Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (12 page)

✓

Newspaper headlines. There are a number of words that are favourites for newspapers but hardly used elsewhere, for example,
Minister Rapped
After Expenses Probe.
Journalists also like to be very playful with the language. They use nicknames, rhymes, and slang and students want to be in on the joke so that they can understand the press for themselves.

However, it sometimes takes a great deal of explaining and a detailed analysis of the language for students to get the point.

✓

Words with different connotations.
Old
and
elderly
have basically the same meaning. However,
elderly
is more polite than
old
when referring to people, so the connotation (attitude behind the word) is different. When students understand that words have similar meanings they also need to know the subtle but important differences between them.

✓

Metaphors and similes. You use metaphors when you say that one thing is another because they’re somehow similar.
There was a storm of protest.
Storm is a word that describes violent weather conditions but here it means a violent outburst.

Proficiency

It’s pretty difficult to come up with a syllabus for proficiency level as many of the questions are more like A-level English for native speakers. Proficiency has more exercises based on inference (reading between the lines).

Keeping Things Relevant

Not only do you teach according to the students’ level – a concept called
grading
– you also teach what is relevant and useful to them.

56
Part II: Putting Your Lesson Together

So if the syllabus for beginners doesn’t include detailed descriptions of furniture but your student works in the sofa shop, you can adapt the syllabus to fit in relevant vocabulary. On the other hand, if your class is made up of children, they may not recognise half of the professions on your list of job titles, in which case you can drop the professions list and substitute names of games or sports equipment.

A good syllabus covers not what people
can
say in English but what they actually need to say or usually say.

For example, it’s grammatically correct to say, ‘I shall depart forthwith’, but when was the last time you heard someone come out with that?

TEFL is not about language as beauty; it’s about language as communication.

So, select the practical bits and keep anything else to a minimum.

For example, the occasional poem is a great demonstration of culture and rhythm in English, but don’t handle poetry as though you’re teaching a literature course, going into all the artistic features. Just find aspects related to the syllabus and everyday life.

Getting into Grading

In TEFL you
grade
what you say so that things become progressively more difficult step by step. It’s a bit like climbing a hill with a gradual incline. If the hill is too steep, your students get exhausted before they near the top; too flat and they become bored with the familiar and inattentive. Figure 4-1

shows a good learning slope.

Figure 4-1:

more difficult

A good

grading

challenging

system

gets more

easier

difficult

gradually.

You start by teaching your students the word
bathroom.
It’s not a difficult word, and it’s one used every day, more or less. But a student at a low level doesn’t know the word, and you explain it this way:

It’s the room where you have a sink, and a mirror and a bath.

It’s the place where you brush your teeth.

Chapter 4: Starting from the Beginning: Planning the Lesson
57

This explanation is an example of poor grading. Logically, if your student knew both the words ‘bath’ and ‘room’ they would understand ‘bathroom’

without too much trouble, so using these in the explanation doesn’t help them. The other words like ‘sink’ and ‘mirror’ are even more difficult.

A better approach at the right level for your student is to approach bathroom by starting with ‘house’. Make sure that everyone knows the word by drawing or showing a picture and saying ‘What is it?’ Then divide the picture into separate areas and teach ‘rooms’. Show a picture of a bathroom or do a mime of someone taking a shower to teach ‘bathroom’.

Good grading influences many things you do in the classroom. You need to keep grading in mind on a couple of levels:

✓

Grading a lesson.
To grade a lesson well you need to select new language that builds on what students already know. Students should have sufficient knowledge to grasp the concept. During the lesson too, you grade by explaining to students how to complete a task using rules, reminders and examples before actually setting the task. Each task in the lesson should also be more challenging than the one before it.

✓

Grading the course.
You want a logical order within the course syllabus too. This means that the grammar and vocabulary should get more difficult as you go along and the skills tasks (reading, writing, listening and speaking) should only include language that has already been taught or is under consideration in that lesson. So you can’t really teach the names of ailments before you’ve done the parts of the body. Or, it doesn’t make sense to teach the past continuous tense before you’ve done the past simple.

A well-graded lesson starts simply and builds.

Within a lesson, it helps to have particular activities for your students to work on.

Say you want your students to write a letter telling their friends back home about tourist sights in the UK. List what your students need to know in order to complete the task:

✓

Present simple tense

✓

There is/there are

✓

The layout of a letter in English

✓

Expressions such as ‘Dear . . . ’ and ‘Best wishes’

✓

How to spell the names of the sights

✓

Adjectives for describing places

58
Part II: Putting Your Lesson Together

If your students don’t know any of these things, you may want to reconsider whether they’re ready for the task. It’s really discouraging for your students when you set the activity and then start back pedalling because the class can’t cope.

A letter writing session with students who know the grammar can have a running order like this:

1. Students read a letter from one friend to another and analyse the layout and typical expressions.

2. You explain that the class is going to write letters about the UK and have them brainstorm their favourite sights.

3. Find out why students like the sights and put the adjectives they use on the board.

4. Put a plan of the letter on the board showing how many paragraphs to write and what kind of information should go in each one.

