Starting lessons

When I arrive in class to start my lessons, it often takes a long time to get students to quieten down and pay
attention.

Aim

To make the starts of lessons more effective and engaging.

Introduction

The beginning of a lesson is crucial. You usually want to set a good atmosphere. re-establish contact with your
students and then get onto the important work of the lesson as quickly, efficiently and enjoyably as possible. If
something goes wrong at this stage, it can affect all the rest of the lesson.

Teachers use different terms to talk about these sorts of activities:

Lead-ins are part of a single flow connected to your main lesson focus. So, for example, if your lesson has the aim
that 'students will be better able to use Conditional Type Two', your lead-in would be something that directly 'leads
into' and starts that part of the lesson.

Lesson starts or 'warmers' are slightly different. They are typically stand-alone and outside the main flow of the
lesson and usually have very different aims, ie. often group-building rather than linguistic (though this is not to say
that a cleverly planned lesson start couldn't segue neatly into the main flow!).

'Icebreakers' are activities used right at the start of a course to help a new class of students get to know each other
and feel more comfortable working together. They might include 'Getting to know you' activities and name games
(often involving mingling), where students meet and talk to a large number of other students.

Technique: Gatekeeper

With teen classes and younger learners, position yourself just inside your classroom door as students come into
class. Meet, greet, chat and welcome students warmly and individually as they arrive. Being there as they come in
allows you to quietly assert that they are arriving at your shared classroom. You can take the opportunity to
immediately direct which part of the room they should go to, where to sit, what task to start working on and so on.
Students will get the message that the lesson starts as soon as they arrive.

Technique: Don't wait for the right time for the 'lesson to start'

Teachers sometimes sit uncomfortably for a minute or two at the lesson start time, looking around, waiting until
most students have arrived in the room, perhaps asking questions like, 'Is everyone here?' or 'Is there anyone else?'
before finally sighing and saying, 'Shall we start now?' This always feels uncomfortable to me, and I get the
impression that I then have to do something big or impressive to actually 'start' the lesson. It works much better if
you

1 Think of the lesson beginning as soon as one student is in the room.

2 Start chatting with the early arrivers (and make late arrivers feel they have missed something).

3 Segue (i.e. move smoothly) from the chat into the lesson's first main task as seamlessly as you can (completely
sidestepping the clunky'lesson-start' moment). Some teachers do this by subtly manipulating the conversation so
that they can drop in some of the grammar or vocabulary points that the lesson will focus on. They can then
seamlessly stand up, write one or two sentences that have just been said on the board and proceed with the
language focus work they wanted to do.

Technique: Greet individually

Try to say, 'Hello', 'Welcome back' or another greeting to as many individuals as you can, while they arrive. This is a
far more powerful and personal welcome than saying 'hello' to the class as a whole (and hearing, 'Hello, Mr/Ms Kim'
called out in chorus).
Technique: Don't hide in plain sight

It's good to be able to make eye contact with students as they arrive. If you are writing on the board with your back
to them, or rummaging around in your desk, you miss that chance.

Technique: Start at the very beginning

Try setting immediate, simple tasks from the first moment that students arrive in your classroom. This could be
achieved by directing them from the door as they arrive (see above), by writing task instructions on the board (and
training students to always check this as they come in and settle down), by leaving a task sheet or exercise on each
chair or desk or by establishing and following a regular routine, such as, 'When you come in, always start by
comparing your homework answers with the person next to you'.

Technique: Board welcomes and running themes

Take a minute before students arrive to write a short welcome message on the board. This could be partly greeting,
e.g. Welcome back, partly informational, e g. date, weather, the day's lesson plan and/or partly starting to focus
students for the lesson itself.

Some teachers choose a running theme to add to the board each day. Students look forward to checking this as they
come into each lesson. Themes might be:

2 Proverb of the day.

1 Quote of the day (use the Internet to find some interesting comments by famous people).

3 Funny news headline of the day (you could hand out a related article for students to read in the lesson or later).

4 Joke of the day.

5 Anagram of the day (or other word puzzle).

You could add in a puzzle or language-learning aim to any of these ideas. Do these regularly, and students will start
looking forward to the next day's puzzle. Discussing them and possible solutions can be a great lesson opening.

Here are some examples, for variations on a quote of the day. You could write it:

In a mixed-up word order.

In phonemes rather than ordinary letters.

With a spelling mistake.

With one word substituted with a word that is completely wrong in this context.

With a missing word.

Techniques: Focussing starts

Some things seem to attract interest and focus attention especially well at the start of lessons. Here are a few ideas
that you could use to lead in to the main activity of the lesson. Many of these will be easiest to do if you have an
interactive whiteboard in your room.

1 Hidden revealed

Introduce one or more hidden things that are speculated about and then slowly revealed.

For example:

The teacher has a large picture on the board, but it's covered up. She invites students to guess what it is and then
slowly uncovers part of it... for more discussion... and so on. The teacher writes up some unusual key words on the
board. She explains that they all come from one text. What do students think the text is about?
The teacher projects a text on the board (e.g. a website), but covers up large parts of it. Students try to guess what it
is about.

2 Broken reconstructed

Show students something that has been broken up, and invite them to reassemble it.

For example:

A printed text that has been cut into pieces.

A sentence on the board that has had its words mixed up.

A picture that has been cut up like a jigsaw.

3 Mystery solution

Creating little mysteries that students have to think about and solve can draw attention and

focus minds. For example: The teacher shows an odd, blurred or unclear photograph and asks students to discuss
and decide what it shows.

The teacher gives a one-sentence statement about something strange that happened, perhaps in his or her own life
(e.g., 'Last night I woke up screaming'). Students may only ask yes/no questions to try and work out what it is all
about (e.g., 'My neighbour's cat climbed in my window and sat on my face while I was asleep').

The teacher has a large bag and explains that a stranger-before running off-came up to him or her, pushed the bag
into the teacher's hands and said it was vital to look after it. The teacher asks students who they think it belongs to,
whether to keep it, etc. On their suggestion, the teacher decides to look into the bag. He or she then extracts an
(unexpected) item from the bag and invites speculation about the owner, and the purpose of the item. The teacher
then takes a second item... and so on.

Techniques: Quiet starts

ELT can sometimes seem to encourage buzzing, active, noisy starts to lessons: discussions, pair-work speaking
activities, mingle tasks and so on. If this sounds like your typical lesson, you might want to experiment with the
opposite, just to see how it feels. Instead of lots of activity and speaking, try a really quiet, atmospheric, even
mysterious start. For example:

1 Storytelling

The students arrive, making their usual noise. The teacher is sitting in some central location, with a book in his or her
hand. The teacher smiles a greeting at the students, but doesn't say anything. When everyone has arrived, the
teacher starts reading, surprisingly quietly, but with feeling. Students 'shhhh' each other so that they can hear what
the teacher is saying. Very quickly, the class settles down, and their attention is fixed on the teacher and what he or
she is saying. The teacher is reading a rather exciting vampire novel, and the students find it interesting. The teacher
continues to read without explanation or tasks or comprehension questions for ten or more minutes, then stops,
smiles and puts away the book. Even now, there are no questions or tests from the teacher. Some students ask what
happens next. The teacher asks if they would like to find out. If enough say 'yes', the teacher replies that he or she
might read more... tomorrow...or another time.

2 Puzzle

Throw out a slightly odd fact, perhaps from an upcoming text (for example 'Charles Lindbergh only took four
sandwiches with him'), and then keep silent. Students will initially be puzzled, but might soon come back with
questions- and will start to learn about the story (Lindbergh was the first man to fly solo non-stop across the
Atlantic!).

Techniques: Energising starts

Most ELT teachers quickly collect a number of favourite movement-based activities and games, especially for use
with younger-learner classes. These can be handy at the start of a lesson (or at other points) to help wake sleepy
students up and give them a chance to stretch their legs-and perhaps laugh a little. There may not be any specific
language aim, but working together and speaking in English may help to get students re-engaged with using the
language. Here are just a few examples:

1 Sequence memory

Ask the class to stand up. Explain that you will do a movement, and they should copy it (e.g. your first movement
could be rubbing the top of your head). Ask a student to do the action, and add a new action (eg. rubbing the top of
his or her head and then waving to a friend), which everyone (including you) should copy. Indicate a new student
who must repeat the previous two actions and add a new one. Continue in this way until it becomes impossible or
too funny

2 Mirroring

Pair students up, standing eye to eye, directly opposite each other. Explain that A is standing in front of a mirror, and
B is the mirror. Every time that A moves, B should copy it exactly Encourage students to start with very slow actions.
Swap roles after a minute or two.

3 Acting out a story

Tell the class to stand up. Start telling a short story that has a number of distinct actions in it (e.g. taking a box off a
shelf, catching a ball, waving to someone, etc.). As you mention each action, mime the action, which students should
copy. After you have finished, go through the story again, but don't do the actions yourself. See if the students can.

4 Secret passing

Ask students to stand in a wide circle. Pass out some hand-sized objects (e.g. an orange, a glasses case, a toy car) to
different students. Any student who has an object should discreetly pass it round the circle in either direction. Any
student who doesn't have an object can pretend to be passing an object. After thirty or forty seconds, stop the
passing and pretending. Invite a random student to take three guesses to try and find where the objects are. Then
restart the passing, and play it again a few times.

❤️

Using the board

When I look at my board at the end of a lesson, it always seems such a mess. I have no idea whether the students
managed to copy anything useful down, or if they even knew what some of the things I had written were meant to
be

Aim

To make board use clearer, more organised and more useful.

Introduction

The board (whether black, white or interactive) is, in many classrooms, the crucial central teaching tool, yet it's also
one that gets little thought. The board has been so omnipresent through our childhoods and working lives that we
almost forget that it may be possible to get better at using it. Even a few minutes of quiet practice in an empty room,
with a little self-checking (from the back of the room) and reflection on how we might be able to improve what we
do, can make a big difference. Some very small changes can make your use of the board much clearer and more
effective.

Techniques: Using the board

1 Divide the board into sections

At the start of the lesson, draw dividing lines to create distinct sections on the board. How many will depend on how
large your board is, but many teachers typically use four: a column down the left and right sides of the board, and a
horizontal division of the middle section. You will now be able to keep different kinds of board work organised into
these separate areas, for example, the right-hand column for new vocabulary; the left-hand column for
administrative information, student names, homework, etc. The top and bottom middle sections can be a 'working
zone' for the teacher-perhaps with illustrations or texts in the top half, and explanations and examples for students
to copy in the lower part. However you use them, simply having your work clearly divided up will make it easier to
access and easier to keep organised. It also means that you can erase one section while leaving another part still
visible.

2 Plan your board use

Before your lesson, make a sketch plan of your board usage. Draw a rectangle, divide it up into sections and number
them. Use the numbers to make a list of exactly what will go in each board section. Of course, if you have an
interactive board, then you can prepare some of the actual pages of the board. Beware of making fully complete
pages in advarice, as this can take away some of the 'live' lesson and risks turning the lesson into a slide show.

3 Use handwriting and sentence case

Avoid writing everything in separated block capital letters. Evidence suggests that rather than making things easier
to read, it is actually harder. Using cursive handwriting, with normal usage of big and small letters, helps train your
students to read handwriting in the real world.

4 Check out the clarity of your writing

Writing with chalk or a board pen on a vertical board is very different from normal handwriting. The thickness of the
pen/chalk can make some letters hard to read as the lines merge into each other. It is also surprisingly easy to find
yourself writing at a slant, with all your sentences rising to the sky or sinking to the floor.

