“I Like It When Teachers . . .” : Student Views on Teacher Practices

By Cathy Sunshine

Do you ever wonder, when you walk into the classroom and see ten or fifteen faces gazing back at you, what your students are really thinking? I know I do.

Of course, we get warm praise from our students every day, which is one of the things that makes teaching at Language ETC so much fun. But it’s usually generic praise, along the lines of “thank you so much for helping me.” We don’t often get specific feedback, much less negative feedback. We can only guess what students like — or don’t like — about the way we teach.

Teacher and board member Diane Mooney in her 3A classroom. Photo: Beverly Rezneck.

So we asked them. A number of LETC teachers surveyed their classes, asking students to complete two phrases: “I like it when teachers . . .” and “I don’t like it when teachers . . .” Responses were received from classes at levels 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, Advanced Workplace, and Advanced Plus. While all the responses came from levels 3A and up, many of those students have been at LETC for some time and started at lower levels. So the responses should be seen as applying to all class levels and, of course, to all teachers, since every student is exposed to multiple teachers every term.

Many thanks to the following teachers for contributing to this post: Anne Hearne and Karuna Mehta (3A); Dominque Cahn and Natalie Wexler (3B); Deirdre Donahue, Elly Perl, Claire Sayler, and Philip Wallach (4A); Liz  Lourie (4B); Dan Lebiednik and Theresa Schlafly (Advanced Workplace). And thanks to their wonderful students (and to my Advanced Plus students) for participating! Their candid answers will help all of us become better teachers.

Teacher and board member Amy Berger and a student. Photo: Beverly Rezneck.

I like it when teachers . . .

• Come on time
• Come to class prepared
• Prepare the blackboard with the date, textbook page, and names of the teachers
• Write large
• Speak with me; have a conversation with me
• Speak slowly
• Correct me
• Practice pronunciation; make everyone pronounce; stop me and correct pronunciation; “show with tongue pronouncing”
• Know our names
• Smile
• Are friendly
• Are patient
• Are cheerful
• Are flexible
• Are dynamic and keep your attention
• Help us
• Repeat an explanation when a student doesn’t understand
• Explain grammar; explain “old” grammar again
• Explain things well
• Explain new words
• Have a “word of the day”
• Use pictures and visuals to explain vocabulary
• Teach new vocabulary and phrasal verbs
• Write new vocabulary on the board
• Put words in context
• Give a lot of examples
• Answer questions
• Give dictation
• Encourage participation
• Give students equal chances to speak
• Check homework

Great! Obviously, our students find a lot to like. I was struck by how often pronunciation was mentioned — more than any other single response. Students clearly value the opportunity to converse with teachers and to be corrected when they make mistakes. It’s also encouraging to hear that students notice and appreciate it when we are friendly, patient, helpful, and cheerful, because that’s a strength of LETC teachers, I think. We teach because we enjoy it, so smiling comes naturally.

Teacher Robin Hanerfeld helps a student in her 2B class. Photo: Beverly Rezneck.

Students like it when we write new vocabulary on the board, put words in context, and use pictures to explain new words. We should speak slowly and write large. We should also encourage participation and “give students equal chances to speak” — that got my attention. It becomes especially important at the higher levels, when students are beginning to be somewhat fluent and to want their share of talk time.

Now that we’re all convinced of our awesomeness, let’s move on to the constructive criticism.

I don’t like it when teachers . . .

• Talk too fast
• Talk too loud
• Are hard to understand
• Ignore me when I have a question
• Focus too rigidly on structure
• Don’t correct my mistakes
• Don’t check homework
• Erase the board too soon
• Take the class very fast
• Don’t explain things well
• Waste time explaining things to students who missed class
• Spend class time on questions unrelated to the lesson
• Stretch out an activity or repeat it to fill up time, so that it takes longer than necessary
• Make us work in groups — we don’t learn from hearing other students make mistakes
• Let students use phones in class
• Are not prepared
• Are boring
• Act like they’re bored
• Don’t pay attention
• Text in class
• Are not patient
• Are unfriendly

Some of these are things we know to be true. Almost all of us talk too fast and too much, and this is something we can work on controlling. As for being hard to understand, well, students are here because they’re learning to understand English. But we can adapt our speech to suit the level of our students: slow down, simplify, cut out unnecessary words and rambling digressions. The lower the class level, the greater the need to simplify. Our experienced Basic teachers use pared-down speech and nonverbal language to communicate with students who know very little English.

Teacher Marcia Rucker uses body language with her Basic A students. Photo: Beverly Rezneck.

