Working with new teachers: first steps (IH Journal)

Issues 43 of the IH Journal was published yesterday, with lots of great things for you to read:

It features the first article in a new series which I’m writing, all about working with new teachers. You can read the journal online, and my article is here. If working with new teachers is something you’re interested in, or if you’re a new teacher yourself, watch out for an exciting announcement coming soon on my blog 🙂

The shy teacher’s drill

On Monday my intermediate group were looking at modals of obligation, based on a text about how to become a millionaire. We had a set of sentences which I wanted to work with. They went something like this:

• You have to be very hard-working.
• You shouldn’t take long holidays.
• You don’t have to be born rich.
• You must have a clear idea of what you want to achieve.
• You should (something I can’t remember…)
• You mustn’t (something else I can’t remember!)

We checked the meaning by matching the sentences to a set of key words, and then I thought it was important to work on stress patterns. I also wanted them to memorise some correct sentences, as at an earlier stage of the lesson they’d produced things like:

• You have to very hard-working.
• You don’t have to born rich.

Here’s what I did:

1. Told students to listen.
2. Said all six of the sentences as quickly as possible.
3. Put students in pairs and told them to practice doing the same.
4. If they decided they’d finished, I made them do the same thing backwards, starting with the final sentence.
5. When I thought they were ready, I challenged them to say the sentences as quickly as me. I counted 3, 2, 1 and we all spoke at the same time, with the aim being to finish at the same time as I did.

Students seemed to really enjoy this activity with lots of laughter throughout, especially when they were racing me. They worked hard to correct each other. I didn’t have to do any remedial drilling in this case, as the challenge of speaking as fast as possible meant they produced the correct stress patterns pretty naturally.

And why is it for shy teachers? Because once I’d said the sentences at the beginning, all I had to do was listen until they were ready to race me at the end, at which point I was speaking at the same time as them. That meant I only ‘exposed’ my pronunciation once in front of the class, which I know is something that some teachers are worried about. They got lots of drilling, and I did hardly anything 🙂 Win-win!

What other drills can you think of which do the same job?

The picture I was trying to upload on Monday when I first wrote this post, at which point the WordPress app decided to crash. There was a link in my head the first time, but now I can’t remember what it was! It’s a tree in Borneo with a viewing platform at the top…you can hide there from other people if you’re shy (?) Other guesses are welcome!

Classroom Management Techniques by Jim Scrivener (a review)

This book is full of useful ideas covering a very wide range of classroom management issues. Every school should have a copy, not just language schools. It includes such useful areas as:

• Avoiding chaos when rearranging the room
• Being yourself
• Finding the right voice tone
• Helping the group to work together
• Training students to listen to each other
• Justifying pair and group work to students
• Dealing with small disruptions
• Starting lessons

It’s great for new teachers and more experienced ones, helping you to deal with problems you may have, or giving you new ideas you may not have thought of before. Every technique is broken down into clear steps, and they are often accompanied by diagrams or images to help you understand them.

I decided to read it from cover to cover, to give me an idea of the contents. Throughout, I kept thinking which teachers at my school would benefit from the different techniques or chapters. It also has a comprehensive contents page and index, meaning you can find whatever you’re looking for quickly and easily. Of course, I don’t think every idea would work in my classroom, but then, I’d be disappointed if I found a book where that was the case!

Why not get yourself a copy? [And if you use this link, I’ll get a few pennies too!] 🙂

A story wot I wrote

A couple of days ago I came across a notebook I used to practise my handwriting when I was about 7 or 8. One double-page contains the beginnings of a short story, and disappointingly I didn’t finish it. In the tradition of good stories, the beginning raises more questions than it answers 😉

——

Jim Bolley was a boy of 8. He had curly red hair and liked walking and jogging.

Jim was walking home from school one day, when he spotted a flight of stairs. He climbed up the stairs. When he got to the top he came to a door which had a keyring with four keys on. He held the one that had been in the door.

As Jim opened the door, he saw three doors behind it. Jim tryed all the keys and then the door opened. He looked down and saw a cloak, a pair of boots, and a hat. So he put them on.

Then Jim tryed two of the keys in the next door, but it would’nt open.

‘If I’ve tried the other two keys, then the door must need all three.’ thought Jim.

So Jim used all three and the door opened. Behind that door was a ring, a pen and an inkwell full of ink.

He moved on to the last door and used all three keys. The lock clicked and he opened the door. Behind the door was a desk, a car and a watch.

