Teach English in ShangzhuZhen - Ankang Shi

In progressing through the course of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, I explored the concept of Engage, Study, Activate, or ESA, from multiple angles and with many examples of its application. Although I did not expect it, even with some teaching experience already gained during this past year and my two-year-long teacher training program before that, I have found ESA to be a very valuable strategy, not only for teaching English as a foreign language, but in teaching many other types of lessons. ESA is an excellent approach to teaching that provides a strong and secure structure for a successful lesson to be built upon. In my own teaching experience, I have found that the most helpful kind of guidance that can be provided to me in any teaching position is the security and direction that a “skeleton” structure, like ESA, can provide, while still allowing enough freedom for my own creative teaching ideas and my personal style. Despite attending a highly regarded teacher training program, and gaining a great deal of important knowledge and skills as a result, there was nothing quite like ESA offered as a teaching technique—at least not one as straightforward as this. The security that comes from this concept is that the types of tasks required for each part are, at their core, the same—their goals are similar, regardless of what the lesson is about. For teachers, there is an added comfort of knowing that as long as their lesson plan has an appropriately-chosen task for “Engage,” for “Study,” and for “Activate,” and a concrete idea of how they will implement each in their specific classroom, with their specific students, the teacher can feel confident that they have everything they need to carry out a successful lesson. At the same time, however, ESA allows teachers the freedom they need to be creative, apply their own style, and develop an enthusiasm for what and how they are teaching—important characteristics of an effective lesson. In fact, as I have learned through TEFL and my own observations, the teacher’s attitude sets the tone for the entire class, so if a teacher is enthusiastic and positive in their approach to teaching, their students will be much more receptive and are likely to absorb this attitude themselves, leading to a much stronger lesson. In terms of content, the almost limitless possibilities for each part of ESA, which can be adjusted or redesigned for whatever concepts a lesson might be focused on, allows further freedom for the teachers to include a variety of different activities for the students. This means that the different strengths, weaknesses, and interests of each student may be reached, and will thus increase their engagement and motivation in class. As I prepared for my second year of teaching in a new position and school, with the knowledge that I will most likely be teaching abroad during the following school year of 2019/2020, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself using the ESA structure in planning lessons for English Language Arts and even mathematics. It was encouraging to discover that I could successfully utilize ESA lessons for not only English as a foreign language, but other types of classes as well. In teaching persuasive essay writing techniques, for example, a lesson may be designed with an “Engage” activity, like having a discussion in which the teacher elicits ideas from the students about why one might want to persuade, and how they might do it. The teacher may write the students’ ideas on the board. Then the class might move onto a “Study Activity” in which the teacher may introduce some persuasive writing techniques in a short slideshow or using a whiteboard, supplemented by showing an effective advertisement, and discussing with the students which persuasive strategies were used and why they were effective. The students may then be shown another advertisement and complete a written exercise sheet by answering questions about the advertisement’s effectiveness. Finally, the class might move on to the “Activate” stage by creating their own advertisements in partners, in order to make the lesson more student-centered, and then present their ideas to the class to determine the effectiveness of their use of persuasive strategies. I will continue to use the ESA technique whenever possible, so that my American students may benefit from it this year, as well as my future English-learning students when I am teaching abroad. Among the many valuable lessons that the TEFL course has to offer, the stable and concrete foundation that the ESA lesson structure provides has been one of the most beneficial and far-reaching for me. Creating lesson plans can be a daunting task without having an outline to work with, and in the past, I have often created my own. Even though it may be enjoyable to design lesson outlines every now and then, it is reassuring to have one that is as flexible as this, and already created, tested, and available. I look forward to using this year to practice teaching ESA lessons so that when I teach abroad, I can help my students be as successful as possible in developing their English-speaking skills.