** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Not Pausing while speaking

I’ve been in a lot of classrooms recently. One thing that becomes abundantly clear is that most instructors aren’t pausing enough while speaking. Students need time to process language, students need time to think about the answer to a question, students need time to “wrap their brain around things”.

This is under appreciated by English Language instructors for the most part. It is also a very effective skill for any presenter – giving your audience time to think! (see my fav. Bill Cosby speech for an example!).

Teachers need to “slow down” by pausing between sentences. Especially when asking questions, they need to count to 5 or more and then have a student respond. There is a lot of “heat” and cognitive demand on an ELLs brain – let’s give them time to chill!

This video I subtitled, addresses this question well – focused on general teaching skills and asking questions in the classroom.