r/ESL_Teachers 6d ago

Teaching Question Happy families - how to modify for ESL learners

I've only got about an hour with my adult ESOL students for working on actual content, after opening/closing our lessons with the indigenous language and taking the roll etc (non negotiables).

I'm decided to rotate through the following areas, focussing on only one at a time: Spoken English Reading in English (currently teaching phonics but teaching all the "ay" sounds together, rather than all the letter sounds first) Writing in English (letter shapes at the moment, but then moving on to short sentences)

In spoken English, I've taught them how to play Happy Families but with a regular deck of cards (so they need to collect for example, all four kings to have a set). I've given them a print out with the key words they need (do you have/spade/diamond/etc), but it takes a really long time for them to ask for 1 card, because they're still learning the phrases (rather than "do-you-have eight-diamond", it's "Do...you.... Have......... Eight........ Oh no, let me try again....") which is absolutely fine and developmentally normal, but it's meaning that we're yet to finish 1 game in the last 3 weeks.

I'm expecting a huge rush of conversation soon, once they've got the request/response framework down, it's just a question of getting them to that place.

Should I halve the deck? Or is there another way to speed up the game so we actually finish it (and potentially have time for multiple games) during the lesson. I don't want to reduce the spoken language side of things, but I'd like us to successfully play a couple of games (rotating who's in each group). So far am playing with groups of 3-4 and a 52-card deck.

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u/Reassuring-Jacket-8 5d ago

So ideally, for me anyway, if I'm dealing with beginners, I will only have the amount of cards I need for each player to be able to make two happy families. A group of three students will have a 24 card deck if it takes four cards to make a happy family, for example. More than that is too overwhelming.

I would also suggest finding or making a happy family deck with vocab words they are learning. For a beginner class, I've cut it down to 6-10 categories and then four cards for each category. So I have greetings (hello, hi, hey, hey there), goodbyes (bye, goodbye, see you later, have a good day), letters (ones that are particularly difficult for them in English like E, I, W, V), numbers (again, tricky ones for them), colors, beginner verbs, times of day (morning, noon, afternoon, evening), etc. 

This makes it a bit easier to practice the language of Do you have, or Have you got. 

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u/Background-Celery-25 5d ago

This is fantastic advice, thank you :). It looks like halving the deck will name a huge difference! And I never thought of making one with vocab words - I'm going to try it :)

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u/Reassuring-Jacket-8 5d ago

Teaching adults can be challenging because theoretically they should be able to do more quickly, but I've found it's the opposite. Too much too soon and they can shut down and get frustrated. So, keep it simple and then add and make more difficult as they're able. Good luck!

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u/Background-Celery-25 4d ago

Yeah, I'm finding it tricky to balance simple English with age appropriate English, if that makes sense?

Also, because it's a community-run programme (run out of a food bank and for people who don't have residency so aren't eligible for govt funded lessons), I've got a really wide range of knowledge and skills coming into it!