Best Practices: a short-cut to novice teachers. Teachers’ Seminar 2011 Alice Elvira Machado.
Post on 11-Jan-2016
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Rapport
• Keep eye contact & smile.
• Share personal interests & experiences, but avoid digressions.
• Sit closer to sts & interact with them at eye level at ‘conversation’ moments.
• Distribute attention evenly.
• Be aware of your positioning in class.
• Bring in and encourage humour.
Respect
• Encourage sts to listen to peers.
• Encourage respect for mistakes & peer help.
• Welcome contributions & respond genuinely to them.
• Establish an atmosphere of mutual tolerance & respect.
• Integrate latecomers into activities.
• Praise sts for correct language use & for effort.
• Promote the building of a group identity.
Discipline
• Excessive enthusiasm is not necessarily lack of discipline.
• Establish class routines. They create a safe environment, esp. with children.
• Pay attention to signs of lack of discipline & respond assertively.
• Be assertive; not authoritarian.
• Negotiate rules of conduct with sts. Don’t take them for granted with adults. They need to be co-established & respected.
Conversation
L1 & L2 use
STT vs. TTT ratio
Elicitation & extended contributions
Opportunity for personalisation
Controlled practice
Variety of patterns of interaction
• Make criterious use of L1: contrasting L1 & L2, disciplining sts.
• Establish routines for L1 use control: pretend not to understand L1 / rephrase sts’ utterances into L2 and asking them to repeat.
• Teach & encourage the use of classroom language.
• Expose sts to ‘real’ English: colloquial expressions and fillers & frequently used slang.
L1 & L2 use• Use English (L2) for communication (in and
outside the classroom) & for instructions.
• Don’t say what your sts can say.STT vs. TTT
• Plan for clear, economical instructions / avoid unnecessary repetition and Now we’re going to sentences.
• Volunteers are welcome, but nominate sts so as to guarantee an even distribution of opportunities.
• Avoid echoing. If sts say they don’t understand / haven’t heard a peer’s contribution, ask the speaker to say the sentence again.
• Demonstrate more; explain less.
• Start lessons with a speaking opportunity: a personalised warmer; small talk while calling the roll or waiting for latecomers.
• Provide / elicit personalized situations or current issues when setting up contexts or activities; elicit personalized examples of the target language.
Elicitation and Personalisation
• Offer opportunities for personalisation: transform HW task items into personal questions and encourage sts to use them in micro conversations after HW checking.
Elicitation and Personalisation
• Emphasize the perception of ‘conversation’: In pairs now. Let’s talk. instead of ‘Work’ in pairs.
• Plan elicitation questions so as to foster extensive contributions; avoid using Yes-no questions.
• Make use of elicitation to gauge how much sts know of a given topic.
• Encourage expansion of contributions: ask and encourage the use of follow-up questions during interactions and rounding up speaking activities.
• Encourage sts to interact with different peers.
Controlled Practice
• Aim for correct pronunciation, but do not cause embarrassment to sts.
• Drills are welcome! But use them as a means, not as an end.
• Provide variety: different types of drills (e.g. repetition, substitution & transformation) / different approaches (choral & individual; only boys / girls, etc.)
• Prepare prompts beforehand. Keep a brisk pace and be brief.
Controlled Practice
• Monitor closely at this stage. Interfere discretely and correct sts in pairs.
• Model target lgg / interaction before sts pair up. Models in open pairs are very useful.
• Identify controlled practice activities in your materials.
• Several MMC activities suit this stage. Aim to use PW /GW when exploiting them. Go beyond T-class / T-st.
Dynamism
Overall paceOptimization of class timeVariety of activities & resourcesResponse to sts’ level of motivation
Dynamism• Implement lesson as a continuous flow, not
as a series of activities.• Set a time limit for activities and provide
additional tasks for early finishers.
• Keep sts engaged, e.g. a st does a task on the e-B, others give clues or are involved somehow; nominate a Junior st to stamp peers’ Abs while others compare answers; meanwhile teacher goes round, checks answers & provides help.
• Do not let activities linger; monitor sts’ level of engagement.
Dynamism• Add unpredictability & fun: * a game-like approach to agenda, e.g.
unscrambling sentences / gap filling / uncovering words & building agenda with sts’ help.
*start & finish lessons with quick game-like recycling activities, e.g. Chinese Whispers, Tic Tac Toe, etc.
*change environment, e.g. go to MMCentre for a collaborative group task; sit on the floor; search info outside the classroom or on the classroom walls (e.g. messenger dictation).
Dynamism
• Vary techniques for pairing up / grouping sts, e.g. matching cards (sport & sportsperson, verb & particle, half collocations, If only vs. I wish sentences); sts uncover photos hidden by shapes on the e-B and find partners; a bunch of strings for sts to pick up ends and pair up; allocate numbers to sts (1-4), indicate where groups should sit & say Move.
• Resources: avoid overusing the e-B; paper flashcards and realia add variety.
Sense of Achievement
• Set up goals for the lesson, make them clear to sts & check they have been achieved by the end of the lesson (agenda / Now we can ...).
• Offer opportunity for self / peer correction: editing tasks using samples collected from sts’ production; ask st(s) to repeat the “correct” form after dealing with mistakes, esp. pronunciation mistakes.
• Achor successful moments: praise sts’ performance.
Technology• Aim to use the e-Board as an open door to the
outside world and not just as a big screen.
• Invite sts to use the e-Board tools. Make sure the whole group is engaged on task.
• Online dictionaries and Google images are very popular.
• Do not reproduce SB pages on the screen.
Weave your Lessons
• Plan & implement your lessons • Self-evaluate • Record successes &
what needs improving• Profit from mentor &
peer observation/ support• Share ideas & concerns• Welcome constructive
feedback• Incorporate BP into
your classroom practice• Share your own BPs
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