ENJOY YOUR ENGLISH PART 4

THE ‘RIGHT’ QUESTIONS GET THE ‘RIGHT KIND’ OF RESPONSES
Teachers should seek to promote a classroom where it is more important to “have a go” than it is to “get the right answer”. Hence, all responses should be welcomed – even if students are then informed that their answer lacks detail or needs clarification. When challenging, open questions are being used, there is no shame in not getting things right first time. (It is only closed questions that require a “right” answer.)

Use questions to encourage learners to using lower order thinking skills.
Use questions to encourage learners to using higher order thinking skills.

The best questions

• open up the topic (rather than close it down)
• do not have easy answers
• lead to further questions
• require a considered response
• are a challenge


Bloom's Taxonomy and Questioning

Knowledge Who…? What…? Where…? When…?
Comprehension What do we mean by…?
Application What other examples can you think of?
How could we use that…?
Analysis Why…?
What is the evidence for…?
How does that connect with…?
Synthesis What if…?
How could we improve…?
Can you think of a different way to…?
Evaluation What do you think about…?
How could we improve…?

Allow “thinking time” before expecting answers. Learners under pressure often raise their hands too quickly and say the first thing that comes into their head. In-depth questions require a more considered response. Use “thumbs up” – where students make a thumbs-up sign against their chest – to indicate that they have a response to my more open questions; although still use “hands up” for quick knowledge-based questions. Regularly do not allow thumbs or hands-up at all.
This encourages everyone, or most learners, to work out some kind of response.

FROM GOOD TO GREAT
What makes the difference between good teaching and great teaching?

1. Build Confidence - ‘Believe in yourself’

Build confidence in your students. Inspire confidence and optimism. Convince them they can achieve success. Celebrate success individually and as a group. They can learn to be good enough at anything. Your students have to be able to trust you. Respond seriously to children. Never be judgemental or mocking. Never get a laugh from the group at an individual’s expense. Confidence comes gradually; it takes time. Make building confidence a priority.

2. Don’t be afraid to make difficult decisions

Some decisions are difficult to make but if they are the right decisions, make them and stick to them – unless they turn out to be the wrong decisions. Along with your responsibility, you need to have the authority to make potentially difficult decisions in the classroom. You know what you want your group or individuals to achieve – make the decisions that will help them achieve their goals. When you know what’s right, go for it.

3. Help develop those around you – and yourself

Great teaching means leadership, and leadership involves leading. Help develop the people around you whether they are children or adults, and at the same time don’t neglect to develop yourself. Keep pushing their boundaries, and pushing your own. Get out of your comfort zone regularly. Give lots of constructive feedback. Everyone wants to do it better next time. Everyone has got strengths. Share yours, and learn from the strengths of those around you. Make the most of each other.

4. Communicate well

Being able to communicate well is the essence of great teaching. If it does not come to you naturally, work at it until it does – even if it means getting out of your comfort zone. Encourage those around you, especially your students, to enjoy communicating. Remember ‘you’ are the message, and so is the environment you create for your students. When students come into your learning zone, they should feel it is a warm, welcoming place where they can feel at home. And your learning zone should quickly become their learning zone. Make it easy for others to communicate with you. Start by listening. Help others clarify and express what it is they want to communicate.

5. The best teachers are non-conformists

Being a ‘non-conformist’ does not mean running around causing mischief for its own sake. But it does mean questioning the status quo, looking at how things can be improved, trying other ways of doing things, taking risks, and seeing teaching and learning as an adventure. Non-conformists are willing to look at changes; they enjoy trying out new ideas; they welcome innovation that works. Good teachers get bored easily; they are on the lookout for trying to do the same things differently, and this enthusiasm communicates itself to their pupils who also become more and willing to try doing the same things differently.

6. Enjoy the company of others

You are going to spend most of your life in front of young people, so if you don’t enjoy the company of young people, find another career. Teachers tend to be natural communicators, but if you’re not, it is something you can work of. We can all become who we want to be by behaving as if we were who we want to be until being who we want to be comes as naturally as being who we used to be. If you want to be a kind person, be kind to those around you until ‘being kind’ is ‘you’. Bounce ideas off those around you, colleagues and children. It’s a lot more fun than only bouncing ideas off the walls of your mind.


