Since Steve Mullen began teaching in the Czech Republic in January 1991, he has had an extensive career in education and training. He has been employed as a teacher in private and public schools, founded two language schools, written numerous training courses in areas connected with hospitality and customer service, developed content for TEFL activity libraries, designed a web-based lesson planner and ecosystem for language teachers and learners, and worked as a freelance language teacher. Email: steve@mullen.cz

 

Note

“Lessons Learned Teaching Abroad Part 1” can be read here.

“Lessons Learned Teaching Abroad Part 2” can be read here.

“Lessons Learned Teaching Abroad Part 3” can be read here.

 

Lesson Learned #8

Good activities we find should be stored for future adaptation and use.

If the curriculum is the blueprint, and target language proficiency is the house we are building, then the activities are the building materials we use.

In the same way that some houses are put up with bricks and mortar, while others are made with lumber and nails, teachers and learners may prefer, and respond more favourably, to different types of activities. This depends on many factors including the function we wish the activity to serve, levels of target language proficiency, personalities present, the individual experiences of the group members, ages and maturity levels within the group, cultural norms, our learning objectives, and on what the learners and teachers are used to.

I have my own repertoire of activities that work for me. Many of the items in my repertoire are borrowed or adapted from other teachers who have shared with me, or from resource materials I have purchased. Many more are activities I have created myself over the years.

As beginning teachers, we tend to rely more heavily on textbooks and resource book materials. But after having some experience in using activities created by others under our belts, we begin to feel more confident experimenting with our own creations and adaptations. And, very soon, we may realize that we have so much material at our disposal that we lose track of what we have and don’t know where to start looking for what we need when we need it.

Every time I find or create something that I think I might use again, I stash it away somewhere. But, I have also found that, for me, it is almost pointless using paper files, and believe me, I have tried. I once had an ugly, big, old, olive-green, metal filing cabinet crammed full of copies of my activities. Twice, during two consecutive summer holidays, another teacher and I cleaned it out and tried to reorganize it.  Eventually, we moved our school to a new location and I tossed the entire cabinet and its contents – I rarely used it because I could never find what I needed when I needed it.

As we accumulate activities, we need a system to help us store them and find them again when we need them.  As we use activities, especially with more advanced learners since they may have been with us for a number of years, it can be difficult to recall whether we have used a particular activity with a group or a member or the group before in the past.  When using activities found in the school’s resource centre, it is also possible that another teacher has used an activity that we wish to use with the learner or group without our knowledge. It is an embarrassing position for us to be in when setting up an activity, or in the middle of one, a learner pipes up, ‘Uh…I think we’ve already done this…’ This make us feel like complete dolts and, if we manage to recover from the initial mortification from the realization that everyone must think we are daft, to add injury to insult, we then realize that we don’t have enough other material to fill in the time and this puts us in the dreaded ‘duh…so…uh, what next?’ situation.

These days, I use my own software to help me keep organized. The lesson that I learned the hard way is that, teachers must think ahead and find a “filing” system that works.

 

Lesson Learned #9

A good experience for the learner usually requires a good lesson plan and presence of mind on the part of the teacher.

Adult learners need to know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Even if the teacher has it all figured out and thinks he/she has neatly woven the threads into the fabric of a fine lesson plan, the objectives and content of the lesson need to be shared with the other group members. The objectives are part of the lesson plan document and need to be part of its presentation as well.

I prefer to use the board as I present my plan. I call the outline of my lesson plan a ‘lesson map’. I simply write ‘This morning:’ as the heading and then briefly list our objectives and the activities I plan to use below it. There are a couple of benefits of using a lesson map. It tends to keep the group on track. Everyone can see the lesson map and we can easily see what we have covered and what we have yet to get to. Also, it shows learners, in case there is any doubt, that I have, in fact, prepared a lesson. Learners like teachers who prepare…go figure…

In my lessons, the lesson map is either on the board before the learners arrive for the lesson, or I put it up immediately after the warm-up activity.  As I have said, the best warm-up activities relate to the topical theme and the language focus of the lesson.

Warm-up activities should, as the name suggests, warm learners up for what is to come. There is more to a lesson than the theme and language content, there is also the affective element. The warm-up establishes a tone, which relates to the energy level and should serve to relax participants. I find that, the more quickly we get everybody involved and contributing, the more smoothly things progress. Passive, individual, or mentally taxing activities are not the kinds of things I would seek out for warm-ups.  Mentally engaging is good, but it’s usually not a good idea to waltz into the room and slap a 200-word text to translate down on their desks.  This kind of thing is long, boring and quells any energy that might have been there before our arrival. It needs to be short and snappy with good energy.

