Buckland Weekly #27: Now that the training wheels are off

As always, this post is the opinion of the Author only and should not be taken as representing any official company policy.

The orientations are over then. Another group of teachers is scattered to the far corners of China. Another group of teachers will be about to face a class of Chinese students for the first time. All of them did pretty well in their demonstration lessons but, of course, teaching a thirty minute demonstration to nine students is a little different to getting right into the spirit of school life with twenty or so classes of fifty or sixty students. So I thought this might be a good  time, to round up some of the more common issues that teachers have when they walk into that first classroom. Some people may recognize some of these things from their feedback but none of them are unique – whatever issues come up, I’ve seen before and every teacher has experienced them. And you will probably come up against them again.

So let’s get started.

The number one issue that affects almost every teacher I have ever seen is speed. Of course there are issues around clarity and diction and accent but speed is the killer. No matter how clearly you speak, no matter how precise and accurate your diction is, no matter that you have the perfect accent – if you speak too quickly your students will have trouble understanding you. The braver students may ask you to speak more slowly but most of them will sit in silence not understanding you. It’s easy to start off slowly, intending to keep an even, understandable speed. It’s easy to start off that way but hard to maintain it through the lesson. Try to keep a slow, even tone and if you notice yourself speeding up, or more likely notice the class’s eyes glazing over – take a deep breath and slow down.

While we are talking about talking, let’s take a look at those other points, clarity, diction and accent. Let’s start in the middle – with diction. Assuming you have managed to keep your speed OK the other important factor is to enunciate your words properly. This isn’t the same as pronouncing them properly – that’s a feature of your accent which I’ll mention later. In normal speech, when we talk to our friends, words are run together – ‘wordsruntogether’ – which is fine for us as we are “programmed” to hear our native language that way. When talking to the students try to make sure that each word is separately spoken – that doesn’t mean leaving exaggerated gaps – you should still try to maintain a normal rhythm to your speech –  just make sure each word is audible. And that of course brings us to clarity. This is more than just a matter of diction – it encompasses the whole thing – choice of words, pronunciation of words, structure of your sentences, diction, speed, repetition. What you say needs to be understandable within the limits of the students existing knowledge. So no matter how slow or how well enunciated if you say, “And now I would like you to modify the sentences by the addition of appropriate adjectives and adverbs”, they aren’t going to do it. They won’t understand. Think about what it means and what you actually want them to do. “Add some describing words. Like this…” followed by a clear example, is the way to go. It doesn’t matter what level the class is or what level the task is, the instructions should be delivered in the lowest level you can possibly manage so that every student has a chance. Remember in a typical Chinese class there will be a full range of previous knowledge and experience from students who can hold a conversation in English to students who can’t answer “What is your name?” Your instructions should NEVER be given in language that is at a higher level than the task itself.

And so that brings me to accent. There is an earlier post on the subject that goes into detail so I won’t repeat it here. I’ll just restrict it to the advice that you should be aware that you have an accent. For example outside the Southern states the words “y’all” and “y’alls” are definitely non-standard. That doesn’t mean they are wrong if they are part of your native dialect but schools prefer standard English to be taught. My own dialect includes words like “bostin”, “bist” and “bay”, and exchanges like “Them bay bays, bin em?” “Ar, them bin bays bay em”¹ which are damned near to incomprehensible to anyone born twenty miles from Wolverhampton.

My favourite example of non-standard grammar is the use of the word “while” which in certain parts of England is used to mean “until” rather than “during”. This could cause problems with the sentence “Wait while the lights are red, then go.”

Be aware of your accent and try to moderate your use of dialect words and structures.

Enough about your speaking. Let’s look at some issues that come up time and time again regarding lesson plans. In the training I try to make two things clear about the plans. First I try to get across that the lesson plan is your document, that you should write it in a way that helps you with your lessons. It isn’t the school’s document² to be done to some predefined format that you will be in trouble for not following. It is there so that you don’t forget things and your lessons go smoothly.

The second thing is that I have been teaching for almost twenty years now³  and I still write plans for every lesson and I still include everything on them that I think will help me. As a new teacher you should include as much detail as you can. You are going to write instructions on the board? Write them on the plan first. There is a list of essential vocabulary? Write it - WITH the definitions you will give – on the plan. There are things you think might go wrong? Write how you will deal with them on the plan.

As time goes by and you get more practiced at it you can get away with writing just keyword prompts for yourself but you will always want to have the plan.

When you are making those plans think about the practicality of the tasks. If you are intending to do a word search as a warm up then think about how you will show the answers. Will you try to write the word search grid on the board? To write a 15x15 grid of letters on the board so that the columns and rows line up and everything is legible is more difficult than you think and takes a lot longer than you think it will. If you are doing it on a poster then you can’t let students come and mark the answers or you will need to make a copy for every class.

If you are going to generate your vocabulary with one of the hundred possible variations on Hangman then make a list of the specific words you will use. And make sure you can spell them.

Another common planning related problem in the demonstration lessons – every year – is planning too much or too little work and then failing to monitor the time accurately. There is little to be done about planning too much. You will fix that with practice. You can do something about planning to little. Always think of an extension activity that you can do if the students get through the planned work faster than anticipated. And⁴ try to make sure that it’s an open activity than can be used if you have two minutes spare or ten minutes spare.

While you are delivering the lesson keep a close eye on the time. Don’t be forever looking at your watch but do try to make sure you know where you are in the lesson and shorten or extend activities accordingly.

Let’s finish by going back to talking and looking at the easiest one to fix – volume. You may find that, like me, you can easily speak loud enough for everyone to hear. If you can, that’s good, but if you can’t, don’t panic. Talk with someone in the office and get one of the microphone/speaker sets that teachers here commonly use. Just remember to turn it off while you walk around monitoring individuals and groups so that every correction that you make and every bit of assistance you give isn’t broadcast to the whole class – embarrassing the student in question and distracting everyone else.

And, of course, if other questions come up, contact me and I’ll do my best to offer some advice.

1. bostin = very good, bist = are, bay=aren’t

“Them bay bays, bin em?” = “Those are not bay windows⁵, are they?”

“Ar, them bin bay windows, bey em?” = “Yes, they are bay windows, aren’t they?”

2. If you ever teach back home it will be the school’s document, or worse yet the Government’s document and will be in a proscribed and unvarying format but here it’s yours and yours alone.

3 And typing that sentence made me feel old, given that I’d already had another twenty year career before I became a teacher.

4. For any picky grammarians, don’t let anyone tell you that you can't start a sentence with “And”. If it’s good enough for Shakespeare, Dickens and the Bible, it’s good enough for me.

5. “Bay windows” are the sort that protrude from the house. I have no idea what the American term would be.