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TEACHERS AID

Teachers Training College - we all learn loads there and it is essential in the formation of effective teachers but we continue learning a lot more when we graduate and start teaching. Being in charge of a group, handling it and getting them to learn is a really tough task and this knowledge you only get by experiencing things. In this section of the English Coach, you will find useful advice for your lessons to be successful and profitable for your children.

Tip 1 - How to refrain children from speaking Spanish in class.
You can resort to different methods so that your students do not speak Spanish in class. The Spanish card is an effective one. Print the card, stick it on a piece of cardboard and bring it to class. Tell students they will have to keep it if they use their mother tongue during the lesson; that is, until another student does so. They will pass the S to the next student who does not speak English. The last bearer of the card has to prepare an oral assignment for the following day. They could be asked to produce a poem, song, speech or story according to their level and age.

Tip 2 - Lesson planning
It is essentail that you prepare all your material before starting the lesson to avoid disruption. If students are idle while you get set, they will start misbehaving.

Tip 3 - Moving out of the classroom
When moving out of the classroom to work in a different classroom or open space, make sure you explain why you are doing so and what you are going to do before leaving the room. You should always think of a song (preferably an activity one) to sing on the way.

Tip 4 - Outdoor games
For a change of pace and environmet, which is great for children who spend many hours inside the classroom, get permission to write words on your school playground and play outdoor games.

Tip 5 - Vocabulary in context
Even if you are revising vocabulary, make a point of contextualizing it and ask students to produce complete questions, answers and sentences.

Tip 6 - Vocabulary pre-teaching
Before playing any game, you should always go over old and new vocabulary with your students. They will profit from the activity much more.

Tip 7 - Useful phrases
One reason why children revert to their mother tongue in the classroom is that they do not know what to say in English. A good idea is to put up a board with some phrases which are useful during the class. Start by teaching students the ones you feel they need and continue adding the phrases they keep on repeating in their native tongue.

With little ones, make a point of teaching them one new phrase per week. You can also have another board or poster with language for games. Whenever they resort to their mother tongue during a game, you may remind them that they already know the English equivalent.

Find a classroom poster with phrases that are usually necessary around the class in our visual aids section.

Tip 8 - Video sessions
You should always plan a short warm up activity to get students into the topic. You may choose to do some pre-teaching of vocabulary, discuss a topic related to the main theme in the film or just ask recapitulation questions if you have already started working on the film. Never plunge into the video excerpt or film without a previous introduction or recapitulation activity.

Tip 9 - Motivate Students
Remember: the more you praise students and their work, the more willing they will be to participate in class.

Tip 10 - Toilet “outings”
If children keep on asking you to go to the toilet during the lesson, it is important, before allowing them to do so, to check and double check if it is really an emergency or if they just want to go for a stroll. They might be getting bored. If this happens, change activities immediately. You should offer them a song or game for them to move, they might be feeling the need to do so.

Tip 11 - Organization of toilet “outings”
A good resource to organize the bathroom “outing” is to keep a hat on your desk; whenever somebody leaves for the toilet you ask them to wear it. Generally, if a student goes to the toilet, there is a chain reaction and everybody wants to follow suit. However, if the hat is not available, nobody else can leave the room until the bearer of the hat comes back.

Tip 12 - Avoid Translation
You should avoid the use of Spanish in class by all means. Many teachers resort to mother tongue as they feel students do not understand their explanations. The question is: are they using English simple enough for the learners to understand? Resort to simpler sentences instead of translation.

Tip 13 - Use of the blackboard
A good teacher always makes good use of the blackboard. They are neat and tidy, use it to make explanations clearer and write down all the new vocabulary there. This is essential as it helps organize ideas in students´ minds.

Tip 14 - Give precise and clear instructions
When assigning a task to students, especially the youngest ones, never give them choices telling them something like:” You can work in pairs or in groups” or “You may write it down or not”. This may lead to disaster as they will most probably fail to organize themselves. Your instructions should always give a clear idea of what you expect from them.

Tip 15 - Communication to parents
If working with little children, and even not so little kids, make a point of sending notes home whenever they need to study, do homework or bring something for the following lesson. Do not rely on their memory for this kind of thing; children tend to forget.

