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Practical Classroom Situations: suggested workshop notes

This set of 40 task cards and key cards (with comments) is based on observation notes taken over various years as a DOS visiting EFL classes. The situations represent a selection of frequently-encountered classroom scenarios and are intended to promote awareness-raising discussion, even (and perhaps especially) where there is some disagreement with the comments on the key cards.

BeforehandCut out the task cards – as many as seem right for the time available (there are 40 in all; at a rough estimate the first 16 would suit a session of an hour and a half). You will need two packs if there are more than three groups of three or four in your session.

The session1. Get the participants into groups of three – if this doesn’t work exactly then form a group of four at the end (a group of 4 is preferable to two pairs).

2. Place the task cards face down on a desk. Instructions as follows:Each card has an English Language classroom situation described on it – something a teacher did in class. We do not know in each case what the exact setting is, but the cards are intended merely to spark discussion. For each card your group picks, discuss the situation and suggest what the consequences might have been, and what the teacher could do to improve matters. If nothing occurs to you, just move on to another card. Later your group will give feedback to other groups.Each group picks any (say) four cards at random, and discussion begins.ALTERNATIVELY: run through all the cards via onscreen projection, inviting the participants to select the ones they think it would be worth discussing. Then focus on those only. Adapt the following procedure accordingly (this is more suitable for groups which include more experienced teachers).

3. When a group feels that it has discussed its batch of cards, they ask for the four comment cards corresponding to the task cards they have discussed. One member of the group reads out each of the commentaries, and the group discusses these, noting agreement, disagreement or suggested alterations.

4. Each group then continues with a second (and maybe later a third) batch of 4 cards – same cycle.

5. Collect all the task cards and comment cards back in. If possible, have a final plenary stage of feedback and comment – perhaps eliciting suggestions for other task cards for other typical teaching situations. Or the session could simply end there.

Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson Lacunza/IH San Sebastián

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IH San Sebastián


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Practical Classroom Situations: Task Cards

1

T asked each S a question in turn, going around the

class in a line

2

T got Ss to read a dialogue aloud to each other, taking

two roles A and B.

3

Every time a S responded correctly, T automatically

“echoed” what they said, to confirm.

4

S: She’s hobbies are listen the music…

T: (interrupting) Her hobbies.

S: Her hobbies are listen the music and play tennis.

T: Good.


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5

Advanced S: What’s a gatecrasher? (The word has

come up in a reading text)

T: That’s when you have a party and someone turns up

who wasn’t invited.

6

There were only five Ss in a large room. Three were

seated in a row along one side wall. One was in a

corner and the other was on her own five chairs along.

The T was sitting at the front behind a large desk with

the register and several books on it.

7

Throughout the class, several Ss were consistently

talking to each other in Basque whenever the T’s

attention was not fully on them e.g. when T was writing

at the board or monitoring other Ss during tasks


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8

T: Listen to this example – “She let me borrow her mp3

player.” What does “let” mean?”

9

T: Now write your own sentences using “make” and “let”.

Ss did this, and among the things they produced were “Stephen Spielberg makes films” and “I made a lot of

mistakes in my homework”. T accepted these.

10

At the end of every exercise, T automatically got Ss to

compare their answers with each other.


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11

In an elementary class, T focused on physical descriptions of people. She wrote up “face” on the

board and asked “What words can we use to describe a face?”. Ss offered pretty, ugly, handsome, beautiful. T wrote these up. Then she asked in similar fashion for words to describe hair. Ss offered long, short, straight, curly, wavy. T wrote these up. The same process was used for words describing the body and clothes – Ss

offered, T wrote up. Then she said “Good. Now get into pairs and describe your best friend to each other”.

12

T: Last week we read a story. Get into pairs and tell

each other what you remember about the story.

13

T: A knife is a thing which we use to cut things with. Now think of five objects and make sentences about

them using “which”.


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14

T: Now make your own sentences with “yet” and “already”.

