Getting Started: The Basics of Teaching

The following principles apply to almost any kind of teaching. Some of these points may seem like common sense, yet these are the types of issues professional teachers spend years learning and perfecting. Many of these ideas are adapted fromTeaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogyby H. Douglas Brown andHow To Teach Englishby Jeremy Harmer.

  • Make Lessons Interesting
    Bored students won't remember much of the lesson. Don't talk for long blocks of time. Instead, keep students involved and interacting with you and each other in English. Some may come from cultures where teachers lecture and students listen quietly. If interaction makes your students nervous, provide plenty of support by giving clear and very specific directions. Say, "Yuko and Yan, you work together," rather than "everyone get into pairs." Vary the types of skills you practice and activities you use, add games, and bring in real-life objects like a telephone, cook book, or musical instrument. Vary your own dress or behavior patterns for a day. Keep in mind, though, that some degree of predictability will be appreciated by your students, fostering a feeling of safety.
  • Make Yourself Understandable
    Simplify your vocabulary, grammar, and speaking speed to the degree necessary to be understood, and keep any instructions simple and logical. New ESL teachers frequently slow down the pace of their speech but forget to modify their vocabulary and grammar for beginning students. As your students' English ability increases, so should the complexity and speed of your English. Some of your interaction at an intermediate level and most of it at an advanced level can use natural grammar and speed, but make sure you slow down or repeat any highly important points. Teach your learners how to ask for clarification when they need it. Try to anticipate unknown vocabulary and be prepared to explain it. Appropriate language modification gets easier with experience.
  • Motivate With Rewards
    Learners will truly want to learn when they perceive a personal reward. To boost internal motivation, remind them of the benefits that English can provide, such as English-speaking friends, better job opportunities, easier shopping, or less stress at the doctor's office, and then teach language that will bring them closer to those benefits. Motivation can be boosted externally by praise and encouragement as well as tangible rewards like prizes, certificates, or check marks on an attendance chart. Motivation can be hindered by over-correction or teaching a topic that the learner will not use in daily life.
  • Provide a Useful Context
    Learners will remember material better and take more interest in it if it has relevant contextual meaning. Arbitrary rote learning (word lists or grammar drills) may be useful in solidifying language forms, but unless there's a real-world application, sooner or later it's likely to be forgotten.
  • Remember that Native Language Affects English Learning
    A learner's native language will provide a basis for figuring out how English works. Sometimes the native language can affect English production. To illustrate, the Japanese language does not use articles (a, an, the) so correct article usage is frequently difficult for Japanese learners. Spanish uses idioms such as "I have thirst" or "I have sleepiness" so Spanish speakers may forget to use "I am..." with an adjective instead of a noun. Most teachers, however, have little if any understanding of their students' native language. While a familiarity with the native language may shed light on certain errors, it is certainly not essential. In fact, intermediate and advanced students are often able to tell you whether a specific error is related to their native language.
  • Don't Assume All Errors are Bad
    Native language interference contributes to a gradual process of learning in which language is refined over time to become more like natural English. For example, a learner may progress through phrases such as "no I like peanuts," "I no like peanuts," and finally, "I don't like peanuts." Teachers must not get discouraged watching students exchange one error for another; this process is a natural part of language learning. Selectively choose errors to work on rather than trying to fix everything at once. Give priority to problems that hinder communication rather than incorrect but understandable errors. With gentle corrective feedback, students will keep improving.
  • Encourage Learners to Think in English
    Too often ESL learners will get stuck in a habit of thinking in their native language and then mentally translating what they want to say or write into English. This is time consuming and frequently leads to confusion when direct translation isn't possible. Thinking in English requires learners to use learned words, phrases, and language structures to express original ideas without focusing too much on language rules or translation. To illustrate, how would you change the statement "Linda ate an apple" into a question? Of course, "Did Linda eat an apple?" More than likely you didn't think about adding the modal 'do' (in the past tense 'did' because 'ate' is past tense) before the subject, changing the irregular verb 'ate' to 'eat' and raising your vocal intonation at the end of the sentence. While it's unreasonable to expect beginning ESL learners not to rely on native language translation to some degree, one way you can minimize it is to explain new vocabulary using simple English, drawings, or gestures and allow dictionary lookups only as a last resort. You might also ask them to speak (or write if they are able) for several minutes without stopping. At some point, mental translation will become cumbersome and learners should begin developing an ability to use English independently from their native language.
  • Build Confidence in Your Students
    Learners must believe in their own ability to complete a task. Without self-confidence, they are unlikely to take risks, and risk-taking is necessary in language learning. Learners need to feel that it's safe to make mistakes. By trying out new or less familiar language, they may find that they are indeed capable of more communication than they thought. Try to reduce feelings of embarrassment when mistakes are made, and give far more compliments than criticisms. Make some tasks easy enough that everyone is guaranteed success.
  • Account for Different Learning Styles
    Some people are hands-on learners, some like to watch, some like to have detailed explanations. Some people learn better visually, others audibly. Some like to work in groups, some work better individually. Language teaching should take a variety of learning styles into account through varied activities.
  • Know Your Students
    Learn how to pronounce students' names (or ask for easier nicknames) and then remember and use them. Build trust with your students by building relationships and being approachable. Make sure quiet students are included and more assertive ones don't dominate the lesson.