Check yourself out when there are no learners present. Go to the back of the room, and take a good critical look at
what you have done. Do you need to write everything bigger? Do your A's and O's look distinctly different? Could
things be straighter? Might the writing look clearer with more spaces between the lines? Is punctuation clearly
visible, and unambiguous? Can you easily work out what layout was intended? If in any doubt, try it all again, but
bigger. You will be able to write less, but the gain in clarity and usefulness may be significant.

5 Use graphic organisers to help structure text

Wherever you can, use graphic organisers such as tables, flow charts, bullet points, mind maps, diagrams and so on
to help give a shape and a structure to text. It makes it easier to

see, read and copy.

6 Use colour to a purpose

Some whiteboard pen colours, for example, green or red, can be tiring or difficult to read from the back of the room
or in poor lighting conditions. If you write a whole text in these colours, it can add to the difficulty and extend the
time needed for reading or copying. Try to write all key items in strong colours such as black or dark blue. Use other
colours for specific purposes such as underlining, adding a phonemic transcription or highlighting some problem
letters when spelling a word. Colours are also useful for helping to structure the board - drawing those initial section
dividers, drawing boxes round important elements, shaping tables, drawing lines and arrows to connect things on
different parts of the board and so on. Of course, colours are also great for illustrations.

7 Stand back to check

It's amazing how easy it is to write up nonsense. Writing close up, you don't get a clear view of the whole text.
Students interrupt with questions and clarifications. Quite often, the result of this is that some of your writing has
simple errors (spelling, missing words), or sometimes there is a glaring piece of incoherence, such as missing out an
entire line you intended to write. Students may spot this and alert you to it, but, as often as not, they won't
recognise that there is a problem and will happily copy down whatever you wrote (because 'teacher is always right').
When you have written something, make sure that you take some time to stand back and quietly read it through
again to check. Try to see it with your eyes, rather than your memory. By this, I mean try to see what you have
actually put up, rather than filling in from what you know and think should be there.

8 Review post-lesson

At the end of a lesson, get out your phone and take a snap of the whole board. Have a look at it later on and see how
readable it is: does it still make sense to you?

9 Ask learners before erasing

Don't just rub out content as soon as you need space. Make sure that everyone who needs to has finished reading,
copying or whatever. Ask and double check that it isn't only the fastest students that you hear

10 Use the board creatively

Don't just write everything up. Don't just get students to copy. Don't only put up the 'boring' stuff. You can use Blu-
Tack to put up pictures, students' work, notices, flowers and other objects.

Technique: writing 'game-show' style

Most teachers need to write on the board at various points through a lesson. However, when this is done with the
teacher's back to the class, possibly for a period of some minutes, it can have quite a distancing effect. Students
cannot clearly see what the teacher is doing, and the teacher cannot keep in eye contact with the learners. Even if
the teacher asks questions or tries to involve students, they often have to give their answers to a back, rather than to
a face.

1 Stand facing the class to the left or right of the board, with your back to the board at an angle of about 45 degrees
(as in this figure, seen from above).

2 Keeping your body at the same angle, you can now turn your head to the board and either reach out to write with
the arm closest to the board or bend the furthest arm across your body to write on the board.

3 Vary your eye contact between the board, where you are writing, and students in the class. Turn your head a little
to look at the board, and write a few words; then turn back, and shift your eye contact to talk with students; ask a
question; then shift your attention back to the board and so on.

The position will probably feel quite odd and contorted the first few times you try it, and it will take some practice to
feel comfortable and be able to write easily. Practice in an empty classroom before doing it in front of students.
Before long, it should become quite normal and natural. The value of staying in active communication with your class
outweighs the slight effort involved.

(This technique gets its name from the fact that the position is reminiscent of a TV game- show hostess facing the
audience and smiling at them while pointing out winning numbers or letters on a game board behind her.)

Techniques: Using an interactive whiteboard

Having an interactive whiteboard (IWB) in your classroom allows you to use many interesting and useful features
beyond basic writing and drawing. For example, you can hide and reveal screens or items on the screen, project
images or documents you have prepared earlier, save pages (and return to them later on in the lesson or another
lesson), access interactive materials (perhaps prepared specifically for your coursebook), add notes on top of texts
and view internet pages, video clips and so on.

Here are a few basic ideas for using an IWB:

1 Use it as an ordinary board

Just because it's an IWB doesn't mean that you have to do fancy digital magic all the time. It's most important use is
still as a board to write on. Certainly, use any special features when they are useful and appropriate, but don't feel
impelled to do so.
2 Show pictures

One of the best uses for an IWB is also its simplest: showing images. ELT teachers often want to show their class a
picture, for example, as an introduction to a reading text or as a context for a grammar presentation. The IWB can
project a large clear image that has far more impact than a traditional small flashcard does. You also have the option
of hiding parts of the picture, revealing it slowly, zooming in on a section or writing over the top (e.g. to label
vocabulary items). It's also easy to track down the images you want, using an image search on the Internet.

3 Don't assume that the board will do all the teaching

It's not enough to prepare a great set of screens and then simply read them aloud, one after the other to the class.
This can make for a terribly dull lesson. Find ways to exploit the technology to inspire. You need to interact with the
students as much as ever.

4 Project texts

When students have done some reading work on printed text, it's very useful to be able to

project a copy of the text onto the board. Use it to point out which section of the text you are looking at, and for
close-up work on sentences and details. Use the IWB's facility to zoom, underline, annotate and so on to help the
students make sense of complex parts of the text.

5 Use the Internet together

If your IWB has a web connection, you can integrate planned or spontaneous use of the Internet right into the heart
of your lessons. Do a Google search on an interesting person who featured in a coursebook text. Find out if there is a
video on a current topic of interest. Check the synonyms of a word on a web thesaurus. Practise listening to the live
news.

6 Prepare screens that are only partially filled in

When you prepare your lesson, it's possible to create screens that you can show on the board in class. Resist the
temptation to write down everything that students need to see in class. This can lead to 'dead' feeling lessons.
Instead, it's often better to prepare partially complete boards (e.g. with the framework of a table, but not the
contents). This leaves you the opportunity to work with the students and fill in the missing information as part of
your 'live' teaching in class.

7 Revise using boards from earlier lessons

It's great being able to save boards and return to them later. Use this as a great revision tool. Remind students of the
content from a lesson a month ago. Try hiding part of a screen and seeing if learners can recall what was on the
missing half. Do problems or tasks again quickly.

If your board is full of answers, get students to think of the questions.

Techniques: Students using the board

In primary schools with traditional chalkboards, being 'board monitor' was often a prized responsibility role for
children-though it didn't often call for much more than cleaning the board at the start or end of the lesson. In most
schools, the board has remained essentially the teacher's property. As part of democratising our classrooms, we can
help learners to become far more active users of the board.

At the very least, inviting students to use the board gets one or two up from their seats for a few minutes. Beyond
this, students may start to feel that the board is a shared resource and not just the teacher's property. They could
get used to writing on it, doing exercises together, coming up in a group to prepare an idea together, lead
presentations using it and so on. Students may quickly start to initiate work themselves using the board, perhaps
writing up a problem sentence or helping to explain something for another student. Try some of these techniques:

Suitable for all kinds of boards

1 With younger learners, appoint students to set up the board at the start of each lesson, making divisions into
sections, writing up the date, copying headings or information from

your notes.

2 When you need an illustration, invite a volunteer to do it for you.

3 When you have some simple text to write up from a book or document, invite a student

to do this.

4 When students do a group task on paper (e.g. design a poster about a topic), get one or two of the groups to come
up and use one half of the board as their 'paper'.

5 When students do a task (individually or in groups), monitor and ask some or all of them to write their text on the
board when they have finished.

6 Write exercises on the board, and get students to come up and add the answers.

7 Teach interactively, getting students to come up frequently to add information, complete timelines, point out
things in pictures and so on.

8 When you play a game on the board, ask students to do any writing up or score keeping.

9 Make the vocabulary column a student responsibility to maintain. For example, when there seem to be some
useful words (for example, in a text you are working on), ask students to select the most useful ones to write up in
that column. The word column can grow though the lesson, even when the rest of the board is cleaned.

10 Leave a column on the side of the board for students to add their comments, questions and thoughts. Encourage
them to add things at different stages of the lesson.

11 When students prepare a report or presentation, encourage them to plan board use into what they do.

12 Completely hand over part of your teaching to your class. For example, if you have to teach 16 words in a word
set, ask different groups to each prepare to teach the meaning of two of the words or phrases. When ready, invite
each group in turn to do their teaching up front, using the board as appropriate.

13 With smaller classes, establish an environment in which everyone feels able to use the

board at any point in the lesson for working on, for putting up thoughts and so on. Frequently gather students round
the board and work on it together, passing the chalk/ pen from person to person as you solve problems.

14 Try an experiment in which you make the board a place that only learners use... (which means that you'll need to
find an alternative!).

Suitable for the interactive whiteboard

1 Invite students to send texts to you (for example, by email or SMS mobile text message), as the lesson proceeds.
Show some on screen, and let the students come up to talk the class through them. You may wish to check texts
before displaying them to the whole class, in which case you will need to plan in some moments when you will get a
chance to review them before putting them up on the display.

2 for certain parts of your lesson, use a window on your board to show Twitter, Todays Meet or a similar messaging
service, with a live stream of comments on screen. Your class, using netbooks or mobile phones, can react to the
lesson as it unfolds, asking questions, adding

comments, answering questions and so on. You can keep a check on understanding as you go.

❤️

The coursebook

Every day I go in and say, 'Open your book at page..., and every time I know they are going to groan.
Aim

To better exploit the class coursebook.

Introduction

Coursebooks can seem to encourage you to start on page 1 and progress steadily through exercise by exercise, page
by page, unit by unit. Many school syllabuses require that teachers 'cover the book' in this sort of way. Teachers are
asked to finish a specific number of units by a certain date and test students' learning at the end of this time. But
coursebooks can be a flexible resource.

Technique: Get to know your coursebook

It's worth taking some time to familiarise yourself with the coursebook you'll be using, both by flicking through the
pages to get general impressions and, also, by looking carefully at units in different parts of the book. Consider
questions such as these:

1 Is the book's appearance appealing? Are there good illustrations, diagrams and tables? Does it make you feel keen
to read the texts or yearning to close it as soon as possible?

2 What is the thinking behind the book? Does it have a particular angle (e.g. a strong lexical focus), and, if so, are you
comfortable with that? Do the authors set out a convincing case for the book in their introduction?

3 Is the syllabus mixed and balanced? Is there enough vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, listening, speaking,
reading and writing? Is there a predominance of one system (e.g grammar) or skill?

4 Do the units look suitable for your students? Do they match their needs? Do they match their expectations? Are
the topics relevant and interesting? Is reference information (e.g. about grammar) clearly given? Are there summary
sections?

5 Are there lots of opportunities for useful practice (e.g. communication activities)?

6 How is the book divided up? How long do you think a unit will take to do? Do you think you should do the whole
book, or will you pick and choose units, sections and exercises? What sort of things will you need to supplement it?

7 Does the teacher's book seem helpful? Does it provide more than just a repetition of task instructions from the
student's book? Are there supplementary ideas, activities and materials (perhaps at the back)? Does it have
photocopiable worksheets? Tests? Online resources? Interactive whiteboard resources?

Techniques: Introducing your class to their coursebook

When first starting to work with a new coursebook, many teachers would jump straight in at the first page of the
first unit, but it can be worth taking some time to introduce the book to the class, for example:

1 Ask students to look at the cover and quickly flick though the book, without reading anything. Let them discuss,
their impressions and expectations. Spend a little time looking at the back cover, helping them to understand any
difficult bits. What do they think now? Do they think the book will be interesting or useful? Get students to spend a
longer time browsing through the units. What topics jump out at them? Are there any interesting illustrations?
Which bits are they looking forward to?

