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Classic Classroom Clangers

Hate to admit it, but I am a bit of an expert on this.
Thinking back to when I first started TEFL teaching, I cringe when I think of the mistakes I made finding my feet. Obviously, when I did eventually locate my missing appendages, all was plain sailing!

My first classic TEFL error is Teacher Talking Time. When I tutor the TEFL courses it is the one thing that trainee teachers consistently have problems with.

Maybe it was the same for you, when I was at school teachers did the talking and we attentively listened and diligently took notes (honest!). The TEFL classroom is not like this. The time that the students are in your class is quite likely to be the only time your students have to practise the English language so it essential that you give them as much Student Talking Time as possible.

The ways to do this is by using various elicitation techniques, i.e. ask them, don’t tell them. Plus, you need enough cunning practice activities that involve you monitoring while the students work in pairs or small groups.

The Second Slip-up is based on the first: I talked too much and the more I talked the less I was understood. I didn’t speak clearly, I spoke too fast and I used vocabulary and phrases that flew so far above the elementary students’ heads that all I managed to elicit in the classroom was blank stares. You know when you have lost your audience.

Here, you need to grade your language, get as much experience and acquaintance with the kind of vocabulary and grammar that lower levels are expected to have. And above all, check understanding at every opportunity, NOT by asking “Do you understand?”, but by asking ‘concept’ questions whereby you can check the students’ understanding depending on how they respond. For example, if you are teaching the word happy, check understanding by pulling a sad face and asking “Am I happy?”

You will soon be able to gauge understanding of your students and when you have gone too far.

The Final Blunder is timing, or the lack of it. I often found that lessons finished in the half the time then I would immediately compensate by only getting half way through the presentation part of the lesson the following week (usually because I was talking too much!).

The basic learning here is to have lots of extra activities up your sleeve. I had lots of games that I used and tailored the games to include what I was teaching. It could be hangman, Simon says, Quizes, Vocab quizzes… all sorts really. But they don’t have to be games they could simply be further role plays or pair work activities or even beginning homework. All I then had to do was to make sure I didn’t talk too much.