TEFL online course

Lesson 1
1.1 Char of English language
1. fairly easy to learn

- Easiest and simplist language

- Relative – will depend on learners ability

2. Latin alphabet

- Most universal, short and straightforward alphabet (Greek simpler)

- Latin is true alphabet with only 26 letters

3. Simple inflexion

- Extra letters added to nouns, verbs, adjectives (in different forms)

- Regular verbs have four forms
- Minimal change in structure depending on tense

4. receptiveness

- Receptive to accepting and adopting words from other languages

- Spanish
o Alligator – el lagarto
o Cargo – cargar
- Indian
o Bungalow – bangla
o Jungle – jangal
- Chinese
o Ketchup – ke-tsiap
o Gung ho – show enthusiasm

5. Generally fixed word order

- I (S) bought (V) a new top (O)

- She (S) doesn’t like (V) spiders (O)
- Why do you (S) do (V) that (O)?
- SVO order is most used

6. Pronunciation

- This, thin, clothes, 13th, months

o Inevitably difficult for those how mother tongue don’t require the
use of the tip of the tongue to speak
7. Continuous tense

- Many languages don’t have continuous tense

- I had a bath when the phone rang
 - VS
- I was having a bath when the phone rang

8. articles (A, an, the)

- Causes some learners difficulties in those who do not speak with these in
native language
9. phrasal verbs

- Phrasal verb is idiomatic phrase consisting of a verb and another item

(break down)
- VERY significant feature

10. non-tonal

- English does not make use of high or low pitch change when speaking
- Pitch is used for emotion in English rather than meaning

11. sound and spelling

- Lack of connection between word sound and spelling

- Difficult for non to predict pronunciation
o Thought, although, rough
o Ate, eight, hear, here, their, there
o Know, could, hour
o Read, read
o Present, present

1.2 acronyms in TEFL

ELT

- English language teaching

TEFL

- Teaching English as a foreign language

TESOL

- Teaching English to speakers of other languages

TEYL

- Teaching English to young learners

TESL

- Teaching English as a second language

CLT

- Communicative language teaching

L1

- Learners first native language

L2

- Second language learning

- English normally

PPP

- Presentation, practise, production

STT

- Student taking time

TTT

- Teacher talking time

1.3 brief history of some ELT methods

The grammar translation approach

- 19th century to teach latin and Greek

- Main aim of studying a foreign language is able to read its literature
- Emphasis in class on reading/writing not listening/speaking
- Explained and discussed in learners native language
- Little to no theoretical basis

Direct approach

- Learns second language similar to how a first language is learnt

- Directly, exclusively in the target language
- Native learner language are excluded from classroom

Audiolingual approach

- Language learning, habit formation

o Concentrate on formation of speech habits by using series of
mechanical and repetitive oral drills
- Learning consists mainly of the accurate imitation and memorisation by
learners
o Sentences / dialogues modelled by the teacher
- Language is matter of speech, focus on speaking

NB

- All teaching approaches are beneficial in their own way

1.4 teaching approaches, methods, techniques

1.4.1

- Communicative approach
o Current approach to language teaching
o Task based teaching

1.4.2
 1. Presentation, practice, production (PPP)
- Presents new language item for learning situation (presentation stage)
- Exercises or other controlled practice activities (practice stage)
- Use or produce language in communicative and less controlled way
(production)
2. Audiolingual method
- All about habit formation, repetitive drilling
- Error correction is essential to prevent bad habits
3. Lexical method (lexical approach)
- Lexis = signify teaching or vocab and areas of grammar together
- Seen as individual words, lexis is rather words, phrases, collocations,
chunks, formulaic grammatic practices
4. Task based method
- Designed around series of authentic tasks which give learners
experience form using language
- No predetermined language syllabus, aim is to learn from tasks
- Itinerary of journey, timetable, travel agent
5. Principled eclecticism method
- Variety of language learning, mix of all
- Ensures learners actively engage rather than becoming mechanic
6. Communicative method
- Focus on authentic, meaningful communication, not structure
- Accomplish tasks using language, not study
- Functional
- Fluency and communication more important than accuracy
- Lerner centred (teacher not involved)

1.5 Communicative language teaching (CLT)

“It is an approach that emphasises the goal of language learning, communicative
competence, make meaningful communication and language use the focus of all
classroom activities”
~Richards and Schmidt (2002)

- Emphasises the goal of language learning is communicative

competence
- Aims to make meaningful communication and language use the focus
of all activities
CLT

- Communication
o Learners reach effective standard of communication outside
class
o Accuracy and grammar, pronunciation (communicative)
o Listening and speaking / reading and writing
o Enable learners to communicate knowledge and opinions
o Attempts to communicate are encouraged
- Meaning and use
o Learning mainly about communicating
 - Context
o New language presented and practised in realistic and
meaningful contexts to show meaning and use
o Context gives language meaning
o Language used to buy train ticket, set in train station
- Fluency
o Ability to communicate
- Creativity
o Language learning and acquisition are creative processes
o Trial and error
o Encouragement to try language items in supportive classroom
- Functions
o Go beyond learning grammatical structure and into functions
instead
- Form
o Linguistic competence only part of whole picture
 Choose most appropriate word for situation
 Could / would
o Register depending on formality
o Recognise that variety of forms used to achieve the same end or
function
 It will rain VS it may rain
Teacher role

- Emphasis is on communication in English

o Facilitate, help and advise learners
o Do not “teach”
- Lerner-centred / learning centred

Individual learning preferences

- Use varied techniques depending on what your learners need

- Grammar is never taught in isolation unless absolutely necessary

Real English

- Exposed to fine-tune input (within know) and then rough-tuned

(unfamiliar)
- Newspaper articles

Occasional structured drills

- Drilling = repetition
- Small part of lesson time
- Help with pronunciation and grammar

Obtain communicative competence via communicative

1. Situation / context
2. Functions
3. Form
4. Meaning and use
*grammar always taught in context*
*notions should be taught in context*

1.6 L1 and L2 learning

SLA
Differences between L1 and L2

- L1
o Exposed from birth
o constantly surrounded
o Easily taught in households
o Needs and wants communicated in such language
o Praise for knowing words
- L2
o Not exposed
o Limited exposure
o No motivation

1.7 Key influences on L2 learning

Degree of intellect

- Some are simply brighter than others and are thus more motivated

Age

- Generally the older the person becomes the more difficult it is to

acquire an L2
- Many more responsibilities come with age, forgetting about the L2

Learning preference

- Teaching not aligned with learners preferred approach it may be

curtailed
Motivation

- Intrinsic (own) or extrinsic (out) every learner will have different

degrees of motivation
- KEY TO NOTE
o Everyone has their own things going on and there are bad and
good days
Autonomy

- Learners to play active role in designing or selecting learning

- More interest and responsibility taken
- Motivation will increase
- Choose a topic to debate or discuss rather than just be told

Prior learning
 - Depending on school environment will depend on your level of
formality
- Need to be asked:
o Pattern of classroom activity
 Some learners will want you to follow clearly organised
and neat pattern of what they are familiar with
o Your behaviour
 Views on appropriate behaviour in society as well
o Gender
 Mixed educational groups and what they expect from you
o Female participation
 Due to cultural differences
o Culture: appropriate topics for learning
 Be vary of touchy topics
o Classroom participation
 Motivational factor
 Need to find a good balance
Communication styles
A. Direct VS indirect styles
a. DIRECT
i. Straightforward
ii. No beating around bush
iii. Directness and respect to others
iv. Avoiding ambiguity
b. INDIRECT
i. Subtle meanings, stories, implication
ii. Politeness and respect
iii. Frequent use of implication
B. Idea focusses VS person focussed
a. IDEA-FOCUSSED
i. Ideas and person separate
ii. Open disagreement is acceptable
iii. Disagreement not seen as personal attack
b. PERSON-FOCUSSED
i. Idea and person NOT separate
ii. Feelings are important
iii. Disagreement handled carefully
iv. Disagreement is attack on person
ALWAYS FIND A GOOD BALANCE

1.8 effective learning strategies

- Conscious steps or behaviours to enhance acquisition, storage retention,
recall
- More proficient the better
- Diaries, think-aloud, observation, surveys

More proficient learners

 - Improve proficiency and achievement
- Use strategies that work well together
- Metacognitive strategies
- Specific strategies or clusters

No concrete strategies
1. Circumlocution
a. Doesn’t know the word but doesn’t give up
b. Uses other words to explain the intended meaning
2. Avoidance
a. When lacking lexis or skills or even end mid sentence when
unaware
3. Word coinage
a. Combining two words to mean one which does not necessarily work
4. Language or code switching
a. Using the word in their native language
5. Clarification and comprehension checks
a. Too shy or embarrassed to try
i. “did you mean..”
ii. “could you explain..”
6. Non verbal strategies
a. Body language
b. Gestures
7. Approximation
a. Alternative term that resembles correct word
8. Use of all purpose words
a. Stuff, thingie
9. Using minimal responses
a. Stock of minimal responses to help engage
b. Predictable phrases that conversational participants indicate
understanding
Recognising scripts / pattern opportunities

- Things can be culturally dependant

- Fillers and hesitation devices
a. Fill pauses and use time to think
b. “uhm” “er”
S.M.A.R.T goals

- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time based

4 skills
1. Listening
a. Gains from strategies of elaboration, inference, selective attention,
self monitoring
 2. Speaking
a. Risk-taking, paraphrasing, circumlocution, self-monitoring, self-
evaluation
3. Writing
a. Benefits form learning strategies of planning, self-monitoring,
deduction and substitution
4. Reading
a. Aloud, guessing, deduction, summarising

Lesson 2
2.1 What makes a competent and effective EFL teacher
- Aims for competence
o Having the necessary ability,
o Knowledge
o Skill
- Also include habits when considering competence
o On time
o Ready to greet learners
o And welcoming
o Reflecting on how the lesson went
- A person who has the knowledge, ability, skills and habits
- KASH
o Knowledge
o Ability
o Skills
o Habits
1. Adheres to a code of practice for teachers at all times
a. Many schools do not have code of practice
b. Following your own code of practice
c. ACCREDITAT
i. A conviction that excellence is achieved by competence
ii. Belief in the worth, individuality, dignity
iii. Commitment to truth, excellence, and democratic principles
iv. Allegiance to freedom to learn and teach
v. Dedication to principle of equal opportunity for all
1. Honesty and integrity
a. Creating maintaining appropriate professional relationships in
classroom, school, public
b. Acting with impartiality, truthfulness and honesty
c. Displaying consistently high standards of personal and
professional behaviour
d. Refraining from disclosing info about colleagues in the course of
professional service, unless professional purpose, or law
e. Refraining from abuse of position of authority
f. Acting according to the law
2. Dignity and diversity
 a. Valuing diversity and treating all with equitably, care,
compassion and respect uniqueness
b. Value learning needs, effort, potential, uniqueness of each
learner
c. Improving wellbeing and progress of learners
d. Fostering value of diversity and encourage development of all
perspectives
e. Allowing learners to access POV
3. Respect and trust
a. Mutual respect, trust and confidentiality of personal information
underpin all relationships serves compelling purpose or required
by law
b. Contribution that mutual respect, trust and privacy makes to
wellbeing and learning
c. Desires and hopes of learners family and caregivers
d. Educational colleagues and broader communitive to enhance the
profession
e. Accepting the status, responsibilities and authorities of
colleagues
f. Open to constructive criticism from peers and respect and
consideration for different viewpoints
4. Responsibilities and accountabilities
a. Giving priority to education and welfare of all learners
b. Guiding and encouraging learners to reach potential, giving
equal opportunities
c. Interactive learning environments, not passive recipients of info
d. Regarding self as learners and engaging in continuous
professional dev and improving teaching and learning
e. Collaboratively, cooperatively, enthusiastically with colleagues
and all educational bodies
f. Taking heed to clarify their personal views and those of the local
educational authorities
g. Promoting ongoing dev of teaching as profession
h. Upholding school policies, procedures and practices
i. Modelling behaviour, attitudes, positive values which are widely
accepted in society and encouraging learners to apply them
5. Care and protection
a. Having empathy and respect for, rapport with learners and
families and caregivers
b. Committing to learners wellbeing and learning through positive
influence
c. Adhering to the schools learner protection policies and
procedures
d. Protecting learners from conditions harmful to learning or health
and safety
e. Refraining from racial, gender, political, verbal, physical,
emotional abuse
f. Generous with praise and giving positive inputs and feedback
6. Fairness and justice
a. Being fair and reasonable at all times
 b. Committed to wellbeing of individuals and community in
common good
c. Resolving competing claims or problems arising from diff ethical
principles and various interest groups through reflective
professional discussion
2. Demonstrated that she is warm, caring and approachable
a. Show in many ways
i. Approachable at all times
ii. Active listeners
iii. Be consistent
3. Establishes good rapport and relationships with all learners at all
times
a. not too much fun with older learners but still a good time
b. what did they learn successfully is what you need to be asking
c. some learners may not even accept humour at all
d. rapport exists when people develop feeling of harmony
4. fosters a constructive learning experience
a. everything is planned
b. excellent class routines
c. standards of behaviour agreed
d. inclusive environment created where all learners are treated fairly
and equally
5. creates sense of classroom community
a. classroom community where:
i. everyone accepted and supported as vital part of group
ii. sense of belonging
iii. collaboration to achieve the goal is at centre
iv. positive social skills promoted
v. depend not only on teacher but also the whole class
b. classroom community spirit is critical to success of you and learners
c. promotes learning, engagement retention
d. more comfortable, more participation, engagement, learning and
retainment
6. set high yet achievable expectations for learners
a. propound for your learners will affect their achievement levels
b. if you set low then they will perform low
c. therefore high yet achievable expectations are needed
7. plans and works flexibility
a. things don’t often go according to plan and you need to go
according to that
b. continuous monitoring and ready to change tack or find a new way
of presenting the material seamlessly without being aware of
necessary changes
8. adjusts own level of English to suit the class
a. no fancy language
b. no prizes for higher language
9. always give clear, precise instructions
a. instructions may have different value and weighting among learners
b. simple, clear, precise
10.choose appropriate moments to correct learners language
 a. when in full flow, communicating, let it run even if there are
mistakes
b. when done you can pick up and correct their errors
11.understands needs to use range of relevant and suitable
materials and resources
12.works successfully with learners at various levels
13.enables the feeling of progress
14.fairly and frequently, based on assessment
15.recognises and understands range of background and experiences
within learners group
16.employs variety of teaching styles and approaches at diff stages
in diff contexts
17.broad range of learner needs especially those with learning
difficulties
18.reduces TTT and maximises STT
19.reflects and self appraises continuously
20.facilitates language learning and acquisition both inside and
outside classroom

2.2 competent and effective teacher facilitates

language
1. inside the classroom
a. facilitate language learning by providing a selection of suitable
materials to support learning
b. exercises in the coursebook and supplementary courses as well
1. authentic materials
a. learners exposed to authentic materials
b. unscripted and unedited – not explicitly developed for language
learning
c. EG
i. Postcards and letters
ii. Bulletin board notices
iii. Extracts from newspapers, articles, adverts, classified,
crosswords
iv. Comics and cartoons
v. Shopping receipts
vi. Airline tickets and itineraries
vii. Photographs
viii. Picture sequences
ix. Creative texts
x. Radio, news, weather
xi. Public announcements
xii. Messages on answering machines
xiii. Telephone convo
xiv. Transactions
d. THINK HOW CAN I USE THIS MATERIAL TO ENGAGE MY LEARNERS
2. Listening and speaking
a. Ask questions regarding the items on the list / bought
b. Ask about prices
 3. Writing
a. Have learners write shortly about the material
4. Recordings
a. Use own recordings as teaching methods
b. Authentic speech creates problems for the listener
i. Brevity of chunks
1. typically take breaks in speech
ii. pronunciation
1. blended or slurred and different from the
phonological representation of the dictionary
instructions
iii. lexis
1. colloquial
iv. noise
1. words not spoken directly or clear, not known to
listener
5. self access centre (SAC)
a. space in your classroom or another room where they can work
individually at their own pace
b. range of materials that match the needs and learning preferences of
your learners
c. readers, laminate worksheets, work cards, authentic material
6. purpose
a. allow learners to work at own pace
b. allow to further learning instead of just waiting for others
c. differentiate your lessons in mixed ability settings
2. outside the classroom
a. your classroom is not an island
b. bring bits of real world into classroom
i. take them out of the classroom as well
c. use and understand language outside of classroom so that they can
progress
d. higher progress when moving away from stereotypes
e. SURVIVAL LANGUAGE
i. Lots of prep needed for lower levels
ii. Start off slow with road signs
iii. Short conversations
7. Benefits
a. Outside world language is authentic language
b. Initiating the simple language transactions and hear expected
responses
c. Deal with everyday transactions in outside world will be
motivating
8. Activities to arrange
a. Identifying objects in street parks
b. Following maps
c. Visiting shops
d. Interviews and surveys
e. Public offices
f. Travel agents
 g. Cinema with English movie

2.3 learners and the teacher’s expectations of each

other
- cannot assume expectations will be the same as learners
- fully aware of environment which you work in
- don’t judge based on your cultural backround
- Japan = silent and passive learners
- Spain = lots of questions being asked

- Social foundations may be different from own experiences, may be based

on rewards

- Increasing diversity of cultural communication styles

- Non-verbal behaviours factor in as well
o Learning preferences may differ from yours
o Previous learning exp may impact how you think learners should
learn
 Different expectations of how they best learn
 Course learners may need physical material
 Thoughts may be different to what they want

2.4 there’s more to the teacher role than what you

think
- Take your ideas on board and marry them with your thoughts
- Critical knowledge, ability, skills and habits that are elements you need to
deliver a successful lesson
- Tutor
o Choosing what they will learn
o Grasp the learning points
o Enjoyable atmosphere and utilising pleasant activities
- Supervisor roles and activities
o Assessing progress
o Correcting error
o Demonstrate their mastery of material
o Planning what needs to be done
o Preparing and delivery of tests
o Communicating grades
o Meeting of external standards

2.4.1 range of teacher roles

- Assessor
o Make tests
- Controller
o Whole class is tuned into what needs to be done
 Starting new activity
 o Classroom order maintained
- Facilitator
o Allowing learners to find way along language journey while
monitoring and motivating
o Available and ready to act as a resource when needed
- Guide
o Guiding
- Manager
o All nitty-gritty elements that underpin successful lesson are carried
out
 Coherent instructions
 Arranging the most practical seating
 Guidelines carried out as planned
 Tasks are completed as scheduled
o Group dynamic skills are utilised to provide efficient classroom
routines, smooth transitions and different grouping to encourage
specific types of learning
o Sense of community and belonging in classroom
- Monitor
o Observing and analysing ongoing interactions – daily
o Monitoring what’s going well and what’s not well – daily
o Evidence and deciding what needs to be done in feedback session
o Deliver practical, constructive and timely feedback
o When there is a need to act as counsellor, emotional support
needed to help learners feel confident and learning
- Motivator
o Motivating some learners that wouldn’t be keen
o Lessons should be dynamic, meaningful, stimulating and respond to
learners emotional, cognitive, linguistic needs
o Whole person comes to school, intrinsically motivated may not be
motivated today
- Needs analysist
o Identifying learning needs expressed by learners
o Differing language ability levels and varying backgrounds, interests
and needs
o Other requirements, behavioural and social needs
- Planner / organiser / task setter
o Lessons for the class or age group you are assigned to
o Accounting for different language abilities
o Multicultural perspective in planning and encouraging in learning
episodes
o Maximum learner interaction
o Plenty of opportunities
o Roadmap for lesson
- Prompter / editor
o Prompt learners when unsure
o Skills to edit learners contributions
 Demonstrating how the learners can improve
 - Resource producer
o More appropriate, more relevant
o Ensuring variety of material mediums

2.4.2 peer observations

1. Peer observations
a. Learn from other teachers
b. No judgemental outcome and trust between participants
i. Observe teachers in action
ii. Exp teachers observe you and you benefit from ideas and
suggestions
c. Grab these opportunities
What to notice when you are observing an exp teacher
2.4.3 co teaching
Huh?

- Will work with local teacher in classroom

- Take over whole class with local teacher in attendance to support
- Carry out daily routines and pronunciations with learners, while main
teacher teaches main content
Challenge 1 – recognising that the onus is on you to fit in

- Temp visitor to country

o You need to fit in with colleagues
o Meld in right away
- Difference in cultures
o Glean and absorb much valuable information by researching and
learning about culture before you go
Challenge 2 – need to build strong rapport and relationship with your co-teacher

- Building rapport
 When two people develop a feeling of harmony, well-being
and security
 Meeting people on their level
 Making them feel at ease
o Based on mutual respect and agreement
o Relate initially to your prospective co-teacher, choose 1 of 2
standpoints
 1 – focus on the differences between you
 2 – emphasise similarities between you
o Emphasise similarities between you
o Emphasis on similarities occurs not just in the words but also way
you express yourself
- Building strong relationships for the future
o Honesty at all time
o Desire to help at all times
o Demonstrate your competence at all times
 o Keep promises and commitments
o Speak naturally and from the heart
o Display empathy
o Ask more than tell
o Seeking advise rather than criticising
o Show your co-teacher that you care about their success
o Unbounded enthusiasm

Challenge 3 – collaborating well

- Reflect long and hard on how collaboration is built in essence

- 1. Listen actively and respectfully
 Dependant on each co-teacher listening carefully and actively
to each other
o Demonstrate reliability and consistency
 Co-teaching collaborators get work done together and do
their fair share of working hard and meeting commitments
o Share information without restrictions
 Collaborators don’t hoard teaching ideas, materials or
information
 Share it freely
o Communicate openly and constructively
 People who speak up and express thoughts and ideas,
honestly, directly and respect for each other
o Function as active participant
 Fully engaged, do not sit passively on sidelines
o Be co-operative, not competitive
 Do not compete
 Motivated by seeing others achieve
o Be a good negotiator
 Successful collaborators know how to negotiate, situations
could become tense instead become a win-win
o Show commitment to the team
 Show up daily with care and commitment upfront
o Treat in respective and supportive manner
 Collaborators treat fellow with courtesy and consideration –
consistently
o Work as problem solver
 Deal with problems
 Willing to deal with all kinds of issues and solutions
 Problem solvers not problem avoiders
o Be optimistic and happy
 Need to be the type of person others want to be around
 Positive confident people are attractive
 Draw collaborators to them and encourage recognition of
achievements
Challenge 4 – need to communicate well

- Discuss and firm up

 o Process of keeping record of communications, responsibilities for
tasks is clear and no confusion
o How, when, where, why and planning of joint lessons
o How, when, where, why to give feedback to each other
 Both comfortable with process
 Best done in café down road and not in the staffroom
o Feedback is welcome, objective and clearly explained that neither
party will take feedback personally
o Regular communication sessions
o OK to disagree with each other

Challenge 5 – plan well

- Communication lines are open and working well

- Planning needs to be done to ensure both of you, your learners will
achieve success
- Reflect long and hard on what needs to be planned and how to plan
- 1. Planning in general
o Agree
 Each contribute fully to planning process
 What elements be taught and by whom
 Each will do during lesson and each role is equally important
 Overall strategy / approach / model used to achieve objective
 See both as equal partners in the learning event
 How learners will be assessed and when
 Planning specific lesson in action
o That:
 Each model successful collaboration in the classroom
 Names pinned to show emphasise this partnership and
teaching
 Classroom space worked out equitably and two teachers
desks in agreed areas
 Informed that it is co-teaching and benefits set out
 Lead role in the teaching and learners will recognise this
 Both take part of assessment of learners
 No need for different groups of learners taught at the same
time
 Changes made during lesson, depending upon agreed
circumstances
 Classroom management will be shared equally
- 2. Post-lesson activities
o Agree
 Each provide feedback
 Take on board any changes or improvements for future and
continue and reflect on which is better
 Celebrate success of event and make known to each other

2.5 getting to grips with school syllabus

2.5.1 what’s a syllabus
 - 1. Syllabus
o Topics prescribed for entire course of study
o Actual components of topics, content items
o School department will decide to include own specific rules and
guidance
o No syllabus is perfect
o Coursebooks
 Would have to stick to even if it is bad
o Accept situation and get on with it
o Add own self made supplementary materials
o More school administrators see you working hard and guide learners
to improve, more flexibility allowed
- 2. Main features of syllabus
o No universal structure
o May look like
 Ordered and have explicit objectives which tells learners the
language items
 Contained general frameworks
 Preferred approach or methodology the class uses may be
defined
 Recommended materials
 Explain assessment in both terms of elements to be assessed
 Show how course fits into broader contexts
 Establish learning contract
 Policies
 Procedures
 Requirements
 Designed to help learners assess their readiness of the
course by identifying outside resources
 Communicate course goals
 Linked or based upon set coursebook
 NO COURSE BOOK IS PERFECT
2.5.2 choosing adapting and creating materials

- Choose modify, develop materials to ensure the best learning experience

possibly
- ADVANTAGES
o 1. Ensure materials better fit the context
 Produced by global EFL too generic
 Not geared to specific groups of learners
 Not geared to cultures context
 Functions of speech based on situation learner may never be
in
 Anglo-centric in construction and production and therefore do
not reflect local varieties
o 2. Make materials meet the individual learners needs
 Commercially produced generic materials cannot address the
needs of all the unique individuals
  Creating or adapting materials to individual needs and
preferences for learners
 Creating or modifying materials that consider the
learners first language and then culture and personal
experiences
 Adapting materials to the right level for learners
 Often repetitive to add variety in the classroom to
meet developing needs
o 3. You can make them fit todays events
 Commercial produced cannot keep up to date with local and
international events
 Changes occur rapidly
o 4. Overcome the lack of finance
 Design own material for the course
 Appreciative of this
- DISADVANTAGES
o Time spent
o Lots and lots of time to choose, adapt and create additional
materials to fit context, needs, preferences
 Going through interminable amount of inadequate materials
on internet until finding something you can use
 Adapting materials to ensure they meet learners needs
precisely as possible
 Ensuring materials fit with syllabus
 Materials look good
 Materials stretch your learners
 Materials integrate language skills
 Coherence
 Materials link with each other
 Writing clear instructions
- Best solutions
o Create your materials
 Time consuming but faster when in habit

