and introduced some new ones. Ss had to use full sentences to read out the findings of their interviews. I monitored/micro-taught and we discussed mistakes as WC. I got them to try and self-correct as much possible.

I regluarly checked for understanding and clarified any lexical items throughout the lesson. We then went over: a couple/ a few/ several and I asked Ss to give some examples after I modelled some.

I introduced the Present Simple (You speak English), and asked Ss for the negative and question forms.
We looked at some uses of the PS: usual/repeated habits, generalizations/facts, scheduled events in the near future. All this was clarified using simple, basic vocabulary and Ss came up with some examples which they then put into negative and question form, e.g: I wake up at 6am / I don’t wake up at 6am / Do you wake up at 6am? We looked at contracted forms and strong forms as and when they came up.

All Ss registered on English-test.net and did the tests. I don’t have the results of these from Frau. Metz yet, but most of them told me they scored between 30-40% with the exception of Melanie who scored 70%.

Overall, Ss enthusiasm was very limited despite my efforts in trying to motivate them; hopefully this will improve, though Frau. Metz told me that this was normal. I advised Ss that you will know what they did so it’s possible they may be tested - this surprised them! :shock:

The word ‘homework’ was not met with much enthusiasm. H/W set is to “Write 10 sentences about yourself.” It can be half an A4 page if they like! Hmm… This is due for tomorrow.

My recommendations are to ask them to describe their job/profession using 10 key words. We looked at words like: busy, stressfull, sending invoices, difficult, easy, fun, boring, offer… Ss made notes but didn’t get a chance to read them all out.

Some problem areas to go over: difference between her/she + have/has

I recommended they use English-test.net to do online tests, clarify any grammar points and to ask questions.

You can go over the homework with them and I can go over any you give them (if that’s ok with you).

Have fun 2mrw!

Shameem :slight_smile:

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re: WBS Leipzig.

Hi Shameem,

Apologies for delayed post. When I arrived on Tuesday the class was quite horrified at the thought of being taught in ‘English’ only. On the whole though it has been a very good week with all of them participating in the tasks I set. Unfortunately Heidrun has moved to another class because she was struggling due to lack of understanding and knowledge.

9

Hi Scott,

thanx for your message. I’m happy to hear you’ve had a productive week.

Can you tell me what you’ve been doing with the group and perhaps give me a little idea as to what I need to work on when I go on Monday? How much translating have you been doing with them?

Yes I anticipated this with Heidrun as she didn’t learn English at school or since then.

I’m glad they’re showing more enthusiasm now. Perhaps as they’re all women, a male teacher also makes some difference (?) maybe not.

We can meet for a coffee if you like, or you can call me on the number I gave you so we can discuss the lessons. I think it’s a little bit better this way. Let me know what you think.

Best regards,
Shameem :slight_smile:

10

re: WBS Tuesday

I started the lesson on Tuesday with personal profiles, so I began by introducing myself, I told them my name, where I come from in England, where i live now, and my hobbies.

The class then told us about themselves.

I then asked the class to read to us their homework that Shameem had set, which all of them did quite successfully.

I then conjugated the verbs Have/Be, only in the present tense, and also elicited some sentences to show the usage of these two verbs in the present simple.

I elicited/introduced sentences and phrases that we often use during a telephone conversation,

May I ask who is calling? Can you please spell your Name?
Please hold for one moment
Sorry can you repeat that for me
May I leave/take a message (what details we need to take)

I then asked them to work in pairs and design a dialogue for a two way telephone conversation, during their discussion I monitored and micro-taught where necessary.

We then had some role play, I asked the ss with their partner to sit back to back and perform their dialogue for the class, all students did well in this task.

I then covered body parts in depth on the wb, with the use of diagrams, most of the students took part in this.

The ss then worked in groups and then we all brainstormed about clothes related to each body part.

I felt it was a successful day, mainly due to the increase in ss participation in oral tasks.

11

Hi Shameem,

Yes be good to meet for coffee, because maybe in this situation we can set a plan together on what we should do with the Ladies from WBS.

When is a good time for you?

Scott

12

WBS Wednesday
I started the day with the usage of in, on and at, because I saw it was a problem for most of the students.

When I teach this I always begin with diagrams on the wb, I draw a square with ‘in’ inside, a horizontal line with ‘on’ on it, and random arrows pointing to ‘at’.
I gave ss a handout with the diagrams and an explanation of the uses of each word.
I read a paragraph which contained in,on,and at a lot to show the ss where we use it.
The ss then all gave example sentences which I wrote on the wb.
To see how all ss grasped this I gave them 36 sentences each with a space where in,on or at should be and I’m quite happy they understand the usage of these words as they didn’t have many problems filling in the gaps with the right words.