2 Design a treasure hunt activity, l.e. one that forces students to look through the book to seek out certain things.
Students could work in teams to find the best set of answers. You could include tasks (whose answers would all be in
the book) such as: 'Write three page numbers where you can find a picture of a fish or sea creature', 'How old is the
waiter at the Los Alamos hotel?' 'How far away is the Andromeda galaxy?' 'Find the names of three instruments you
can find in an orchestra', 'Does this book have work on the grammar area Passive Voice?'

3 Do two or three discussions, tasks or exercises drawn from very different locations in the book. This can help to
demonstrate to students that learning a language isn't necessarily linear (i.e. they can succeed with material that
comes from later in the book and don't have to study every page that precedes it). It also makes the point that you
will not necessarily work through page by page in strict order,
Techniques: Ways to work with your coursebook

As alternatives to starting on page one and going through linearly, unit by unit, here are some ideas to try:

1 Take ownership

A good starting point for working with a coursebook is to take real ownership of it. Rather than a factual change, I'm
thinking of a subjective shift in your relationship to the book: an assertion to yourself that you control the book and
how it's used, rather than that the book is running your course and making all the key decisions. Take the view that
the book is just a resource (and one of many) that can help to create a good course. It is available to use as and when
you want to, but it does not need to dominate. The book is not the course. Believe this, and you are off to a sound
start in the relationship!

2 Be selective

You don't have to do everything. Pick out sections that are interesting and useful.

3 Leave bits out

Omit things that don't seem useful. Just make sure that you are not only omitting the bits that you find hard to
explain or teach. Make sure there's a balance; avoid missing out all the skills in favour of all the systems (grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation) work.

4 Divide and allocate

Not everyone needs to do the same things. You can ask some students to do one thing; others to do different bits.
You could allocate on the basis of learning differences, such as level or work speed, or for other reasons, such as
what they might find interesting.

5 Democratise

Ask learners for their opinion as to what they (as a class or as individuals) want to do, the order they want to do it in,
how they want to do it (e.g. fast, slow, with the teacher, in pairs, individually, with answers to check as they go,
without answers, etc.).

6 Reorder

You are not restricted to the order pre-defined in the book. Feel free to jump ahead or double back or pick out a
useful feature from a much later unit.

7 Adapt

Use material from the book, but in a different way. For example, exploit a good picture for a discussion, use a text
intended to teach grammar as a reading-skills resource, give different instructions for an exercise.

8 Exploit

Don't feel you have to rush through a whole page of activities in one lesson. Take just one activity and see what you
can do with it, e.g. a grammar exercise which you get your students to complete, compare, cover up, try to
reconstruct from memory, personalise, add to, search for expressions to put into a dialogue and so on.

If you choose to do some of the ideas above, students may well ask why you aren't 'following the book, You will need
to be prepared and able to explain your rationale (which might include the fact that the coursebook writer doesn't
know this class and that he/she wrote the book to work in a range of very different situations, but that it is your job
to make the best course for your students here and now and that means adjusting and selecting as you go).

Technique: Don't panic about 'covering the book'

One constraint that may hold teachers back from using a coursebook creatively in class is the feeling that the school
(or department or education ministry) requires them to 'cover the book' or 'complete the syllabus. While such
impositions are probably set from the best of intentions, they can feel most unhelpful and may display a
misunderstanding of the nature of learning. assuming that a language-learning syllabus can be divided up and learnt
piece by piece in the same sort of way that a geography or physics syllabus can. Teachers often feel that they are
being asked to 'turn the pages' of their coursebook, often at a ridiculous speed, being satisfied with the illusion of
learning simply in order to report, at the end of term, that they have 'done it', rather than focussing on the real
learning needs of their class or working at the actual pace their students need. This encourages teachers and schools
towards being satisfied with an illusion of learning.

If you work in a school where you are asked to 'cover the book', see if you can find the confidence or courage to
politely:

Argue the case (with whoever makes the decisions) that this is not really appropriate for language learning. It's not
an itern-by-item accumulation of knowledge.

Explain that you wish to get away from 'lockstep' teaching (i.e. where all the class work at the same pace on the
same thing).

Point out that you are differentlating work for individuals in order to help each to achieve the most they can, and
that this makes the whole concept of 'covering the book' redundant. If you are going to genuinely differentiate work
for students, this will inevitably mean that not all students will do all the work and that you will observe and adjust
work demands and pace as you go, taking your cue much more from the students than the pace that the coursebook
sets.

And if your persuasion and informed arguments fall on deaf ears, I'd suggest that you could still try doing what you
think is best anyway, though this is not necessarily an easy decision. The wrath of managers or parents asking, "Why
hasn't Hassan done all the book?' can be a tough one to argue. Even if you strongly believe that a token 'finishing' of
the book is less useful than really becoming good at language, it's not easy to convince less-informed others. But
students will not pass exams any better, simply because they have been sitting in a room where the class have
looked quickly at every page. The best test results are more likely to come from students who have worked
thoroughly on a smaller number of areas.

❤️

Time and pace

My lessons often seem to plod along at the same speed, but I don't know if this is just my impression. What is the
right pace for a lesson?

Aim

To set and vary the pace as appropriate through the lesson.

Introduction

Whereas time is a factual element of the world that we can't change, pace is subjective. It is how we perceive time
and what we do in time. There are many variations on the old report of the theatregoer watching a Wagner opera
who found that. After two hours, I looked at my watch and saw that ten minutes had gone by. For a student listening
to a dull lecture about grammar, ten minutes can also feel like two hours.

It can be hard for a teacher to know if a lesson is too fast or too slow, or to engineer a change of pace if she feels
that it's currently wrong. Yet it is clearly a crucial skill: 'The pace was too slow' is a very frequent student complaint.

Technique: Discovering what your pace is

Because you usually teach in similar ways that seem natural to you, it can be very hard for you to recognise or assess
aspects of your teaching such as pace or atmosphere. This is a really useful thing to get an observer in to watch. Even
seeing 10 or 15 minutes of your lesson should be enough for an observer to be able to answer some useful
questions. Ask them to watch a part of your lesson where you are working with the class, rather than one where
students are mainly working on their own in pairs or groups. Here are some suggestions for questions that you could
ask a colleague to give you feedback on:
Compared to your own teaching, do you feel that my lesson moves faster or slower or about the same pace as your
own lesson?

Can you name some bits of the lesson that seemed to be done faster than you would have done them yourself?

Can you name some bits of the lesson that seemed to be done slower than you would have done them yourself?

Choose one strong student and one weaker one. How do you think the pace of the lesson seemed to them?

As with all such developmental observations, there are no right answers. The hope is that when you meet up
afterwards to talk about the lesson, you will be able to have a useful discussion about things noticed and both of
your thoughts about those issues.

As an alternative to getting a colleague in to observe, you could ask for direct feedback from students. Useful
questions might include:

Did the work in this lesson seem too fast, too slow or about right to you?

Name one part of the lesson that you would have liked to go faster.

Name one part of the lesson that you would have liked to go slower.

Another option would be to monitor yourself in some way. For example, when planning the lesson, write down an
estimated time for each stage or activity. In class, note the actual time taken for each stage/activity next to your
predictions. This will provide some data for you to reflect on after the lesson. Consider whether the activities really
needed the time you predicted or the time they took? Decide whether you would aim to go faster or slower next
time.

Technique: Playing with time limits

It's often a good idea to state a time limit for a task. This gives students an idea as to how long they will have, and
whether they have to work fast or can take more time to think about things.

But remember that the fact that you have given a time limit doesn't mean that you have to keep to it! in a few
activities (e.g. tests or quizzes), fairness may require that you absolutely stick to what you said, but, in other cases,
time is flexible. If students are struggling to complete the task, extend the time; if it's proving easy, reduce it. Neither
of these negate the usefulness of stating the original time limit, as that gives students an idea of what to expect and
how to plan their work. If they have been fully engaged, it's unlikely that any of your class will notice that you have
played with time.

Whether you alter time limits or not, it's still useful to give indications and warnings as to how much time is left, for
example, "You have ten more minutes' or 'Just two minutes left.

Technique: Playing with pace

Students can get locked into dull working modes, perhaps always attacking tasks too slowly and lazily, or too fast and
carelessly. The more that either happens, the more it becomes the norm and starts to set the tone of everything that
happens in class. The teacher can address this by deliberately engineering changes of pace through a lesson -
gradually, or perhaps with a sudden, sharp variation. Try these ideas:

1 Set contrasting tasks, Follow a slow one with a much faster one. Follow a sitting-down, heads-down task with one
that involves a lot of movement and interaction.

2 Change the amount of concrete outcomes required from a task. If students have to produce one agreed answer to
a question, this allows for a slower, more thoughtful approach to finding it. Conversely, a large number of answers
will require attention to be paid to many different things and may encourage faster, less thoughtful work.

Techniques: Using empathy to judge pace

Remember that pace is both a subjective and a relative concept.

1 Subjective pace
This is closely connected to how engaged you are with what you are doing, and how unpleasant what you are doing
is for you. When we are interested, involved and enjoying ourselves, we hardly notice the passing of time. When we
are bored, it seems to drag.

2 Relative pace

Different people have different perspectives. What may seem too slow to you may seem too fast to learners.

A common example is in listening lessons, for example, when a teacher plays a recorded conversation. The teacher
hears and understands the whole recording in full the first time he or she plays it. By the time the teacher replays it a
second time, it already starts to feel dull for him or her, and the teacher finds it hard to believe that it would be
interesting or useful for it to be played a third time; to the teacher, that would seem to reduce the lesson's pace to a
crawl. But for many of his or her students, the content of the recording may be a total fog for the first or second time
of listening, and only as they start to work on it does it clear a little. For them, engagement may be increasing as they
start to get an understanding of the contents and wish to learn more; repeated plays may cause them to get more
involved.

Einstein summed it all up quite neatly: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and

it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's

relativity Use your empathic skills to try and feel the pace of an activity from the learner's perspective rather than
your own. Imagine yourself as them, with their current skill levels and faced with

the task they are supposed to be doing. How does it feel now?

Seek feedback from learners as to how they feel about the pace, and adjust accordingly. Don't dismiss students'
wishes to do something again as simply efforts at avoidance or time wasting.

Remember that teachers may often have an instinct to go faster than the natural pace of their students' learning.
Perceived pressure from the school, syllabus or 'get-through- the-book' requirements may push them to go faster
than learners actually need. See how much you can match the real pace that learners are learning at, rather than
forcing an externally imposed pace.

Techniques: Getting to the 'meat'

Training courses sometimes encourage teachers to include a 'lead-in' as part of their planning

for systems lessons (e.g. on grammar). A lead-in is an introductory activity designed to help

make students readier to engage with the work and draw connections to previous studied

lessons. However, such introductory activities often prove interesting in their own right, more

challenging than expected, take longer than predicted and may even take over a substantial part of the lesson. That's
not necessarily a bad thing if the work is useful, interesting and relevant. But if you really want to work on something
important later in the lesson, it can also be a problem. A common reason for failure in high-level practical teaching
tests is that observers watch 'lead-ins' that take far too long and steal time that could have been used more
productively to focus on the intended real aim of the lesson. A common complaint from examiners is that crucial
practice or use of the language being taught never happened (or will supposedly happen in some future lesson)
because the candidate spent a lot of time on a relatively useless lead-in.

