Q: Do you have tips for teaching English to non-English speakers?

A: I have had personal experience with teaching ESOL children using the sight word picture cards. The children loved them! The visuals helped children who had no English at all figure out what the words said (especially when we added the gestures!). At first when we played our games, many of the students would point to a word and say it in their own language. I thought this was super cool because what it told me was that they understood the meaning of the word! This taught me that the images went a long way in helping prevent comprehension issues. Next, they would start to say the words in English. I had all the words I owned plastered all over the walls of my classroom. The children used them for help as they were writing in English. The wonderful thing was that after they had written using the stylized words as prompts, if I asked them to read me what they wrote, they could! What I learned from this is that the images helped them learn the words, but they could read them in plain text as well.