TEFL 101: Principles, Approaches, Methods & Techniques

By Luan Hanratty

TEFL 101: Principles, Approaches, Methods & Techniques contains 101 mini-chapters covering every aspect of ESL teaching.

This book is the culmination of Luan Hanratty's work maintaining education standards in schools throughout China. It is a comprehensive catalogue of his knowledge, wit and wisdom related to the industry.

A good teacher should delight in taking fairly complex concepts and breaking them down so that anyone can understand. Thus TEFL 101 is written in a style that newly-hired teachers & laymen can appreciate and as such, it is also a reaction against the many teaching books that talk in abstract, convoluted and jargon-heavy ways. Instead, TEFL 101 is straightforward and relevant to the world of language teaching.

Sections: Classroom Management • Evolution of Methods • Classic Questions • Speech & Text • Grammar & Fluency • Phonology • Interactions • Psychology • Large Classes • Philosophical & Theoretical Considerations • Social Issues & Asian Considerations • Commercial & Professional Issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Bal Publishing
• Release date: Dec 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370240685

Book preview

Section 1:

Classroom Management

1.  The Purpose of This Book

Having spent many years as teacher trainer in Asia, I have found that people who go overseas to teach English generally fall into 3 categories:

1.  Experienced career-teachers who have lived abroad for a while.

2.  People embarking on their first job in a new career and lifestyle change.

3.  Young graduates on a 1 year contract, doing what for many is their first full-time job and in the process gaining valuable overseas experience.

One thing I have observed among these people is that teaching English as a second language (or ESL teaching) is often considered by the experienced and inexperienced alike to be quite a daunting activity. Actually, it needn’t be. By adopting some very simple principles, methods and tricks of the trade it is not hard to teach English effectively. That’s what this book is for; to give you the necessary know-how so you needn’t fear working as an English teacher overseas and that through reading this book you can equip yourself with skills and knowledge that will stay with you for the rest of your life, so that you can live with confidence and ease in almost any country in the world.

My conviction is that teaching English is essentially simple, so I have written this practical guide to show you how. Each of the chapters generally starts with some sort of theory or idea which is made real through examples and ends in ‘best practice’ by outlining the logical benefits of applying the method. The format and the concepts contained within are useful to those who wish to teach English overseas or those who already do and want to be more effective.

The Teaching of English is a global commodity and as such those with the best product prevail. But what is the product you may ask? As I see it, the product is the production of fluent English speakers who can use correct Standard English when they need to. I have developed my ethos by looking outside the language school organisational system to the market for justification of my teaching strategy. By taking the positivist view and looking at how different methods affect the bottom line of language training businesses, I have, over the long-term, been able to observe what is ultimately good and bad for achieving commercial results. Assessing effective teaching practice is best done, I believe, from a primarily commercial viewpoint and then from an academic one. Not vice versa. This is because time reveals all and weeds out bad practices in the world of business. If any business is honest with itself, focuses its efforts on the product and does well commercially then the ends of growth in satisfied customers (or in this case, students) will be seen to justify the means employed in creating them. Over time, as a teacher trainer in charge of implementing a teaching philosophy practiced in more than 60 schools across China I have developed an objective formula for teaching English that gets results. Through my methodology I have squeezed efficiencies out of the language learning process and increased profit margins at the same time.

In addition, I have closely monitored and drawn on my own experience of learning a language using a system called The Semantic Translation Method which enabled me to attain a beginner level of Mandarin in six months despite putting in around 3 hours’ study per week. I believe the method to be the most effective way of learning a language from scratch.

This book does not enter into the process of finding work because that is up to the individual and there is plenty of work in the world if you have the wherewithal to go out and do it. Likewise, I haven’t gone too deeply into curriculum and materials design because TEFL 101: Principles, Approaches, Methods & Techniques is purely about teaching.

There is no waste in this book. The points are punchy and relevant, making it a pocket guide to the business of the language classroom. You may read a lot about teaching in very general terms or about correct grammar, error analysis or about historical movements in language pedagogy but this book is about ‘boots on the ground’ actual teaching. In other words, clear classroom ideas to make English teaching work.