Jim got the things out of the cupboards and put them at the top of the stairs. Jim opened the desk to put the pen and inkwell into it. As soon as they touched the desk, they turned into a manuel which said on the front:-

On the first page it said:

Invisibility cloak     2

Silence boots           3

Flying hat                 4

Magic ring               5

Pen and inkwell     7

Size desk                 8

Car                           9

Watch                      10

——

I’d love to know what I was reading to prompt 8-year-old me to write this story. This was in the early 1990s, so well before Harry Potter, who is probably the owner of the most famous invisibility cloak now. I definitely remember having a joke book with puns like the one on the cover of the manual – there’s were probably a little more skilled though!

I also find it interesting that I spelt ‘tried’ incorrectly twice, then correctly the third time, but didn’t go back and correct myself. I also had trouble with ‘manual’, and there’s a lot of repetition in there. I’d got rid of some of it at the beginning of the story, but doors and keys feature frequently. There’s also a bit of punctuation which I don’t think I’ve seen for years:-

And the story leaves lots of questions unanswered:

Where are the stairs? Just out in the room? Or was Jim walking down a long corridor to get home? For some reason I’m picturing the doors and the lock in a castle – some kind of big heavy key ring with old iron keys, but then, how on earth did he not notice it before?!

How did the car get into the third room? Why a pen and an inkwell, not just a pen? Why on earth did I decide that he needed a manual? Who wrote it?

Finally, why does the magic ring need two pages of the manual, but everything else just gets one?

Maybe you or your students have the answers 🙂

The scaffolding continuum

I was giving feedback on an observation today when an idea occurred to me. When we plan a series of activities, particularly for low-level learners, it can be difficult to work out how much support they need at each stage. Thinking of the support we offer (scaffolding) as a kind of continuum might help.

Here’s a basic version:

The activity I was watching which inspired the idea was asking a group of nine 8- and 9-year-old beginners to perform a comic book story they’d just read in their course book. The story had about 10 lines of dialogue and was about a postman delivering letters to two children and being scared by the neighbour’s dog. This was lesson 14 or 15 for the students, so quite early in their learning. This is what happened in the lesson:

1. Students were given roles.
2. They were put into groups to practise for a couple of minutes.
3. They were asked to perform in front of the group, but struggled with pronunciation and knowing who should speak next. Other students weren’t really listening.
4. They were given new roles in their small groups and practised again.
5. They performed in front of the class with similar problems.

Here’s how I might use the continuum to think about planning the sequence differently:

1. Teacher reads the whole story aloud with students repeating each line after the teacher.
2. Students are grouped by role, but stay in whole-class mode. Teacher reads the whole story aloud with each group repeating their lines after the teacher. Do this two or three times if necessary, drilling any problem words and focussing on intonation and stress patterns as needed.
3. Students break into groups with each role represented. They practise the dialogue while reading from their books. The teacher monitors and helps when needed.
4. Students put their books away and continue to practise in their small groups. Give them a time limit to keep the pace up.
5. Ask students to choose two things to change in their version, for example the name of one of the characters or the adjective used to describe the dog.
6. Give them time to practise with their changes.
7. Students perform in front of the class, with the other students noticing the changes.

Hopefully that should give the students the support they need to be able to act out the story confidently, by gradually removing teacher support until they’re perform their own version of what they’d read.

P.S. I made the continuum by changing PowerPoint slides to ‘banner’ using page setup, something I discovered you could do yesterday (thanks Milada!)

Lessons you can watch online

For a lot of teachers, it can be hard to find the time or the opportunity to observe and learn from other teachers’ lessons. If that’s you, hopefully you’ll find these videos useful.

I’ve divided them into loose categories, with a sentence or two to help you decide which are the most relevant to you. Within the categories, they’re just in the order I found them! I’d like to thank the many people who’ve sent me links to these videos over the years (though unfortunately I can’t remember exactly who sent me what!)

Please feel free to tell me about other videos I may have missed in the comments, as well as any broken links. I’d particularly appreciate any VYL, YL or teen videos that may be out there, though I know they may be hard to find.

P.S. I’ll admit that I haven’t watched all of these from start to finish, just bits and pieces, so please proceed with caution…

Very young learners

Anka Zapart has a list of VYL lesson clips on her blog, some of which overlap with the ones I have below.

Hubert Puchta introducing vocabulary and using Total Physical Response (TPR) and telling an action story (7 minutes)

An American kindergarten teacher working in a French-language immersion school (27 minutes) (via David Deubelbeiss)

Teacher Allen singing a song and teaching a demo lesson with Chinese kindergarteners (10 minutes)

Another kindergarten lesson in China, this time with 33 children (30 minutes)

Michael Roxas working on adjectives, using TPR and introducing clothes with a kindergarten group, working with a Chinese teacher (27 minutes) Michael has other videos of him teaching kindergarten on his YouTube channel.

