10 Questions to Ask ESL Students About Learning English

Effectively teaching a second language involves verbal participation from your students. Encouraging them to talk in the language they want to learn by fostering an environment where they can communicate is helpful. You can start by asking them the right questions that will prompt them to converse.

Speaking with your students who aim to learn a second language will help hit two birds with one stone. You can gauge how much they know about the language or how much they are learning from you and get to know them as well. You can assess their knowledge and better understand how they are as individuals, which could help your approach to teaching and communicate with them.

One of the best topics that you can initiate a conversation from is the language itself that they want to learn. If you’re an ESL teacher, then ask your students about learning English. Here are ten questions or ideas that you can ask them about learning English as a second language.

10 Questions to Ask ESL Students About Learning English

1.  Knowledge of English as an asset

Each of your ESL students enrolled or hired you as a teacher because they want to gain something out of learning English. They already know what purpose they’ll be using the knowledge they get from your ESL class will be. Either that or they’re only discovering their purpose while taking your lessons.

You can discover a lot about your students by talking about how much value they place on English as a life asset. Their answers to this question can reveal how much effort they’re willing to put into learning English as a second language. It’ll also likely tell you about their learning performance throughout your time with them.

It’s important to know these things as a teacher because there might be stuff that hinders them from taking full advantage of their learning potential. By doing so, you’ll be able to identify those impediments and find ways to adjust depending on your setup, i.e., if you’re teaching English online.

You can request them subjects like: “How do you imagine English can assist you to advance in your profession?” or “What will English speaking knowledge do for your life?” regarding this topic.

2.  Ask them about their feelings

Tapping into the emotions of your students is also a great way to get them to speak. Asking them about their feelings toward your teaching or their progress tells you more than any quiz result or exam could. It’s because your students’ feelings are sincere reflections of themselves.

Knowing about their emotions towards the language and yourself as their teacher can help in making adjustments. Their sentiments can change as you go along, so you can always ask them about it. Remember that this isn’t only about being sensitive, but it’s also about how you’re going to engage them better.

You can question them a topic such as “How do you observe regarding your process so greatly?” to identify them to accomplish that your valuable thought concerning their quality education.

3.  Inquire about their preferred learning style

As their teacher, identifying ways your students can learn effectively is key to unlocking their potential. Different students will have different learning styles to ask them if you want to teach them better. Learning which method can help boost their interest in learning the language.

Aside from that, it can also help you to add other teaching methods to your repertoire. You can explore different approaches with new students as well.

The questions you can ask about this area could be: “What studying methods are effective to you?” or “Do you like reading materials translated into English?”

4.  Sharing experiences

Encourage your students to share their past experiences,  not just with learning but their personal lives in general. You might pick up something that says something about their personality and attitude towards learning now. Think of a question that’ll make them think critically while forming their answer.

You can ask them something to the effect of: “What do you think is the moment that defined who you are right now?” to accumulate a glance at their duties & realize an insight into their popular things.

5.  Get an idea of their culture

Language is part of a country’s culture. If you have international students, you can ask them about it, and it might reveal why they’re studying English as a second language. It’s possible that their culture influenced their reason for studying ESL.

You can initiate a conversation by asking questions like: “Do English-speaking countries influence your culture?”

6.  Find out their life aspirations

Learning about your students’ ambitions may not directly affect learning English, but it does affect their learning. You can learn about how much they think learning English will change their life. It’ll also get you a peek of how motivated they are to learn from you.

7.  Thoughts and ideas

Your students may have great ideas, so encourage them to share them. They’ll find themselves thinking critically about how to express their ideas so you can understand them clearly. It will also reassure them that you’re there to listen and acknowledge their thoughts.

You can let them share their thoughts by asking them something like: “What do you think will help you learn English better?”

8.  Opinions and principles

You may think that this has nothing to do with learning English, but it does. By knowing their opinions on certain topics, you’ll be able to help them articulate those opinions.

Ask them something about current events that goes: “What’s your take on the (insert recent event here) to break the ice. 

9.  Hobbies and passion

Ask them about the things they’re passionate about, and you’ll have a little insight into their motivations for learning. Their interests are connected to their emotions; thus, knowing their passions will also let you see their reasons for doing things and why they do it a certain way.

Questions such as “What’s something that you want to do for the rest of your life?” will get them talking about this topic.

10.  Valuable life lessons

Finally, ask your students about the life lessons they’ve picked up along the way. You can expect to hear many interesting answers from different races and ages from this question. By talking about this, you can determine how they perceive your teachings and the effect that English has or will have on their life.

Conclusion

Asking these questions will help in understanding your students. With that understanding, you can adjust and explore teaching methods that you’ll see fit to help them learn ESL effectively. It’s all about helping them articulate and express themselves in English through the answers they give you.

Author bio: Angelo Castelda is a freelance writer from Asia. Besides writing, he also spends his time traveling and learning about diverse cultures, which opened his heart more to learning and imparting knowledge about ESL.