The comments about homework are reasonable. If students take the time to do it, they want it to be checked. I’ve sometimes assigned homework and then by the time I see the class again the next week, I’ve forgotten all about it.

Three of the responses deal with wasted class time. It’s a useful reminder that our students are adults with jobs and families, and their time is precious, just like ours. I should note, though, that the comment about stretching out activities longer than necessary came from my Advanced Plus class. With their greater proficiency, they like a fast pace. At lower levels, in my experience at least, activities often take longer than you think they will, and students don’t want to feel rushed.

The comment about group work likewise came from my class, and I doubt that it’s representative of all levels. Advanced students have a strong desire to interact with native English speakers so they can emulate their accents and expression. They are highly conscious of errors and want to be corrected when they make them. For this reason we often break into two groups, each facilitated by a teacher who models native English, which is a technique that may help other classes as well.

Finally, I have a hard time believing that any LETC teachers act impatient, bored, or unfriendly, but I can easily believe that we are sometimes visibly tired after a hectic day and perhaps not as prepared as we would like to be. We’re volunteers, and human, and our students kindly forgive us many failings. Which makes our trademark cheerful smiles and friendliness all the more important!

Teacher and board member Thea Mason shows the love for Language ETC. Photo: Beverly Rezneck.

Language ETC Students and Teachers Live It Up at Graduation Parties

Our Advanced Plus class worked on phrasal verbs this term, one of which was “live it up.” That’s exactly what we did at three festive graduation events at Language ETC last week.  Weeknight graduates enjoyed a special treat, courtesy of the 3B class: un pastel de tres leches, or three-milk cake, garnished with fresh fruit and decorated with our school name. Stunning!

There was lots of other delicious food too, like torrija, a sweet dessert originally from Spain, brought to Argentina by Spanish immigrants and typically eaten in the Easter season:

And tortilla española, a Spanish omelet made with potatoes:

And Chilean empanadas:

All the above were brought by members of my Advanced Plus class. Not that I’m boasting about my terrific students or anything!

Of course, the first order of business was graduation itself — congratulating students and giving them their certificates:

For lots more graduation pix, see the Language ETC Facebook page. For me, the ceremonial part is all fine and good, but the magic moment comes afterward:

Larry, a member of the Advanced Plus teaching team, seems to agree:

But the celebration was also bittersweet, because we are saying goodbye to Lee, the weekend volunteer coordinator, and Steve, the weekday coordinator. We’ll miss them so much! Here’s Steve with Advanced Workplace teacher Dee (left) and one of her students:

This student, by the way, took the mic and graciously thanked the teachers and staff of Language ETC for their hard work and helpfulness. In flawless English, of course. Such a nice thing to do!

It’s good that break is coming up, because I’ve been feeling a little fuzzy around the edges lately. Also, apparently, shrinking, at least compared to my students:

See everybody for the spring term!

Empowering Students as Teachers

Theresa Schlafly is an experienced teacher at Language ETC and a graduate of Georgetown University’s TEFL certificate program. She values a student-centered classroom. As Theresa explains below, she recently took this concept to a new level — letting her students teach the class.

By Theresa Schlafly

Faced with the daunting task of reviewing an entire term’s worth of material in our 4B class, my co-teacher Michaela and I decided to let our students be the teachers. We divided the class into groups of two or three and assigned each group a particular unit to review. We asked each group to come up with:

• At least one grammar question for the class
• At least one vocabulary question for the class
• At least one question for the teachers (that is, something they wanted clarification on)

We gave the students about 20 minutes to work on this as we circulated to answer any questions that came up. Then each group came in turn to the front of the classroom and acted as the teachers to lead the class in reviewing the assigned material.

The students really enjoyed being the teachers! They took great delight in calling on their classmates and giving feedback on their responses. They came up with some excellent questions, including fill-in-the-blank questions using although and because. Other examples included “What is one way to organize a paragraph?” “What does the word ‘clause’ mean?” “How should you address a cover letter when you don’t know the person’s name?”

This pyramid was developed in the 1960s. It’s controversial among educators, as the percentages are probably not backed up by any evidence, but still, lots for us to think about here. The general idea seems to reflect what we experience in our classrooms at LETC.

I think this worked well for several reasons. First, the students all seemed very engaged in the process of reviewing the material, which can often be a somewhat passive exercise. Second, because the students were in charge, we knew that we were focusing on the material that they felt was challenging and important, rather than just picking concepts that we guessed might be difficult. Most of all, the role reversal of letting the students act as teachers was a fun way to mix up the class dynamic!

