Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (49 page)

If you imagine speaking English with your students’ accent you can begin to estimate which
phonemes
(pronunciation segments) they find problematic.

Take a copy of all the phonemes in English and highlight the ones your students struggle with. Then, whenever you introduce words which contain these sounds, make a point of drilling the pronunciation thoroughly.

English has several sounds which don’t correspond to Hindi ones. English

/t/ seems to fall between a number of similar Hindi sounds but these are said with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth or much further back in the mouth. So students need to see where exactly in the mouth they can make this sound. You could have a diagram up so that you can point out the correct tongue position every time a word with /t/ crops up.

Adopt a similar approach for word stress and intonation patterns. Anything which is markedly different from English should attract special attention from you.

Grammatical errors

You don’t have to speak your students’ L1 to predict their grammar problems.

Just listen to the errors speakers of that language make and then do some research by asking colleagues and checking reference books. In particular, books which teach the students’ language to English speakers point out the differences in grammar. It might seem illogical to an English speaker when a student consistently refers to an inanimate object as he or she. For instance, students may say, ‘She is a beautiful chair’.

However, knowledge of how gender works for objects in their L1 would cause you to stress that in English objects are neutral. So in Italian a chair is
‘sedia’

and feminine because it ends with the vowel ‘a’. It probably wouldn’t occur to you to point out that a chair is not ‘she’ without this kind of background information.

Vocabulary errors

False friends
are words which look or sound similar in two different languages but have entirely different meanings.

For example, ‘byte’ in Swedish means prey or victim; in English it’s a group of binary digits

Find out as much as you can about false friends and note them down whenever you come across them so you can help your students avoid pitfalls.

Or how about words which function differently when you translate them? For example compare English and French: ‘langue’ in French means language or
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tongue, so you can say ‘I speak a language’ and ‘I speak a tongue’, but you can’t say ‘I taste with my language’ so you have to pay attention.

Literal translation from L1 to L2 is risky so point out any traps you are aware of.

Apart from the practicality of the thing, when you are living abroad it is to your advantage as a teacher to start learning the local language.

Using the students’ language

Although most EFL professionals are against the use of the students’ L1 in the classroom, there are those who point out the advantages of its use in small measure.

For one thing, weaker students who have no option but to attend the class at that level (there is no lower level to move to for instance) do not feel as lost as when only English is in use. For true beginners L1 use might build confidence especially if the teaching methods are just as new to them as the language. In both cases there is a reasonable argument in favour of using the L1 just to give instructions.

Suppose you are struggling to convey the ins and outs of an activity in English. Is it a wise use of time to persevere or should you allow another student to whisper the explanation in L1 to someone who doesn’t get it so that everyone can proceed?

A more extended use of L1 is for grammar explanations. A bilingual teacher might be able to switch to L1 for detailed comparisons of structure. There is also the option of team teaching with one partner the native English speaker and the other a native L1 speaker. In this way the native English speaker can concentrate more on conversation and cover the grammar only lightly.

Ultimately the aim of TEFL is not to erase the L1 but to help learners become bilingual. In reality bilinguals switch from one language to another all the time so you could reason that it should be allowable in class.

The problem is, of course, that use of L1 reduces the use of English and that as the teacher you may not understand what the students are saying. How do you know if their translations are even correct? And anyway, it isn’t possible to accurately translate every English phrase into L1. Sometimes students have to just adopt an English speaking mindset to really get the point when they learn the language.

So it’s up to you to decide whether to allow L1 in the classroom. Perhaps you need to take each situation as it comes.

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Part V: What Kind of Class Will I Have?

Pointing out the pitfalls

of monolingual classes

The trouble with monolingual classes is that when students know that everyone speaks the same language (except perhaps the teacher) there just isn’t a great need to communicate in another tongue. There is no urgency to learn English or at least to speak it. Especially for younger learners, there is not as much natural curiosity as when their classmate comes from a far flung, exotic land.

Another problem is that there isn’t so much to ask classmates about when they all come from the same area and have similar backgrounds. Even worse, perhaps the students have taken the course just to get out of the house and make some new friends. This is hardly ideal for linguistically focused lessons.

Your class might just as well be a coffee morning.

If your students are school age or perhaps taking English as a compulsory course in university, they may be lacking in motivation and at times downright resistant to learning because they have no choice in the matter.

Creating an ‘English’ environment

You can employ various strategies to get students using English together.

The physical environment can encourage use of the language if it promotes the culture typical of English speaking countries. So students should see and hear lots of interesting things in English. You should also use the English language so consistently and efficiently in the classroom that students view it as inappropriate to speak any other language in this environment. The idea is for the classroom to become a place where students can suspend disbelief and forget that there is any other language which offers a viable means of communication. During the lesson they are in an outpost of an English speaking country and must behave accordingly.

Use these tips to create the kind of atmosphere in class that makes students want to speak English.

