Job Discussion Forums

[sisyphus]

Hi there. I wanted to ask those who teach or have taught at University what sort of lessons they would do for a 2 hour class in a general english course (they have a CAE textbook). What i mean is how would your lesson be structured? Speaking, lecturing, writing exercises? Do you have any good websites which I could use for materials etc? thanks for advice etc..

The Sisyphus

[Glenski]

I don't know what a CAE textbook is, but here goes.

Here in Japan, uni classes are usually 90-minutes long. If one is teaching a general English course as you said, it should include as many elements of the 4 skills as possible. Something roughly like this is fairly common:

Returning and discussing any homework.
Review of last lesson.
Warm-up/Introduction to today's lesson.

Practicing the point(s). This is probably best done in about 3-4 stages over the 90 minutes so that students have a chance to break from using whatever speaking/listening/reading/writing they are asked to do, and so the teacher can add more instructions or advice.

Finish with some homework description.

In Japan, structure is pretty important.

[spiral78]

I'm presuming that they aren't planning to take the test, right?

In that case, you can pick and choose a lot from CAE. I think the book gives a decent progression of topics, and I found that it's got loads of stuff to do - too much for most courses under a full year. It's not really important which edition you've got - each one I've worked with has some advantages.

You might want to find out how much they need to practice the four skills, respectively. I guess as students, they likely need r&w as much as s&l.

You might prefer to use whatever actual writing they are doing in English for analysis, if they are doing any, because the writing tasks from the book can be a bit off-target for university students in some case.
If they're doing writing (regardless whether it's genuine or concocted for pedagogical purposes) outside of class, it can be useful (and time-absorbing) to anlyse their work in class - or they can write in pairs or small teams in-class, if their other homework's too heavy for much out-of-class work.

I usually skipped the (rather forced) pronunciation exercises, though with Czech students you may want to substitute some pronunciation focused for their needs particularly.

The speaking tasks in the book are generally OK, I think, and we supplemented them with in-class discussion, letting one student 'lead the class' in terms of procedures. European university students generally enjoy practicing their functional English - and why not?
I'll pm you the basic structure, though you probably know it, of course!

I also usually omitted the extensive analysis of grammatical points, as they may appear on the test, but aren't necessarily very applicable in real use. We generally kind of hit the highlights on this and didn't delve deeply.


I'd skip lecturing, although you could add some audio of lessons now and then if you've got them. There's a really well-done academic listening series from Canada (wlll try to look it up and pm later) but I'll assume that buying another coursebook's not really an option.

Unless the students are really low-level (in which case they should have a different book, so I'll assume they're B1/B2) I don't think you need a rigid structure - just a plan for each lesson coming up, which the students know before leaving each class, so they can prepare. I think it's perfectly OK - and possibly preferable - to focus on different skills more heavily at different times in the course.

I'll pm some stuff that I've used with European university students - maybe there will be something useful there.

and enjoy the class, in any case:-)

[artemisia]

Looks like Spiral78's pretty much got it covered - I'm not familar with the CAE text.

[naturegirl321]

I had classes that have lasted 2.5 and 4 hours. You have to divide up the time and types of interaction. So do speaking in pairs, writing individually, etc. Give breaks as well!

[sisyphus]

Thanks everyone good stuff, i do this sort of stuff as it is - its more a search for good materials, im looking for some good worksheets and some downloadable audio-visual stuff (as I dont have Internet) ..any ideas appreciated.

The Sisyphus

[Glenski]

[sisyphus]

I have Internet at home but there isnt an Internet facility in the classrooms, so I need files already on my computer etc which i can use i.e some interesting business english videos etc.., short documentaries...

[shenyanggerry]

I taught oral English in China. I usually gave a brief lecture on a topic of interest. i.e. Canadian universities, special days (St. Patrick's Day, Christmas, Mother's Day, etc.), general overviews of everyday life in a Western country, etc. Then I had several discussion groups in groups of three or four plus some pair work. Sometimes I had games which relied on English usage. I normally tried to have each activity last no more than twenty minutes plus I always had some short activiries ready to fill in the last few minutes of a class for when things went more efficiently than usual.

[Glenski]

I can count on one hand the number of universities over here that have computers in every classroom. You don't have to count on having students use the internet in class anyway. If you want to give them something like a video in class, bring a laptop and projector, and save the stuff you download at home to a memory stick.

[mspxlation]

When teaching a long class, you should develop a variety of activities that all reinforce the points presented in the lesson.

You review the previous lesson. You present the vocabulary, using as many visual aids as possible. You present some model exchanges. You have the students practice them. You have the students practice variations on them. Then you set up role playing situations and have the students work on them. You include a listening task. Depending on how much time you have left, you can assign an in-class essay or an at-home essay or listening task.

You definitely need to give the students a break, too.

[spiral78]

You definitely need to give the students a break, too

Things simply aren't the same everywhere. I've taught at two universities (one in Canada and one in Europe). Classes are 120 minutes across all faculties - without breaks. In fact, we can often barely pack the needed tasks into this time frame without running over.

And, no, students don't fade away on us - they're expected to be sharp and in fact are throughout, with very few exceptions. It's the norm here.


You review the previous lesson. You present the vocabulary, using as many visual aids as possible. You present some model exchanges. You have the students practice them. You have the students practice variations on them. Then you set up role playing situations and have the students work on them. You include a listening task. Depending on how much time you have left, you can assign an in-class essay or an at-home essay or listening task.

This would probably work best with fairly low-level students who benefit from quite a lot of teacher-directed classroom time.

But there are many, many other options, depending upon the goals of the class. There are lots of ways to do something other than 'teacher presents...,' for example. How about 'students share their work and provide peer review?' Or 'students plan a debate or negotiation?' Or 'students analyse the research methods and sources used in the papers of others?'

The problem I see with a class set up as above is that each of the activities requires ABC amount of time, and more interesting/useful/important items often suffer for lack of it.


One size never fits all!