Ss worked on this for ten minutes, then there was plenary feedback. They came up with things like “I have

already gone to school” and “I haven’t studied yet”.

T said “Good.”

15

T explained the grammar point verbally, without using

the board, without giving example sentences, and

checked understanding by asking “Do you understand?”

16

T gave Ss a task where they had to match words listed

1 to 10 with a jumbled list of definitions listed a to j.

When Ss had finished, T went through the answers in

each case by getting an individual S to read aloud the

word and its definition. T chorus-drilled the definitions. T

then moved on to a different activity.


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17

T: What does “to take part in” mean?

S: Participate.

T: Good.

18

The lesson started as follows:

T: Open your books and look at page 34. Match the words with the pictures.

(On p34 there are ten pictures of articles of clothing labelled 1 to 10, and a jumbled list of relevant

vocabulary labelled a to j.)

As Ss were trying it, several of them asked T things like “Scarf qué es, ¿bufanda?” and “¿Qué es glove?”

19

In an hour of classroom time with a low intermediate

group, the only points at which any student intervened

with more than three words were during choral

repetition drills.


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20

T is trying to elicit a word that Ss will need to

understand before they read a text about weather.

T: What do we call weather that is not normal?

(No answer. Ss look mystified.)

T: freak. Repeat: freak.

21

T (to Intermediate group): Why don’t we use the present

continuous with “know”?

22

T: Now listen to this dialogue and write down all the

examples you hear of the past simple and the present

perfect.


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23

T: You seem to be finding this very easy. You’re doing

very well.

24

T’s questions were always addressed to the whole

class, e.g. Can anyone think of …? or Who can tell

me…?

Responses were almost always from the same four or

five students.

25

(to a group of advanced Ss)T: Does anyone know what the difference between

“swerve” and “skid” is?(Silence)

T: Well, “swerve” is to suddenly change direction to avoid an accident, and “skid” is to lose control because

of a slippery surface.


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26

T: What can you tell me about adverbs of frequency?(No response from Ss)

(The “answer” in the T’s mind is that adverbs of frequency usually come just after the verb “to be” but

just before any other verb)

27

T to S1: Do you have a mobile phone?S1: Yes.




28

T: I want you to read this text and underline any words

you don’t understand.


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29

T at end of lesson with Upper Intermediate teenage

group: OK, for homework… (general groan from Ss)…I

want you to do the exercise on page 64 - write a story

beginning with the given sentence.

30

T asked the class for some typical ways of starting and ending an informal letter. Some Ss provided some ideas, which the teacher enthusiastically accepted

without writing any of them on the board or providing any extra ones.

31

Ss all looked at a photocopied picture of a family tree (one copy for every two students). T got them to ask and answer each other about it in the format What

relationship is (Susan) to (Mike)? Mike is Susan’s cousin etc.


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32

T got the Ss playing a revision game based on “noughts and crosses”. They could score an “O” or “X” for their

team, on a grid drawn on the board, by answering questions in a variety of categories.

One of the categories was “phrasal verbs”. In each instance the T gave them a phrasal verb and told them

to put it into a sentence. One instance went like this:T: run away

S: I went to the football match and at the end I ran away.

T: OK, good. (T awarded an “X” to the S.)

33

T got Ss to read a text in the coursebook in order to do a matching exercise on the following page. As the Ss were reading, on several separate occasions one of

them would stop and ask T for clarification of vocabulary, which T provided. The same two or three

items kept cropping up again and again, so T was constantly in demand.


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34

T: This might strike you as a bit difficult at first but I’m

sure you’ll get the hang of it after a while.

35

T starting off a class at upper-intermediate level:

Get into pairs and brainstorm all the words you can

think of connected to the theme of sport.

36

In an FCE exam level class, T consistently and helpfully answered Ss who asked such questions as You can

say ….X….? or Is possible to say……?