7. Keep an eye on the bigger picture

There’s a world beyond your classroom. There’s a world beyond your school. There’s a world beyond education. There’s a world. Look outside your world. Look and see what other teachers are doing, what other educators are doing, what you can bring in from the world to your classroom, to your pupils. You, as a teacher, are the most important link your pupils have with the big, wide world out there. You are there to help open their minds, to help them make sense of the world out there, and their place in it. You are not just there to teach ‘your’ subject; you are there to teach them the world, and you start by teaching them – you.


What makes a ‘great’ teacher?

The single most important factor determining the quality of education a child receives is the quality of his teacher/teachers. It is not the ‘school’, not the curriculum, not the resources and facilities, not the management, not the leadership – it is the quality of the teacher.

Great teachers
 set high expectations for all their students. They don’t give up on any of their students.
 are well-prepared and well-organised. They know what they want their students to achieve and they know how to help them achieve these goals.
 engage and enthuse students, individually and as a group. The teacher’s enthusiasm is contagious. Teaching and learning are fun; work becomes play becomes success.
 care about their students as people. They form strong, appropriate relationships with their students. They are warm, caring, and accessible while always remaining objective.
 are masters of their subject, love their subject, and can communicate both knowledge and love of their subject. A great history teacher is a historian.
 communicate frequently with parents. They are part of the network of support for every child in their care.
 spend as much time learning as they do teaching.


TEACHING & LEARNING TECHNIQUES THAT WORK

1. HANDS DOWN – NOT UP


The most common, time-honoured practice in the classroom goes like this. The teacher asks a question. Those students who are confident they know the answer put their hands up. The teacher selects one of them. The student answers. The answer is correct. The teacher asks another question. More or less the same hands go up. The procedure is repeated until the question-answer session is over. Behaviour has been good. A few of the students are content because they have been acknowledged by the teacher. Most of the students have are content because they have been left alone to slumber or daydream until the end of the session. The teacher is content because he has put a lot into the session, and good order has been maintained. But most of the students have learned very little, or at least whether they learned anything or not hasn’t been assessed.

Run the same session again but this time do not allow hands up. The question is asked but this time a student cannot predict whether or not he will be asked to answer. He doesn’t know if the teacher’s finger will point at him. He has to stay alert in case it does. He has to prepare some kind of response even if it’s only “I don’t know,” but if he says he doesn’t know, this will give the opportunity for the teacher to teach the point again. A collective groan will go up. The student is now under peer pressure to respond with something related to the question. And the students himself no longer has the refuge of withdrawing from the class.

Of course the students who do know they answer (these are the students who usually do) are becoming frustrated and annoyed. Why aren’t they being selected to answer? The teacher knows they know the right answer, so why is she bothering with those students who rarely know the answer, who rarely given any kind of answer, who simply want to be left alone? And it’s not fair because now the teacher is deliberately not choosing them to answer.

Run the same session again. Do not allow hands up. Give them time to think out their response but make your choice of student random. How? Several ways are possible. Get a set of lollipop sticks. Write the first name of each student on a lollipop stick. Stick the stick in a jar. Ask the question. Give a little thinking time. Pull out a stick. It’s that student’s turn to answer. When the student has given an answer, pop the stick back in the jar. Next question. Next random selection.

You will still get complaints. Individual students will still feel under pressure. So... pull two lollipop sticks from the jar. Either student can answer. Or both students can support each other in answering the question. Take even more of the pressure from yourself by getting students to draw the sticks when you ask a question.

Prepare for resistance, reluctance and resentment. Few people like change, and that includes teachers as well as students. You’ve all been in a reasonably comfortable routine. Why change things? Because not enough learning has been going on. And you, as a teacher, want to maximise the learning, maximise the engagement of your students, and maximise your own enjoyment. Routine is the great deadener. Take chances. Go for something different. And in this case the hands-down approach will work as long as you stick to it for long enough.


2. INVOLVE EVERY STUDENT

In the ideal classroom we would like to engage every student, and there’s a simple low technology way we can do this. Get your students into the habit of using the mini whiteboard. Mini whiteboards are popular in junior schools but they can be used just as effectively with learners of any age.

