TESOL Danyang

In unit twenty we covered potential problems teachers might face in the classroom. Firstly, we looked the first lesson. There are two types of first lessons, one is new groups and the other is the teacher teaching an existing group for the first time. It is important that a teacher builds rapport with his or her students during the first lesson. Next we looked at warmer activities. Warmer activities are there to motivate and inspire students. Common warmer activities include hangman, pictionary and word games. Different levels of students in the same class in a common problem. This can be addressed by pairing stronger students with weaker ones and using different materials, or the same material but with different tasks. Large classes is another problem often faced by teachers. In these classes individual activities should be avoided and more focused should be placed on group work, choral repetition and worksheets. Sometimes students might use their native language in the class. It is very seldom with malicious intend, but more often because a student is struggling to understand. The use of English only should be encouraged by the teacher, as well as making sure that that his or instructions and activities are clear and on the appropriate level. Lastly, students might have trouble with understanding listening texts. This can be avoided by doing activities beforehand that can help the students better understand the listening text.