Teaching English as a second language to adult students or incorporating younger English language learners into a mainstream classroom can be challenging. Working with ESL students in any capacity can raise questions about how to best proceed to the mind of any teacher. Best practices for working with ESL students are sometimes learned by trial and error, but you can take steps to make the learning process easier.

Stories
Learn as much as you can about your students' backgrounds when you begin to teach them. Whether they are children or adults, they have life experiences in other places that will shape their views of the United States. Your students' stories will affect how they learn. Knowing where your students come from, more than just where they lived, will help you design lessons that are more appropriate for their needs. For example, if you have a class with several adult refugees who did not advance beyond a primary education during years of upheaval and constant moving around to stay safe, your lessons might focus more on basic literacy and survival skills. As students grow in learning English, the lessons can evolve with them.

Real
Your lessons should be relevant to your students' lives. Bring real objects into your classroom to teach the objects' names. Take students to a grocery store and have them ask a clerk where an item is. The more realistic your lessons and activities, the more students will be able to retain and recall for future use outside the classroom. Use realistic role plays and conversations in your lessons, pairing students up to talk about the topic. Have a police officer visit the class to discuss being safe on the streets -- and to demonstrate that the police can be helpful and protect citizens.

Mainstream
If you are a school teacher with ESL students who spend part of their days in your classroom, pare down worksheets and instructions to the simplest form and structure to help these students get the main ideas of what you are teaching. Avoid using slang and incorrect grammar as much as possible in the classroom to help ESL students grasp what you are saying during lectures. Speak more slowly and precisely; avoid baby talk, talking too slowly or raising your voice. Put pictures up of what you are learning in the classroom to give ESL students a visual reference. Even if they do not understand what you are saying at a particular moment, their eyes may wander to a poster and learn something from it. Integrate your students into the classroom. Avoid isolating them as ESL students.

Over Correcting
Avoid over correcting. If you are an ESL teacher, correct students on work related to the lesson as much as possible. Students can feel discouraged and that they are not progressing if you correct every grammatical or pronunciation mistake they make in speaking and writing. They may even stop speaking and writing as much in English and become passive learners instead, which will slow their progress.