Let’s take a straightforward example. You are revising French vocabulary. You call out an English word. Each student writes down the French word on their mini white board. At your signal they hold up their white boards. Students who have no idea leave the boards on the desk. You can make a quick assessment how well that item has been learned, whether it should be taught again, and which students need more revision. Of course, students can work as individuals, in pairs, or in small groups. The key is that every student in the class is being given the opportunity to respond.

Another example. You are teaching algebra. You want to check learning. You write a series of equations on the main whiteboard. After each equation, you give students time to work out their answers on their whiteboards. They then show their responses. You get a lot of relevant information about your students’ learning immediately, and you can plan appropriately.

Another example. You are revising important cases. You ask your students to note down on their mini whiteboards which case you are referring to as soon as they can identify it, and then turn their boards face down on the desk. You begin giving key facts about the case. As each student identifies the case, they note the name down, and turn over their boards. The competitive element adds to the fun.

Using mini whiteboards is a simple but highly effective technique. They should be available in every classroom for students of all ages and of all abilities. Involve and engage all of your students.


3. INSTANT FEEDBACK

Wouldn’t it be useful if we could have instant feedback about how well our students have understood a new idea or concept? There is a simple way we can get it.

Get coloured card: green, red and yellow. Cut them up and make sets of three cards, each of a different colour. Make sufficient sets for your largest class. Hand a set to each student.

When teaching a concept, pause regularly and ask your student to hold up the coloured card that shows how well they think they are understanding the concept. Green = fine. Yellow = not sure. Red = not very well.

Adapt your teaching to suit their learning needs. Think of other ways you can use this ‘traffic light’ system. Remember regular feedback from your students will make you a better teacher.


4. HIGHLIGHTING EFFECTIVELY

1. Highlight the key points in each paragraph. Highlight only the essential.
Discourage the tendency to highlight everything. Highlighting is an aid to
memory.

2. You, the teacher, may dictate what is to be highlighted, or students may
choose to highlight what they feel is essential. You can compare what you have
highlighted with what your students have chosen to highlight.

3. Discuss the highlighted items without reference to what is around them. In
other words, students are encouraged to express the central ideas in their own
words.

4. For revision/homework, issue copies of only the highlighted material on which
the work should be based. This can be as simple as wiring up the highlighted
information on the board and asking students to recreate the original in their
own words. Better still is to set the students a question based on topic which
ensures students must explore the meaning/significance of what they are
writing about.

5. Keep a set of highlighters in class for the students to use but also ask them
to keep highlighters of their own.



5. STUDENTS REVIEW THEIR OWN LEARNING

Regularly invite your students to review their own learning with you. This does not mean reviewing what they have learned but how effectively they have learned it. This will involve examining the process of learning and should provide you with useful guidance on the effectiveness of your teaching as well as their learning.

For example: “We have just finished studying the Mormons in the early U.S.A. How well do you think you have learned the topic? How could we learn it better? Can you suggest anything that would help you learn it more thoroughly? How can we confirm we’ve learned it?” Such reviews can be applied to any topic. For example, “We have been studying when to use the past tense and when to use the perfect tense in English. How confident are you in using the appropriate tense? What would help you become more confident in using these tenses appropriately?”

It is essential for teacher and students to establish a dialogue about how the students are learning just as much as what they are learning. Their learning must always take priority over our teaching. Teaching without learning is pointless.


6. ALLOW STUDENTS TO INTERVIEW THEIR TEACHER

Regularly allow your students to interview you about what they/you have been studying. Among other things, it helps you master the material and express it clearly for them. Encourage students to ask tangential questions related to the material. Effective teaching is not ‘jugs and mugs; effective learning is a two-way process.


7. SETTING TIME LIMITS

Regularly set time limits in which classwork should be done. Work to the formula ‘average student + n minutes’. Do not allow the slowest or the fastest in the class to dictate the rate at which work is to be done. Learning to work within time limits is a key skill.

Have extension assignments ready for those who are likely to finish fastest. These should already be up on the whiteboard. These questions should be intriguing. They must not be mere time-occupiers. The more able students welcome a challenge. Pose questions that invite analyzing, categorizing, sequencing, synthesizing, prioritizing, sequencing. Make your students think. It is thinking that keeps them interested. One of the most effective ‘thinking’ questions is that “What if….?” question. Or, when possible and appropriate, personalise the questions: “What would you do….?” and “What would you have done….?”

