Job Discussion Forums

[kev7161]

I use these tricks now for small kids and I've used most of them for high schoolers when I was teaching that age group several years ago. They usually work:

1. I don't call for volunteers to answer questions (usually) because I know only those with stronger skills in speaking English will raise their hands and the others will sit there mute. Instead, I write their names on an ice cream stick and put them in a cup. I ask a question or request someone to read aloud or something and then I pull a name. My students quickly realize (as I do this from day one), that everyone has an equal chance of being called and must give it a try.

2. If a student stands and seems perplexed, I ask him or her to ask another student for help. This lessens the embarrassment a bit and also gives a certain empowerment to the struggling student by letting them control the situation a little with help from their choice of a classmate. The helping student can share the answer and then I ask the struggling student to repeat the answer.

3. If I am looking for volunteers to answer and I don't see many hands shooting up in the air, then I tell them to talk (in English!) to their neighbors and see if they can come up with an answer. Before long, most of the class has an answer they want to try.

Also, I don't only accept the right answer. Even if the correct answer was given right away, I ask if anyone else has an answer. If I have the time, I may poll the entire class for their answer (yes, several will simply repeat what seems to be the right one). It's only after I get many responses will I reveal the correct one.

4. On particularly tough English answers or readings, I praise someone effusively if they do a really good job yet still praise someone who may struggle through it but at least gave it a good try. Someone who mumbles through the text may get a disapproving look from me, but I certainly don't berate them or anything.

5. If we are doing any writing in workbooks and I'm not going to collect them for grading, then I will give the students a few minutes to try it on their own, then have the students share their answers with others who ARE ALREADY FINISHED. I remind them several times not to approach someone who looks like they are still working on the answers. There is great power in having students work and share with each other (and no, I'm not talking about copying on tests of course!) and having peer editing/corrections. This puts the students more at ease with giving it a try than trying to please the teacher.

6. If there are dialogues in a book, I ask the students to practice those within their small groups of course, but then I have them come up with "what happens next?" and have them write a few more lines of dialogue and then present their entire copy to the class. This gives more variety to presenting dialogues and the students get a kick at the often inane, comedic twists they and their classmates come up with.

No matter what, we are all going to have students who simply do not give a crap about learning English. A teacher should try to include them as much as possible but has to realize that no matter what you try, they are just not going to cooperate or not going to grow very much in their English skills. Most of you are teaching college age students. Whether or not they act like it, they ARE adults and they have to make their own choices when it comes to academics and English.

[it'snotmyfault]

[Non Sequitur]

'2. If a student stands and seems perplexed, I ask him or her to ask another student for help.'

Kind of 'phone a friend'.
Like it and will use it.

[LarssonCrew]

If I may pitch in, and my classes are a little different because I'm teaching mainly law.

You slated people for giving personal stories. Hell, I open the class with a vague question, such as 'What did you guys have for breakfast?' 'Are you tired?' etc.

Why?

Because although they are English majors, they are being taught in Chinese mostly, and in the breaks between classes they're talking Chinese. Their classrooms are full of Chinese characters, and I find you have to 'wake up' the English speaking part of the brain for studying. If I'm dialled into speaking English[especially something like speaking quickly to my Dad and using more casual English] I find my Chinese suffers, and it takes a jolt from my wife to get me back in line.

Why do I offer some stories about my life? Firstly, I only speak for 2 or 3 minutes, like to get their feedback on it and also find they are extremely interested in it, I'm not trying to be a 'rockstar' and I don't lie about having done something extremely good. It could just be that my dog jumped up and licked a woman's face, or that my toilet got blocked, or anything. Mostly I try to make it humorous, because that's kinda the vibe I'm going for.

No, not monkey, I mean a more relaxed class.

Students can eat and drink, and are encouraged to play along, to enjoy the class.

Why?

Because when I studied in university I had an International Relations teacher who did that, and he also found interactive ways for us to learn, we played out the Cuban Missile Crisis in a class once, and it was amazing watching Cuba run over to discuss with Russia, and after come over to us[as America] and say 'Hey, they're offering xyz!'

We'd try to talk to Russia and they'd say 'Not interested you capitalist pigs[tongue in cheek]'.

Just an example but he did this throughout the whole term. I LOOKED FORWARD to his classes and got my highest grades in that class.

Honestly, I found I learned more from this class than my law lecturers hammering home facts and figures and expecting us to simply write them down with no interaction.

[xiguagua]

[quote="Harbin"]

[Non Sequitur]

My training and experience has only been in the oral English area.
What is the TTT expectation in writing and academic subjects?

[Denim-Maniac]

So many responses and having just joined the thread now, I cant be bothered to relate each of my comments to individuals who first raised the question / point etc. (apologies ... pushed for time!)

I teach adults. Students who, 95% of the time, have passed through college and university and realise they have little in the way of effective English communication skills. That why we have students at my employers. They know they need more than what the university system gave them (both Chinese and FT classes). None of them at elementary / pre-intermediate level+ have a problem with being too nervous to speak ... but they do have a problem in that they feel they havent been given a platform to speak. From some of the problems encountered in this thread and in anecdotal chats in expat bars its obvious the problem lies with us sometimes.

