MET 1 - Chapter 1

What kind of aspects can you find when you have a quick snapshot image of a language classroom?

- The atmosphere

- The learners's mood

- The teacher's attitude

Starting out

1) CLASSROOM AT WORK

CHAPTER 1

2) WHAT IS A TEACHER?

Students can learn in different ways:

*In a class with other students and a teacher

*By studying on their own at home with different kinds of material (books, CDs, DVDs, e-books)

*By living and communicating in a place where the language is used –“picking up the language” (IMMERSION)

The importance of rapport:

Rapport is the way how teachers related to the learners and consequently how learners are related to each others. "BE FRIENDLY BUT NO FRIEND."

Carl Rogers suggested three teacher's characteristics that help to create an effective learning environment.

* Respect (listens to his/her students, is fair)

* Authenticity is considered the most important (trusts people, does not complicate things unnecessarily)

* Empathy (inspires confidence, understand students’ problems)

"Entertainer" teaching

There's a fine line between creating a good atmosphere and good rapport in class and becoming an entertainer.

"Traditional" teaching

Whereas most teachers will need to be good "explainers" at various points in their lessons, a teaching approach based solely or mainly on this technique can be problematic.

*Throughout the lesson, the teacher takes control of the subject matter.

* "Jug and mug" the knowledge being poured from one receptacle into an empty one.

* To emphasize on “chalk and talk”

* To practice exercises and test them immediately to see whether they have understood what they have been told.

* To transmit knowledge to the class with occasional questions to or from the learners.

Three kinds of teachers: (Adrian Underhill)

* THE EXPLAINER: This teacher knows his subject very well, has little knowledge of teaching methodology.

* THE INVOLVER: This teacher knows his/her subject, is familiar with teaching methodology, and retains clear control over the classroom.

* THE ENABLER: This teacher creates the conditions that enable the students to learn for themselves, can become a guide, a counselor, or a resource of information when needed, and knows about the subject matter and about methodology.

It is important for methodology students to know that every teacher has elements of Underhill’s three categories of teachers depending on the day, the class, the aims of a lesson, and the nature of the activities.

3) TEACHING & LEARNING

An experiential learning cycle: The process of learning often involves five steps

* Doing something

* Recalling what happened

* Reflecting on what happened

* Drawing conclusions from the reflection

* Using those conclusions to inform and prepare for future practical experience

DO

RECALL

CONCLUDE

REFLECT

PREPARE

How useful are explanations?

* Ability to use a language seems to be more of a skill

you learn by trying to do it (akin to playing football or riding a bicycle) than an amount of data that you learn and then try to apply.

* Learners need to gain exposure to comprehensible samples of language (not just the teacher’s monologues.

* Learners need chances to play with and communicate with the language themselves in relatively safe ways.

* Students need to talk themselves.

* Learners need to communicate with a variety of

people.

* Learners need to do a variety of different language-related task.

* Learners need feedback on how successful or not their attempts at communication have been.

"Teaching" does not equal "learning"

Learning: Demands energy and attention from the learner, it has to be done by your own personal effort.

Teaching: Is only one factor, is actually rather less important than one might suppose.

People learn a language by doing things with the language rather than by being told about it.

So what’s a teacher for? To help learning to happen.

4) THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ELT

An experiential learning cycle: The process of learning often involves five steps

* Doing something

* Recalling what happened

* Reflecting on what happened

* Drawing conclusions from the reflection

* Using those conclusions to inform and prepare for future practical experience

1) LANGUAGE SYSTEMS

We can analyse the sentence "Pass me the book" in different ways.

2) LANGUAGE SKILLS

As well as working with the language systems , we also need to pay attention to what we do with language.

There are four important macro language skills:

PRODUCTIVE SKILLS:

* speaking

* writing

RECEPTIVE SKILLS:

* reading

* listening

The importance of skills work: It is something so essential that it needs to be at

the heart of a course from the start. Even a beginner with one day’s English will be

able to practise speaking and listening usefully.

A purpose-based view of course content:

The Common European Framework focuses on what learners can do with language. By creating lesson plans based around students planning, undertaking and reflecting on tasks that reflect these real-life purposes.

Changes of emphasis: Nowadays, most interest is expressed in work on all language systems and skills, particularly emphasising listening and speaking (because in everyday life we often do far more speaking and listening than we do reading and writing)

The communicative purpose of language learning: The purpose of learning a language is usually to enable you to take part in

exchanges of information: talking with friends, reading instructions on a packet of

food, understanding directions, writing a note to a colleague, etc.

Other areas that are part of language learning:

• Students may be learning new ways of learning: for example, specific study skills and techniques.

• They will also be learning about the other people in their class, and exploring ways of interacting and working with them.

• They may be learning about themselves and how they work, learn, get on with other people, cope with stress, etc.

• They may be learning a lot about the culture of the countries whose language they are studying.

• They may be learning how to achieve some specific goal, for example passing an exam, making a business presentation at an upcoming conference.

• They may also be learning about almost anything else. The subject matter of

ELT can encompass all topics and purposes that we use language to deal with.