Encourage students to brainstorm under examination conditions. This means brainstorming plus some kind of organisation of the brainstormed material (numbering is simplest). Again set time limits for the brainstorming. You do not need to move from the brainstorming to a full piece of work every time. The brainstorming has its own value. Above all, it encourages students to think and organize their thinking.


8. THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW

The Cognitive Interview is often used by the police to help witnesses reconstruct accurate memories of what they have witnessed. You can use the Cognitive Interview to help your students memorise and recall information. In the traditional interview we start at the beginning, work step by step to the middle and then on towards the end. This method often hinders recall because the interviewee is not only being asked to remember the information but to sequence it in the ‘correct’ order.

In a cognitive interview get your students to start by outlining anything they remember that occurs around the middle of the information they have been studying. They should elaborate on any points of interest they recall.

They should also be encouraged to move backwards and forwards from any point they reach; for example, “What happened before…?” and “What happened after….?” rather than what happened next.

Where possible, get students to recall the information from different perspectives, e.g. not the victim but the perpetrator; not Romeo but Tybalt; not the immune system but the antibodies. By doing this, you are not only reinforcing recall but you are freeing the imagination, increasing enjoyment, and strengthening holistic appreciation of what under review. Do not restrict the cognitive interview to obvious topics; it can be used equally effectively with any information that has to be memorised.


9. PLANNING QUESTION-ANSWER SESSION

Effective teaching and learning is largely based on the dialogue between teacher and learners. This in turn is based on questioning that leads learners to explore topics in depth and detail, and questioning that not only encourages learners to understand, appreciate and apply knowledge but to seek to extend that knowledge. Effective questioning is not only a skill but an art form since it often seeks emotional involvement from those involved. In other words, if teacher and learners are not enjoying the dialogue, debate, discussion, only superficial learning is likely to take place. Here are some guidelines but remember the importance of flexibility, be ready to change and pursue avenues of interest that open up during the session.

 Plan key questions that provide structure and direction to the session. Spontaneous topics that emerge are fine but the overall direction of the discussion should be under your control, not the control of the learners.

 Phrase your questions clearly and specifically. Avoid vague and ambiguous questions unless you deliberately wish some of the questions to be vague and ambiguous.

 Offer a range of questions adapted to the range of abilities of the learners in your group. Provide a mixture of open and closed questions.

 All your learners to respond to your questions with questions of their own but try to field these questions to other learners rather than immediately answer them yourself.

 Ask questions logically and sequentially unless you are using the Cognitive Interview.

 Give students time to think before inviting answers – Wait Time. Do not demand immediate answers; this only closes down thinking and reflection.

 Sometimes allow learners to work out in pairs what answer they wish to give.

 Do not always allow ‘hands up’. Let the learners know that you will often choose who is invited to answer any particular question.

Follow up on learners’ responses. Elicit longer, more meaningful and more frequent responses by –

 maintaining a deliberate but comfortable and welcoming silence. This gently pressurises learners to fill the silence by offering more information and comment.

 declaring perplexity over the response – “I’m not quite sure I understand you.” – a little frown often does the trick.

 making a declarative statement – “That’s a very accurate explanation,” or “You’re on the right track but the explanation needs a little more detail.”

 encourage other learners to comment constructively on a response and to elaborate where appropriate.

 allow learners to question you about what is being learned; allow them to consult the text, if there is one, in order to form their questions; their questioning will often be more challenging than yours.

 Elaboration is a thousand times better than mere rehearsal/repetition. Elaborate what you are teaching – through your own experiences, their experiences, previous knowledge, wider context, where the information will take us next. All knowledge is dead unless we bring it alive for our students.


10. MEMORY TECHNIQUES THAT WORK

Many memory techniques are based on three fundamental principles: association, imagination and location.

1. Association is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a method of remembering it. Things can be associated by – being placed on top of each other, merging together, wrapping round each other, dancing together, being the same colour, smell, shape, or feeling, etc.

2. Imagination is used to create and links and associations. Imagination is the way in which you use your mind to create the links that have the most meaning for you. The more strongly you imagine and visualise a situation, the more effectively it will stick in your mind for later recall. Mnemonic imagination can be as violent, vivid, or sensual as you like, as long as it helps you to remember what needs to be remembered.