English Teachers as a Global Commodity

Teaching English around the world has become the great educational challenge of the 21st century. In only a few decades the English Language has become the world's true lingua franca. English is the language of business; it facilitates travel, entertainment, commerce and understanding across the planet as our world continues to become irreversibly smaller. In effect, English is the world’s second language and the developing world's language of aspirations. As a result, there is an insatiable global demand for English speakers to go out into the world and train people in the language. From the Middle East to South America, from Europe to Asia and Africa, there is a marked shortage of qualified English teachers which has naturally resulted in a slew of untrained teachers and substandard schools coming into existence to meet this need across the world. In China for example, it is said that there are more people learning English than there are native English speakers in the world! If this is true then there will never be enough teachers to satisfy the world’s linguistic demands.

The massive global trend in English learning has been characterised by a few notable phenomena:

1.  The development of adult language training centres as service businesses catering to the white collar end of society and utilising small class sizes.

2.  The gradual adoption of computers as a more effective tool than text books for facilitating language acquisition.

3.  The well-established consensus as to the value of ‘communicative’ methodology as the best way to teach language. This is explained in chapter 24.

As teachers meeting this global challenge, we have duties to fulfil. We have a responsibility to the world in that we are obliged to continually work against the deviation of certain standards of effectiveness in English language usage. We don’t own the language, but we are gatekeepers to it. We are conduits to globalisation.

Language learning should also be fun, not just a job requirement, and despite what some may say, people do need to learn ‘good’ English. In other words, we have to avoid the promotion of pidgins (such as Chinglish, Singlish or Spanglish) which, over time, evolve to become mutually unintelligible with English.

This corrosion to pidgin undermines the value of English as a global means for communication. Some may argue that we should allow learners to own the language — to interpret it and express it in their own cultural style for their own ends, arguing that it represents ‘cultural imperialism’ to prescribe a standard in binary opposition to a ‘wrong’ way. This is fine and indeed necessary up to a point but it is also necessary as a language teacher to decide the balance and draw a line in the sand somewhere. Otherwise, dialects become incoherent and thus useless as a means for effective communication.[1] Effective communication is what a global language should allow. It is for this reason that, as language teachers, we should lead the way and ensure that the best standards in English can be attained and are not impossible.

1.  See: 77.  Language, Culture & Thought

Level Metrics

There are 5 general levels of proficiency that I refer to throughout this book. These are:

Threshold: 0 – 250-word vocabulary. Threshold level students are typically using English for the first time. They begin by recognising a few isolated words, including names, numbers, times, and days. They start to produce answers to questions in the form of short simple phrases and they work on vocal clarity when saying English words. Students at threshold level are taking the first step on the road to constructing simple conversations.

Beginner: 250 – 500-word vocabulary. Beginners can recognise and use some common words, including foods, sports, jobs, emotions, and other core component nouns of the main semantic fields. Beginners can use some basic phrases but they still have an insufficient grammatical ability and vocabulary stock to produce full sentences independently. Learners at this level are comfortable with the present tense, simple adjectives and pronouns, prepositions of time and place, and are able to make requests and offers.

Intermediate: 500 – 4,000-word vocabulary. Lower intermediate students acquire the basic language ability for living abroad. They can understand phrases and high frequency vocabulary related to areas of personal relevance such as families and work. Students can use short sentences, questions and give instructions. In addition, intermediates can provide personal information, express simple suggestions, advice, opinions such as likes and dislikes, agree and disagree and make complaints and apologies. They are comfortable with the simple present, past and future tenses, simple conditionals and reported speech.

Upper intermediates understand the main points of discourse on familiar topics. Fluency may be affected by long hesitations, grammatical mistakes and limited vocabulary but meaning is mostly clear. They are able to expand explanations with further sentences. Intermediates can express opinions in a limited way and offer advice on familiar subjects. Students at this level can construct subordinate clauses and use conjunctions and relative pronouns. They can express cause-and-effect relationships, can exchange information effectively, summarise discourse, describe daily life in simple sentences and talk freely with English speakers about daily activities.

Advanced: > 4,000-word vocabulary. Advanced students are familiar with the structure of English and can use it competently in a number of different situations. Students at this level can understand the main points in clear standard speech and can easily connect phrases to describe experiences and events. Fluency may be still be affected by short pauses. Students also have the ability to maintain conversation on a fairly wide range of topics and express opinions on abstract and cultural matters.

Advanced students can use the full range of tenses, demonstrate extended use of clauses, simple phrasal verbs and some idiomatic language. By this stage, students have consolidated their ability to ask for and give opinions, agree and disagree, summarise and report information.

