Archive for the ‘Classroom management’ Category

Re-reading my little story on weeping housewives (or not) who hadn’t done their homework, I must admit that it does really cut it as an anecdote- never been a talent of mine, as I find my own life incredibly dull and so hardly worth telling anyone about. To make up for it, here’s the one anecdote from other teachers I have heard over the last 13 years that has made me laugh more than any other. 

Our hero starts with a fairly typical set of difficult TEFLing circumstances, he’s got the Headway textbook and teacher’s book but no tape. Not worried so far, he is slightly put off by the fact that the lesson that is coming up is the part of Headway with the song “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton. Luckily, he finds a solution. (more…)

Number one: cosplay

Only joking- I mean of course that the status of English teachers is not so obviously low that when I met the love of my life and asked her to marry me she actually agreed!

You won’t hear a lot about it on the TEFL forums, but there are actually a lot of other advantages to choosing Japan to teach in: (more…)

Hopefully it’s just Mayday bank holiday rather than my lack of effort TEFLtasticwise recently that has seen a sudden drop in my number of views, but if only to make myself feel better I thought I’d give a list of where I’ve been making much more effort elsewhere, with links:

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

15 fun ways to switch students onto graded readers

15 fun gapfill tasks

15 fun job application practice tasks- CV writing, cover letter, interview practice, HR vocabulary etc.

TEFL.net articles

15 common misconceptions about Business English and ESP

15 cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 more cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

15 criteria for a good cultural training lesson

15 more criteria for good cultural training lesson

15 important cultural differences in the classroom

15 more important cultural differences in the classroom

Onestopenglish (Macmillan) articles

Motivating teachers whose Business English students miss class

UsingEnglish articles for teachers

Why your students overuse their dictionaries- with solutions

70 characteristics of a good grammar presentation- possibly the longest article on this subject ever!

Why your students don’t want to do pairwork- with solutions and some pondering about whether they might not sometimes be right

Why your students still make mistakes with grammar they know well- with solutions and a call to relax when there are no solutions

The advantages and disadvantages of peer observations- with how to exploit the advantages and avoid the disadvantages

Things to put in a Self-Access Centre or Student Library- with tips on how to do it on the cheap

Why do my students question me?- with solutions

Why your students have problems with listening comprehension- with solutions

UsingEnglish.com articles for students (teachers might also want to have a look at what I am writing about them)

Why does my teacher make me read silently?

Why doesn’t my teacher correct all my mistakes when I’m speaking?

Why does my teacher make me learn the phonemic script?

UsingEnglish photocopiable PDF worksheets

Travel English pairwork B and V

Business and technical English easily confused words

CAE Reading Part Two match the quotes

TEFLtastic worksheets (pain in the arse to print out but worth the effort)

English for job applications/ HR worksheets

Cultural training worksheets for EFL classes

Requests and offers functional language review

The Roots of Medical English LP and 4 worksheets

And that’s it for TEFL stuff. The other thing I’ve been busy with is my wedding speech for the day after tomorrow, which could well mean that May will be an even less busy month in TEFLtasticland. Anyone fancy writing a guest piece or feeding me a story to keep the 1700 viewers I get on a good day entertained until I get back into the flow? If so, try the “Contact me” link on the right…

1. German students trying to be cool

2. Japanese students giggling at everything you say, until it just isn’t flattering anymore, however cute they are

3. Chinese students falling asleep, then making you feel guilty when you do the topic of daily routines in the lesson after you told them off about it and you find out how little sleep they get at night

4. Korean students giving you gifts that are nicer than anything your boyfriend or girlfriend has ever given you and so making you feel guilty that you half ignored them because they were neither too loud nor too shy

5. Belgian students being odd in a completely different way to all the other Belgians let alone the other students and throwing you every time

6. Russian students making instant calculations of your financial worth

7. Spanish students complaining about the food (Ha! And a slice of jambon in a dry baguette is a delicacy??)

8. Brazilian students taking the piss out of the one poor Portuguese guy

9. French students just being so damn French

And that’s me out of stereotypes for a bit, and anyway that list of cultural cliches was not at all what I was planning to write when I sat down at this keyboard. So here goes with the first three sensible points on how cultural differences can affect what you do in the classroom :

1. Strictness
People from different cultures might react differently to giving students the answer key to check their own answers, bumping everyone’s score up in a test, being strict about absenses and lateness of the class register, allowing L1, chit chat when groups have finished early etc.

2. Groups and individuality
Students might be embarrassed by it being obvious that they are a higher or lower level than the rest of the class. You might also find that they will prefer to come to a concensus and report back to the class or teacher through a spokesman. This can also affect the use of competitive games and praising people who do well. They also might not want to reveal personal information that makes them stand out from the crowd.

3. Personal hygiene
There might be differences of sensitivity to body odour and the smell of food on the breath, wearing masks when you have a cold, or blowing your nose in public.

And the other 30 points, which are not only serious but also made the cut and made it into the actual articles, can be found in the TEFL.net article pages here:

15 important cultural differences in the EFL classroom

15 more important cultural differences in the EFL classroom

and the same things specific to Japanese students:

15 cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

And while we’re getting a bit of culture:

15 criteria for a good EFL cultural training lesson

15 more criteria for a good EFL cultural training lesson

and last but not least

The 15 most fun cultural training topics

With many of those ideas being available as worksheets on the new TEFLtastic worksheets culture page:

Cultural training worksheets for EFL classes

That enough culture fer yer?

…Why does no one ever listen to me??