Mark Kulek has lots and lots of videos of him teaching. This one shows him working with 25 Japanese 3- and 4- year olds (15 minutes) They are mostly in two playlists: Live Children’s English Classes EFL and How to teach kindergarten English class EFL. A lot of the clips are less than 5 minutes long.

This one shows Mark working with puppets (3 minutes)

Paul Pemberton teaching kindergarteners in China (30 minutes), including a really nice routine for getting kids to put their hands up

Shaun teaching 3 year olds in China for a parents’ open day (15 minutes)

Hannah Sophia Elliot teaching kindergarten in China (41 minutes)

Ann teaching children using a story bag (9 minutes)

Watts English have a series of videos showing children in Prague kindergarten. Here’s the first (20 minutes) Look at the Czech playlist for more, as well as the games bank.

Here’s an example of a teacher using a puppet as part of their WOW! method (5 minutes)

Savannah building rapport with a brand new group of students (4 minutes)

Tony using role plays as part of a demo lesson (23 minutes)

Najmul Hasan (a.k.a. Peter) also has a range of videos of him teaching kindergarten. Here’s one (25 minutes)

Rebecca Eddy teaching shapes to a kindergarten class in China (13 minutes)

This video is designed to show teachers how to run a demo lesson, but there are also lots of useful tips in there and examples of how to set up activities (9 minutes)

Tanner Applegate teaching 3 year olds in China (6 minutes)

Marco Brazil teaching colours to very young learners (4 minutes)

Teaching weather to kindergarten children, with a Chinese teacher also in the room (15 minutes)

Introducing body parts (4 minutes)

Thanks very much to Lucy, who suggested in the comments that I look up kindergarten ESL teacher on YouTube, which led to most of the above videos!

Young learners

Adi Rajan suggested the Teacher Development films available on the British Council website, accompanied by workbooks. Here’s one example (52 minutes):

Marisa Constantinides playing the ‘please’ game, and thereby demonstrating total physical response (TPR) (8 minutes) She wrote about this activity, plus two more with accompanying videos (Thanks for letting me know, Marisa!)

Ashley Haseley teaching sensory reactions in China (12 minutes)

Kaila Smith talking about teaching children in China, with lots of clips from her classes (4 minutes)

Pass the bag, a video of a game shared by Ian Leahy (90 seconds)

Sam playing a days of the week game with Thai children (2 minutes)

This video shows you how to do guided reading with elementary learners – it’s mostly describing the technique, but there are various clips of the teacher at work (11 minutes)

A counting game for kids (2 minutes)

This is a video describing various classroom management techniques shared by Ian Leahy. Although there is a voiceover throughout the entire video, there are lots of clips of exactly what’s happening. (16 minutes)

Gunter Gerngross demonstrating TPR with young learners (3 minutes)

Karlee Demierre using a body parts song (3 minutes)

Introducing animal vocabulary in a demo lesson, with lots of flashcard games (32 minutes)

Teens

A shopping lesson with pre-intermediate students using Solutions Pre-Intermediate (17 minutes)

Ross Thorburn introducing the rooms in a school (6 minutes)…

…and showing how unmonitored group work ran (35 seconds)

Ross Thorburn using flashcards with beginner young learners (1:10)…

…and with elementary young learners (1:30)

Ross also has tips for behaviour management, including live examples from class (5 minutes)…

…and demonstrating routines (7 minutes)

In this video, Ross introduces vocabulary, then takes his class into a shopping mall (8 minutes)

Adults (coursebook-based)

Sarah Troughear teaching a group using Life Pre-Intermediate, based on the topic of transport (60-minutes, including post-lesson analysis)

Clive Brown teaching a group using Life Upper Intermediate, based on the topic of documentary film-makers (37 minutes, including post-lesson analysis)

Andrew Walkley using an image to get students interested in a coursebook topic and lead in to a discussion (6 minutes)

Hugh Dellar teaching listening lexically – part 1 (13 minutes)

and part 2…

Stacey Hughes teaching using an e-book – find out more (10 minutes)

Me 🙂 teaching upper intermediate students – working with gerunds and infinitives (8 minutes) – find out more

Me clarifying the difference between ‘borrow’ and ‘lend’ with upper intermediate (9 minutes)

Me teaching money vocab to intermediate students (15 minutes)

Adults (non-coursebook-based)

Billy Hasirci teaching a demo lesson for a CELTA course (he’s the tutor!) He’s working with intermediate students, listening to a song (41 minutes)

Lindsay Warwick teaching second conditional (1 hour)

Hugh Dellar demonstrating the lexical approach, including lots of whiteboard work (18 minutes)

