Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (50 page)

So, you say their name and whatever you remember about them.

7. Indicate to the student to throw the toy to someone else whose name
they remember and keep going until you’ve covered everyone.

Encourage the rest of the class to help if someone gets stuck.

8. The activity ends when someone finally introduces you again.

Make a map

Get students working in pairs or threes for the first time.

Draw or point to a map on the board to illustrate your background – where you’re from, places you’ve lived in and/or countries you’ve visited. Explain the story with drawings, mimes and dates as necessary. Now get each student to draw a map too.

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Pair or group the students up and get them to explain their own stories. Even if they have to mime to each other they will still enjoy breaking the ice.

Ask the students to reorganise themselves in order of their birthdays (not age). Now they get a chance to meet someone else.

Guess the numbers

This one is not suitable for beginners because it involves asking questions.

Write some numbers or facts on the board which relate to your life and get the students to guess what they mean. I sometimes write the number of siblings in my family or the year I began teaching. You can only answer yes or no to the students’ questions. Now they can play the same game in pairs/groups.

Names and actions

Try this memory game with a twist with the students in a circle.

Have everyone think of a unique action or gesture – maybe stamping your left foot. So first of all you say your name and perform your action. The next person has to say your name, stamp their foot, say their name and perform their own action. This continues around the circle until the last person has a nightmare of names and funny moves to recall. It really gets people laughing.

Managing learning

After breaking the ice you need to get on with the day to day business of teaching your class English.

Speakers of European languages have a distinct advantage over other students because of the similarities in structure, vocabulary and culture between their tongue and English. Even amongst European languages there is the potential for some students to grasp a concept almost immediately while others take a little longer.

Take the word ‘television’. Although the concept is not at all difficult for the German speaker, the other nationalities barely have to translate.

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Czech: televize

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Dutch: televisie

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German: Fernsehen

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Italian: televisione

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Portuguese: televisão

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Spanish: televisión

This example highlights three problem areas in multi-lingual situations:

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You need to be prepared for the different speeds at which learners are likely to grasp language, given their different backgrounds.

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If only one person is lagging behind, this individual may feel too shy to speak up.

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You may overlook the one student who doesn’t get it because the others so enthusiastically express that they do.

The solution to all three problems is that you never take for granted that the whole class understands. If you draw or show a picture before using the word, everyone gets the idea at once. Additionally, you can ask questions to make sure that students understand (I discuss concept check questions in Chapter 5). Even if the student understands already, they have an opportunity to express themselves and help their fellow students understand.

Concept check questions for ‘television’ are:

What shape is a television?

Do you have a television in the garden?

Where is the television in your house?

What do you watch on television?

Use students who are faster on the uptake to help model the language. Good speakers can show classmates how to pronounce a word in small groups.

They become your assistant teachers which is motivating for them and helpful for the classmates.

If one student has a linguistic problem which is more complex and not relevant to the other students, give them more personal attention. For example, a student from Libya could be slower at doing his work just because it is more difficult for him to use the English alphabet and script. Instead of partnering him with a classmate who reads and writes well, be his partner yourself so that you can assist with some of the more difficult words and give encouragement.

In the long run, you may have to accept that some students will have to change class in order to move ahead more rapidly or to repeat the course again. This isn’t desirable but there is no point ignoring the needs of one or two students just so that you can keep the group together. Your class should proceed at a pace which is comfortable for the majority of learners.

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Going beyond language: Teaching culture

Some of us are fortunate enough to have been brought up in a multicultural society so that it’s nothing new or strange to have a mixture of races, cultures and languages around us.

There is a knack to showing interest without appearing ignorant or acknowledging differences without alienating anyone. In a class with many different nationalities you sometimes find that students from mono-cultural societies lack these skills and are in danger of making gaffes.

Unfortunately, students sometimes bring their prejudices with them to the learning environment. Some problems I have encountered so far are:

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Students from neighbouring countries can display animosity towards each other based on historical or political factors.

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Some males feel that they are superior to female students (and female teachers).

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One student’s religious beliefs may be undermined by others, for example the observance or non-observance of particular festivals or the need to pray at particular times.

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Differing opinions on sexuality might be offensive to some.

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Stereotyping might result in a failure to accept as a native speaker, a teacher who doesn’t fit the student’s perception of Britishness (a black teacher for example) or a student whose physical characteristics are not typical of his nationality.

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Students may use inappropriate gestures or expressions to refer to someone of another race.

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A dodgy sense of humour with inappropriate jokes which the student feels the strange compulsion to translate into English.

By all means, deal with problems as they arise but there are also some preventative measures which might help: Promote an atmosphere of mutual respect by asking students to share information about their backgrounds at a class level and showing real interest in what they say.

