m


 

 

Veronika Štalma
Štalmašková
Zuzana Juhászová
Peter Plichta



— ©asic terms
— A good instruction
— Use of L1/L2
— Some useful instruction-
instruction-games
— Sources
 © 

— ’nstructions
-Teaching, education performed by a teacher
- the action, practice, or profession of teaching
- the purposeful direction of the learning process
— Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun (2003) describe four categories
of models of instruction:
instruction:
- behavioral systems
- information processing
- personal development
- social interaction
Ô

 


Grammar-Translation method
— Grammar- method:: language learning
towards intellectual development rather than for
communicative purposes

— The Direct Method:

Method: aimed at oral/aural
competence and believed languages were best
learnt in a way that emulated the ³natural
³natural´´
language learning of the child ± ie with no
analysis or translation
Ô

 


— Audiolingualism:
Audiolingualism: language as a matter of habit
formation. The L1 was seen as a collection of
already established linguistic habits which would
³interfere
interfere´´ with the establishment of the new set of
linguistic habits that constituted the target
language, and was thus to be avoided at all costs.

— TEFL ³industry
industry´:
´: the theoretical opposition to the
use of the L1 was compounded.
Ô

 


— Total Physical Response - avoid the use of the L1

— Suggestopaedia and Counselling Language

Learning - have included L1 as an integral part of
the methodology

— Mainstream methodology ± an ambivalent

approach, maintaining an ³it depends´ attitude.
G   
    


— Planning - of how you¶re going to give the
instructions before you go into the classroom, and
make sure that you can explain them within the
limits of the language which the students can
understand.

— Explicitness - don¶t take anything for granted.

©ecause we are so familiar with the activity types,
we often assume that certain things are obvious.
G   
    


— The time - ’f you have a long, complicated, or two
part activity, don¶t explain everything at once.
Explain the first stage, and check that Ss have
understood before you go on to the explanation of
the next part.

’n some cases it is not necessary for the Ss to have

an overview of the whole activity before they start.
’n this case, explain the first part, do the first part
and then go on to the explanation of the second
part.
G   
    


— S´s attention - make sure they have stopped whatever
they are doing, are turned towards you and are listening.

— Always English + gestures - Even in the first lesson,

use English wherever possible. G

 won¶t be
understood, but

 

 plus a
gesture ³pushing´ the students together will be.

—  o imperative ± rather request forms:

Repeat! ± Can you repeat that?
G   
    


— Feedback:
— asking them check questions
— repeating back to you
— demonstrating
— guessing the activity
— Always check that students have understood your
instructions before starting the activity. The
question u 
 is as good as
useless.

— L1 with beginners
beginners:: activities which would be impossible to
explain otherwise

— L1 in complex activities

— feedback in L1: just a short one

— to point out problem areas of grammar

— S´s receptive competence (their understanding) may be

higher than their productive competence (their ability to
use the language).
 
— L1 For S´
S´s difficulties - the teacher can reformulate it for
them, possibly rephrasing and simplifying to show them
how they could have expressed themselves within the
language they already know.

— L1 durring a pre
pre--lesson small talk

— Use of bilingual dictionaries

— L1 durring translation activities

 ’


— Simon says:
TEFL game, Ss only do the action they are told to when the sentence starts with ³J
«´, e.g. ’f they hear any other command, they should remain totally still and not
 «´,

even start doing the action.
To add some more useful language, you can replace ³Simon says«´ with ³

³
 

or ³ 
 



— *nly when it matches:

Ss only copy if the action and what the T says is the same, e.g. if the T both says ³J

´ and does that action. ’f the action and words don¶t match, the Ss
 
 ´
should just stay still.
You can give points to individuals or teams who do the correct actions the quickest, and
take points away or make them sit down out of the game if people do things when they
shouldn¶t.