Apart from the language-related uses, teachers may use lead-ins to fill time while late students arrive (though this
might be counterproductive since if students know that there will always be a warmer, there is less pressure to
arrive on time). A few teachers even use lead-ins as a deliberate avoidance tactic, to prevent themselves from having
too much time to focus on aspects of language that they are not comfortable with.

1 If you are happy with a free-flowing, flexibie, spontaneously evolving lesson, it may not matter how long your lead-
in takes and where it leads. If you have a substantive, planned language point that you want students to focus on,
then you may need to make the lead-in short and to the point. Get to the 'meat' of your lesson as soon as you can.
2 Question whether students really need to have their engagement turned on via a lead-in. If the language point is
interesting and the main work tasks challenging in their own right, consider going straight to the meat of your lesson
without any lead-ins.

3 Plan lessons backwards. Start by thinking of what you want students to be able to do at the

end of the lesson. Plan the tasks that get them doing that. Work back to the task or input

that has to precede that. In that way, you can find out if you have any time to do a lead-in

and how long it could be.

4 Observe and time limit your lead-ins. Be prepared to stop them if they are taking too long.

❤️

Handouts

I'm not very good with handouts. I've been reusing some of mine for years; they do look a bit scrappy and tired. And
I always seem to make giving them out far more complicated than it needs to be!

Aim

To produce better, clearer, more usable handouts, and to use them more efficiently and effectively in class.

Introduction

Most teachers use handouts at some point. They often fall into one of three categories: work tasks to complete (e.g.
supplementary exercises, homework); a record of language items or other content that came up in the lesson; and
further reading on what has been studied in class, often as a resource for revision.

Techniques: Preparing better handouts

Poorly designed handouts can cause many classroom-management headaches. If the activities or tasks on them
aren't clear, the teacher has to do a lot of extra instructing, guiding and monitoring. Here are some ideas for making
more effective handouts. These are hints rather than rules, feel free to use them selectively!

1 Where possible, prepare handouts on a computer. This allows you to easily save and edit text for future reuses.

2 If you are going to handwrite handouts, consider pre-printing a number of computer- printed frames (e.g. plain
rectangles or possibly decorative borders) as a starting point; it can really help to smarten up a handwritten page.
Similarly, if you photocopy dull exercises (e.g. from a grammar book) onto a handout, consider placing them mid-
page inside a printed frame. Last-minute handouts (ie. you've suddenly realised that you need to write something
and copy it just a few minutes before class is going to start) can be especially scrappy, having some ready-made
frames works very well to quickly improve these.

3 If you regularly need the same header or footer on handwritten handouts, try printing that text onto a transparent
sheet. Lay this over each handout before you photocopy it. You can reuse this again and again. You could also let
students use the template to smarten up any of their own work that is going to be distributed.

4 Text sometimes looks better in two columns, you may want to try this. If you don't know how to do this on your
word processor, ask for help. It's a simple trick to learn. Similarly, using tables really helps to organise text on the
page, you can always make the lines marking the edges of the table invisible.

5 Don't fill handouts with text alone. Add lots of white space into the page: wide left and right margins as well as top
and bottom. This space makes the whole page less intimidating and leaves room for comments, vocabulary notes,
translations and so on.

6 Help the reader to navigate the handout by good use of headings and sub-headings. Don't go mad with lots of
different fonts, but carefully use a limited range of sizes and bold style to help headings stand out.
7 If your handout has multiple pages, number them clearly and repeat headers/footers. This helps the handing-out
process, as well as the filing and later reuse.

8 Use memorable graphics (e.g. diagrams, charts, cartoons, photos). Difficult information can often be better
conveyed in diagrams than in dense text. Consider sometimes letting the graphics take up more space than the text.

9 Consider using coloured paper if your school has it. You could even colour-code themes, topics or handout types by
colour. It doesn't cost a lot more than white paper, but can help students when sorting and filing.

10 Avoid that ninth-generation photocopy look: when a page has been photocopied and re-photocopied many times,
it often gains dark stippling and phantom-edge marks from earlier copies that look fairly ugly. A quick way to
smarten up the page is to cut out just the text of the page, avoiding all these marks, and paste it down onto a new
blank sheet of paper before copying. Better yet, scan the text into a computer and start with a completely fresh
new.copy.

11 If your handout is a summary of some lesson content, think about how much detail you want to use to convey
that information. Here are three options:

Type one: Just the key points summarised. Note form, possibly using bullet points. It aims to jog memory rather than
provide comprehensive information.

Type two: Detailed notes. Text paragraphs sorted under headings. It aims to provide a fairly complete summary of
the content the student needs.

Type three: Texts with tasks (e.g. gap-fills or diagrams to complete). It aims to give comprehensive information, but
also makes the student work a little to recover and recall the content.

12 If your handout is purely a reading text, perhaps as a record of something studied in class, it's worth including a
short introduction saying what the text is and why it's useful - as well perhaps as a question or two, or a thinking
task. When the revising student comes back to the handout in a month or two's time, long after they have forgotten
what the lesson was about, this will help them to find a way back into the text. Another option is making the text a
gap-fill activity. Don't do it in class or set it for homework, but when

students come back to the text months later, they will need to work a little to reconstruct

the text, and this might just help them learn the contents better. 13 Instead of preparing a handout yourself, get
students to design it after you have taught something. Select the best, copy or print them and distribute to the
whole class.

14 Consider using electronic handouts, e.g. emailing texts to your students, rather than printing everything out. If
your institution has a Learning Management System (e.g. Moodle), handouts and lesson summaries can be made
available there.

Techniques: Distributing handouts

With only a few students, it's easy enough to give handouts out yourself, but the larger your class, the more thought
you need to put into working out efficient ways of doing this. Here are a few ideas to try:

1 Appoint handout helpers. Pass all the handouts to them, and let them do the distribution. ('Helpers' such as these
are not just for primary school; it works just as well with a group of managers in their company classroom!)

2 In a classroom with rows of seats, give out a pile of handouts to students at the end of each column at the back of
the room. They each take one and hand the rest of the pile forward.

3 in a class with groups around tables or seats in a semi-circle, give a third of the handouts to one student/table on
the left of the room. Explain that they must take one and pass the pile on. Use your finger to clearly point out the
direction in which they must pass. Go to the middle of the room and then the right, handing out the other thirds and
pointing out which direction to pass. At the end, ask anyone who has still not got a handout to put up their hand.
4 Place handouts in a pile at the front of the class. Ask students to come up row by row (or however your class is
arranged) to collect one.

5 Decide the best time to give your handouts. Would it be more useful at the start of the lesson or before they study
the work so that they can refer to your notes while you are doing input? Or as they are needed during the session?
Or all together at the end of the lesson?

Technique: Using sorting envelopes

Some activities require you to prepare a number of cut-up small materials. These slips of paper often need to be
kept as separate groups of items (for example, when each group of five students needs five different role cards and a
task instruction card).

Sometimes these can be very problematic, especially if there are a large number of slips of paper. Keeping the sets
separate can be fiddly. Teachers may spend a long time cutting them up pre-lesson only to find that, by the time they
get to class, they have somehow all become mixed up, rendering the task undoable without a massive resorting
operation.

A related problem is that the slips are easily lost, hard to collect in and sort and are, therefore, not easily reusable for
future lessons, requiring the teacher to remake all the materials each time they are required.

At the time of preparing the slips of paper, use paper clips to hold sets together, and then place each set into a
separate envelope. Label the envelope clearly with the name of the activity and the precise contents (e.g. 'set of five
role cards and one task card'). In class, hand a whole envelope to each group, and ask them to distribute the
contents within their group.

At the end of the activity, ask each group to replace all the items in their envelope. Collect in the envelopes. These
sorted sets will now be easily reusable in future classes.

If your school has a laminating machine, consider using this to make your materials smarter and more durable.

Technique: Comb cuts

If you don't have time to sort items into envelopes, one quick solution is to use a comb cut. This is a way of partially
cutting up materials, but still keeping them together until the last possible moment (and thus reducing the potential
for confusion).

You do a comb cut by cutting the slips almost all the way to the edge of the page they are on, but stopping just
before they are separated, leaving a 1 to 2cm edge. The resulting slips of paper will all still be attached to the page -
looking something like a comb:

In class, tear the slips away from their page at the very last moment, as you hand them out. In this way, you are sure
that the slips you distribute all came from the same set.

The diagram above shows a comb cut used by a teacher for an activity in which she needed two identical sets of
fourteen cards. She had divided the class into two groups of fourteen students, and each student in a group needed
to have a different slip. She prepared two comb- cut pages, each with fourteen slips on it.

❤️

Low-tech resources

Nowadays, I spend a lot of classroom time using the interactive whiteboard. But I sometimes yearn for the old
hands-on teaching stuff we used to do.

Aim

To make good use of simple resources for lesson preparation and in class.

Introduction
Is there still a place in teaching for magazine pictures, scissors, correction fluid, flipcharts and all those traditional
pen-and-paper resources that have suddenly started to look a bit old-fashioned? In the modern, digitally connected
world, young people are constantly online and using screens, both in their studies and in social interaction. Won't
they roll their eyes at being asked to look at a torn-out picture, make a hand-written poster or collect ideas on a
flipchart?

I'd argue that such traditional resources still have an important place in language classrooms, and, interestingly, they
are starting to feel increasingly engaging, perhaps because they are simple and different - a hands-on contrast to the
staring at screens that makes up so much of our 21st century days. In being different from much of the separated,
individual computer work students do, pen-and-paper resources often bring people together, working with tangible,
shared materials, in a way that feels surprisingly alive and engaging.

Techniques: Posters

What do you need? A stock of very large paper (e.g. from a flipchart pad) and a good collection of coloured pens of
varying thicknesses. Optional extras would be a stock of old colour magazines, glue and scissors so that students can
cut out pictures and use them to brighten up their posters. Here are some ideas for posters:

1 Get students to work in pairs or groups to make posters on current topics or language points. Display round the
room.

2 Posters are good for needs analysis, planning courses and tracking progress. Try starting the year with each pair
making a poster of what they need and want from the course, together with plans as to how they will try to achieve
that. Come back to the displayed posters later in the year to compare aims with actual progress.

3 Try using posters to encourage more personal reflections on life and learning. Set tasks to make posters on topics
such as 'highlights of my life' or 'English and me'. Leave creative legroom by not being too explicit about exactly what
students have to do or how they should do it.

4 Use A3 poster paper as a sharable 'whiteboard' that students can work at on their desk (for example, when they
have a group task to discuss and come to some shared conclusions), and then display the results to the class
afterwards.

5 Ask groups to prepare a poster. Then request that half the class stays by their posters while the other half
circulates to look and ask questions (then the other way round).

Techniques: Flipcharts

Flipcharts (i.e. a very large pad of paper, usually on an easel) are a useful tool, especially when used by students
working in groups, for example, when brainstorming ideas, planning projects, discussing ideas and so on. The old-
technology feel of felt pen and large crinkly paper works well. Pens appeal because students have something
tangible to hold, to work with and to pass or grab off each other. Another advantage of flipcharts is that you can
track back over old pages and see what you wrote a few minutes, hours or days earlier.

1 Have one flipchart set up at the front or side of the classroom. Use this to note down key things studied in the
lesson. Revisit this at the end of the lesson, or later in the course, to help review and revise.

2 If possible, have a flipchart for each group in class, set up in different parts of the room. When students do group
discussion or planning work, the chart provides a focussing role, drawing people's eyes to notes being added and
encouraging sharing of ideas.

3 Exploit the secret' potential of a flipchart. The chart can easily be turned away from the class so that one or two
students can write on it without everyone seeing what they put. This could be the basis of guessing games of various
kinds.

