The Right Stuff: Skills and Behaviors Beginning ESOL Students Must Have

In "Teaching Students How to Be Students,"  I recommended a few steps for helping students learn the skills and behaviors they need to be successful in your classroom--or any future classroom they might step into.

Since Monday is a good day for Serious News, let me be clear: these are not quick fixes.  If it took two minutes to show students how to organize a binder, and they could do it perfectly after a single observation, every teacher would do it.  But everybody doesn't do it. 

So in signing up for a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, it is a huge help to know exactly what skills and behaviors matter in your class, your grade, your level.

I came up with a brief taxonomy of topics for Beginning ESOL learners.  I thought.  I sketched ideas.  I begged, borrowed, and stole from fellow teachers.  Here's a sample of our results--some language-specific, some adult-specific, some transferable to any classroom:


Beginning ESOL Skills & Behaviors

1) Puncuality

• Being on time
• Having your materials out before class starts

2) Academic Habits

• How to listen to classmates
• Tracking the teacher
• How to find directions on a worksheet, and where to write your name and the date

3)  Behaviors

• How students or the teacher should get the class's attention
• Transitioning efficiently into groups
  
• Working patiently and productively with other students
• Listening to instructions, and repeating them back
• Using extra time effectively if you've finished an activity early
• Self-advocating in class: I don't understand.  I need to go to the bathroom.  Pass me the scissors.  I can't come to class tomorrow. 

4) Homework & Studying

• How to use a "dialogue journal"
• Completing homework fully and to the best of one's ability
• Where, at what time, and with what materials to complete homework
• How to space out studying for a test, and identify what to study
• Getting help vs. copying an answer
• Practicing for a performance assessment
• Identifying a teacher's feedback, and whether it's positive or corrective; responding to it through questions or corrections

5) Classroom Materials

• What an organized desk space looks like
• How to organize and maintain an effective binder
• Dating papers
• Having all the necessary materials: pencil, eraser, notebook, binder with divider

6) General Functioning, i.e. The Other Stuff

• Asking for clarification about directions
• Methods to support your own learning outside class
• Evaluating personal strengths and weaknesses
• Asking the teacher or a classmate to resolve a difficulty
• Getting/making up missed work
• Finding a class buddy to save papers and provide notes if you're absent

I know, I know.  Many of these seem to warrant a big, blinking "Obviousness Alert."  They weren't so obvious to my students, though.  Most of these I didn't include in the program contract: that was a fast path to forgetting them.  Instead, I rolled them out gradually and in a very carefully planned sequence.  Each topic got a "mini-lesson" that incorporated visuals and metaphors and had students actually practicing or preparing for the skill.

This list could go on and on.

What are the most successful techniques you've used?