Though our students are fairly advanced, I think this could be adapted for lower levels. For example, instead of coming up with grammar questions, students could develop a simple list of vocabulary words to quiz their classmates on. Or they could select questions from the textbook or workbook to present to the class, instead of formulating their own questions. I definitely plan to try this again with future classes, perhaps at regular intervals throughout the term instead of just at the end.

Geography Games

One of the fun things about teaching at Language ETC is meeting students from all over the world. We learn about their countries while they learn about the United States, and they learn about each other’s countries, too.

Students almost always enjoy talking about their countries, and it’s an easy step from there to various map and geography activities. The possibilities are limitless, but the ideas below provide a starting point. Wall maps, tape and markers are available in the volunteer lounge.

1. Where are you from?

Tape a world map, the biggest you can find, to the chalkboard. Each student comes up to the board and points out his or her country. Many classes do something like this near the beginning of the term as part of icebreaker activities. There are various ways to expand on this, depending on the level of the class:

• With beginner classes, you can turn it into a counting exercise. “How many students are from Guatemala? Let’s count them.” “One, two.” “How many are from El Salvador?” “One, two, three, four, five!”
• Students in intermediate classes can ask each other questions about their countries. Teachers can model a few questions such as “Where is your country?” (“It’s in Latin America.”) “What is the climate like in your country?” (“It’s often cold in Russia.”) Then students take it from there, asking their own questions of their peers.
• Students in advanced classes can point out their country on the map and talk about it for one to two minutes, then take questions from the other students. In Advanced Plus, we’ve had students prepare five-minute oral presentations on their countries, to present on a date of their choosing. Several have even made PowerPoints to illustrate their talks.
  

2. Where have you been?

You can do this with either a world map or a US map, depending on which geography your students are learning. Tape the map to the chalkboard and have each student point out a country, state, or city that he or she has visited. Classmates can ask questions such as “When did you go?” “How did you get there?” “What did you do there?”

3. Where would you like to go?

The same exercise can be adapted by asking students to point out a country, state, or city where they would like to go — if they could go anywhere — and say why. A fun activity for intermediate to advanced classes is Plan Your Dream Vacation (allow an hour and a half to two hours).

4. Map skills: beginning to low intermediate levels

Print out a simple map that shows a few streets and landmarks. There are a number of them on the Web; here’s a sample map from the website EnglishExercises.org. It uses a few British terms such as “car park,” but you could replace this with “parking lot” before you photocopy the map.

Students can use a simple map of a neighborhood to practice asking for and giving directions. There are many available online. This one came from EnglishExercises.org.

Give each student a copy of the map. Working in pairs or groups, students can then practice asking and answering questions that use directions such as next to, across from, and around the corner. For example:

— Excuse me. Where’s the school?
— It’s on Lane Street.
— Thanks. I also need to go to the bank. Where is it?
— It’s next to the Korean restaurant, on Palm Street.
— That’s great! I love Korean food. Is there a parking lot nearby?
— Yes, there’s one at the corner of Palm Street and Queen Avenue.
. . . and so on.

5. Mapping an imaginary neighborhood

This activity for a low intermediate group works well as a follow-up to a map-reading exercise such as number 4 above. Start by having the class brainstorm the names of places that one might find in a town or neighborhood, such as houses, supermarket, restaurant, bank, movie theater, church, park, and so on. List these places on the board.

Divide students into pairs or threes, and give each group colored markers and a sheet of newsprint or poster board. Each group will draw a map of an invented or real neighborhood, showing at least six of the places from the list on the board. Each place should be labeled appropriately. Finally, each group presents their map to the class.

6. Map skills: high intermediate to advanced levels

Map reading is a great activity to do in Language Lab. Students at advanced levels tend to be computer users, and some will already be familiar with GoogleMaps or other online mapping programs. You can prepare a one-page sheet of questions for students to answer, using GoogleMaps. It’s fun if you write questions that use your own students’ names and countries. Examples of questions I wrote for our class:

• Elvia, Claudia, and Jorge are homesick for Colombia, so they fly to Bogota. They have to change planes in ________, a city at the southern tip of Florida. During the flight from Florida to Colombia, they look out the plane window and see below them a large body of water, the _____________.
• Aldrich has always wanted to see Niagara Falls, on the border between _______ and  _______. He drives in his shiny new BMW, starting in Washington, DC, and following the most direct route, which takes him through three states: _________, _________, and ________.
• The Advanced Plus class wants to take a class trip to the White House. They start at Language ETC, 2200 California St. NW. How do you think they should get to the White House? Consider walking, bus, Metro, or private helicopter.