37

After many visits, you have never seen the Ss use the following language despite a clear need for it:

Sorry I’m late but I was kept in (at school).What’s the pass mark?

Don’t rub it off. I haven’t written/got it down yet.I can’t see - would you mind moving out of the way?


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38

Ss were consistently saying things like I live in the thentre or I went to the thinema with my friends.

39

T always accepted Ss’ spoken responses on the basis of how correct they were, regardless of how long they

were.

40

T focused well on today’s work but made no reference to language worked on in previous lessons.


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Practical Classroom Situations: Comment Cards

1Comment: Ss know who is going to be called upon when, so it affects attention levels. The S who has answered first can afford to “switch off” while all the others respond.Better to select Ss in random sequence, making sure that everyone is involved. No one knows when they might next be called upon to respond, so this keeps everyone on their toes.

2Comment: 1. When read aloud by language learners, dialogues tend to be read much slower than natural speech, with unnatural pronunciation.2. If Ss are given the content (i.e. don’t have to think about what they are saying) then the activity does not really enhance understanding or aid memorisation.A better alternative is to familiarise Ss with the dialogue by building it up little by little, and use prompts as a practice aid. Such prompts may be on the board or on flashcards, and could take the form of key words/phrases, functional prompts (e.g. apologise, express surprise, etc.), pictures, hieroglyphs – or a mixture of all of these. Use of prompts gives Ss clues as to what to say, but the effort involved in remembering and working it out serves to help the learning process.The same prompts can be re-used in a subsequent class for review.


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3Comment:It is only natural for a teacher to do this occasionally. However, if it becomes a kind of automatic “teaching tic”, then Ss get used to not listening to each other.An alternative is either just to say “Good” or “Thank you”, or to ask another S (picked at random): “Is that correct?” or “Do you agree?” or even simply “Did you hear what she said?” If Ss get used to the idea that that they may at any moment be asked to respond to what another S has said, then attention levels are higher throughout the lesson.

4Comment: Here, the T is concerned (quite rightly) with correction. She has perhaps decided to prioritise and to correct only certain types of error. However, there are two drawbacks:1. T immediately gives the correct form. The S is not asked to think for herself.2. Having “corrected” only part of the utterance, T may give S the impression that the rest of it is correct.A preferable T intervention would be as follows:1. Indicate that there is a mistake but without giving the correct form, thus allowing S the chance to self-correct. This can be done by e.g. putting on a quizzical expression and saying “She’s hobbies?” or “Try again”, or using finger-correction, etc.2. If S can’t self-correct, invite contributions from other Ss, preferably aiming to correct the whole utterance. Then get the original S to say the


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whole correct form.


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5Comment:

There are two issues here – thepre-teaching of potentially awkward vocabulary, and clarity in the conveying of meaning. 1. Do Ss really need to know what gatecrasher means in order to understand the text? If not, or if meaning can be reasonably guessed from context, then T has done well in deciding not to pre-teach it. However, this being the case, he should stick to his guns and either ask the S to guess from context or wait until everyone’s finished reading and clear it up later on. If, on the other hand, the word is vital to an overall understanding of the text, and the contextual clues are not sufficiently illuminating to bring out its meaning, then the item should have been pre-taught.2. T’s explanation here is imprecise (a gatecrasher is a person, not an occasion), and the use of turns up instead of simply goes adds an extra potentially confusing element. A clearer gloss is a person who goes to a party without having been invited. However, rather than giving a gloss, it would be better to lead up to it through a series of questions which Ss answer as you go along, e.g. Have you ever been to a party? Where? How many people were there? Had they all been invited? Have you ever been to a party you weren’t invited to? So, you were a gatecrasher.Bear in mind that in certain cultural settings the whole idea of parties and gatecrashers will be alien to Ss.