5. Have them write.

Setting Aims and Objectives

At the planning stage of your lesson, you need to think about your aims and objectives:

✓

Aims
are the overall points you want students to understand as a result of the lesson.

Sample aims may be:

• To provide revision and practice of the present perfect.

• To increase rapport amongst the students.

• To teach vocabulary for hobbies and interests.

• To teach students to express likes and dislikes using the structure I (don’t) like + a
gerund
(a verb with ‘ing’ added).

✓

Objectives
are the skills you want students to be able to demonstrate by the end of the lesson or their accomplishments during the lesson.

Objectives relate to specific activities.

Sample objectives may include specific goals, for instance that students should:

Chapter 4: Starting from the Beginning: Planning the Lesson
59

• Be able to compare their travel experiences with other people by saying ‘Have you ever . . . ?’

• Write a questionnaire using verbs associated with travel in the present perfect, and try it out on at least three other students.

• Learn the vocabulary for their hobbies and interests, including pronunciation.

• Know when to use the gerund and when to use the noun.

• Know how to write sentences requiring the gerund.

• Discuss their likes and interests together in groups

Even in a conversation class you ought to have a clear idea of what you intend the lesson to accomplish.

Both you and your students benefit when you write down your aims and objectives:

✓

You consider the lesson from the students’ perspective as well as your own.

✓

There’s less likelihood that you’ll go off on a tangent during the lesson.

✓

You can assess the relevance and effectiveness of activities you intend to use more easily by seeing whether they’re closely linked to the aims and objectives of the lesson.

Getting Your Timing Down and

Planning for Interaction

A very important factor to consider when putting your lesson together is the amount of time available to you and how you want to spend it. English lessons can vary from 45 minutes to 3 hours but there is a basic format for dividing the time: an initial stage in which you teach new information; another in which you practise what you’ve just presented in a controlled way and a final stage that involves students expressing themselves with less guidance from you. These stages are called Presentation, Practice and Production respectively. Each stage is longer than the one before it so that the students end up doing most of the talking.

So if the triangle in Figure 4-2 represents a one-hour lesson, P1 (Presentation) would be about 15 minutes, then P2 (Practice) about 20 minutes and finally P3 (Production) about 25 minutes.

60
Part II: Putting Your Lesson Together

P1

Figure 4-2:

P2

A Pre-

sentation,

Practice

and

Production

P3

pyramid.

Within each stage and throughout the lesson, think about who should be talking to whom – the
interaction patterns.
You want to plan it so that you don’t ending up speaking for too long and the students keep busy. The traditional way of doing this is by using abbreviations like these in the margin of your lesson plan:

✓

T-ST:
The teacher talks to the students

✓

ST-T:
The students give feedback to the teacher

✓

ST-ST
: The students talk to each other

✓

Pr:
Students work in pairs

✓

Gr:
Students work in groups

Figure 4-3 shows an example from a lesson plan.

Presentation

Tell ST an anecdote about last weekend using

Figure 4-3:

watched

listened

enjoyed

2mins

T-ST

A sample

Ask ST to tell me what I did while I write it up on the board

2mins

T-ST

lesson plan

sets out

Underline the regular past simple verbs and point out ...ed ending

2mins

T-ST

time and

interaction

patterns.

Chapter 4: Starting from the Beginning: Planning the Lesson
61

Assembling Presentation,

Practice and Production

After you decide what you want to teach, you need to have a explain matters to the class thoroughly and efficiently.

Introducing the point

If you chose language at the right level for your students, there’s a good chance that they’ve heard it before. Or it may be that some students recognise it, although you can’t rely on that fact. So first of all you need to find an interesting way to bring this new language to their attention.

Usually EFL teachers prefer to make their students curious rather than to simply state: ‘Today’s lesson is all about . . . ’ In the real world, people learn language in context rather than through direct statements or recited rules. As a child, your family probably never mentioned grammar, they just spoke. By the same token, introducing language within a story of some kind, a conversation or with the aid of a picture or object is very effective.

Analysing the point

After introducing the new language, perhaps by means of a story or picture that creates a realistic context in an interesting way, you analyse it. You explain whatever rules, patterns or information the students need to make the language their own in this stage. For example, for a vocabulary lesson teaching several fruits you begin with a picture of a market stall and move on to highlight and name the pears, grapes and so on.

Make a connection between what students already know and the new language – add a new building block to their language tower.

Use the board to set things out clearly so that the class can take notes.

Provide examples so that they have a guide as they complete the tasks later in the lesson.

62
Part II: Putting Your Lesson Together

If there are several ways to use the new word or grammar point, don’t over-load the students by trying to cover everything all at once. You can have a

‘Part 2’ lesson later on.

Use this analysis stage to explain and check your students’ understanding before you move on to practising. Don’t take anything for granted. Ask lots of questions so that the students can demonstrate that they get it (rather than just saying they do). As this is the stage where you get to do more of the talking, make the time count.

Trialling the language

Following the presentation stage in which you introduce new language, you need to set up an activity or task that requires the students to focus on it.