Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers

 

The Benefits of Home Visits

Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it.
— Paulo Freire (p. 72-73)

A home visit program can show that teachers, principals, and school staff are willing to "go more than halfway" to involve all parents in their children's education. These visits help teachers demonstrate their interest in students' families and they provide opportunities for teachers to understand their students better by seeing students in their home environments.
Home visits are not meant to replace parent-teacher conferences or to discuss children's progress. When done early, before any school problems might arise, home visits signal that teachers are eager to work with all families and avoid putting parents on the defensive. Teachers who have made home visits say they build stronger relationships with parents and their children and improve attendance and achievement. In this regard, Mary, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher who has been visiting the home of her students before the first day of school, writes:

…[H]ow I address my fear about the first day of school is to face it, as you suggest, I spend the week before the first day of school visiting my students' homes, meeting the students and their families. I can't wait for the first day of school, and so I go out and read the students in their neighborhoods, their homes, with their families. That way I know where my students are coming from, literally I know who their people are. I know the names their families call them. I know what they are proud of and what worries them, I begin to trust these families. My students and their families begin to trust me. (Nieto, 2009, p. 12)

Home visits are not a new concept. Head Start teachers have been using them for many years and in the last few years an increasing number of schools and districts have established successful home visit programs that have yielded many positive returns. Regardless of whether their schools have established a home visit program, many teachers of English language learners have been using home visits as a way to learn about their students and their home environments and to establish a much-needed connection with families and communities.
Several key components combine to create successful home visits: planning, arrival, departure, and post visit. These important aspects are explained below.

Planning

Prior to visiting students' homes, it is important to consider a few items. Remember that this might be an opportunity to help a parent such as Ms. Astorga feel more comfortable when visiting the school her children attend.

Este es mi cuarto año en los EE.UU. y sólo he ido a la escuela para matricular a mis hijos. No me siento a gusto en la escuela…tengo un poco de miedo de no hacer las cosas bien y de no entender lo que me dicen. Y mis hijos me dicen que mejor no vaya pues a lo mejor meto la pata.
This is my fourth year in the U.S. and I have only been to the school to register my kids. I don't feel at ease in the school—I am afraid of not doing the right thing or misunderstanding what they say. My kids tell me not to go because if I do I might make a mistake.
— Ms. Astorga, parent from Chile

Tips for success

• Determine the purpose(s) of the visit such as learning more about students and exploring ways that the school and teachers can better serve families.
• Schedule a home visit 7 to 10 days in advance.
• Communicate the purpose of your visit and approximately how long the visit will last (30 to 45 minutes).
• Follow up with a brief written note indicating the exact date and time of the meeting, preferably written in the family's home language.
• If possible, learn the names of family members.
• Learn a few words of the family's first language, even if they're only "hello" and "thank you." This shows you care enough to make an effort and may help break the ice.
• Ask another adult to accompany you to your first home visits, preferably someone who speaks the home language of the families.
• Consider that some parents may be familiar and comfortable with home visits, having experienced them in their countries of origin. Others may not be familiar or comfortable with the idea.
• If parents have difficulty scheduling a time to meet with you, it may be because some parents work 2 or more jobs.
• Begin making home visits prior to the start date of school. This may help lower the anxiety level of your students and will help you become aware of your students' English language proficiency levels.
• Know where you are going (that is, have a map or GPS device).
• Leave a schedule of home visits with the school staff.
• If possible, bring a small gift, such as a little bag of cookies, a children's book, or a notebook as a token of appreciation.
• If you will need the services of a translator/interpreter, consider asking fewer questions. Since questions and answers have to pass through the translator/interpreter, they will probably require twice the amount of time.

