Secrets of English Language Teaching Top 10 Tips for English Language Teaching

1. Drilling
Having an effective drilling technique is important when teaching English because students need to have a clear model of the language from their teacher. One of the most common sticking points I see during teacher training courses is the trainee teacher not giving enough repetitions of the target language to the students. Realistically, you can't expect students to grasp the phonology of new language after only one or two repetitions. This is especially true for low level students who are hearing the words for the first time. Quite often, trainee teachers model long phrases or sentences to low level students just a couple of times and the trainees then wonder why their students struggle to get the pronunciation right. Similarly, apart from not giving enough repetition of the target language to low level learners, some teachers don't break long words or phrases down in manageable chunks when the language is being modelled for students. As a result, in their practice activity, these students may retreat to vocabulary they already know how to pronounce rather than risk using the new target language. Good drilling helps students feel more confident about using spoken English and helps ensure students can go on to practise the language successfully. As teachers, we need to be able to put ourselves into the position of the students we are teaching and understand that low level students need to have target language modelled to them with sufficient repetition and in small enough chunks that they can remember and produce it with accuracy.

2. Design Scoped Activities

Like a telescope or periscope, scoped activities can be extended or retracted depending on the situation. If a group of students finish an activity before other groups, rather than just having them wait for the slower groups to finish, a scoped activity allows an add on related activity to keep students on-task and focused on the learning outcomes of the lesson. Similarly, if the activity is too challenging for students and they are losing interest or getting frustrated, rather than having them go off-task and give up, a scoped activity allows the task to be simplified or shortened to allow the slower group to catch up with the rest of the class.

An example of this is asking a group which has finished early their discussion of 'stereotypes about England', to either write down their main points in a short paragraph summary or to list stereotypes that people have about their country. This will keep students on-task and help them practise a new skill area. For a group that is slower finishing this same task, a shorter scope could be to just think of one stereotype about English food. Scope can also be applied to the choice of subject itself at higher levels to allow students to branch out on their own in spontaneous language use. Some subjects lend themselves quite naturally to students using them at their own ability level. Thus, using scope can greatly help students stay motivated and engaged with the target language.

3. Calibrate Student Understanding Early

When teaching a new group of students (or when a new student has joined the class) it is important to calibrate just how much English they understand. Admittedly, students might have been given a placement test or you might have been told they are 'lowerintermediate' level but what one person understands to be lower-intermediate level might not be the same as what another person understands it to be. Even with more objective measurements like an IELTS score, this is an overall score based on an assessed average of the 4 main skill areas and it is quite common for a student, say from China, to have a higher written score than a listening score. If a student has an overall IELTS band score of 6 and you go into the classroom thinking he/she will be able to follow your instructions, there is always the chance that the student doesn't necessarily understand at the level they have according to their overall IELTS level. They might have a written IELTS level of 6.5 and a listening ability of 4.5. You give instructions and the students don't know what to do. I remember asking a student if he had done his homework. 'Yes', he answered. 'Can I see it?', I asked him. 'Yes', he answered. 'Where is it?', I asked. 'Yes!', he answered and smiled at me enthusiastically, pleased with how well it was going. Therefore, early on it is useful to do your own check of students' level. For example, in the preliminary stages of a new class I like to give a task that requires a physical response. This lets me easily see which students can understand what I am saying and which students are not yet at the level at which I am speaking. This helps you as a teacher to prepare better for subsequent lessons with the class because your materials can be chosen with the actual level of your students in mind. During the first lesson with a class, it is recommended that you include short diagnostic tests of the four skills area. I often do this rather informally. If I am checking listening and speaking ability of a class of younger learners, I might play an impromptu game of 'Simon Says', and see which students can stand up, sit down, wave their left hand etc.

After I have been 'Simon', I might ask students to play the role of Simon and monitor their speaking ability while they give instructions to their classmates.

4. Error Correction Techniques

Often students are unaware of the mistakes they are making and one of your most important roles as a teacher is to help students become aware of these areas of their language use. Students who are aware of their errors are more able to correct them. Identifying individual errors is the first stage in this process, so monitoring your students' use of language is vital. Monitoring is best done unobtrusively by being positioned in the most efficient place in the classroom. But monitoring is only the first stage. Error correction follows monitoring and is based on the data you gather of student language use during your monitoring. When it comes to error correction, we could just tell the student(s) in question what their mistake was and how to correct it. That might work, but it is usually not the most effective strategy because students are not thinking for themselves. In the real world, students will not have their teacher to remind them of their mistakes, so it is of great benefit to students if they can learn to monitor their own language use and to selfcorrect. It is preferable, when possible, to elicit what the error is from your students themselves. It is useful to outline the problem verbally to the students, or by writing it on the whiteboard, and to ask students if they can specify what the error was. Sometimes you might want to give them a hint such as it being a pronunciation/word stress error. If the student can correct the error herself or with the help of her classmates, this encourages both student-centred learning and reflection on one's own language use while also fostering a supportive atmosphere where students are helped to help themselves.