Tip 16 - Teaching Dates
If you make a point of writing the date on the blackboard before you start your lesson every day, children will soon learn ordinal numbers, days of the week and months without your having to devote much extra time to these topics. In our visual aids section you will find useful posters to help you in this daily task.

Tip 17 - The Weather
The weather should also have a prominent part in your planning. Little by little, children will be internalizing the vocabulary used in forecasts and the use of the present of the verb TO Be. When talking about weather conditions you can just use an “ask and answer exercise” or a song. Find a model weather wheel to hang on your classroom wall in our visual aids section.

Tip 18 - Project Work
When carrying out project work, especially craftwork, do not just concentrate on the students´ final product. Take advantage of every step and insist on their using the target language all throughout the activity. They will have to read instructions, listed to your guidelines, talk among themselves to decide on what to do and in any cases write some sort of conclusion or explanation. That is to say they will be exercising the four language skills.

Tip 19 - Reading aloud
Many teachers resort to reading aloud to practise pronunciation; when doing so, we have to take into account which kind of text we select, which text has been written meaning to be read or to be repeated in a loud voice.
A dialogue is the best and more natural option. A paragraph from a Science book or from students’ readers will more often than not be the wrong choice – too difficult and thus frustrating.
If we ask students to read aloud, the idea is for them to produce an example of correct English speech and for the other students to listen and internalize as well. If learners are faced with the task of reading a complicated passage and they mispronounce many words, our aim is totally missed. Look for simple texts from their books, preferably those which they have listened to several times before; everyday conversations; or reading games. You can find a couple of them in our Ready Made Activities Section.

Tip 20 - Keeping students attentive
Sometimes it is difficult to keep everybody attentive in class. If this happens, remember it is always good to keep on asking students questions at random and even better not to anticipate who is going to be the next one to answer. This way everyone will concentrate on all your questions.

Tip 21 - Participation in class
As Language teachers we should always ensure students practise English during all our lessons. It is of outmost importance that you make sure all learners have the chance to participate at least once during the day. In the case of numerous classes, plan activities in which students participate in groups or in which you ask them to give chorus answers (songs, rhymes, poems, etc.).

Tip 22 - Role play
Learners benefit a lot from role play especially when they learn their lines by heart - many of the utterances will stick to their minds. These phrases will be easily internalized and later applied to new situations. When you carry out role play do not allow students to read their part, this makes their speech sound too unnatural and it stops them from learning new things.

Tip 23 - Never let activities drag
A successful English lesson should feature variety - different types of exercises and practice on the four language skills. When you assign a task make sure that it will not take too long and that students will be able to solve it. An activity generally drags if it is too long or if it is too difficult, in both cases learners will grow tired, they will become frustrated or will even start misbehaving. Your lesson will turn into a complete failure.

Tip 24 - Introducing a task
When introducing a new task, it is really important that we do not just plunge into it. Students should get some kind of introduction to the activity: recapitulation questions, picture description, a short discussion on a related subject and the like. All this smoothens the way into the new topic. Just “Open your books and do exercise 4.” will never do.

Tip 25 - Pronouncing difficult words
If you are working with a specific vocabulary area and you realize that students find certain items difficult to pronounce, you can resort to a very simple but amusing technique: Ask learners to repeat the word several times; it can be chorus or individual repetition. The key here is to ask them to repeat the vocabulary items or phrases in different ways or moods.
So you may tell them, “Now you are angry, say: “vampire”. You can ask them to repeat slowly, quickly, rhythmically, as if they were on board a train, as if they were a frog, a robot, etc. The crazier the proposal, the more fun they will have while learning the new items.
This technique is generally applied to groups of children. Adolescents and adults will feel more reluctant but you can always try!

Tip 26 - Use of mother tongue in the classroom
Many teachers, especially those who are starting their careers, sometimes get the feeling that their students will not follow them if they speak just English during the lesson, so they resort to learners’ mother tongue. Big mistake! Students who go to a school to learn English are the ones who have little or no exposure to the foreign language and the ones who need more contact with it. Where are they going to get it if their teacher does not speak English to them? Even the weakest groups will be able to follow a teacher who speaks English all through the lessons if the professional uses the right kind of teaching method: mimicry, pictures cards, posters, realia, short and simple sentences or the “sandwich” technique among others.