Elizabeth Kuizenga Romijn teaching high-level beginners (I would say elementary) cooking vocabulary using realia (38 minutes)

John Bartik teaching beginners the phrase ‘I like ______’ (13 minutes)

Chris Westergaard teaching animal vocabulary to a group of intermediate students (14 minutes)…

…and movie vocabulary to another intermediate group (10 minutes)

Functional language to help students debate, I’d guess at intermediate or upper intermediate level. I don’t know the teacher’s name, but it was shared on the ELT Experiences blog (17 minutes)

You can watch Luke Meddings teaching a dogme [What is dogme?] lesson by going to the British Council website. (40 minutes) There is a video of him using dogme with another group (26 minutes) and reflecting on it (24 minutes) available on the English Agenda website.

Martin Sketchley experimenting with dogme (9 minutes)…

…and doing a dictogloss (14 minutes)

Dr. Frances A. Boyd demonstrating lots of error correction techniques (14 minutes) (via Matt Noble)

Laura Patsko demonstrating how to do a pronunciation needs analysis with a multilingual class – find out more (16 minutes)

You can watch a process writing lesson by going to the British Council website. (37 minutes)

Fergus Fadden working on reading with an elementary group as a demo lesson (23 minutes) (Thanks Lucy)

Ross Thorburn teaching an IELTS speaking class, working on describing a city you’ve visited (15 minutes)…

…and teaching an intermediate class to give advice (20 minutes)

Andrew Drummond demonstrating a present-practice-produce (PPP) lesson structure using jobs (a demo lesson for trainees)… (21 minutes)

…and using PPP to teach the functional language of interrupting, followed by an analysis of the lesson stages (28 minutes)

Paullo Abreu (?) teaching second conditional (1 hour)

Olha Madylus teaching vocabulary and grammar to elementary students as a demo on a CELTA course (15 minutes)

Very small groups

Lavender teaching vocabulary (5 minutes)

Short clips

4 clips of Hugh Dellar (I think with upper intermediate students)

1. Monitoring a discussion

2. Upgrading and clarifying language (3:30)

3. Setting up a speaking activity (1:20)

4. Clarifying language (3:30)

Martin Sketchley doing an activity with Arabic students to help them with spelling (6 minutes)

Katy Simpson-Davies using jazz chants (3:30)

Ian Leahy demonstrating 3 games, 1 each with adults, young learners and teens (3 minutes)

Ross Thorburn teaching adults to accept and reject invitations (3 minutes)

Conveying grammatical meaning, focussing on ‘used to’ and ‘would’ on Ross Thorburn’s channel (3 minutes)

Ross Thorburn giving instructions (3 minutes)

Olya Sergeeva demonstrating how to teach decoding skills to help students understand connected speech (5 minutes 30 seconds). This blog post explaining a little more accompanies the video.

Online teaching

Fergus Fadden teaching a lesson on Google + (13 minutes)

Mark McKinnon working on connected speech – the clip is part of a full blog post explaining what’s going on in the lesson.

Hugh Dellar teaching a one-hour Skype lesson based on Outcomes Advanced with three students from Krasnodar, Russia. It includes examples of Hugh works with lexis, as an advocate of the lexical approach.

Angelos Bollas teaching a CELTA demo grammar lesson to upper intermediate students on Zoom, showing you what it’s like from the teacher’s perspective:

Angelos again, teaching another CELTA demo lesson, this time using task-based materials using the Fluency First blog:

Trainee teachers

CELTA TP7, as uploaded by English with Stephanie, intermediate students, restaurants (45 minutes)

And TP8, focussing on functional language, again with intermediate students (35 minutes)

David teaching during CELTA uploaded by Insearch LearningCentre (60 minutes) – I’m guessing it’s elementary or pre-intermediate students, talking about a trip to Japan

Anastasia, a Russian trainee who did her CELTA in 2012 (47 minutes)

Please feel free to suggest any extra videos or to tell me if there are any broken links.

Stepping into the real world: Transitioning listening (PARK Conference November 2017)

My very first presenting experience was sharing a couple of activities at a swapshop at a PARK conference, I think in 2009. I went to every one of the PARK conferences while I lived in Brno, so it was lovely to be invited to present this time round, and to be able to do it due to a Polish national holiday 🙂

I did a version of a talk I first presented at IATEFL 2014, sharing activities you can use to train students to understand real-world listening, not just coursebook audio. You can find it here, along with all of the audio from the presentation.

If you’d like to find other resources connected to listening skills, beyond the ones shared in the presentation, I would also recommend:

• Richard Cauldwell’s Speech in Action blog
• My authentic listening with British accents lesson plan
• Matthew Smith’s learner questionnaire to help students think about why a listening was difficult