Why your students don't want to do pairwork

Perhaps the most common cultural clash in the English as a second or foreign language classroom is between teachers who want to get the amount of pairwork up to the maximum possible and students who want it to be less or even zero. By looking at why those feelings sometimes (or even often) occur I hope to be able to give some tips on how to reduce that resistance and prompt some discussion on whether the students may not sometimes be right.



Here is a list of possible reasons (in no particular order) with some tips on how to deal with those points.

 

Reasons why students might be resistant to pairwork



1. They are afraid of picking up mistakes from their partner

This is one of the most common concerns and, quite frankly, sometimes a justified one. Ways to avoid this complaint include providing lots of error correction during and after pairwork, making sure the highest and lowest students don't (often) work together and providing a model for language they can use during the pairwork.

2. They think they won't get enough correction

This one is another common fear. Ways of including enough error correction for those that want lots without interfering with your lesson plan include spending time with their group during the pairwork, giving written feedback on errors at the end of the class and offering extra homework or suggested self-study practice on the most common error of the day.

3. They want practice of speaking out in front of a group of people

I've never come across this one as far as I know, but it could happen. Reactions include using pairwork as preparation for a whole class speaking activity such as a debate, presentation or meeting.

4. They want to speak to and find out about the teacher.

This is fairly common when the teacher is a native speaker and the students haven't met many native speakers before. Ways to indulge this interest without the teacher becoming the centre of the whole class include getting them to work in pairs to write questions to ask you, getting one of the pair to pretend they are you and then check if the things they said are correct, doing a reading on the teacher's hometown, or the teacher joining a different group for each activity.

5. They just don't like speaking

Although students won't often say they don't want to speak in class, many students understandably find it difficult and uncomfortable. This can manifest itself in a protest against pairwork. Ways round it include also using pairwork for non-speaking tasks such as comparing answers together, starting all pairwork with very controlled speaking such as reading out a script, and using pairs to help each other in group speaking work, e.g. working as a tag team or preparing what they are going to say together.

6. There are personality clashes between partners

Ways round this include using threes instead of pairs to take away some of the tension, changing pairs after each activity, working with one of the clashing students as a pair if there are an odd number of students in the classroom, and using roleplays so they are in effect working with someone who has taken on a different and less annoying personality.

7. They feel more shy in pairs than speaking out in front of the class.

This is usually the other way round, but can happen if there are differences in gender, age, status level, language level, personality or approach to the language (e.g. one student correcting the grammar of another), or if one of the students is flirting with the other. Again, careful selection or shuffling of pairs and groups can help in larger classes, as can roleplays and games.

8. They feel the teacher is being lazy and not doing their job

This is another unspoken concern, but it does exist- either because the teacher is not doing what the students think should be their job such as modelling or error correction, or because you seem to be inactive while the students are doing all the work whilst speaking. As well as busying yourself with closely monitoring groups, writing down the language they use, some selective correction etc while the pairwork is going on, make sure you do all the other things they think you should such as error correction in other parts of the lesson.

9. They are a class clown, teacher's pet or other show off that wants the teacher's or everyone's attention

You could give them a chance to perform afterwards, e.g. show everyone the roleplay they just performed, let them pair up with you during the pairwork, or put them in a three rather than a pair (if there are an odd number of students in the class) to give them a slightly larger audience.

10. They had a bad experience with a previous teacher

Although there are many good reasons for using pairwork and many good ways of using it, like anything else it is possible to misuse it. If students had a previous teacher who used it as a way of reducing their own workload or just because they had been told to do it without having any clear idea why or how to do so, students might take a bit of converting. First of all, introduce pairwork slowly or late in the course to give them a chance to come round. In the earlier classes, show them you do all the things their less than professional previous teacher did not, such as giving clear and full grammar explanations or teaching less obvious pronunciation points like linked speech. They should then be ready to trust you when you use pairwork in class.

11. They just don't understand what pairwork is supposed to be for

With higher level students, you can explain before each activity what that activity is for. If they couldn't understand an explanation in English, make sure your school has a leaflet describing the teaching methodology and the reasons behind it in their own language that they are given when first coming into the school or after they sign up. You could also lead them to the point of suggesting pairwork themselves by doing a whole lesson on language learning methods and posing the question "How can each student in class be given more time to speak?"

