Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) presents teachers with a number of challenges. One of the main ones involves strategies to keep students interested and engaged while tackling a complex subject that takes a relatively long time to master. Below are some strategies that will help keep your students engaged in ESL.

Find out as much as you can about your students' interests. The more you know, the easier it will be to provide English-language materials that truly stimulate your students. A questionnaire made up of magazine pictures to circle may give you some clues that your students don't yet have vocabulary for.

Provide as diverse a selection of extracurricular materials for students to browse through before and after class. Car and sports magazines, grocery or other store flyers--any combination of pictures and text can give you clues to why your students want to learn English. If you can keep a basket of take-home materials like these, students get more exposure to English in a relaxed, informal way, and you get more clues about them.

Encourage students to bring written or other language-rich items to class. When learning English names for family members, encourage students to bring photos of their relatives to talk about. Let them bring forms, notices, leases, employment applications--any personal stimuli to learning English.

Plan some activities that stimulate language through experience--art materials for colors and shapes, pizza, something with "partial assembly required," the directions and the tools needed for assembling it. Getting involved in the activity often makes language flow more easily.

Get out of the classroom, if possible. Get on the bus, use a map, go to a park, the supermarket or the mall. Window-shop, check out a vegetable garden, watch a high-school team practice. Let language come out of relevant experience. Not everyone will learn the same thing, but everyone will learn something.