Tag Archives: instruction

The #1 … (delivery error teachers make)

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

Assuming The Students Understand

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

~George Bernard Shaw

I’ve thought a lot about this and based on my own experiences as a teacher in the trenches, based upon my own development and reflection, based upon knowledge of how a brain works and students learn – I’m convinced too many teachers don’t check student understanding enough. Especially language teachers. They assume there is communication with students when indeed, many times, they didn’t understand a thing.

I’m sure it is a familiar scene for all teachers. The teacher talking, explaining an activity or idea. The students nodding. The teacher continuing and assuming everyone understands. Do they?

The pragmatic elements seem to dominate. The students using context and non verbal communication “assume” to understand. Also, students just never want to say they don’t know. They are human. Teachers do the same. They see the polite nod and eye contact, the paralanguage of students and assume they are listening, they understand, there is communication. But really is there? Too often, I believe there isn’t.

As a language learner, I’ve had so many conversations or been in so many situations where this is the case. Teacher assumes she/he is communicating. The students not understanding and just “playing the game”. There is learning failure.

I think teachers need to do several things to avoid this kind of surreal and ineffective situation.

1. Filter the teacher language. This is a teacher acquired skill that often must be done by thinking through the lesson, the language of the lesson.

2. Pausing. Give Ss time to process language. 2nd language learners have brains that are hot and overworked – they need time to process the information.

3. Rephrasing. Get Ss to rephrase and communicate for the class what was said, explained. Students will put the language into a form better for student understanding. The teacher will know the students did understand.

4. Slowing down. All of the above entail that many teachers need to slow down in their lessons. Of course, this entails not pushing through units, coursebooks and you’ll have to negotiate this with your school. It does no one any good to finish a unit, if so little was understood!

Stickiness – What makes what you do stick?

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stickinessI’m putting together an online presentation for some Brazilian teachers and I’ll be talking about “Stickiness”. I thought it would be worthwhile to air my own thoughts specifically about what makes our teaching “stick”. In other words, how to make what we do transfer into the heads and the production/fluency of the learner (now or over time).

I think at bottom, this metaphor is what drives most teachers. It drives a lot of schools and administrators that’s for sure. Progress, success, results….. I also think it is something students desperately want. However, the pickle is that both time and the differing needs of students make it very hard to make things sticky for everyone of your students.

Here though, are my top 5 things teachers can do to make language stick (and let’s be clear, sometimes you can do all these and still fail through no fault of your own).

1. A Warm, Comforting, Social Environment

Krashen’s concept of an “affective filter” gave this a name but teachers at all times and places have always been aware about how important it is to “relax” students. Anxiety, tension really does inhibit unconscious acquisition of language – the best way to learn English long term. A great teacher can relate personally to his/her students, relax them and make them willing to take risks. Risk taking is the most important characteristic we should promote and form in students – research supports this. The only way to do this is to create a safe, nurturing environment.

2. Local and Culturally relevant content

Context is queen with language teaching (content – the words/language are still king).  You can’t teach a student what a rutabaga is unless you can provide context, words won’t suffice. The BEST context is the student’s own world and neighborhood – their life. Use local maps, celebrities, songs and issues. It works! Here’s a talk where I expound on CST (Culturally Specific Content) for the Korean context.

3. Consistent Monitoring and Feedback of Student Achievement

Motivation is the pink elephant in any classroom. We have to deal with it and one way is to give students lots of success and especially feedback. They need to be monitored and self monitor their learning through structured feedback and testing. No, I’m not advocating those big standard tests – rather more authentic assessments (quizzes, reflection, repetition, journals, projects).  We have to realize that small but consistent feedback in the way of quizzes, really motivates but also helps students learn language. See this NYTs article for an interesting take on this.
4. Purpose: Linking class activity to real goals and actions

The classroom is a test tube of sorts. It is where we test our language. But it is only half of what makes a fluent speaker. The real test is the real world. Nowadays, it is much easier for teachers to link the trials of the classroom to the big test of the real world.  Multi-media, web 2.0 tools, bringing in people from the community, projects etc… – any way to make what the students do in the classroom “meaningful” and “real” is crucial. Students will get motivated and learn better if they know what they are doing is more than just “killing time” or “getting a mark”. Language is a skill, let our students know it isn’t just a video car game and put them in the real car!

5. Differentiation and flexibility through an enacted curriculum

When I teach curriculum development courses – I drill into my students the importance of having an “enacted curriculum”. Not one set in stone as the textbook pretends. One with a plan but a plan that you can alter and shift. It has to be so. If your students don’t know many basic verbs – you can’t march on through a unit on modals! But teachers do, believe me, they do…..  Let’s be honest and try to make the classroom an organic place where the teacher is contantly assessing student’s needs and adjusting for their levels and differing learning styles. One size won’t fit all.  These issues are in part why I’m such a big fan of SDL, self directed learning.