12. Classes in their culture are always teacher-centred

Again, introduce pairwork slowly, live up to their expectations in all other ways, and explain why you use pairwork in terms that are understandable to someone from their culture.

13. They've never done it before

See points 11 and 12 above

14. Their favourite teacher didn't do it

See points 10 to 12 above.
 

http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/why-your-students-dont-want-to-do-pairwork.html

How to Develop a Lesson Plan

To begin, ask yourself three basic questions:

Where are your students going?
How are they going to get there?
How will you know when they've arrived?
Then begin to think about each of the following categories which form the organization of the plan. While planning, use the questions below to guide you during each stage.

Goals
Goals determine purpose, aim, and rationale for what you and your students will engage in during class time. Use this section to express the intermediate lesson goals that draw upon previous plans and activities and set the stage by preparing students for future activities and further knowledge acquisition. The goals are typically written as broad educational or unit goals adhering to State or National curriculum standards.
What are the broader objectives, aims, or goals of the unit plan/curriculum?
What are your goals for this unit?
What do you expect students to be able to do by the end of this unit?
Objectives
This section focuses on what your students will do to acquire further knowledge and skills. The objectives for the daily lesson plan are drawn from the broader aims of the unit plan but are achieved over a well defined time period.
What will students be able to do during this lesson? Under what conditions will students' performance be accomplished?
What is the degree or criterion on the basis of which satisfactory attainment of the objectives will be judged?
How will students demonstrate that they have learned and understood the objectives of the lesson?

Prerequisites
Prerequisites can be useful when considering the readiness state of your students. Prerequisites allow you, and other teachers replicating your lesson plan, to factor in necessary prep activities to make sure that students can meet the lesson objectives.
What must students already be able to do before this lesson?
What concepts have to be mastered in advance to accomplish the lesson objectives?


Materials
This section has two functions: it helps other teachers quickly determine a) how much preparation time, resources, and management will be involved in carrying out this plan and b) what materials, books, equipment, and resources they will need to have ready. A complete list of materials, including full citations of textbooks or story books used, worksheets, and any other special considerations are most useful.
What materials will be needed?
What textbooks or story books are needed? (please include full bibliographic citations)
What needs to be prepared in advance? (typical for science classes and cooking or baking activities)

Lesson Description
This section provides an opportunity for the author of the lesson to share some thoughts, experience, and advice with other teachers. It also provides a general overview of the lesson in terms of topic focus, activities, and purpose.
What is unique about this lesson? How did your students like it? What level of learning is covered by this lesson plan? (Think of Bloom's Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation.)
Lesson Procedure
This section provides a detailed, step-by-step description of how to replicate the lesson and achieve lesson plan objectives. This is usually intended for the teacher and provides suggestions on how to proceed with implementation of the lesson plan. It also focuses on what the teacher should have students do during the lesson. This section is basically divided into several components: an introduction, a main activity, and closure. There are several elaborations on this. We have linked to some sample lesson plans to guide you through this stage of planning.
• Introduction
How will you introduce the ideas and objectives of this lesson? How will you get students' attention and motivate them in order to hold their attention? How can you tie lesson objectives with student interests and past classroom activities? What will be expected of students?
• Main Activity
What is the focus of the lesson? How would you describe the flow of the lesson to another teacher who will replicate it? What does the teacher do to facilitate learning and manage the various activities? What are some good and bad examples to illustrate what you are presenting to students? How can this material be presented to ensure each student will benefit from the learning experience?
Rule of Thumb # 1:
Take into consideration what students are learning (a new skill, a rule or formula, a concept/fact/idea, an attitude, or a value).
Choose one of the following techniques to plan the lesson content based on what your objectives are:
Demonstration ==> list in detail and sequence of the steps to be performed
Explanation ==> outline the information to be explained
Discussion ==> list of key questions to guide the discussion
• Closure/Conclusion
What will you use to draw the ideas together for students at the end? How will you provide feedback to students to correct their misunderstandings and reinforce their learning?
• Follow up Lessons/Activities
What activities might you suggest for enrichment and remediation? What lessons might follow as a result of this lesson?