Upper advanced students can follow complex lines of argument, can interact with spontaneity and fluidity and ask for clarification in case of misunderstanding. They can articulate ideas and opinions with some precision. They can advise and talk about complex or sensitive issues and deal confidently with challenging questions.

Mastery of a language is the where people have no difficulty in understanding spoken language even when delivered in an unclear way and at native speed. They have a good familiarity with idiomatic expressions and can convey shades of meaning precisely with eloquence and prosody. Masters can argue a point of view and engage in discussion at normal speed and under pressure. They can handle unexpected situations effectively and deal with difficult communicative situations. Masters can also use complex and extended sentence structures and are able to use register appropriately; changing degrees of formality in a wide range of situations. They can discuss academic topics and achieve native-like fluency.

Andragogical Rationale

The basic belief that language learning is a skill is very true. When learning any skill, like riding a bicycle or learning to play the guitar, you must practice until you are confident enough to take a test. The days of the language teacher dominating the class through mostly one-way interaction are thankfully fast disappearing in private language training schools.

The problem I have identified is that if the learning institutions in the market forgo knowledge-based instruction altogether in preference of skills-based learning and student-centred practice, the students graduate with an ability to speak the language but with a lack of knowledgeable topics they can actually converse in. Obviously it can be quite pointless going to the expense of learning the skills to speak English if one has nothing truly interesting to say.

Sine scientia ars nihil est — ‘A skill is useless without knowledge.’ — Latin Proverb

We have a responsibility to produce not just fluent speakers but sophisticated fluent speakers. Furthermore, language and culture are intertwined — one cannot separate the two and so students need to be familiar with the cultural nuances of English to be able to truly master communication.

To pretend that people want to speak some form of sterile ‘International’ or ‘Basic’ English is insulting to the intelligence and creativity of learners. At upper levels, learners also want to know how to use rhetorical devices effectively to create impact in meetings, presentations and other interactions. Communication is not just variations on a handful of syntactical concepts. Communication is as infinite as the Universe. Students all over the world, especially well educated adults, are interested in learning English not just as a job requirement but also for recreational and self-development purposes. They want something that is intellectually stimulating, not just monotonous drilling of grammatical structures formulated from a corpus. Therefore, as well as creating fluent English speakers, I believe in promoting educational perennialism and developing cultural literacy, just as most students do too.

A Jade stone is useless before it is processed; a man is good-for-nothing until he is educated. — Chinese Proverb

2.  Giving Feedback to Students

Writing constructive comments in students’ notebooks is probably the single most important thing a teacher can do to help students. However, this is often the most overlooked part of teaching a class.

Stock comments adopted by teachers when writing in note books include:

Well done!

Work on your grammar.

Good effort.

Work on your pronunciation!

These types of comments are frankly, quite useless — not just for the student but also for the next person who teaches that student.

A much more beneficial method is to spend plenty of time writing in students’ books (a good ten minutes for a class of four). Instead of scribbling in a remark with two minutes to go, take time to transfer in your notes of specific mistakes they have made throughout the class.

Typical mistakes made by Chinese learners:

1.  Mixing up 3rd person singular and plural, e.g. ‘He get up at 6am.’

2.  Lack of distinction between 3rd person pronouns, i.e. he and she

3.  Omission of main verb with an auxiliary verb, e.g. ‘He can English very well.’

4.  Omission of auxiliary verbs, e.g. ‘They not go to football on Saturday.’

5.  Misuse of quantifiers with count and uncount (mass) nouns, e.g. ‘I have many money.’

6.  Misuse of intensifiers, e.g. ‘I very like it.’ ‘It’s much more bad than before.’

7.  Unnecessary prepositions, e.g. ‘I went to shopping.’

8.  Mistaken prepositions, ‘She got in the bus.’

9.  Incorrect tenses, e.g. ‘I feel boring today.’ ‘Einstein was borned in 1879.’

10.  Active and passive voice, e.g. ‘Einstein was graduated in 1900.’

11.  Knowing when and when not to use articles, e.g. ‘I’m a Chinese.’ ‘I went to the France on holiday.’

12.  Mispronunciation of consonants, e.g.

/θ/ – /s/, e.g. ‘thin’ pronounced ‘sin’

/r/ – /l/, e.g. ‘roof’ pronounced ‘loof’

/v/ – /w/, e.g. ‘very’ pronounced ‘wery’

/æ/ – /e/, e.g. ‘can’ pronounced ‘cen’

/ʒ/ omitted, e.g. ‘usual’ pronounced ‘u'ual’

13.  Failure to use full sentences

There is no need to put grammatical terminology in the books (that only confuses people) but do include examples of errors. If a student can spot the error is the example, you can assume implicitly that they know the ‘rule’.