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One additional thing I would mention is the need to focus on “verbs”. Verbs are the fly paper of language. Get your students mastering many verbs and all the other functional and concrete vocabulary will “stick”.

I’m sure you have your own thoughts – please leave a comment and tell us what you’d put on the list.

If you like this post – you’ll probably enjoy: TEFL Non-stick teaching

The #1 … (book to learn about teaching lessons)

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

Oxford Basics

oxford basicsTeaching isn’t the easiest of things and it takes time to acquire sound skill and knowledge. However, you can speed up that process and I find the Oxford series of handbooks invaluable at providing teachers with easy, basic and communicative lesson “cores” or ideas upon which they can build their skill.

They give you what the textbooks don’t! How to teach simply described through 30 basic lessons in each book. Low tech, and all are very communicative. There are handbooks on the 4 skills (Speaking / Listening / Reading / Writing), also grammar, culture, classroom language and more.

Go here to EFL Classroom 2.0 to preview all these handbooks and then buy the ones you like. They are cheap!  Invaluable and the perfect books to help you become a very skillful teacher. Thank you Jill Hadfield!

Student Created Content – “It’s about LEARNING not teaching”

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I would like to share one of the ideas that most invigorates and informs me as a teacher. The idea of “Student Created Content” or SCC. I borrow the term from UGC or UCC, “user generated/created content” that is the motor of Web 2.0 and the internet.

What is SCC?

It is an approach that tries to simplify the teaching/learning process and equalize the power relationship that exists between teacher/learner (much like CLL – community language learning does with its focus on the teacher as a language “knower”. ). It also is a way of instruction that completely focuses on the student’s world/context. That all language learning must start from that focal point, no where else. The teacher models and then the students create the content and re-practice based on the teacher’s modeling as an “expert”.

I believe we focus too much on “teaching” without giving due attention to “learning”.  We need to turn things upside down and get out of our tired and worn delivery methods. SCC as an approach does that. Those interested might listen to this podcast – an excellent summary of the teaching/learning divide.

It is an approach. There is no “one way” but rather some basic tenants to be followed. These are:

1. The students create the content (worksheets, words, sentences, topics, dialogues that will be used for instructional purposes). It is a complete “Personal” approach to language instruction.

2. It is REAL. Not about anything artificial or from a textbook. It is about the lives and times of the student and teacher. The classroom situation is no longer treated as an artificial “studio” but rather as a meeting place for real events, for real talk about real things that interest the students.

3. The teacher is also a learner and does what the students do. In this fashion, the teacher is not all knowing but a participant. In this “low level” way, the power barrier that exists is diminished and better learning occurs and better modeling of the language.

4. It is an inductive approach. It is a wholistic approach. The students are first engaged and prior knowledge elicited on the topic. Only then, are the students asked to create the content and practice the language first modeled and encountered holistically and in context.

5. It is simple in design. There is not a lot of planning for the teacher. The focus is on instruction, the art of “how” and not “what”. Teachers using an SCC approach don’t have to spend time planning, making materials, preparing. Their energy and reflection goes into developing their teaching skills as they happen, during instruction. The students create the text and textbook.

I now have 60 strong lessons I’ll be sharing in the near future in an ebook where I’ll also expand my thoughts on the SCC approach. Get some of them HERE and start mucking about with your students. But let’s look at one example. Also, search on EFL Classroom 2.0 using “scc” to see many other examples.
Travel Talk Lesson


The lesson delivery is always the same.

1. The teacher uses a photo/picture to elicit student response. Student prior knowledge is primed as they try to communicate with the teacher. The students talk about “the teacher’s world/life”. In the example below – Travel Talk, the students ask the teacher about his/her last vacation. It is always about “reality”.

2. The students are asked to create the content. This can be in the form of words, questions, brainstorming, drawing etc….. In this example, they choose items of a dream vacation. The materials are created simply so that the student can easily add the content based on their life experience and knowledge.

3. Using this content the students in small groups or pairs, practice with it. The teacher sets up the target language but from the nature and simplicity of the materials, this is usually self evident. In this example, the students ask about each others dream vacation using the question prompts. The teacher monitors and even participates with students.

4. A student or students become the teacher. Step 1 / activity 1 is repeated but this time a student is the teacher. In this example, a student is asked about their last vacation just like the teacher was to begin the lesson. The teacher is off the stage and to the side as the language is reviewed and used purposefully.

The #1 ….. (faux pas / weakness) of ELT instruction

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Number One** 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.