— Tell me off:
Ss should only copy if the action and what the T says is the same, and shout something
negative like ³  
      
   
   

  
 ´ if they don¶t match.
’


— Do as ’ say, not as ’ do:
When the actions and what the T says don¶t match, Ss don¶t copy the
action, but do what the T says instead

— Do what¶s right, not what ’ say:

Ss don¶t copy if you ask them to do something that they shouldn¶t do in
the classroom, e.g. ³J
  "!´, but
³J
  
 
! "!´,
race to follow instructions that are okay, e.g. ³ 
 !
 ´
J  ´

— Tell me off too:

’f the T tells them to do something that isn¶t allowed in the classroom, the
Ss shout out ³
 
 
 

³
 
 
 
  
 !´.
 
 !´.
 ’


— ’nstructions protests:
Tell the Ss to do some typical classroom actions, then throw in some
things that are impossible, e.g. ³Y !´ then Y 
 
³Y 
 
!´
´. With the impossible ones, they shout back ³#$ 
% 
 ´.

 

´´ or other useful classroom language for

  & ³
 


telling the T they have problems in class.

— Teacher robot:
Elicit useful classroom language you want the Ss to say by doing things
that make life impossible for them, e.g. 



 
 
!    '
    
etc, and only doing it
properly when they ask you with the correct language.
To add some fun, you can sometimes go too far the other way when they
ask you, e.g. writing in huge letters, speaking very very slowly etc
’


— Pedantic robot:
robot:
The Ss follow each other¶s instructions, but only if they are so
unambiguous that they can¶t be misunderstood.

— Classroom language brainstorm:

brainstorm:
After the T says or does something, the Ss try to use as much
classroom language as they can to ask the T to do it again or
another way, e.g. if the T says ³  
!´, the Ss can say
³  
!´,
³(  
!?´,
!?´, ³Y 
³Y    
  ?´ (several times until it isn¶t possible to speak any more
slowly), ³Y 
³Y     ?´ (ditto, until the teacher
is shouting) etc.
’


— Classroom instructions collocations brainstorms:
brainstorms:
Give the Ss a verb and see how many possible things they can tell the T to do
using that verb.

— Collocations pellmanism:
pellmanism:
Give each group of 2/4 Ss a pack of cards that has common classroom language
verbs on half of the cards and common classroom nouns on the rest. Ss
spread the pack of cards face down across the table and try to find a verb and
an object that match up. ’f they think two cards match up, they should do that
action in order to prove it.

— Classroom English ranking debate:

debate:
Give students a list of 20 to 25 sentences that are useful for them to use in the
classroom, including some more unusual ones like ³Y#! 
  ?´
’n pairs Ss debate which are the top ten most useful sentences. These can then
be turned into a poster or worksheet, and should be the ones the T is strict
about not allowing L1 for from then on.
’


— Classroom language Pictionary:
Ss try to draw a typical thing that Ss or Ts say in the classroom, and the
rest of the class or their team try to guess what the sentence is.
E.g. a drawing of a confused face and a question mark for ³J #


´ or a drawing of arrows going from a book, pen, eraser etc
 
´
to a bag for ³)
  
!´.

!´.

— ’nstructions action chains:

Ss race to do the typical classroom action written on the board, then the T
adds one more to the bottom of the list, and the Ss race to do both as
quickly as possible when the T shouts ³(Start) now´ or ³(Let¶s) go´.
The T adds one more to the bottom of the list and repeat over and over
until they are doing at least 10 actions in a row.
J
— Citation:
Citation: Huitt,
Huitt, W. (2003). Classroom instruction
instruction.. è

)  #

 . Valdosta,
Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University.
University.
Retrieved [date
date],
], from
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/instruct/instruct.html
— http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2006/11/giving
http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2006/11/giving--andand--checking
checking--
instructions.html
— http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2006/11/using
http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2006/11/using--l1-l1-in
in--efl
efl--
classroom.html

The isntruction games were Y
 



 Y 



 
Alex Case is TEFL.net Reviews Editor and author of the popular
blog TEFLtastic
TEFLtastic::
— http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/games/15
http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/games/15--classroom
classroom--language
language--games