Metamorphosis of an EFL teaching caterpillar
My teaching beliefs have changed quite significantly since I started teaching. The MA TESOL at the New School and the DELTA both changed my ideas on the role of the teacher and consequently the types of activities I use in class.
In my early years, I was convinced that as long as the students were working in English they must be learning and improving. I would spend hours looking for fun activities online or going through all the resource packs (Cutting edge, New English File, Headway, Side by Side, Inside Out, etc.) picking and choosing communicative tasks to keep students engaged in class. I was more worried about classes not being boring than actually focusing on exactly what students could learn.
Hugh Dellar has an amazing blog post that addresses the same idea. Many newer teachers that I chat with in the staff room seem to constantly be looking for exciting new activities/videos/podcasts/smart phone apps/etc. to keep learners engaged. God forbid that we might have to repeat or review any materials from old lessons. As an early teacher I too mistook entertainment and engagement as one and the same. The reality is quite different.
Part 7 from the link above closely parallels what I’ve just described, but I highly recommend reading the entire 20 part series if you have the time. There is so much insight from a highly experienced and talented practitioner in those posts.
It wasn’t until after my third year of teaching I really started to understand the importance of careful planning, feedback, and helping students to “notice the gap.” I now see these pillars as essential elements to a good lesson or good teaching.
- A lesson should have a clear aim. When planning I want to know, “By the end of this lesson students will be better able to……………”
- Students need to be given feedback on their use of the target language. This is extremely important and time for feedback should be planned into each lesson. This is not always individual feedback; by circulating and monitoring we can notice any common group errors to examine as a class.
- Students need to notice the difference between their own language use and that of more proficient speakers. In my early years I believed that if students were speaking in English, their language skills must be improving. I no longer believe this. Students improve when they notice the difference between their own use of language and how more proficient speakers use language. This is particularly relevant for students that are stuck at the dreaded “intermediate plateau.” Moving past that will require lots of additional lexis and feedback on its use. Jack Richards has a nice article on the subject which can be found here. I think the TBL approach is a very good way to help students notice this gap in their use of language as you can easily plan 2 cycles of feedback . Generally, after the first attempt at the task and feedback students will be presented with a model of the same task which they will analyze and compare to their previous attempt. There is then a 2nd attempt which creates the 2nd feedback cycle. If you want to know more about TBL, here is a link to a quick overview of Dave and Jane Willis’ work.
Another area where I now devote much more attention is listening to the learners. I try to listen not only the language that they’re using, but also to the language they are not using. I think as teachers it’s more natural for us to do the former, as this is where we will be doing our error correction and giving positive feedback on use. However, I see the latter as equally important for students who want to take their use of language to the next level. We should always be looking for opportunities to push students past the boundaries of what they’re comfortable with and try to add something new to their lexicon.
Since starting the MA TESOL I’ve become a very big fan of Michael Lewis. I think a lot more attention should be paid to helping students develop their lexicons and to teaching students strategies to record new lexis they find outside of class. So much time is spent outside of the classroom and many learning opportunities will be missed if we don’t show students vocabulary learning strategies while they are still in class.
The MA TESOL also exposed me to Scott Thornbury’s work which I highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t had the privilege of taking his classes in person. In my opinion, the “How to teach…..” series edited by Jeremy Harmer (for which Scott Thornbury wrote “How to Teach Grammar,” “How to Teach Speaking” and “How to Teach Vocabulary“) still provides the best books for building a strong foundation in planning effective lessons that will help learners achieve clear aims.
To sum up, I’ve learned that self-reflection is an important tool to improve our teaching practice. It is very easy to become comfortable with a routine after a few years of teaching, but growth doesn’t come from inside our comfort zone. Perhaps the plateau that learners hit might apply to our own teaching as well. I found that once I got over the idea of a teacher as an entertainer, my lessons became much more focused and students were able to leave each lesson with something new.
Author’s Biography:
Kevin Wong is an English lecturer working in Muscat, Oman. He received his Master’s in TESOL from The New School University in 2012. He has also completed the CELTA and DELTA certifications. Over the last 9 years, Kevin has worked for universities in Argentina, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Oman.