2.6 learner levels

2.6.2 CEFR, common labels, English profile facility
1 - CEFR

- Different terminology is used in EFL when describing learners proficiency /

competency in language compared to mainstream
- Not exact science
- No universal system of rating
- Common European Framework Reference for Languages
o CEFR
- Huh?
o CEFR is standard, international scale of levels for language learning
 A1 to C2
o Detailed description of learner level by skill in language neutral
format
 o School directors, syllabus designers, teacher, teacher trainers,
proficient learners
2 – CEFR approach: communicative Language Competence

- Notion of communicative language competence

- Communicate and operate effectively in target language
- Several components
o Linguistic
o Socio-linguistic
o Pragmatic competences

LANGUAGE COMPETENCE

- Lexis
- Phonology
- Syntax
- Other features considered independently of sociolinguistic impact
- Not only range and quality of knowledge, involves cognitive organisation
and way this knowledge is stored in memory
SOCIO-LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

- Refers to knowledge and skills involved in using language

- Language is social phenomenon requires sensitivity to social norms and
customs which affect different cultures
- Social norms, amongst other factors, rules of address, greetings and
politeness
- Linguistic competence leads us to consider social and intercultural
parameters and how they influence languages
3 – why do we need CEFR

- Among teachers of the same language in similar contexts

- Variety
o Beginner
o Intermediate
o Advanced

4 – what is used for

- Developing syllabuses
- Creating texts / exams
- Marking exams
- Evaluating language needs
- Developing courses
- Developing learning materials
- Continuous assessment / self assessment
- Trainer training programmes

5 – is it just about levels

- CEFR significant in learning, teaching because of its impact goes beyond

describing learner levels
- Underpinned particular approach to language learning
- CEFR
o Can do statements
 What you can do – rather than linguistic knowledge
o Basic four skills
 Speaking, reading, writing, listening
o Communicative language
 Turn-taking, asking for clarification
o Types of interaction
 Obtaining goods and services, interviewing
o Linguistic skills
 Lexical range, phonological control
 Link up skills in each of these areas with learners overall level
6 – whats in it for you? How can CEFR be useful for you
1 = understanding language levels better
 - Standardised terminology for describing language levels
o National, local, school policies

2 = seeing more clearly what learners need to work on

- What learners need to do to reach the higher levels

- Showing different component skills described at each level

3 = assessment grids

- Beneficial for creating your assessment grids

- Descriptors in the scales and can help teachers with assessing their
learners during an end of course
- Self assessment can be used as well

4 = curriculum plan

- Teacher responsible for working out what will be taught

o Beneficial for the whole school
- Look carefully at what descriptors you need
- What you want learners to achieve in each course on the path to the
target level
- Need to choose a course book to align with CEFR
o Adapt for your circumstances

5 = should you introduce learners to the CEFR

- Yes it can be advantageous

- Language builds from beginner to mastery
- Suitable for their level and age
- Adults and teens will find it useful
- Scales can be useful when adapted to their teaching level

6 = common labels

- Tweaks will have to be made

o Advantages
o Post-intermediate
o Intermediate
o pre-intermediate
o elementary
o beginner
- make use of coursebook grading

2.7 false beginners VS absolute beginners

BEWARE OF FALSE BEGINNERS
False beginners

- had a little English learning

- picked up English informally and inconsistently
o bi-lingual parents
- appearance of knowing some English
 o however present with teaching challenges
o early bad errors / habits

Absolute beginners

- high intrinsic motivation from the start

- catch up to false beginner quickly

2.8 practical tips for the beginner level

- clear objective what to aim
- don’t try and accomplish that much
- exceptions to the “rule”
o leave those to the next day

1-ensure clear objective

2-clearly mapped out steps of your lesson

- stick to these
- logical progression
- correct timing

3-engage and involve your learners

- you are not the queen

- engagement and involvement are critical

4-praise

- when they understand

- complete an activity

5-questions, drills, exercises

6-what you and they are going to do

- why its essential

- why is it important

7-variety of activities / examples

8-effective use of gestures and mimes to get message across
9-involved in pair / group work

- encourage interaction
- negotiating meaning and involvement

10-ensure instructions are clear

11-never give out worksheets until they are prepared
12-model what they need to do

- show how to do the activity

- use learner or pair

13-check understanding before starting an exercise

14-any activities are doing to demonstrate accuracy are scaffolded

- arranged from easy to hard

15-monitor when they are completing an activity

16-ignore spelling during lesson

- understanding the learning point

- can return to spelling later

17-note any recurring error

- addressed at start of next lesson

18-correct as a whole class in random fashion

19-checking pronunciation via whole class and individual drilling is vital
20-leave ample time to summarise what they have learnt

- tell you what they learnt

- ask them to tell ou why this learning is vital for them
- pair or pairs can do a final, demonstration if time allows
- finish by praising what they achieved

21-keep it simple

- grade language carefully

- no prizes for fancy language

22-speak slower but not too slow

- they are not babies

- do not patronise them

23-don’t miss out on essential words and structures

- make sure to enforce correct English or they will think that the way they
speak is how English is traditionally
24-personal connection

- names and seating plan with names

o ask classmates to suggest next person to speak
o use visible ques to learn names

25-learn a bit of their language

- they appreciate effort

- learn a few words each day
- teaches empathy

26-review continuously

- textbook and study guide and teacher

- review sessions before every class

27-minimise the cognitive burden

 - thought
- experiences
- senses

DON’T WRITE MASS INFO ON THE BOARD

DEAL WITH ONE THING AT A TIME

2.9 example lesson plan

Lesson planning and lesson presenting lessons successfully will be core activity
for most time when you are teaching
Five step lesson plan
1=opening

- know where you are taking them

- what they will learn and why its important
- engage learners and incite their interest

2=introduction of new material

- clearly and sufficiently introduce new learning

- new language form, skill, concept
o introduce
o explain
o model
o demonstrate

3=guided practice

- learners must have sufficient time and opportunity to practise their new
learning
- guided controlled practice, supported by you
- learners internalise the learning
o in sheltered environment and in their short-term memory
o leads into their long term memory

4=independent practice

- where learners refine in the language form, skill, concept on their own
without your assistance
- generally free uncontrolled practice, give help and guidance when needed
- pairs or groups

5=closing

- keep focus on
o engagement up by asking the learners what they have learnt:
 ask them: what have we learnt
o keep up interest by asking learners to tell you the significance of
what they’ve learnt
 significance / importance of what you learned
 how will this benefit
 o homework as necessary

example lesson plan

- quiet place, full concentration

- not difficult but get the right feel
- abbreviation needed, mnemonics
- don’t query too much

lesson plan: comparatives of adjectives Level: CEFR A1

Class: 1B Page 1
Objective:

- introduce learners to comparative form of 1 adjective (big-bigger)

step 1: opening – getting them engaged and telling them what is going
to happen

- building blocks
o big and repeat out loud
o build bigger and bigger
- differences in people, animals, things
- written activity and fun games

step 2: introduction of new material – introducing new learning

- board draw students

o hand gestures
o underline the ending of bigger to emphasise
o repeat the word over and over
- ask at random
o confirm and praise
- pairs
o demonstrate the big bigger differences
o small smaller
o young younger
o old older
- mime and demonstrate your point
- keep them engagd

step 3: guided practice – new learning, check accuracy, under guidance

and control
ACTIVITY 1

- tell and demonstrate flipchart sheet – large copy of the worksheet

o all can see
o explain where to write answers
- 1-4
o Fill in words
o Adding er
o Check understanding
 - Hand out worksheet
o Monitor and correct throughout this step
o Ignore spelling and correct as whole class
o Asking random pairs to give answers
o Checking pronunciation
- Realia
o Compare toys
o Giving responses orally
o Using practiced structures

Step 4: independent practise – new learning, check fluency,

independently (observe and listen, help where its needed)

- Emphasise again and new words are very important

- Work in pairs, which engages them
- Encouragement and praise
- Clearly state what you want them to do

3.1 motivation
- Almost all learners need to be motivated to learn
- Motivation makes teaching easier and pleasant and productive
- Inspiration and eagerness to succeed

3.1.1 different types of motivation

1=Intrinsic VS extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation

- Engage in learning activity for its own sake

o Enjoyment it provides
o Feeling of accomplishments
- Driven by personal achievements

Extrinsic motivation

- Rewards and success from outer areas

o Qualification
o Need for high proficiency score
o Higher pay
- Ask why they have taken your course
o Note reasons why
o Benefit you when teaching
o Mingle with them during activities

2=integrative motivation VS instrumental motivation

integrative motivation

- Learn another language to know and understand people better

o As well as culture
- Significant language with others and keen to learn more about culture
Instrumental motivation

- Practical reasons
o Salary increase
o Post overseas

3.1.2 key elements of motivation

1=motivated to motivate them

- You must be motivated to motivate your learners

- Don’t expect your learners to be motivated if you aren’t
- There will be challenges but it will be overcome

2=most learners can be driven in some way or another

- cultural considerations
o not finding activity fun
o finding work too hard
o not convinced by whole communicative approach
- know as much about your learners from day 1
o likes and dislikes
o how have they been taught
o did they communicate this to you
- meet after class to discuss personally
- finding out why you can build up motivation

3=motivation should be multi-directional

- stimulate colleague as well as your learners

- reap the rewards eventually

4=motivation will not last

- keep up with motivation at all time

- strenuous activity but its rewarding
- cannot give up
o dig into reserves as much as you can
- whole person comes to school
o personal baggage can be carried
o show empathy

3.1.3 relationship between motivation and language

learning
- strongly related to achievement in language learning
- position to strongly influence your learners motivation for the language
- lessons have clear objectives and goals
o activities are varied
o personal for learners
o give feedback and assess on ongoing basis
- foster, stimulate and rekindle your learners motivation
- best learners are those with specific motivation and attitudinal char
 o need for achievement
o goal orientation
o perseverance
o tolerance of ambiguity

3.1.4 recognising motivated learner

- Perseverance
o Never give up attitude
- Face tasks and challenges has confidence in their success
- Finds it essential to succeed in learning
o Maintain and promote her positive self image
- Learner is ambitious, demanding challenges, high proficiency and top
grades
- Acutely aware of goals of learning, specific learning activities and directs
her efforts towards achieving them
- Consistently invests high level of effort in learning
o Not discouraged by setbacks
- Not bothered or frustrated by situations involving a temp lack of
understanding or confusion
o Patiently, confident that understanding will come later
o Tolerance for ambiguity

3.1.5 how to influence and drive learner motivation

1=personalisation

- More likely to be interested in tasks that relate to themselves or interests

o Ask to share opinions, tastes, experiences, suggestions
- Motivating because connection to learning material is useful
- Connect it to a specific subject to engage learners more

2=realia

- Use real-life, authentic language

- Unscripted, unedited and not explicitly developed
o Menus
o Extracts
o Travel tickets
o Casual conversations
o Radio and TV news

3=gamification

- Adds in-game elements to motivate learners

- Being more prevalent in classroom
- Mirrors several elements in video games
o Excitement when participating
o Fast pace
o Rewards and “punishments”
o Time limits (clock)
- Lexical recycling activities (re-meeting lexis they learnt recentky)
 o Look at pictures and fill the gaps
- Generate a bit of tension and challenge

4=choice

- Let your learners choose what they want to do or how

- Feeling of autonomy
- Pick from a list of topics to debate
o Let learners choose partners

5=projects with tangible results

- Very motivational
o Multiple contributions
- Tangible results
o life cycle of butterfly
 mapping stages, drawings, wire butterflies, hanging in the
room
 raising worms
o predicting, guessing, hypothesising, sequencing, memorising,
researching
o art and design
 models and patterns with colouring
o music drama, movement
 butterfly songs and rhymes, poetry and performances for
audience
 moving like caterpillar and butterfly
6=warmers

- engage your learners and inspire interest at the start – using a warmer
- come from classes and situations where they have been using their native
language
o warmer will get engaged and participating and into “English mode”
- related to what they have already been learning or what you are to teach
o previous lesson
 would you prefer to?
o Start new lesson with that same question
 Be lion / elephant
o Explain why they chose their options

7=make them aware of their success

- Aware of their own success

- Convey this message by
o Nod, tick, smile
- Enhanced by explicit praise or approval
o Comment in learners book

8=vary classroom topics and tasks

- Selected carefully and inspiring as possible

o Wide range of activities that interest everyone
 o Series of tasks that have learners doing different things to get them
engaged
- Listen and dialogue about “school routines”
o Complete a worksheet and get them to compare answers with
partner
o Partner up to create original dialogue on the same topic
o Variety is primary key to success

9=create fun and friendly atmosphere

- Entertainment produces enjoyment, adds motivation

- Teacher produced, jokes, stories, mimes, songs, dramatic presentations
- Recorded
o Movies, video clips, documentaries
- Learners are inhibited and find such activities intimidating at first
o Especially want to avoid running learners up to front of class to
“perform” spontaneously
10=create open-ended exercises

- Several possible responses is usually much more stimulating than one with
only right answer
o Contributions becomes more unpredictable
 Insightful, original, humorous

3.2 how to identify an effective learner in your class

3.2.1 techniques
- Look out for:
- Understand their learning preferences
o Know themselves
- Take responsibilities for learning
o Learning in class
o Create opportunities to learn language else where
 Subtitles
- Grasp all opportunities to keep learning
o Grasp all opportunities for speaking target language
o Actively take part in learning process
o Keen to experiment
 Different ways of communicating to overcome gaps in
linguistic knowledge
 Describe the object rather than using the name
- Try to work out how the English language works
o Aim to come to grips with language as system
 Close attention to form and look for patterns in the language
o Good guessers, continually monitoring context of conversation or
text
 Revising expectations when needed
- Study like detectives
o Inquisitive, evidence and clues that will help them grasp how the
language works
  Guess and ask to correct if wrong
 Compare to what they say with what others say
o Keep record of what was learned and reflect on it
 Monitor themselves
 Eye on the forms of language to discover patterns
- Use language outside the classroom
o Create opportunities to try what they learnt and do not only
complete the homework
o Not content with only the expose to the language from the
classroom but also from opportunities outside

3.3 learners learning preferences

3.3.1 what exactly is a learning preference
- how a person better perceives, conceptualises, organisers and recalls
information
- could be preference for learning through visual activities are opposed to
o audio activity
 may prefer graphs VS listening
3.3.2 identification of learning preference (useful or not)
- different views to relevance of identification and usage of learning
preferences in classroom
- debates lack real or scientific proof as learning preferences methodologies
remain unproven
- benefit of using learning preferences

use methodologies with care

- wrong to apply any methodology blindly and unquailingly

- wrong not to review and access effectiveness of methods used
3.3.3 the VAK approach
preferred approach, simple, easy

- 3 learning preferences
o Visual
 Mind-maps, diagrams, graphic language, flow charts, colour,
white space
o Auditory
 Prefer discussion, explaining things to others, recording
machine, linked to anecdotes
o Kinaesthetic
 Modals / objects to describing things, walking around while
learning, hand-on activities, role-plays, books
- Individual will operate in all three modalities, but with preference
- Some will perform better in tests when change study habits and learning
preferences
- Visual learners may have difficulties writing exams
o However visual aid while studying will be absorbed more

Key char of visual, audio, kinaesthetic preferences

- Visual learner
o Good at spelling but forget names
o Quiet study time
o Reflect for time before understanding
o Colours and fashion
o Dreams in colour
o Charts
o Good with sign language
 Map of events
 Whiteboard activity
 Coloured markings
 Comics and cartoons
 Colour coding the board information
 Illustrating
 Word puzzles
 Diagrams
 Making lists
 Pictionary
- Auditory learner characteristics
o Read out loud
o Not afraid to speak
o Oral reports
o Good at explaining
o Remembers names
o Sound effect in movies
o Enjoys music
o Good at grammar and foreign languages
o Reads slowly
o Follow spoken directions
o Cant keep quiet
o Acting and being on stage
o Good in study groups
 Group discussions
 Phonetic reading
 Word association
 Listen to lectures
 Reading aloud
 Oral presentations
 Watching videos
 Repeating facts and spelling
 Audiotapes for language practise
 Audiobooks
 Taping notes after writing
 Melodies, beats, rhythms
- Kinaesthetic learner char
o Moving
o Good at sport
o Cant sit still
o No spelling
 o Bad handwriting
o Working in science labs
o Loud music on
o Adventure books and movies
o Role-playing
o Breaks while studying
o Builds models
o Martial arts or dance
o Restless during lectures
 Games with action
 Total physical response activities
 Realia
 Craftwork
 Short blocks
 Experiments
 Role-playing
 Field trips and visiting museums
Key things to consider when teaching

- Range of activities needed for each preference

- How to enhance the activities
- What preference do you have

1=structure learning materials around strengths

- Individuals or groups with particular interests

o Structure learning materials around interests and strengths

2=variety brings life to classroom

- Vibrant mix of learning activities derived from blend of diff preserences

3=whole person approach

- Multi-faceted teaching approach that appeals to all preferences

3.3.4 additional learning preferences
1=Kolb learning preference model

- Converges (do and think)

o Learn by solving problems
o Prefer doing technical tasks
o Good at finding practical uses
 Concepts and experimenting with new ideas
- divergers (feel and watch)
o Learn by observation
o Good at brainstorming and gathering information
o Imaginative and sensitive
o Like practical exp and reflection
- assimilators (observe and think)
o Concise and logical order
 Reflective observation
  Abstract modelling and concepts
 Theoretical reasoning
- accommodators (do and feel)
o Practical experimental approach
 Rely on intuition rather than logic
 People-orientated
 Hands on learners
 Feeling more than logical analysis
 Practical experience and active testing
2=honey-mumford model

- Activists
o Practical work, fieldwork, observation exercises, using visual source
material for information
- Reflectors
o Like to learn by watching other people, taking time to consider
observations of own experiences
- Theorists
o Lectures, reading papers, considering analogies
- Pragmatists
o Simulations, case studies, homework
- Software program
o Activists might start using and feel their way to do it
o Reflectors have a go at using it then think of what they have just
done
o Theorists will read the manual
o Pragmatists will use programme and make reference to help files

3.4 different learning strategies

3.4.1 what learning strategies did you use
- repeating new words in their heads until they remember him
- experimenting / taking risks by using recent words in convo
- guessing meaning
- offer feedback on use of language
- foreign language as much as possible
- recording themselves then analysing and correcting pronunciation
- repetition
- area of lexis to learn
- how to remember words they learn and flash cards

3.5 learner autonomy

3.5.1 autonomy
o take responsibility for learning, inside and outside = take steps to
be autonomous
o not hold back from learning task at hand
o willing to take risks – communicate in target language
o good guessers
o address form, structure of language and content
  accuracy and appropriateness are essential
o willing to revise and reject hypotheses and rules don’t apply
- autonomy up = motivation up
- learners can become autonomous on their own
- many learner materials as well as classroom materials

1=learner journals

- learning journal
o to keep track of new words and meanings
o learn and later test on them
- dialogue journal
o ongoing and written dialogue between learner and you
o notes or short letters
o assessing writing ability
o gaining insight to learners views, goals, motivation and attitude
- open-ended journal
o place for reflection and commentary
o chooses what there is to address

2=self-and peer- assessment

- reflect and rate themselves on their own performance

- peer will review another learners work
o older students normally

3=self-access centre (SAC)

- simply a place in your classroom or another designated room

- work independently or in pairs at own pace

4=outside-classroom activities

- practise activities outside the classroom to enhance autonomy

- route to park, library with peers
- hello to passers by
- discuss with staff

5=strategy training

- more strategies explored for better learning

- more autonomous

6=goal setting

- aim to the best of your learners

- goals are not only set by you

7=online dictionaries and resources

- demonstrate value and benefits of good dictionary

- use source independently and frequently

8=homework
 - potent activity for increasing autonomy and learning
- issued regularly and open ended pieces
o allowing learners to respond as they wish and content and length
- well planned and inspiring
o involve learners parents, caregivers even if they do not speak
English
- activity for younglings without English speaking parents
o encouraged parents to supply with memory stick and encouraged to
listen to the child’s pronunciation and encourage and possibly
correct
o no rule regarding how many and no timescale
o results remarkable, quicker timescale

9=learner “experts” “helpers”

- encourage learners to be experts and helpers

- first person to finish will help others in her group that may be struggling

REMEMBER
Get everyone involved in a role and don’t choose high achievers all the time
Learners all have different attributes

3.6 plateau effect

3.6.1 what is a learning plateau
- normal and commonly experienced periodically when learning new
language
- reach a point when language flattens out
o only some learners
- beginning = rapid and evident

1=explain plateau effect

- natural and expected occurrence in any learning process

o help ease concerns or anxieties in their progress
o it is not a linear progress
- visualise where they might expect to experience the highs and lows of
typical language curve
2=encourage them to take risks

- growth and progress come when we stretch past comfort zones

- instead of challenging, we stick to routines we know
- reluctance to risk is recipe for plateauing

3=get them to embrace their failure

- embrace their failure

- overcome reluctance to take risks
o permit themselves to fail
o instead of avoiding challenges (focus on them)
- keeps them from getting stuck and drives performance
 o plateaued learners helped to considered failures as steps to success

4=be honest mentor

- everyone around them telling its OK

o listen to what we want to hear, not what we need to hear
- don’t hold back and give learners honest criticism
o improve and guidance on how to achieve improvement
o ego bruised but price to be paid for personal and professional
growth
5=back to basics

- even when reached an advanced stage

o back to basics can give fresh insights that can help their program

6=help them to think long term

- plateaux are not permanent

- problems are not permanent

4.1 phonological and phonemic awareness

4.1.1 phonological awareness
- initial focus will be helping learners to grasp meaning of words
o aware of sounds of words
- prepare them well for later success with reading and writing
- ability to focus on sounds of the language
o learners aware that words are made up of individual and different
sized sound
- help to improve ability in this
practical route to follow
1= lots of listening games

- focus your learners attention on words

2= rhyming practise

- rhymes, songs, poems

- draw attention to sounds at end of words

3= alliteration

- Big Bad Bug Bit the little Bee

- Sounds at beginning of words

4= building on what they have learnt

- focus on and practise comparison and contrast of sounds at beginning and

end of words
5= sentence segmenting
 - Aware of and counting the number of words in sentence

6= focus on syllable segmenting

- Blending, clapping or counting syllables

- EG
o Li=on
 Clap and counting syllables
o El=e=phant
 Clap and counting syllables
7= onset and rime

- Dividing one-syllable words by initial consonant sound and all other

sounds
- Split syllables into two distinct parts
o The onset
 Consists of initial consonant or blend
o Rime
 Vowel and any final consonants
8= phoneme deletion and phoneme substitution of sounds in words

- Each meaningful sound in language

- Swap around letters and break it down
o Smile = s/mile
o Bug = bu/n

9= focus on phoneme blending – blending individual sounds

- Learn each letter to then combine into one word

o B/I/G
 Big
10= phoneme segmentation, breaking down into individual phonemes

- Saying each sound as they tap it or count it

- Write and read the word

11= help them to move overall phoneme manipulation, replacing individual

sounds in a word

- Adding phonemes to words, substituting one phoneme for another to

create a new word

1= ensure it is an integral part of communication

- Do well with phonological awareness as long as it is not run in isolation

- Ensure it becomes an integral part of communication
- Don’t suddenly bring up a word and begin to analyse it

2= do not aim for perfection

- More realistic goals

 o Develop intelligibility
 Understood in different language situation
o Increase communication ability
o Develop increased self-confidence in speaking the language and
listening and understanding the language
3= plan the phonological awareness experiences

- Not as they come up, route to follow as outlined above

o Plan what you’ll do when and how
- Activities need to be fun to keep up their motivation and participation
- Easy to promote enjoyment and fun when dealing with younger learners
o Guiding through alliteration
 Change classic rhyming songs changed to teach a different
sound
- Utilise activities are familiar with
o No need to try and introduce some unfamiliar activity
o Understanding the unfamiliar activity so phonological awareness
you are striving for
- Don’t focus on games and activities
o Use familiar routines to practise and recycle awareness
 Emphasise sound and ask learners to interact accordingly
- Involve parents / care givers
o Send home tapes / CD and help more people as well as your student

4.1.2 phonemic awareness

- Correspondences between letters or groups of letters and sounds they
represent
- First needs to be phonologically aware, then later instruction in phonemic
awareness and decoding (word = sounds) will not make sense
- Phonetic awareness can also mean they can put sounds together to make
words
- See links between spoken and written words
o Grasp this, familiarise quickly and figure out unknown words
- Progress in learning to read depends on how much phonological and
phonemic awareness learner has
- REMEMBER
o Help learners see correspondence between letters and sounds
o See a letter or group of letters they learn that these symbols
represent speech sounds heard in words
o Demonstration
 Recognising words which start with the same sounds
 Speaking the first or last sound
 Linking / blending or separating sounds to say the word
- Decoding
o Deciphering of individual words
 Immense importance
o Letter C
 Hard sound
  Cake, can, cage
 Soft sound
 Cent, circle, city
Key points to remember when enhancing learners phonemic awareness
1= end goal is understanding the meaning not phonetic awareness