3. Location provides you with two things: a context into which information can be placed so that it hangs together, and a way of separating one mnemonic from another: e.g. by setting one mnemonic in your bedroom, you can separate it from a similar mnemonic located in your kitchen.

Using these three fundamentals of Association, Imagination and Location you can design images that strongly link things with the links between themselves and other things, in a context that allows you to recall those images in a way that does not conflict with other images and associations.

1. Scatter and Splatter your room with subject/topic specific words learners have difficulty assimilating and/or spelling. Information is absorbed unconsciously when we are repeatedly exposed to it. In addition, the physical context where we learn information helps in recalling the information at a later date.

2. The Method of Loci: (for up to twenty items)
Select any location that you have spent a lot of time in and have easily memorized. Imagine yourself walking through the location, selecting clearly defined places--the door, sofa, refrigerator, shelf, etc. Imagine yourself putting objects/labels that you need to remember into each of these places by walking through this location in a direct path. Again, you need a standard direct path and clearly defined locations for objects to facilitate the retrieval of these objects. When you want to recall the information, stroll through the location and visualize the required information.

3. The Image-Name Technique: (for remembering names)
Simply invent any relationship between the name and the physical characteristics of the person. For example, if you had to remember Herman Goering’s name, you might ingrain the name in memory by imagining Goering snoring in bed (for which he was well known.)

4. Devise large Stick Post-It Notes and pop them up all round your classroom. People find it difficult not to absorb what’s in front of them every day. Encourage your students to stick post their bedrooms during examinations. Your students can take down a post-it note when they’re completely sure they have absorbed the information.

5. Doodle for recall. Sometimes allow your learners to doodle while you are revising a topic. They may doodle whatever they wish but you can encourage them to doodle whatever comes into their minds as you revise the material. Make it clear that you will not look at any of their doodles – doodles are personal. Many of their graphic responses (doodles) will appear to have nothing to do with the topic. This doesn’t matter at all. What does matter is that your learners have created responses personal to them.

6. Listen to learn and to remember. Auditory learners relate most effectively to the spoken word. Auditory learners make up around 30% of the population. They tend to listen to a teacher, and then take notes afterwards, or rely on printed notes. Often information written down has little meaning until it has been heard. It helps auditory learners to read written information out loud. Identify the auditory learners in your class and give them appropriate advice.

7. Kinaesthetic learners learn effectively through touch and movement and space, and learn skills by imitation and practice. Kinaesthetic learners can appear slow, in that information is normally not presented in a style that suits their learning methods. Kinaesthetic learners make up around 5% of the population

8. Encourage students to whisper their responses to each other. This helps them encode the information in their acoustic memories. This worked for Einstein and it can work for your students – and for you.

9. Concept cards. Divide a sheet of A4 card into 8 cards. On each set of cards, write in large black print a key word or phrase from the topic area you have been studying. Keep each set secured with an elastic band. Frequently, take out a set of concept cards and hold them up one at a time to the class. “Tell me anything and everything you know about this…concept/idea.”

10. Take your students outside the classroom and teach them as you stroll around the grounds. When the weather is fine, all sit down for ten minutes and continues the lesson. Then get up, stroll, sit, and repeat until class time is over.


11. VARY WRITING TASKS

1. Hop-Step-Jump Vary the amount of written output you expect from you learners by varying the number of words you expect from them and the amount of time you give them to produce their responses. For example, you may pose the question “Did Romeo and Juliet both have to die?” and request 100 words in 15 minutes (a hop) or 250 words in 30 minutes (a step) or 400 words in 45 minutes (a jump). Learner will have to vary the speed of their thinking and the speed at which they get their thoughts on paper. In this way they increase their flexibility of response.

2. Scribble Scribble Give students plenty of practice in coping with time limits by scribbling out their responses as fast as they can within the time you set. Make it clear to them that you are not interested in presentation, spelling and handwriting – though the handwriting should be reasonably legible. This approach helps learners fix what they want to say because they are not distracted by the form in which they have to say it.

3. Essay Exchange Allow learners in pairs to review, proof read and correct each other’s work before it is handed in to you. Allow them to discuss with each other any amendments they have made. When they have had sufficient practice in this, encourage them to critically assess each other’s work, suggest improvements and make amendments to their own work before it is submitted to you. The teacher should not be the only ‘teacher’ in the group; everyone in the group can be a teacher as well as a learner.