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6Comment:Ss can participate better in a class when they can all see each other’s faces and hear each other. The T can monitor better when the Ss are as physically close (within reason) as possible.If the T sits behind a desk, this not only puts a physical barrier between T and Ss, but it makes individual monitoring more difficult especially in a large room with muddy acoustics.Optimum use of available space is usually to sit the Ss in a horseshoe, without intervening empty chairs, with the T sitting/standing at the “focal point” of the horseshoe, preferably not behind a desk, thus able easily to interact with or approach individual Ss or the board. This arrangement has a significantly beneficial effect on attention and participation levels.

7Comment:Perhaps the T had given up on these Ss, failing even to attempt to stop them using L1. But this disrupts concentration and is not fair on those Ss who are prepared to make the effort to stick to the target language. T should try to remain aware of Ss lapsing into L1 and persevere in keeping it to a minimum, even if this means involving the DOS in having a cautionary word with individual Ss.


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8

Comment:The issue here is illustration and checking of meaning.Presumably the T has a set belief that language can and should be “explained” by saying what it means, and even better if this can come from the Ss themselves. But consider just how difficult it is even for a native speaker to answer the question What does “let” mean? (assuming for the moment that simply resorting to the near-synonym “allow” is not enough!)It is almost always better to illustrate meaning by providing good, clearly contextualised examples and then checking, rather than by “defining” or “explaining”. So in this case, better to guide towards/elicit from Ss a list of examples such as She let me …borrow her mp3 player / use her laptop / copy her homework etc, and then check whether Ss have understood by asking questions which prove they’ve “got it”. There is often no need to define, if the language is being used appropriately. In fact, some “definitions” can muddy the waters more than they clarify.


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9Comment:The issue here is clarity of aims. Presumably the T is in fact trying to get Ss to practise and use make and let with the bare infinitive form of other verbs, for the concepts of coercion and permission, e.g. The teacher made him stand in the corner or My parents didn’t let me stay out late.This being the case, the T’s instructions are not precise enough and the S offerings, though grammatically correct, do not meet the real aims of this part of the lesson. A further point is that it is actually very difficult, even for a teacher, to simply come up with good examples on the spot. Much better if the T has some ready-made examples which Ss can be guided towards through appropriate prompting. In other words, in the early stages of working on new language, try to avoid asking Ss to provide both language and content – it’s often a big ask.

10

Comment:The issue here is that of applying criteria. The teacher’s thinking behind this is probably (a) that comparing of answers will lead to useful student debate about right and wrong answers, and (b) that some Ss are stronger, and that one learns best by teaching others. However, these assumptions can only be true in certain circumstances. There are many classroom instances where the comparing of answers is tantamount to the blind leading the blind. T therefore needs to apply sensible criteria in deciding whether to do it or not. It should not


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become a kind of automatic “teaching tic”.


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11

Comment:The main issue here is input.If you look at the description of what happened in the classroom, the teacher does not appear to actually teach anything - she elicits all the vocabulary from the Ss. Maybe she was caught by surprise when Ss came up with vocabulary that she was intending to “input” – but she could, on realising this, have changed tack and sped things up by adopting a diagnostic approach instead of treating the vocabulary as if it were all new. A diagnostic approach in this case would entail quickly writing up all the items on the board (rather than gradually eliciting them from Ss), and then seeing if the Ss could correctly apply them to, say, a set of randomly selected photos showing people’s faces or some hastily drawn faces on the board (or failing this, simply any pictures of people dotted throughout the coursebook). This might also provide an opportunity for the spontaneous input of less standard items, such as attractive, friendly, open, mean-looking, etc. (for faces) or step outside the adjectival category to provide plaits, ponytail, fringe (for hair) or phrases like she looks as if… – so that Ss leave the lesson having not only practised familiar language, but having learnt something new.A further point here is that of “verifiability”. If Ss describe their best friend to each other, there’s no way of knowing whether they are actually getting it right; whereas if they have to describe photos which everyone can later see, then their descriptions are verifiable.