- Critical objective needing to be met on the way to the goal of reading

comprehension
- Not an end goal in itself

2= full phonetic approach may be the norm

- Unlikely to work well in itial phases of learning

o Limited meaning of words and lack oral proficiency

3= some over emphasise role of phonemic awareness

- Perhaps they enjoy this activity or comfort zone

- May lose sight that they are reading words
- Decoding is critical and must not replace the meaning and comprehension
- PHONICS TEACHING SHOULD ENHANCE COMPREHENSION
o NOT USURP OR BE DEEMED MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PRIMARY
GOAL OF COMPREHENSION / UNDERSTANDING
4= never ask to decode a word when not knowing meaning

- Focus on words they already know

5= tackled briskly and relevantly

- Activities that are relevant and have a purpose

- Not be involved in phonics instruction which has the effect of isolating
letters and sounds from meaningful use in text
6= emphasise chunks and patterns in words that learners will recognise when
reading other words with similar chunks and patterns

4.1.3 phonological and phonemic awareness activities

1= listen and imitate

- Technique in which learners listen to a model and repeat or imitate it

- Breaking up to syllable parts and noticing change and lip movements

2= minimal pairs

- Learners distinguish between minimal pair

o Pair of words that differ in only one phoneme
 Ship / sheep
 Pin / pen
 Buy / boy
 Hut / hat
3= contextualised minimal pairs
 - Establish context / setting such as blacksmith shoeing horse, present key
lexis
- Respond to a sentence stem with appropriate meaningful response

4= visual aids

- Sound formation, use sketches of mouth or colour wall chart and describe
pronunciation of the sound in terms of lips, tongue, teeth
5= tongue twisters

- “She sells seashells on the sea shore”

6= drilling

- Imitation drills, repetition of sounds, words, sentences

o Varied repetition of drills
 Speed, volume, mood
7= linking

- Try to link the sound to a word they know

o Remind them of sound in cheese to understand purchase

8= same or different

- Short list of 3 words

- Tell if words are same or different

9= stop me

- Ask learners to tell you to stop when you make use of a different sound

10= listen

- Place minimal pairs in sentences

o Learners listen carefully and decide on the word being used
 Come here and have a look at this lock
11= pictures

- Effective with all learners

- Pairs of pictures and when you say a word they should point to appropriate
picture

4.2 pronunciation and teaching techniques

4.2.1 pronunciation: vowels, consonants, syllables

- Good knowledge of vowel sounds

o Made with mouth open and airway unobstructed
o Recite A E I O U
- Exact number of vowels depends on regional accent
o More than 20 English vowel sounds
- DIPHTHONGS
o Essential element of pronunciation
o Simply a vowel in composed sentence of two vowels
 o O / hot glides into U / put
- 22 consonants in spoken English

4.2.2 pronunciation: stress at word and sentence level

- Word stress
o say part of word with greater energy
o More length, depth, emphasis and sound on vowel
o Strong stress to one syllable in a word
o Influence how we pronounce sentences and incomplete sentences
o More or less stress to different part of sentences
- Secondary stress
o Still important words emphasised but not as stressed as the key
word
- Provide guidance around the position of stress
o Demonstrate where to place word stress on the board

Word stress and sentence stress rules

- Meaning of words can change depending on the stress placed

o You will progress a lot with your English if you follow this rule VS you
will make a lot of progress with your English if you follow this rule
o He rejected the plan VS this bowl was a reject so I bought it at half
price
- Fundamental word stress rules
o 1 = one word has only one primary stress
 No two primary stresses
 Two stressors means two words
 Secondary stress is possible but it is less than the primary
stress
o 2 = only stress vowels, not consonants
- Fundamental sentence stress rules
o 1 = content words are stressed
 Content words carry meaning (main verbs, nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, negative auxiliaries)
o 2 = structure words are unstressed
 Structure words are used for correct grammar
o 3 = time between stressed words is always the same
 Odd exception to sentence rules, far fewer than word stress
exceptions

4.2.3 pronunciation: intonation

- Movement of the level of voice
o Tune of a sentence or group of words
- Intonation to express emotions and attitudes and to emphasise or make
less important certain things we are saying
- Signal to others the function of what we are saying
o Show we are stopping or starting
o Asking question or making statement
Practice

- Voice level rise and fall in different patterns when placing different
emphasis
- Diff intonation patterns can have different meanings
o No short and simple way to describe how patterns relate to
meanings
- Demonstrated with use of arrows or hand gestures to show the musical
pattern

4.2.4 pronunciation: rhythm

- Sentence stress is what gives English it’s rhyme or beat
o Will you CLOSE the DOOR because hes GONE to WORK?
 4 main content words
 Stressed
- Adds music to the language
o Changes speed in which we speak (and listen) to the language
o Time between each stressed word is the same

4.2.5 pronunciation: linking

- Hear natural, fast relaxed pronunciation as we speak it everyday
o Do not speak to slow or too empathetically when teaching
- Unnatural speaking can be detrimental
o Learners will imitate speaking style and speak unnaturally too
o Not recognise and understand rapid natural speech when they hear
it
- Teach them what natural speech sounds like
o How much is it
 How muh chi zit
o Don’t eat apples
 Don tea tapples
- Habitually speak slowly and over enunciate learners will not learn to
pronounce it correctly nor will they know how to listen to them
- Linking
o Not result of sloppy or defective speech
o The t in don’t runs into the vowel sound

4.2.6 teaching pronunciation

1= key points

- Learner to develop spoken english so that

o Understand
o Positive image of themselves regarding English

Dos and donts

- Ensure it is integral part of communication

o Well in pronunciation of english if pronunciation episode is not run in
isolation
 o Rather becomes integral part of communication in class
- Do not aim for perfection
o Not the attainment of “perfect” pronunciation
o Develop intelligibility
 Degree to which learners speech can be understood
o Increase communication ability
o Develop increased self-confidence in speaking language and
listening and understanding the language
- Give lots of practise
o More practise given the better pronunciation will be

2= phonemic chart

- Alternative approach to teaching and learning english

- Set of symbols, representing individual sound of language, irrespective of
how it appears in standard script
- Individual sounds of english called phonemes
o Set of symbols representing sounds is called phonetic alphabet
- Reluctant to introduce
o They do not feel that the time spend learning the system is justified
o Learners already have uphill task dealing with English spelling
without having to learn a different alphabet
o Unsure about the system
- BUT
o Not as challenging as it first appears
 Introduce it piece by piece into your classroom daily activities
o Application will show that it becomes second nature

3= moving pronunciation from brain to mouth

- Make it both cognitive and physical activity

- Focus on the muscles hat produce sound, rhythm and physical articulation
- Aware of interaction between muscle movement, sound production and
aural perception
o Adapt pronunciation
 Way they say a sound / stress a syllable
o See muscle movement and adapt / change as necessary
o Increase awareness of internal sensation / movement from the
muscle movement
- Encouraging them to
o Listen to the sound emitting
o See the sound in a mirror
o Feel the sound

4.3 Lexis
4.3.1 what is lexis?

- Grammar and vocab were handled separately

o Should rather combine the two methods
 - Broader concept of words, phrases, collections, chunks and formulaic
grammatical expressions
- RECOGNISING SPECIFIC GRAMMAR structures as lexical items that they
can be introduced much earlier, without structural analysis or elaboration
in separate grammar session
4.3.2 selecting appropriate and relevant lexis
1 = local standards / curriculum

- Are there local standards or curriculum laid by government or school

- Adhere to said standards and can add on but not subtract
- If something is not included in the lexis but still seems important to you
then you may teach said word
2 = coursebook – or not

- You may have to teach without any external guidance, yet this would not
be an issue as with a beginner class there are correct ways to go about
teaching the necessary and the more useful words
4.3.3 relevant lexis ( easy ways to decide on relevant and appropriate
lexis to teach
1 = ask your experienced colleagues

- Ask for advice

- Like what the previous year’s group had worked on

2 = meet with last years teacher

- Ask for advice

3 = observe previous years class
- Sit in on the more advanced class to get a feel for what your students will
be doing the next year and work accordingly
- Carry out a simple needs analysis to see what relevant lexis and chunks
they learned
4 = find out how they spend a typical day https://tefluniversal.com/lesson/4-3-
lexis/
o How do they get to school
o Shopping
o Family sizes
o What sports they play
o What food do they like
- Helps keep track of the content / themes to major on and on the relevant
lexis to teach
- Introduce language in meaningful contexts
- Always ask yourself about the typical situations the learners may find
themselves in and teach accordingly
- Identify the critical situations for your learners and include these in your
context
5 = frequency is paramount
- Need to teach words that learners will frequently hear / use
 - Most frequently occurring words in English will be most useful for learners
- “I like…” / “I don’t like… “
o This will be able to lead you further into the lexis by moving into
food
6 = research the L2 language reading books
- Look for books that are appropriate to your learners age and reading level
and begin your work according to that book
- Provide you with indication of type of lexis used at their level
- Make your lexis easier to understand and enable you to relate to the
learner
o Make it a translation type of activity
7 = remember the English profile programme
- Keep yourself on track when deciding what words are appropriate
according to their CEFR level
4.3.4 appropriate lexis

- Choosing appropriate language comes down to your integrity

- If you begin with a beginner class it WOULDN’T BE SENSIBLE
o Outside their interests, needs and view of the world
o Long and complex word with many syllables
o Do not introduce them to cognitive concepts yet (analyse)
o To introduce them to taboo words
o Many idioms, which may not be useful at this age
o City-dwelling words when they are not relevant
o Using words outside their culture
- Surface culture
o Customs, food, holidays, places, situations, famous people,
traditions
 These will be relevant to the learner
- Deep culture
o Attitudes, perceptions, values
 Only to be discussed with advanced learners
- Try to avoid being bogged down by lexis in subjects which are taboo

4.3.5 types of language

1 = words and chunks

- After a large period of listening they will gradually start to utter words and
chunks of language of what you have said
o Speaking out phrases and chunks they have heard from you
o Joining in total physical response activities
o Answering simple questions
o Short dialogues
o Introducing themselves
- Greeting can also be important as over time they will learn the context
and timing of such greetings
- Chunks help learners to speak as they do not need to understand the
individual words rather than simply understanding the chunks contexts
- Chunks need to be practised a lot, even if it feels repetitive
2 = metaphors and similes

- Get to grips of unusual language

- Metaphors state comparison
- Similies use like and as to compare
o That country is a melting pot
o Shes the light of my life
o The room is like a furnace
o He is as bald as a coot

4.3.6 lexis activities and exercises

Context

- See that the text contains lexical items and deduce the meaning of the
item based on surrounding language
Miming or gesturing

- Guess meaning of lexical item based on another learner

Substitution drills

- Focus on structure while learning related lexis

- Dialogue or sentence structure is first taught then learners substitute
different context words
Antonyms / synonyms

- Match items from a list of synonyms or antonyms to the words in a text

Hangman

- Classic lexis game where learners choose letters to spell out the lexical
item in a limited number of rounds
Odd-man-out

- Four words for your to analyse

- Determine relationship between the words then explain why the one
doesn’t belong
Matching definitions

- Match words to a list of definitions

Gapped dictations

- Read text with some lexis missing and learners need to deduce what the
lexical item is in the context
Using dictionaries

- Alphabet and alphabetical order

- Pronunciation of new words
- Positioning stress correctly
- Distinguish different uses of same word
 - Grammatical role of word
- British or American spelling or meaning
- Formality or informality of new word

Keeping lexis record

- Jotting down new words

- Warmer exercise and check if word and meaning and usage have been
embedded
Using drawings / pictures

- Effectively to teach lexis

Labelling

- Working in groups to add names to diagrams

- Combining groups to build on each other’s lexis
- Make use by helping understand the meaning

Recycling

- All your work could be undone if not recycled

o Learners meet and use a word until it becomes remembered and
recycled naturally
o Ensure words are embedded into their long-term memories

4.4 connotation and denotation

Connotation

- Associations, positive or negative feelings which a lexical item provokes

- Additionally to its literal or primary meaning
o Discipline has unhappy connotations due to punishments
- Childish, child like, youthful
o All have the same literal meaning yet the connotative meaning is
very different
o Such immature behaviour compared to energetic and lively
- Dove = unity
- Hollywood = glamour
- Home = family

Denotation

- Literal meaning or dictionary definition of the word

- Could be contrast to the connotative or associative meanings
- Doves
o Birds with slightly smaller size from pigeons, with a heavy body and
short wings
o VS
o Unity and peace

4.5 appropriacy in relation to cultural contextualisation

cultural contextualisation
 - Appropriate use of a specific item in specific context
- Measured in sociocultural norms
- Is not the same across cultures
- Discourse nature is also important such as formal and polite speak VS
colloquial language
What do you need to know and reflect on to ensure cultural
contextualisation is right
1= communication is culture bound

- The way an individual communicates with words and structures used to

emanate her culture
2= different cultural norm learners are at risk

- if you have little knowledge, sensitivity or appreciation of the diversity in

communication styles
3= cultures vary internally and are changeable

- usually many cultural differences within single race or nationality

- avoid stereotyping

4= what is logical and essential in your culture

- like saying please when asking favours

o they may find it unimportant to learners in another culture

5= describing another cultures language

- stress the differences and overlook similarities

- do not do so, rather emphasise both angles of the languages

6= avoid cross cultural communication barriers

- aware of words, images, situation that suggest all of that background are
the same
- aware of possible negative implications of word / colour symbolism
- avoid words that have questionable racial or ethnic connotations
- aware that words, objects, characters and symbols that nay reflect
different groups
- aware of different approaches to taking turns during conversations

4.6 word formation

- lexical words can be broken down into their components “bits” or
morphemes
- morpheme
o defined as smallest linguistic language that has meaning
o approach
 unapproachable
 un – approach – able
compounding
 - typically formed by combining two lexical items
o nouns, verbs, gerund and noun

4.7 word relationships

- relationship between words can be advantageous practical way to present
lexical items
synonyms

- word having the same, or nearly the same meaning as another word or
other words in a language
- any part of speech but words used as synonyms must belong to same part
of speech
- preposition
o preposition
 on and upon
o verb
 buy and purchase
o adjective
 big and large
o adverb
 quickly and speedily
antonyms

- items mean the opposite

- rich VS poor

hyponyms

- serve as specific examples of general concepts

- dog VS cat VS donkey

4.8 phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations

- these items exist in all languages

1=phrasal verbs

- VERY significant feature of English language and are very challenging for
learners
- Composed of
o Verb
o Preposition or adverb, added to the verb
- Addition of preposition or adverb often changes meaning of verb entirel
o Look up
 Consult a dictionary
 Seek or search for
 Look forward to
- No definitive rules that can explain how phrasal verbs are formed correctly

Teaching phrasal verbs

- Key
 o Think of everyday context and topic that applies to all of them
o What do ALL my learners do to some degree
o Choose relevant and meaningful topic to bring out tranche of
related phrasal verbs
o EG
 Eating
 Using a phone
 Shopping
 Traveling to or from school
- EG
o Peel off
o Fry up
o Cut up
o Boil away
 Explaining to the students through role playing
 Encouraging to use phrasal verbs at home
2=idioms

- Series of fixed lexical items that have own figurative meaning which is
different from literal component elements
- Idiom is phrase (group of words) joined together and have different
meaning from dictionary definitions of individual words
o Absolute silence that could be cut by a knife
- Take one at a time n separate occasions
- Introduced in context

3=collections

- Arrangements of 2 or more words or elements especially those that

commonly co-occur
- Fast food VS quick food
- Quick shower VS fast food

4.9 language functions

- Learning lexis, find various situations that learners are involved in
- Reliable indicator for what lexis you should teach
- Typical English language can be identified and added to context
o Focus on functions and exponents

4.9.1 examples of functions

- Communicative purpose for speaking, reason we say or write something

o Agreeing, offer to help, requesting
- Situational language because the situation or context in which used is
critical
4.9.2 exponents

- Language we use to express function

- Can be set phase “sorry I didn’t follow that”
- To choose the right exponent
 o Situation
o What the function is
o Who audience is
o Relationship of speaker and receiver message
- One function can be expressed through several different exponents
o Coming for lunch?
o Shall we have lunch?
o What about lunch on Sunday?

Linking situation + function + exponents

1-situation: Christina has a toothache

- Function = she needs to ask permission to go home

- Exponent = please miss may I go home

2-situation: Chen sees an old lady having difficulty crossing a busy road

- Function = find out if he can help her

- Exponent = excuse me madam may I help you cross the road

3-situation: Brett arrives at ticket office at bus station

- Function = needs to buy a ticket

- Exponent = please may I have a ticket

4.10 language analysis

4.10.1 form meaning and use

- aim to balance form, meaning and use

- learners must understand not only the mechanics of the language but also
the how, why, when, where the structure, word or phrase gets used
1=form

- visible and audible parts of lexis and functional expresisons

- words in phrase, spelling, phonemes, syllable stress, prefixes, suffixes,
word order, choice of verb, punctuation
- mechanics of the language in terms of grammar or lexis

2=meaning

- 1= literal meaning (usual or most basic sense)

o Words or phrase or functional expression of grammar structure
- 2= meaning in context (situation)
o Wearing a red shirt
o Face is red
o Comprehension or mental image created by the words or phrase or
functional expression or grammar structure
o Learners connect the structure with the meaning
o Once presenting structure, discuss meaning as well
o Answer question
  What meaning does lexis, functional expression or grammar
have in the specific context
- 3= use
o How the grammar or lexis gets used
o Words or phrases or functional expression or grammar structure we
choose to use determined by the situation and what is needing to
be communicated
o Use is integrated with meaning
o Depending on the time of day you say good morning it can be ironic
or sarcastic
o DO NOT stand in front of the class delivering one grammar point

4.10.2 analysing language items before and during class

1= before a lesson

- Before introducing a new structure, begin with analysis during your lesson
planning stage
o What is the form
o Is this a rule
o Expectations to the rule
o Introduce new grammar terminology
o How to take from past to present tense
o Form static?
o Are there irregularities in form
o Best explain the meaning
o Can it be used / context effect it

2= during a lesson

- Analyse language competently will help you to resolve quickly any

language issues
o Has many magazine
o Drives car very big and fast
- Some mistakes/errors are more serious than others
- Two different issues and may choose only to tackle one of them at once
- Be able to express the reason clearly and succinctly

5.1Grammar
Two kinds of teachers

- Worry about teaching grammar

- Those who don’t

Some believe that it is not needed

5.1.1 what is the meaning of grammar

Generally refers to the rules and conventions by which words are
ordered and changed to form a sentence
 - Perspective / descriptive
o Prescriptive = rules to be followed if you wish to write “correct”
English
o Descriptive = how language is used in real world

you need to decide how you will approach grammar

- Prescriptive
o Rules to follow if you would like to write “correct” English
o Rules could be based on observation of how “educated” speakers
use the language
o Or could be based on what the speaker was taught at school
o EG
 “never start a sentence with AND or BUT”
o Uses the “right” rules according to some experts
o Make judgement on how or why utterance is correct or not
- Descriptive
o How language is actually used in the real world
o “rules” accept patterns a speaker uses and attempts to account for
them
o Allow varieties in language
 Construction is not ignored because some prescriptive is not
okay with it
o Rules describe the way grammar is actually used
o Reaction to the way people speak is accepting the alternative
o Less nit-picking forms

1= start at the very beginning

- Prescriptive rules of grammar would tell us that is wrong because the

beginning is a specific start point – you cannot make it more specific
- Descriptive rules say that this type of phrase is common in spoken English
- Align with descriptive side and we’ll keep very in

2= that’s absolutely true

- Native speakers also say absolutely true

- Prescriptive rules of grammar would tell us this is wrong
o Cannot have anything stronger than true
- Phrase however is aligned with the descriptive side

3= whom do you wish to speak to

- Proponents of descriptive rules would say this sentence is fine

- Proponents of prescriptive rules would say this is incorrect
o Never end the sentence with a preposition
o Change to:
 To whom do you wish to speak
- Seems cumbersome and outdated

4= you must not start a sentence with and or but

- 1
 o It’s a pretty smart long-term business plan but do you think those
amendments go far enough
- 2
o Its pretty smart long-term business plan. BUT do you think those
amendments go far enough
- Sentence 1 fits with the prescriptive rule
- Sentence 2 does not and fits with the descriptive approach
- 2 creates a more powerful effect
- BUT gives more weight to the thought expressed in the sentence and the
thought is more emphatic
Rules are still important
1= adhere to MOST prescriptive rules

- Adhering to standard and acceptable form of language that is accepted

and recognised by most speakers of that language
- Allows us to be understood by the highest number of individuals

2= most prescriptive rules are critical for those learning a foreign language

- Need guidelines to understand English grammar

3= allow speaker of non-standard dialect to learn and accept rules

- Be able to use them in appropriate social circumstances if they wish to

Non- standard dialects are still frowned upon and not accepted by many
groups

- subject in sentence must always agree with the verb

o “he go to school”
- Capitalise the first letter of a sentence
o “My computer isn’t working”
- Use subject pronouns after the verb
o “it was I who phoned you”
o “it was me who phoned”
- Both types of grammar have their supporters and detractors, suggest that
both approaches and have their strengths and weaknesses

5.1.2 key reasons for teaching grammar

1= metalanguage

- Grammar is essential because it is the language that makes it possible for

us to talk about language
o Noun, verb, tense, subject
- Talk about how sentences are build and the types of words and word
groups that make up sentences
- “knowing” about grammar
- Seem to associate grammar with errors and connectness
o Helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear
and engaging and precise
 - Learners understand grammar and put into practice, great possibilities
that they can construct language that others will understand
o More they know and understand, the better they will communicate
and make themselves understood
2= comprehensible communication

- Know how to build certain structures and know-how and when to use these
structures, enables us to make understandable communication
- Without these structures there may be little comprehension

3= acceptability

- Need for more than just comprehensible (understandable) communication

- Any divergence from the usual or accepted standards in society that may
hinder integration and even produce a form of prejudice
- Learners need to be inspired and motivated to strive for more than just
comprehensible communication
o Where employers and examiners require grammatical competence
is the goal
- NB
o all of above will depend on learners situations and aims
o need to decide on what elements of grammar are necessary to
meet those situations and aims
- NB 2
o Role is to teach communicative English and not just teach grammar
o No point in going on and on about modal structures

5.1.3 myths about teaching grammar

1= grammar is boring

- It wont be if you are creative

- Not if you avoid repetition of models

2= don’t know enough to teach grammar

- You know more than you think

- Based off past experiences or traditional learning grammar
- Best way to learn is by teaching it
- More creative and enthusiastic you become the more your grammar
lessons will be stimulating and enjoyable
3= I can wing it

- Disservice our learners

- By not knowing enough to teach it you will not help them to learn better

5.2 English language grammar

5.2.1 word classes (9 parts of speech)
- All words we use daily can be classified into specific word groups
 - Based on the way the word is used
- Word classes or parts of speech
- EG
o Lion (noun)
 Classified under noun class
 Some words belong to more than one class
o Looking forward to the next BOOK
 Noun, places and things
o Time to BOOK our holiday
 Verb
Use combination of 3 criteria for determining word class
1= meaning of the word
2= form of the word, shape and structure
3= position of the word in a sentence (environment)
Nine word classes in English

- 1 = verbs
- 2 = nouns
- 3 = adjectives
- 4 = adverbs
- 5 = interjections
o Small group of “words” are used to express emotions
o Many interjections are sounds and not actual words
- 6 = conjunctions
- 7 = determiners
- 8 = prepositions
- 9 = pronouns

1= Major / lexical (open) word class

Verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, interjections

- Termed major or lexical because they carry most of the content or

meaning of a sentence
- Open because new words can be added to these classes
- EG
o Crowdfunding
 Obtaining funding by asking for contributions from large
number or people
o Freegan
 Activist who scavenges for free food
o Catfish
 Sets up false social networking profile for deceptive purposes
2= minor or grammatical (closed) word class
Conjunctions, determiners, prepositions, pronouns
 - Tend to perform grammatical functions such as relating expressions to
each other
- No new words will be added to these groups in the future
- Structure words because their function is to contribute to the structure of
phrases, clauses and sentences rather than add to the meaning content
- Phrase is short, single piece of information, word, small group of words
that form a meaningful unit within a sentence
o Short single piece of information
o Does not consist of subject and verb
o Clause is group of words that typically has its own subject and verb

1= verb
“doing” words

- Categorised of doing verbs or being or linking verbs that encompass

feelings
- Verbs are conjugated, list the different forms of a verb that show number,
person, thing
- Transitive taking a direct object = thing that receives the action of a verb
- Intransitive where there is never an object
- Depending on context some can be both

2= noun
Refers to person, place, thing, occurrence, quality, substance

- Function as
o Subject (baby is crying)
o Object (he threw the ball)
o Complement of verb (he is a fireman)
- Compliment is simply word or group of words (phrase) added to sentence
to complete it
o Often tells us more about the subject
 What it is
 How it feels
 What it is like
- Comes after preposition in a prepositional phrase (it is on the table)
- Categorised by:
o Common
 City, man
o Proper
 Beijing, Stadium
 Always begins with capital letter
o Countable
 Cat, city
 Singular and plural form
o Uncountable
 Mud, snow, butter
 Do not regularly have plural form and called
uncountable
3= adjective
- Refer to qualities of people, things, ideas or which group them into classes
- “describing words”
- Modify the noun
o Any word or group of words that changes or adds to the meaning of
another word
- Follow verbs like to be, to seem, to appear
- Gradable, adding modifier or after them, some cannot be graded
- Many adjectives have comparative and superlative form
o Big, bigger, biggest
o Unusual, more unusual, most unusual
- 2 nouns are placed together, first function as adjective as in HAIR products