4. You Do It Too While your students are writing their responses, you should sometimes write your response, too. Your response must be handwritten and at the level produced by ‘good’ students. Photocopy your effort, then passes copies to pairs of students, and invite them to assess your response constructively. Then open a discussion based on your response. Following this discussion, invite your students to assess and grade their own responses in comparison to the grade they have given you.

5. The Late Review During the last few minutes of the class period, ask students to answer on a half-sheet of paper: “What is the most important point you learned today?” and, “What point remains least clear to you?”. The purpose is to elicit data about students' comprehension of a particular class session. Review responses and note any useful comments. At the beginning of the next session discuss any relevant points and issues that have been raised by students’ reviews.

6. One Sentence Summary After a short period of teaching, invite students to sum up the main point of the topic in a single sentence. The aim is to enable students to select the defining feature of a topic. Take in the sentences. Mix them up. Read them out randomly and, one at a time, invite students to comment on how accurately each sentence sums up the topic. This works best when you, the teacher, have decided in advance what topic you will ask your students to sum up.

7. The Dummies’ Guide When a text or topic is particularly complex, divide your students into groups. Get each group to take a section of the text and rewrite it for ‘dummies’. In other words, they should simplify the text as far as they possibly can without destroying its essential meaning.

8. Divide a text you have been studying into sections. Students, in pairs, must devise and write questions for the sections they have been given. Their questions must test other students’ knowledge of the text in depth and detail.

9. Help your students get inside the mind of the examiner by giving out past papers from which the questions have been removed. The task of your students is to imagine what questions the examiner actually asked for the particular examination. Students, in pair or small groups, should then generate the written notes and/or plan they would base their responses on.

10. Flash Cards After studying a topic in some depth, prepare blank flash cards for your students. They should complete them with the information they can keep and use as genuine, personalized flash cards.


12. THE CASE STUDY

A case study allows your students to focus on a particular aspect in depth and detail. A case study can be held on practically anything – for example, ‘Was the execution of Mary Queen of Scots politically necessary?’ or ‘How effective are wind farms at producing energy?’ or ‘Is synchronised swimming really a sport?’

1. As teacher, your task is to formulate the question that enables students to focus on the case study. Your task is also to provide students with copies of the material they need to study the case, analyse its important aspects, and reach appropriate conclusions.

2. As teacher, your task is not to lead the discussion. Your task is to help keep the discussion focused and on track but you should intervene as little as possible.

3. A large group should be subdivided into smaller groups so that every student has the opportunity to participate. Each group should choose a chair person whose task is to keep notes and report back at the end of the sub-group sessions.

4. Discussion and analysis of the case follow with the entire group.

5. The whole process should not take longer than 20-25 minutes.

Be prepared for the first few case studies to be messy. Students are learning to work independently of the teacher. They are learning to see the inter-relations between factors in the case themselves rather than always being told what these are. They are learning to co-operate, collaborate, communicate, and see matters from others’ points of view as well as from their own. Limiting the time for the case study will encourage students to distinguish relevant material from the superficial and superfluous. Case studies will allow you, the teacher, observe your students teaching themselves.


13. POT POURRI OF IDEAS

1. PLAY IT AGAIN, Sam

Use music in the background when students are doing written work. Music sets the background noise level and often settles down noisier classes. Do not choose ‘pop’ music with lyrics known to the class. Classical music – Bach, Mozart – have proved most effect. Ignore individual complaints; often it’s best to turn on the music after the class has begun writing. Explain to the class that this is ‘brain music’ that helps them produce better work; it usually does.

2. VARY THE INPUT

Use a variety of texts and reference books in class. For example, if you are teaching an item in science, have two or three more books (for the teacher, not the student) which deal with the topic and read the topic to them. Be ready to explore and exploit any differences. Remember: we are teaching expression of the material as well as the material itself.

3. PREVIEW WORK TO BE DONE AT HOME and IN CLASS

Build an opportunity in class time for students to preview the work they are going to do at home, for example, outlining the key points. Students should not only note their homework in their planners, but also note the time when they intend to do it. For example: 5-5.30pm for a particular item. Of course, they will not always or even often stick to the plan, but it is a way to get them started thinking about their use of time.

Give students the assignment one week in advance. Let them know they will have to do the assignment under examination conditions after preparation week.

