STORY TELLING Storytelling is an excellent teaching strategy because stories ignite student interest, help students create vivid mental images and stories activate the thinking process. Stories form a framework for connecting events and concepts. This helps students better understand and later recall information. Stories provide depth to a concept going beyond a fact, a definition,…
Listening is the language modality that is used most frequently. It has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in-school information through listening to instructors and to one another. Often, however, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that…
READING TECHNIQUES “SQ3R” 5 Techniques for Improving Your Reading and Studying Skills “SQ3R” A Reading and Study System Reading a chapter correctly takes a lot more time than you probably spend now, but try this SQ3R method for just one class. Slowly add this system into your other classes too. Be patient and give this…
TBL is a natural extension of communicative language teaching. In TBL, the emphasis is on the task rather than the language. For example, students perform real-life tasks such as getting information about bus timetables, or making a presentation on a certain topic. Later, after the task has been completed, they can look at the language…
COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. More specifically, collaborative learning is based on the model that knowledge can be created within a population where members actively interact by sharing experiences and take on asymmetry roles. Put differently, collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in…
Introduction In recent years, the purely “structural” approach to language teaching has been criticized, as it tends to produce students who, despite having the ability to produce structurally accurate language, are generally deficient in their ability to use the language and understand its use in real communication. What is the “structural” approach to language teaching? …
Pairwork and Working in Small Groups Most speaking practice in the classroom should be done in pairs and small groups with students talking to each other. It is a common mistake of the untrained teacher to think that students must or need to talk to the teacher. While talking to the teacher is certainly useful,…
ROLE PLAY There are several reasons for using role-play in the classroom and some tips for getting the most out of role-play. Introduction What is role-play? Why use role-play? Tips on successful classroom role-play Bibliography Introduction Incorporating role-play into the classroom adds variety, a change of pace and opportunities for a lot of language production…
A substitution drill is a classroom technique used to practice new language. It involves the teacher first modeling a word or a sentence and the learners repeating it. The teacher then substitutes one or more key words, or changes the prompt, and the learners say the new structure. Substitution drills work best…
THE LEARNERS’ FEATURES Small children require the teacher’s individual attention as much as possible. Their attention span is small (five to fifteen minutes). For the teacher, it can be quite disconcerting when a three-year-old wanders off in the middle of a song or story to play with a toy. It does not mean they are…