Tip 27 - “Sandwich technique”
This technique is generally used when we have to explain a word meant to be learnt just for recognition, when we need to save time or in the case of abstract words (no cards available) whose definition will be too difficult for your students’ level. An example of a “sandwich” utterance will be something like: car - auto - car / car - voiture- car. When we use this technique we should always make sure that we just repeat words in isolation and that we do not make a sentence mixing two languages, an utterance like: “Teacher is morá (Hebrew for teacher) in English” would not do. Another thing to point out is that the last word students listen to should be the English one, the one that should stick to their minds.

Tip 28 - Explaining a task
Young children need action and action is what you have to promote in your lessons. Take shorter periods of time to explain assignments by looking for short and clear sentences and an example. That´s all folks! Get them to start working immediately after. Idleness could offer the chance for the group to start losing concentration on the task or to misbehave.

Tip 29 - When to correct
Correction should always be carried out outside the classroom, never within a lesson. If a teacher corrects children’s written production in class, they waste valuable time of exposure. In general students who learn English as a foreign or second language have a limited time of regular lessons. These lessons should be exploited fully so as to enlarge on the children’s time of exposure to the language; they need to listen to it, to read it, to play with it.
Besides, a teacher who corrects in class loses control of what is happening around them; this usually leads to chaos. Each professional should get organized to devote some time to correcting students’ papers or copybooks regularly after each class. It is essential for students to get immediate feedback on their production and mistakes so as to be able to learn from them.

Tip 30 - Difficult Video Excerpts
When dealing with films or videos make sure you make use of different techniques to exploit the material you choose. Sometimes we come across chunks which contain difficult vocabulary which would be frustrating for students to understand. In this case we can resort to scene description and ask students to watch carefully, describe what is happening and (why not?) predict what is coming next. This activity may be carried out with or without sound.

Tip 31 - Get everybody to work
Sometimes it is difficult to organize written or group work in a class with students who work at different speeds. Resourceful teachers should always have something up their sleeve. Be ready to assign new tasks to fast finishers, it could be an exercise in their activity books, a poster to decorate the classroom, etc. You can also prepare a set of cards with extra activities to use when necessary.
It is extremely important to keep students busy at all times, especially the little ones; otherwise they get bored and tend to start hanging around and bothering the ones who are still at work.

Tip 32 - Homework
When assigning home tasks, teachers should bear in mind that students will be doing the exercises alone at home and that in many cases parents cannot help them for various reasons. We must remember - and make it a habit – to explain each exercise in class and to do the first point with the students on the board before they leave. Just telling them something like “Do exercise 3 on page 2 of your activity books” will not do.

Tip 33 - Moving on to a new task
When working with kindergarten groups and the first forms of primary school, teachers should be consistent and insist on habits within the classroom. These will foster more attention on the part of the students and more control on the teacher’s side.
It is important to have a collection of rhymes or short songs that you will be using in certain occasions. Think of the various routines children will be carrying out during the day and assign, adapt or create a song, chant or rhyme for each moment during the lesson. When children listen to the song, chant or rhyme; they will immediately know what they are supposed to do without your having to make much of an effort. This works like magic especially with groups of restless students where you sometimes have to force your voice to be heard. And also remember: the right kind of music calms children down!

Tip 34 - More Correction
There are a couple of points to bear in mind when correcting students’ written production. The teacher should never write on the students’ words but above them.
This way the mistake is still visible and learners can see the difference between what they wrote and the correct version you have provided.
It is also essential for teachers to correct absolutely everything on students’ folders, copybooks and workbooks; even dates, titles and those things they have copied from the blackboard. It is rather usual for students to make spelling mistakes when copying from the board or even their text books.

Tip 35 - Choosing stories for young learners
At an early age repetition is of outmost importance in language acquisition and stories may be an attractive tool to encourage repetition. When selecting or even inventing stories for the little ones, we should always prefer those in which certain phrase or phrases are repeated all along. This utterance will stick to your children’s little minds and in a second or third story telling session, they themselves will become narrators of the story by repeating the sentence they have learnt.

Tip 36 - Dealing with behaviour
Small children tend to misbehave when they are bored. As teachers we should be connected with our class and sense when something is going wrong. If children become restless, start asking to go to the toilet or to drink water; it is the right time to produce a new game, song or activity we are sure they will all enjoy. That will settle things down.

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