Rather than a complaint about how your friends back home ask about your experiences abroad for 10 seconds and then get back to gossiping about Britney, I’m talking here about students who meet your top-spec up-to-date grammar explanations (gathered through nightly use of the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English for alternate reading and weights practice) with skeptical looks, “my other teacher said…”, “Yeah, riiiight!”, “No, that’s wrong” and/ or spitting out of chewing tobacco. Reasons include: (more…)

As a blogger and writer of articles on the internet whose technical knowledge stops at Word, as usual I feel half chuffed at churning out so many articles, including a good one here and there, and half guilty at creating so much work for those who can name a programming language more recent than BASIC. So, with many thanks to the tech sorts who made this possible and without further ado, here are the new bits and pieces on the web that I’ve been associated with:

The TEFL.net review pages I edit now allow comments on any of the titles reviewed there, which is a fabulous idea which I wish had been mine.

On TEFL.net too, there is a new Idea Thinktank of practical teaching games etc, on which I have about 12 (!) articles including 15 Fun Things to do with a Whiteboard (yes, that’s a whiteboard rather than an interactive whiteboard- showing my age??) and the 15 Most Fun Pronunciation Games.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also got some slightly more weighty ones up on the rejigged TEFL.net TEFL Articles Page, including Easy Ways to Improve Your TEFL Career.

And on Usingenglish.com in March:

Election- Second Conditionals speaking practice

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two Tasks about sports and hobbies

Why your students speak L1 in class

Why your students don’t do their homework

101 IELTS Speaking Part Two tasks about people, places, actions, things and times

Setting up workshops for teachers

Business English tense review

Business English silent letters and syllables

The language of trends spot the difference

I also had a review of a couple of BULATS books out in MET magazine this month, should you have a copy handy and fancy a look.

“An American teenager was hitchhiking in Nigeria. A carload of locals passed him. The car screeched to a halt. The locals jumped out and promptly roughed up the visitor. Why? (more…)

“During the speech both old and new students had become extremely restless, and thirteen children were out of their seats and moving around the room. The obscenities accompanying another tussle between two four-year-old boys- bakayaro and aho (fool)- had started a wave of obscenity calling from various parts of the room. As parents and teachers listened to the director’s speech apparently undisturbed, children tried to outdo one another in demonstrating their knowledge of elicit words. One particularly daring five-year-old topped the list with unko (feces) and chinpoko (penis).Completely ignored by teachers and parents, the contest died down as the audience rose to leave. The director’s remark ‘It is good to see that many children have already begun to make friends’ was a veiled reference to the general commotion” (more…)

Putting the seasonal cheer back into grammar (and putting the grammar back into Xmas)

Some of you might be thinking that the problem with Xmas today is an excess of commercialism or the lack of real religious feeling, but the way I see it the problem is an excess of worksheets teaching students vocabulary like “holly” that they will have forgotten by the same time next year (if they even understand the concept of holly anyway) and a lack of tie ins between those seasonal worksheets and everything else students do in the classroom. For those that agree with me that what is needed to make your Xmas complete is lots more grammar, here are some ideas on how to tie in your Xmas lessons with whatever grammar point you are studying at the time (the ideas should work with other major festivals and celebrations too)…

See below for not only shed loads of good grammar ideas in the continuation of this article, but also a whole stocking full of other ideas for Chrimbo-themed lessons for kids (from pre-school) to adults- “Christmastastic fun for all the family” (R)

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Following my own advice for automated teachers, I’ve been trying to use my search for something to write about Japan and or teaching English on my blog as a way of expanding my horizons rather than shrinking them. Recent semi-successful attempts include:

I’ve been dipping back into Eastern Standard Time, which was my bible to accessible Japanese culture when I first arrived in Japan (more serious guides to ikebana and what have you might have put me off for life) . Eastern Standard Time is a guide to Asian influence on American culture that has taught me just as much about America as it has about Japan and the rest of Asia, but anyway is highly recommended and is a great way of making sure that the things you learn about Japan are things you can actually talk about and interest people with when you go back home- a difficult task, believe me…

I’ve also just started Culture Matters, a debunking of Guns, Germs and Steel that is considerably more difficult to read but a bit more relevant to those living abroad and wanting to understand and talk about what they see around them and compare to other places. More about this soon now that I’ve remember that I’m reading it.

In exactly the same way, I can’t remember how Orientalism by Edward W.Said made it back from my bedside into my bookshelves, but will have to start reading again soon and let you know if it’s worth struggling through or not.

So, finally to a book I have actually finished recently- “Summerhill School- A New View of Childhood” by A.S.Neill.  A.S.Neill was one of the most famous proponents of free schools- at Summerhill students don’t have to come to lessons and can decide on most of the school rules in school meetings three times a week, where every student has an equal vote with every member of staff. Despite the fact that he supported the child raising theories of Dr (not Mr) Spock (something that Dr Spock himself later said he didn’t if I remember correctly) and had some very odd friends, from his book Neill (as all the staff and students called him) seems to be a genuinely undogmatic and questioning guy who was just trying to do the best for the kids he taught on a day to day basis, and who came up with what seemed to be radical ways of teaching at the time just because he had seen everything else he had tried fail- a genuinely humble approach that is as rare in education as it is in every other field.

The fact that he developed his theories in very particular circumstances means that you have to be very careful when trying to generalise that as principles for education at all, let alone taking it into entirely different fields and using Summerhill as support for changing EFL- but here are some thoughts of how A.S.Neill might have done the TEFL thing anyway:

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