4= adverb
- Word that describes or gives more information about verb, adjective or
phrase
- Several elements, adverbials
o Time
 Soon, already, still
o Manner
 Easily, fast, slowly
o Place
 Here, away, somewhere
- Also used as modifiers
o He speaks fast
- Modify other adverbs to make adverb phrases
o Speaks quite fast

5= interjection
- Express spontaneous emotions or reactions such as pleasure, surprise,
shock and disgust
- Utterance on its own, sound rather than word
- “great, awesome, ouch, wow”
- “uhm, er”

6= conjunctions
- Such as “and” “but” “while”
- Show a connection between words
o And, but, or
- Connect longer units
o Go now, OR, wait till later

2 groups
1= coordinating conjunctions

- Equal status / importance grammatically

- Uncomfortable but happy
- Apple pie or jelly
2= subordinating conjunctions

- Two items being linking that do not have equal status / importance
grammatically and a subordinating conjunction is used
- Happens in complex sentences when main clause is connected to
subordinate clause
- Businesses fail because they cant pay their bills
o Businesses fail (main clause)
o Because (subordinating conjunction)
o They cant pay their bills (subordinate clause)

7= determiner
- Word is used before a noun to show which particular example of noun you
are referring to
- “determine” noun to follow them
- Essentially anything that serves to qualify and quantify noun is determiner
- A, an, the, this, that, these, those

8= preposition
- Word that is used before noun, noun phrase, pronoun which connects it to
another word
- Typically paired with nouns to form prepositional phrases
- “letter is on the table”
- Many are monosyllabic and thus difficult to pick up in rapid speech

9= pronoun
- Word that is used in place of a noun phrase
- Replace nouns or noun phrases, function as subject, object of preposition
or complement
o Subject pronouns
 I, he, we
o Object pronouns
 Me, him, us
o Demonstrative pronouns
 This, that, these, those
o Possessive pronouns
 His, hers, ours, theirs
o Reflexive pronouns
 Myself, yourself, himself

5.2.2 verb tenses

- 12 tenses in English

What is tense

- Location of event or action in time

- Inflection of the verb in present and past tense
- May need to use auxiliary verbs (helping verbs)
- Be, do, have are common
1= 3 simple tenses

- Present simple
o Showing whether action or condition occurs
o tense is formed by using the word stem

- Past simple
o Whether action of condition occurred

- Future simple
o Showing whether action or condition will occur
2= three perfect tenses

- Present perfect
o Action or condition has occurred relative to the present
- Past perfect
o Showing whether it had occurred relative to past

- Future perfect
o Whether action or condition will have occurred
3= six continuous (progressive) tenses

- Present continuous
o If action is occurring

- Past continuous
o Continuous action was occurring
- Future continuous
o Action will occur
- Present perfect continuous
o Showing whether continuous action or condition had been occurring

- Future perfect continuous

 o Showing whether continuous action or condition will have been
occurring

5.3 conditional forms

A short definition for the word clause = part of sentence that typically ad its own
subject and verb

- This is a clause which describes something possible / probably depending

on something else happening
- Begin with if or unless
o If clauses
o Focus on what may or may not happen and might have happened
but didn’t happen
o Express different degrees of reality

1= conditions can be categorised as real and unreal

Real

- Do not know if condition is, or was true

- EG
o Rains tomorrow, Ill stay in
o Lisa coming to the party, you can tell her the news
- Cannot use WILL for future condition
o We say if it snows tomorrow, not if it will snow tomorrow
- Use unless at beginning of condition
o Unless it rains tomorrow, ill go for a walk

Unreal conditions

- For present and future time, condition is not true or probably will not be
true
o If Jane were coming to the party, you could tell her the news
 - For past time (condition was not true) perfect verb formation in the
condition
o If Jane had come, you could have told her the news

2= different types of conditional constructions

1= zero conditional (certainty form)

- If + present simple tense (for condition) and verb stem in present simple
tense in the main clause (result)
- EG
o People don’t eat (condition) they get hungry (result)
o Heat ice (condition) it melts (result)
- NB
o Doesn’t matter if the if clause is at the start of middle
- USE
o Conditional construction when result is always true for type of
condition
 Result is certain it is a fact
 No thought given to future or past
2= first conditional (real possibility form)

- If + present simple (condition) and will + verb stem in the main clause
(result)
- EG
o If it rains, I wont go shopping
- USE
o Good possibility that condition will happen at the future time

3= second conditional (unreal possibility) form

- If + past simple (condition) and would + verb stem in main clause (result)
- EG
o If I won the bet, I would quit my job
- USE
o Specific condition in the future
o No real possibility that this condition will ever happen
o When condition is impossible and result wont come to fruition

4= third conditional (no possibility form)

- If + past perfect (condition) and would + have + past participle in the

main clause (result)
- EG
o He had not passed, he wouldn’t have entered university
- USE
o Focus is on the past
o Speaking about condition in the past that didn’t happen
o No possibility for this condition and therefore no possibility of the
result happening, not then and not now
3= teaching conditional forms
 - Tricky for learners, key problem lies in inexperienced teacher who tries to
move too quickly
- Age and levels will determine how you should move through said topics

1= awareness in context

- Ready, start by raising awareness of conditionals

- Notice use of conditionals in written pieces / activities in class
- Point attention to the construction and get them to have a go at the
meaning
- Try and mirror the construction with other situations

2= start at the beginning

- Start the first conditional, leaving the zero conditional to last

- Fun to think about certainties in life
- Lots of embedded activities when learning the conditionals
- Matching exercises
o Matching the condition with the result and with the condition
- Cloze activities
o Where they try to insert a selection of if clauses into a piece which
have 6/7 blanks in it
- Partnering activity
o One learner states condition and other completes it with sensible
result and then reverse roles
- Learner surveys
o Survey each other about what they will and would like to d oin the
future using appropriate conditional form
- Wish lists
o Emphasising the unreal conditionals, learners interview each other
and make up wish lists for their partners
- Advice columns
o Write letters of advise to each other or famous figures

5.4 main parts of a sentence

- Morpheme, word, phrase, clause, subject, predictable
- Discuss sentences without having any great hangups
- Sentence is made up of a range of words to complete a purpose

1= sentence

- Set of words standing on their own as a unit of sense

- Conclusion is marked by a full stop or equivalent
- Main subject and verb needed

2= morpheme

- Definition = smallest unit of language that can convey meaning

- Cannot break it down into smaller that has meaning
- Some contain 2+ morphemes
o Child + ren
 - Ren, s, ness all provide some meaning even though none of them is a
word in its own right
- Breaking down further will reach graphemes or phonemes
o R+E+N
- Grapheme term for linguistics, meaning smallest unit hat can change
meaning
o B, ng, ea
- Phoneme is distinctive speech sound
o Singing = 7 letters
o Only 5 sounds s-i-ng-i-ng

3= word

- Smallest meaningful bit of sense in a sentence

- Different job to do
o Roared is a verb
 Tell us what happened in a sentence
o Mighty is an adjective
 Tell more about noun
o Lion
 Noun and name things in the sentence
o The
 Definitive article use the definite article before noun
- We put words together to make a phrase

4= phrase

- Short, single piece of information, word, small group of words that form
meaningful unit within sentence
noun phrase

- Word or group of words built around single noun or pronoun in a sentence

- Function as subject, object, preposition object
- Very simple or very complex
o A PILE OF BOOKS lay on the table
o He was reading A BOOK ABOUT THE RISE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON

Verb phrase

- Verb of more than one word, includes one or more helping (auxiliary verbs)
and a main verb
o Can see (helping verb can + main verb see)
- Main verb expresses the chief idea in the verb phrase, other verbs are
there only to support it
- Main verb is always the last in the phrase

5= clause

- Larger word group that includes a bit more information

- Consists of at least two phrases, one is a noun phrase known as the
subject and other is the verb
- Kind of mini sentence
 o Set of words that makes a sense unit, might not be concluded by a
full stop
- 2+ causes
o She left (1) because it was late (2) and she was tired (3)

6= subject

- Is the person, place, thing or idea that is being or doing something, find
the verb and you’ll find the subject
- NB
o Modifiers are any word or group of words that change or add to the
meaning of another verb
7= predicate

- Often called the completer of a sentence

- Label part of sentence or clause which contains a verb and states
something about the subject
o Glacier melted

8= more sentences and clauses

- Sentences are the largest grammatical units

- Intuitively complete two senses
o First = stand alone as informative units
o Second = include all required grammatical elements

1= simple sentences
- Comprised of single clause that has a subject and a verb
- One simple idea or thought = sense unit, complete unit of meaning
o Fang smiles (Fang is subject and smiled Is the verb
- No minimum number of words a sentence must contain to be a sentence,
only requisite is a main subject and main verb
- Complete unit of meaning which contains a subject and a verb, may have
other words which help to make up the meaning

2= compound sentences
- Comprised of two or more main clauses joined by a coordinating
conjunction
- 2 or more pieces of information and connectivity which link together
o But
o And
o Or
- 2 simple sentences can be linked together with connective to make a
compound sentence
o I do not like eating strawberries is a simple sentence
o To join them together:
 I do not like eating strawberries BUT I love eating carrots
- But is the connective
3= complex sentences
- put across more detailed ideas
- 1= one main clause that can make sense on its own
- 2= one or more minor (subordinate) clauses are linked to it

5.5 modals
- Complex and challenging to learn and present
- Set of auxiliary verbs and can be called modal auxiliary verbs
- Enable speaker to express feelings, probability or ability
- Attitude, politeness, advice
- Making requests or giving permission
- EG
o Can / could / may / might / will
o Would / must / shall / should / ought to

Examples
CAN you speak French?
He COULD speak it well if he studied more
MAY I come in?
It MIGHT rain tomorrow
He WILL speak German once he feels confident

1= key points
1) Modals do not change form
a. MUST remains must however you use it
b. No such thing as MUSTED or MUSTING
c. No infinitive or past / present participle
d. No infinitive to can or to must
2) Verb phrase, modal must always be first word.
a. After modal verb we put base form of verb
b. The verb stem – without to
i. It WILL be windy
ii. You SHOULD look after your money
iii. You COULD go on Saturday
3) Great significance in questions, negatives and tags
a. Be, have, do
b. Placed before subject in questions and can have not after it
c. Positive
i. Your room SHOULD be tidier
d. Negative
i. Your room SHOULDN’T be untidy
e. Question
i. How SHOULD I organise my room
f. Question tag
i. You SHOULD tidy it each Saturday SHOULDN’T YOU? I
suppose you should
4) Modal verbs do not take -s in the third person
a. She SHOULD be here by now (no S)
b. He MUST try again (no S)
5) Will and would have the written short forms (‘ll and ‘d)
a. ILL call her now
b. I WOULDN’T do that
6) Many modal verbs cannot be used in past tense or future tense
a. She MUSTVE travel there last year (incorrect)
b. She will can travel with us (incorrect)
7) We can stress modal if wanting to emphasise meaning
a. You REALLY must be quiet (very necessary)
8) Modal verb not include a tense
a. Allude to present or future
i. Present
1. We MUST act now, the instructions MIGHT be in my
tray
ii. Future
1. We MUST act soon, the instructions MIGHT arrive this
afternoon
iii. past we use able to, had to, modal verb + have
iv. past
1. we had to know then, the instructions MIGHT HAVE
arrived yesterday
b. some situations, could, would, should, might are forms of can, will,
shall, may
i. I CANT remember the password (present)
ii. I COULDN’T remember the password (past)
9) Modal verb link with perfect, continuous or passive
a. Perfect
i. She MAY HAVE told you this before
b. Continuous
i. They MAY BE waiting at the airport
c. Passive
i. We MAY BE shown the proposals later
d. Perfect + continuous
i. You MUST HAVE been distracted
e. Perfect + passive
i. Evidence MUST HAVE been destroyed
2= common uses
- Not as definitive as there are few other constructions that some people
deem to be modals

3= teaching modals
- Use visual representations of the modals
o Show degrees of probability and prediction

Example

- Least probability
o Chen: somebody is at the door
o Chung: it COULD be mum
- Range of probability expressed trough different modals

High probability

- It MUST be Fang
- It SHOULD be Fang
 - It MAY be Fang
- It COULD be Fang

Low probability (degrees of prediction)

- High probability conditional

o It WILL snow in Jan
o It SHOULD snow in Jan
o It MAY snow in Jan
o It COULD snow in Jan
- Low probability (giving advice)
o You MUST discuss it with your tutor
o You HAD better talk to your tutor
o You SHOULD / OUGHT TO talk to your tutor
o You COULD talk to your tutor

5.6 voice, mood and theme

Voice
- Actual voice and how a sentence speaks to us

Active and passive voices

- Subject is the doer of the action, verb is said to be in active voice:

o The Vikings INVADED Britain
 Subject: Vikings
 Verb: invading Britain
- If subject is victim or receiver of the action, verb is in passive voice:
o Britain WAS INVADED by the Vikings
 Subject: Britain
 Verb: being invaded
- We can emphasise certain words or contrast one statement with another
o Use both forms in one sentence
 Liu PERFORMED well, but the finest performance WAS GIVEN
by Mei.
- Verb changes its form to suit whether we say the subject did something or
something did action to the subject
- Meaning is much the same
- Verb needs to change form to match how it is being said / reported
- Active voice is more direct and forceful compared to passive

Mood
- Relates to form a verb takes to show how it is to be regarded
- Verbs change form to match mood of sentence
- EG
o Verb tells whether we should regard the info as fact or question,
command and request, wish or uncertainty.
- Verbs changing form to match mood of sentence
o She IS EATING an apple (statement, fact)
o IS she EATING an apple? (question)
 o KEEP quiet (command)
o Please KEEP quiet (request)
o I suggest that she TAKE the bus (wish)
o I urge that he TRY to work harder (uncertainty about passing exam
- Verbs in last 2 are correct
o Belong to subjunctive which is only used in specific constructions
after certain values

Theme
- Fixed word order yet variations are possible
o 1. Girl guides held the sale despite the rain
o 2. Sale was held by the girl guides despite the rain
o 3. Despite the rain, the girl guides held the sale
- What is the difference between these word orders?
o Same meaning but word order serves variation
- Provides point of departure of message, part of sentence where emphasis
of the message is places
o 1 = emphasis on girl guides
o 2 = focus is on the sale
o 3 = emphasis on the rain

5.7 cohesion
- lexical linking within a written or spoken text or sentence that holds a test
and gives meaning
- gives unity and links broader concept of coherence
- well structured sentences cannot often be randomly reordered

4= linguistic mechanisms give writing and speech their cohesion or

unified structure
1= reference

- the boy wanted to surprise her

- the next day he ( he refers back to the boy)

2= ellipsis

- who wrote the letter? B: Bianca

- response shows that bianca wrote the letter
- leave out word or words that are redundant or able to be understood by
contextual clues
3= substitution

- I aim to run a marathon next year. If I do…

- Do, substitutes the run a marathon

4= conjunction

- Mike needs to lose some weight, He therefore decided to buy an exercise

bike
- Shows the casual relationship between first and second sentences
5= lexical cohesion

- Here through synonymy

- Grateful for the money he had been given, put cash in his wallet and drove
to the shop
- Cash refers back to the money

5.8 register
- Variety of language or level of usage as determined by degree of formality,
choice of lexis, pronunciation and syntax
- Use language appropriated in the right context
- Selecting the correct language appropriately and in right context
- Choice of formal or informal language we match to a given situation

1= situation: receptionist introducing to her boss a professor she does

not know

- Dr Brown, id like to introduce you to professor White

- He is the guy who gave me the speech at last year’s conference
o “guy “ is too informal

2= situation: husband talking to his wife

- Lets go to the 8pm show. Ill accommodate at 7:30

- Accompany is too formal

3= situation: letter of complaint

- last Tuesday while shopping in your San Diego store I was dissed by one of
your assistants
- dissed is a slang word and very informal

5.9 teaching grammar

5.9.1 how to teach grammar
- to consider
o age, competence, previous. Native language

Teaching grammar to younger young learners

- 3-7 years

NB
1= Not appropriate to teach grammar formally and explicitly under 7

- But doesn’t mean you cannot do grammar type activities

2= No metalanguage (noun, verb)

- Find out if they are aware of the simple language to describe grammar, if
so work along with what they know
3= Get them to NOTICE some forms and patterns, and use them automatically
after lots of practise
4= Help to notice must emerge from meaningful contexts

- Meaningful communication that leads to a focus on grammar

- Listening / reading a story / songs

5= Never teach grammar in isolation !!

Teaching grammar to older young learners

- Metalanguage begins to be introduced around age 8 and will continue till

12
- When they are ready you can introduce some language analysis and some
metalanguage
NB
1= Activities are useful

- Rhymes, chats with learners and groups

- Drilling, cloze activities, questionnaires
- Information gap, presentations
- Fun activities and games

2= Gradually for older learners you can introduce some specific activities to
separate grammar for study

- If there’s a curriculum then you can work alongside it and decide when to
introduce them
- You will notice when they take interest in such activities and proceed
accordingly
3= Aware of what grammar they have learned and what they are learning in first
language

- Ensure you work with metalanguage they already know

- Don’t overdo it
- Sometimes necessary to introduce metalanguage

4= Should be ready for work on tenses and punctuation and may be ready for
self-correcting
5= Enjoy puzzles and crosswords where they can discover some basic grammar
rules

- Most nouns are plural by adding s or es

6= Ready for creating basic sentences with models

- Pronoun + verb + noun

- Pronoun + verb +adjective + noun

REMEMBER

- How can I make this easier to grasp

- Give all word classes a different colour
- Mix up order of words and get learners to rearrange in order of the model
7= Fun grammar activities are essential for older young learners

- Puzzles, like describe the difference in pictures

- Adapt certain grammar activities according to what that group needs to
focus on
8= Recycling is necessary and critical for success

- Ensure to follow up in future lessons

9= Much meaningful practise, recycling and guidance to attend to language form

Teaching grammar to teenagers

- 16 – 17
- Continue progress of grammar in school environment with more to the
type study and go to more complex levels
- Some may reach plateau in learning and progress may be difficult for
them
- Mostly continuation of grammar they have already learnt via recycling
- Some lose interest in learning as they think they are above said learning

1= avoid metalanguage

- Look for new ways to describe things they may be doing tomorrow

2= emphasise with them

- Tell them you also had struggles with grammar when you were younger
but with effort you came through and look how well you’re doing now
- Remind how useful grammar is for writing blogs and stories that they will
admire for passing examinations
3= play to their interests

- Make massive effort to find out what they like, like movies, soccor, fashion
- Catch their interest
- Easier to introduce by stopping video at specific parts to explain and ask
questions
4= add in controlled competitiveness

- Pairs or groups so that they are not alone and wont feel embarrassed
- Limits on the activities to heighten the tension
- Activity shouldn’t be complicated
- Points earned can go towards an end of term prize
- Ensure it is not the same group that wins every time and you may need to
change the groups to achieve balance and don’t tell them
5= inspire them by giving them more autonomy

- EG
o Dictionary work to find synonyms they can use in a passage
o Ask those who have grasped the idea to help others
o Let them choose the video or the story they want to hear
6= make it fun

- Lots of games to keep interest as snakes and ladders where they pick up
cards, must decide if it is correct to move up the board
- Moving around and monitoring the activity as well

Teaching grammar to adults

- older teenagers, young adults and adults

- key focus is not the grammar items you cover but rather have best
practises and approaches in meeting the needs of this group
- diverse in educational background, age, history, culture
- different goals for the English class as well,
o grasp the language quickly and efficiently
o learn through progress and steps
- challenge is evident, how to satisfy the needs of this diverse group
o all learners would like to learn English so the needs are not that
important
o will be motivated

1= don’t assume adults are competent in grammar

- don’t think this will be easier as they have made more progress
o no guarantee

2= don’t worry about the level

- likely to have more explicit sessions on grammar and giving them much
more autonomous work
o spot errors and correct where possible

3= do a needs analysis

- process of finding out what needs a learner needs

- do it informally and during first meeting or individually
o what are learners communicative competence present
 how good is English currently
 what aspects need to be improved
 what are the grammar needs
o what communicative needs in English
 what are their goals with English
 what their plans are regarding the language
4= help them to become grammar detectives

- handle tricky concepts better than the younger learners

o introduce appropriate metalanguage
o save time and reach goals faster
- aim is to ensure they can put concepts into action

Meaning

- words can have two meanings

o literal meaning
  used in everyday communication
o meaning of context

form

- what a word looks like

- boy, boy’s
- how an s can indicate plural or possession

function

- what a word does in a sentence

- even if they don’t understand the noun then they can still identify it
depending on what is surrounding the noun
o the = to show possession
o capital letter

setting

- setting into which other words can fit

- what nouns will fit after “a / an”
- what verb is needed to fill the sentence correctly

5= use games and drills sparingly

- all adults are here with a specific goal in mind, and some learners would
prefer to be serious about their learning rather than making it fun
- carefully explain the end goal when doing such activity so they can be
assured that you are not just playing around

5.9.2 making effective grammar presentation

1= elicit frequent learner responses

- enable learners to provide information rather than they just get the
information
2= maintain appropriate (fairly brisk) pace
3= get their attention

- ensure learners are alert and focussing their attention on you and what
they need to be learning
4= keep your learners attention
5= monitor and when necessary correct the learners
6= equal participation from all learners
7= understanding is occurring in a range of ways

- written and spoken exercises to ensure they understand what you are
introducing
- make connections with what they already know

8= concept check before leaving the session

 - random questions around the class

NB

- need to take it into their short term memory, and required to remember
for later in the lesson when practise occurs
- more impact original presentation has the better
- watch out for metalanguage unless you are sure they can handle it

5.9.3 inductive and deductive presentations

NB

- grasp difference between inductive and deductive

deductive thinker

- draws out specific facts from general principle presented

- stand in front and explain how to form verb tense and what it means

inductive thinker

- develops rule or general principle for himself by looking at examples

- notices words and pictures to identify how to work with them
- provide a text or examples of sentences to illustrate the rule then allow
learners to work
your role is to facilitate learning = provide inductive learning activities
conveying the meaning inductively and deductively
inductive learning has an advantage that they are not overwhelmed with
grammar metalanguage + discover language on their own + autonomy
present grammar inductively and deductively

5.9.4 different modes of presenting grammar to learners

- no doubt that strong knowledge and understanding of fundamental
grammatical rules are essential
- way that you teach these rules that pave success

1= present material visually

Show how a given structure is formed, what it means and how it is used to
present the material visually
2= use timelines
Simple diagrams that can help learners see relationships between verb forms
and their time reference + visual representation of passage of time +see how
verb works
3= present material through situations
Presenting “going to”
 - use a diagram of a person and show that in the future they will be going
somewhere
- ask class for more answers relating to the situation and elicit responses
- recap structure and avoid metalanguage

4= present material through demonstration

Present meaning through physical demonstration
Using “going to”

- going to open the door

- going to give a prize
- going to close the window

5.9.5 drilling
Repetition, in individuals or in groups repeating what you say

- how to learn language in a way that is controlled and fun

- pronunciation and usage
- best used after new language introduced and explained
- students will have different opinions on drilling and this will differ
- rhythm, intonation and stress are key

Q and A drills

- allow parts of the sentence to be changed and adapted, more practical

and absorption way
- 1= simple substitution drill
o Substitute one short item after another in the framework or single
unvaring sentence
o Provide the next item and get learners involved
- 2= substitution table
o Summary of number of possible drills from single sentence

Transformation drill

- Requires learners to produce sentences in response to cues and the cues

are whole sentences
- Change this sentence to the negative or change to past tense

Drilling pros

- Gives initial confidence

- Choral drills allow learners to have a go at a new language without being
self conscious
- Repetition aids memory
- Highlight the key language items in a lesson

Drilling cons

- Slowly becomes mindless parroting

- Can be a childish effect
- No guarantee that new language items are stored in long term memory
 - Limited in later stages of lessons as it downplays contextualised use of
structure
NB = not all new language need to be/can be drilled

5.9.6 grammar activities

Grammar mimes

- Divide into groups / pairs

- Give sentence already practised and underline words that should be
guessed precisely
- One learner should mime the sentence and others need to guess
o I swam yesterday
o I lost my watch
o An aeorplane is bigger than a pencil

Get them moving

- Practise the simple past of regular or irregular verbs

- Circle and say a verb out loud and whoever catches the ball must say it in
past form
Celebrity profiles

- Contrast the simple past and present tenses by using biographies

- Which stars they admire
- Read and ensure understand the tense differences

TEFL 6- end
6.1 teaching listening
6.1.1 key points
- Listening is most neglected language skill cause its seen as the easiest

Mechanics

- Integrated with other three skills

- Early classroom work needs to be based on sounds of language
- Wide range of listening situations
- Formal and informal styles
- Aim to allow the learners to respond and be interactive
- Remarking to see if they grasped the conversation

Listening passages

- Do not get over tired

- Appropriate materials for culture
 - Length
- Appropriate speed
- Tasks that target specific sub skills

6.1.2. helping to overcome barriers to listening

For example, when compared with a native speaker, L2 language learners may find that:

 they may not be able to distinguish particular sounds adequately

 they may be unfamiliar with commonly-used lexis
 the speaker may appear to speak very quickly
 the sentence construction may differ radically from their language
 they may be unable to distinguish the critical elements from the unimportant parts
of the message
 unlike native speakers, they may be unable to predict the speaker’s message before
it has been completed

Authentic speech creates problems for the listener

Much of the authentic spoken language we listen to is spontaneous and informal. This
spontaneity presents problems for the language learner:

 Brevity of chunks:
 Speech is typically broken into shorter chunks. In conversation, for example,
people usually take turns to speak, in short turns of a few seconds each.
 Pronunciation:
 The pronunciation of words is often blended or slurred, and noticeably
different from the phonological representation of a given word in the
dictionary.
 Lexis:
 The lexis is often colloquial. In spoken English, for example, you might
use guy whereas in writing you would use man.
 Grammar:
 Informal speech tends to be somewhat ungrammatical. Utterances do not
usually divide neatly into sentences; a grammatical structure may change in
mid-utterance; unfinished clauses are common.
 Noise:
 There will be a certain amount of noise or bits of the discourse that are
unintelligible to the listener. This may be because the words are not spoken
clearly or are not known to the listener.