Following the warm-up and lesson map, in whichever order I use them, I often do a quick recap of the previous lesson.  Sometimes we forget that learners need to revisit things they have learned often and frequently. Plus, after having had time to absorb new material from last lesson they, especially the “keeners” (please, excuse the Canadianism, eh), might have questions. Not revising deprives them of this opportunity.

Revising also keeps us thinking linearly as teachers. We should be aware of new vocabulary and grammar learners have had and consciously be trying to use it, and be coaxing or creating conditions for them to use it whenever we can. To this end, revising with learners keeps the material taught fresh in our own minds.

Finally, revising allows us to spot problems before we move on and to allow those who may have missed the last lesson a chance to clue in, if not to catch up. If we recognise that there is not a sufficient grasp of material they should know, we may decide that it is not a good idea to begin introducing new material we have prepared.

Since they are often related, I would normally try to tie the homework check in with the revision if any has been assigned. With adult learners, checking homework is tricky business. It might seem to the teacher that language lessons are shockingly low on a learner’s list of priorities in life. What with keeping their bosses, partners and kids happy; keeping the wolves from the door; putting bread on the table; Wednesday night bowling, and reality TV taking the top positions, in reality, language learning might come in low on the list.

This means that we cannot browbeat learners into preparing for the lessons. However they need to be reminded because, with so many commitments, they won’t possibly be able to remember otherwise. And, even more importantly, we can’t afford to risk publicly humiliating them. They need a gentle push. The teacher’s senses of diplomacy and humour are good tools to use when providing this push.

If some or, by miracle, all of them have done their homework, we have to check it or all is for naught. It is very important to remember that we aren’t checking to make sure everybody has done what we have requested, we are checking it to learn from it and to give those who have done it closure. Not checking homework leaves the activity incomplete and deprives learners of any satisfaction of having done it or realizing what they have learned. And this means that they will not be so motivated to do it the next time.

How we check homework is also important. Going round the room asking learners to read aloud what they have as an answer for the next question is not only dull and unimaginative, it puts people on the spot and robs them of their option to not participate. It is undemocratic and puts the teacher in the role of drill sergeant or referee. 

A more communicative approach is to either let them check their work together, discussing differences of opinion as they go along, or, better still, find or devise an activity where learners can find the answers they need. The teacher will still have to take the role of mediator/arbitrator in the case of a dispute, but for the most part learners will be engaged in a task-oriented communicative activity, which is infinitely more productive and enjoyable than being drilled and checked up on.

Delivering new material is often what first comes to mind when we envision ourselves teaching, but new material doesn’t have to be, nor should it always be, the main objective of the lesson. We may plan to focus solely on revision; there could be an unanticipated number of questions or problems we encounter while checking homework, we may wish to give learners a test or quiz to help them assess or consolidate their learning, or occasionally, we get completely side-tracked by something that seems more important than the new material we intended to cover.  So we shouldn’t be so attached to the idea of delivering something new that it causes us to be inflexible.

Michael Welton is a former teacher who taught me a lot about critical pedagogy and communicative learning – and I have always tried to transfer these principles of Adult Education to my work as a foreign language teacher. But one relatively insignificant remark he made has always stuck in my mind.  I remember him saying that if something has to be cut from our plan, it should be from the middle, rather than from the beginning or the end. In the case of a foreign language lesson, this would mean that we should reduce the amount of new material we introduce when confronted with time constraints.  Dealing with the learners’ immediate needs is more important when we are in the moment. Although I would argue that lesson planning is very important, we can’t be married to our plan.

When we deliver new material, it should be a natural extension of the warm-up. We normally try to tie the topical theme to the language focus and present it holistically. Presenting material, as I have discussed, is not about lecturing. A mini-lecture might be a part of it, especially when we need to explain complicated new grammar, but I generally try to find one or more communicative or task-based activities, set them up and let the learners go. While they are engaged in the activities, if the teacher is not actively participating, it is his/her role is to watch and listen unobtrusively in order to monitor their progress. When learners get stuck, I often intervene, but otherwise I jot down notes and problems in my lesson plan document. Depending on the seriousness of the problem, I decide whether to interrupt the group to address issues before letting them go on, save it for after the activity has ended, or I might choose to ignore it completely for the time being.