Assessment/Evaluation
This section focuses on ensuring that your students have arrived at their intended destination. You will need to gather some evidence that they did. This usually is done by gathering students' work and assessing this work using some kind of grading rubric that is based on lesson objectives. You could also replicate some of the activities practiced as part of the lesson, without providing the same level of guidance as during the lesson. You could always quiz students on various concepts and problems as well.
How will you evaluate the objectives that were identified? Have students practiced what you are asking them to do for evaluation?

Rule of Thumb # 2:
Be sure to provide students with the opportunity to practice what you will be assessing them on. You should never introduce new material during this activity. Also, avoid asking higher level thinking questions if students have not yet engaged in such practice during the lesson. For example, if you expect students to apply knowledge and skills, they should first be provided with the opportunity to practice application.




http://www.lessonplans.ws/lesson-plans/how-to-develop-a-lesson-plan

First lesson magic: How to introduce yourself

First lessons are the perfect opportunity to tell students a little bit about yourself and get to know something about them as well. This may be your first chance to determine your students’ English level so it is important toencourage them to speak as much as possible.

How to Proceed

1. 1
   Warm up
   Most teachers find one or two great warm up activities and use them often in their classes. If you have an activity that you like to start classes with, the first lesson may be the perfect time to introduce it to your new students. If you are not attached to any particular warm up activities, you can use the first five to ten minutes of this lesson to generate an interest in the topic, in this case, yourself. One way to do this is to have students guess things about you such as where you are from. You can use a handout of about fifteen questions for this activity and leave enough space for students to write their guesses as well as space to write the correct answer which they will learn later on in the lesson.
2. 2
   Introduce
   Especially if you are from another country, students will be very interested in hearing about where you are from and specific cultural aspects of your country. Using pictures or flashcards will help students grasp the meaning of your self introduction without understanding every single word or sentence. The best approach is to use the simplest possible language during this section of the lesson. If students seem to understand the material very well you can prompt them to complete sentences based on the materials you are showing them to give them an opportunity to demonstrate things they have already learned. If you plan to do an activity later based on the introduction, you may have to repeat the material a couple times.
3. 3
   Practice
   Now that your class has learned a bit about you, have them fill in the correct answers on the worksheet you gave them earlier or ask them questions based on your presentation and see if they can answer them. This will give you time to evaluate your students’ level and also see what they understood from your presentation. If your presentation was too easy or difficult, you can adjust it before presenting to other classes.
4. 4
   Icebreaker
   At this point an activity would be important. You can use an ice breaker to get everyone moving and more relaxed. This also shifts the focus of the lesson from you to the students. Starting the activity yourself will give students an example of what they are being asked for. A very simple exercise would be to say your name and favorite color and have students take turns doing this. If your class has been together for years and years and the students are very familiar with each other, you may even ask the student whose turn it is to say all the students’ names that have been said already before saying his own. This will give you more time to learn the names and you can end the activity by attempting to say all the names in order.
5. 5
   Produce
   Now you can ask students to volunteer to give self introductions. This activity can be structured a number of ways. If giving a full self introduction is too challenging, ask students to just say one thing about themselves or to use the worksheet as a guide so that if the first question on the worksheet was “Where are you from?” the first volunteer can answer that question. Encourage all students to participate.
6. 6
   Review
   Use the last three to five minutes of class to have students ask you any questions they might have. This can be intimidating so you could expand it into a larger activity where students work in groups to think of a question to ask. The benefit of being the first group to ask a question is that no one else has asked the question already. Tell students that questions cannot be repeated so if another group asks the question first, they will have to think of a different one.

The first lesson is very important. You have to strike a balance between having fun and maintaining order in the classroom. Students need to respect you in order for you to have control of the classroom environment so use the first lesson to introduce yourself, learn something about your students, have fun, and establish your authority.

http://busyteacher.org/4011-first-lesson-how-to-introduce-yourself.html

Ways of Motivating EFL/ ESL Students in the Classroom.

A/ WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

• The word "motivation" is typically defined as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behaviour. Actually, it is often used to describe certain sorts of behaviour. A student who studies hard and tries for top grades may be described as being "highly motivated", while his/her friend may say that he is "finding it hard to get motivated". Such statements imply that motivation has a major influence on our behaviour.
• Motivation can be defined as a concept used to describe the factors within an individual which arouse, maintain and channel behaviour towards a goal. Another way to say this is that motivation is goal-directed behaviour.