 Redundancy:
 The speaker typically says a good deal more than is strictly necessary for
conveying the message. Redundancy includes such things as repetition,
paraphrasing, and the use of fillers such as I mean … well … er.
 Non-repetition:
 The discourse will not be repeated verbatim. That is, in a typical face-to-face
chat or discussion, the listener may only have one chance to hear and
understand everything that’s being said.

At an early stage, you need to help your learners to familiarise themselves with the sounds
of the language. This will mainly come from you. So, forget about restricting your
Teacher Talking Time (TTT) in the early days. Ensure you talk a lot.
  Choose material that is appropriate for the level of your learners and the culture and
background that they come from. It should not place any additional burdens on the
learners.
 Ensure that the speed of the speaker and the length of the material are appropriate
for your learners. This might take the form of three short lines of dialogue for
elementary learners or as much as three or four minutes of listening for more
proficient learners.
 In the early days, ensure the speaker’s voice is clear and is not heavily accented. For
best results, you should do the speaking or dictation onto a recorder. They will be
getting used to your voice, and so there’ll be no additional burden at the early stages
of listening.
 Before you introduce them to a specific listening activity, always:
 Ensure they know most of the words in the passage they will be listening to.
 Tell them about the situation/context, before they listen, e.g. a brief
description of the Great Wall. Ensure the context/situation is as relevant as
possible.
 Identify any problematic words or grammatical instructions or expressions
and explain these before they listen. Of course, if you make up your own
materials, you will avoid these issues.
 Ask them to predict what they might hear in this descriptive piece about the
Great Wall (e.g. when it was built, who built it, its size/length, how many
people visit it, etc.) Arouse their interest! If they have completed a similar
descriptive activity previously about a different topic, refer to that and
discuss what they heard in the previous activity.
 Encourage them to think back as to what came out of the previous activity.

Again, to arouse their interest and focus their concentration, give them a
challenge: After listening, I wonder who will be able to tell me how old the
Great Wall is and how many people visit it each year.
 Through time, let the learners experience a wide range of situations. This is so
important because of their need to interpret different situations correctly and to be
able to respond appropriately.
 Through time, let them experience a wide range of styles, from the very formal
language used in a TV interview to the far more informal language used between
learners or close friends.

Also, introduce them to different accents. Somewhere, there’s likely to be other

native-English speakers, e.g. working in a hotel or hospital, backpackers, etc. Invite
them in; they’ll be delighted to help.
 Through time, the listening materials should also aim to let the learners respond to
the speaker so that listening is one part of an interactive programme of learning. In
other words, the learners will not merely listen, but will also respond with answers,
questions, actions, group discussion, form filling, drawings, and so on.
 In real life, people listen for many different reasons. In the classroom, your task is to
try to provide the learners with tasks that target specific sub-skills. This will not
always involve simply listening for information but may also include skills such as
listening to instructions, listening for keywords, or predicting.

6.1.3 listening sub skills

1. general listening
- any level, brief or longer
2. listening for specific information
 - aware of task before beginning
3. listening for the message
- entire thing VS specific details
4. following instructions
- directions as well, charts, diagrams, tables, maps
5. predicting
- effectively use of focus on task and then a clear guide
6. listening for gist
- formulate ideas after listening
7. discerning attitude
- find tone or attitude after listening

6.1.4 how to structure an effective lesson

1. opening
- engage and capture interest with warmer and related to previous
learning
- tell them about the lesson ahead and how it will happen
- explain how activity is going to help them
2. introduction to new material
- address any potential misunderstandings
- ensure engagement and interest
- taking everyone along and reemphasise important parts
- give multiple opportunities
3. guided practise
- stepping stones from easy to hard
- monitor and correct
- accuracy
4. independent practice
- ensure your learners are focussed
- state and model behavioural expectations
- fluency emphasis
5. closing
- ensure still engaged
 - summarize what they have learned
- set homework if necessary

6.1.5 effective listening strategies ETC

Strategies
Questions and answers

- Short exchanges can provide elementary or lower level with practice

- Recording is also needed as they will learn from own mistakes

short dialogues

- How recorded will affect authenticity

- Background noises

short passages

- Easy to make authentic language

- Some humour needed

Reordering information

- Given items on paper and in wrong order

- Then given specific tasks to figure out order

Information transfer

- Translating part of the spoken message to new format

- Table, chart, picture, map

Using humour

- A bit of fun in lessons

Dictation

- Listening practice can still be used

- Can be seen as good or bad

Jigsaw listening

- Different parts of passage or conversation and then coming together to

pair it up

Listening activities
Add on
One learner starts with I went to the market, and I bought some apples. The next learner
adds to this: I went to the market and I bought some apples and a spoon. This continues
until the sentence is unmanageably long, and the learners start to get a bit confused.
This could be a competitive game with teams, but it would be better as a co-operative
activity. It’s good fun, and you can change the model sentence to anything you like so that
you can do this again and again in future classes.
Pass the message
This activity can be used to emphasise the importance of listening. One learner thinks of a
‘message’ and writes it down. The learner then whispers this to another learner, swiftly, and
so on. The message can only be said once, but it must be spoken clearly.
Nevertheless, however clearly the message is spoken, it will almost always be distorted in
some way or other, which often produces a comical sentence. It can then be compared with
the original sentence.
Think of a verb
Each group writes a short passage of about 3-4 sentences. The verbs (excluding the verb to
be) are removed from the passage. One member of, say, group A, then reads out the
passage and the other groups suggest appropriate verbs to fit the space.
The final version of the newly constructed passage can then be read in full and is then
compared to the original passage. This will often provide a lot of laughs. It can be done again
in future classes by changing the verb to a noun or adverb, i.e. linked hopefully to whatever
else they are studying.
What’s the word?
You spell out words quickly, and the learners must shout out the word.
Hands up!
You write up 5-10 words relating to what the learners have been currently studying. You
then incorporate these words into a passage. You read out the passage. Learners put their
hands up as soon as they hear each of the words.
Missing word
You write up 5 words relating to what the learners have been currently studying. You read
out a short passage – incorporating 4 of the words. After the passage has been read out,
learners suggest the missing word.
That’s not right You speak out an incorrect sentence – nothing too difficult, e.g. An
elephant big is. Learners must decide what the correct version should be.

6.2 teaching speaking

6.2.1. key points
Speaking is different from listening and reading, as these are receptive skills.

Speaking is different from writing in that we generally (though not always) seek to write in a
clear and grammatically accurate manner.
In contrast, when we are speaking, we generally (though not always) break all sorts of
language rules and produce hesitations and fragments of sentences that would usually be
unacceptable in written language.
This is why many language learners find it so difficult to understand native speakers. The
learners may have practised English by listening to smoothly spoken, accurate BBC or CNN
News speech separated into complete sentences.
6.2.2 key features of spoken English
Remember this: Fluency is speaking at a normal speed without hesitation, repetition,
or selfcorrection, and with cohesion and coherence. Accuracy is speaking, utilising
correct forms of grammar, lexis, and pronunciation.
You will be guiding your learners to attain fluency more than accuracy.
You can develop your learners’ speaking skills by regularly focussing on particular aspects
of speaking, such as fluency, pronunciation, grammatical accuracy, and body language.
The primary emphasis of conversation as a skill, however, is to teach learners how to
express, or produce, language.

6.2.3. stimulating learner speaking

When planning an effective, productive, communicative speaking activity, you should ask
the following questions:

 Is it practical? Consider how easy the activity is to set up and manage. For example,
does it need any materials? Do the learners need time to prepare?
 Is it purposeful? Do the learners have a purpose for doing the activity? Is there an
outcome?

If there is no purpose or outcome, why are they doing this?

 Is it productive? How much speaking will it generate?

 Is it adaptable? How versatile is the activity type? For example, can I adapt it for a
higher or lower level?
 In essence, does it give them a reason to talk?

Activities do not need to be complicated and need not be time-consuming to plan and
develop.
Here is a practical example to demonstrate this:
Activity procedure:

1. In groups of three, each of you please write six sentences about your typical daily
routine. Three sentences should be correct, and three should be false.
2. Take turns reading aloud one sentence each to your partners.
3. Can you guess which of your classmates’ sentences are true or false? Explain why
you think the answer is true or false. If you are not sure, you can ask them
questions.

This short exercise is practical and easy to manage. It has purposes of sentence
construction, questioning, giving responses, querying, and explaining. It is productive; it will
generate lots of discussion and fun. It could be used for any level.
Also, it would have taken you only 20 minutes or so to consider and plan this in your lesson
planning session.

6.2.4 recognising a good speaker

A ‘good’ speaker can:
  Select the correct lexis that is understandable and appropriate for the audience, the
topic being discussed, and the context in which the speaking occurs.
 Produce the correct sounds, intonation, stress patterns and rhythmic structures.
 Use grammar structures accurately.
 Manage elements such as turn-taking, rephrasing, providing feedback, or
redirecting. For example, a learner involved in the exchange with, for example, a
station ticket seller, must know the usual pattern that such an interaction follows
and access that knowledge as the discussion progresses.
 Seek, rephrase, or emphasise words to clarify the situation if the ticket seller does
not understand, and use appropriate facial expressions to indicate, for example,
satisfaction, confusion, etc.
 Assess characteristics of the participant(s), including shared knowledge or points of
reference, status and power relations of participants, interest levels, or differences
in perspectives.
 Apply strategies to enhance comprehensibility, such as emphasising keywords,
rephrasing, or checking for listener comprehension.
 Use gestures and body language.
 Pay attention to the success of the interaction and adjust components of speech
such as lexis, rate of speech, and complexity of grammar structures to maximise
comprehension and involvement.

6.2.5 how to structure an effective speaking lesson

Step 1: Opening
Engage your learners and capture their interest with a warmer, related to previous learning
where possible.
Step 2: Introduction of new material
Address any potential misunderstandings.
Ensure that your learners continue to be engaged/interested.
Ensure you are taking everyone along, to the best of your and their ability.
Emphasise and reiterate your critical points made in Step 1, i.e. the importance of this new
learning and how it will help them.
Vary your teaching approach to ensure the information is accessible to all your learners
Step 3: Guided practice
Continue to ensure your learners are engaged/interested.
Clearly state and model behavioural expectations, e.g. I’m going to give you a copy of this
little map. You’ll see that I’ve marked in red where you and the visitor meet and where the
visitor needs to go, to reach the train station. Think about the instructions you have just
learned. Then write them down in order on the worksheet.
Ensure that all your learners have multiple opportunities to practise.
Scaffold the practice exercises from easy to hard.
Monitor and correct learner performance.
Step 4: Independent practice
Continue to ensure your learners are engaged/interested.
Clearly state and model behavioural expectations.
Ensure appropriate tasks are set so that your learners can attempt to demonstrate
independent mastery of the objective, or progress towards this. This could be a pair giving
each other instructions to get to different places on the map.
Provide opportunities for extension (additional activity for those who finish early and have
completed the main activity successfully).
Step 5: Closing
Continue to ensure your learners are engaged/interested.
Allow your learners to summarise what they have learned.
Ask your learners to state the significance of what they have learned.

1- Arrange in small pairs or groups

2- Base activity on clear and accessible language
3- Ensure topic and task stimulates interest
4- Give adequate instructions on guidance in setting up the activity
5- Keep learners speaking target language
6- Ensure they talk a lot
7- Learner participation is even

6.2.6 effective speaking strategies

1. using minimal responses
2. recognising scripts
3. using clarification and comprehension responses

6.3. teaching writing

6.3.1. key points
Your job is to ensure that the writing tasks you set your learners are appropriate in terms of
level and content and that your learners have adequate time to prepare.
If you manage this successfully, your learners should enjoy their written work, and provide
you with some satisfyingly well-written pieces of work.
Those learners that have a very different script in their first language, such as learners from
Arabic countries, will need help in this area.
Remember this: In several educational cultures, the learners’ needs centre on learning the
language, rather than using known language creatively. Your learners are likely to need
English skills for practical reasons (study, examinations, career, travel) and will want their
course to train them to these ends.

6.3.2 mechanics of writing

It is quite likely that many of your learners will be unsure about paragraphing. Help your
learners to understand that a paragraph is a unit of meaning that addresses one particular
issue. It is not a unit of length.

Punctuation may be a problem for many learners – capital letters, full stops, and other
structures.
Spelling can be challenging – encourage each learner to have a spelling book, point out
words that are often misspelt, give random tests and provide them with some basic spelling
rules.
Remember – writing is one of the four language skills and, wherever possible, the skills
should be integrated in a way that helps them to reinforce each other.
Writing is not a process that can be rushed. It takes time and thought, and appropriate
preparation; the type of preparation will depend on the task but should involve reading or
oral work or listening and discussion before the writing takes place.

6.3.3 punctuation and spelling issues

 The use of capital letters: for people’s names, places names, titles and so on
 Direct speech: “I am starving,” said Sebastián.
 Question marks: “Where is my bicycle?” asked Chen.
 Short forms: isn’t it can’t we shan’t we it’s
 Possessive forms: Hu’s pen the teachers’ desks its
 Colons and semicolons: : ;
 Commas: , Learners frequently have problems with commas.
 Show them how punctuation contributes to meaning:
Examples:
A lot of the time, travellers worry about their luggage. Now delete the comma after the
fifth word to change the meaning of this sentence.
She is inspired by cooking her family and her dog. Put a comma after cooking to remove
her cannibalistic tendencies!
Provide the learners with some basic spelling patterns:

 i comes before e except after c (ceiling, receive)

 when a vowel is short, the consonant is doubled (hop/hopping, pin/pinning,)
 when the vowel is long, the consonant is single (hope/hoping, pine/pining)

6.3.4 different types of writing

One of your tasks will be to ensure that your learners understand the difference between
formal and informal writing styles and can use both appropriately.
When we write, we always have an idea of the audience that we are writing for. It might be a
grandmother, a bank manager, our book club, the local Greenpeace group, the plumber, and
so on.

1. Imitative writing: Appropriate for lower levels, imitative writing is when learners
‘imitate’ written forms by writing alphabet letters, words, and short sentences.
Dictation can also be included in this stage. In dictation, you read a short text, and
then reread it, breaking the text down into small chunks that your learners will write
as heard.
2. Self-writing: Self-writing has only the learner as her audience. Note-taking and
journal entries are examples of self-writing.
3. Display writing: The learner is showing or putting on display her writing for others.
Short answer responses, essays, and reports are examples of display writing.
4. Authentic writing: Authentic writing has a specific audience in mind and
encompasses a wide range of texts, from the academic, such as opinion pieces, to
the personal, such as diaries, letters, postcards, notes.
 5. Creative writing: This is worth mentioning again. While creative writing is an
essential part of any English course for a native-English learner at school in an
English-speaking country, it is far less important for learners learning a second
language.

6.3.5 writing approaches and processes

1. Process writing is an approach entailing several stages and requiring the development
of a variety of learner skills to produce a final piece, be it a simple sentence, a group of
sentences, an announcement, directions, a business letter, or a complete essay.
Key features:

 text/visual is simply a resource

 ideas as the beginning point
 more than one draft
 more global, focus on purpose, theme, text type, i.e., the reader is emphasised
 collaborative
 emphasis on creative process

2. Product writing is a more traditional approach, in which learners are encouraged to

mirror a model text. This is usually presented and analysed at an early stage.
Key features:

 imitation of model text

 the organisation of ideas more important than ideas themselves
 maybe just one draft
 features highlighted including controlled practice of those features
 individual
 emphasis on end product

he Writing Process
The writing process has three critical stages:
1. Pre-writing: This is the stage when the learner generates his ideas. These ideas can be
generated via a variety of ways, such as: reflecting; brainstorming; listing or making a
timeline; clustering, which is where one word stimulates free association; discussion or
reading; and automatic, or free, writing.
2. Draft: This is the stage in which the learner composes the first draft, focussing on getting
some ideas down on paper without worrying too much about spelling or grammar, and
shaping his text into a coherent form ready for self-critique or review by others.
Learners can then read their drafts to their pair or small group partners. They support and
encourage each other with useful comments and questions.
They can discuss the purpose of the writing, what the writer learned or hopes his partners
will learn, and what the reader likes best or has trouble with.
3. Revision: This is the stage when all feedback is complete and considered, and another
version is generated. There may be more than one revision until everything seems clear.
Then, editing can focus on spelling, grammar, punctuation, transition words (first, next), and
signal words (for example, Another reason is …) to ensure cohesion of ideas.
An editing checklist can help them to focus on specific points. They should use each other
and you as resources, in addition to their dictionary and grammar references.
Then they have their final piece of writing.
Depending on the class time available for writing, and the needs of the learners, there may
be some variations:

 For example, pre-writing activities such as brainstorming can be done orally or in

writing, individually or as a whole class.
 Learners might prepare their first draft in class or as homework, depending on how
much time they have outside class.
 You could have a short meeting with individual learners to discuss their writing and
ask questions to clarify ideas.
 As issues arise, you might spend class time working on specific points, such as how
to develop an effective topic sentence, with the entire class.

6.3.6 macro and micro skills

Macro Skills
Some skills are at the macro level, such as writing activities that focus on content and
organisation.
Examples of activities that focus on macro skills would be: ordering paragraphs or
sentences coherently; determining the main idea or topic sentences; and creating cohesion
using transition words.
Writing is all about having a message and communicating it successfully to other people. To
do this, learners need to have developed macro skills sufficient to form ideas, to organise
them well, and to express them in a style suitable to the reader.

Micro Skills
Writing skills at the micro-level are related to promoting accuracy or using the correct
written form.
Such micro-skills include: learning how to spell and punctuate correctly; employing
standard layouts and formats; selecting lexis appropriate for the kind of writing; and
employing correct grammar and structure.
At the micro-level, learners practise specific written forms at the level of word or sentence;
these exercises are more controlled and focus on accuracy. Some examples of such micro-
level writing activities would be:

 Substitution exercises
 Sentence completion expressing meaning while using different grammatical forms
 Sentence extensions
 Spelling or punctuation exercises
 Information-gap exercises
 Reordering exercises

6.3.7 structure effective writing lesson

1- opening
2- into new material
3- guided practice
4- independent practice
5- closing

1. Communicative: Is it a communicative task? Note that a writing task is

communicative if it requires writers to communicate meanings to affect the
thoughts or behaviours of their reader(s). The production of sentences or texts to
practise specific grammatical or textual features, although perfectly justifiable as a
form of practice, is unlikely to be communicative.
2. Integration: Does the task form a complete ‘message’ either on its own or as part of
a series of messages. The more complete a text is, the more challenging a task it is.
3. Authentic: Is it a real-life task? Remember! A task can be ‘life-like’ even if it’s not
something that learners themselves expect to do in real life, such as write a poem.
4. Readership: Is it aimed at an audience or not?
5. Level: Is the task geared at the ‘right’ level?

6.3.8 effective writing strategies and activities

 Rewriting spelling patterns to embed the word structure in their mind
 Copying pieces of text
 Writing numerous sentences with the structures they have recently studied
 Practise by translating a piece of writing in their L1 into English (and sometimes
using a translator tool to check it)
 Note-taking to increase their practice in writing
 Seeking amusing punctuation examples, where the punctuation changes the
meaning, so that they can grasp the differences that punctuation can make
 Writing word connections and phrases down for later use
 Consulting textbooks and dictionaries
 Summarising a larger piece of text
 Highlighting little chunks of language that they can later use in writing

 Copying text (for beginners)

 Grouping: For example, learners are given three headings, say classroom, my
kitchen, a fruit shop, and a separate list of words, containing, say, teacher, fridge,
tap, banana, etc.
They need to write the words under the right heading. You could also expand this to
have a heading with a question mark, where they write silly words from your list that
do not fit under the other three headings, e.g. a blue elephant, a square football, etc.
 Substitution tables: When the learners use substitution tables, they take one item
from each box to create and write a new sentence. With a correctly prepared
substitution table, if the learners select one item from each box, they will always
write a grammatically correct sentence.
 Matching tables: This requires the learners to think very carefully before they
match items and then write a sentence. The result will be incorrect in terms of
grammar or meaning unless the learners select very carefully. This is not just
copying. It requires thinking about meaning and accuracy.
 Gap-filling: Gap-filling exercises involve the learners completing sentences using
appropriate words, often filling the gaps with the correct lexis or tense.
 Tables and charts: These can be used very effectively in writing exercises. The work
can be designed around the learners themselves to provide a more personal task.
For example, learners are asked to survey/interview 5 other learners and list
 information in a table with the headings: name, sisters, brothers, hobby, and
pets. The learners can then produce sentences about the other five orally and then
write them.
 Reordering words/sentences and re-writing them correctly: Young learners
could be given a sentence where a word is in the wrong place, and they need to re-
write the sentence so that it makes sense. For example, I like to the guitar play.
 Sentence completion: The learners may be provided with alternatives to choose
from, or they may be required to decide how to complete the sentences for
themselves.
 Dictation: Ensure learners are already familiar with the text, perhaps from previous
readings. If you use a recording, ensure it is clear. Don’t be afraid to try recordings
where the speaker has an accent, so long as the words spoken are clear. Accents are
a vital part of the real world.
 Short essays based on pictures: For younger learners, you should try to use an
explicit, uncomplicated picture, e.g. a cat chasing a mouse. For older learners,
though, there could be several pictures from which the learners deduce what has
happened.
 Dialogues: Learners could be given half of the dialogue and can use their own words
to complete the conversation:
 Letters: Informal mostly for younger learners; older learners may be ready for a slightly
more formal letter. Where possible, ask your Head of Department if you can pop these in the
school’s mail basket, with the school providing the stamps, so you don’t have to pay the
postage. Alternatively, ask if it’s possible to take the class to the post office if it’s not too far.
If this all works out, get them to write a suitable letter to their parents/caregivers. They will be
thrilled and inspired when the parents/caregivers thank them for their wonderful written letter.
 Writing predictions: For young learners, predicting what might happen next in a story will
usually be done orally. With older learners, this could be done in writing. At various times in
a story, you could stop and ask them to write their prediction of what happens next. You
could also use a suitable video for predicting, stopping it at relevant parts and asking them to
write their prediction as to what happens next.
 Projects: These are suitable for older learners. In groups, they could perhaps collate and write
down information from short interviews and surveys in the school; for example, they could
interview some teachers about what they like doing in their spare time. You would then guide
them on how to collate and group the information under headings, showing what the most and
least popular likes are. To make this even more interesting, you could ask your learners to try
and predict and write down what the top 3 likes might be before they carry out the survey.
The person whose prediction is closest could be given a small prize. Or, in groups, they could
design a holiday leaflet/mini-brochure.

6.4 teaching reading

6.4.1 key reading points

Remember! The focus of all reading in an EFL class is the acquisition, understanding and
manipulation of their new language, and not creative ideas and interpretation of creative
ideas.

Don’t stick to the past-its-sell-by-date structure of them reading a tedious passage

and answering dull multiple-choice questions. Think engaging, topical and humorous
whenever you can.

1. Ask the learners about their town/city (or the one they go to regularly).
2. Ask them too about any problems or difficulties they have experienced (e.g. too
much traffic, too much litter).
 3. Next, give them a letter from a person writing to the local government offices to
complain about some problems she experienced when visiting the town/city.
4. After they have read the letter, give them a copy of the local government website
page or brochure saying how wonderful a place it is for visitors.
5. Let them compare the two and identify the differences.
6. Get them to write a letter of explanation/apology from the local authority office.

7. Why some learners find reading difficult

8. We could discuss this for weeks without concluding. This is an ongoing discussion
amongst theorists, educationalists, and others.
9. Here are some practical ideas which are grounded in experience:
10. Linguistic challenges are not solely responsible for the difficulties. Reading in a
foreign language is tough.

6.4.2 reading sub skills

Silent reading
This is a skill that everyone needs to adopt to be able to read quickly and effectively. It
enables the reader’s eyes to flow rapidly and freely across the page, recognising the
individual words and internalising the meaning, but not pronouncing them. Discourage lip
movements which lead to staccato reading.
Skimming
This involves the readers in letting their eyes run rapidly over the text to discover what the
text is about in general. It does not require the learners to understand every word that they
read.
Learners need to be taught and accept that unknown words will be present in a text and
that it’s an excellent skill to be able to deduce the meaning of a new word from the context.
Scanning
This is when the learners search through a text, looking for specific pieces of information.
Learners reading aloud
Some teachers do this frequently. It’s a bit difficult to comprehend why this is done when it
is a skill that very few people need to develop except, perhaps, advanced learners. How
many times do we have to read aloud to an audience?
The problem here is that time is taken from silent reading which everyone needs to develop.
There are several issues:

 You either have to ignore the mistakes or repeatedly interrupt the learner to correct.
 Silent readers generally read faster than someone reading aloud, so they will be
reading ahead of the speaker.
 Reading aloud can be traumatic for some learners.
 You need to decide how much reading aloud there will be in your classroom.

6.4.3. who does the reading

Unprepared reading aloud is not a great idea unless your learners are advanced and fluent,
although even then it is best done on a one-to-one basis.
If you do want your learners to read a short section aloud in class, it is a wise idea to give
them some time to prepare so that they know what they have to do and are confident that
they can do it well.
Let them to read at their own pace, and you can follow this up with factual questions and
‘why’ questions on the text. Some reading can also be set for homework and then followed
up the next day in class.
What about you reading aloud? This is a wise idea, now and again in short spurts, because
you can put tone and meaning into the reading so that it will be more engaging for the
learners.

