Basic Teaching Tips

Some great stuff on teacher training from the Eflclassroom website. Under teaching tips, there is a presentation of the basics:

1. Write the target language on the board! (always a good idea, since not everyone can pick it up just by listening and it helps to reinforce things, if they can see it).

2. Always provide a simple agenda (this is something I'm incorporating this semester into my classes...so far, classes are going much more smoothly when the students can see the beginning, middle and end).

3. Always teach the big picture first and then the details (obvious to me...not to everyone maybe?)

4. Pause often (I had one Korean teacher who would never give me time to think. She would just butt in with the answer when I just about to say it. It was the most annoying thing and even after I told her to stop doing it, she still would. She was just too impatient to let me go at my own, slow pace in formulating Korean words and sentences. I vowed to never be that teacher. So now, I just wait patiently, very often for responses. I will never give a response after I've asked the students for one. I don't care how long it takes. Someone needs to say something, even if it's one word and it's wrong).

5. Review (I never used to do much review, assuming the students would do it on their own. This isn't the case. And learning a language is all about learning the same things, over and over and over again, until there is no way that you can't possibly not know it!)