5. Students Dont Need To Know!

Students don't need to know everything. I mean by this that if you make a mistake in your teaching e.g. if you skip a stage of your lesson plan or you fail to include an explanation you had meant to give, don't become overly worried. Trainee teachers often get anxious because they have made a mistake but they ought to remember that students don't necessarily know what you had planned for each stage of the lesson and they usually won't realise you made a mistake if you just carry on with your lesson. Far worse is a teacher who makes a mistake and panics. This is likely to undermine confidence in the teacher and to have a longer lasting effect than one relatively minor

error on the part of the teacher. If you make a mistake it is usually best for all concerned if you to try to keep calm and continue with your lesson. Likewise, at the start of a lesson you don't always need to announce to students what you are going to do. How do you think some students feel if you say 'Today we will be looking at English grammar'? A lot of students might feel anxious or bored by the thought of a grammar lesson but if you just start playing a game that uses the grammar point you want to teach, students will be practising grammar and having fun with it without even knowing they are doing grammar. Use this technique to your advantage!

6. You Cant Know Everything!

English is not only the most widely spoken language across the world, it is also has the largest vocabulary - some estimates reckon at over one million words. You can't be expected to know the meaning of every word in the English language, no one does! The average person might know the meaning of up to 10,000 words and a language expert around 20,000 (we are talking about passive vocabulary here) but that is nowhere near the total number of words in English. Some trainee teachers worry they will be asked a question about English and they won't be able to explain it to their students. I'm here to tell you that you don't need to know every word in English and can't be expected to, even in theory. It is perfectly acceptable to be honest with students and if they ask you about a language point you don't know, tell them you don't know but you will find out for them for next time you see them. Make a note of the question and, after class, either ask a teaching colleague with experience about the point in question (most schools have a Senior Teacher or Director of Studies you can approach for support on such matters). When you have found the answer, get back to the student and let her know what you have found out. Even if you can't find the answer, tell the student you will keep your eyes open and if you find out anything you'll get back to her with any new information you come across. You'll be setting a good example by not pretending to know things you don't really know, showing you are willing to ask for collegiate support when you need it and your colleagues/students will respect you for your honesty and professionalism.

7. Accurate Diagnosis
Students will sometimes approach you as their teacher asking for help with a particular area of their English. They might, for example, say they want you to help them with their pronunciation because they feel it is holding them back. What they may not realise,

however, is that their main problem is not the one they reported to you but a different one e.g. that they lack a wide enough vocabulary (lexical range) to express their meaning clearly. It is not that they can't pronounce the words clearly but that they don't know enough words. The teacher, in consultation with the student, should diagnose which language areas ought to be worked on and help the student make a fully informed choice about what needs prioritising. The fact is many students have experienced limited contact with authentic English usage and don't have the necessary ability to know what their problem areas really are, or even which ones they should prioritise for improvement. This challenge in diagnosing which language areas students ought to work on often arises when a teacher is given a completed 'needs analysis' questionnaire by a language school to inform the teacher of what the student requires. By all means work on the areas the student has asked you to help them with (especially in the areas of language functions e.g. telephoning, letter writing). Bear in mind, though, that helping students to make progress might involve suggesting the need to work on additional areas which students were not aware of as being problematic areas for them. You, as a professional English teacher with experience in which areas appear most deficient in a student's English usage, need to help students to not only improve their English but also to diagnose which areas students should work on.

8. Cultural Awareness Rules

Even the most culturally aware of us can experience barriers between different cultures in the classroom. This is because there are innumerable cultural differences one needs to be potentially aware of when meeting people from other countries and this extends itself to the English teaching classroom when teaching students from around the world. Apart from the teacher to student aspect of intercultural communication, there is also the student to student aspect. Sometimes one is teaching a mono-cultural group of students while at other times it gets even more complicated with several different cultures being represented in the classroom. Unless one is teaching an English for Specific Purposes lesson where the student has specifically asked for training on a particular 'sensitive' issue, such as politics or religion, I suggest staying away from these types of areas because they can lead to some students feeling distressed that core elements of their cultural identity seem to be being challenged. This can affect the pedagogical dynamics of the classroom where students later don't want to work together or don't want to attend class next time in case the issue is raised again.

