(This posting includes handouts which you are welcome to use with your students.)*
See Select Category > ESL Reading Units Free: Reading for Insights (Introduction) for an introduction to these reading units. Reading Units: Reading for Insights (Introduction)
(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)
This “tool” has helped me remain calm in many stressful teaching situations. Without this, I probably would have changed careers many years ago. I discovered this tool during my first month of teaching ESL when I was in Africa in the Peace Corps.
Here is what happened that first time in Africa. One day early in the term, I was conducting a lesson in a class of 35 students. Sitting in the front row were two popular students, Kato (the class president) and his best friend, Abdula. They were havig a good time privately whispering and laughing while I was explaining the lesson. I could tell the other students had noticed them, so I knew I had to do something before the other students would start talking and I’d lose control of the class. Because Kato and Abdula were popular, I knew that I could alienate the other students if I didn’t handle this situation delicately. I could feel my stomach churning and blood pressure rising. Probably many teachers would have had the same initial inclination that I had which would be to just tell them to stop talking. But what if I did that, and they continued talking? Then what could I do? I decided to not say anything right then and to think about it after class.
(This posting includes handouts which you are welcome to use with your students.)*
See Select Category > ESL Reading Units Free: Reading for Insights (Introduction) for an introduction to these reading units. Reading Units: Reading for Insights (Introduction)
(This posting includes an attachment teacher’s script which you are welcome to use.)*
As mentioned in the previous two previous posting about the first two techniques, whole-class discussions can be an alien concept to some students. When trying to conduct a discussion with the whole class, it’s not unusual for the teacher to call on a student to answer but the student for some reason is unable to answer in a timely manner. It could be because he doesn’t know what to say, or how to formulate the answer in English, or isn’t confident in his oral skills. This can result in some awkward moments as the student is clearly experiencing stress and/or embarrassment, and the teacher doesn’t know whether to give him more time to answer, to ask some leading questions or to just move on to a different student. Meanwhile, the rest of the class might begin to become restless.
This technique is a kind of “escape” for students in that kind of situation. If, for some reason, they can’t answer within a reasonable amount of time, they can use one of these expressions:
When students use this technique, it can actually turn into a humorous situation. Almost any time a student has used one of these expression, it has elicited a lot of friendly laughter by the classmates and teacher. The classroom tension is immediately released.
Common Sense Teaching ESL 