For Tutors

Overview

Bridges ESL meets every Saturday to provide free ESL lessons for immigrants and visiting internationals in New Haven who want to improve their written and spoken English. Through our small group tutoring sessions, these individuals will acquire the English proficiency, communication skills, and confidence needed to pursue employment, obtain education/ citizenship, and to convey their ideas effectively on a day-to-day basis.

Tutors commit to creating individualized lesson plans and teaching class every Saturday morning, excluding holiday breaks. We can excuse a few absences for important reasons, but we like to encourage continuous relationships between tutors and students. Tutors can indicate what level they would like to teach (survival is for people with minimal English experience, beginner for focus on basic vocabulary, grammar, and scripts, intermediate low/high for developing more complex grammar and vocabulary, conversational, and listening skills, and advanced/conversational).

Lesson Plans

Every week, we draft lesson plans individualized for our student(s). Usually each tutor works with 1-3 students, although ideally we would like to achieve 1:1 pairings. Although we don’t have formal lesson plan requirements, we require that you come prepared with a concrete plan for the two–hour lesson and that you spend time on the following: vocabulary, grammar, listening, and/or conversational skills (time distribution can vary, depending on what each student wants to focus on).

We realize that each student’s needs are very different, and it’s better for you to get to know your student and determine a good lesson plan fit for him/her. Frequently the student may request that you cover specific topics – going to the doctor or the bank, ordering at a restaurant, preparing for the TOEFL or GRE, reading journal articles, etc. We will print your lesson plans for you if you email them to us before the deadline. If you prefer to bring copies yourself, you are also welcome to do so.

Some suggestions:

  1. It is better to be over prepared for your first lesson! Always prepare more material than you can cover in 2 hours.
  2. Use the first 15-30 minutes of the lesson to get to know your student, why they are taking English classes, what they would like to learn and accomplish this semester, etc.
  3. A good dialogue is invaluable. Students need to see how a word is used in a sentence in context, so encourage discussion and conversation during the lesson.
  4. We have a resources closet in the AACC available for all tutors – email us before Saturday or find us after lessons to show you around. You’re more than welcome to check out workbooks from this library.
  5. Contact us with any questions or concerns you might have. We are more than happy to meet with you one-on-one to go over your first lesson plan.
  6. Be creative with your lessons! Our students generally have very interesting stories and opinions, so feel free to incorporate their interests (along with their needs) in your classes.
  7. We may take a field trip to the Yale Art Gallery at some point, and also will begin collecting student essays for our anthology later in this semester. If you are interested in coordinating group conversations/discussions, we’d love your input as well.

Links and Resources

Click HERE for the Bridges ESL Library Catalog!