ON-SITE ESL CLASSES!

Building Bridges

The City of Renton and Renton Technical College are coordinating a generous grant to offer on-site ESL classes to Renton-area businesses. If you think this would benefit your company, contact Renton Technical College ESL Instructor Elizabeth Falconer, efalconer@rtc.edu.

(Click on above image to see or print full-sized flyer)

On-site English at Ranch Market

Westfield Mall Housekeeping Staff

We are working on basic pronunciation and sentence structures....

March 10th at Orca Bay Seafood

At first, the students were hesitant to use English with each other, and nervous about doing anything but answering questions from the teacher. This short video shows the students from different language groups beginning to use English with each other. They are given a task with relevant visuals (Orca Bay Products) and are both asking and answering the question, "Which do you like, ...or....?"
Using a list of students, they are filling in what the others answer. I told them to ask at least five people, and they got so involved with collecting the information many of them asked more than ten. One student asked every single person - we nicknamed him "Tornado"! By making it goal-oriented and allowing movement in the room, they lost their self-consciousness and began to speak, listen and write more confidently.

ESL CLASS at ORCA BAY SEAFOOD, RENTON

At the begining of the course it is useful to video the students' speaking ability, because it can be compared with a video at the end, and the progress is often remarkable. Many adults use "all occassion" forms that work for many situations, and have become used to their own pronunciation and style.
One important general goal at the beginning of the course is to gain the students' confidence so that they are able to relax enough to intake information easily, and then to make them conscious of improvements they can make. Since for many of them English is something that has simply been dumped in their lap while they struggled to survive, they haven't had a chance to think about it as something they can acitively take control of.
Part of what workplace English, and all ESL is about, is learning how to learn, so that the student has tools to build on patterns and add vocabulary with logic and intent. Even though courses focus on the needs of the site, all the courses incorporate the four skills: Listening, speaking, reading and writing.