Big Picture Basis
When starting an ESL ministry, it is important to know your goals for the ministry. Do you want to teach English Bible stories? Do you want to provide basic English conversation practice? Do you want to help students study for their green card? Is your ESL ministry a service to the community or an evangelistic outreach?
At first glance, you may feel that the answer is, “We want both – a service to the community and an evangelistic outreach.” This is a core question to explore when planning an ESL ministry. Most volunteer ESL classes are unable to provide everything for everybody. They need a core focus and goals that reflect that focus.
A service-based ESL ministry provides high-quality English language instruction to students who are non-native English speakers. This could be English conversation classes for adults, homework help for students, green-card and citizenship classes, or writing classes for university students. This ministry focuses on how it can meet the felt needs of the students.
An evangelistic outreach ESL ministry provides English language instruction that is focused on the Bible. Students learn English through simplified Bible stories and conversations about those stories. Evangelistic outreach ESL ministry may also provide some evangelistic tools in a student’s native language.
When narrowing the focus and goals for your ESL ministry, it may be helpful to ask yourself these questions:
- Is my ESL ministry a service to the community, an evangelistic outreach, or a combination of the two?
- Is my ESL ministry for adults or children?
- What do I want the students in my ESL ministry to learn?
Answering these questions will guide you as you think through the details of your ministry. The following are helpful questions to work through as you plan your ESL ministry.
Down in the Details
Facility, Timing and Advertising
Facility: Thankfully, most churches are willing to lend free space to an ESL ministry, but you will need to think through logistics like:
- How many rooms will you need?
- Do you need rooms only for classes or will you need space for a nursery or childcare?
- Will the church cover insurance, heating, air-conditioning etc. or will your ESL ministry need to be responsible for these?
Timing: Your goals will determine when you hold your ESL classes. You will need to decide timing by balancing the schedules and availability of both the volunteers and the students. My husband and I were both working when we started our ESL class. Because of that, it was most important that the class fit into our schedules. However, we also thought through when the students would be free to come to the class. Our students were parents of international school students. We ended our class in time to coincide with school pick-up. Parents could attend class and then go and pick up their children from school.
Advertising: Who will be coming to your English classes? We created advertisements in the home languages of each group that we thought would be interested in our classes and passed them out at local international schools. You can have non-English language churches help you post advertisements about the classes. You can also visit local ministries that help refugees or new immigrants and ask them about advertising for your classes. Advertisements should always be in the languages of each people group you invite. This will help students feel at ease even before they walk in the door.
Curriculum
ESL curriculum is vital to a volunteer ESL ministry. Volunteer English teachers need to feel equipped for their task and the curriculum doesn’t have to be expensive or burdensome. Curriculum supplies support for both teachers and students.
Curriculum:
- provides structure and a plan
- decreases preparation time
- increases the quality of the instruction
- produces evaluation tools
- strengthens the confidence of the teachers
There is a lot of ESL curriculum available. I have provided just a few websites below that have curriculums available for teaching ESL. There are many, many websites and curriculums choose from for your ESL ministry.
ESL for Bible understanding:
Church-Based ESL Programs – TESOL Tools
Bible Based ESL Books and Curriculum (eslbiblebased.com)
ESL for Community Service
In our English classes, we used Speak Now by Jack Richards. It has several levels and online practice. We wanted a curriculum for all the reasons above, but we knew that some in our class would not be able to afford to buy the books. The church was also not able to fund a curriculum. In order to make books available to everyone, we let people choose to either buy their own book or borrow one of ours for the class period. Students who borrowed the books were not allowed to take them home, but they were able to participate fully in class without financial hardship.
Volunteers
Every ESL ministry needs volunteers who are willing to teach the class. As I mentioned in my first article, my husband and I were the only teachers in our ESL ministry. Starting small allowed us to make needed changes as the class grew and changed.
Here are some things to think through as your recruit volunteers:
- How many volunteers do you need and what roles will the volunteers fill?
- Do you need teachers, childcare workers, snack providers, greeters, and/or ministers? I use the word “minister” loosely here. Everyone involved in the ESL ministry is a minister, but I am specifically referring to those volunteers who are willing to lend their time outside of ESL class to follow-up on the felt needs of the students in the class.
- Do some students want regular discipleship?
- Do some students need food? There will be needs that arise as your ESL ministry grows and it will be important to think through how and if your church can meet some of those needs.
- Will you equip the volunteers? Will you provide teacher training? What kinds of resources are available in your area or denomination to help teachers feel confident in their teaching ability?
- How will you encourage the volunteers?
Children
Will you teach children as a part of your ESL ministry? Will you provide child-care for those adults who need it? You will be asked these questions when you start an ESL ministry. Instead of feeling guilty if you cannot offer these things, go back to your goals and remind yourself why you are providing an ESL ministry through your church.
Bible-time
Once you have your goals, you can better think through how you will incorporate your Christian faith into your classes. If you have chosen a Bible-based ESL curriculum, you may have some natural engagement points for talking about who Jesus is. If your focus is community service, you may need to spend more time thinking through how to intergrate Jesus into your classroom. I have spent time teaching ESL in both secular and Christian classrooms. As Christians, we give God glory in all things. We know that God is at work all around us, we just need to look for where he is working. This is my advice to you as you go into your ESL classroom, whether Bible or community service based: look for where God is working and be expectant and ready for him to work. I will address this more in-depth in a later post.
Laurel Bohrer is an ESOL teacher and adult second language learner who enjoys seeing her students gain confidence in their ability to use English. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her husband and 2 daughters.
This article is the second in a series. Click below to read other articles in the series.