Arrival

Instantly when we rang the doorbell we were greeted by four bright smiling faces—dad, mom and Rocio and Laura (ages 8 and 10). Both parents came up to us and shook our hands, and the girls curtseyed and giggled in their beautiful fancy dresses. Though I was still a bit shy and awkward at first, my fears were dismissed as soon as I realized how kind and inviting the family truly was.
— Roxana, 3rd grade teacher

Tips for success

• Be on time.
• Dress appropriately — err on the side of formal attire.
• Be aware of and look for cultural expectations in the home. For example, in some cultures it is expected that people entering the home will remove their shoes and walk about the home in socks or in special footwear provided by the host.
• Introduce yourself and the adult accompanying you.
• Begin by establishing rapport through small talk.
• Conversation starters: "Tell me about your child." "What does your child like best about school?""What are schools like in _______ (country of origin)?" "Tell me about _______ (siblings or other family members)."
• While you are encouraged to do more listening than talking, you could also talk about your school's routines, classroom curricula, or teacher expectations among other topics.
• If you're nervous, remember, the family you are visiting is also probably nervous.
• Bear in mind that in many cultures, teachers are more highly respected than in the U.S. It is a significant event to host a teacher in families' homes.
• Don't be afraid to look foolish while trying to bridge the language gap. If necessary, try drawing pictures or acting out what you mean.
• During the conversation, maintain eye contact with the family even if you are speaking through a translator/interpreter.
• Avoid taking notes or recording the conversation when visiting the family. This can be perceived as rude or threatening.
• Avoid talking about negative things.
• While in a family's home, put on your anthropologist's lens. This means trying to view the host home from the perspective of those living there.
• Show respect and empathy.
• Smile. Be aware, however, that some Eastern European families may perceive smiling as a sign of insincerity. Observe the family and adjust your behavior accordingly.

Departure

I invited the family to come to the literacy night next week at the school and asked the dad if he would read a picture book in Spanish for the kids. He agreed. Wow, was I wrong in thinking that this family was not interested in the education of their kids!
— Geoffrey, 2nd Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Lay the groundwork for future events, such as parent teacher conferences, upcoming fairs, or literacy nights.
• Invite families to participate.
• Provide families with information on how to contact you, including your telephone number, email address, and classroom or office hours.
• Share information about community and school resources.

Post Visit

I learned tons from this visit. My "Russian" student is actually Ukrainian. The family moved from a part of the Ukraine where half the people speak Russian and half speak Ukrainian. Both parents grew up there, and both were educated in schools where a few classes were taught in Ukrainian.
— Katia, 6th Grade teacher

Tips for success

• Take a few moments away from students' homes to write down a quick summary of the visit.

What to do first: Creating a welcoming ELL classroom environment

Making textbook listenings manageable and fun

Despite the attempts of some textbooks to use more stimulating listening activities like jigsaw listenings, stories in episodes that end at suspenseful moments, comic dialogues etc, turning on a tape is still the most likely action to make some of your students either sleepy or panicky. As well as adapting drier listening texts to incorporate more fun textbook activities like those just mentioned, there are plenty of things you can do to make a listening text less boring and less difficult for your students. These can be divided into things they do:
1. Before listening
2. Before class
3. While listening
4. After listening

