Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

I shall soon be delivering a lecture for an hour and twenty minutes to about 40 students on a topic of my choosing. Suffice to say the good ones like British culture, London history etc.. have already been taken - so I'm thinking of turning it around a little bit and doing "Principles of English Language Teaching".

(These students are preparing to study for uni here in London - I suppose the point is that they get practice listening to someone ramble for a bit.)

Here's the basic outline.

1. A history of ELT and overview of approaches and methods.
Grammar translation, Direct Method, Communicative Approaches, Silent way...
TEFL bods: Krashen, Lewis...

2. Classroom principles.
Student & learner centeredness, PPP, TTT, TBL... Pair work, feedback.
Ways that lexis, grammar and phonology can be presented and practised.

3. Types of course
Exam classes - FCE, CAE, CPE, TOEFL, IELTS.
General English - Coursebooks (and class relation to)
Skills lessons - Process writing, intonation, top down/bottom up processing, etc..

4. School organisational structure
Specific information about the way the school is organised (it is a very big multinational), different classifications of teachers, ADOS, DOS, Director, etc...

I've never given a lecture before!

How does this sound? Any ideas and/or criticisms are welcome....

[guest of Japan]

That looks like an interesting 8 hour lecture.

[Scott in HK]

it seem the best thing you could do is pick a topic which might have some interest and relevance to them....

how to succeed in university....note taking...choosing the right classes...assignments...how to plan...

better reading techniqes...just because i have done some studying on this..metacognitive reading strategies...very few students have been taught anything on how to read properly....

best places to relax in london....bars...restaurants...pick up joints...cheapest pizza...best place to get your clothes cleaned...

the point is to at least make it about something that they can use after they leave the lecture hall

[Capergirl]

What do I really think? ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

This stuff is certainly interesting to those of us "in the field", but unless your students are planning to teach ESL, you will bore them to tears (and probably confuse the heck out of them as they won't be able to grasp all the new concepts and terminology).

I agree with Scott. You need to find something that is relevant to them. Don't shoot so high, Grasshopper!

[leeroy]

Hmm, lukewarm response to that then

The academic study skills stuff has been done to death - the plan was to give them something completely different to what they were used to. And I had figured that ESL was at least a field that they were familiar with. But the response here has been noted!

[Canuck2112]

Do you have any other interests? I agree that, for the uninitiated, a 1 hour 20 minute lecture on ESL may be painfully boring. Hell, I'm "initiated" and I'd be hard pressed to sit through it.

The best profs I had in uni would punctuate academic material with personal anecdotes during their lectures. Even the driest material can be made interesting with a little personal interjection. For example, a prof of mine gave a lecture about getting scientific research funding (Zzzzzzz....) but made the lecture interesting (and memorable) by telling us a story of how he drop-kicked a protesting hippie at a science convention. We laughed, and more importantly we remembered the other 50 minutes of the lecture that would otherwise have been forgotten.

If you are going to go through with the ESL lecture, maybe throw some interesting personal experiences in? Just an idea

[leeroy]

Canuck, I like it (eh)...

What happened to your Knight Rider avatar? Michael Knight was always a firm favourite of mine - on an even par with Mr. T and He-man in fact...

[Glenski]

Sounds like a whole year's course in college, or a certification program, not a single lecture.

Friend of mine was in similar situation. He spoke for 90 minutes on how it felt to be a foreigner (in his case, a Black man) in Japan. He had lived here for over 10 years.

[Will.]

Hello Leeroy,
What kind of students? EFL or trainees, Who is watching?
Street markets of London. Billingsgate, Covent Garden, Smithfields, Spitalfields, Local slang "Watch out for Mr Mustard!"
You are London based and familiar with the 20 hours work allowance for students so a good line is how to get the best job, flat, ticket deals from the Evening Standard or best flights from TNT.
How to guarantee getting your deposit back from your landlord or the best way to do a moonlight flit. ther are many examples of "how to"
The media is a constant source of ideas so introduce then to a variety of egs from the press.

[Canuck2112]

Michael Knight and young Mr. Coleman are on a temporary hiatus. I must agree, the man at the helm of a smart-alecky car is inspirational. In his place is AC Slater, who's pink tanktop, prominent mullet, "rambo-esque" headband and double thumbs up makes him a worthy successor IMO

[Dr.J]

Yeah that sounds dull.

I hate lectures, because no one listens after 20 minutes. It's a physiological thing. We think the incessant drone is our mother singing to us and we regress and become drooling babies.

My advice is, to involve the crowd. People listen 10 times more when they are doing something - or at least think they are. Give them a multiple choice quiz about your topic and spread the answers out through you lecture. Have a prize for the winners or a random pick or something - that'll scare the little monkeys into listening.