Start the activity by helping students navigate to GoogleMaps, then zoom in and out on specific points on the map, until they get the hang of it. They can then work individually to answer the questions. When we did this exercise with an Advanced class, about half the class completed the page of questions in a matter of minutes, while others took the better part of an hour and needed help. The difference didn’t seem to reflect English proficiency, but rather familiarity with GoogleMaps and general map-reading skills.

7. Name the states

First, have students list on paper as many US states as they can think of. They can work individually or with partners. Once students have made their lists, tape a large map of the United States to the chalkboard. Students then take turns announcing the name of a state from their list, writing it on the board, and finding its location on the map. Continue until all 50 states have been named. This is a good time to discuss the difference between states and cities, as places like “Boston” will almost certainly pop up in students’ lists of states.

For higher-level classes, you can take the discussion in various directions. For example, you can talk about how almost all countries have internal divisions of some kind, but some have states (e.g., United States, Mexico), others departments (e.g., El Salvador), and still others provinces (e.g., Canada, Congo). Students may be interested in discussing the special status of places like the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Puzzle maps are fun in the classroom, and not expensive. Maybe we could get one for LETC?

8. Puzzle map competition

Puzzle maps are inexpensive and widely available online and in stores. If you have a puzzle map of the United States, or the world, teams of students can assemble it on the teacher’s desk. You can either time each team and see who completes the whole puzzle fastest, or give teams a fixed amount of time (such as three minutes) and see how much of the puzzle each team completes. When we did this with a 3B class, they loved it.

9. Wall map competition

Before class, print an outline map of the US in segments. I used the one at Owl & Mouse. I chose “USA outline” and “3 x 3 – 9 pages.” This prints out the entire country in nine letter-size pages that assemble to form a 3 x 3 grid. Make several photocopies of the pages, enough so that you can divide your class into teams (of two, three, or four students) and give each team a complete set.

Working in teams, students first assemble their pages and tape them together to form the map of the United States. They can assemble the maps on the chalkboard or on the floor. For my Advanced class, this turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected (first time I’ve ever seen Texas upside down).

Each team then labels as many states as they can. This was even more challenging, and all the teams got into raucous debates about which state went where. Most did more or less well with the coasts but were confounded by all the square states in the middle. When everybody seemed sort of stuck, each team was allowed to send a “spy” to look at the other teams’ maps for one minute and bring back ideas.

Finally, put up a big wall map of the United States. Students can gather round the map and take turns pointing out the states one by one. As each state is located, the teams circle or check off the states they placed correctly on their maps. In our class, the winning team had only 24! To be honest, I’m not sure how well most Americans would do on this exercise.

10. Online map games

Students can play online geography and map games in Language Lab. Owl & Mouse has free interactive map puzzles for learning continents, countries, states, and capitals. Quizzes, too. Many other websites also have map games and puzzles. What’s your favorite?

Owl & Mouse is one of many websites with online map games that students can play in Language Lab.

Tea and Sympathy: Building Community in the Adult ESL Classroom

Don’t tell anyone, but we’ve been having tea in the classroom at break time lately. Sometimes cupcakes too.

It started as a way to keep warm. The heat in the church has been iffy over the last two months. Puffy coats and woolly scarves have been a popular fashion statement in our classroom. One of our students is an avid baker, and he sometimes brings in goodies. Then one evening another student brought a thermos of piping hot tea to share.

Banana cupcakes brought in by our class baker, Andres.

It made for a cozy atmosphere. That got me thinking about the importance of warmth in the classroom, not just the kind from the furnace — which seems to be functioning better lately — but also the social kind. What motivates students to leave their homes on cold, dark winter nights and trek to class, four nights a week for 12 weeks? Or give up their weekends? English, yes, but it’s got to be more than that.

I think the answer is the community they find here. For recent immigrants, LETC is a welcoming place in a society that at times may seem indifferent or hostile. For some of our students, school is the principal, if not the only, place where they can make friends with native English speakers and with immigrants from countries other than their own.