1. Before listening
A Sense of Anticipation
Any time the students spend anticipating and thinking about what they are going to hear can help them understand when they do finally hear it, for example tasks where they predict what is going to be said and then listen and check. Such pre-listening tasks can also be extended to them doing a whole roleplay or other long speaking task and then listening to a conversation in the same situation on the CD. As words and expressions come up that they need to communicate, these stages can also often be a good natural time to pre-teach things that they will need to understand when they are listening.
Pre-teach everything
Although textbooks usually limit the language they go through before listening to vocabulary (vocabulary pre-teaching), you can pre-teach any knowledge that a native speaker is likely to know and the students not, and will therefore make understanding difficult or impossible. As well as other language stuff like the meaning of grammatical structures they have never come across before or the changes in pronunciation of words in fast natural speech, this can also include cultural knowledge such as place names, personal names, or what the usual replies to certain phrases are or what people usually say in certain settings or situations. When pre-teaching vocabulary, you will also need to make sure you drill and analyze the pronunciation, then maybe get them to use the vocabulary in communication so that they know it properly before they listen.
One minute of help
As well as the general difficulties of listening to a tape with no visual prompts etc, students can also have problems listening to specific texts due to variations in accent, speed of speech, background noise, number of speakers, length of speaking turn etc. This can be dealt with by letting them listen and read a short part at the beginning of the text before they go on and listen to the whole thing.
To make sure they are really listening to that short extract, you will need to give them one easy task to listen for, e.g. "How does the man feel?" This can then lead onto the first easy general understanding task for the first time students listen to the whole text, e.g. "Why does he feel that way?"
One easy question for you
The secret to designing an easy and useful task for the first time students listen all the way through are:
a) Make sure the question(s) can be answered from several different parts of the text, e.g. "Do they mainly agree with each other or mainly disagree with each other?" rather than "Do they agree or disagree at the end?", so that if they miss parts of what is said it doesn\'t stop them doing the task, and so that people who understand the beginning of the text perfectly still have a reason to listen through to the end to check their answer.
b) Have as few questions as possible for them to answer, preferably just one
c) Make sure they understand the question, e.g. by discussing what the answers could be before they listen
d) Do the first task with books closed, to stop them becoming distracted
e) Write the task they need to do up on the board, so they can\'t forget what it is
As well as a single general comprehension task, another easy thing students can do the first time they listen is just to pick out particular language, e.g. "Are the future forms used all ‘going to\' or all ‘will\'?" or "Count how many times they say ‘we\'"

2. Before class
Students can also be given time to prepare for a listening before the class, e.g. being given the list of pre-teach vocabulary to learn or write the phonemic symbols for, writing out a dialogue similar to the one they are going to hear, or being told to listen to a previous textbook task again or something available on the internet because it is similar to what they are going to listen to in class next week.

3. While listening
Active response
One way of simplifying the listening and make it more fun is to give the students a simpler and more active way of responding rather than just scribbling down answers, e.g. responding physically by sticking up their hand as soon as they hear something the class had predicted, slapping a card with the answer written on it, holding up a question mark if they hear a question, making the facial expression of the feeling of the person they are listening to etc. At a later stage, students could also act out (mime) the dialogue as they listen to it. Giving the students control of the stereo can also have the same effect of waking them up and getting them involved.
Slow down and let me think
Some cassette recorders have a speed control that you can use to slow down the speech a little, either when students listen to the whole text a second or third time or just for a short section that they are not catching.
If you don\'t have this speed function, pausing the tape can also help- even when you are not asking them to do anything special in that time but just letting them think. One time that it is well worth pausing the tape is after the first of a list of comprehension questions is answered on the tape, to make sure everyone understands the task and has not lost concentration during the introductionary part of the listening.

4. After listening
As well as any grammar or vocabulary work in the book that the listening leads onto, to make sure the students find listening to a similar text the next time you will need to spend some time making sure they analyze their difficulties and practice the language that comes up.
Analysis
Especially with listenings that students found difficult but will need to be able to understand (e.g. exam listenings for IELTS or TOEIC students, lectures for students who are going to study abroad) it is worth asking students why they found it difficult and giving them some self-study tips on where to find English language listening sources of the right type and level, and what to do when they are listening to them. This can then prepare the students for any further language work you do in class.
Ways of analyzing a listening text include writing the sounds you are focusing on (e.g. schwa for unstressed grammar words) in phonemic symbols on the tapescript as you listen, drawing loops between words when the sounds are linked together, putting brackets around sounds that are not pronounced or are hardly pronounced, and marking the sentence stresses or word stresses.
Practice
You will then want to make sure the students remember the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and functional language points in the listening. Although it is worth mainly concentrating on language they will actually need to produce, some drilling of linking sounds, for example, can be worthwhile if it will help them understand fast natural speech next time.
Practice activities that are interactive and fun include students testing each other\'s memory of the text, either the facts or elements of language such as the prepositions. If it is a dialogue, they can also read out the dialogue in pairs then cover it up line by line from the bottom and practice until it is all remembered. To make sure they use the right rhythm while they do pairwork tasks like this, you can first do shadow reading, where half of the class take each part and speak along exactly in time with the cassette, finishing with the cassette fading out and back in again to see if they have remained in time. Students can then be given roleplay cards to improvise similar conversations in pairs.