4. CLOZE TECHNIQUES

Cloze techniques went out of fashion because they became too mechanical. But a little creative thought can make their use effective and enjoyable. For example, after reading a new passage to students, get them to cloze you verbally, paragraph by paragraph. In trying to catch you out, they will need to focus on the more tricky items themselves.

5. RELEVANCY PRACTICE

Ask students to open their text books to a topic you have been covering in some detail. Write up a question on the board – the question should demand only some of the material. Invite students to work through the material and select, verbally or written, only the information relevant to your question. Then rub out of the original question, write up a new one, and repeat the process. Repeat again.


6. APPLICATION CARDS

After teaching about an important theory, principle, or procedure, ask students to write down at least one real-world application for what they have just learned to determine how well they can transfer their learning. Quickly read once through the applications and categorize them according to their quality. Pick out a broad range of examples and present them to the class.

7. CHAIN NOTES

After studying a topic, write a relevant question on a largish envelope and get students to pass it round the group. Each students must write their answer to the question in around 50-75 words, then pop their answer, unseen by other students, into the envelope. When everyone has submitted an answer, lay the envelope aside until fifteen minutes before the end of the class. Then take one answer out a time and discuss the quality and accuracy of each response.

8. MP3 RECORDINGS

Make MP3 recordings of some of your most important ‘lectures’ and make them available for your students to download and use on their own MP3 players, computers, mobile phones, etc. Your IT department will be willing to help. This means your students can revise anywhere, anytime.

9. TEACH IN LINE WITH THE SPECIFICATIONS

When preparing your students for public examinations, make sure that what you are teaching is in line with the specifications for these examinations. Make photo-copies of the specifications and get your students to paste them into the front of their workbooks. Refer regularly and often to the specifications. No matter how brilliant you are as a teacher, your students will not thank you if they go into an examination and find what they are being tested on is not that you have been teaching them.


10. PROVIDE MODELS OF ANSWERS

Provide your students with models of the answers they will be required to produce under examination conditions. This does not mean providing them with ‘model answers’ they can reproduce verbatim in the examination, but they do need to know what a ‘good’ response looks, sounds and feels like. Get them into the habit of writing their own ‘models of answers’. These should not simply be a reproduction of what’s in the text book, but responses that show genuine knowledge and understanding on their part.

14. COMMENTS NOT GRADES
Most teachers spend hours writing comments on students’ work. They add a grade or level and return the work to the students who immediately look at the grade, glance at the comments, and then forget or ignore the comments. Students are ‘hooked’ on grades, addicted, brain-washed into believing only the grades are really important. And like any drug, the over-use of grades distorts and undermines the learning process.

Consider not giving grades or levels when work is returned. Put the focus on constructive, helpful comments that guide students into appreciating the merits of their work and understanding how it can be improved. Avoid negative comments because your students will simply interpret them as meaning the work is worth only a poor grade and therefore has little merit.

Prepare yourself for disbelief, resentment and protest, particularly amongst students who usually get high grades. They are likely to be more addicted to grades and levels than students who usually get lower grades. The more able students are often the most seriously addicted; they have learned to work for the reward of the grade rather than the pleasure of doing good work for its own sake.
Make sure that you and your students ‘do something’ with the comments you have taken so much time to produce.

Invite your students to discuss why they received the comments you gave their work. Place your students in pairs or small groups to discuss the comments they received and why the comments were fair and reasonable. Several of your comments should invite/instruct your students to do something with the work, e.g. rewrite the second paragraph making it more descriptive; rewrite the first part of the story as a dialogue rather than a narrative; select 10 words and offer synonyms for these words; make 5 similar equations, solve them, then test me (the teacher) on them.

Comments are largely a waste of time unless they move the students farther on.
You do not have to abandon grades completely. You, as the teacher, should be keeping a record of the grades given. But decrease the frequency you give out grades. You can perhaps let your students know that a summative overall grade will be given at the end of each month. This will enable students to track their progress in a more meaningful way than a grade/level for every piece of work they hand in.

Be prepared for protests from other teachers as well as from many of your students. Many of them, particularly managers, are as addicted to ‘grade addiction’ as the students. But few things distort and undermine the learning process as grades and National Curriculum levels. The time is long overdue for us to wean our students and ourselves from them.