Job Discussion Forums

[coledavis]

If you go to Google and enter something like
TEFL present perfect simple vs present perfect continuous
then you will usually find 5 or 6 takes on the subject by practitioners such as 'Grammar Girl'.
If you prefer a volume, then get Parrott's Grammar for English Language Teachers. (A bit heavy for taking abroad, however.)

[expatella_girl]

I think teaching is a gift. A gift I do not possess. And it's not just technical knowledge nuts-and-bolts stuff.

If I think about effective teachers I've had, I suppose they've all had some traits in common--

~They were entertainers. They captured my attention with their wit and antics and expertise. I was captivated by their lessons and their energy.

~They were extroverts. The best teachers always inhabit some characteristics of the class clown + the local politician.

~They had a passion for communicating and illustrating the lesson, whatever it may be. Whenever I've found a good teacher, I've taken every class they offer no matter what the subject. A good teacher can teach anything. It's kind of like being a salesman in a way.

~they were a good judge of the student and the student's abilities. Perceptive of their audience you might say.

[coledavis]

I don't disagree with anything you've said, Expatella Girl (except possibly your self-assessment). However, lesson preparation and gradually getting to grips with the nuts and bolts of the grammar is also necessary. For a while, charisma carried me through, but I was still more effective when I knew things like 'continuous tenses' don't go with 'state' (e.g. love) unless you advertise for MacDonalds.

[Sashadroogie]

Hmmm. I'm not too sure about this, Expatella_girl. Yes, effective teaching is largely based on natural talent, I think - and some people just do not have it. Charisma, rapport certainly help. But 'antics', 'class clown', even 'entertainers', are not what I would say constitute this mysterious x-factor that is natural teaching ability.

Not to mention a firm grounding in dialectical materialism!

[expatella_girl]

[spiral78]

I've been teaching European students for over 15 years, including a heavy mix of Russians (currently about 50% of our student body).
I'm considered a pretty effective teacher, according to over a decade of student evaluations.....

I think expatella girl is mixing language learning and content lecturing - two different beasts entirely!

In language learning, we want the learners to actively work throughout the lessons. Their active involvement is how language is learned and practiced.

Entertainment is NOT necessary (at least not often, when teaching European adults). Clear relevance of what you're trying to do IS - this is about motivation.

I'm not an extrovert by any means. Lessons are build around what the students do - they are the ones on the stage in my classes - though I may highlight/contextualize, etc occasionally. What you are calling illustrating the lesson, I think.

But any lesson that becomes THE TEACHER SHOW is not an effective LANGUAGE lesson.

The entertainer approach works ok in content lectures - if you're listening to an economist speak, for example, of course you'd prefer to listen to an entertaining speaker.

But language learning is not meant to be Teacher on the Stage, and the students are not an audience; it's the students who need to do much/most of the work.

[coledavis]

Yes, if one overdoes it, the students do not do enough work, especially talking, themselves.

Dialectic materialism: in the dialectic, human affairs develop as thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

[teacher X]

Sadly, I have a couple of teenager classes which have to become the TEACHER SHOW due to their complete refusal to interact in any productive manner.
Today they completely refused to do any activities which involved grammar or writing. So I attempted to get a discussion going, which managed to gain the involvement of 40% of the class.
It was only when I completely gave up trying to teach them anything and started telling them about my drunken exploits and the humorous consequences that I managed to gain their full attention. It's times like this that my ability to entertain like a stupid clown comes in useful.

But you get this with teenagers. They refuse to do any homework, turn up to only half the classes (and then wonder why they fail the tests) and generally cause me to lose the will to live.
You have no idea how many different ways I have tried to 'trick' them into learning English. Ahaha, sometimes it's successful and they don't realise that they have learnt some grammar. Other times (like today) I fail miserably.

[coledavis]

Thank you for the reality check. Yes, sometimes teenagers can be awful.

At times, you can use the 'consequences' game. You wait until you have their considered attention and tell them, look your folks pay for this and they are going to be very very nonplussed at finding that at the end of the year, their supposedly clever son/daughter/gendertransferred kid is going to fail his test. Perhaps an early warning to ma/pa now might save said ancestors some money.
(I.e. scare the daylights out of the little so and sos, then be hard for a lesson or two and then maybe agree to lighten their lives with some fun activities to follow, and only to follow, useful work.)

[Sashadroogie]

File a full report with their immediate supervisor. Have parents fully involved. Make sure the little cretins know this is happening. Use moral force to subdue them, backed up by real threats of having individuals expelled.

Acting the clown is not going to help. No more than trying to be their friend would.

Again, the answers lie in dialectical materialism...

[coledavis]

Does that include time in a camp?

[Sashadroogie]

Just in summer

[teacher X]

[Sashadroogie]

Where on earth do you teach, Teacher X?

[Sashadroogie]