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12

Comment:In principle it is, of course, good to get Ss to recall things from previous lessons, especially if it’s a collaborative effort with T setting up pair work.However, a week after reading the story, it is likely to be quite difficult for Ss to remember it all that well. What would help to generate more free-flowing language practice would be if T wrote up a few key memory-jogging elements of the story on the board in random order, and Ss tried to reconstruct the story orally in pairs.In other words, selective prompting often works better than relying on total recall.

13

Comment:If you carried out the T’s instructions yourself, you might come up with things like A pen is a thing which we write with or A telephone is a thing which we use to speak to each other with. But for a student with a low level of English, the first is much easier. So for the purposes of initial practice, it would be better for the T to prompt Ss with selected items rather than give them free rein (sometimes free choice is an inappropriately-bestowed burden for a language learner, especially at lower levels). Also, apart from the main aim of the task - i.e. practice in the use the relative pronoun “which” - the other bits of language involved may need to be anticipated and dealt with. The telephone example above contains the form each other: This is possibly new to Ss, so T will need either to address it or to avoid it by use of selective prompting. In short, giving Ss too much freedom can land you


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in a mess if you’re not careful!


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14

Comment:Several issues converge here: appropriate timing, spoken v written practice, verifiability, and natural use of language.

Although we don’t know what has led up to this moment in the lesson, it does seem that ten minutes is rather a long time to spend on this for such slim pickings. More useful practice could be obtained by setting up some kind of situational context in which the target language might naturally be used, e.g. reporting on the progress of an expedition or something like the Tour de France. Set up the context either with board drawings or a prepared OHP diagram/map, then get Ss to produce appropriate sentences orally.

Prioritise prompted speaking over “free” writing, because it’s much quicker, Ss get more practice, and the output is verifiable. In the classroom case described, the Ss’ offerings are grammatically correct but unverifiable (i.e. there’s no way of knowing whether the S is actually saying what they intend to say) and also highly unnatural. It’s very hard to imagine a situation where anyone would actually say I have already gone to school, whereas it’s easy to do so in a case like She’s already been to Vienna when describing a tour of Europe.

see also comments # 9 & 11.


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15Comment:Two related issues here: the conveying of meaning, and the checking of understanding. Meaning can best be conveyed by using as many “mutually-reinforcing” means as possible, including for example the use of board pictures or diagrams, and contextualised example sentences.As for checking understanding, even if Ss respond with a “Yes” to the question “Do you understand?”, this is no guarantee that they all do, or even that some do. Understanding can be checked by asking suitable concept questions and providing practice of a kind which can only be performed successfully if Ss have understood properly.

16Comment:This kind of task is common in coursebooks. It assumes some familiarity with the target vocabulary (otherwise it would be a pointless guessing-game), and the idea is for T to be able to “see what they know, and supply what they don’t”. The treatment described here raises issues of language use, validity of practice and pace.Firstly, it can be argued that getting individual Ss to read aloud achieves no more, and is much slower, than simply checking through the answers by referring to numbers and letters, e.g. 1 – g, 2 – b, 3 – d, etc. This keeps the pace brisk and frees up time for a more valid checking stage, e.g. Ss close books and T asks questions which elicit the just-covered target items (going from meaning to word). Secondly, why drill the definition, when it is not this but the item itself that we want Ss to use? Better, if drilling at all, to drill an example of the item in a


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natural context.


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17Comment:This is OK so far as it goes, but does it go far enough? To fully check understanding, T would have to ask the Ss to use the item, e.g. by asking what kind of things one can take part in, or better still personalise it by asking what things they have taken part in and what happened.

18Comment:This kind of task (as in #16) assumes some familiarity with at least some of the target vocabulary, the idea being to “find out what they know, and supply what they don’t”. However, the case described suggests that an alternative procedure would have been preferable. In cases where a significant amount of the target language is likely to be new to Ss – i.e. the task is not just a “memory-jogger” – then it is best to teach the items first (using other means than the coursebook), and only then set the matching task to consolidate.