Even the idea that cultural differences should be open to challenge is, itself, a culturally sensitive issue for some students who have been brought up to believe their culture is the 'right' one. There is the opinion too, on the other side of this debate, that if students are at least arguing in English they are getting language practice and are using English for a real reason. I agree with this up to a point - having a critical discussion of a sensitive topic might cause students to get involved because they feel they need to defend their cultural identity, but the longer term consequences can be damaging. It is possible to get students involved in authentic language use about subjects which matter to them without risking upsetting or offending them. Additional to this is another risk - a lesson can go seriously off-topic and cause your lesson plan to go astray if students become so riled that they feel the need to spend time 'protecting' their cultural identity. So, for these sound pedagogical reasons, I suggest raising one's cultural awareness of which topics might not lend themselves to helping your students meet their learning needs. The question remains, however, as to how to become aware of sensitive topics so one can steer clear of them or at least be prepared for them if they should arise in a class. One way is to talk to your students and ask them to imagine they are giving advice to a person visiting their country for the first time. They could ask them 'what are the dos and don'ts one needs to know about communicating successfully/doing business/making friends with people in your country?' Sensitive topics can be noted without needing to explore or challenge them. It is also worthwhile asking fellow teachers when you begin teaching students from a culture you are not familiar with what some of the topics one has to be careful discussing and what behaviour to avoid in the classroom. Touching the heads of Thai students would, for example, be a mistake. In some cultures, showing the soles of your shoes to students would offend. Apart from the risk of causing offence or lessons going off-task, another potential problem related to culture is we don't all know the same things or the same people. Several times I have been teaching students and I've discussed topics that I believed were general knowledge around the world (e.g. who President Kennedy was, what Neil Armstrong did, when World War 2 took place) and students have had no idea. Before assuming students will have the same basic background understanding as you (or of each other), it is worth pre-teaching some of these basic facts to students before they use them in a language activity. If you can elicit better known examples from students, ones which are known to the entire class, so much the better. When playing a 'guess the famous person' game, I'll ask students to write down the name of the famous person they are thinking about before starting the activity just so I can go round and quietly check that the other students are likely to have heard of that

person. An Indian national cricket captain might be big in the sub-continent but totally unknown to students from the Philippines, therefore the activity will not work properly. If I think not all students will recognise the famous person, I might ask the student to think of someone 'even more famous'.

9. Learn Where Words Come From!

Knowing where words come from is very useful to an English teacher, especially when trying to help students choose a tone that is suitable for the situation they are communicating in. How would you feel if you met your friend and he/she said "On this auspicious occasion of your arrival, I extend my gratitude for your attendance"? You might think your friend was unwell or practising for a Shakespeare recital. You would be more likely to hear from a friend "Nice day, thanks for coming". Similarly, if you were starting a new job in a law firm and the senior partner came in and said "All right mate, how's it hanging?", you might be taken aback and begin to question your superior's ability to communicate appropriately. Being able to identify and use the correct tone is important in English, especially to higher level students or for students who will be using English in a professional or academic context. As a teacher, having knowledge of where words come (their etymology) can be very useful. Knowing that words of a Germanic origin tend to sound more informal in English than words of a French/Latin/Greek origin can help you to help your students. I recommend referring to a dictionary or thesaurus which gives origins of English words to help your students write and speak in a more suitable tone (e.g. formal or informal) for the context in which they are communicating. English is such a rich language because we have words with the same meaning which came into the language from different origins. We might say, for example, 'green/verdant', 'begin/commence', 'ask/enquire', 'drink/beverage' or 'find out/ascertain'. They all mean the same but in each case the first example in the pair sounds more informal, and is from a different origin, than the second example. Raise your students' knowledge of where words come from to help them get the tone of their language right and they will 'thank you a lot' or even 'express their gratitude profusely'!

10. Look For Authenticity

In the real world outside the classroom, people use language to communicate for a purpose. Being able to utilise this understanding in your classroom is a sign of a good teacher of English. Some English teaching course books mean well but don't always

reflect the needs of your individual students because they are often aimed at a general audience. It might be nice for your students to be able to discuss the pros and cons of using plastic bags but if they need to register with a doctor, apply for a job and find out how to open a bank account then perhaps we should prioritise our teaching towards areas our students really need. Of course this is sometimes easier to do in theory than in practice. Using authentic English might be hard if a student is studying for the Cambridge First Certificate exam and therefore needs to work methodically through a set course book. It is worth considering, however, whether even a prescribed set of materials can be adapted to meet more authentic learning needs for your learners as individual people. Being able to do this is the mark of a good teacher who sees his/her students as having their own linguistic needs and their own personal learning goals. An example of trying to be authentic is bringing in real life materials from outside the classroom to help students relate to English as it is actually used in contexts that are relevant to them. When this can be related to a set course book students are required to use, so much the better. Say, for example, that students are required to do listening using actors reading a dialogue between a waiter and a customer in a restaurant from an English teaching course book. After doing the activity with the dialogue from the text book, you could collect sample menus from a real restaurant (or find one online and print it) and perhaps use your phone's voice recorder to record yourself chatting to a real waiter about what food he would recommend you order from the menu. This would help students become involved with authentic English being used in a context they find themselves in if they ever travel abroad and need to order food from a native English speaker or use English as a lingua franca while travelling.