Focus On Communication

Interaction requires communication, the transfer of a meaningful idea from one person to another. Good teachers go beyond the building blocks of English such as vocabulary lists or grammar drills to develop a learner's oral, written, and even non-verbal communication skills. Every lesson should prepare your students for real-world interaction in some way. Think meaningful and usable.

When communication breaks down, native speakers usually try to clarify any potentially unclear items by asking questions and offering explanations. They ask for repetition or more information, confirm that the other person has understood what was said, expand on words or topics, or repeat back a paraphrase of what they just heard to confirm that they got it right. This is one of the greatest communication skills, but it can be difficult and ESL learners need to be taught how to do this in English.

Teachers bring communication into their lessons by guiding learners through tasks or activities which require meaningful communication in a relevant context. Here are some tips for making your lessons communicative:

  • Clarification Skills
    Teach your students how to ask for clarification. The following phrases may serve as a starting point and can be expanded or adapted to an appropriate language level.
  • Do you understand?
  • Excuse me? / Could you repeat that?
  • Once more. / One more time.
  • Please speak more slowly.
  • How do you spell that?
  • Did you say ______?
  • What does ______mean?
  • How do you say ______in English?
  • I don't know.
  • I don't understand.
  • Pair and Group Work
    When students must work with each other or one-on-one with you, they are forced to communicate. Make sure you have taught them how to ask for clarification when they don't understand something. If students share the same native language, limit its use as much as possible. Information gap activities, role plays, and collaborative problem solving are some communicative activities explained in more detail in the activities section of this guide.
  • Individual Communication
    Some types of communication are not highly interactive. For example, you can have students give a speech, write a letter or composition, or report group work results to the class. As long as they are producing original language to convey their own thoughts, they are practicing communication.
  • Interactive Teaching
    Specific practice activities aren't the only place where communication can occur. While you are teaching your main lesson, you don't need to do all the talking. Involve your students by asking them for related vocabulary words, the spelling of a word they suggest, the past tense of verbs (especially irregular ones), examples beyond those in the textbook, etc. Draw out what they already know and connect it to their life experiences. For example, if your text contains the word 'allergy' and you aren't sure if the students understand it, rather than simply teaching "an allergy is..." and moving on, ask if anyone knows the meaning and can explain it, what types of allergies the students can think of, and whether anyone has an allergy. Ask for the spelling of the plural form, 'allergies.' If your students have a lot to say, these side-tracks can become time-consuming. You will need to decide how much time you will allow for this so you can still complete your lesson.
  • What Communication is Not
    Some elements of your lesson will probably not be communicative. For example, memorization, vocabulary lists, reading, listening tasks, grammar structures, and pronunciation practice do not require any original language to be produced by the learner, yet they are all valuable building blocks for communication. As a teacher, you should be aware of the difference between what is communicative and what is not and balance the two.

Language Levels

What do the terms beginner, intermediate, and advanced really mean? Unfortunately the definitions vary among institutions. The following guide for oral communication ability, though subjective, may be useful if your program does not have its own definitions of performance standards:

  • True Beginner
  • Very limited communication in English
  • Uses gestures and 1-3 word utterances
  • Beginner
  • Communicates with difficulty and many errors
  • Very simple, unelaborated answers
  • Many hesitations
  • No ability to extend conversation
  • Uses simple grammar & vocabulary
  • Low Intermediate
  • Communicates understandably with some errors
  • Simple answers and little elaboration
  • Attempts interactive conversation
  • Attempts more complex grammar
  • High Intermediate
  • Communicates fairly well
  • Some elaboration, especially on familiar topics
  • Can converse with errors and some hesitations
  • Uses more complex grammar & vocabulary
  • Advanced
  • Communicates well with occasional errors
  • Converses with lots of elaboration and interaction
  • Errors don't hinder communication
  • Uses advanced grammar & vocabulary

Your volunteer program may or may not have its own system for assessing student language levels. If you work with a student one-on-one, knowing the 'level' is not as critical as knowing the student; you will soon discover strengths and weaknesses and develop a sense of what your student can or can't handle. However, if you work with more than one learner, your task will be much easier if they are all near the same language level. For this reason, many programs test language levels for all new students for placement purposes. The following is a sample intake test based on the above performance descriptions. Testing instructions are found on page two. An accompanying page of drawings has not been included due to copyright.

