3:Are these words good or bad when we are talking about how people look? smart cool fashionable old new old-fashioned cheesy flashy funky
4: Today I am doing. Tomorrow I will do.
1. My husband had a meeting with her clients. 2. I send my daughter to school every day.
Think about mistakes versus errors
You don’t have to use the preparation sheet every time
ask each other in pairs and you overhear this: A: Do you have any … ah–LER–gheez B: ah–LER-gheez shenme yisi? A: Wo ye bu zhidao … (checks dictionary) Later, same conversation for the word dentist. How can we prevent this?
Can you incorporate the target language into the warm-up?
One student: Ask the student questions about their lives so you can adapt the class to them. Start off with simple, direct questions, such as “How are you? Where do you live? Who do you live with? What do you do (for work and in your free time)?”
A ccuracy
Fl uency
Salon or Private? What’s the goal of the lesson or activity? What’s the student’s number one problem?
What do you think of the following? LI Student: Yesterday I go shopping Teacher: Oh, you mean you went shopping. LI Student: OK Self-correction should be the first choice Then:
Ten-student Salon: Ask each student, “How are you doing today?” Don’t allow the same answer twice!
Upper level students: Introduce some new greetings:
Establish a rapport with each student
Ease students into English; build confidence and fluency
Assess the abilities of each student and the class as a whole
If you really don’t understand what a student has said, ask them to repeat it or spell it. Ask questions until you understand it. Be patient!
What if we corrected every mistake? What if we never corrected?
1: question interrogatives married single fine usually
2: cat wine glass books pencil fishbowl bottle ball telephone hat man paper pig pen tin dog chair rice bucket
Avoid the following:
“Let me know if there are any words on the handout that you don’t know before we start”
“Does everyone know allergies?”
Model effectively
How’s it going? or How have you been? What have you been up to? Model answers:
I’ve been (v.)ing … Last week / yesterday I (past tense) …
For any level:
5: Who are you? … Why do you watch TV? 6:
What does he look like? What does she like? What would you like? How is he? What's she like? What was it like?
Put a list of departments on the board and have the student choose one. Instruct them to say “I work in HR (or IT, admin, finance)
If that doesn’t work, bring them to their tutor after class
When are you going to use the words? Right away or 35ste paper! Can you just write a few words on the board?
Some preparation sheets have words that are inappropriate for the level or phrases that are uncommon or out-of-context
Teacher: What’s your job? Student: I’m a staff T: OK, what kind of staff? S: Just a staff. T: Ahh, OK. So, what do you do in your free time? S: I uh just … (unintelligible) T: Ahh, OK. So today’s lesson is about …
Avoid open-ended tasks such as “Tell me three things about yourself”. This can cause confusion.
If you don’t know a student, spend a minute or two getting to know them
Preview all vocabulary and sentence models before you start the student output part of the activity. Knowing what input you will give the students is an important part of preparation.
Allow students coming late and not miss anything vital to the class
Ask students simple questions they can definitely answer
The focus should be on fluency rather than accuracy
Choose a family member and a day of the week, and tell me about his or her schedule for that day
What does healthy mean?
What happened in this dialogue? What can the teacher do better?
Peer Board Teacher
Should I correct right away or way until later? What are the advantages of each?
What’s the difference between these two problem sentences? How does the difference affect how we correct them?
Fantastic. They played for more than 3 hours.
He's doing well, thank you.
He's tall, dark and handsome. Playing golf, reading and going to the cinema. A steak, please. Very interesting, she has travelled all over the world.
Seven Ways to Improve Your Teaching
I. Always having a warm-up II. Setting up activities III. Giving clear instructions and checking