Richard Rossner on English teachers' Peer Observation (by Oxford University Press)

#1 Websites: AI Tools for Teachers

🆕 As your one-stop channel for all things ELT, Learn 2 Teach is supplying you with web resources as well. Check them out.

▶️ Students have begun to use Artificial Intelligence for their benefit and it’s time you did the same. Look through this long list of tools available online and see if there’s anything that can help you spice up your classes!

🌐 https://aieducator.tools/

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #websites

#3 Great Scholars: Noam Chomsky

▶️ Noam Chomsky, born in 1928, is a living legend. He is famous for his linguistic studies but also politically active and known for his criticism of politicians.

❓Why is he important?
❗️Chomsky has helped us understand language acquisition. He proved the behaviourists wrong – scholars who believed that language is all about habits.

❓What’s his theory?
❗️ He suggested that there is something called “Universal Grammar”. There are things that all languages have in common and therefore we have a natural ability to learn grammar.

❓What’s important for teachers?
❗️ If learners have a natural ability to acquire language then what they need is authentic materials and real communication. Chomsky encourages us to trust nature a little more.

Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #scholars

Noam Chomsky on Language Acquisition (by BBC)

#9 Classroom Management: Managing large classes

▶️ Having more than 25 or 30 students in the same class comes with some challenges. How can you manage them?

🔹 Routines
Repeating the same procedures, especially during warm-up and wrap-up can save you from chaos. Also choose one way of getting students’ attention and pick students at random.

🔹 Rules
Having clear rules is vital. Troublesome and mentally absent students will make your job very hard otherwise.

🔹 Group and pair work
Whole-class activities are very exhausting in a large class, so keep those to a minimum. Reshuffle students so they get to work with different students.

🔹 Keep moving
You cannot instruct and control a large group while sitting. Keep moving and be sure to monitor during activities.

🔹 Praise
The more people are watching, the bigger the positive effect of praise, but also the negative effect of criticism. Take notes and give feedback without pointing at students.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #classroom_management

3 Tips for Teaching Large Classes (by Zarina Subhan, Oxford University Press)

Quiz #22: Phonics

▶️ There is something called “phonics”, can you guess what it is?

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #quiz

#1 Techniques: Differentiating Instruction

🆕 In this series we’ll look at language teaching techniques, i.e. practical ways of using teaching methods.

▶️ All students get the same in your class? That’s equal but it’s not fair, simply because each student is different. Differentiation gives students autonomy and responsibility. Let’s look at some ways to differentiate:

🔹 Differentiating content
Let students choose different materials and topics. Have something extra for the different levels.

🔹 Differentiating process
Students should learn to plan. Timing? Alone or in groups? Sometimes you can let them choose.

🔹 Differentiating product
Why let all students give a presentation or all students write an essay? Their needs are different.

❗️ Watch “Differentiation isn’t hard”.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #techniques

Differentiating Instruction: A Guide For Teaching English-Language Learners (by Education Week)

🔤 Subtitles provided.

#17 Outlook: Changing Paradigms

▶️ Watch this animated talk by British education specialist Sir Ken Robinson. He argues that we need to change our fundamental beliefs, our paradigm, about education.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #outlook

Movie Time #78: The Ron Clark Story (2006)

▶️ Today’s movie is about a teacher who leaves his comfortable small town job to go where students need him more: New York City. Watch how he manages to inspire some really hopeless students. Based on a true story.

🔤 Subtitles provided.

👉@afandi_english👈 #movie #drama

#9 Methods: Content-Based Instruction (CBI)

▶️ Should we teach a foreign language or should we teach something in a foreign language? This is the debate between form-based and content-based instruction.

❓ What is “form-based instruction”?
❗️ If you’re a traditional teacher you focus on grammar and vocabulary, which are only language forms, not real content.

❓ What is “content-based instruction”?
❗️ In this approach your students mainly learn about and discuss topics. They do this in the target language which they acquire naturally. Language forms are mainly for the feedback stage.

❓ Why is CBI better?
❗️ Only learning about language isn’t interesting for most students. CBI gives them knowledge about various subjects and topics, and they learn language naturally.

❓ What models are there?
❗️ There's task-based learning, project-based learning, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), sheltered instruction and language immersion.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #theory #methods

Content-based instruction (by Unpacking SLA)

#9 Beliefs

Discuss your opinion with colleagues: https://t.me/learn_2_teach_discussion

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #theory #beliefs

If you say YES …
… you’re no stranger to the concept of immersion. You know that language learning must be meaningful and is often coincidental. When taught in English, physics and geography classes are great places to learn English!

If you say NO …
… perhaps you survived learning English the hard way with years of grammar classes and you’re still thankful for the “foundation” it gave you. Unfortunately, most students are not deeply interested in linguistics, and why should they?

If you say IT DEPENDS …
… you probably want to be on the safe side. Of course it’s never wrong to say it depends, and ideally students have all types of classes.

#9 Literature: Teaching Vocabulary

▶️ Do you teach word lists? Please don’t. Check out this book to find better ways of teaching vocabulary.

Check out the other books of the “How to” series:
Listening, Pronunciation, Speaking and Writing.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #literature #vocab

#8 Teaching Grammar: Grammar for communication

▶️ The role of grammar in language teaching is something that teachers from different backgrounds can’t agree on. Here are 3 agreeable principles of grammar teaching:

🔹 From control to feedback
Grammar teaching should solve problems, not create problems. There’s no reason why you should teach rules that your students don’t seem to have problems with. Let them make mistakes and then work on those mistakes.

🔹 From sentence to context
“I did my homework” or “I’ve done my homework” – which is correct? Both, depending on the context. Stop letting your students make up meaningless sentences but provide them with topics for a context to practice in.

🔹 From understanding to using
Many students have had years of grammar teaching but still make basic grammar mistakes. Correct use depends on practice, not on understanding. Stop lecturing and explain only when your students ask you to.

👉@learn_2_teach👈 #grammar #theory

Prof. Jack Richards on Teaching Grammar