ESL Evaluation

Introduce yourself first!

Level 1: Beginner
few words, many hesitations, no ability to extend conversation / Level 2: Low – Intermediate
simple answers, little conversation, many errors
  • What’s your name?
  • Where are you from?
  • What time is it?
Pictures:
  • Where is the teacher?
  • Where are the flowers?
  • What is Jane doing?
    (point to picture 4)
  • How many pictures are there?
/
  • How long have you lived in Colorado?
  • What did you do yesterday?
  • Do you have a hobby? > What is it?
Pictures:
  • What are Mike and Sue doing?
    > Why?
    (point to picture 3)
  • What’s happening in this picture?
    (point to picture 5)
  • Where are the people in picture 1?

Level 3: Intermediate – High
some elaboration, can converse with errors and some hesitations / Level 4: Advanced
lots of elaboration & interaction, errors don’t hinder communication
  • Have you ever taken the TOEFL test?
    > What was your score?
    (paper525/ computer197> try L4)
  • Can you tell me what some of the differences are between Colorado and your country?
  • What’s your favorite season? > Why?
Pictures:
  • In picture 1, who will not get wet?
  • What happened to Sam and what should he do next?
  • What did Tom Smith do? > Why?
/
  • What’s the most memorable vacation you’ve ever had? > Can you tell me more about it?
  • Can you describe the health care system in your country? > What do you think about it?
  • What do you want to be doing in five years? > Do you think it’s possible?
  • If I were to go to your country as a tourist, what should I see?
Pictures:
  • Choose one of these pictures and tell me a short story about it.

Instructions for testing:

1. Introduce yourself first.

2. If the student appears responsive and able to converse, begin with level 3 questions. If the student appears confused or very shy, begin with level 2.

3. Speak at a normal pace while testing, slowing down and offering explanations only if the student is unable to understand. (If this occurs often, try a lower level.)

4. When finished, please circle the appropriate level number on the intake form.

Levels 1 and 2 are pre-conversational, 3 and 4 are conversational

Level 3 questions: Ask a couple of questions of your choice and listen for hesitations, errors, and vocabulary problems. If you are maintaining a conversation but find yourself asking for clarification or correcting the student frequently, or if the pace is slow, you have a level 3 student. If you experience no difficulty, move on to level 4 without asking all level 3 questions. If you have a lot of trouble maintaining conversation, drop down to level 2 questions.

Level 4 questions: If the student is able to continue with little difficulty and gives extended answers and keeps a steady pace with few hesitations, you have a level 4 student. Some errors are expected but they should not hinder communication. If the student has difficulty, go back to level 3 questions. You may have a level 3 or level 3/4 student.

Note: a high TOEFL score doesnotmean the student is automatically level 4.

Level 2 questions: Ask a couple of questions and if the student answers quickly and easily, try level 3 without asking all level 2 questions. If level 3 is too difficult, you may have a level 2/3 student. If the student does not understand or cannot answer easily, move to level 1.

Level 1 questions: Whether or not the student can answer any of the questions, you have a level 1 student if level 2 is too difficult.

Used by permission. This is an ESL intake test used by International Students, Inc. (a nonprofit organization) at Colorado State University. It assesses oral communication ability. A separate page of drawings has not been included due to copyright. The drawings are: 1) Ann and Bill standing in the rain, Sara and Peter walking with an umbrella; 2) Sam with a paintbrush in his hand and his foot stuck in a paint bucket, another painter on a ladder behind him; 3) Mike and Sue reading a travel guide; 4) Jane sitting on a stack of books, reading; 5) Peter Jones handing Sally Jones a pot of flowers; 6) Tom Smith carrying shopping bags filled with painting supplies, a paint store with a 'big sale' sign behind him; 7) Mrs. Adams sitting behind a table with a book and an apple, pointing to a math equation on a blackboard.