Conclusion
While most of the tasks above are useable with all kinds of listenings, before choosing which one you will need to analyze the text and the tasks in your textbook and decide what the students are likely to find difficult. One way of analyzing this is to first think about what problems students might have if they read the text, and then think about what problems will be added when they listen to it. Tasks like those above can then be used to limit and deal with those difficulties as they come up- as well as, of course, making the class fun!

A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers: A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers

 

A well-balanced use of warmers and fillers

Using short two to ten minute energising activities as warmers at the beginning of a lesson is a basic technique of language teaching that can make a huge difference to the atmosphere of a class, and therefore to how much students learn and how happy they are to come back to class next week. The same is true of using exercises in the middle of the class to give students a break and reenergise them. Like everything in life, though, you can have too much of a good thing. Below are some tips on checking if you have got the use of warmers and fillers just right, and what you can do about it if you haven’t.

Signs that you are using warmers too much

If any of the things below are true for you, you might want to think about cutting down the number of warmers you use or using them differently:

1. Absolutely every lesson starts with a warmer
2. Most of your warmers aren’t linked to the content of the rest of the lesson
3. Warming students up is the only justification for most of your warmers
4. You try the same warmer in every class in your schedule without thinking about the characteristics of each class
5. You try new warmers because “This is something I really want to try” rather than “This would be really good with my (Thursday afternoon) class”
6. You automatically use the warmer you have planned even when the class is already filled with energy when you walk into the room
7. There are other stages in your lesson that are more linked to the rest of the lesson that could work just as well as a warmer as the separate warmer stage you have put in
8. The students know that extending the warmer is a great way of avoiding the real work they will have to do in the rest of the lesson
9. You can’t answer if someone asks you what the warmer was for in that lesson
10. You can’t answer if someone asks you why you used the warmer or filler at that point
11. Students have got so used to warmers that they aren’t really energised by them any more
12. You have to desperately search around for new warmer ideas because your students have already used every one you know
13. Students don’t switch their brains on for the first 10 minutes of every class because they think what they do then is just a bit of irrelevant fun
14. Students have complained about too many games
15. When you are planning your lesson you decide to leave out a useful stage without thinking about whether you could take out the warmer or filler instead

Signs that you aren’t using warmers and fillers enough

1. There is no space on your lesson plan for an (optional) warmer
2. You have no idea what to do when students’ energy drops
3. The first activity of every lesson is checking the homework
4. The first activity of every lesson is at least 15 minutes long
5. The students only warm up by the midpoint of each lesson
6. Students are never surprised in your lessons
7. Your usual responses to having five minutes left are to extend the last activity or chat
8. You only have one or two warmers and fillers in your entire repertoire
9. You haven’t learnt any new warmers and fillers since your initial training course
10. The only thing stopping you from using a warmer or filler is not knowing one which will fit in with the lesson, group of students or time available that you haven’t used before
11. You just got out of the habit of using warmers and fillers, but you can’t remember why
12. You are just too nervous to try them in case students think they are stupid
13. You have never tried to use a warmer or filler
14. You have tried every other way to cope with a class with bad dynamics
15. There are no plan Bs on your lesson plan

