>> So, my name is Danielle McGowan and I'm an ESL instructor, which means that I am an English
as a second language instructor at Central Piedmont Community College.
So, I'm working with students who are anywhere from 18 to like 70,
I've had some students who were 60, 70 years old.
So., whether they're just learning English their basic grammar like hi my name is
or they're learning job skills, I also teach a class working in America
which is a great new program that CPC just started.
So that's for their job skills and resume portion.
So, with the younger students or younger in language we're going to do things like nouns,
verbs, greetings, how to shop, how to say can I have this, you know,
where is the dentist's office, you know, basic things.
So, you have to think about again like how can I respect this adult
who has had experience sometimes double, triple your years in life
and how can I help them take their skills from their previous country and move them forward.
People learn language like we don't tell a baby like this is a noun
and this is a verb they just learn because it's imitation.
So, you have to imitate it or you just say repeat, repeat,
repeat and eventually they holistically put it together.
You do a lot of pointing, but it's very true we do that with children.
So, you just have to do in a respectful way, we do it in a funny way, you know, we joke around.
I look for opportunities where I'm going to put them in pairs or quads,
where we're going to stand up, where I might implement
like a Justin Timberlake video or something.
I did that the other day to calm them down because they were really stressed
about this little test they had to take and it wasn't even graded.
But basically, you have to look at the content and then you have to break it apart
and say how can I make this more human?
So, my process is basically taking all the information and then looking
at what my student's needs are and making it hit the cognitive affect and the psychomotor part
of them which basically is fancy for like the brain, the hands-on,
and then the kind of artistic emotional parts.