ESL lab aides are essential for preparing English Language learners to fluently speak and write the English language. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one of every five U.S. citizens speaks a language other than English in her home. Many secondary and elementary schools have ESL labs to help students with their English to succeed in school. Lab aides provide assistance to small groups of ESL students who need extra help with speaking, writing and reading.

Grammar Help
ESL students can have problems with the word order in sentences and may need extra help with writing correctly. Students may have questions about sentence structure or need help with homework. ESL lab aides' duties involve tutoring students in grammar and writing. Working in an ESL lab involves continuous on the job training and aides will not have all of the answers to grammar questions. The lab provides a variety of resources, and aides take advantage of the resources to answer questions. Resources available to aides are specialized dictionaries, online resources, style manuals, ESL books and grammar handbooks. When a student has grammar questions, the lab aide will check resources to help with answering the question.

Read Papers
ESL students have to write papers for their classes and often need help with proofreading. Lab aides are responsible for helping students to write better papers, but not writing papers for students. Aides check writing assignments for accuracy of expression and how well the paper covers the assigned subject. Duties include proofreading, technical editing, copy editing, reading doctoral dissertations and reading master's theses. ESL lab aides assess students' writing and their goal is to help students to understand what's wrong and what's right with their writing.

Computer Help
ESL labs make training lessons available to students who need help with reading and writing the English language. Some language training will require computer use. Lab aides assist students with questions about training exercises and help with computer problems. Assignments ESL students will need help with include online tests, grammar mini lessons and language exercises. ESL lab aides check computer assignments, keep records, hand out worksheets and grade tests.

Clerical Duties
ESL lab aides perform clerical duties. Most ESL labs receive phone calls from students and faculty asking a variety of questions. Aides answer phones and are knowledgeable about the functioning of the lab. Students have access to the lab, and different students come to the lab every day. Some ESL labs require lab aides to keep files on students and to maintain a record of students visiting the ESL lab. Faculty and aides work closely together to help students with succeeding in class.