Why is this important? Gretchen Bitterlin, an ESL teacher trainer in San Diego, notes that a sense of community in the classroom favors student persistence — that is, it keeps students coming regularly. She wrote on the Ventures e-newsletter:

One day, I walked into my family literacy ESL class, and it was quieter than usual. Delia, who had almost never missed a class, was absent. After I asked if anyone had any problems over the weekend, the students reported that Delia’s 5-year-old daughter had fallen and suffered a brain injury and was in intensive care at the hospital. Within minutes, the students took up a collection to help Delia in the weeks ahead, since she would not be able to work. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the students and their networking to help out a fellow student. The incident exemplified the strong sense of community that existed in that class. This provided an atmosphere that facilitated learning and persistence at a higher level than I had seen in previous classes. When students get to know each other like a family, they depend on each other for moral support and continue to come to school, even when times are difficult.

How, then, to achieve this kind of fellowship in class? One problem is that while a feeling of community encourages regular attendance, regular attendance is needed to build community. Classes can’t bond when students show up irregularly, as happens often in adult ESL. Classes may fill slowly, as people trickle in over the first couple of weeks, and they may also dwindle as the term wears on. Lucy Hamachek, who teaches the Advanced Workplace class, notes that “building community is hard without that critical mass.”

Some of this is beyond our control as teachers. But there are definitely things we can do. Mary Janice Dicello teaches Basic A at Language ETC, for students who are complete beginners in English. She likes to set a positive tone early:

The first few Basic classes always begin with introductions, including first and last names and countries. We play memory games to encourage all our students to learn the names of their classmates and use desk cards with first names on them. We count the students from each country and cheer for the country with the most students, and laugh with and show sympathy for the student who has no one from his country. We use country flags, and students learn to say the colors of their flags. They enjoy finding their own countries on a world map. We use a magnifying glass to find tiny El Salvador, the country that usually has the largest number of students in our class.

As teachers, we try to set an atmosphere of respect and patience, laced with good humor — sometimes silliness — that serves as a model for how we expect our students to behave toward one another. It really works. The quick ones help the struggling ones, and students seem to incorporate everyone into their break-time groups. And finally we take a group photo that they all treasure as a memory of their first English class in America and the friends they made.

Having students work in small groups or teams encourages camaraderie even among those from very different backgrounds.

Lucy Hamachek comments:

The obvious things we all do early in the term — having students talk about themselves and their aspirations, breaking students up into teams for competitions — help somewhat. If the teachers can remember some personal details about each student, that one has a cat or another works at Chipotle, they can weave these details into examples of grammar points. It shows the teacher is personally involved, and that makes all the students feel more connected to the class.

In my experience the level of community depends to a significant extent on the mix of students, something we can’t control. One class may be more reserved than another. Occasionally you have a “firecracker” in the group. Teachers can use humor to either bring out the good points or, in some instances, blunt the potential downsides of one or more students.

I asked my Advanced Plus students by e-mail what they think helps build group spirit in the classroom. One student wrote:

It is interesting the subject you are about to touch in your blog. Building “community” certainly depends on many factors. The way in which the ice is broken when a course starts could certainly impact the path of the entire course in a term. From my viewpoint, giving respect of all students opinions and making them feel really heard might impact positively the classroom atmosphere.

Asked what factors might make it hard to build community, he said:

I wonder why a welcoming atmosphere in the classroom is not entirely reached. Might it be because there are no activities that allow a proper mix between students, knowing each other and get acquaintance? Might it be because the students do not feel comfortable when they participate in front of the class? Might it be because the teacher does not allow any interaction and group activities and the class turns into plain?

An interesting word choice, but I know what he means. At Language ETC, we emphasize interaction and group activities, and our classes are almost never “plain.” One thing that seems to encourage interaction is arranging the chairs in a semicircle facing the board, so that the students can all see and talk to each other. It’s much friendlier than rows, where students stare at the backs of heads. At other times we pull the chairs into two small circles, each with one of the co-teachers. These small groups work especially well for conversation, encouraging greater intimacy and sharing.

Advanced students from China, Argentina, Spain, Senegal, and Russia chat after graduation last summer. With so many languages in the class, students naturally turn to English for socializing.

Over the last few terms we’ve also been experimenting with a class e-mail group. It’s optional for students, but all the members of our Advanced Plus class have chosen to join. The teachers use the listserv to post study materials or links to articles. Students use it to chat with each other and the teachers in English. A recent thread discussed the best outerwear for surviving the DC winter. “Of course you must to wear a down jacket,” one student advised. “You don’t have to forget a cap and earmuffs!” said another.

Students also post when they’re sick and receive wishes for a quick recovery from their classmates. One student wrote, “I’m down with flu right now and can’t come to class tonight. Since we have a doctor in our group maybe she can give me some advice to get better faster. Anyway, bundle up everybody and keep warm.” Another classmate (not the doctor) advised, “You keep warm, drink tee with honey, watch movies, keep connect in the cloud and relax. I wish you to feel better very soon.”