Techniques: Flashcards
A flashcard is a picture that a teacher can show their class. While many teachers nowadays use the high-tech version
- a projected image on an interactive whiteboard, there is still an immediacy to the low-tech version - a simple 'hold-
uppable' printed picture cut from a magazine, perhaps stuck onto a piece of card or laminated.

Flashcard images need to be quite large so that they can be seen and recognised from all over the classroom.
Flashcards could also be made showing words, letters or phonemic symbols.

1 Use flashcards to introduce grammar presentations, teach vocabulary, provide a starting

point for stories and so on. 2 Give a small number of flashcard pictures to students, and ask them to find a
connection or make a story with them.

3 Build up a personal set of flashcards by collecting good pictures from magazines or the Internet. Laminate them so
that they don't get dog-eared over the years. Keep in mind that pictures can date quickly, especially ones with
fashionable clothes in them! You might want to have a 'cull' of outdated pictures occasionally.

When using flashcards, make sure everyone can see the key details. This may involve:

a Holding them at chest height or higher.

b Taking care not to cover up important parts with your fingers.

c Making sure that students have long enough to really look at and interpret the picture (with a complex picture, this
may take longer than you expect).

d Angling the picture towards different parts of the room for a reasonable time in each direction.

e Walking round the classroom to offer more students the chance of a close-up view. f Asking a question or making a
crisp statement to draw students' attention to what they

need to notice.

g Not talking all the time. Allow some 'just-looking' time without constant background noise.

Techniques: A vocabulary box

Keep a small box and a set of blank cards. When interesting or tricky vocabulary items come up, the teacher or a
student can write them on a new card: word on one side, notes on the other (meaning, pronunciation, difficulties,
etc.). As the collection of cards grows, they can be used to revise and recycle the items.

1 When you need a three-minute filler at the end of a lesson, pick out a few cards and test the class using them.

2 Pick out a selection of cards when you need items for vocabulary games.

3 Encourage students to use slack minutes to pick out a few cards and review them.

4 Consider getting every student to make and use their own personal vocabulary box,

Techniques: Real stuff (realia)

The term realia refers to any real-world objects that you might bring into class to use in your lessons. They could be
toys or models of things.

These could be used to:

1 Teach the names of objects as part of a vocabulary lesson (e.g. a range of vegetables).

2 Show things that will help understanding of a topic or text being studied (eg, an opened

electrical plug to show the wiring). 3 Provide vivid illustrations for an anecdote or story that you tell or read (e.g. a
postcard from your friend).

4 Inspire students to create their own stories (e.g. some unusual souvenirs and puzzling objects)
Technique: Correction fluid

This white liquid used to be one of the most important items in a teacher's bag, crucial for making gap-fill exercises
or removing items from photos for spot-the-difference activities. Although teachers are likely to find both tasks
much easier on computer, there is still a value in getting students to make their own handmade exercises using it.
For example:

Hand every pair the same text and some correction fluid. Ask them to read it, and choose words to gap out. You
could set different word classes (e.g. verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, prepositions) to different pairs. Collect
them in; photocopy and distribute the exercises to new pairs to solve (without looking again at the original text!).

Technique: Keeping materials for reuse: cardboard and lamination

If you wish to reuse pictures, example texts, instruction sheets, reusable exercises (e.g. to stock a self-study area)
and other materials, it's well worth laminating them. Lamination involves placing the page you want to keep into a
transparent pocket which is then passed through a small machine (a 'laminator') which heat-seals the paper inside.
Laminators can be bought cheaply these days and are quick and easy to use. An alternative would be to stick pictures
or texts down onto a cardboard backing with glue, though this tends to be messier to make and often looks uglier.

Techniques: Audio (on CD, computer, podcast/music players or interactive whiteboard)

Even though much audio and video content is now played over sophisticated equipment (eg. interactive
whiteboards, digital music players), there is a place in many classrooms for the humble CD player, DVD player-or
even the ancient cassette recorder. There are a few guidelines which help make these (or their more contemporary
equivalents) work better:

1 Place the equipment well, and find the best volume. It needs to be loud enough to be clearly audible through the
room, but not so loud that it is painful. Watch out for this: many teachers play recordings too loud. Rather than
pushing people into listening more carefully, it tends to have the opposite effect, encouraging them to switch off and
try to avoid the noise.

2 Learn how to efficiently rewind and replay short sections of the recording (e.g. a single sentence) so that students
can re-hear and work on understanding parts of the longer text. 3 If you have the equipment, consider using
separate devices with individual headphones so that listeners can work at their own speed.

❤️

Working with computers

I've found that it's quite hard to integrate computers well into English teaching.

I'm never sure what the best arrangement for the room is - or how much control I should take over what the
students do.

Aim

To find efficient solutions for classroom use of computers.

Introduction

An important part of contemporary classroom management is to do with successful use of computers and high-tech
digital equipment. Many language teachers want to use new technology, but they are often based in classrooms that
are unequipped or only partially supplied with the devices they need. The alternative may require a time-wasting
move to a different room or a complicated distribution of equipment (e.g. from a locked cupboard or portable
trolley). It's important that when schools set up computer rooms, they don't only consider the technical needs of
science and content-based subjects, but also think about how language teachers might use computers (e.g. the need
to have space for using computers, but also to get away from them in different interaction, all within the same
class!) Some of the ideas in this unit may be useful for discussing and planning computer use with the decision
makers in your school.
Techniques: Room arrangements for fixed computers

How can fixed computers be best placed in the classroom? Here are a few basic choices:

1 Standard rows

A space-efficient way is to use traditional rows without any fixed teaching area. This allows the teacher to constantly
wander around, monitor and view work being done, as well as, by standing on the other side of the desk, make face-
to-face conversation with many of the students.

2 Rows with teacher space

Many classrooms also have a space at the front for the teacher who has his or her own computer and a projection
screen or interactive board so that any examples or work the teacher has on his or her screen can be seen by the
whole class. The catch with this arrangement is that the teacher is looking at student faces, but cannot easily see if
they are doing the set work, checking their email or watching YouTube videos.

An interesting option here is to make the teacher space at the back of the room, thus allowing him or her to
continually monitor what is on students' screens without needing to wander round all the time. When the teacher
wishes to call the class's attention to his or her input or demonstration, he or she simply asks them to turn their
chairs around away from their screens.

3 Around the edges

A common alternative arrangement is for computers to be placed around the walls of a classroom. This allows the
teacher to easily browse and monitor all work being done, but it can make face-to-face teacher-student
communication more difficult.

4 Separate computer/non-computer zones

One problem with many computer rooms is that students tend to have their heads locked onto the screens through
entire lessons, even in phases where the teacher wants to talk with them or do some upfront input. In language
classes, we will typically not want to spend the entire lesson on the computer. Lessons will often benefit from having
the opportunity to get away from PCs for a while, to enable other kinds of interaction and grouping for certain
stages.

In a large-enough classroom, it's useful to have a distinct area (e.g. a table in the centre of the room or at one end of
the room) for students to move to, away from their computer screens. This creates two separate areas
(computer/no computer) and two different ways of working. In the centre-of-the-room variant, if you use wheeled
or easy-to-move chairs, the class can keep their same chairs and assemble or disperse quickly when necessary

5 Islands

Grouping two, three, or four computers onto separate tables around the room can look attractive, though it does
make continual monitoring difficult, as screens will be facing in many different directions. There is no single place in
the room that the teacher can easily get a quick at-a-glance overview of what everyone is doing.

Techniques: How many students to a computer?

Some variations to consider:

1 One student per computer

Naturally, this allows the maximum time per person per computer. It is efficient for work that is individually driven,
e.g. a personal essay or project. Focussed help to individuals can be given effectively, though it also becomes harder
for the teacher to help so many people working separately. This work mode can lead to a sense of individuals
working in isolation and is likely to reduce interaction in class and the sense of group identity. There is also the risk of
students wasting time on the computer when they are not being closely watched.

2 Two students share a computer

For many tasks, this is the optimum arrangement. If two students work together on one screen, they will need to
collaborate: sharing ideas, discussing what to do, correcting errors and so on. Ideally, both students would equally
share all work, but it may happen that one student regularly becomes the typist while the other takes on more of the
thinking and checking work. You need to watch out for pairings where one person dominates and does all the work
while the other just sits back and watches. In terms of class time available per student, it is more efficient for the
teacher to help two students at once than to help an individual working on their own.

3 Three students work on a computer

It's possible for three students to work at once on a PC, with one typing and the other two sitting either side, but
often it feels uncomfortable, and at least one of the watchers tends to withdraw or get sidelined. One consideration
to check before you make use of this arrangement is how wide the viewing angle of the monitor is. Some can easily
be seen if you are seated far to the left or right of the screen, but some have very tight angles and are useless for
shared viewing. Having three students working at one PC may be most suitable for short bursts of computer work, e
g. typing up results or reports following an earlier activity where the students have already been working together
and now need to consolidate or write up their work.

4 Groups work with a computer

Once you get beyond three people on a PC, the natural way of working is for the majority of people to discuss and
work away from the computer, while one appointed person acts as a sort of secretary, typing up what he or she is
told to. The group can move over to the computer to look at the work when helpful, or text can be printed out as
needed.

Techniques: Working with and away from the computers

Using computers in a lesson isn't an all-or-nothing decision. It is entirely possible and often desirable to use
computers in a fluid and integrated way, moving into computer work when important and then out again as the
lesson moves on. (A course that contains a mix of face-to- face and computer work is sometimes referred to as
'blended learning'.) Similarly, it is possible to work with changing and different-sized groupings, just as it is with any
normal classwork.

1 Try using different work groupings within the same lesson (just as you would do in a normal English lesson), e.g.
individual work, pairs, small groups, whole class.

2 Try using periods of time at and away from computers, You can manage these yourself by calling out instructions
to finish stages or start new stages; or you can set a task and outline the working methods, and then allow students
to manage their own movement through the stages, to and from the computers.

Here is an example lesson description: Writing

1 Set a writing task for students. Make groups of five. Each group appoints one secretary. The others brainstorm
ideas together on the writing topic while the secretary takes notes on

the computer. 2 The ideas are either printed off and circulated to the class for discussion, or the notes are shared by
displaying on the interactive board.

3 Pairs are formed who now discuss (away from the computers) how they will tackle the writing task.

4 After a while, the teacher invites them to move to a PC to write up an outline in their pair. When finished, the
teacher reads and approves it, perhaps adding some advice.

5 The students then sit at their own individual computer to write up their individual

response to the task, based on the outline,

6 When finished, the two members of each pair swap computers, read each other's texts and comment, while their
partner sits with them.
(6) pair work.

This lesson moves as follows: (1) group with secretary, (2) whole-class discussion away from computer, (3) pairs
away from computer, (4) pairs at the computer, (5) individual work,

Techniques: Tablet computers

Many of the well-known problems associated with using full-size computers in class are resolved by using tablet PCs.
Desktop computers take up a lot of space and often need fixed locations in the room. Students need to move to
them (perhaps in a different room), away from their normal desks - with all the potential palaver that this leads to. In
contrast, tablet computers are light and completely portable. They can be used on the student's own normal desk.
Students can write and share messages or documents easily. If enabled by the teacher, it's also possible for students
to send messages directly to the teacher, other students, or for messages to be shown on the interactive
whiteboard. Students can research the Internet at their desks and take notes directly on the tablet while they work.
Teachers can distribute tasks, worksheets, texts, documents and links directly to each individual student's device.
Because of all these advantages, it is entirely conceivable that the future of coursebooks is on tablets and mobile
devices.

