ESL Students and Leaving Voicemails

I've had a few ESL students who are reluctant to leave voicemails. For some, they think that their English isn't good enough. For some of us who are old enough, we can probably remember back to when it was just plain awkward to leave telephone messages on answering machines. So maybe we can appreciate our students', or other ESL speakers', reluctance to leave voicemails.

The only time that I insist that students call me (and possibly have to leave a voicemail) is when they are potential new students who I haven't met or who haven't been referred to me. This is just for the sake of safety. It helps me to get a little bit of a feel for the person I may be meeting. I meet my students in a public space, so I have less of a safety issue than someone who meets new students in a private location.

This is just one of those safety tips I want to mention for private ESL tutors.

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Using the Telephone in the U.S.A.

A basic survival skill that my students of English as a Second Language need to learn when they come to the U.S. is how to use the telephone. I know from my own experiences traveling abroad how difficult this very simple, yet important, task can be!

In the U.S., we have so many variables to consider. For example, is the phone call in the same area code? What is the area code? Do I need to dial the area code? Why is the area code different from one street to the next? Do I need to dial "1"? If so, why isn't the phone number written with a "1"? What number do I dial for emergencies? Are there differences when I use a pay phone, a land line from a home, from an office ("dial '9' to get an outside line"), or a cell phone? Etc, etc.

I'm not going to try to answer all of these questions here. This is just a reminder to teachers and tutors of ESL that this is a basic survival skill we should be teaching our students.

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Telephone Skills for ESL Students

"I am Jung. I call you to ask ...." This is a typical beginning of a voice mail left for me by many of my students. This sounds strange to any native speaker. We know that we say, "This is Jung." And then we most likely use a Present Progressive follow up.

Identifying oneself is such a basic telephone skill that I often forget to teach this to my ESL students. It's usually not until a get a message like this, or a phone call, from one of my students that I remember to teach this basic telephone skill. And since many ESL speakers feel uncomfortable using the phone, most of my communication with my students is through email.

Identifying oneself and other basic telephone skills should be a part of the basic survival skills we teach our ESL students.

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