6.4.4. effective reading lesson

1- opening
2- into new material
3- guided practice
4- independent practice
5- closing

1. Pre-reading
 Pre-reading activities introduce your learners to a text. Elicit or provide
appropriate background knowledge and allow them to identify what kind of
text it is.
 Your intention is to arouse their interest and help them approach the text in a
more meaningful and purposeful manner, as the discussion compels them to
think about the situation or points raised in a text.
 The pre-reading phase helps them define selection criteria for the central
theme of a story or the primary argument of a text.
 Pre-reading activities can include: discussing text type; brainstorming;
reviewing familiar lexis; considering titles or illustrations, and some skimming
and scanning for main points.
2. During reading
 Giving short activities during reading can help your learners to develop
reading strategies and will help them break down difficult chunks of text.
Assisting learners to employ strategies while reading can be challenging, e.g.
guessing word meanings by using context clues, because individual learners
control and need different strategies.
 Nevertheless, you can pinpoint valuable strategies, explain which strategies
individuals most need to practise, and offer concrete exercises in the form of
guided-reading activity sheets.
3. Post-reading
 Post-reading exercises first check learners’ comprehension and then lead
learners to a more in-depth analysis of the text, when warranted (i.e.
depending on their competency).
 Different strategies will differ with varying types of text. For example,
scanning is an excellent strategy to use with newspaper ads. Predicting and
following text cohesion are very effective strategies to use with short stories.
 By discussing in groups what they have understood, learners focus on
information they did not comprehend at all or did not comprehend correctly.
Discussions of this nature can lead the learners to analyse the text.
 Gradually, class discussions proceed from simply determining facts to
exploring deeper aspects and meaning of the text.

Follow-up exercises

6.4.5 effective reading strategies

 Guessing word meanings by using context clues
 Word formation clues
 Considering grammar and sentence structure by noting the grammatical functions
of unknown words
 Analysing reference words
 Predicting text content
 Reading for specific pieces of information • Learning to use the dictionary
effectively.

Here are some practical ideas:

 Matching/contrasting – e.g. matching/contrasting the characteristics of two

individuals in the story
 Timelines – these lines will help them to understand the way a text is structured with
tense changes, linking words and flashbacks
 Character study – depending on the content, you could make this much more
interesting by getting the learners to complete, say, a doctor’s report or a police
report on the character
 Learners reacting to texts by writing summaries
 Writing new endings
 Re-enacting the text
 Dramatising interviews based on the text
 Carefully listening for keywords or phrases from the text which are in authentic
video or on audio recordings
 Creating role-play situations of cultural experiences based on the text
 True/false questions, factual questions and ‘why’ questions as a basis for discussing
the text (not testing)
 Gap filling – the gaps might all be words from the passage; alternatively, they might
be linking words that hold the sentences together; they could also be grammatical
items
 Distinguishing fact from opinion
 Drawing conclusions
 Relating what they have read to their experiences or other texts
 Noting contradictions and inconsistencies, perhaps in what characters say and do

2. Some reading activities

Choose passages, topics and exercises that are participative, interesting, and good fun.
These can be used both by younger and older learners. You can adapt them a bit, e.g.
perhaps only using separate words with younger learners but using sentences with older
learners.
Here are some suggestions:
Distraction
To liven up your reading materials, bring a learner from each group to the front of the class
and have them all try to finish reading the extract simultaneously while you are trying to
distract them with silly comments, sound effects, funny faces, or any other way, without
touching the learners.
Award points for the first person to finish reading or the one who kept a straight face for the
longest.
DVD control buttons
Draw a DVD player control panel on the board, i.e. a box with a series of buttons; play, pause,
slow motion and fast – but not rewind. Use the symbols that you would see on a DVD player.
Get the class to read out the extract or story together.
When you hit a ‘button’, they must adapt their reading style accordingly, i.e. start, stop, slow
down, speed up, etc. Develop the game further by adding buttons with happy and sad faces,
musical notes (indicating that they sing instead of read). Be creative. The possibilities are
endless.
One learner one word
Before you start reading as a class, put your learners into teams. Go around the room,
getting the learners to read the story or extract – one person, one word. When a learner says
the wrong word or delays for more than 3 seconds, give the other team a point.
Encourage them to be alert and to keep a fast pace going.
Read to me circle
Get the learners to stand in a circle with their reading books. Designate pairs within the
circle and instruct them to read to each other simultaneously. When you shout Switch!, they
turn to the person on their other side and start reading to them instead.
Walk and read
Tell your learners to stand up and hold the reading book close to their faces. Have them read
the book while walking around in a specific direction or any random fashion. Tell them to hop
and skip etc. to mix it up.
Upside down reading
Put learners into pairs. Have them hold their book upside down and race to read through the
extract. After each round, tell them to switch partners and do it again.
Banned words
Before you start, say that words with a particular grammatical value are banned, e.g. on,
over, under, before. It could be anything: words that begin with a specific letter or a past
participle verb. Read the text, and when a banned word emerges, learners must replace it
with a sound or a different word.
Reading bingo
Tell learners to choose 10 random words from a reading extract and write them down. Read
out random sentences from the text. When learners hear their words, they cross them out.
The first learner to cross out their 10 words is the winner and becomes the reader.
Note that many activities already discussed for speaking, writing, and listening can also be
used for intensive reading, e.g. identifying mistakes, reordering sentences, etc.

 seeking advice from those who have run a marathon before

 reading a good running book, written by a successful marathon runner
  researching and buying the right equipment, again with the help of a regular
marathon runner
 deciding on a realistic timeframe for completing your training
 drawing up a training and body strengthening plan and so on.

Here is your objective for the first lesson: To introduce my learners to the comparative
form of 2 adjectives (bigger, smaller) and to ensure by the end of this lesson that they will
be able to utilise these forms in speech and writing.
Notice that your first objective doesn’t mention superlatives. Your learners need to grasp
the comparative form before they move on to the superlative form. So, you’ll set other
objectives on other later days, taking you step by step to achieving your goal.
SMART Objectives
Your objectives need to be tight.
An effective way to test whether your lesson objective is tight enough is to use the
mnemonic SMART.
This is an aide-mémoire for:

 Specific: Is it clear what I aim to do?

 Measurable: Is it measurable?
 Achievable: Is it achievable?
 Realistic: Is it realistic?
 Time-based: Is it time-based?

Objectives may focus on a range of learning needs. They could focus on, for example:

 A function (e.g. refusing a request)

 A grammatical structure (e.g. the comparative)
 A particular topic or theme (e.g. ordering a meal)
 Developing a language skill (listening, speaking, writing, reading, pronunciation)
 Listening to a story for pleasure
 Identifying different English accents or dialects
 Encouraging a positive attitude to learning the foreign language

Note that you could have more than one objective in a lesson, but these are likely to
be secondary objectives – perhaps a personal objective for yourself: By the end of this
lesson I will also be able to reduce my TTT (Teacher Talking Time) by using a range of
gestures.

Remember! Some lessons may be introductory, some may continue work from a previous
lesson, some may build on and develop work from an earlier lesson, some may practise skills
learnt in previous lessons, some may be designed to enrich and extend points made and
concepts studied in previous lessons, some may complete a unit of work and some may be
used for diagnostic assessment. So, your objectives will differ from day to day and week to
week.
It is a blueprint, a roadmap for success. Put simply, it is a set of notes that help you to
think through what you are going to teach and how you are going to teach it. It also guides
you during and

Plan carefully
To become a competent and effective teacher, you must commit to planning all your
lessons carefully. Plan, plan, and plan again. If you don’t, it won’t work out well for you or
your learners.
2. Don’t wing it
Some teachers go into a classroom without a lesson plan, thinking they will be able to ‘wing
it’. Oh really! As the adage goes, however, If you fail to plan, you’ll plan to fail. Never get
too big for your boots – treat your learners with respect and fairness.
Spending more time planning a coherent and cohesive lesson before the lesson will make it
easier for you in the classroom (perhaps over several lessons) as you will not be expending
any extra effort trying to figure out what to do next. This will allow you to attend to your
learners in-depth.
Also, the more you teach using effective lesson plans, the less time you will have to spend
intensively planning in the future.
3. Keep your lesson plan tight
Don’t write pages and pages of detail that will be difficult to refer to in the classroom.
Remember! Don’t describe every step or procedure in intricate detail or your eyes
will be focussing on the plan and not your learners.
4. Keep it clear and simple
Try to make your lesson plan clear and straightforward so you can easily refer to it. The
various steps must be numbered clearly.
Later in this Module, we will introduce you to our full 5 Step Lesson Plan, where all the steps
are numbered. Don’t sub-divide the steps into several further steps because this is likely to
be confusing for you.
A lesson plan should be clear and easy to read during the lesson. Assorted colours, boxes,
and underlining are useful. Use abbreviated notes or bullet points.
Remember this! Always imagine that if you are ill, you may have to give your lesson plan to
a colleague to teach, so make it clear and straightforward so that your colleague can teach
from your plan if necessary.
5. Don’t depend on your memory
Incorporate examples of language that you are introducing or practising within the
appropriate step. This will help to remind you as you teach because it is easy to get a little
bit confused.
6. Add variety
Your learners will likely have different strengths and different ways of learning. Some will
learn better by speaking, while others will learn faster by reading or looking at pictures.
Some of them may learn best by speaking and writing.
By providing your learners with a variety of activities, you will maximise their
opportunities for learning.
Don’t attempt too much
And remember this: You must not attempt too much in one lesson. If you do, you will lose
your learners. Keep it simple. Focus on the key points/steps in a logical and sequenced
structure; leave subsidiary points for another day. Don’t add in any new points/steps you
haven’t planned.
8. It usually turns out fine
If you haven’t had any teaching experience, lesson planning may seem a bit challenging.
After all, it’s hard to know what to expect, particularly concerning everything that could
potentially go wrong.

1. The needs of the learners: Of course, it’s not always apparent what those needs
are. But very quickly, through involving them in all the skills areas, you will start to
draw up a needs picture based on your needs analysis.
2. The syllabus: In some schools, you may find a syllabus which can help you to
decide what to do. However, there may not be one. Therefore, you will have to
depend on a coursebook or advice from colleagues.
3. The coursebook: This will probably be the most practical guide. Coursebooks rarely
follow the same order in presenting new structures, but at least some thought has
been given to the whole process and, especially where you are starting in the EFL
field, you’ll probably feel more confident if you follow its lead.

You can never omit the lesson steps because this is the core of your plan; even if the
time is running out too quickly, you need to complete each step in the learning
process. You may have to leave a bit until the next lesson.

What you need to aim for is a lesson plan with logical and sequenced steps and a clear
outcome at the end.

Remember this again: A lesson plan is a blueprint, a road map that guides you through
our lesson.

1. At its most basic level, it’s a set of notes that help you to think through what you are
going to teach and how you are going to teach it.
2. A lesson plan should be clear and easy to read during the lesson. Assorted colours,
boxes, and underlining are useful. Use notes, bullet points, abbreviations to keep it
tight.
3. Don’t describe every step or procedure in great detail.
4. In general, though, you won’t go wrong at any time if your plan is coherent and
cohesive, learner-centred, contains sufficient variety, and has a degree of flexibility.
5.

PRE- OBJECTIVE. What will CONNECTION

PLANNIN your learners be able TO

G to do by the end of ACHIEVEMENT

GOAL.How
 does the

objective

connect to
the lesson(s)?
your

achievement

goal?

ASSESSMENT. How

will you prove that

your learners have

PRE- progressed toward

PLANNIN the objective? How

G and when will you

assess mastery or

progress towards

mastery?

LESSON OPENING. (__ MATERIALS.

CYCLE min.)How will you

engage your learners

and capture their

interest?How will you

tell them what is

about to happen?How

will you tell them how

 it will happen?How will

you tell them about its

importance?How will

you tell them about

connections to

previous lessons?

LESSON INTRODUCTION OF

CYCLE NEW MATERIAL. (__

min.) What key points

will you emphasise

and repeat? How will

you ensure that your

learners actively

absorb the

information?How will

you vary your

teaching approach to

make information

accessible to all

learners?Which

potential

misunderstandings

will you

anticipate? Why will

 your learners be

engaged/interested?

GUIDED PRACTICE.

(__ min.)How will you

clearly state and

model what’s

expected?How will

you make certain that

all learners have

several opportunities
LESSON
to practise?How will
CYCLE
you scaffold exercises

from easy to more

difficult?How will you

monitor and correct

learner performance?

Why will your learners

be

engaged/interested?

LESSON INDEPENDENT

CYCLE PRACTICE. (__

 min.)How will you

clearly state and

model what’s

expected?How will

learners attempt to

demonstrate

independent mastery

of the objective?How

will you provide

opportunities for

extension (more

practice)?Why will

your learners be

engaged/interested?

LESSON CLOSING. (__

CYCLE min.)How will learners

summarise what they

have learned? How

will learners be asked

to describe the

significance of what

they have learned?

How will you ensure all

learners have had

 opportunities to

demonstrate mastery

of (or progress

toward) the objective?

Why will your learners

be

engaged/interested?

ACHIEVEMENT GOAL SUMMARY

It’s best to start with this. This is your long-term instructional achievement goal. This
achievement goal may perhaps take a day, some days, weeks or a whole term or school year.
You will achieve this by completing a range of objectives, smaller steps in, perhaps, several
lessons which will achieve the big goal. Write down your achievement goal, as explained
earlier.
OBJECTIVE SUMMARY
Do this next. Here you state clearly and succinctly what you hope to help your learners
achieve in the lesson.
Note that a learning item may take more than one lesson. That is, you cannot possibly hope
that your learners will master the comparison of all common adjectives (e.g. big, beautiful,
etc.) in one single lesson. It’s just not possible.
So, think: What exactly do I want my learners to be able to do by the end of this lesson (or
several lessons)? Try to visualise what it will look like when your objective is achieved. This
is your vision of your learners’ mastery. Write down your objective (or objectives).
ASSESSMENT SUMMARY
Then do this. Once you’ve got a grasp and vision of what you want your learners to be able
to do, you need to consider how and when you will measure their progress in line with the
lesson objective.
It’s wise to think about this upfront in your planning so that at every stage you can consider
if what you are doing will meet your assessment objective.
Note that there need not be, say, a written assessment in every lesson. Your objective for a
particular lesson may be on pronunciation and intonation when reading, so a written
exercise may not be appropriate at that time.
However, there’s more to a good opening. It needs to engage your learners and incite
their interest.

Always try, as best as you can, to make the warmer related to what they have already
been learning; that is, not just using an unrelated warmer just for fun.
Here are some examples of warmers:
First session warmers: the first time you meet the class
The purpose of these would be fun and engagement.

1. You could choose a multitude of things but select a topic that will likely apply to
everyone. For example, ‘Your favourite sport’ may not apply to everyone.
 Their ‘favourite food’ would do fine.
 So would their ‘dream trip’ if they had the chance and money to go anywhere
in the world.
 Or write up any three words that make sense. In this warmer, you can give
them models (e.g. I like coffee, or Can they go? etc.) to get them started.
Encourage them to write another one or two.
2. They’ll know what a paperclip is. If not, demonstrate its primary use. Then
demonstrate some silly or ingenious suggestions for using a paperclip, e.g.
 unclogging the teat/nipple on a baby’s bottle
 a page marker
 snowshoes for mice

And remember this: Do not attempt too much at the one sitting. If you do, you will lose
them. Keep it simple. Focus on the key points/steps in a logical and sequenced
structure; leave subsidiary points for another day. Don’t add in any new points/steps
you haven’t planned.

Finally, ensure you do not go on too long so that there is insufficient time for the
learners to practise in Step 3. Ensure you don’t fall into this trap.

Remember: If some learners find an initial part easy, and they have completed it
correctly, you can always get them to help their partner catch up

This is the step where learners refine the language form, skill, or concept on their
own, without your assistance. It’s generally free, uncontrolled, and independent
practice, but you will still be there to give help, guidance and support where needed.

Ensure the activity (or activities) demonstrates mastery of the objective (or
progress towards it),
i.e. it must focus on demonstrating achievement of the objective. If the objective
states they will be able to do something both in speaking and writing, then your
activities should ensure that both abilities are demonstrated.

 Keeping up their engagement by asking the learners what they have learned. Ask
them: What have we learned in this lesson?
 Keeping up their interest by asking the learners to tell you about the significance of
what they have learned. Ask them: What is the significance/importance of what we
have learned? How will this benefit you?
 Issuing homework, as necessary.
 Keeping up their participation to the end by allowing them to demonstrate their
mastery, if this hasn’t been done fully with some learners in the independent
practice stage. It’s likely to have been done in the independent practice stage, but
you could also fire out some rapid questions, giving lots of praise for correct
responses which demonstrate how well they have done.
 Praising them for their attention and effor
  Note that this is the lesson plan format you should use for planning all your lessons
for all skills areas and grammar and lexis lessons.
 We have completed the lesson plan as if it is you who is completing it.
 You will find your own way of abbreviating the information in a lesson plan.
 On this occasion, we have written it out in full to ensure all is clear for you. In
practice, you would shorten the text considerably.
 As long as you understand your abbreviations/symbols, then that’s fine. Remember,
though: another teacher should be able to pick up your lesson plan and run with it.
 We have put in suggested timings. Whatever timings you allot to the 5 steps of your
lesson plans, always ensure that the Guided Practice and the Independent
Practice stages are assigned the highest proportion of lesson time.
 We have based our timings on a 60-minute lesson. If it were only 45 minutes, we
would adjust all the timings pro-rata.
 Timings for each step
 Materials reminders (what materials you will be using and when)
 Colours, making it easier to follow
 An additional worksheet in the Guided Practice Step (scaffolded)
 An additional activity in the Independent Practice Step
 An extension reminder in the Independent Practice Step
 Homework activity

You are now fully aware that it is during the Guided Practice and Independent Practice
Steps that the learners are involved in activities and exercises to embed the learning.

 Dictation – for listening or writing tasks

 Information gap – a worksheet activity where learners work out missing and different
information that each has on their worksheet.
 Extending sentences – part sentence given then learners complete
 Drills – whole class or individual oral repetition of pronunciation or structures
 Forming questions for answers already given
 True/false questions
 Matching sentence parts
 Multiple-choice questions
 Spelling exercises
 Reconstructing jumbled lists/notes
 Labelling maps/diagrams
 Making sentences from words given in any order
 Putting jumbled sentences in order
 Matching parts of text with pictures
 Writing headings for parts of texts
 Drawing a picture
 Copying text
 Question-answer – you know the answers learners should give
 Ordering pictures
 Ordering events in a logical order
 Inferring attitudes/mood
 Completing charts
 Following instructions
 Locating and correcting errors
 Locating differences between texts
 Identifying topics or words mentioned (e.g., checking off items)
 Story chain (when teacher-generated)
 Reading aloud
  1. Evaluate Whether Your Lesson is
Robust or Not
 2. Check if Everything is in Order
 3. Reflect
However, the disadvantage of responding immediately may be that you cannot cover
everything that you have planned for your lesson.

It doesn’t matter when you do your planning but when you first start teaching you should be
prepared to spend, say, an average of about an hour to one and a half hours for the delivery
of a one-hour lesson.

When you come out of the classroom, you must always try to find time to evaluate the
completed lesson. Make this a habit, too. Reflection is also a habit

Remember! It doesn’t always have to be you evaluating yourself. With adult classes, you
can ask some of the learners how they felt the lesson went. You can ask your Head of
Department or Director of Studies or another team member if they have time to sit in on
parts of your lesson and give you feedback. Make use of these experienced people!

Lesson Evaluation Form

(1) Lesson: Introduction to

Comparatives: Class 7b – 16

December

N
Skills and Traits Yes Comments
o

Objective(s) achieved

satisfactorily? Learners learned

what they were supposed to

learn?

Active learners at all times?

Attention: Learners attentive at all

times? Equal attention given to

learners?

Content Knowledge: Any issues

or questions that proved a little bit

difficult for them or me?

Control: Was the lesson too

controlled by me? Did I allow

them enough free and

uncontrolled activity?

Communicative Language: Did

the learners use English

communicatively throughout?

Correction and Feedback:

Immediate feedback given to

learners on questions and errors?

Knew what to correct and what to

ignore?
Cultural Awareness: Displayed at

all times?

Engagement: Engaged learners

throughout? Were learners

engaged with the L2 throughout

the lesson?

Enjoyment: Did learners enjoy

the lesson?

Flexibility: Adapted to new

situations that arose?

Lesson Evaluation Form (2)

N
Skills and Traits Yes Comments
o

Homework: No homework

assigned, or assigned at the last

minute?

Instructional Examples:

Adequate, meaningful, clearly

illustrated and varied?

Language Skills: Were the four

language skills practised during

the lesson?

Materials and Aids: Relevant,

appropriate, welldesigned? The

right amount or not?

Organisation: Was the class

organisation appropriate at

different points in the lesson?

(Groups, pairs, etc.)

Planning: Well-planned

structure? 5 Step Plan: Adhered

to at all times?

Teacher Talking Time:

Minimised?

Techniques: Variety, e.g. print

materials, drills, roleplays, small

group/individual work?
 Timing: Started and ended on

time? Adequate time for each

stage?

Topic: Stuck to topic?

Visuals (including board): Clear

and appropriate?

Voice, Body Language, Cues,

Gestures: Effective?

PARALINGUISTIC

Paralinguistics is the fancy term for aspects of spoken communication that do not
involve words. This term encompasses such elements as body language, gestures, mime,
facial expressions, and tone and pitch of the voice.

Why pay attention to your body language? Because it’s what your students respond to.

Be at the door when your learners arrive: Students will almost always calm down when you
are standing there. This is your ‘territory’, and you’re allowing them to enter.
Project your voice: Address your class with a clear and upbeat voice — that’s how you
command your students’ undivided attention. Tone and pitch are important.
Try and avoid standing behind your table for lengthy periods: When you stand behind your
table/desk, you unwittingly establish a physical barrier between yourself and the students.
Get into the midst of them; be a part of the group.
Always use the whole classroom: Walking around your classroom from time-to-time
demonstrates your ownership of the space, establishing your authority inside it. Doing this
keeps students on their toes.
Get close to misbehaving students: There’s no need to shout. Just stand next to their seat.
This communicates that you’re keeping an eye on them and they’ll usually stop whatever
they’re doing.
Use facial expressions: Be expressive with your face. Wear an open, enthusiastic look, and
they’ll take your cue. Smile and they instinctively know that a light-hearted discussion is
afoot.
Work on your gaze – practise it to make sure it’s effective but not at all threatening. Your
students will pay attention to the cues provided by your facial expressions.
Stoop to their level: When you want to address specific students one by one, whether you’re
chastising a student for misbehaviour or helping him out with a language item, it helps to
physically get down to his level, rather than merely standing in front of him. Physically
adjusting to meet him at eye level makes the interaction feel more genuine and level-
headed.
But remember this: Follow the conventional rules of proxemics (distance) and
kinesthetics (touching) that apply to the culture(s) of your students.
Stand up straight: Always strive for an erect posture when you’re speaking from the front of
the class. A sagging posture may indicate a lack of confidence, perhaps making your
students doubt your credibility. It may also encourage misbehavers to start disruptions in
the classroom because they feel your authority can be challenged.
Talk slower: Slow down your talking. This demonstrates confidence. Speaking too fast may
indicate that you’re rushing through what you’re saying because you’re unsure of what
you’re talking about.
Keep your hands in open view: Putting your hands in your pockets may indicate that you’re
either nervous or hiding something. It doesn’t inspire confidence in your students, perhaps
seeing you as defensive.
Eye contact: Make frequent eye contact with all students in the class. All your learners want
to be noticed. Do not bury yourself in your notes and lesson plans.
Dress: Dress appropriately, considering the expectations of your students and the culture in
which you are teaching.
Gestures and mime encourage the learners to speak. They also reduce your Teacher Talking
Time.

Instructions: Gestures for giving instructions might include, for example, a finger moved
from left to right to show that something is wrong with the sentence and that the student
should try to correct it. This may be accompanied by a slight screwing up of the eyes.
Listen: The gesture for Listen! might involve cupping a hand around one ear.
Quieten down: Quietening the class down could be achieved by moving both hands up and
down with the palms facing downwards, again with the eyebrows raised.
Correction: Gestures can be equally useful when giving immediate corrections to learners’
speaking errors. A letter T made with both hands can indicate the wrong tense has been
used or that the article the is missing.
Beckoning with your index finger. This means come here in the UK but not in the Middle or
the Far East, Portugal, Spain, Latin America, Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. It is more
acceptable to beckon with the palm down, with fingers or your whole hand waving.
Pointing at something or someone in the room, using your index finger. It is impolite to point
with the index finger in the Middle and the Far East. Using an open hand or your thumb is
more acceptable.
Making a V sign. This means Victory in most of Europe when you make this sign with your
palm facing away from you. If you face your palm in, the same gesture means get lost or
worse.
Forming a circle with fingers to indicate OK. Although this gesture may mean OK in the
U.S.A. and some other countries around the world, there are some notable exceptions. In
Brazil and Germany, this gesture is obscene. In Japan, this means money. In France, it has
the additional meaning of zero or worthless.
Patting a student on the head. This can be very upsetting for some Asian students. In the
Buddhist religion, the head is deemed sacred. So, some children from cultures influenced by
Buddhism may feel uncomfortable if their head is touched.
Passing an item to someone with one hand. In some Far East countries, this is very rude.
Even a small object such as a pencil or business card must be passed with two hands. In
many Middle and
Far Eastern countries, it is rude to pass something with your left hand, which is considered
unclean.
Nodding your head up and down to say Yes. In Bulgaria, for example, nodding your head up
and down means No.
 -

You will quickly realise that the board is the most useful of all teaching aid

Here’s what to do:

1. Arrange your board carefully. You could divide the board into two with a line down
the centre. On one side, you could write essential words or phrases that you want
the students to see throughout the lesson.