Ways of making sure you use the right number of warmers and fillers

1. Have a space on your lesson plan for your optional fillers and warmers, and write down or think about under what circumstances you will or will not use them. Then check the rest of your lesson plan to see if any other stages that are already there could be used as a warmer or filler instead, e.g. testing each other on the answers to the homework.
2. Have a collection of at least five warmers that are on your list of things to try (but with no rush in which to do so)
3. Ask an observer or someone checking your lesson plan to concentrate on your use of warmers and fillers
4. Explain to the students why you are using each warmer or filler, therefore making its clear purpose obvious to yourself too
5. Collect lots of warmer and filler ideas and then classify them with things like “no good for teenagers”, “ties in with functional language classes” etc, perhaps writing those comments next to the ideas.
6. Add warmer ideas to your supplementary files or the ones in your teachers’ room, e.g. under each grammar point or each area of ESP.
7. Give a workshop on warmer and filler ideas, making sure people discuss how and when to use each idea rather than just saying “This is a good one”, and/ or have a notice board where people pin up their ideas with comments on each one.

Boosting students’ confidence in the teacher. Ways of helping students learn by helping them learn to trust the teacher.

Students’ confidence in their language ability and its impact on speaking and learning is a common topic in TEFL articles, teachers’ room conversations and student progress reports. There are also two other kinds of student confidence that have a serious impact on student progress: their confidence in the teacher and their confidence in the techniques that are being used in class. These two kinds of confidence can perhaps have the biggest impact of all on how much students get out of education generally, and this is even more important in TEFL because:
- The youth and lack of qualifications of some teachers is often talked about, including in the press and online.
- Ditto for the lack of government standards, e.g. for the private language learning sector or for the recruitment of native English speaking Assistant Language Teachers.
- The standard qualifications in the profession are often unknown by students.
- Techniques are often very different in adult classes to what they experienced in school, but without students necessarily showing sudden huge leaps ahead in progress.
- The profession’s idea of an expert teacher and students’ idea of one can often vary, e.g. in the emphasis on knowing prescriptive grammar rules.
The easiest way of thinking about the impact of this kind of confidence on learning is to imagine examples of trying to study in a class where you have no confidence in the teacher and/ or the approach, for example:
- Listening to the grammar explanation of a teacher whose language knowledge you generally believe to be unreliable.
- Doing a mingle activity for learning collocations with “Why do I have to stand up? This is so childish and such a waste of time” running through your head from start to finish.
- Being given language learning tips by a teacher who you know has only picked up a few sentences in their two years in your country.
Reasons why students might have confidence in their teacher:
- Qualifications and experience
- Other professional recognition
- Other people’s confidence (e.g. they have seen that the school has confidence in them or they have heard good things about the teacher)
- Language level (e.g. in English, in the students’ L1 or in other foreign languages)
- Knowledge (e.g. they have seen that the teacher knows the language, the materials, etc and the teacher is honest the few times when they don’t know something)
- General professionalism (e.g. appearance, time keeping and organisation)
- Other behaviour (e.g. outside class)
I will give tips on how teachers and schools can boost students’ confidence in each of these ways. These ideas are aimed at both teachers themselves and the management of schools. Please note that in general there is a thin line between the tips below and plain boasting, and that too much trying to give them confidence in the teacher might make them wonder why so much effort needs to be made!
Qualifications and experience
Schools can publicise teachers’ qualifications and experience, either as a general statement (“All of our teachers have a qualification in teaching and a qualification in a foreign language”) or (with their agreement) with information on individual teachers. As qualifications like “CELTA” and “Cambridge Delta” are likely to mean little to students, it is worth explaining them with phrases like “The world’s first and most popular qualification in teaching English as a foreign language, offered by part of Cambridge University” and “One of the highest level practical qualifications in teaching English as a foreign language”.
Teachers can also find subtle ways of mentioning their own qualifications and/ or experience. One is to use your own CV in classroom activities. I use an edited version of my CV for a pairwork speaking task by putting different gaps into the Student A and Student B versions, and we go on to discuss similar interview questions and writing a CV. I originally used my own CV simply because it was easier than writing a fake one, but student comments have since convinced me that letting them know how long I’ve been teaching and in which countries doesn’t hurt.