Occasionally you encounter students who resent the dominance of the English language and the political histories of English speaking nations. When you enquire about the student’s culture and demonstrate that you view it as equal to your own it helps to break down these barriers.

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Teach students the right words for describing other people in the community (Oriental, mixed race etc) and let them know what is acceptable behaviour. If necessary you can discuss how the law of the land reflects on these issues so students are clear that this is not just your opinion.

Have clear guidelines for classroom conduct and explain the consequences of breaking these rules if you have offensive individuals in your class.

Fortunately, most objectionable attitudes come from a position of ignorance so when you teach students another way, they tend to adapt.

Applying Case Studies

In this section I take one 90-minute lesson for 12 students and comment on how it differs for two different classes. It appears to be short in length but this allows time to incorporate the needs of each class.

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Level:
Upper-intermediate

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Materials:
IELTS speaking test practice material (IELTS Masterclass, Haines and May, OUP pages 171, 172 which includes a speaking test on theme of reading). A video of students taking the exam.

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Lesson aims:
To practise the three stages of the IELTS speaking exam. To teach a strategy and expressions useful for Part 3, which is a discussion between the examiner and exam candidate.

The structure of the lesson for each group is as follows:

1. Elicit from students the stages of the IELTS speaking test and length of
each. (5 minutes)

Put the following information on the board. These are the parts of the test:

• Part 1: General chat about home, work, study, and general life (4 minutes)

• Part 2: Presentation (1 minute for preparation and notes;

1-2 minutes describing given topic)

• Part 3: Expansion on Part 2 (3 or 4 minutes)

2. Brainstorm what the examiner is looking for and put ideas on the
board. (5 minutes)

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Make sure they cover these necessary points:

• Fluency and coherence

• Range of vocabulary

• Range of grammar

•

Accuracy

•

Clear

pronunciation

3. Have each student think of four questions suitable for Part 1 of the
exam.
Then have a brief class feedback session in which they tell you the questions they have thought of.
(5 minutes)

4. Pairs ask each other their questions and give answers
on these general topics. (5 minutes)

5. Reorganise the pairs and assign partner A as examiner and partner B

as exam candidate. A
sk students to prepare their note books with the marking criteria set out so they can assess each other more formally, as the examiner would. (5 minutes)

6. Students practise and role play
, alternating the roles of examiner and student. (6 minutes)

7. Students give each other feedback on Part 1.
(4 minutes
)

8. Students each practice Part 2, which is the presentation.
They switch roles after giving feedback to their partner based on the marking criteria.

(10 minutes)

9.

Class

feedback.

Students say what they find easy or difficult in Parts 1

and 2
(5 minutes)

10. Focus on Part 3, which is the topic expansion discussion related to
Part 2.
Brainstorm ways to comment on a question and think of sample phrases to use during the test. (15 minutes)

Some suggestions may be:

• Say something about the question

• Make a connection to your life

• Answer in two parts

Possible phrases to use in this part may include:

• That’s an interesting/a difficult/ an important question.

• I have (never) thought about that.

• That’s quite relevant because I . . .

• It’s funny you ask because recently . . .

• There are two sides to this.

• I’ll mention the pros first and then the cons.

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11. Students watch a video of other students taking the exam, assess these
other students and give feedback.
(15 minutes)

12. Students practise asking and answering a few questions each for Part
3. on the topic of reading.
(5 mins)

13.
Give students an envelope full of questions typical of Part 3 but on
various topics, one for each pair.
Together they practice asking and answering the questions using the phrases on the board. (5 minutes) The English class in Italy

The students in this class are all Italian and vary in age from late teens to mid- twenties. They are generally quite communicative and tend to focus more on getting their message across than accuracy. As I speak their language to upper-intermediate level, I can anticipate some particular difficulties.

General skills

Ask students to pay particular attention to accuracy when they speak and also in the examiner role. Make sure that they don’t interrupt when someone else is speaking. It’s more acceptable for speakers to do this in Italian culture but it would be a disaster to do so in the exam. Use a ‘wait’ gesture to remind students about this throughout the lesson.

Vocabulary problems

The course book discusses different kinds of reading material but there are two words which might be false friends:

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The Italian
romanzo
is very similar to ‘romance’ but means
novel.

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Magazzino
means warehouse, not magazine, which is actually
scomparto
in Italian.

Pronunciation problems

In Italian, most words carry stress (emphasis) on the penultimate (the second-to-last) syllable. Students tend to use the same stress patterns when speaking English, which makes it more difficult to understand the accent. On the list of reading material, get the students to mark the stress for each word.

There is usually some confusion with the correct stress on compound nouns such as different kinds of books. Drill several examples with students making, sure they stress the first noun –
sports
books.

Science books are on the list of reading material. The letters
sci
are pronounced

/ʃi/ as in ‘ship’ in Italian so students are very likely to mispronounce
science
.

Be sure to drill it.

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