Though we were uncertain at first how the listserv would work, the volume of messages has been quite modest, and there have not been any jokes or pictures of kittens. One caveat: Advanced students tend to be computer-savvy, and they can write enough English to keep up a conversation. An e-mail group might not be as feasible at the lower class levels.

Gretchen Bitterlin, the San Diego trainer, makes some additional suggestions that may be useful for us:

• Get to class before the students and greet them as they arrive. Before class, when only a few students are there, get to know them. Make time after class to follow up with individuals about personal situations that may be affecting their attendance.
• Do a lot of interactive group work. Use grouping strategies that allow students to practice with different students every day.
• Make a class collage of pictures of students and their interests. Provide opportunities for students to share information about their countries and cultures.
• Let students know they will be welcomed back to class if they have to be absent. Let them know that they were missed (but don’t make them feel guilty for missing class).
• Finally, make language learning fun. A sense of humor breaks the ice, lowers barriers to communication, and builds community.

Lesson Planning at Language ETC

From what I’ve heard, people who train to become ESL teachers at a university learn from real educators about how to plan lessons. They use methods! They have a system! As for the rest of us . . . hmm. I think we use a method called “seat of the pants.”

Nonetheless, while we may not plan exactly by the book at Language ETC, plan we do:

The LETC volunteer lounge gets busy before each class as teachers arrive to prepare their lessons. Devjani Saha (3B) and Brooke McEwen (Basic A) and a visitor work on a recent Thursday evening.

On January 28, LETC offered a workshop on lesson planning that drew about a dozen volunteers. Annelies Galletta of the Maryland English Institute at the University of Maryland led the session. Above all, she stressed the importance of defining an objective before you write a lesson plan. Following a lesson plan during class is like following your GPS during a trip, she said. Before you set out, you must decide your destination and program it into the GPS, otherwise the route won’t take you where you want to go.

Her talk reminded me that I should be more rigorous about always defining an objective. It also got me thinking about how our process at LETC is in some ways unique. We work in teams, so what one pair of co-teachers does on their day affects what the rest of the team does on subsequent days. And we have a syllabus that specifies what we must cover in each class, yet leaves room to add activities. We have to take both these factors into account when we plan.

Curious about how other LETC volunteers approach lesson planning, I asked Natalie Wexler, a longtime volunteer and member of our board, how she goes about it. She generously shared her thoughts and a sample lesson plan. I put her observations and my own together with some of the points that Annelies made and broke down the process into five basic steps.

Co-teachers Jenny O’Connell (right) and Isabelle Moreau discuss the plan for their 2B class over salad. For the weeknight classes, snacks and lesson planning often go together.

Step 1: Figure out your starting point.

Natalie: The first thing I do is look over the pages of the textbook to see what the class has covered since I last taught. I look at the Student’s Book and the Teacher’s Guide. I also check the class logs for those days to see if there’s anything the other teachers feel should be reinforced. Then I read through the lesson that the syllabus says I’m going to teach.

Cathy: When I review the logs, I think about what material the class covered, but also about what kinds of activities they’ve been doing. Then I try to vary it. If the previous night’s class spent a lot of time on written exercises, I might plan conversation or a game.

Planning for a variety of activities, such as textbook exercises and games, helps students stay engaged.

Step 2: Set an objective.

Annelies: Every lesson should have an objective in mind from the beginning. The objective should focus on a small gain in language and cultural proficiency. Ask, “What do I want my students to be able to do by the end of the class?” For example, you might say, “Students should be able to correctly and politely ask for the time and give the time when asked.” The objective should be realistic, achievable, and measurable.

Cathy: Since our classes at Language ETC are two or three hours long, a class can have more than one objective. I tend to divide the class into segments of a half hour or an hour. All the segments can reinforce the same objective, or they can address a couple of different objectives.

Devjani Saha (3B) checks audio tracks on an iPad for her lesson.

Step 3: Decide what activities to include.

Natalie: Once I’ve reviewed the textbook pages to be covered, I think about what I will do. I usually plan to begin class with a review of the main thing they learned in the last class, by presenting it briefly and then checking their understanding in an interactive way. Then I pick and choose activities from the textbook that seem good to me. I make sure to vary the types of activities to keep the class interested — some individual work, some pair work, some opportunity for speaking.

Cathy: I also pick and choose from the textbook. I like the Ventures series a lot, but occasionally a particular exercise just doesn’t seem right for our class. It might be confusing or too time-consuming or just lame. We’re free to use our own judgment. The syllabus tells us what material our students should learn, but not exactly how we should teach it. I like to make up my own activities and worksheets to supplement those in the textbook.