On the other side, you could write individual words as they arise in the lesson and
which you might erase after giving an explanation.

Alternatively, you might list essential vocabulary items on the left and lexical items
that might present issues for students on the right.
2. Don’t use joined-up writing in the beginner/elementary classes. You may start to do
this in the last years of primary school but make sure your writing is clear and neat.
3. Do not hide the board. You should stand sideways, half facing the board and half
facing the class, with arm extended. In this way, students can see what you are
writing, and you can see the students. This will make you aware of what they are
doing while you are writing.
4. Remember! Writing on the board always takes longer than you think it will. If you are
busy writing for a long time, your students are more than likely sitting there with
nothing to do.
5. Talk as you write. You should say aloud what you are writing, phrase by phrase. To
involve the class even more, you could ask students what to write. For example, you
could prompt your students by asking: What’s the next word? How do I spell that?

In all cases, you’ll want to keep students involved, so they don’t grow bored or
restless or start chatting about something else.
6. Don’t write up too much information. Consider whether some items could be
presented orally or written on the board and then erased soon afterwards.
 7. Where resources permit, use colours to emphasise, for example, the differences in a
structure, such as the difference between the simple past and past perfect.

Draw arrows or write numbers to show a change in word order or form.

8. An effective way of showing different forms of a structure together is to draw a table
(e.g. a substitution table). To keep the attention of the class, you could have
students suggest what to write in each column (e.g. by writing I’m… and then getting
students to give the other forms).

If the table is too long to write quickly, it would be better to write it on the board
before the lesson and cover it with paper until it is needed.
9. Simple drawings can help to increase the interest in a lesson and are often an
effective way of showing meaning and conveying situations to the class. A lot of
information can be conveyed using simple line drawings and stick figures, which are
easy to draw.

Just ensure they grasp what your image represents.

10. The board is your most crucial classroom tool. You can use it to present new words,
show spelling, write prompts for practice, and organise different sets of information
covered in the lesson. It can also serve as a written record of what was taught in
class.
11. The board is almost always available, there are no technical issues that can plague
other teaching aids, and it can be used for various purposes without special
preparation.
12. Most importantly, effective use of the board can make both the introduction and
practice of learning items more engaging and clearer for learners.

 -

Your Teacher Talking Time (TTT) should be reduced as much as possible. The reduction of
TTT is accomplished through the execution of student-centred activities.

There are, though, four other critical times when teacher talking time is essential and
necessary:

1. when eliciting information from students

2. when concept checking to ensure that students have understood the learning
material
3. when giving instructions as to what students are required to do in a learning activity
4. when asking questions

Eliciting is a technique which enables you to get learners to provide information, rather than
always giving them the information.

Eliciting helps to create a stimulating learner-centred classroom and makes learning

memorable by linking new and old information.
So, instead of slowly explaining the meaning and use of the language item, you may be able
to elicit this information from the learners themselves. The technique of elicitation involves
drawing out of the learners those pieces of concealed knowledge.

 Set up a situation, topic or idea by using pictures, board drawings, mime or a brief
explanation.
 Encourage the learners to provide the sought-after vocabulary, tense, opinions,
information, etc., showing your rejection or acceptance through gestures, facial
expressions or mime.
  Write up the elicited information on to the board as necessary, and this can then be
used later, e.g. pronunciation work, concept questions, or selecting an idea/topic for
debate.

Eliciting what’s coming next

When you are teaching words and phrases to the class before a reading or listening exercise,
you can elicit from the learners what they feel the subject of the reading passage or
conversation is likely to be.
This sets up a sense of expectation in the learners, giving them stronger motivation for
reading or listening.
Eliciting via brainstorming
One common technique used in the classroom is brainstorming. You write up the name of a
topic or situation on the board and elicit suggestions associated with it.
Advantages of elicitation

 It keeps the students alert.

 The learners are actively involved, and this has a motivating effect.
 It gives you a chance to diagnose where the weaknesses of the learners lie and then
to take corrective action immediately.
 It saves you giving unwieldy explanations. This enables you to relax and enjoy the
lesson more.
 The amount of TTT is reduced to a minimum while offering more opportunities for
the learners to speak.
 It helps you find out what they already know.
 It helps reduce some students’ fear of guessing – the more you do this, the more the
barriers will be eliminated.
 The lesson is likely to be more memorable.
 It increases the confidence of the students, via participation and more speaking.

Remember these key points:

1. Don’t overdo elicitation in a lesson; ensure there is ample time left for practicing in
pairs, etc.
2. If they don’t know a word or idea, you’ll need to tell them – don’t go on and on trying
to get something which is not there.
3. It should be used regularly, not only at the beginning of a lesson but whenever it is
necessary and appropriate.
4. Provide sufficient context or information. Eliciting is designed to find out what
the learners know rather than to lead them to a conclusion which only you
know.
5. It’s not always you eliciting information from them. Learners can try out their
eliciting skills with others in their groups. Brainstorming is a classic example of this.
6. Remember: Lower-language level learners will require more guided questioning.
Openended questions won’t work as the learners are unlikely to have the language to
answer them.
7. Here’s what to do:
8. As mentioned before, don’t say: Do you understand? You will more than often get
a Yes response, and you won’t have any real insight into the students’
understanding. If you ever hear yourself saying this, commit to never saying it
again.
9. Preparation of the question is essential. Use questions that involve thinking about
meaning.
10. Like elicitation, concept checking can be accomplished through a variety of verbal
and non-verbal techniques, e.g. gestures, miming, realia, timelines.

11. 1. The Questions Shouldn’t Use The

Target Language.
12. For example, to check understanding of the past progressive (past continuous) used
to interrupt another action in the past:
13. Example of the target language: I was eating dinner when the phone rang.
14. You ask: Was I eating dinner before the phone rang?
15. The question tries to address one of the aspects of the meaning (the action started
before the phone rang), but it uses the very same language (I was eating; Was I
eating) about which we are trying to check the understanding. This is a weak
concept checking question.
16. So, you need to formulate your questions in a better way:
17. Target language: I was eating dinner when the phone rang.
18. You ask effective concept questions:
19. Did I start eating my dinner before the phone rang? (Response: yes)
20. Did I stop eating my dinner when the phone rang? (Response: maybe)
21. Note that verb forms like this lend themselves well to having their understanding
checked with timeline
22. 2. Concept Questions Should Check
Understanding Of The Language Item, Not
The Situation
23. Let’s go back to mustn’t.
24. You say: You mustn’t walk on the grass.
25. You ask this concept question: Why mustn’t I walk on the grass?
26. This is a poor concept question. First, you are using the target language in your
question (mustn’t), as explained above.
27. Secondly, your question is checking understanding of the situation – the reasons
why it is forbidden to walk on the grass – which is not the point of the exercise. It is
not checking the meaning of mustn’t. Instead, you need to ask effective concept
questions:
28. Is it ok if I walk on the grass? (Response: No) Good!
29. Can I decide if I want to or not? (Response: No) That’s correct!
30. Plan your instructions: Think about the words you will use, the illustrations you
will provide, and so on, to ensure that your instructions facilitate an effective
exercise or activity. Written instructions can be included in your lesson plan.
31. Get their attention: If your students miss even small amounts of what you are
explaining, they may find themselves having problems later. For a pair or group work
task, give the instructions before you divide the class into pairs or groups. Don’t give
out materials until you have finished your instructions.

Once students are in pairs or groups, the learners’ attention will be naturally directed
at each other rather than at you. If students are looking down at their activity or task
material, they will look at the materials and will not listen actively and fully to you.
32. Present the information more than once: Students’ attention can wander
occasionally, so it is vital to give the students more than one chance to understand
what they must do. A good tip is to present the information in different modes; for
example, say it and also write it on the board.
 33. Keep your instructions brief: Most of your learners will have limited attention
spans. Make your explanation as brief and clear as you can. Thus, you’ll grasp the
need for planning and thinking through your instructions in advance.
34. Give several examples, relating your examples to their lives and their experiences.
35. Model the activity: Modelling is a mock run-through of the gist of the activity. You
can ask for a volunteer to demonstrate the run-through before the whole class gets
started or you can model what they need to do.
36. Check their understanding: When you have finished explaining, check that they
have understood. Don’t ask: Do you understand? Learners will sometimes say they
do understand even if they do not, often because they don’t want to lose face.

Remember: some may have completely misunderstood. Get them to paraphrase in

their own words or provide further examples of their own.
37. Teacher language: When giving instructions, you should avoid using advanced
vocabulary, idioms or phrasal verbs, complex verb tenses such as the future perfect,
and long sentences. The clearer and more concise your instructions, the more
effective they will be.

Questioning is an excellent example of a habit.

 You can ask each student one-by-one randomly around the class.
 You could let any student call out the answer.
 You choose the student to answer (perhaps after asking for a show of hands).
 You could get the class to answer in unison.
 You could get one student to present a question to another student.

--
Feedback is information that you give to the learner about her performance of a learning
task, usually to improve her performance.

The primary purposes of feedback are:

 to motivate learners when they are doing well

 to help them understand what their problems are and how they can improve when
they are not doing so well

Some examples of feedback in language teaching might be:

 Yes, right! A very good answer!

 An arched eyebrow in response to a mistake
 Comments you write in the margin of an essay
 Do you want to try again? to a student who may not have provided a correct or full
answer to an exercise

 Feedback is a way for students to learn more about themselves and the effect their
behaviour has on others.
 Constructive feedback increases self-awareness, offers guidance and encourages
development, so it is vital to learn how to give feedback constructively. Constructive
 feedback is not only giving positive feedback (praise). Negative feedback given
constructively and skilfully can be very useful.
 Destructive feedback, which is negative feedback given in an unskilled way,
generally leaves the recipient feeling sad or depressed. From the unskilled feedback,
she hasn’t learned anything she can build on.

 Always Start With The Positive

 2. Be Specific
 3. Refer To Behaviour That Can Be
Changed
 4. Seek/Offer Alternatives
 5. Be Descriptive Rather Than
Evaluative
 6. Own The Feedback
 7. Leave The Recipient With A Choice
 -
 We can give feedback to individual learners or groups of learners.
 Feedback can be oral or written.
 Feedback can be linked to formal or informal assessment and can be given to
learners in the classroom or during individual meetings.
 You can also write regular feedback in the form of comments, grades or marks on a
learner’s record sheet. You can use this feedback when you make your end-of-
course assessment.
 Peer feedback is when learners give feedback to one another.
 Peer feedback is useful for all learners. The learners reflect on their classmates’ work
and provide suggestions on how they can improve. You should construct a peer
feedback observation sheet to guide the learners.
 Peer feedback can have a very positive effect on the classroom dynamics and
atmosphere and can help to train learners to become autonomous.
 Be careful with very young learners, though. They will not be able to give detailed
peer feedback.
 Learners can also give you feedback about the lessons, activities and materials. They
can tell you when they like what they are doing and when they are not so interested
in the materials or activities, or when they are having problems with the language.
They can also make suggestions for materials and activities that could be used. Be
open to this.

Correction should include information not only on which item is incorrect but also on why
the item is incorrect.

1. What is a mistake? What is an error?

Some teachers often differentiate between the terms error and mistake. Let’s explore this.
A mistake is often considered to be a verbal or written slip committed by a non-native or
native speaker who, once the slip is pointed out, would be able to self-correct.
An error, on the other hand, is made by a non-native speaker who does not recognise the
error and is, therefore, unable to correct it at that time.
First, decide what the issue is.
Then you need to decide whether it’s a mistake (just a slip of the tongue) or a more serious
error. This will determine whether you can ignore it or whether you need to put it right
immediately or at a slightly later time.
Finally, you need to decide, if it is an error, whether it’s a grammatical, lexical (vocabulary,
phrases, chunk of language) or phonological (pronunciation, stress, etc.) error. Sometimes it
depends on the situation. Examples

1. He feels himself unhappy today. (Lexical – unnecessary use of reflexive

pronoun himself.)
2. Are you here a long time? (Grammatical – the auxiliary verb to be has been used
instead of to have so that Are you … has been used instead of Have you been …)
3. Who did see the robber? (Grammatical – there is a verb form error in the question
with did see instead of saw.)
4. We enjoy very much travelling. (Grammatical – the student has used the wrong word
order.)
5. They leave at 21 High Street. (A pronunciation problem when spoken, with the
student confusing the long vowel sound in leave and the short vowel sound in live;
lexical when written, again with the student confusing the two words.)
6. Use my pencil. (Phonological i.e. the student has mispronounced the word by placing
the stress incorrectly.)
7. The woman put off her coat. (Lexical – the student has chosen the verb put
off instead of take off.)
8. He take French lessons. (Grammatical – the student has chosen the wrong
tense take instead of is taking.)

However, correcting mistakes/errors during a fluency exercise might be disruptive and

distracting, not just for the learner being corrected, but also for the other learners. Do not
try to correct every single mistake/error in their oral and written work.

You will need to consider who will make the correction and how it will be made:

 Another student corrects the error

 The student corrects himself (perhaps after a hint/gesture from you)
 Small groups of students discuss how to correct the mistake (perhaps after a
hint/gesture from you)

Or you do it by:

 Gesture and facial expressions

 Asking a question about it
 Echoing the sentence and emphasising the word with a change in intonation to
highlight the incorrect word
 Showing a timeline on the board
 Writing the sentence on the board and getting everyone to consider it
 Finger correction – showing one hand to the class and pointing to each finger in turn
as you say out each word in the sentence or phrase
 Phonemic symbols
 Referring the student to a reference book (perhaps more for written work)
Don’t become preoccupied with errors: You will want to mark your students’ work, but it
would be a pity if your whole focus lay with the grammatical errors that the students have
made while neglecting the content of their work, or their progress over the previous weeks.
Don’t overdo the red ink: This is very discouraging.
Establish a marking scheme, and stick to it: Establish a marking system of your own,
with symbols, and ensure that the students are familiar with it, e.g. Pu = punctuation error,
Sp = spelling error, S/P = Singular/Plural error, etc. This will also save you time.
Be selective in your marking: Don’t try to correct everything. It might be tempting to mark
every error in a piece of writing, but is that the best way to help the student? Try to direct
the students’ attention to problems by specifically marking particular errors.
Keep a note of errors that keep on reoccurring: When an error keeps on reoccurring, take
an appropriate opportunity to spend time considering the problem with the whole class.
Give the students time to check through their work: Give the students time to look
through their marked work to study your marking symbols and to try to self-correct.
Encourage self-correction by the students: This will be easier with a class of ten adults
than with thirty young teenagers but, as far as possible, encourage the students to get into
the habit of correcting their writing.
Encourage them to work in pairs: After returning their work, you may sometimes wish to
allow the students to work together in pairs and help each other with their corrections.
Fossilisation is the loss of progress in the acquisition of an L2, following a period where
learning occurred, despite regular exposure to and interaction with the L2 and the learner’s
motivation to continue studying the L2. It is commonly described as ‘reaching a plateau’.

Here’s what you need to know:

Testing and assessment is a vast area of study, so we have chosen the key areas you need
to grasp. After this, you can build on it in the future with further reading and exploration. It
really is an interesting subject.
You’ll notice that we have already been using the terms testing and assessment. The best
way to look at this is:
Tests are events, snapshots, relatively brief moments in time in the extended process of
learning a language, often standardised and issued at specific moments such as the end-of-
term or the end of the course.
Assessment is a broader umbrella term, including different kinds of testing activities, and is
potentially based on more extended samples of language performance. It is likely, to have
greater validity as a measure of overall language proficiency and to be more reliable than
the briefer and inevitably more limited sampling taken by tests.
For example, assessment would include feedback from you on:

 your observations of the student (learning and behavioural)

 the student’s language performance and growth (or non-growth) in class
 regular mini-tests carried out in the classroom on how the student is progressing
1. Validity

2. Reliability (Consistency)

3. Washback
Any assessment piece must have positive washback. This means that the effect of the test
on the teaching must be beneficial. Otherwise, what’s the point of the assessment?

4. Construct Validity
Construct validity is an element within validity. It relates specifically to the construct or trait
being measured. If your test aims to assess your students’ listening skills, then it must test
listening and not speaking, reading, writing or memory skills.

5. Fairness
Fairness means using the same assessment process for all candidates

6. Sufficiency

7. Flexibility

8. Practicability

Correctness Versus Appropriateness

Remember this! In a communicative-approach classroom, there are occasions where an
answer could contain several errors, but still be appropriate in terms of a response, while
another answer could be grammatically perfect, but an inappropriate response.
As you gain experience, you will decide how best to handle situations like this. Always be
aware that in the TEFL classroom, effective communication with an appropriate
response is often more important than grammatical accuracy.

 each teacher/assessor consistently makes valid decisions

 all assessors make much the same decision on the same evidence base
 all candidates are assessed fairly

Achieving standardisation is not easy for inexperienced teacher assessors. The following
activities help to cement this skill:

1. Frequent discussion sessions on standardisation, led by the lead assessor/internal

verifier,
i.e. someone who heads up the whole area of assessment in the department and
 verifies that the assessments by teachers are consistent (e.g. the Head of
Department, the Director of Studies)
2. Regular feedback on an assessor’s assessment decisions by the lead
assessor/internal verifier
3. Regular training on standardisation skills and techniques
4. Regular sessions during assessment team meetings covering and identifying best
and poor standardisation practice

Here are the fundamental difficulties in achieving standardisation:

1. Some assessors – and lead assessors and internal verifiers – tend to believe that
standardisation is the process of ensuring that all assessors follow the same
assessment procedure and that such standardisation ensures that assessors make
reliable judgements.

Of course, it is difficult to entirely separate assessment decisions as they are part of

the assessment process. But standardising the assessment process and
operationalising the internal verification system is certainly not the same as
standardising consistency in assessment decisions.
2. Assessment teams are sometimes unsure how much disagreement/inconsistency is
tolerable. For example, with assessment decisions on the borderline
between competent and not yet competent, the teams would have to establish an
acceptable level of agreement.
3. Consistency of assessment judgements may be affected by the diversity of
evidence that students can present.

A standardisation process to follow

The easiest way to carry out a standardisation activity is to collate copies of real exam
papers and ask each assessor to make a marking decision. These can then be compared.
They should also note any queries they have, e.g. further information which is needed.
This helps the internal verifier to check that the assessors are asking the right and relevant
questions when looking at evidence and are, hopefully, arriving at the correct decisions.
The following framework should provide ideas for internal verifiers to carry out such an
exercise:

1. Select a unit of learning which many of the team assess and ask each to bring along
two examples of their completed assessments.
2. The completed assessments are passed around the team, and each assessor
completes an assessment feedback form as if he/she is assessing.
3. The feedback forms are collected and evaluated by the internal verifier and feedback
is given to individual assessors, confidentially, at a later time.
4. These exercises should be carried out frequently until standardisation is cemented
within the assessor team.

It’s only logical that there should be regular class assessment activity. It’s a given, as they
say.
Only in this way can you identify:

 learner gaps and strengths

 who needs to be taught what next
 what growth in language is really taking place
  what has been taught well and what you need to work on (are your methods
effective?)
 what language items need to be re-visited
 what evidence you can use to help you plan your future programme of work with the
class

Summative assessment for students’ performance evaluation (More

FORMAL assessment)
Summative assessment is used to evaluate certain learning needs and usually consists of a
form of quiz, exam, end-of-unit test, end of term test, etc. It is an evaluation conducted by
you at the end of specific periods to judge the level of students’ performance and
knowledge.
Such a form of classroom assessment is used to define a student’s final mark, as well as
helping educators to make corrections and adjustments in the current curriculum, where
needed, for the learning needs to be met in future.
However, summative assessment cannot evaluate the efficiency of learning as it is
happening because assessment is carried out only after the learning has taken place. So,
any curriculum or methodological improvements can only be implemented in the future.
Here are some typical types of summative assessment (more formal), some of which we
have mentioned before – but we’ll mention them again.
True/false: Learners are given astatement, which they mark true or false.
Multiple-choice: The question consists of a stem (the question or statement) and a number
of options (usually four), from which the test taker has to select the right one.
Gap-filling and completion: The test taker has to complete a sentence by filling a gap or
adding something (e.g. the correct form).
Matching: There are two groups of words, phrases or sentences. The task is to link each item
in the first group with another item in the second group.
Cloze: In a cloze exercise, you omit words from a passage at regular intervals. This could be
every seventh word. Usually, there are no gaps in the first two or three lines, in order to
establish a context for the students. Students fill the gaps, choosing the appropriate words
from a given list.
Transformation: A sentence is given (in written or oral form), and the test taker has to
change it according to some given instruction, e.g. switch to another tense.
Rewriting: A sentence is given; the test taker rewrites it, incorporating a given change of
expression, but preserving the basic meaning.
Example: He came to the meeting in spite of his illness.
Rewrite: Although …
Dictation: You dictate a passage or set of words. The test takers then write them down.
Questions and Answers: Simple questions, very often following a reading or listening text, or
as part of an interview. This task may require either short or long answers.
Example: What is the family relationship between Chen and Hu?
Essay: The test takers are given a topic, such as My Best Friend, and are asked to write an
essay of a specific length.
Monologue or Oral Interview: The test takers are given a topic or question and asked to
speak about it for a minute or two.
Example: Which hobby/pastime do you prefer and why?
2. Formative assessment for students’ learning evaluation (more INFORMAL
assessment)
Formative assessment is the type of assessment used to reflect and evaluate the efficiency
of learning in its process, and, consequently, it is a part of the teaching process.
You use it to discover gaps in the learning/teaching. You adjust both the teaching and
learning processes to the learners’ learning needs immediately in the process of
learning.
Such an approach enables educators to raise the learning standards in real-time in the
process of teaching. Having evaluated the current needs of each student, including those
with lower abilities, you can address them immediately.
The information provided by formative assessment is used for modifying the teaching and
learning activities in the classroom to get the best possible learning results.
Formative assessment is essential and very useful for getting feedback on students’
progress to identify and correct any possible errors. As a result, you may change the
methodology of developing speaking and listening skills, for example.
Here are some typical types of formative assessment (more informal):
Some of the activities mentioned above under summative assessment will be used plus a
selection from the following activities:

 Observing learners’ spoken or written work and answers to comprehension tasks

 Keeping notes on the learners’ performance during particular classroom tasks
 Getting learners to complete self or peer assessment sheets
 Getting feedback from students themselves on their learning
 Noting attitude and effort

Here’s what to do:

 Make the question and requirements unambiguous and in a language appropriate for
the candidates.
 Avoid giving clues in the choices/options which help to identify which response is
the correct one.
 Provide around four choices to reduce guessing. Ensure that the distractors (options
which look like they may be correct, but they aren’t) are close to the correct
response so that the candidate will consider them. That is, make the options
realistic.
 Keep the choices around the same length; ensure the correct answer is not much
longer than the others, where possible.
 Avoid giving grammatical clues. For example, the word an in the stem requires an
option that begins with a vowel; the word is in the stem requires an option written in
the singular.
 Avoid using textbook language in the correct choice only. Learners can easily spot
that this is the correct answer.
 Ensure that the questions include significant learning rather than just a simple
recalling of facts and figures.
 Embed the nature of the issue in the stem (the question) of the item, ensuring that
the stem is meaningful in itself.
  Ensure that the stem focuses on as much of the item as possible, with no
irrelevancies.
 Keep the readability levels low.
 Ensure that all the options are reasonably plausible, so that guessing of the only
possible option is avoided.
 Avoid the possibility of candidates making the correct choice through incorrect
reasoning.

There are several attractions to multiple-choice items, for example:

 They can be completed relatively quickly by a competent question writer, enabling

many questions to be asked which, in turn, enables good coverage of each skill area,
thereby increasing reliability and validity.
 There is limited writing, so candidates’ writing skills (or their lack of these) do not
impede demonstration of knowledge or skill.
 The opportunities for errors or biases in marking can be reduced.

However, they have been criticised by some educationalists:

 Multiple-choice testing may demean and reduce the complexity of knowledge,

learning and education to the trivial, atomised (fragmented) and low level.
 They have little diagnostic or formative potential.
 Scores may be inflated through informed guessing.

 -

You can use supplementary materials to:

 overcome the lack of materials when you are teaching with minimal resources
 replace unsuitable material in the classroom text, if there is one
 fill gaps in the classroom text, if there is one
 provide appropriate material for learners’ specific needs and interests
 give learners extra language or skills practice
 add variety to your teaching

1. Worksheets

 A worksheet is typically a Letter/A4 sized page (or two) of tasks.

 It is given out to individuals, pairs or groups, depending on the approach required.
 Learners give their answers/responses on the worksheet.
 You circulate during the completion.
 You typically check the answers/responses with the whole class.
 Sometimes they are disposed of; sometimes the learners can keep them; and
sometimes you’ll take them in to study progress, e.g. handwriting, or to include them
in the learners’ portfolios.

2. Workcards

 You would typically create these yourself for all kinds of tasks and situations.
 These are typically small, laminated cards, about the size of an index card. You would
laminate them so they can be used repeatedly with different learners. However, if
there’s no laminator, keep them in plastic files.
 The learners complete their activity on a separate blank sheet or in their notebooks,
not on the workcard.
 They are typically for short tasks – individual, pair or group.
  Different learners may be working with varying workcards at the same time.
 Depending on your choice you can colour them and put little pictures on them.