The next task was a Vocab building exercise, we brainstormed some word opposites.
Hard/soft, light/dark, high/low, etc
Again I was quite impresses with ss participation.

I then gave the ss a handout worksheet ‘International Commuting’, we began by talking about the ss journey to the school each day, type of transport and time of travel.
I then read the paragraph relating to international commuting and asked them to read at the same time, I suggested if I said a word they didn’t understand then they should stop me so i could translate for them.

I then asked ss questions of which the answers were in the paragraph just to be sure of understanding.
We then had a class debate on the pros and cons of international travel. Again ss participation was good, even some of the weaker speakers were offering up their point of view on the subject.

I finished the day just clarifying the Present Simple.

13

WBS Thursday
I started the day gently, most of the ss looked quite tired, so I began by giving them a wordsearch containing 15 professions. Once the students found all 15 I wrote each profession on the board then we spoke about each one individually, to be sure every ss understood. As I thought the only one that gave them a problem was ‘Chef’ due to its false friend here in germany meaning boss. I then asked the students to work in pairs and find some buzzwords relating to each profession eg where they work, what service they offer, equipment they use etc. I suggested the ss think of the german word and use their dictionary to translate. The ss then in turn explained to me about each profession in as much detail as possible, and they all did very well.

We then went through present continuous, I explained the difference of its use to present simple and dictated example sentences.
I gave a handout with present continuous mimes, youare lifting a heavy box, you are emptying the bin etc and the ss then went into teams of 3 and took turns to mime out the sentence so the others in there team could guess which sentence they were acting. Most of the ss seemed to enjoy this.
I also covered Question forms of present continuous and simple.

I covered the use of adverbs (always, never, usually etc) in the present continuous, I elicited this with a dictation using each of the common adverbs then I asked them to put them in time order (always 1st, never last) and they seemed to be no problem with this.

We then did some exercises to be sure that everyone had a fair comprehension of the present simple and continuous.

I started to see a few of the ss looking lathargic so i decided we would just do some brainstorming for some vocab building, so we thought about words linked to ‘Cooking’ and ‘Going to the zoo’, this they seem to enjoy, most take part quite freely and it helps the other ss who maybe lack English vocab as I ask them when a word comes up they dont know to stop us. I then try firstly to describe or explain the word, but if they still don’t understand then I translate.
For their homework I gave each ss 2 verb to conjugate for next day, I suggested they used www.vocabulix.com, to help them.

14

WBS Friday
We started day with students dictating their Verbs to the rest of the ss while I wrote them on the wb, I asked them just to concentrate on present and past tense. As we went through them I explained about regular and irregular, especially in the past -verb+ed We then thought about and listed as many of the Verbs that we thought are the most important in the English Language. We listed about 40 and I conjugated them as we went through.

I then elicited the past simple with a short dication, then i used my laptop to play some songs containing the ps, and then I asked if anyone could suggest any other songs with past simple titles.I listed some signal words for them (yesterday, last week etc).I explained the Question form of the past simple using ‘Did’ I then asked the group to split into pairs and design an interview dialogue of Questions and answers using the ps. They all did well in this task. As we went through it I explained the pronunciation of the -ed ending eg 't, 'id.

Petra mentioned about the fact we have a lot of silent letters in the English language, so I decided to take them through this. I showed them example words on the wb with silent letters and syllables, and I elicited them as i went, then I gave them a Question sheet with words and sentences with spaces in which they had to replace the silent letters.

I then covered word contactions (I’d, I’ll, don’t etc) because I think its important for ss to understand when they are spoken a lot in the |English language.

At this point i saw lots of tired looking faces, so I decided to do some brainstorming because they all seem to enjoy this. We covered descriptive words in different catagories including shapes, colours, sounds, smells and movement. We ended the day with a demonstration by me with my power stilts as when we spoke about hobbies at beginning of week they were all excited in them. So I used this with our study of descriptive words to set their homework for weekend, I asked them to write a short paragraph using as many of the words we learnt to paint a picture to Shameem on Monday of what they saw.
In summary the Ladies have all improved a lot this week, most are very willing to participate in oral exercises, only Kathrin finds it quite difficult, but she gets a lot help from other ss. On Friday both Tina and Katrin mentioned to me that on a couple of occassions they have answered people by accident in English. Have fun Shameem!

15

Hi Scott,

thanks so much for all that information - it’s alot! I’t’s good to know they’re doing well. Please see pm.