Natalie: I also make my own worksheets, especially for review at the end of the term, when the students have already done most of what’s in the book. I often go online as well and Google something like “ESL vocabulary games” or “ESL count and noncount noun activities.” It’s amazing how much is out there! It can take time to find something that works well, but I’ve come across some great ideas that make class more fun for students. I also search the Web to find real-life materials to supplement what’s in the book — a real job application for students to fill out, or recipes for a lesson on foods.

Annelies: You should make sure that the activities you plan promote achievement of the objective you’ve set. You introduce the skill to students, and then model it, and then give them opportunities to practice it, whether through individual or pair or group work. In the last part of your class, you evaluate whether the students are getting close to reaching the objective.

The Planner in Chief.

Step 4: Create the lesson plan.

Cathy: Once I’ve figured out what activities I want to do, I type up a lesson plan on a single sheet of paper. I set down fairly detailed instructions for myself. Of course, I never follow them exactly. We inevitably change things around during class — switch the order of the activities or modify or drop certain ones. But it still gives me a feeling of security to have that cheat sheet there to fall back on.

Natalie: I type up a plan that more or less follows what’s in the Teacher’s Guide, but in my own words. If I’ve written my own plan I’m more likely to remember what I’m going to do without needing to consult my notes. I keep the notes as brief as possible. I also write my lesson plan in ALL CAPS. It’s hard to teach while squinting at the small print in the textbook.

Cathy: You’re not kidding. I don’t write in all caps, but I do bump up the type to 14 point. Fumbling around with reading glasses during class is so pitiful.

The first page of Natalie’s 1B lesson plan. She likes short prompts and all caps for easy reading. “Race to the Board” is a game for grammar review. Natalie suggests this video on how to play the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wam5PscoSjU.

Cathy’s lesson plan for a 3A class. I like narrative instructions. If I were doing the lesson plan today, though, I probably wouldn’t try to cram quite so much into the two hours. This looks a little rushed.

Annelies: It’s sometimes hard to know whether you’ve planned too little or too much for the time you have. But even if you don’t get to the end of your plan, if you focus on your objective, students will be closer to mastering the skill than they were before.

Cathy: I agree — a challenging part of lesson planning is estimating time. How long to allow for each activity? As I gain teaching experience, I’ve gotten much better at predicting how long things will take. But I still have to think about it. I close my eyes and picture the students doing the activity and try to figure out realistically the amount of time we will need. On my lesson plan, I number the activities in the order they will go, and I write the target ending time after each activity. This helps me pace my classes.

Annelies: If you end up with time left over, there are various ways to fill it. You can have a “back to basics” list of things your students need to work on. If you have extra time, get your list out and pick a topic. You can also review material from a previous lesson. Students need lots of repetition and reinforcement. Or you can keep an envelope with interesting pictures in the back of your book, and use them as conversation prompts.

Cathy: At the more advanced levels, conversation in small groups is a great way to use extra time. It’s open-ended, so it expands to fill the time you have. I like to put the more structured activities earlier in the class, so we’re sure to have enough time to finish them. The more elastic activities like conversation fill up whatever time is left before we go home.

Brooke McEwen selects Add Ventures worksheets for her Basic A class.

Step 5: Get ready to teach.

Cathy: I like to draft my lesson plan at home, ahead of time. I e-mail the draft to my co-teacher and we discuss it and make changes. Then I print it and bring it to school. We go over it in the volunteer lounge before class and we might tweak it some more. Also, if I need to create a worksheet or materials for an activity, I do this at home. I bring the printouts to school and make copies.

Natalie: If there are items I’m planning to bring to class to supplement the lesson, like food or items of clothing, I write those at the top of my lesson plan so I don’t forget. And I always go over my notes shortly before class begins, so that my plan is fresh in my mind when I start teaching.

Cathy: I keep all my lesson plans and worksheets archived on my computer by class level. If an activity works well the first time, I can use it again with another class in the future.

Natalie: I’m hoping we’ll be able to find a way for teachers to share ideas and materials they’ve found online or developed, so that other teachers can use them without having to reinvent the wheel.

Co-teachers Devjani Saha and Pam Bays (3B) put the finishing touches on their lesson plan before class.