19Comment:The issue here is maximisation of student talking time. In order to learn to speak well, Ss need practice in speaking. This need not necessarily take the form of mechanical repetition, but it will certainly need to include points where Ss are forced to choose appropriate language, i.e. it is not always “handed to them on a plate”.T also needs to insist on extended interventions from Ss wherever appropriate, and not


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accepting monosyllabic ones.


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20Comment:The issue here is elicitation. The T is, quite rightly, anticipating a vocabulary problem which may impede the aim of extensive reading practice. However, sometimes it’s hard, from the position of “knowing the answer”, to appreciate that the question asked may not in fact be the right one to elicit it. Here, even a native-speaker would have trouble working out what T wanted in response to What do we call weather that is not normal? An alternative is to lead up to the item in a different way: introduce or elicit some things like tornado or tidal wave and ask Do these things happen everyday, or are they very unusual? Get answer, then say So, they are examples of very unusual weather. We can call this freak weather. Is it worth drilling? Perhaps - but is T consciously applying criteria, or locked into the habit of drilling all new vocab?

21Comment:The issue here is use of metalanguage (language about language). If this is a check question about terms the T has already introduced, fine. However if not, the question is difficult to answer, as it involves talking about stative and dynamic verbs. Better, initially, to avoid questions relying on metalanguage. In this case, put example sentences with present continuous on the board – mostly correct, but a few incorrect e.g. Are you knowing my brother? or I’m not believing what you told me. Focus on these, show which common verbs the non-progressive rule applies to (e.g. know, believe, think = have opinion, have = possess, etc.). Then perhaps, but not necessarily, teach the terms stative and dynamic.


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22Comment:Issues here are clarity of aim, skills focus v language focus, and choice of task type.Presumably the dialogue in question contains a number of instances of the two verb formstargeted by the T. However, the aim of this listening task needs to be clarified. It is common experience that if you are asked to listen for a given grammatical form, it is almost impossible to hear and process the content. In this case, the Ss might be able to pick out examples of past simple and present perfect, but probably wouldn’t be able to say, for example, what problem the two speakers were having and what they decided to do in the end. This kind of comprehension would require a different kind of task, aimed at developing the skill of listening rather than focussing purely on the language forms used by the speakers. It may be, of course, that after a skills-developing task the T wants to “wrap up” with a language focus. Fair enough, but if so then write down all the examples you hear is not the ideal instruction. In the time it takes for Ss to write down one example, the next will probably be upon them and they can’t do two things at once – so better to work out a task which involves only minimal physical response, such as ticking a list of phrases or items, some of which occur in the dialogue and some of which don’t, or putting a jumbled set of items in the correct order. Ticking, or sequencing, or picking out the correct option from a multiple-choice task, are all much quicker than “writing out”, thus freeing up mental space for concentration and processing.


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23Comment:The T is keen to praise and encourage Ss, and there may be no more to this situation than a group working well.However, for a teacher it’s always worth questioning things which Ss find very easy. Is the task sufficiently challenging to be motivating? Does it “stretch” them? If things are too easy, then boredom and inattention creep in, and – especially with younger learners – problems with discipline arise. If younger learners find something surprisingly easy, it may be that they’ve been studying it at school – in which case the T will need to “tweak” things so as to make them more challenging, or include some kind of extra input.

24Comment:This form of interaction can become a teaching habit. This means that the weaker or shyer Ss end up participating much less, with obvious consequences. The alternative is to make sure there is an appropriate balance between open questions like the ones quoted and those which are addressed to specific individuals: Marta, can you tell me …? etc. so that everyone is involved throughout the course. The teacher can make sure that the weaker or shyer Ss get the easier questions to boost their confidence.