After the new material has been covered we can assign homework to reinforce it. Once again, the amount of homework assigned should be realistic and take the learner’s other time demands into account.  In the first lesson of every course when I am assessing the needs of the learners, I usually try to find out how much homework I can expect them to do…not that I necessarily expect them all to do it every time I give it – but I don’t tell them that. 

Having the learners tell me what they will do accomplishes three things: it tells me how much homework I should give them; it causes the learners to ‘buy into’ the idea of doing homework; and it gives me the prod I need to give them that gentle push if they don’t do what they said they would do. While I don’t agree with browbeating or using public humiliation as motivators, I’m not above using small, good-natured guilt trips or humour to remind everyone why we are there.

It can be a very uncomfortable situation to find ourselves in when, after having whipped through all the material in our lesson plan, we glance at the clock, realize we have another 25 minutes to fill and, looking back, we see 12 sets of language-hungry eyes following our every move eagerly anticipating what’s to come…but there’s nothing to come – we have under-planned. Overestimating the time it will take to finish an activity happens. Even worse, we sometimes realize after we are in the lesson that an activity we have planned won’t work with the group. This is why it’s a very good idea to have appropriate filler activities in our back pockets, just in case.  There are hundreds of short fillers, so I try to steer away from using desperate-looking, over-used, amateurish activities such as hangman, unless there is a point. Fillers can be used as conversation practice, to revise vocabulary and/or to revise grammar.

The closure of the lesson is where we pull all of the threads together, debrief, reflect on what we have accomplished and set up for next time. It could take the form of a circle activity where we go round with everyone saying something about what they have learned or found interesting, or a multitude of other activities that serve to cause us to reflect and summarise.

The table below gives one possible format for a lesson delivery.

 

Sample lesson delivery format

* - If too much material has been prepared, it is better to cut from the middle than from the end.  Closure is important.  When presenting new material, ‘less is more’.

 

In addition to planning the lesson and maintaining a presence of mind during the delivery, there are some other things and behaviours that we should be mindful of.

This table lists some of the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ of teaching foreign languages to adults.

 

Lesson Learned #10

We should make the best of our teaching experience – we are creating memories.

Sometimes we are so busy living our lives that we are not really able to live the moment. I’m sure we would all love be able to navigate ourselves into situations that we have been longing to experience and then, once there, feel the satisfaction of living in that moment saying something like, ‘Hey, this is great! I’m having a fantastic time and I have reached a goal.’ 

As for me, I have succeeded in navigating myself into such situations, but rarely do I fully appreciate the gravity, personal importance, or greatness of these moments while I am living in them.  Sadly, that’s the way I am – when I am in a moment, I’m thinking more about what comes next than I’m revelling in the here and now.  The consolation I take in my restlessness is that, as time goes by, I am able to look back on these moments and the memories make me smile.  I’m the guy who didn’t get the joke but sniggers on his way home from the party and then retells it to get a laugh at the next social occasion.

So, not only do I eventually come to appreciate the experiences I have had, I take great pleasure in recounting my stories, which may have been ever so slightly embellished over innumerable iterations, to anyone who will listen.  More often than not, the observations and insights I have to impart are based in my experiences teaching abroad, and usually they entail encounters with interesting people, bizarre customs, local law enforcement officers, bureaucrats, cool places, or particularly fulfilling or extraordinary teaching experiences. I have learned that, very often, the things we do don’t become great to us until after we have had a chance to reflect on them, although other lucky people may recognize the significance more quickly.

As a teacher, when we or the people around us, are able to recognize that we are doing something great, or when we, or they, reflect and speak about how great the experience was long after we are gone, then we have probably really been great at doing our job.  And, logically, anybody who is serious about doing any job wants to be great at it, otherwise they wouldn’t be serious about it. This is especially true when we are involved in activities of such profound importance as being instrumental in the education other human beings.

Therefore, when a teacher has navigated his/her way into an important and potentially rewarding work engagement such as a TEFL job, it would seem to be a good idea to make good and sure that the most is made of the moments it provides. To this end, travelling teachers owe it to themselves to do whatever they can to ensure that they have a wonderful adventure – one full of moments they can recount to friends and family in the future, especially if they are like me and don’t have the presence of mind to revel in them when they are there.  To ensure we maximize these moments and have a great working experience, travelling teachers must be prepared to handle the demands and duties of the job.

If we are able to do our jobs well, keep ourselves busy, keep our minds occupied, maintain the respect of the locals, and stay out of trouble, then we will have a great experience that will provide us with stories to tell for years to come.

 

Please check the Pilgrims f2f courses at Pilgrims website.