In the first few weeks, you should try to assess your students’ ESL needs and look at how you can best meet these needs.  Each students’ needs may depend on factors such as age, prior education level, level of literacy, progress at school or TAFE, other learning support, any learning disabilities, and their reason for learning English.  For adults, their family situation and occupation or job prospects may give you an idea of what they need to learn.

A good place to start is to introduce some reading and writing activities to get a good grasp of what the students’ level of ability is.  Obviously, it will be even easier to get a grasp of what their spoken language ability is, though remember to make allowances for students being shy in the first few sessions!

If you are working with an adult, you can conduct a needs analysis.  This involves asking your student why they want to improve their English.  It may be that they want to:

• tell people about their family
• get to know their neighbours
• speak to tradespeople
• communication with their grandchildren
• make and receive telephone calls
• get a job or enter further study
• talk to their children’s teachers
• watch TV or listen to the radio
• join a sporting or social club or a hobby or interest group
• use public transport
• talk to doctors
• deal with Centrelink