Best

Practices:

a short-cut to

novice

teachers.

Teachers’ Seminar 2011

Alice Elvira Machado

How confident are you to start your journey at Cultura Inglesa?

Share your feelings.

What are the key ingredients

of a Cultura Inglesa lesson?

OUR PEDAGOGICAL PILLARS

CONVERSATION

DYNAMISM

SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT

TECHNOLOGY

ATMOSPHERE

Atmosphere conducive to learning

RapportRespectDiscipline

Rapport

• Keep eye contact & smile.

• Share personal interests & experiences, but avoid digressions.

• Sit closer to sts & interact with them at eye level at ‘conversation’ moments.

• Distribute attention evenly.

• Be aware of your positioning in class.

• Bring in and encourage humour.

Respect

• Encourage sts to listen to peers.

• Encourage respect for mistakes & peer help.

• Welcome contributions & respond genuinely to them.

• Establish an atmosphere of mutual tolerance & respect.

• Integrate latecomers into activities.

• Praise sts for correct language use & for effort.

• Promote the building of a group identity.

Discipline

• Excessive enthusiasm is not necessarily lack of discipline.

• Establish class routines. They create a safe environment, esp. with children.

• Pay attention to signs of lack of discipline & respond assertively.

• Be assertive; not authoritarian.

• Negotiate rules of conduct with sts. Don’t take them for granted with adults. They need to be co-established & respected.

Conversation

L1 & L2 use

STT vs. TTT ratio

Elicitation & extended contributions

Opportunity for personalisation

Controlled practice

Variety of patterns of interaction

• Make criterious use of L1: contrasting L1 & L2, disciplining sts.

• Establish routines for L1 use control: pretend not to understand L1 / rephrase sts’ utterances into L2 and asking them to repeat.

• Teach & encourage the use of classroom language.

• Expose sts to ‘real’ English: colloquial expressions and fillers & frequently used slang.

L1 & L2 use• Use English (L2) for communication (in and

outside the classroom) & for instructions.

• Don’t say what your sts can say.STT vs. TTT

• Plan for clear, economical instructions / avoid unnecessary repetition and Now we’re going to sentences.

• Volunteers are welcome, but nominate sts so as to guarantee an even distribution of opportunities.

• Avoid echoing. If sts say they don’t understand / haven’t heard a peer’s contribution, ask the speaker to say the sentence again.

• Demonstrate more; explain less.

• Start lessons with a speaking opportunity: a personalised warmer; small talk while calling the roll or waiting for latecomers.

• Provide / elicit personalized situations or current issues when setting up contexts or activities; elicit personalized examples of the target language.

Elicitation and Personalisation

• Offer opportunities for personalisation: transform HW task items into personal questions and encourage sts to use them in micro conversations after HW checking.

Elicitation and Personalisation

• Emphasize the perception of ‘conversation’: In pairs now. Let’s talk. instead of ‘Work’ in pairs.

• Plan elicitation questions so as to foster extensive contributions; avoid using Yes-no questions.

• Make use of elicitation to gauge how much sts know of a given topic.

• Encourage expansion of contributions: ask and encourage the use of follow-up questions during interactions and rounding up speaking activities.

• Encourage sts to interact with different peers.

Controlled Practice

• Aim for correct pronunciation, but do not cause embarrassment to sts.

• Drills are welcome! But use them as a means, not as an end.

• Provide variety: different types of drills (e.g. repetition, substitution & transformation) / different approaches (choral & individual; only boys / girls, etc.)

• Prepare prompts beforehand. Keep a brisk pace and be brief.

Controlled Practice

• Monitor closely at this stage. Interfere discretely and correct sts in pairs.

• Model target lgg / interaction before sts pair up. Models in open pairs are very useful.

• Identify controlled practice activities in your materials.

• Several MMC activities suit this stage. Aim to use PW /GW when exploiting them. Go beyond T-class / T-st.

Dynamism

Overall paceOptimization of class timeVariety of activities & resourcesResponse to sts’ level of motivation

Dynamism• Implement lesson as a continuous flow, not

as a series of activities.• Set a time limit for activities and provide

additional tasks for early finishers.

• Keep sts engaged, e.g. a st does a task on the e-B, others give clues or are involved somehow; nominate a Junior st to stamp peers’ Abs while others compare answers; meanwhile teacher goes round, checks answers & provides help.

• Do not let activities linger; monitor sts’ level of engagement.

Dynamism• Add unpredictability & fun: * a game-like approach to agenda, e.g.

unscrambling sentences / gap filling / uncovering words & building agenda with sts’ help.

*start & finish lessons with quick game-like recycling activities, e.g. Chinese Whispers, Tic Tac Toe, etc.

*change environment, e.g. go to MMCentre for a collaborative group task; sit on the floor; search info outside the classroom or on the classroom walls (e.g. messenger dictation).

Dynamism

• Vary techniques for pairing up / grouping sts, e.g. matching cards (sport & sportsperson, verb & particle, half collocations, If only vs. I wish sentences); sts uncover photos hidden by shapes on the e-B and find partners; a bunch of strings for sts to pick up ends and pair up; allocate numbers to sts (1-4), indicate where groups should sit & say Move.

• Resources: avoid overusing the e-B; paper flashcards and realia add variety.

Sense of Achievement

• Set up goals for the lesson, make them clear to sts & check they have been achieved by the end of the lesson (agenda / Now we can ...).

• Offer opportunity for self / peer correction: editing tasks using samples collected from sts’ production; ask st(s) to repeat the “correct” form after dealing with mistakes, esp. pronunciation mistakes.

• Achor successful moments: praise sts’ performance.

Technology• Aim to use the e-Board as an open door to the

outside world and not just as a big screen.

• Invite sts to use the e-Board tools. Make sure the whole group is engaged on task.

• Online dictionaries and Google images are very popular.

• Do not reproduce SB pages on the screen.

Weave your Lessons

• Plan & implement your lessons • Self-evaluate • Record successes &

what needs improving• Profit from mentor &

peer observation/ support• Share ideas & concerns• Welcome constructive

feedback• Incorporate BP into

your classroom practice• Share your own BPs

Thank you!alice.elvira@culturainglesa.net