They are excellent for:

 Recycling activities where, for example, some individuals need more practice with
some specific item
 Giving out to more able learners who have finished ahead of the others who are still
completing the whole class activity you set
 Giving the class a break from learning after they have all been working hard. Quizzes,
small puzzles and riddles can all be entered on these cards for these relaxing
moments.

 1. Stamps
 Put different postage stamps on a card. Ask the pairs to identify what countries the
stamps are from. A word bank can be supplied. Higher performing students can be
asked to add the capital of the country, the name of the language spoken, etc.

 2. Read And Draw

 Read and draw. You could write a description of a place, a person or an unusual
animal (e.g. an armadillo) on the workcard. The students must draw a picture from
the description and compare their efforts.
 Then you can let them see a real photo/picture of the place, person or animal. This
can be good fun. Some may go right off track as they have misunderstood an
essential part of the instructions.
 Remember, though, that this is not a drawing task per se. It’s a reading and
comprehension activity.

 3. Things In Common
 Give a list of 3-4 words. The students write what the words have in common. For
example, beginners could get dog, cat, bear: animals. Older learners could be
challenged with pint, silver, width. They may take some time to work out that no
other English words rhyme with these words!

 4. Matching
 You make up two lists, one of countries and the other of capitals. The students
match the country with its capital city.

 5. Words That Sound The Same

 You present two lists of words that sound the same but have different meanings,
e.g. right, write. The students must match the words that sound alike. This can also
be done with opposite words and words that rhyme.
 8.6.2 Flashcards
 A flashcard is a laminated picture of, say, a house, garden or kitchen with the name
below it or on the back of the picture that you can hold up for all to see.
 

 Ensure these are culturally appropriate. For example, if all your students come
from the inner city, there may not be many gardens around.

8.6.3. Practical Tips For Developing Your Own

Material

1. Make Them Fit The Context

Several criticisms of commercially made materials continue to be voiced, particularly
concerning context. Here are the main criticisms, which we have mentioned before:

 The coursebook and accompanying materials produced for the global EFL market are
too generic.
 Often, they are not geared to specific groups of learners.
 Often, they are not aimed at any specific educational or cultural context.
 Often, they contain functions and speech outputs based on situations that the
majority of foreign language learners may never be in.
 They are often Anglo-centric in their construction and production and therefore do
not reflect any local varieties of English. ‘Anglo-centric’ typically means centred on
or giving priority to England or things English.

Thus, many teachers find it much, much better to make their own materials to make them fit
the specific educational and cultural context.

2. Make Them Fit The Individual Learners

Commercially produced generic materials cannot address the needs of all the unique
individual learners in classrooms. However, you can by:

 creating or adapting materials to the individual needs and learning preferences of

students
 creating or modifying materials that take into account the learners’ first language
and the learners’ culture and personal experiences
 creating or adapting materials at the right level for specific learners, to ensure the
materials present an appropriate challenge and degree of success
 changing the often-repetitive model and organisation in the coursebook to add more
variety within the classroom to meet developing needs (e.g. using whatever is
appropriate to achieve the goal – topics, situations, functions, etc.)

3. Make Them Fit Today’s Events

Commercially produced materials cannot keep up to date with local and international affairs.
World and country changes can happen rapidly, and learning materials need to keep up with
changes and events that are of particular interest to learners in their situation. Just have a
look at a Timeline for the 21st century on Wikipedia to remind yourself of some local and
international affairs that have happened. How can learning materials keep up with these?
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_21st_century#2011 )
Only teachers on the ground can make the materials relevant to today’s world.

4. Lack Of Finance
A large number of schools may not have the budget to supply modern resources for the
TEFL classroom. Instead of moaning and groaning, most teachers step up to the plate
and design their own materials as a matter of course. The school and your learners
will be very appreciative of this.
Guidelines for Designing Your Materials
Remember the words of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland: Alice: ‘Would you tell me,
please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where —’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
If you haven’t designed materials, you must have a definite route to follow; otherwise,
things may not turn out as planned, and you and your learners may miss out on learning
opportunities.

1. Meet Your Learners’ Need

2. Fit Your Materials With The Syllabus And

Curriculum
3. Consider Your Skill Base

4. Ensure You Search For Resources

5. Consider Copyright

6. Work Out Your Time

7. Stimulate Interaction Within Cultural ‘Rules’.

8. Stretch Your Learners

9. Develop Their ‘How To Learn’ Skills

10. Focus On Form Too

11. Integrate All The Language Skills

12. Ensure Authenticity

13. Link Materials

14. Impress

15. Ensure Clear Instructions

1. Vocabulary: degrees such as half-full
2. Comparatives and superlatives: big, bigger, biggest amounts of water
3. Colours: showing colours or different degrees of colour, e.g. pink. To capture their
interest with this, take a few bottles of baking/icing colouring with you in your
suitcase. Put a hidden drop or two of a different colour in the bottom of each glass,
before the class begins. Let it dry. They won’t notice this. Then, as if by magic, your
blue, red and green colours will appear as you pour in the water. They’ll think you are
a magician!
4. The concept of weight and the vocabulary arising from this.

 Postcards and letters

  Bulletin board notices
 Extracts from newspapers, including articles, advertisements, classifieds,
crosswords, horoscopes, features, etc.
 Comics and cartoons
 Calendars and planners
 Shopping lists
 Airline tickets and itineraries
 Photographs
 Picture sequences
 Creative texts, such as poems and extracts from plays, short stories, and novels

Audio/visual

 Casual conversations amongst native speakers

 Radio and TV news and weather broadcasts
 Public announcements (e.g. from airports)
 Messages recorded from answering machines
 Telephone conversations
 Transactions in stores and public institutions such as libraries

determine how to group learners. You will need to consider:

 the learners’ proficiency level, particularly if the class is a mixed-level class

 learners’ learning preferences
 learners’ needs
 learners’ personalities and relationships with others in the class

Context: Give the students a clear context for the activity to increase their motivation.
Explain: The instructions that are given at the beginning are crucial. If the students do not understand
precisely what they must do, there will be time-wasting, confusion, lack of effective practice, and
possible loss of control.
Model: After explaining, demonstrate clearly what students must do. Use a volunteer student or pair
to participate in your demonstration, if possible.
Set time limits and prepare for early-finishers: Tell them how long the activity will last. Indicate what
you will do to confirm that the time is up. Tell them what to do if they finish early. Ensure you have
additional materials at hand that early-finishers can work on.
Monitor: Your most important job once you get the exercise or activity going is to move around the
pairs and groups and actively monitor what’s going on. This entails either contributing to give help or
keeping a distance (though still listening in) – whichever is apt at that time.
Ending: Aim to finish the activity while the students are still enjoying it and are still interested or are
at the point where their energy and interest levels are just beginning to wane.
Feedback: Run a feedback session with the whole class, immediately after the activity has finished.
Feedback could include:

 -
 Proxemics
 In a classroom, some students may wish to sit away from you while, at the same
time, you may want to sit closer to the students, perhaps wanting to make a more
significant impact or wanting to have a better chance to relate to students.
 An awareness of proxemics, which refers to cultural rules concerning proximity, is
vital.
 In some cultures, such proximity rules are stereotypically close, while keeping a
distance is emphasised in other cultures.
Remember! Think about how the physical classroom space can be used to avoid any
proximity ‘rules’. You’ll need to research the ‘rules’ for the country where you will be
teaching, and you’ll need to observe this carefully once you start teaching.

1. Traditional rows
Pros
 Promotes a teacher-centred vantage point
 Effective for lectures, student oral reports
 Useful for assessments, visual or audio presentations, computer or overhead
presentations, and board work

Cons

• Not Student-Centred
 Pairs and groups can’t easily interact without moving the furniture.
 Students at the back may feel left out.
 Staring at the back of the head of the student in front for prolonged periods is hardly
stimulating.

2. Spaced rows

Pros
 A little bit less formal than traditional rows and the opportunity for a bit more rapport
than traditional rows
 Students can view the other row to break up any monotony.

Cons

• Not Student-Centred
 Pairs and groups can’t easily interact without moving the furniture.
 Students at the back may feel left out.

3. Horseshoe

Pros
 More flexible – you can conduct a teacher-centred presentation and can come in
quickly to the centre to monitor
 Good for pairs
 Students can see more of their peers and exchange information a bit easier.
 More informal and enhances a sense of equality for all
 No hiding place for weaker students who may typically hide behind more dominating
students; thus, there should be more participation

Cons
• Group work is not easy without moving desks.
Students on extreme flanks may lose focus.
4. Circle Pros

 Promotes equality, with you and students as one. You are less of an authoritarian
figure.
 Less formality
 Perhaps more intimacy
 Students can all see each other and exchange information easily.

Cons
• Being cut off from the board may be seen as a drawback by some teachers.
5. Pairs

Pros
 Learning more collaborative
 Allows for more communication and reflection time for the students
 You can roam more freely from pair to pair.

Cons
 Some students may not wish to be paired up.
 May be more difficult for you to teach to the whole class since the attention of some
pairs may be focussed a bit more on the pair dynamic and not so much on you
 May be more noise, but the benefits often outweigh this

6. Groups
Similar pros and cons as 5

Pros
 Learning more collaborative
 You can roam more freely from group to group.
 Often less noise than pairs as fewer learners speaking at the one time

Cons
 Some students may not wish to be in a particular group.
 May be more difficult for you to teach to the whole class since the attention of some
groups may be focussed a bit more on the group dynamic and not so much on
you Summary

Other factors that add to a classroom’s heterogeneity, or diversity, and the rate of progress
include:
  Type and amount of a learner’s previous education
 Learning preferences
 Learners’ learning goals
 Learners’ expectations of appropriate classroom activities
 Culture, age, gender and, in some contexts, the religion of each learner

Pros
Many teachers are very positive about teaching multi-level classes. They feel:

 There’s enjoyment in watching all the students mingling, getting to know each other,
making friends and learning about the different values and cultures of the other
students. There’s a greater sense of community.

These large, multi-level classes provide you with a significant opportunity for creativity,
innovation and personal development.

 It’s impossible to get around everyone so students can help by teaching each other
and working together. These teachers feel this peer teaching and collaboration are
surprisingly effective, fostering co-operation and student autonomy.

Cons
For some teachers, their first impression upon hearing they will have to teach large multi-
level classes is usually not so positive. They typically focus on these disadvantages:

 These classes are challenging to control.

 It’s challenging to find suitable material to satisfy the differences in learners.
 They’re unsure as to whether their students are all learning effectively.

Our view
If you have already gained experience in classroom management with smaller classes with
fewer levels of difference, and everything has been fine, there shouldn’t be much to worry
about. You will have gained the transferable skills which you can apply to the larger classes.
1. Planning
Planning for multi-level classes requires the ability to juggle many different elements.
In particular, you must provide a range of activities that address the learning preferences,
skill levels and specific learning objectives of everyone, as best as you can.
You can use a variety of techniques and grouping strategies and a selection of self-access
materials (i.e. materials which students access on their own with little or no guidance from
you) such as crossword puzzles, texts, computer software and games to help all learners be
successful, comfortable, and productive for at least a portion of each class.
Your approach should be to design materials and activities that enable lower levels to
succeed, middle-levels to do more and succeed, and higher-levels to do even more and
stretch themselves to succeed further.
Remember! The alternative to this – planning and using activities that meet the needs of
only those learners whose skills fall somewhere in the middle or so- will frustrate those with
lower skills and bore the more advanced learners.
Also, you will need to decide who can help with what during a learning activity.
Generally, planning for all the varying levels, preferences and learner expectations is more
timeconsuming than planning for a single level class and the classroom management can be
a little bit more taxing unless you plan well.
2. Reflect on Possible Approaches
How can you best handle a large multi-level class?
Here’s what to consider in your planning stage:

1. Class community and identity

When considering your approach, i.e. whether to divide up the class or not, think first what
effect either option will have on the class community/class identity.
For example, will dividing the class up into two halves or several groups have a detrimental
effect on class cohesion as compared to keeping it as one whole class of multi-level
students? If so, can the break in the cohesion be fixed?

 Don’t get fixated with levels – do a needs analysis

Your Head of Department/Director of Studies tells you that your class will be made up of
elementary and intermediate levels. However, no individuals are the same. You will find that
there are sub-levels within these levels.
Also, you may well find that a particular elementary student is stronger in speaking than
some of the intermediate students. It’s only because she was weaker in the other skills that
she is still classified as elementary.
The same can be said for an intermediate student who showed great strength in all the skills
apart from writing, but his overall mark was sufficient to label him intermediate, yet his
writing is not much better than some elementary students.
In your first week or two, aim to do a needs analysis of their proficiency. Even if they are
younger students, it would be wise to carry out a needs analysis, so that any groupings you
decide on will be tighter.
There are other non-linguistic factors which you may need to take into account, as best as
you can. These may come up during your needs analysis:

 Some students may prefer to work with others from a similar social background.
 Some may prefer to be with others from the same geographical area.

Some may prefer to be with others from a similar educational background.

 Some may prefer to be with others with similar competence in English.

 Some male students, due to cultural reasons, may be hesitant in taking part in
groups with women or where women are appointed leaders in the group.
 Some prefer to be in groups of a similar age.
 Some may not be comfortable in groups with other learners they consider to be
more prominent or of higher status.
 Identify your ‘assistants’

1. One Whole Class Of Multi-Level Students

Pros
  The class community is intact.
 Less-competent students can listen to more-competent students, and this may
inspire them.
 More-competent students can help the less-competent students and the more-
competent students will improve their cognitive skills while doing so.

Cons

 More-competent students may get frustrated and bored waiting on the less-
competent to complete their efforts.
 Frustration and boredom may lead to the more-competent students chatting over
the lesscompetent students while they are still trying to speak or answer a question.
 Less-competent students may give up because it’s all a bit too complex for them.

2. Dividing Up The Class Into Halves Or A Few

Groups
Pros

 A better chance of students at a similar level working together

 Less frustration for both the more-competent and the less-competent

Cons

 The possibility of a Us and Them division within the class

 The class community may not be intact

1. Whole Class Work

Here are some tasks/activities which are appropriate for whole-class work and this would
then lead to follow-up work set at different degrees of difficulty for different student group
requirements (e.g. more practice in writing):

 Class project: The whole group can participate in a class project to create a finished
product (such as a text, bulletin board, or collage), where each learner completes a
part of the task based on individual abilities and interests.
 Reading comic strips or photo stories
 Listening to audio or viewing video • Learning songs
 Brainstorming on topics of interest

 2. Pair Work
 Pairs offer the most significant opportunity to use communicative skills.
 Similar-ability pairs succeed when partners’ roles are interchangeable or equally
tricky. Activities for similar pairs include information gaps, dialogues, role-plays and
pair interviews.
 Cross-ability pairs work best when partners are given different roles, and more
substantial demands are placed on the more proficient learner. So, here is an
excellent opportunity to mix the groups.
  Some examples are activities where one dictates and one transcribes, interviews
where one questions and one answers, and role-plays where one learner has a more
significant role than the other.
 In this dynamic, the more proficient partner can also play the role of mentor, helping
the less skilled partner in times where she may need attention and you are tied up
with other pairs or groups.
 3. Individual/Solo Work
 When learners are doing independent activities in the multi-level classroom, the
usage of self-access materials can enable students to take responsibility for
choosing work appropriate to their levels and interests.
 A self-access component includes activities from all skill areas as well as vocabulary,
grammar, and pronunciation exercises.
 With self-access materials, each task is set up so that learners need minimal, if any,
assistance from you to accomplish the activity.
 -

Often, indiscipline arises due to confusion over:

 weak classroom rules, or lack of them

 roles and expectations, i.e. your and your students’ roles and expectations
 On the other hand, some teachers see learning as a process that requires the active
commitment of the students. These teachers try to avoid punishment, relying on the
students’ interest in the work to keep them out of trouble.
 These teachers see themselves more as guides than controllers, and so they seek to
maintain discipline through persuasion and by tapping into the students’ good
nature.
Let’s consider and reflect on some typical issues:

 You try to be liked instead of respected.

 An innate urge among some teachers to control students rather than elicit their
respect for authority
 Some teachers never seem to develop effective strategies for dealing with
unacceptable student-created problems.
 Confusion over rules, roles and expectations – on both sides
 Poor teacher-student communication
 School supervision and discipline policies which are unbending, i.e. zero tolerance •
A lack of school supervision and discipline policies

Disciple

1. Good Planning And Organisation

2. English-Only Environment

3. The Skill Of Distraction

4. Clear And Concise Instructions

5. Stay Alert At All Times – For Negatives And

Positives

6. Set And Agree On Classroom Codes Of

Behaviour

7. Ensure Fairness And Consistency

8. Always Focus On The Behaviour Displayed, Not

On The Person

9. Encourage Even Your Misbehaving Students

10. Use Your Body Language

11. Get Your Students Up And Moving

12. Keep Up The Pace

13. Do Not Ignore Minor Issues

14. Deal With It Quietly

15. Move Students

16. Stay Close To Them

17. Don’t Use Threats

18. Control Your Temper At All Times

19. Dealing With More Serious Incidents

--
What is a productive classroom environment?
There is no single definition for this but what we do know is that it should include these
elements:

 A caring environment where students are inspired in the educational process

 A learning environment where everyone gets along with everyone else to achieve
the learning goals
 A learning environment that is positive at all times

1. You Must Be Positive At All Times

2. Create An Inclusive Environment

1. Continuously examine your assumptions. Never allow yourself to believe that all your
students share the same opinions and beliefs as you do, e.g. the position of men and
women in your society, views on sexual orientation, what you see as ‘a family’, your
views on economic class, etc.
2. Use inclusive language all the time. Inclusive language is language which avoids
expressions which may be construed to omit certain groups, e.g. continually
using man, mankind, he which might be considered as excluding women.
3. Use lots of diverse examples that relate, for example, to both sexes and work across
cultures. By using lots of diverse examples, your students will hopefully connect to
at least one of these.
4. Never fall into the trap of inadvertently attributing what are called low-ability cues.
Here is an example of this:

5.3. Ensure The Learning Is Relevant To Them

At All Time
6.4. Discover What Makes Them Tick
7. 5. Allow Them To Voice Their Suggestions
8.6. Agree How Others Should Be Treated
9.7. Teach And Encourage Positive Behaviours
At All Times
 10. 8. Ensure You Know Where You Are Going,
And They Know Where They Are Going. Help
Them To Get There.
11. 9. Keep Reminding Yourself And Your
Students That The Class Time Is For Learning
12. 10. Arrange Your Classroom Well

Pacing

Here are some common pacing issues:

 Allowing an activity that is working well to take up far too much additional time
 Giving too many examples to illustrate a teaching point
 Relying too much on drawings/diagrams on the board, which can slow the lesson
down
 Reviewing homework during class time in a non-selective fashion
 Trying to teach for mastery of each learning point- sometimes a reasonably good
grasp of a point is good enough
 Addressing questions at length, particularly questions that are outside of the topic
being discussed
 Allowing pairs and groups to work without a clearly defined time limit

Maintaining flexibility is critical.

Planning decisions relating to pacing can be determined by you considering the following
questions:

 What do I hope to achieve in a specific lesson or unit of work in the time that I have?
 How many different tasks or activities can I reasonably expect to complete in the
time available?
 If I am using the primary textbook, does the teacher’s guide give suggestions on
pacing?
 If so, are these guidelines realistic or practical for my particular class dynamic?
 If I have varying levels of ability subgroups within the class, should I try and pace
activities differently for different subgroups within the class?

Remember these key points:

 Pacing is an elusive skill for some teachers.

 Predetermined rules for deciding how long to prolong an activity often do not work.

---
 1. Students’ learning preferences may differ from yours.
2. Your previous learning experiences may have influenced the way you think students
should learn, but your students may have different expectations of how they can
best learn.
3. Some students may expect to use a coursebook every day, but your approach may
be entirely different.
4. What you think the students need may be much different from what some students
want.

Cross-cultural aspects play a crucial part in classroom dynamics. Handle these aspects

right, and the class will be on fire. Get any critical cross-cultural aspect wrong, and the

learning may well be disrupted

If you are not aware of cultural nuances, it can prove to be detrimental to your success.

Remember: The comments below are general – every single student from a particular
culture won’t necessarily display the same behaviours.

Learners’ Expectations
Learners from more traditional educational systems may expect you to behave in a more
formal and authoritarian fashion during classes.

Teachers’ Expectations
Similarly, you bring to the classroom your expectations regarding teacher behaviour. This
includes your views on appropriate learner behaviour within your culture in general, as well
as in the classroom.

Gender, Age And Status-Related Issues

Find out whether your learners have ever experienced mixed educational groupings;
whether they expect male and female teachers to behave differently; and how different
classroom activities, including various group configurations or activity types, such as role-
plays, might affect learners due to native cultural constraints. Research this before starting.

Inappropriate Topics For Discussion In Various

Countries – General
 Religion
 Politics
 Dating, sexual relations
 Gender roles
  Civil strife (where some students are refugees from this strife)
 Immigration (where some students are in the process of this and may be unsettled
by questions about their personal details)
 Freedom and democracy
 Human rights issues
 Conflicts with other countries
 Discussing opinions and beliefs

Gestures
The main point to note with gestures is that people do not stop finding a gesture offensive
just because they understand that it means something else in other countries.

Impulsiveness V Reflection
In some cultures, such as most of the USA, children are encouraged to answer any question
quickly, while in other cultures, e.g. Japan, reflection is encouraged before answering.

Proxemics
Each culture has its norms for the distance between two people standing and conversing,
and these norms may also differ between you and your students.

Eye Contact
In some cultures, respect is shown by avoiding eye contact, or shortening the length of
contact, while in others making eye contact is evidence of honesty and respectfulness. One
frequently misunderstood example is that East Asian students often close their eyes when
concentrating.
Your failure to make eye contact with students in some cultures could be interpreted as you
lacking in confidence.

Active Participation
Verbally expressing ideas and asking questions during class can prove difficult for students
unaccustomed to this form of active participation.

Communication Styles
Be aware of the cultural differences in reasoning and communication. There are patterns of
expression and rules of interaction that reflect the norms and values of a culture. A lack of
understanding of these communication styles could lead to confusion, anxiety and conflict.
Two key communication styles are Direct v Indirect and Attached v Detached.
Direct: straightforward, no beating about the bush, avoiding ambiguity v Indirect: meaning
conveyed by subtle means, stories, frequent use of implication.
Attached: communicating with feeling and emotion, subjectivity is valued, sharing one’s
values and feelings about issues is desirable v Detached: communication should be calm
and impersonal, objectivity is valued; emotional, expressive communication is seen as
immature or biased.

Motivation And Memorisation

You will already be thinking of many ways to motivate students which, in the main, will
work. Be aware that in many schools in China and Taiwan, there are numerous learning
strategies based entirely on memorisation. The greatest motivator is success in exams and
is based on how much students can remember.

Writing
In some cultures, students are not stimulated and supported to express their opinions and
ideas. They may have little experience with creative writing to bring from their native
language.

Interrupting
In some cultures, several students talking over each other is typical, whereas others will
wait until there is complete silence before making their contribution.

Volume
Another variant is the volume at which people pitch their voices for ‘normal’ conversation.
This can vary widely, even among subcultures, and will also put a learner at a disadvantage
if either speaking too softly or too loudly is viewed negatively by you.

Autonomy
You will tell your students that they should take charge of their learning, that you are a
helper and guide rather than the source of knowledge and authority. However, these wishes
may not fit with educational traditions from different cultures.

Movement In Class
If you are accustomed to walking about the room to monitor your students’ performance
and crouch down to help a student, and if you are teaching in a culture that views this as
somehow offensive, it will be your responsibility to modify your technique to conform to the
expectations of your students.
Summary

1. Always be culturally-aware.
 2. Increase your learning of culture in the classroom.
3. If ever asked about any subject we have suggested as taboo, reply: I’m sorry. I’m a
guest here in your country, and I don’t think I’m in any position to comment.

If it is, it’s closing time, and you need to close down the conversation or debate straight
away.

1. Do it courteously.
2. Empathise with the student(s) involved that their point is important, worrying,
concerning whatever emotion is stated by the speaker.
3. However, state that you need to move on. Something like this: I’m sorry everybody,
we’ll need to move on. We’ve got lots to cover. I suggest the two of you continue the
discussion outside the classroom. Right, where were we?

4.–
5. Follow all the school rules – all of the time. It’s just common sense. Don’t start to
question them.
You may be able to do this once you have been in situ for several years.
6. Because a ‘rule’ is not written down, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Inexperienced teachers are frequently so overwhelmed with the excitement of the
new environment that they can miss subtle nuances of behaviour, expectations, and
unwritten rules. So, ask! Ask your Director of Studies or Head of Department or a
colleague. Otherwise, how will you know if there is an unwritten policy or ‘rule’? For
example, there could be unwritten ‘rules’ about:
1- Dress code
2- Class noise volumes
3- Class internet usage
4- Plagiarism
5- Homework
7. Follow any institutional codes/policies, e.g. diversity, equal opportunities, code of
conduct, disciplinary code.
Implement institutional procedures, as set out by the school, e.g. health and safety,
record-keeping, time-keeping, etc.
8. When you are teaching in a small town or living in accommodation near to the school,
remember that your conduct may be heavily scrutinised and discussed – by
students, parents and other teachers. Of course, you should enjoy yourself in your
free time. But time and time again, there have been complaints about some teachers
drinking too much, making too much noise when returning to their accommodation
at night and dressing slovenly when they are out in the streets. So, beware of these
situations. Fit in with the expectations.
9. One of your greatest achievements will be if you put into action everything in YOUR
Code of Practice. If you do so, you will become an excellent teacher.