21st March 2017

9 mistakes you need to stop making with your teaching

by Sharon Maloney

Having been a teacher trainer for a few years now, I’ve had opportunities to observe
and reflect on the good and bad things teachers do in the classroom (including my
own teaching skills!) while looking back on those first terrifying (and exhilarating)
teaching years with a more experienced eye, and maintaining an understanding of
that first foray into teaching and identifying common mistakes teachers make. I’ve
asked my fellow trainers what they’ve observed and here’s a list we’ve come up with.

1. Unclear lesson aims: poor lesson planning comes from having

unclear lesson aims.

The best-planned lessons often come from a clear understanding of target language,
with a strong context for its use. Clear lesson aims show what target language
will be used, how it will be used (what skills and subskills) and in what context or
task.

An example of a good lesson aim would be: By the end of the lesson, learners
will be able to use the present perfect simple tense, related to travel experiences, and
to speak for fluency by extending answers in a conversation.

Having too many aims also hinders a good lesson, because there will then be a need
to achieve all the lesson aims if the lesson is deemed to be successful. One clear
lesson aim trumps five vague ones.

2. Too much teacher talk

That feeling of stepping into the classroom can often evoke two different reactions,
with the same result. The first is fear, where teachers are afraid of the silence of their
learners, thinking that they either don’t care or aren’t listening, when in actual fact,
their learners are just processing what is being said. The temptation is to fill that
silence with chatter, but to the learner the effect is one of overwhelming,
indecipherable noise, which they struggle to understand. The second results in
students switching off, thinking they are hearing a lecture. The other reaction is one
that can be viewed as a form of arrogance, where the teacher has a need to control
to all aspects of the class, subscribing to an outdated notion that ‘teacher knows
best’, perhaps stemming from a traditional, teacher-centred, lecture-style form of
teaching.

Nothing is more disheartening or dull for a learner. New teachers should ensure that
there is a balance of teacher vs. student talk, and to plan activities with student
communication in mind. Pair and group activities, such as interviews and class
surveys, will encourage more speaking. Giving handouts to pairs, rather than
individually, will encourage learners to speak and interact more with each other, with
the added bonus that they will also help each other (relying less on the teacher) and
become more autonomous learners.

3. Not checking instructions carefully

Too often we see great teachers plan fun and kinaesthetic activities, only for them to
go awry. This happens mostly because instructions are not clear. To instruct clearly,
try some of these strategies: use instruction-checking questions (ICQs), repeat your
instructions slowly, demonstrate the activity if necessary (or get students to), do the
first sentence yourself, get the students to feed the instructions back.

4. Having the same expectations of all learners

Often a teacher will have a great lesson plan that gets recycled over and over. Issues
arise when teachers have a lesson which is fun and engaging, with learners producing
a lot of language, and the teacher then uses this lesson again, expecting all learners,
all classes to be able to reproduce the same level of language in the same way. This
is both unfair and unrealistic to learners, and leads to a lot of frustration for
everyone. 

Remember, lesson planning should reflect the needs of your learners and
each class is different. If a lesson went well, reflect on what areas worked well and
why. Was it because of the way the task was set up? Was it how the students
interacted? Are there similarities in your classes? What parts could be adapted and
modified for other classes? What modifications would be needed for a new class?
What elements would suit another class?

5. Weak staging and scaffolding of language

One key area of lesson planning that new teachers struggle with is how to structure
their lesson effectively. Questions teachers could ask themselves when planning
include:

Are my main and sub aims clear?

Is the context of the lesson clear?

Is the target language presented clearly and effectively in an engaging
manner?

Have the students been given a chance to practise the target language in a
controlled way? How will they practise – on their own, in pairs?

Has the teacher carried out error correction and feedback in practice tasks
before moving to freer activities?

Have they had a chance for freer practice or production in a different task-
type? How will they do this – in pairs, or groups?

Does the whole lesson flow well? Are transitions from one stage to another
logical and purposeful?

Does each task effectively scaffold language in such a way that learners will
be able to use it by the end of the lesson with some degree of confidence? Do
all the tasks have a clear purpose and does this reflect the lesson aims?

Does the lesson appeal to a range of learning styles, e.g. are there
kinaesthetic, visual, auditory tasks?

Are my tasks culturally or age-appropriate and do they relate to learners’

needs?  

6. Not demonstrating or modelling the grammar

A common complaint amongst teachers is “my students don’t know the grammar, but
I taught it to them last week!” It is not enough to present grammar, teachers must
show students how to apply it. Often when presenting grammar, not enough time is
devoted to demonstrating or modelling the target language (in all forms: affirmative,
negative and question) and drilling it so that learners can actually use it with some
degree of accuracy. Once the form has been presented, demonstrate the target
language with marker sentences, or elicit these from learners (for even more
communicative practice). Drill learners chorally and individually to ensure they can
pronounce the target language, before giving them some practice tasks.  When giving
them practice, ask them to notice the language - is the taught structure used at all?
How is it used?  Essentially the more modelling there is, the more chances your
learner has to absorb and consolidate their knowledge.

7. Presenting form before meaning

English grammar is incredibly complex and nuanced. There are many aspects of
English grammar which don’t exist in other languages. With this in mind, ensuring
that learners understand the grammatical concepts you are presenting is key. Similar
to the concept, oral, written (or COW) approach to vocabulary, grammar concepts
must be clarified clearly first so that these concepts are anchored in the learners’
minds. Only then show learners the written form. This makes it far easier for
learners to understand and use the language. Visual aids like pictures or videos,
timelines, drawings, even telling a story, can convey the meaning far more effectively
than giving your learners a bunch of sentences to decipher.

8. Being too rigid

Walking into a new classroom can be a scary experience. New teachers can

often feel unprepared or unconfident when delivering lessons and this can result in a
tendency to stick too rigidly to a lesson plan or course book, bypassing learner needs
or queries. One of the greatest joys of teaching is connecting with learners by
understanding and helping them develop. As such, there needs to be a degree of
flexibility, where teachers can go off plan when the need arises, whether it be to
answer students’ questions or an interesting and engaging topic arises and requires
pursuing. Metaphorically speaking, don’t be afraid to wander down a new path once in
a while – the view is often much better (though sometimes it does soothe the soul to
literally do this too, especially if you are a new path aficionado).

9. Identifying errors

Having a well-defined error correction stage after practice tasks is a crucial

component of a well-delivered lesson. Often teachers rush or neglect this stage,
without realizing its importance. An error correction stage is essentially the whole
purpose of the teacher’s role in a lesson. Students need to know if the task they have
just completed is purposeful, by checking their answers and getting feedback on
errors, otherwise, how will they know if they are on the right track? This doesn’t only
mean written errors in practice tasks, but spoken errors too.

Teachers should also be looking out for phoneme / syllable / intonation errors and
drilling the correct form to ensure accuracy. Plan to have a clear error correction
stage on your lesson plan. 

If you're looking for professional development here in Hong Kong,

check out our upcoming CPD workshops held reguarly throughout
the year.

Sharon is Director of Studies for English for Asia and a teacher trainer on the Trinity
CertTESOL course. She has over 14 years of teaching and teacher training experience
in TESOL. Sharon specializes in teaching young learners and creating material for
teachers and students, as well as running professional development workshops for
local teachers of young learners in Hong Kong and Macau. Her qualifications include a
BA, Trinity CertTESOL, Cambridge Post-Graduate DELTA, and MA TESOL.