5) METHODS

The Grammar-Translation Method

A method is a way of teaching; you choose a method depending on your beliefs on what language is, how people learn and how teaching helps people learn.

It involves translating from first language to second language with an emphasis on grammar.

The Audio-Lingual Method

It aims to form good habits through students listening to model dialogues with repetition and drilling but with little or no teacher explanation.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or

Communicative Approach (CA)

It’s student-centered. It is based on beliefs that learners will learn best if they participate in meaningful communication not structure. Strong CLT, ss learn by doing communication tasks with a limited role for explicit teaching and traditional practice exercises. In contrast, Weak CLT, ss learn through a variety of teaching, exercises, activities and study, with a partial work in speaking and listening.

Total Physical Response (TPR)

Community Language Learning (CLL)

The natural approach

Task-Based Learning (TBL)

The Silent Way

Person-centred approaches

Lexical approaches

Dogme

Teaching technique where a learner responds to language input with body motions.

A method based around use of the learners’ first language and with teacher help in mediating. It aims to lower anxiety and allow students to communicate in a more genuine way than is typically possible in classrooms.

Intended to provide the learner with natural comprehensible

language so that the learner can pick up language in ways similar to a child learning their first language.

is a variant of CLT. It is an approach to pedagogy based on an analysis of the things that people do with language rather than a list of grammatical and lexical items.

It encourages students to figure out the patterns (patrones )of language (structure) on their own.

It places learners and their needs at the heart of what is done.

Syllabus and working methods will not be decided by the teacher in advance of the

course, but agreed between learner and teacher.

A methodology based around exposure and

experiment. (traditional present-then-practise

methods are of little use)

It proposes to get back-to-basics approach. Teachers aim to strip

their craft of unnecessary technology, materials and aids and get back to the fundamental relationship and interaction of teacher and student in class.

Personal methodology:

The truth was that there was no monolithic method at work. Teachers work out for themselves what is effective in their own classrooms. The process of choosing items from a range of methods and constructing a collage methodology is sometimes known as principled eclecticism.

6) FIRST LESSONS

Key hints when planning your first lessons:

Use the coursebook (if there is one) Take your time before the lesson to read carefully through the unit. Many teachers also use ideas books, known as ‘recipe books’, which do exactly what that nickname suggests – give you everything you need to know to be able to

walk into class with the right ingredients to ‘cook up’ a good activity.

A lesson is a sequence of activities Think of the lesson as a series of

separate but linked activities.

Learn something about your students If possible, talk to other teachers

and find out something about the class and the people in it.

Plan student-focused activities. Plan activities that are based on the following route map:

1 Lead-in (a brief introduction to the topic, eg you show a picture to the class and invite comments).

2 Set up the activity (ie you give instructions, arrange the seating, etc).

3 Students do the activity in pairs or small groups while you monitor and help.

4 Close the activity and invite feedback from the students.

Steps 1, 2 and 4 should take relatively little time.

The heart of this sequence is Step 3.

Make a written plan of the running order of your activities Write out a

simple list showing the activities in order.

Consider aims Think about what students will get from your lesson, ie what

is the point of them spending their time in this lesson?

Fluency or accuracy? Decide, for each stage in the lesson, if you are mainly

working on fluency or accuracy – this is a key choice for many activities

Get the room ready; get yourself ready . Make sure the room is set up as you

wish (eg how will you arrange the seating?). Make sure you have everything you

need (eg chalk or board pens)

Have at least one emergency activity! (eg a word game, an extra photocopied game, etc)

KEY HINTS

WHEN STARTING TO TEACH

KEY HINTS

FOR STARTING TO TEACH

BETTER

Talk to the students as they come into the room.

Think of the lesson as starting from the first moment a student arrives in the room.

Learn names as soon as possible.

There is a huge difference in comfort levels if you know people’s names. it is a very important teacher skill.

Be yourself.

As far as possible, speak in ways you normally speak, respond as yourself rather than as you think a ‘teacher’ should respond.

Teaching doesn’t mean ‘talking all the time’.

When you are teaching a language, the priority is for the learners to talk, rather than the teacher.

Teaching doesn’t mean ‘teaching’ all the time.

Don’t feel that being a teacher means that you have to be doing things all the time. It may feel a little odd, but it really is quite OK to sit down and do nothing when students are working on a pair or group task.

Slow down.

A large number of new teachers tend to do things much too fast. When you ask something, you must allow three times the length of time you feel students need (this is sometimes called wait time).

Turn your radar on.

Start to ask for comments and brief feedback on things you do. Watch the students at work and learn to notice what is difficult, what is easy, what seems to engage, what seems boring. Study your students.

Don’t teach and teach … teach then check.

Practice is more important than input. Don’t do endless inputs. Teach a very little amount … then check what students have taken in. Give students the opportunity to try using the items

Rule -of-thumb: input 5%, checking and practice 95%

Are you teaching the class … or one person?

When you ask questions / check answers, etc, are you really finding out if they all

know the items …