B/ Motivation in the ESL/EFL Classroom

• Motivation has long been a major problem for most teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) or as a foreign language not only in the Arab World but also elsewhere.
• Motivation in the ESL/EFL classroom is easily one of the most important factors as I'm sure most teachers would agree with me. The main reason I'm coming to this point of view is that most of our students have low motivation to learn English. In addition to that, while most of them have a vague sense that whether "English will be useful for my future" or not, they don't have a clear idea of what that means, nor is that a very strong motivator; it's too vague and too far off.

• The first step in tackling the problem of motivation is that the teachers need to understand and appreciate the role and importance of motivation in any learning. In the context of second language learning, William Littlewood (1987: 53) observes:
• In second language learning as in every other field of human learning, motivation is the critical force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres. It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on. These factors play a role in every kind of learning situation.
• “Student motivation is influenced by both internal and external factors that can start, sustain, intensify, or discourage behaviour” (Reeve, 1996).
  The teacher has to activate these motivational components in the students but that is the precise problem. How can it be done in every class everyday?

C/ Ways of motivating students in the classroom

1) - “Pair work” or “Group work”

• One of the successful ways, if the teacher is resourceful and skilful enough, to motivate his/her students to participate in the lesson is to use “pair work” or “Group work” appropriately.
  Language is best learned through the close collaboration and communication among students. This type of collaboration results in benefits for all or both learners. In fact, learners can help each other while working on different types of tasks such as writing dialogues, interviews, drawing pictures and making comments about them, play roles, etc…
• Researches on Second Language Acquisition have shown that learners have differences in mastering skills. While one student is good in drawing, another can be good in expressing ideas verbally; a third other student can be good at role play and imitation. Besides, some students find it less stressful, if not much comfortable to learn certain rules or usages of language from their pears and comrades than from their teacher.
  Finally, communicative language teaching requires a sense of community and anenvironment of trust and mutual confidence which “pair work” or “Group work” can provide.

2) The seating of the students

• The way the students are seated in the classroom will often determine the dynamics of the lesson. Indeed, a simple change in the seating pattern can make an incredible difference to group coherence and student satisfaction, and I’ve seen many other cases where seating has been a crucial element in the success or failure of the lesson.
  The seating pattern you use may, in some cases, not be fully under your control – if for example the desks are fixed to the ground or the school has strict rules about not moving the furniture. Student numbers are also going to be an issue.
• I’ll talk about average size classes – anything from 6 to 25. Teachers have different preferences for seating arrangements – groups seated round small tables is often one choice. This is probably the best option for the larger classes in this range, but for smaller numbers and with adult or teenage students I think the horseshoe shape, which I find has all of the advantages of groups, and none of the disadvantages. A horseshoe may be desks in a U-shape with a hollow centre, students in a semicircle on chairs with arm-rests and no desks, or students seated around three sides of a large table, with the teacher at one end.
  nIn any case, whatever seating pattern you choose or is imposed on you, the class is likely to be more successful if you keep the following principles in mind:

a) Try and maximise eye contact.

• Both teacher to student and student to student. In full class phases of the lesson, if the person who is speaking does not have eye contact with the others, then attention is likely to drop. This is the main reason I personally think the horseshoe shape to groups is better.

b) Make sure students are seated at a comfortable distance from each other.

• Make sure you don’t have one student sitting alone or outside the groups. Besides, try to leave a fair empty, but not so much a space because large distances between the students will tend to lead to a “muted” atmosphere, low pace, and less active student participation in the lesson.

c) Think in advance about how you will organise changing partners or changing groups.

• This is a stage of the lesson which can potentially descend into chaos if it’s not tightly controlled, with students wandering aimlessly around not knowing where to go or confidently moving to the wrong place.