In addition to this it is useful to give students a subjective mark; ‘above’ ‘as expected’ or ‘below expected’ in the five core skills (i.e. grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency and listening). This might not be easy at first but with time you will acquire a good feel for expected competencies in each class you teach.

Another useful tip is to use the notebook and previous comments in it as a guide in borderline cases of whether you should pass or repeat a student. A quick look at a student’s previous work can help to sway the balance. If the student has done the bare minimums in regard to organising his or her study, you have good grounds for referring them.

Remember not to have the students sitting in silence while you write in their books. Instead, you can dictate a homework task or have students working on an activity or presenting a review of the class.

Finally, you need to relay the information in their books back to the students verbally, not just so they clearly understand it but so that that everybody else in the class can benefit from this advice too.

3.  Making an Impact

I’m a great believer in the importance of a good start to every class. Those first ten minutes are the easiest time for you to make a real and lasting impact on your students. The best way to do this is with a snappy eye or ear catching introduction which appeals to the students and grabs their interest straightaway. It doesn’t have to be anything complex or profound — often a reference to the weather or some topical item (perhaps from the news) is enough.

Another good technique to adopt is to plan a class back to front so you do not spend too long going through homework or questions and then later get to the end of a class with not enough time to complete the last activity. Something to be avoided is the final activity ending up in No Man’s Land resulting in a rather half-baked effort. When preparing for a class, have a look at the last activity you intend to do and work out how long you’ll need to do it. Do the same with the activity or activities before that and you will then be left with a good idea of how long you have to work on the ‘controlled production’ section of the class. That is, from ten-past to half-past the hour.

In general, time allocations for should be as follows:

The Typical 1-Hour Class

At the end of every class it’s absolutely crucial to do a review of what has been covered over the hour. If possible it’s always best to have a student or students present and extend this review using reported speech and starting with prompting questions such as: ‘What was this class about?’ ‘What was the first thing we did?’ ‘What question were you asked at the start?’ ‘What was Cindy’s homework about?’ ‘What language have we learned?’ ‘What did you do in the role plays?’ and so on.

Studies have shown that the most anyone takes away with them from any kind of one hour class are two or three things (85 per cent of the class is usually forgotten within 24 hours). Therefore it’s crucial to centre the emphasis of your class around a few select points or ideas and maximise their impact. This also means that feedback in students’ books ought to be relayed back to them verbally as well as in writing.

4.  Encouraging Students’ Self-Reliance

Eliciting Information

When teaching a class the situation will often arise where the student can’t quite put her finger on a particular word and thus is unable to express herself. As a teacher what do you do? For example, to teach the word ‘cow’ you could:

A.  Translate the word into the L1.

B.  Tell them what a cow is.

C.  Draw a picture of a cow on the board.

D.  Ask what animal makes milk and goes moo?

Which is best?

The answer is of course, D. Asking students is better because you’re not spoon feeding them the word. Through elicitation you are calling on their passive knowledge, especially their combined passive knowledge. This basically means that somewhere in the past they have seen or heard this word or phrase but they don't remember it consciously. They don't know they know — they think they don't know, but you know better, you think they know. Educated guesses obviously help them survive linguistically in the real world too.

Useful elicitation questions:

—  What time is it? (even upper level students can be bad at this)

—  What’s the date today?

—  What is this class about?

—  What did you study before class?

—  What language did you learn last time?

—  What was your homework?

—  How do you spell ‘hopscotch’?

—  S:  Teacher, how to spell ‘accommodation’?  T:  You try first…. [Get student up to the board].

—  What did you ask Jenny?

—  What did she say to you?

—  What was the first thing we talked about today? [at the end of the class]

—  What was the next activity we did? And then what did we do?

In the classroom you should be regularly asking students to recap and summarise using reported speech where possible. Reported speech means expressing what others have said using the past tense, e.g.

Teacher:  Jenny, what did Jacky say to Cindy?

Student:  Jacky asked Cindy the price of the tickets and she told him they were 200 yuan.

It is also imperative to get students to ask each other questions. In this way the students are eliciting from themselves and stimulating their own learning, while the teacher’s role is that of an observer and coach