✓

Make
activities interesting, but not too fun.
Believe it not, if an activity is too fun, students may simply forget to speak English in the heat of the moment, and the activity becomes more important than the language point you’re practising.

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Now, I’m not suggesting the elimination of fun from your lessons but perhaps you could highlight the aim of the activity, teach additional phrases we use when we are having fun such as ‘That’s great!’ and offer subtle reminders to use expressions in English throughout.

✓

Explain the benefits of pair and group work.
As teaching methodology varies from country to country, it could be that students don’t understand that this kind of work has a serious purpose.

✓

Forestall use of L1.
If you don’t want students to resort to L1, teach them everything they need to say in English. This includes classroom language like asking for clarification and even asking for the translation of a word, but in English: ‘Does anyone know how to say that in English?’

✓

Give clear instructions.
Communication in English will definitely break down if students don’t know what they are supposed to do. So make sure everyone knows what they’re doing before you start and check with the weaker students directly because they are the ones most likely to resort to L1.

✓

Give your students some quiet time to prepare.
Before actually speaking in English, give the class a chance to switch languages. This should help to focus everyone on the task and it gives them time to ask you a question if they’re unsure about the lesson, which builds confidence.

✓

Encourage teamwork and cross-communication.
Make all the activities you do communication activities. So encourage discussion and set tasks which students cannot complete unless they speak to someone else who has the information they need and vice versa – information gap exercises, which I talk about in Chapter 6 are excellent for this.

✓

Sit the students back to back for some activities.
You tend to concentrate on verbal communication more when you can’t see your partner’s face or body language. There is less chance of the students just copying down the information they need from each other and then chatting in L1.

✓

Collect money for a local charity (or a class visit to the pub) from
anyone who speaks in L1.
If money isn’t appropriate, collect names and make frequent offenders do a forfeit of some kind.

✓

Decorate the room with English.
Fill the classroom with posters, magazines and brochures from English speaking countries.

✓

Play English music.
Have some English language music playing when students enter and exit the room.

✓

Have students use English names.
If students are in agreement, tell them the English equivalents of their names and use them. Some students like choosing an English name or descriptive title for themselves.

‘Hunter’ was one of my favourite Chinese students.

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Part V: What Kind of Class Will I Have?

Diversifying with Multi-lingual Classes

Classes made up of students with different languages tend to be in English speaking countries. There are several advantages to this situation:

✓

Motivation among students is high.
Either they have paid a considerable sum of money to attend a language course abroad or they have moved to that country lock and stock and barrel so they need English to get on with lives.

✓

English is the only way to communicate with everyone else
. Even if you speak the language(s) of some of the students, you’re unlikely to do so in that setting or else the others will feel alienated.

✓

An English speaking country offers lots of opportunities for learning
outside the classroom.

✓

Students have a natural curiosity about their classmates’ lives and
have much to discover about them.

Unfortunately multi-lingual classes have their downsides too. If you had 12

students who each spoke totally unrelated languages, all things would be equal. However, this is not often the case. Certain schools are popular with particular nationalities because of strong word of mouth and very active agent promotion. As a result, there tends to be large groups of students from just a few nationalities, perhaps 4 or 5 nationalities amongst 12 students.

Some of these nationalities might speak the same language, or at least share similar cultures. The upshot of all this is that students may form cliques to the exclusion of others in the class.

For younger learners particularly, cliques can result in negative peer pressure.

Say, there are four students who can speak Russian in one class. One diligent student might want to speak English throughout the class whereas the Russian speaking friends insist on using their mother tongue most of the time. They might make fun of the ‘goodie two shoes’ who insists on doing what the teacher says.

Something similar happens when one friend in the language group is weaker than the others in English. This person often feels too embarrassed to get help from the teacher and instead relies on friends to translate. Consequently they all end up speaking their mother tongue.

Building rapport

Students are usually quite apprehensive when they begin a new course and this is magnified when the only thing they appear to have in common is their poor English.

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With a class of students from different language groups and backgrounds, breaking the ice is key to getting the course off to a good start. By using these activities, you can help students make friends, feel comfortable and avoid them gravitating towards speakers of the same language.

Chuck a monkey (or whatever toy you have)

A useful tool in an EFL classroom is a stupid looking cuddly toy (I use a monkey myself), or if you just can’t bring yourself to have one of those with you, try a bean bag. I have tried doing the following activity with a pen but found that one student complained on the grounds of health and safety. She said I could have someone’s eye out!

The icebreaker goes like this:

1. Arrange the chairs into a circle if possible.

Students can sit or stand for this.

2. Introduce yourself according to the class level.

For example, with absolute beginners you might just say your name and point to yourself or at advanced level you can explain your background in teaching and any interests you have.

3. Now throw the toy to someone else and ask them to introduce
themselves.

Sometimes a raised eyebrow and expectant look does the trick.

4. After the student speaks, indicate that they should throw the toy to
someone else.

5. Keep going until everyone has introduced themselves, then retrieve
the toy.

6. This time you throw the toy to someone else and you introduce that
person.