Establishing Roles and Relationships
Students embarking on a language-learning experience may be feeling excited and motivated, or may be uncertain about their abilities. They may have certain expectations and concerns. They may be easy-going people, or very demanding ones. It is important to establish a positive learning environment from the start, and to let students know how things will operate in your classroom. So what to do?
- Plan for variety and balance in early lessons. For example, a lesson could include a game, some listening, a bit of grammar practice, a word matching task. If you have variety, it keeps everybody on their toes, keeps everybody happy, and leaves students feeling they have had fun and communicated in English, but have also learnt something tangible.
- Plan to vary interaction and activity type – don’t let students sit in the same place. Include pairwork and groupwork, mingles and games.
- Establish your role and teaching style – think about how you want students to see you. For example, if you want to be seen as a sympathetic, listening teacher then make sure the way you organise activities reflects this.
- Help students establish relationships – learners need to establish themselves in the group; that is why it is important everybody gets to know each other, work with each other, and feel comfortable no matter who their partner is. Some students will be quiet and insecure, others will be confident or will play the fool. Try to be as inclusive as possible and make everybody feel they have a role in the group.
Half of the suggestions start with the word "plan". That's how important planning is.
@temursolief #teaching #forANewClass
Students embarking on a language-learning experience may be feeling excited and motivated, or may be uncertain about their abilities. They may have certain expectations and concerns. They may be easy-going people, or very demanding ones. It is important to establish a positive learning environment from the start, and to let students know how things will operate in your classroom. So what to do?
- Plan for variety and balance in early lessons. For example, a lesson could include a game, some listening, a bit of grammar practice, a word matching task. If you have variety, it keeps everybody on their toes, keeps everybody happy, and leaves students feeling they have had fun and communicated in English, but have also learnt something tangible.
- Plan to vary interaction and activity type – don’t let students sit in the same place. Include pairwork and groupwork, mingles and games.
- Establish your role and teaching style – think about how you want students to see you. For example, if you want to be seen as a sympathetic, listening teacher then make sure the way you organise activities reflects this.
- Help students establish relationships – learners need to establish themselves in the group; that is why it is important everybody gets to know each other, work with each other, and feel comfortable no matter who their partner is. Some students will be quiet and insecure, others will be confident or will play the fool. Try to be as inclusive as possible and make everybody feel they have a role in the group.
Half of the suggestions start with the word "plan". That's how important planning is.
@temursolief #teaching #forANewClass