Teachers can also mention their training and length of experience in Getting to Know You activities.
The most common way of doing this is with the game where the teacher writes true short answers such as “Ten years” and “Seven countries” on the board. Students must try to get those answers from the teacher by asking questions like “How long have you been teaching?” and “How many places have you lived?”
Other professional recognition
As there are usually at least a few people studying English who are also teaching English at some level, there is no reason why a school or teacher shouldn’t publicise their articles or conference presentations about teaching, e.g. on the school noticeboard. If the teacher has produced photocopiable material that is published (on paper or online), it is also well worth using those materials in class with the copyright message and the teacher’s name still on them. If the teacher is asking the students to do something to help their research for an article they hope will be published it is also worth mentioning that and maybe also telling them when it does go in the publication, with appropriate thanks for their help.
Other people’s confidence
This is a difficult one to plan but there is one specific example is that is worth subtly mentioning. If a group of people (e.g. CELTA trainees) are observing the lesson to see how it should be done rather than to check if the teacher is doing their job properly, there are non-boastful ways of making students aware of that. If you are involved in online communication on TEFL matters, you could also mention when people have agreed with you on the best way to learn English etc.
Language level
If the teacher speaks a foreign language well or many foreign languages (however poorly), that can be mentioned in Getting to Know You games like those mentioned above. Students might also be interested and impressed if the teacher knows which language English words come from or where words in their own language that they assume are English actually come from.
Knowledge
Knowledge which is likely to impress students includes:
- Use of phonemic symbols
- Ability to answer student questions, e.g. when asking them to correct their own mistakes
- Typical student mistakes
- Reasons for language being that way, e.g. origins of sayings or Latin roots of words
- Knowledge of Second Language Acquisition
A mention of the final point above can easily be justified during discussion of self-study tips.
A particularly complicated situation is when your knowledge contradicts what students have been told before, particularly if your explanation goes against that of a favourite teacher or traditional prescriptive grammar. Being able to show that your version is better than the previous one is obviously one of the best reasons for students to trust you, but be prepared to justify your version a lot.
General professionalism
A good general rule on appearance is to dress one level above the smartest student, e.g. in a tie if they are in a shirt and in a jacket if they are in a tie. Students may also have views on which colours are considered professional.
The teacher should obviously be in class on the dot at the very latest, and definitely come early if something needs setting up, e.g. the IWB needs to be turned on or chairs need to be moved. Alternatively, it is worth coming in briefly ten or so minutes before the class to check the whiteboard pens are all there, put the air conditioning on, etc. It is perhaps less obvious that it is at least as important to finish the class on time.
You can also show your organisation in the class by:
- Having the pages you need suitably marked with a post-it or paperclip so you don’t have to search for the right place
- Cueing recordings before they are needed and being able to quickly skip back to the right place (e.g. by use of the counter)
- Dividing the whiteboard into sections
- Explaining the plan for the class (e.g. by writing the plan on the board)
- Having any worksheets divided up ready to hand out, e.g. by using a folder with pockets
- Having a backup plan if the technology doesn’t work
- Being able to cope with unexpected changes, e.g. late or extra students
Giving out business cards can make a good impression in some situations.
I would personally ban teachers from taking hot drinks into class, even if students are doing that.
Other behaviour
If any students or parents are likely to disapprove of teachers smoking, it is worth having a smoking area well out view of people coming into the school.
Teachers need to be careful what personal information they give students, e.g. to be cautious about mentioning their love life, drinking habits, number of jobs, rebellious youth, etc.
Other tips
As confidence is something it is very difficult to get back, teachers should try to achieve as much confidence boosting as they can in the first couple of lessons, e.g. using phonemics very early on, and wearing a tie and conservatively-coloured clothes for the first few classes.
It is worth trying to brainstorm reasons why your students might lack confidence and things that are likely to make that worse, including culturally-specific factors. Getting students to talk about their previous good and bad educational experiences, e.g. as part of needs analysis, can help with this.

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