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25Comment:Here the T provides an accurate gloss on the target items. The sequence starts with the words, and moves to the meaning. However, on this evidence there’s no involvement of Ss in and no checking of understanding.The alternative is a meaning-to-word approach, which in this case could go something like this, accompanied by relevant miming: Imagine I’m driving in a car, and suddenly a small child runs out in front of me. So I quickly turn the steering wheel like this – why? To avoid hitting the child. So - what do I do? I swerve to avoid hitting the child. Can I swerve if I’m on a bike? (Yes) A ship? (No – why not? Because it’s a sudden movement) etc.Plus something similar for skid.This “build-up-the-meaning-from-scratch” approach, making use where possible of visual elements (mime, board drawings) is often better than a simple verbal gloss. It depends on how tricky the concept is.

26Comment:Similar to #20 & 21. Sometimes it’s hard for a T, from the position of “knowing the answer”, to appreciate that the question asked may not be the right one to elicit it.In this case, the question would be valid as the final part of a sequence involving sample sentences on the board and highlighting, in different colours, the different verb forms and the adverbs of frequency. Or, phrase it differently: Where do adverbs of frequency go in a sentence, before or after the verb? or similar.


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Otherwise, the question is unclear.


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27Comment:The T presumably believes in personalising language by asking genuine questions about Ss’ real lives. Yet the same effect could be produced with much more S involvement and production. Firstly, as soon as the first question is modelled, T could set up S – S question and answer (indicating through gestures and prompts).Secondly, T could instruct Ss to extend the exchange in a natural way, e.g. with follow-up questions like What make is it?, How often do you use it? etc. Obviously it depends on the level and the main aim, but the principle of maximising S participation and generating extended stretches of language will apply in almost all contexts.

28Comment:If this instruction is used for first-time reading in the absence of any other task, then the focus is placed on the obstacles, to the detriment of overall comprehension. It’s a bit like trying to sell a house by drawing attention to the cracks in the ceiling. Much better to deal with overall comprehension first, using a variety of task types, and then clear up doubts.Even then, the T will need criteria by which to decide which items are worth spending time on – otherwise, there could be long periods spent on clarifying obscure, low-frequency lexis which is unnecessary for comprehension.


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29Comment:The homework is being set right at the end of the lesson. This approach might work for straightforward workbook exercises based on language which has been presented and practised in the classroom, or for certain diagnostic tasks. However, in this case it’s a question of a fairly demanding piece of extended narrative writing which, unless the Ss have had substantial preparation for it, they are quite likely to make a mess of. An extended writing task like this generally requires a large part of the preceding lesson to be taken up with brainstorming ideas, looking at ways of organising them, and providing a range of useful language for inclusion – perhaps even drafting the whole of the first paragraph with Ss in the class. The aim is to bring Ss to the point where they have a good chance of performing well in the task set.

30Comment:The teacher does not appear to actually teach anything - she elicits all the language from the Ss. So those who already knew learn nothing new, whereas those who didn’t are unlikely to benefit from others’ knowledge because there is no explicit recording or fixing of the language. Whilst eliciting ideas from Ss is of course a very useful part of many teaching procedures, the T should always aim for a “not-only-but-also” approach: not only anticipate what Ss will probably come up with, but also be prepared to provide an appropriate amount of relevant new language.

See also #11.


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31Comment:The T is quite rightly setting up S – S interaction to practise target language. However, the practice could be made more meaningful. As things stand, both Ss can see all the information, so the “askers” already know the answers to their questions. The alternative is to create an information gap by giving students “A” one set of information and Ss “B” a different set. In this case, both Ss would have the same family tree, but with different bits of it missing on A’s or B’s version. It could be argued that in this case, setting up the “unknown answer” makes little difference because the information is of no particular personal relevance to Ss. However, the general principle of making classroom interaction as genuinely communicative as possible is a useful goal.