Tips for New Teachers

Welcome to the Winter 2013 term at Language ETC! After a much-needed holiday break, it’s great to be back. At orientation on January 12, I asked a number of experienced Language ETC volunteers what they wish they’d known when they started teaching. What advice would they give to new teachers? Here are their tips (and some of my own):

Prepare and overprepare. I lay it all out in advance. I write a set of prompts, a lesson plan really, and go over my moves before class.

— Larry Lawrence, Advanced Plus

Signal the start of class. When I’m ready to start class, I yell, “Good morning, class!” or “Good afternoon, class!” The students yell it back. If they are not loud or enthusiastic enough, I repeat. This helps get the class going on time. Students will remind me to do it if I forget and go right into the lesson without the greeting.

— Lee Griffith, Weekend Volunteer Coordinator

Talk as little as possible, so that students can talk more. Let students answer each other’s questions. If someone asks you what a word means, don’t give the definition yourself — instead ask if anyone else in the class knows the meaning, and let that student explain. Before the class does a textbook exercise, ask a student to read the instructions aloud. Try to have a student-centered classroom rather than one focused on the teacher.

— Lucy Hamachek, Advanced Workplace

Do more listening than talking. We teachers love to talk, but sometimes silence is better.

— Brooke McEwen, Basic A

Speak naturally. Use normal, everyday pronunciation and speech patterns, like contractions. It doesn’t help students if you speak extremely slowly and “correctly,” because the English they hear in the real world doesn’t sound like that.

— Jud Dolphin, 3A

Let students struggle a little. Don’t jump in with the answers too quickly. Students need time to think.

— Suzanne Rosenthal, 3B

Give simple explanations. When a student asks a question, keep your answer short. If a word has ten meanings, don’t try to explain all of them. You can go into more detail if the students ask for more.

— Lucy Hamachek, Advanced Workplace

Use small groups. It gets the students talking. If they just listen to the teacher talk, they don’t learn. The optimum size of the groups depends on the activity you’re doing. Pairs, threes, fours, and fives can work well for different exercises.

— Mike Mele, 2A

Use conversation circles. When the class is going to discuss a topic, pull the chairs into two circles. When you divide the class in two, each student gets twice as much speaking time. Each circle is facilitated by one of the co-teachers, who keeps the conversation moving and draws quieter students into the discussion.

— Cathy Sunshine, Advanced Plus

Make it fun. Use the power of games. Don’t just march through workbook drills. This is something I wish I’d known when I started!

— Dan Guilbeault, 3A

Know your grammar. You have to work at it. As native speakers, we take grammar for granted. But you need to know enough that you don’t get caught off-guard by students’ questions.

— Dean Frutiger, 3B

Learn the grammar and how to teach it. Take advantage of opportunities to brush up on grammar, like the workshops that LETC offers from time to time.

— Mary Janice Dicello, Basic A

Call on students at random. I remember language classes in high school where the teacher would go through a textbook exercise, calling on us in the order we were sitting. You figured out which question would be yours, prepared the answer, and then went to sleep until it was your turn. That’s why I always call on my ESL students in no predictable order. They focus on every question because they never know when they’ll hear their name.

— Cathy Sunshine, Advanced Plus

Pace the class. Things often take more time than you expect. Sometimes you need to slow down and repeat to make sure students understand, especially at the lower levels.

— Katie McGuire, Advanced Plus

When students give oral presentations, stand at the back of the room. Most students, when you ask them to speak to the class, will speak to the teacher. If you stand in front, the presenting student will turn and talk to you, turning his face away from the class. This makes it hard for the other students to hear and understand. So instead of standing up front, stand in the back, and say to the presenter, “Speak loud enough so I can hear you all the way back here.” This encourages the presenting student to face the class and project their voice.

— Cathy Sunshine, Advanced Plus

Let students lead. Sometimes you can give the chalk to a student and step back.

— Patrick Garcia, 4A

Schedule open-ended activities last. Timing classes is often tricky, because it’s hard to predict how much time each activity will take. Activities with a beginning, middle, and end are best done early in the class so you have enough time to finish. I like to use conversation as the last activity since the amount of time it takes is elastic. When it’s time to go home, you can just stop.

— Cathy Sunshine, Advanced Plus

New teachers can also find some helpful guidance in the blog archives. For example:

Start of the Term: Name Games and Icebreakers
Teacher Talk
Hot Topics: Conversation Starters for ESL Classes 
Managing the Multilevel Classroom
Musical Chairs: Seating Arrangements for the ESL Classroom
Hidden Resources: The Ventures Workbook and Add Ventures
Teaching ESL Beginners: Tips from Two Longtime Volunteers
Teaching Advanced Students at Language ETC