Shameem

16

Hi Shameem,
Yes it seems quite a lot, but I think the variety was important to keep them motivated. What I like to do is do short times on each subject then at some point go over them again or I find classes like this can switch off. I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial system if we put our heads together. They seemed to grasp most points though, like I mentioned Kathrin may need some extra help though but I was very impresses with all especially Tina and Katrin. They all seem to be enjoying themselves a bit more now, I tried to add as much humour to the class as possible!
Scott

17

Hi again,

sorry, misunderstanding; I didn’t mean the work you did with the group was so much (I think it’s very good). I meant you wrote a lot (information about classes), but I appreciate this - thanks.

Hmm… mybe my breaks are too long :? yours are much shorter than mine!

Ok, let me know when you have time.

Cheers,
Shameem

18

Hi Scott (again),

already told you a bit on the phone already, but I can tell you we also did:

Personal Pronouns
Materials (for clothes)
colours
Prepositions of place
(We did a room plan and Ss described where things were)
Ss also asked each other and told me what they were wearing
We reviewed the PS and Pres.Cont + Past.Cont + intro of Fut.Cont.
We did about weather/seasons
We did ‘going to’ and ‘will be’ and ‘will’

H/W: Ss have to write a postcard to their best friend and describe stuff like; the weather, where they’re going to and what they’ll be doing,etc…

Viel spaß!

Shameem :wink:

19

Hello Shameem,

Today I began by going through ‘Useful classroom language’, including “Open your books”, “Please copy this” and of course “Your homework will be”.

I then took the students through Question words…

-What
-Where
-When
-Who
-How
-Why
Which

I explained their uses, and we covered examples of questions and answers.
I then asked them to split into pairs and create a dialogue of questions and answers using each question word, which they then read to the class.

In the last session there was a lot of tired faces looking at me, so to try and help motivate them and to do something they enjoy and generally participate well in. We did some brain-storming on the topic ‘Media’. So the ss came up with words and phrases to do with books, radio, television, movies and the internet.

Have fun tomorrow, the ss know they should have the homework from Friday to show you tomorrow.

20

Hi Scott,

today we matched nouns with verbs and phrases such as: have (an accident), get (top marks), win (a race), feel (sick), etc.

I reviewed their understanding of question words:

when? Six
where? 1991
what? Paris
who? because I love him
why? John
which? some roses
how? €25
how much? the red ones
how many? by plane

Ss had to match a question word with an answer and then guess what type of story this could be from, (which they did). For the homework, due tomorrow, they have to write a very short story (just a few lines), using the answers above, e.g:

In 1991 Mary went to Paris by plane with John. He bought her six red roses because he loved her. The roses cost €25.

They have enough lexis/grammar to do this and we looked at some examples.

After some coaxing, 2 Ss read out a sentence from the h/w you set on Fri.

We did work on adverbs of frequency and adverbs of manner. Ss formed sentences with these in + - ?

I elicited lexis for giving directions: along, straight ahead, left, right, over, under, when you come to… we also looked at different ways to ask/give directions.
Ss had to give me directions from the Hauptbahnhof to the Nikolai Church.

Later, they had to decide which of these sports are the most dangerous, using scores 1-6 (1 being the most):

motor racing, golf, football, windsurfing, sky-diving, skiing

First they discussed in discusses this in groups (I monitored/micro-taught) after eliciting and introducing relevant lexis. We then had a class vote and Ss gave thir reasons in full sentences. This lead to the introduction and practice of the first and second conditionals, which most Ss grasped well. Petra and Annett may need further clarification, but Petra and Kirsten did very well on this.

We had a short discussion about marriage (if, when, why, why not…) and how these views may have been different in their parents generation.

I couldn’t get the OHP to work and found the organisation poor at this site. Also, I was not informed by anyone (other than by the Ss today), that we’re meant to be focusing on ‘logisitics’. I was not told where to get the keys, nobody had and idea where I could find the register, etc…

Anyways, I felt we had a productive day and Ss participation, though lethargic (in all honesty), has improved. Keeping them motivated is a challenge, but it can be done! I’ve found anecdotes and visuals (esp from magazine advertisments), arouse the most interest.

Melanie (as previously mentioned), is at a much higher level than the rest of the group. If other Ss are to really learn anything, intervention from the stronger ones needs to be controlled. Tina and Katrin did very well today! Annett on the other hand, is very reluctant to interact with other Ss (despite having explained the relevance of this, she rarely enters into discussion with the others - I have to coax her). What do xou think?

I left the CD player and register in the classroom for you.
Viel Spaß am morgen! :wink:

Shameem