The main problem for many schools with tablet PCs is likely to be their potential for being stolen. They are small,
light and easily slipped into a bag. Keeping careful track of them will require some thought and might possibly
involve physical security attachments, such as electronic tags, cable locks or fixed enclosures; however, with all
these, there is a trade-off between security and the potential for flexible use. Simpler, cheaper measures would
involve engraving tablets with school names and tally numbers or requiring that students bring their own tablet to
school.

Techniques: Discouraging distractions and misuse while on computers

Whenever students (of any age) get the chance to work with connected computers, there is

likely to be misuse. Instead of working on the task they are supposed to, some will surf the

net for subjects they are interested in, some will spend their time in social chat with online

friends, some will go shopping, some will download inappropriate or illegal material - and,

quite often, one or two will actively seek to hack, modify or bypass programmes, settings or

operating/security protocols you have in place.

The best protection against most of these is active monitoring: simply walking around and keeping an eye on what
students are doing. If a pair always goes into a fluster of activity every time you get nearby, it might be worth
checking what else is running, minimised on their screens.

1 Time wasting and distractions

Talk with students about the ground rules for using computers and agree a code of conduct with them. Be clear what
you consider acceptable or unacceptable. It may be that you don't mind use of some non-work-related sites or
programmes if students still manage to complete their work. In many ways, being scattered and unfocussed, hopping
around here and there, may all be part of using computers successfully. We no longer read, write or think in quite
the linear way that old school classrooms persuaded us to do.

If you definitely want to restrict student use, you could

Create individual accounts for each student. Set up usage trackers on each account.

Remove any programmes that you don't need students to use, e.g. messenger programmes or games.

Set up filters so that only certain websites can be visited, or, perhaps more usefully, blacklist sites that you really
want students to stay away from, e.g. popular social or email sites. Block peer-to-peer file sharing.

2 Hacking and reprogramming

Get your IT department to advise how best to protect your computers against deliberate attempts to harm them. If
settings can be password protected, this is often a good first option. It also might be worth asking an IT specialist to
prevent local installation of new programmes. Make sure the high-level administrator username and password are
kept secret, and change them if there is any doubt as to their remaining secret.

When you need to do any of your own work on computer in lesson time, do it randomly at different machines in
class, rather than always using the one at the front. In this way, you get to notice firsthand if there are any
alterations or reprogramming at work on individual machines.

Keep records of who uses which machines in different lessons. This can be useful to help you track back and find
offenders if a malicious use is discovered.

❤️

Post-task

After students have finished an activity we go through each question, one by one, and it always feels so predictable
and boring.

Aim

To use feedback stages after exercises and activities in a more productive way.

Introduction

When students have finished working on an exercise or a task, teachers often want to check answers or give
feedback on the answers students have come up with. This lesson stage is often curiously underexploited. Many
teachers use it purely for validating correct answers, for example:

Teacher: Question 1?

Student 1: Have eaten.

Teacher

Student 2:

Good. Number 27

Has gone.

Teacher: Good. Number 3?

... and so on.

All this is achieving is confirmation of the correct answers. At times this may be sufficient, but, in many cases, this
has the potential to be one of the most important opportunities for classroom work. Chapter 5 Unit 6 looks at some
techniques for involving more people in answering questions and especially avoiding immediate teacher
rubberstamping of answers. In this unit, we look at ways of making use of varied styles of post-task feedback and
reports.

Techniques: Checking answers after exercises

Your students have just finished doing a standard exercise (e.g. 12 multiple-choice vocabulary questions). Here are
some ideas for various ways of checking (or not checking) the answers:

1 Traditional: whole class

Go through the answers, question by question, in the whole class, asking different students to call out the answer to
each question, and then have the teacher confirm them.

2 Led by students
Ask one or more students to lead the checking and feedback.

3 Hold-ups

Ask each student to write their answer on a piece of paper or tablet computer and hold it up. You can get a quick
sense of whether the majority of students are right or not and spot students who have problems.

4 Student response

When students call out answers, don't confirm or comment yourself. Tell students that the class as a whole has the
responsibility of saying whether they agree or disagree, and if they think it's wrong, discuss and decide which answer
is correct. Or choose an individual to confirm or challenge a student's answer.

5 Nominated nominations

Ask the individual student who is answering a question to nominate the next student who has to answer the
following question.

6 Read out other people's answers

Just before you start checking, ask students to pass on their answers to someone else. Students then call out
answers from the page they have been given, rather than from their own (NB If you think that bad handwriting or
poor answers might make this embarrassing, best avoid this option).

7 Don't check everything

Although out of habit as much as anything, teachers typically check through every answer to every exercise, it may
not always be necessary. Try: 'OK, let's check only the answers you are really not sure about. Which ones shall we
look at?' or 'Choose the three questions... yes, just three... that you really want to check or discuss'.

8 Traditional read to check

Students look up answers in the back of their books or on a handout you give. They use the answer sheet to check
their own or another student's answers.

9 Lay bets - then read to check

Rather than the checking becoming a rather dispiriting affair as students realise how much they have got wrong, this
variation both adds a light touch and allows even weak students to feel good about their achievement. When
students have finished an exercise, but before they check, ask them to make a bet as to how many they will get
correct. For example, "Piotr thinks he will get only four right out of 12 questions. Everyone should write down their
bet or tell the teacher who can note it on the board. Students then look up the answers and see how close they got
to their prediction; the closest is the winner. And perhaps Piotr will feel quite pleased at getting seven right-three
more than he expected (whereas in a normal post-exercise check, he would only have felt bad about getting five
wrong).

10 Monitor, and then don't check in whole class

There are times when your monitoring will inform you that an exercise was no real problem and that students can
do the task without errors. In such a case, further checking is just a waste of time. Move on!

Techniques: Getting students to present reports

When groups do discussion tasks (e.g. puzzle, problem, planning or other types), at the end, there can sometimes be
a sense of 'What was the point of all that?' Students may feel that they have spent a long time working together,
discussing and agreeing, but then the teacher just brings the task to a close and suddenly moves on to the next piece
of work. One important way of giving added value to such work is to add on an extra post-task stage: a report-back
or presentation from students. This gives them a chance to show others what they have done (and find out what the
others have done), It is also a good chance to reuse language that has been in circulation during the task, but with
the useful added pressure of having to upgrade it a little for a more public, less-informal audience.
1 Preparation for a report

In order to be able to prepare a good report after a task, it is important that students can recall what they discussed
and agreed.

At the beginning of a task, appoint (or ask students to appoint) a secretary in each group. The secretary's job is to
make notes about what is discussed and concluded. At the end of the task, these notes can help the group review
how they did the task and prepare a report. At the end of a group task, allocate some extra minutes for students to
prepare an oral (or written) report back on the task process and outcomes to others. Make sure they have enough
time to review how they did things, to think about what they have discussed and concluded and to make notes if
they need to.

Prepare a template to help students review their task and draw conclusions. The template could have questions
(such as, 'Which point did most people in your group have strong feelings about?') or headings (such as, 'Our three
most important suggestions').

2 Students report in groups

It is often useful for students to report group findings directly to other students. There are various ways of doing this:

Go round the groups, allocating a different letter to each person in a group, i.e. within one group of five, the students
would be given A, B, C, D and E. When all students in the room have a letter, say, 'All A's meet up over here... all B's
make a new group over here... All C's.... Ask two students from each group to stand up and move on (clockwise) to
join the next

group, while the remaining students stay seated. The students who moved report to their new group on outcomes
from their old group and then hear the report from the students they have joined.

3 Students report to the whole class

You may decide that you want groups, taking it in turns, to give an oral report back to the whole class.

Make sure that they've had a chance to prepare and that they have agreed which members of the group will speak.
could appoint the speakers yourself or require that every member of a

Alternatively, you group has to say something in their report.

Listen positively. However many mistakes, make sure that your feedback includes positive encouragement and
acknowledgement of their achievement in making the report.

Technique: Following on from role play or dialogues

A'public performance' can seem the natural way of ending a sequence of activities involving role play or dialogue
practice. Invite students to come up to the front to show what they have been working on. If students are
embarrassed about performing before everyone, you could divide the class into two 'theatres' at different ends of
the room, with each group performing to the other students in their half. The fact that students know that this will
happen may help 'concentrate their minds' during the 'rehearsal' stages.

❤️

Closing lessons

My lessons always seem to end in a bit of a muddle and anti-climax. I usually get my timing wrong, so we finish up
doing six or seven minutes of Hangman.

Aim

To find satisfying and useful ways of closing lessons.

Introduction
Closing your lesson well may be as important as starting it well. You might want to avoid any sense that it is rushed,
chaotic or confused or that you have run out of things to do after an activity finishes earlier than you expected.
Perhaps you'd like your students to leave feeling that they have had an interesting, enjoyable class, that they have
achieved something useful and that they are looking forward to the next lesson.

When you watch experienced teachers, the way that their lessons conclude neatly and on time, with everything tied
up, can seem almost magical. But a lot of this is simply to do with being able to predict how activities will go from
much earlier on in the lesson, and adjusting as they work.

Another aspect is to do with use of specific closing activities, such as revision games or a review of the lesson.

→ For ways of dealing with students misbehaving at the end of lessons, e.g. packing up too soon, see Chapter 6 Unit
2.

Technique: Teacher summary

For many students, the lesson that you have just taught will be forgotten as soon as they are through the door. I
don't just mean the taught content of the lesson, but even what it was that happened. You may be able to help later
recall of lesson content by helping recall of the actual shape, structure and flow of the work. The memory of
activities done might just help to revive and anchor memories of the language used.

At the end of class, take a minute or two to simply state what the lesson has been about and perhaps to answer any
short questions that arise. The summary could be a teacher monologue, or it could involve some eliciting from
students. The teacher could note key points on the board, as he or she says them, or refer to a projected list of
items.

In this lesson excerpt, Izolda is summarising the lesson she has just taught:

So, I hope you enjoyed that activity. Let's finish by looking back at the whole lesson.

First of all... do you remember what we did first of all? How did we start the lesson? (A student responds.) Yes, that's
right. We looked at vocabulary about the environment. Can you remember some of the words? (Students call out.)
Good. And after that, what did we do? (Students respond.) OK... We read a story about Paolo who lives in Brazil, and
we answered questions about the story. What grammar did we study? (Students respond.) Yes, words like 'slowly
What do we call them?

Techniques: Encouraging student reflection

A good way to close a lesson is by initiating learner reflection on what they have studied and what they have learnt
or not learnt.

1 Board sentence

Write a sentence head on the board, e.g. "The most difficult thing in today's lesson was.... Invite students to write
their own ending for the sentence in their notebooks. Hold out the board pen, and invite different students to come
up and write their version for others to see and discuss. Alternatively, for a more anonymous response, hand out a
large pile of paper scraps and ask students to write answers on the scraps (which you can then collect in and read a
sample from, which might be helpful in informing your planning for the next lesson).

Here are a few more ideas for sentence-heads:

The most interesting thing I learnt today was...

I'm sure I'll forget

The bit of today's lesson that really bored me was...

Next lesson, I hope we...

I need to spend some time revising...

2 Quick individual reflection

Ask every student to look back over the coursebook pages, handouts, tasks and exercises

used in the lesson and make a note of:

The three most interesting or useful things that were studied.

One important thing they have learnt and will try to remember from this lesson.

A question that they want to ask about something in the lesson.

Encourage them to be specific rather than general, e.g. naming a specific set of words they learnt rather than saying
'new vocabulary'. When students have written their answers, pair them up to compare notes. If you have time, you
could ask for some students to tell the whole class.