32Comment:This game is a well-known and useful revision tool. However, in the case described the S’s example is rather unusual and doesn’t show whether he actually knows the meaning of run away as a phrasal verb – he might, but people don’t normally run away from football matches. So T should insist on better examples such as The thief stole a pair of jeans from the boutique and ran away with them or She had so many arguments with her parents that she ran away from home when she was fifteen. Such examples are difficult to think up on the spot, but if this is truly a revision game, then Ss can be primed by asking them to review their notes or coursebooks (which will include sample sentences) when setting homework in the previous lesson, and in class by memory-jogging prompts


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such as pair of jeans or parents.


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33Comment:The issue here is that of pre-teaching as appropriate in order to remove unnecessary obstacles. In most cases, unknown lexis in texts selected for inclusion in coursebooks is no obstacle to gist comprehension, and T should encourage Ss to tolerate a certain degree of “not knowing”. To this end, then, T should try to get Ss out of the habit of always asking about anything unfamiliar. However, in this case, where the same items are cropping up time after time, it may be that even the gist is obscured by the unfamiliar items because the context is not clear enough. The only way to deal with this is for the T to read the text carefully beforehand and consider which items (rarely more than two or three) could usefully be taught before Ss start reading, facilitating comprehension without spoiling any of the tasks to be set. Good coursebooks will already have accounted for this in the Teacher’s Book.

See also #28.

34Comment:Several considerations here. Firstly, perhaps it’s better to wait and see whether Ss find something difficult before suggesting that it will be. Secondly, has the T appropriately gauged the level of difficulty, so that the task is challenging but not demotivatingly difficult? Thirdly, T’s words are highly idiomatic – perhaps OK at high levels, but in many cases it would be appropriate for T to grade language e.g. You may think this is a bit difficult at first, but I think you can do it.


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35Comment:If this is just a quick warm-up to the topic of the day, it is perfectly valid; but a possible problem here is the wide scope of all the words you can think of. Is there a time limit?Imagine what will happen in response to the instruction. Ss will come up with long lists of words including things like football, basketball, tennis, golf, etc. Most of what comes up will probably be nouns, most of these will probably be names of sports, and most of these will be comfortably familiar to all Ss at this level. It would be more fruitful to spread the net wider by asking for not only nouns (in given categories like names of sports, places, and equipment) but also verbs, adjectives, and phrases. Easy and taken-for-granted items could be leapfrogged by having a basic list already prepared and shown to Ss with the instruction to extend the list.As in #30, T should aim for a “not-only-but-also” approach, not only anticipating what Ss will probably come up with, but also stepping in at the right moment to provide relevant new language.

36Comment:This is obviously better than ignoring the Ss. However, at this level it is appropriate to ensure that Ss are no longer getting away with incorrectly formed questions. They probably speak like this because none of the teachers they’ve had on the way up through the levels has taken them to task and insisted on correct question-forms. They are not difficult – it’s just a matter of developing the habit. The role of the teacher is to facilitate this.


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37Comment:These are examples of cases where there is a clear need, in an obvious context, for language the Ss don’t know - and yet T has not considered providing it, presumably because it’s not on the syllabus or in the text book. This raises the issue of responding to student needs and making full use of the surroundings in which teaching takes place.

38Comment:This, like no 37, suggests a situation in which neither Ss nor T pay attention to habits which could easily be addressed – in this case the /s/ pronunciation of the soft “c” in English. Pronunciation need not be confined to programmed “pron-slots”, but given quick spontaneous attention in virtually any activity.

39Comment:It is often possible to be “correct” in very few words, and taking no risks. However, if T wants to help Ss learn how to speak, then there must be habitual “stretching” of their linguistic powers at every possible point. In other words, T should get into the habit of saying “OK, now say a bit more” and “How else could you say that?”

40Comment:It is quite possible that 80% of what is taught is forgotten by the end of that week. So a constant sprinkling of revision is useful in every lesson, even


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if only a little.


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Preparation Time - IH Journalihjournal.com/docs/prac-classrm-sits.doc · Web view(The word has come...

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