3) The Error Correction

• It is always asked whether we should correct all students’ errors, whenever they occur. The reasonable answer is that if we stop at every single error and treat it with no room for errors to take place, this will lead to a gap of communication and students will be too much afraid of making mistakes. Hence, due to being too much obsessed with making errors, students will be too much reluctant to participate.
  Thus, Teachers should be aware of when to correct errors and how to do that without any hurt and humiliation. In a learner- centered classroom, it should be better to correct errors, which students make unconsciously, whenever there is a gap of communication or when not treating the error will result in a misunderstanding of the idea expressed.
• Concerning the ways of how to correct errors, there are several techniques which the teacher, who is seen as the monitor, should choose from them according to the type of the error and task where the incorrect form of language occurs. Among these ways of correction we can state: self correction, peer correction and teacher correction.

4) Role play

• This is another technique to vary the pace the lesson and to respond to the fundamental notion of variety in teaching. Teachers are advised to use the role- play activity in order to motivate their students and to help the less motivated learners take part in the lesson. Besides, certain tasks in the student’s book are followed by a role- play activity where it becomes a necessity to undergo such an activity. As good examples of that we can state: the hide (item) and guessing game, dramatizing an interview of customer and shop assistant, doctor and patient conversation, etc…

5) Using realia, flash cards, Stories and songs in teaching

• Realia and flash cards are considered as important tools in teaching especially a foreign language, since they play the role of a facilitator in teaching new vocabularies such as fruits, vegetables, clothes items, etc…
  Besides, they are very helpful in drawing especially beginners’ attention to follow and match new words to items. In addition, realia is an authentic material that helps the teacher to overcome classroom artificiality.
  Creating stories with the students is another way of developing speaking and writing skills. Actually, creating stories is grounded in the students’ ability to create a story from their personal experience. In creating stories some issues are revealed such as: a) fluency, b) whether the students have enough language to create the story, and c) accuracy.
• Teachers are able to demonstrate techniques of using songs in different ways to teach grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and community building because the students like songs and they motivate the students to learn the English language in an interesting way. Teachers can elicit students’ ideas about the song through activities such as prediction, mind maps, word splashes, etc. Students discuss questions such as the feelings in the song, what will happen next, etc. and write their responses in an interesting manner. Students may write and present how the song makes them feel and then draw a picture of their feelings while listening to the song. Teachers respond to this presentation and ask questions. Then, feedback is provided from the group.

6) Using audio visual material: cassette player, video, computer…

• Since our schools are equipped with various audio visual materials such as cassette recorders, videos, computers, projectors, magic boards and many others, teachers should use these materials when teaching. Indeed, they should include the appropriate material to use while planning their lessons. For instance, we should include a cassette player in a lesson based on listening, while we need to include a computer in any e-lesson or a lesson about designing a website or an internet page about your school. Whereas, we can use an overhead projector in presenting writing drafts for classroom correction or to read.

7) Using the L1 in the EFL/ ESL classroom

• Should we or shouldn’t we use the students’ first language (L1) in the classroom? This is one of the questions which most divides EFL/ESL teachers, whether they are for it or against it.
  The main argument against the use of the L1 in language teaching is that students will become dependent on it, and not even try to understand meaning from context and explanation, or express what they want to say within their limited command of the target language (L2).But there are other, historical reasons why the use of the students’ mother tongue went out of favour. Initially it was part of a reaction against the Grammar-Translation method, which had dominated late 19th and early 20th century teaching, and which saw language learning as a means towards intellectual development rather than as being for utilitarian, communicative purposes.
• But, we can say that there are a few cases when we can resort to the student’s mother tongue such as
  - When there is a gap of communication or total misunderstanding, since it can prevent time being wasted on fruitless explanations and instructions, when it could be better spent on language practice.
  - It can be used contrastively to point out problem areas of grammar. For example, various course books, like Headway, now encourage students to translate model sentences into their own language in order to compare and contrast the grammar.
• - It can be used with beginners, when students are trying to say something but having difficulty, they can say it in their own language and the teacher can reformulate it for them.
  - When students need to combine the two languages, for example in those lessons whose focus evolve around translation and interpreting.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/alexenoamen/ways-motivating-efl-esl-students-classroom

Welcome!

 "To teach is to desire to face challenges and overcome obstacles almost every day". The purpose of this blog is to gather information about teaching techniques and learning strategies in order to develop our teaching skills and improve them. In addition, through this blog I’m going to share articles and stuff with you so as to become better teachers.