3 Pair or group buzz

Put students into pairs or small groups, Ask them to answer your questions as quickly as they can. Call out a series of
questions, allowing about a minute for students to spontaneously say Questions could include things like:

everything they can think of in response to each one, without reference to books, notes, etc.

List all the new words that came up today.

Name some surprising things in today's lesson.

What did people laugh about in today's class?

How did your personal energy levels rise and fall though the lesson?

4 Pair/group letter to absent students

Ask students to write a short summary of the lesson for any student who happens to be absent. This could be a letter
or email, or any form you choose, perhaps even an immediate update on a class website or Facebook page or a
series of Tweets on Twitter.

286

5 Closing address

At the start of each lesson, appoint two or three people to take on the responsibility of making a summary speech at
the end of the class. As the lesson unfolds, they make notes about what everyone is doing, interesting things that
happen, etc. Before the end of the lesson (perhaps instead of a final task), allow the two or three students to meet
up and decide what they are going to say. Invite them to the front and let them give their 'closing address' to the
class. When you first do this, students will probably give a fairly factual summary of the lesson. As they become more
familiar with the task over time, the style and content of reports will change, and you'll probably get more amusing
and creative interpretations.

6 Reflection tennis

Pair students up, and seat each partner some distance from the other, in turn, each person has to recall something
specific from the lesson (e.g. a word, a grammar point, a fact, part of the story, etc.). They call out their answer and,
as with a tennis match, the imaginary 'ball' goes over to their partner, who must now name a new thing to 'hit the
ball back. The game goes on, back and forth, until they run out of ideas. One reason for sitting pairs slightly apart
from each other is that this forces them to speak a little louder, which allows others to overhear their ideas, which,
in turn, gets more ideas in circulation around the room. It also makes for a jolly, noisy and pleasantly chaotic end to
the lesson. If you want a quieter version, simply seat the two students in each pair close together. You could focus
the game more tightly by setting a specific question (drawn from the lesson content) at the start of each game, e.g.
name words that you can find on a farm.

7 Reflection against a syllabus

At the beginning of a course, give students a copy of the syllabus they are following (e.g. a list of can-do criteria
statements). This could be in a folder, diary or book, or perhaps digitally stored on a local computer or online.
Ideally, each syllabus statement should have space to allow students to add comments, dates and other information
and to grade their achievements (e.g. o Not achieved yet: 1 Partially achieved, 2 - Fully achieved). At the end of each
lesson, ask students to compare what they have studied in the lesson against that syllabus, self-assessing as to what
they can do well now (and what they still can't do). As time goes by, students will very clearly be able to see their
progress and get a sense of what still needs to be studied.

8 Reflection feeding into action plans

Whatever form of reflection you facilitate, it's also useful to get each student to combine this with preparing an
action plan, i.e. a statement about what an individual student needs to work on. It is often filled in on a form and can
be preceded by or followed with a tutorial.

NAME:

Action plan

Recent work

I feel confident about:

I need to spend some more time working on:

When and how will I do this work?

Future work

My priorities for the next part of the course are

I particularly want to work on improving:

I think I need to study the following new things:

My teacher can help and support my work by:

Will there be any changes in how I do my English language study in the future?

An action plan such as this is not something to do every lesson, but is valuable as a way of reviewing progress after a
period of time (e.g. every two or four weeks, or every half term). Make sure that students consider a wide range of
skills and systems work (e.g. speaking. reading, writing, listening, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation).

Technique: Avoid the last-minute rush

When an activity overruns, taking much longer than expected, you will need to have ways to shorten it so that
everything can conclude before the lesson's end time.

Try to look ahead to this from as early in the lesson as possible. Keep the end point in mind. If you predict that the
activity is likely to overrun, don't wait until the end of the lesson and then cut it off unfinished. Keep making small
micro-adjustments to timing, pace and instructions while you work so that the activity will take less time (eg. stating
a shorter time limit than you planned or telling students to do the first five questions, rather than all ten as you had
anticipated). By remaining aware and acting preemptively, you can avoid a last- minute shock. It is typically more
effective to retrieve time from stages in the middle of the lesson than trying to rush through the closing ones.

Technique: Don't start a new task; extend the old one

If one activity finishes, and it's within about ten minutes of the end of the lesson, think twice before starting a new
activity. It's often better to add to or extend the current activity (e.g. introducing a feedback or report stage), rather
than starting a completely new stage (which you almost certainly do not have enough time to give instructions for,
run and conclude).

What you can do will depend on the specific task that students have been doing, but here are
a few examples:

1 Get students to write a new question or two in the style of the grammar or vocabulary exercise they have just
finished. These questions can then be passed on to other students to do.

2 Ask students to prepare a report-back (to present either to another pair or to the whole class).

3 Ask students to repeat a speaking task, but changing the roles around.

4 After a reading or listening task, ask students to put away the texts/transcripts and see how much they can
remember (or possibly act out).

Technique: Don't draw attention to what didn't happen

It's not usually a great idea to say to students, 'I was going to do something really interesting next, but I'm sorry we
have run out of time'. It leaves everyone feeling that their teacher can't plan very well and that something important
has been missed. If you run out of time, keep it upbeat, and let students focus on the things they have done which
they enjoyed.

Technique: Planning timing from the end

When planning how the lesson ends, you may find it helpful to work backwards from the last moment of the lesson
to calculate how long you need for each step. This will give you a clearer idea of just how long before the end you
need to conclude the last main activity. For example,

here is a backwards plan for the last ten minutes of a lesson.

o Lesson end.

-1 Tell students that they can pack their bags and get ready to leave

-3 Set homework.

-4 Tidy up books. Collect work in.

-9 Feedback and questions about the activity.

-10 Conclude discussion activity.

Technique: Have a regular closing stage

With younger learners, you may find that it helps to always do the same thing at the end of every lesson. Students
will know what to expect, and the predictability and habit may help to quieten them down and discourage too-early
packing up. This stage might include:

Setting homework.

Filling in a diary.

Collecting a new reader from the library box.

Repeating the 'poem of the week' (or any other text you or they select).

Singing a song (Scott Thornbury, the series editor, comments that, 'I once took a course in Maori in New Zealand at
an Adult Education centre, and every lesson ended with a song which we stood up and sang - there was something
sort of reassuring about this, as well as giving a wonderful sense of closure').

Writing and chorally repeating the 'word of the day' from the board.

Technique: Withholding

Here is a simple technique for discouraging students from packing up early and racing to get out of the door.
Earlier in the lesson, sow the seed of something that will only be revealed right at the end of the lesson. For
example, you tell the class a riddle (e.g. 'What is the only word in English that is pronounced exactly the same when
you cross out the last four letters?'). Let them think about it and suggest answers, but don't confirm any solution.
Tell them that you will let them know the right answer at the very end of the lesson. In the last few minutes of the
lesson, remind them of the riddle, let them speculate again-then tell them the answer in the final few seconds of the
lesson. (Answer: 'Queuel') Some other ideas:

A joke. (You save the punch line for the end.)

A test. (You save the scores for the end.)

A video clip. (You stop the playback just before the last scene, ask, 'What happened next?"

and only reveal it at the end.) A story or anecdote (You don't tell them the ending until the end of the lesson.)

A puzzle that students work on. (You save the correct solution for the end.) For example, 'Jill is visiting Jack and sees
a picture on the wall. She asks, "Who is that?" Jack says, "Sisters and brothers I have none, but that man's father is
my father's son." Who is it?' This example demonstrates that a puzzle can be quite complex despite using very
simple language!

(Answer: 'Jack's son')

Techniques: Better fillers

Do you habitually always use the same filler game when you have spare time at the end of a class... and does it
always seem to be Hangman? Take a little time to research online or in books for short games that could extend your
repertoire, e.g. Ur, P. (2012) Vocabulary Activities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The most useful games are likely to be ones that review and recycle language that has come up in the lesson, or
which get students to look back or think back over what they have learnt.

The following are some popular quick games that can be used to revise language from the lesson:

1 Anagrams

On the board, write up a number of anagrams of words from the lesson. Students try to decipher them as fast as
possible.

2 Phonemic anagrams

Same idea, but put the words up as mixed-up phonemic symbols.

3 Mixed-up sentences

Similarly, write a sentence that uses a structure from the lesson, but with the words in a mixed-up order.

4 Word clouds

Write several words and punctuation marks in random places on the board. Students see how many good sentences
they can make from the items. For example:

(Answers include: "She is a teacher', 'Are you going to meet the detective?" "You are going to ask the teacher later',
'Is the detective going to meet a teacher?' "She is going to ask, "Are you a teacher?"")

5 Back to the board

You invite a student to come to the front and sit facing the class, with his back to the board. You write a word from
the lesson on the board so that the class can see it, but the student can't. The class define the word or say synonyms
until the student at the front guesses the word or gives up. Also works well as a team game, with game players from
the two teams taking turns at the front.

6 Sentence-making challenge
Write up three words, perhaps using noun, verb, noun (e.g. builder, drop, piano). Challenge the students to make
sentences following these five rules: (1) They cannot add any more nouns or main verbs, (2) They can change the
form of the words (e.g. builder builders; drop dropped). (3) They can add 'small words' such as auxiliary verbs,
pronouns, articles, prepositions, question words, adverbs, etc., (4) They can add punctuation, (5) They can use the
original three words in any order, repeat them if they wish or omit one or more.

Show an example (e.g. "The builder has never dropped the piano'); then allow a few minutes' thinking time. Collect
ideas together on the board-and enjoy them! There is no correct answer, but sentences might include: 'I dropped
the piano on the builder', 'Where's the builder?" "Under the piano', 'That builder's always dropping my piano!" "That
piano is mine, not the builder's.' (I got this idea from Scott Thornbury's Uncovering Grammar.)

Technique: Pause; don't stop

Some practitioners of the Silent-Way method make a deliberate point of not timing their activities so that they
conclude, wrap up or reach a natural pause at the lesson's end time. Instead they just stop whatever they are doing
when the time runs out, often right in the middle of something. At the start of the next lesson, they simply pick up
where things left off. One effect is that the teacher has no need to feel stressed about timing activities, hurrying
people up, worrying about fillers and so on. The work is allowed to take however long it needs and allows you to link
lessons-one to another, in a natural way.

❤️

Closing courses

At the end of the course, we finished the last exercise; then I said goodbye to them, and they all left. After all the
work and time together, it felt incomplete, and I was

wishing that I could have marked the day in some more special way.

Aim

To close courses in a memorable way that allows students to look back, recognise their achievements, recall the
enjoyable times and become more aware of any emotions associated with saying goodbye.

Introduction

The end of a course is an important transition. Students and teachers will have been together for some time,
working, interacting, laughing and enjoying each other's company.

As people move on to new classes, new colleagues or perhaps to very different futures, there can be feelings of
pleasure and achievement, as well as some sadness and loss: saying goodbye to friends, realising that a period of
one's life is over, wondering what will fill the gap left by the course, nostalgia for the camaraderie of the group.
Often these feelings go unspoken or unrecognised.

Some teachers like to mark the end of courses with some formal or even ritualistic activity, to draw people's
attention to what is happening and to provide a memorable moment that symbolically closes the time together and
allows everyone to look back at what has happened. This is often achieved through a game or activity, perhaps
involving the chance to review what has and hasn't been enjoyed and achieved.

In terms of John Heron's (1990) description of group stages (see Chapter 3 Unit 2), this is autumn - the gathering in
of the harvest, followed by the harvesters setting off on their different ways.

Technique: Review files and portfolios

If your students have been keeping a diary, file or portfolio through the course, the end provides a chance to look
back through it, tidy up, tie up loose ends and finish it formally in some way, perhaps with the teacher signing it off.