I read and heard the comment, 'what do you do when you ask a question and no-one answers?', and Im kinda thinking why are you asking questions in a T>Ss scenario? Sure we do that sometimes, but not so often right? Assuming the students have the target language (either acquired already or given pre-task) they should be answering and asking the questions of each other before feeding back to the teacher later. And all the time they are talking to each other, their TT goes up ... and yours goes down, and they are engaged in the meaningful communication that they normally pay a training school to get.

I study Chinese. If you ask me a question directly ... 'What did you do this weekend?', Im going to poo my pants. Its hard for me to respond quickly, fluently and accurately. But, if you ask me to discuss what I did this weekend with another language student, we can safely practice without fear of mistakes, organise our thoughts and answers, correct each other and build enough confidence to feed this information back at a later stage if called upon.

Apologies is that sounds too much like Im telling you how to suck eggs (as we say in the UK) ... but very very few students of English are unable to complete a task when presented in this way, and they accept this way of study in my classes quite readily.

[choudoufu]

why are you asking questions T->S? because students will not
speak with each other (in english). your training school/employees
experience is a different kettle of monkeys from university teachin.'
at uni, you simply can't (normally can't) ask a question and expect
volunteers to answer, you have to pick them. when they do answer,
they tend to respond with one word. put 'em in groups and they
speak chinese whenever teacher is not with them.

you say you study chinese? are you a serious student, or are you
dabbling? maybe getting enough chinese to get around on your own?
well, then you have your own motivation. our students do not.

they've had english in middle school and high school. now they're in
the second year of an english program, 30 hours per week, of which
20 hours is english instruction. yes, our second-year english
majors tend to poo their pants when asked "what did you do last
weekend?"

[rogerwilco]

For questions and answers I just have the students take turns coming up to the front of the class to play "teacher". The "teacher" can choose any student, and ask almost any question.
That can be fun for half the class, and then I change to a different activity.

[Babala]

I make it a point to learn all my students names. When I ask a question, I simply choose a random name. My students know that I will call on them and expect them to answer. If a student really can't answer my question then I ask the other students for help. "Who can help XXX to answer the question" but on the other hand, when I know the student is capable of answering the question but they try and do the thing where they say "no" or "I can't" I tell them yes you can and they will answer if pushed a bit.

[Fanyi]

Was reading this thread while lesson planning today. Just found a very good site with some ideas for lesson plans and reducing TTT, if anybody's interested visit:http://eslteachingideas.blogspot.com/2008/09/canadian-survival.html (may need VPN) .

Also, my own game that worked great last week:
Divide the class ( I teach high school classes of 30-50 students) into four groups. Each group is given a character, one group is 'Joe', one is 'Susie', one is 'Joe's Father', one is Susie's Mother.
Tell the class that Joe and Susie have been dating for three years, but that they're having relationship problems now. Ask the class to think of a reason for these problems (i.e. Joe's Father disapproves of them, Susie has been cheating on Joe, etc.) For lower-level classes, you may need to first make a list of why people have relationship problems (cheating, family, money, etc.)
Then tell the class that you're the host of a TV show named Family Dispute. Sit down as if you're the host, say something like 'Welcome to Family Dispute, we're here with a couple having problems, to start with I'd like to ask Joe, 'What's the problem?'" Go from character to character asking for their opinions, and then their reactions to other characters statements. Usually the class will pick up the spirit of the game and say some outrageous things (Susie: Joe's in love with my mother--in fact sometimes things get almost TOO OUTRAGEOUS (Joe is in love with his sister), in which case you may need to step in and moderate), and really get students involved. The fact that each character has six students playing them means that nobody feels too much pressure to speak. The better the actor you can be as the 'host' of the TV show, the better the 'show' works.
After the activity, try to go back to two or three topics that were mentioned during the activity by students and teach related vocab (cheating, dowry, pathological liar (Susie was lying like crazy in one class), etc.
Worked very well last week, probably the only downside is that it's generally the better students in class who do most of the talking, but you could easily step in and call on other students if you wanted.

Like many, I never had formal teacher training before coming to China, but feel that I'm slowly starting to get the hang of things. I think the biggest thing I'm realizing is that teachers who blame their students (especially high school and below) for not being interested enough in class (and believe me, I used to (and unfortunately sometimes still do) do a lot of this complaining), are really not willing to come to terms with the fact that they (or rather, we) need to get better at lesson planning and teaching. All of us know how enthusiastic students are on the first day of classes, but often lose this as the semester goes on; I believe that if you were to come to each semester with 12 great lesson plans(it's amazing, but for oral English teachers at most public schools here, that's all we need, 12 lesson plans a semester) a semester, you could keep these kids interested in English and really achieve some good things in class.

[xiguagua]

[rogerwilco]

[Denim-Maniac]

[Non Sequitur]

A couple of years ago at a reunion, I met a high school teacher of mine whom I hadn't seen for years.
I told him of my experience early on in China.
He said that he regarded his teaching (and my home country has a good educational rep) as partly entertainment - his as well as the students.
He said you know your material inside out by the time you've taught for a couple of years and after that it was a motivation issue for him.
He is an 'out there', flamboyant type and we looked forward to his classes.
'Four shows a day' was the way he put it to me.
My point is that we shouldn't feel too bad about injecting a bit of dancing monkey into the classroom.
BTW good thread OP.