1 Ask students to fill in a form you have prepared. This could include a range of questions that ask them to review
different aspects of their portfolio.
2 Get students to compile statistics, e.g. a table of all marks and test results through the course, teacher comments
over time, etc.

3 Get students to formally write a closing statement of some kind and sign it.

4 Questions on the review form could include things such as: Which three pieces of work do you feel proudest
about?

Which piece of work would you like to throw away?

Does the portfolio show good progress over the course?

According to teacher comments, which areas have improved over the course? Which areas still need some work?

Are you satisfied with the presentation of the portfolio? Does it look organised and smart?

Technique: Tutorials

While perhaps inappropriate for the final lesson itself, offering every student a one-to-one tutorial is an excellent
way to summarise what they have done and to note what work lies ahead for them in the future. You will probably
need a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes for each person, which suggests that you might have to timetable the sessions
over a number of lessons towards the close of the course.

Prepare for tutorials by making brief notes on each student yourself and by asking them to similarly fill in a self-
evaluation. In the tutorials themselves, get students to speak most of the time, reviewing what they have achieved,
as well as looking forward.

Technique: Separate grades and test marks from the goodbye

In some schools, the last day of a course is often dominated by students receiving grades for the course or learning
about marks from tests. This naturally affects people's moods and reactions, and gets in the way of celebrating the
course in its own right.

Whenever possible, deal with grades and marks in a lesson before the final one, thus freeing yourself up to focus on
the course closure in its own right..

Technique: The ball of string

Bring a very long ball of string (or wool) to class. Ask everyone to stand in one large circle, and join it yourself. Tell
students that when they get the ball, they should say something good that they remember about the course (e.g. 'I
really enjoyed...'), maybe about an activity, an individual, a shared experience or anything else. They should make
their comment relatively concise.

When they have finished what they have to say, the student unwinds a length of string and throws the ball on to
another person across the circle while keeping hold of the string that has been unwound. This means that the ball
will slowly unwind as the activity progresses. It leaves behind a steadily growing network or web around, and among,
the class members.

When everyone has spoken, or when the string runs out, make a statement about how the web represents all the
links and relationships that people have formed over the length of the course-and how those links will remain, even
though we are not all together in the same room. On your command, everyone should simultaneously let go of the
string they are holding. It falls to the floor, a visible representation of the ending of the course, and of the continuing
links between people.

Technique: Walking the course

You can do this in the classroom, but it will work better in a more open space, e.g. a hall, a playground or even a
corridor. Choose a location that allows students to walk from one point to another.
Ask students to all stand at one end of the space. Tell them that where they are standing represents the first day of
the course (e g. 7 September). The other end of the walk represents the last day of the course (e.g. today, 2 July).
The distance between the two locations is like a timeline symbolising the duration of the course.

As an example, ask students if they can recall some of the things that happened on the course, and then agree a
consensus on where these events might be located on the timeline. They can talk about concrete things that they
studied, how the group lived and changed, how they felt themselves or anything else that is memorable. When
students understand the idea, invite them to wander, initially in twos or threes along the line, recalling things that
happened at different points, meeting up with other students and comparing notes.

At the end, ask everyone to stand on the line at the spot which is most memorable for them. Compare stories and
memories.

Technique: The course museum

Ask the class to imagine that it is thirty years in the future, and they have all come back to their old school for a
reunion. Their former classroom has been preserved as a museum. Invite students to meet up, role playing
themselves from the future. They should wander round the room, comparing notes and memories about the course
and their time together (e.g. 'Do you remember when we looked out of this window and saw...?')

Techniques: Drawing the course

Hand out sheets of large paper (e.g. A3). Tell everyone to divide their sheet into four boxes. Explain that they should
think back over the course and select four 'highlights'. These might be to do with work done, things that happened in
class, relationships with other students-or anything else that has happened during the life and time of the course.
Instead of writing any words, students should now draw a sketch picture of each of the four highlights in the four
boxes. Tell them not to worry about artistic ability - just do their best. Allow enough time for the task to be done
well; then let students meet up with other people that they will feel comfortable talking to. (This may be a time not
to make the pairings/groupings yourself.) Students show their pictures and talk through them. Others can ask
questions.

Technique: Handshakes, thanks and gifts

Ask everyone to think of three imaginary presents that they would enjoy giving to others in the class. The gifts should
be things that help people to recall nice moments in the course. Emphasise that these presents do not need to be
real objects. They could be, for example:

A photo of the day we all went a bit crazy talking about hairstyles!

The Monet painting we liked when we read about that art gallery. A recording of the song by Lady Gaga (that we
listened to in Unit 7).

The joke about the three doctors from the story on page 121.

The word 'bumblebee', because for some reason it always makes us all collapse into laughter when our teacher says
it

A sunny day, because we always felt happier when the weather was good.

When each student has a list of gifts, explain the activity. Everyone will stand up and mingle. The aim is for each
person to meet and say goodbye to everyone else in the class, one person at a time. It doesn't need to be a rush.
When two students meet, they should shake hands, say 'thank you' to each other (for being in the same class) and
then 'give' one of their imaginary gifts to the other person, explaining a little about what it is and why they think the
other person will like it. For example, 'I'd like to give you this small green plant because it will go on growing after the
course is finished, and it feels like our friendship can continue and grow afterwards as well.'

Technique: Design a ceremony

The last major task of the course can be for the students to devise, script and design a formal or ritual goodbye
ceremony for the whole class. Let them plan it and then run it.
Techniques: Getting feedback

It's surprisingly hard to get real feedback from students. It's easy enough to collect bland comments or a general
vote that the course was OK, but much harder to get thoughtful, useful comments that will help you to improve
what you do. Naturally, students are often nervous about saying things that may be perceived as negative comments
to their teachers (especially ones they might meet again and who can mark them down!).

The following techniques might encourage more students to give more useful comments.

1 Formal feedback form

Prepare a series of questions about the course. Distribute this to all students, and allow time for them to fill in their
answers. Promise that anything they say will be taken seriously. If you think it will help, make the forms anonymous.

2 Lucky-dip feedback

Distribute lots of slips of paper. Encourage students to write any honest comments about the

course on these slips. As they are anonymous, there may be a temptation to exaggerated or silly comments, so you
may need to discourage this as far as possible. Collect all the slips in, and review them with a nice drink in the
evening!

3 Lucky dip-live

This is a 'riskier' version of the idea above. Collect all the slips into a box or bag. Sit at the front, puli one out and read
it aloud. You (or the students) can make any comment or reaction they wish to. Continue reading though the slips.

4 Letter to teacher

Ask students to write you a private personal letter or email. Say that you won't mark it or share it with anyone else.
(You could offer them a short reply if you wish.) Tell them that they can say anything they want to about the course,
including giving you any advice they wish to.

5 Teacher-led self-evaluation

Give your own oral review of the course: what you enjoyed and what you didn't. Include an honest appraisal of those
things that you think you could have done better or differently. Invite others to follow your example, and do the
same (in pairs, groups or to the whole class, if they are confident enough).

6 Letter to future students

Ask your class to write a letter to the class that will follow them, next course or next year. What do they need to
know about the course? What will they probably find difficult? What might be the highs and lows? What advice will
they give them? What warnings are necessary? Promise to pass on their letters. (You could promise to pass them on
as completely private messages, unread by you, if you feel brave!)

Technique: Keeping the group going online

in the modern connected world, there is no reason why a course-end day needs to mark the end of the group's life.
Set up a website, a page on a social-networking site or a Twitter hashtag (i.e. a keyword to quickly reference
something) so that everyone can stay in touch over the months ahead. Agree a particular time (e.g. a weekend in
three months' time) for a synchronous meeting.
Monitoring pair and group work

When I did my initial training, I was encouraged to monitor students while they worked. But I'm never quite sure
what to do. I either end up staring at them uselessly or interfering: overhelping and doing the task for them.

To use a range of monitoring techniques, in order to make pair and group work as effective and useful as possible.

Introduction

Teachers have very different attitudes to monitoring. Some set up a task and then immediately sit back reading or
marking. Others remain very visible in the room throughout the task, helping, encouraging, praising, correcting,
criticising, interfering or even doing parts of the task themselves. Some newly qualified teachers tend to 'over
monitor, perhaps because that was a practical suggestion overemphasised in their initial training.

The suggestions in this unit suggest a possible approach that varies monitoring, depending on what is happening in
different phases of student work.

Technique: Varying monitoring through different stages of an activity

As tasks start

Do students know what they have to do? Immediately after you have given an instruction, as students begin work on
their task, there is a vital need to check if they have really understood what to do and will be able to do it
successfully. At this stage you need to:

1 Look

Move your gaze carefully around the room, checking if each pair or group appears to look confident, is leaning into
the task, starting to talk, picking up pens or whatever they

need to do.

2 Wander

Start walking slowly and unobtrusively around the room, overhearing various groups as they begin the work and
watching what they are doing. Try to be a relatively invisible presence, rather than someone who is coming in ready
to organise and demand things.

3 Support quietly

If you find that just one or two pairs/groups have misunderstood or have a problem, offer help on the spot: perhaps
explaining again, showing them what to do, answering questions.

4 Stop and reboot

If you notice that there are a large number of misunderstandings or significant problems, it may be worth calling out
for all groups to stop, getting them to listen to you giving the instructions again-perhaps with a worked
demonstration of some sort, clarifications or questions from students and then allowing them to restart the activity.

During tasks

Once you are sure that learners are working well on task, this gives you the chance to look more closely at what
different pairs/groups are doing. This could be discreet or participatory:

5 Discreet monitoring

You can stay for a while near a pair/group, listening and watching to get a good idea of what they are doing. Don't
hide, but stay a little out of their line of sight, for example, by crouching down beside a table or standing beside
(rather than in front of) a student. Don't ask questions or intervene. You could make discreet notes if you wish to, for
example, of student language that you could later give feedback on or turn into a future exercise. After a while, you
can move on to another pair/group.
Some teachers find that they are able to do discreet monitoring by actually sitting down at the table where the
group is working. This is a real skill, it might be difficult to remain uninvolved.

While doing discreet monitoring, you may find that learners have questions for you - maybe about the task or about
language they need. You may also feel the need to give learners a nudge or two, to push them a little bit onto the
right track.

You will need to find the right amount of support to give. While nuggets of helpful information can be very useful, if
you start to give too much help, it can tip the balance of an activity. If you find the whole pair/group turning to you
and becoming dependent on your answers, maybe you have made a takeover rather than supporting.

You can also use your monitoring to inform you as to whether it may be useful to drip-feed task adjustments into
certain groups, perhaps adding an extra task for a stronger group, or simplifying the demands in some way for
slower groups. (See Chapter 3 Unit 3.)

6 Participatory monitoring

Choose a pair/group, sit down with them and take an active role in the task, as if you were a student (rather than a
teacher). This can be very useful, as the learners get a living example of how to do the work, and they may well raise
their own game to match what you do. Of course, there is always the danger of your dominating or taking over
completely, so watch out for this. After a while, move on and join in, in a similar way, with another pair/group

7 Not monitoring

Once students are fully engaged on a task and a focussed sense of flow takes over, the

teacher's presence may be a hindrance. Students don't want to constantly feel the pressure

of the teacher watching and listening. In such circumstances, it is often appropriate for the

teacher to vanish for some time. You could go to your desk or a seat in the corner of the room and quietly read a
book (while bearing in mind that you do still need to keep alert to problems or needs as they arise). You show your
detachment by not being a presence. If you have chosen the right time to do this, you will find that students are
unlikely to even notice that you have done it. (There is a longer discussion of vanishing in Chapter 4 Unit 14.)