Thinking about the first week of classes

The long, hot vacation is slowly coming to an end. On Monday, after two months of deep relaxation, I’m going back to work again. The first week is just teachers without students so I have plenty of some time to get ready for the hustle and bustle of the ‘real’ school life.

The other day I read an interesting post by Anne Hendler about her first week at school and I really liked the questions she posed. This is what she wrote:

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to plan the first week of classes. What if my students had done nothing at all in English for the month? Here are some questions I asked myself:

1. How can I help my students feel comfortable in the classroom after such a long break?
2. How can I help my students reactivate their English?
3. Which activities will give my students confidence?
4. Which activities will give my students a sense of achievement?
5. What things should I avoid?
6. How do I plan the first class back?

I think we teachers should have a similar list of questions to ponder at the end of every longer break. For starters, I decided to steal Anne’s and answer them here on my blog.

1. How can I help my students feel comfortable in the classroom after such a long break?

As a student, I was always eager to start school again in September. The vacation was fabulous but it got a tad boring towards the end. Plus I always looked forward to the brand new start and buying new notebooks and crayons felt extraordinarily satisfying at this point. Also, this was the time of new resolutions and goal-setting. It’s the same now that I’m a teacher but I know not all students feel the same way. And even if they did feel relatively comfortable, the start is never quite easy. It’s actually a bit of a shock if you think about it; the kids need to change their daily routines completely: they have to get up earlier and suddenly, they may not have the time or opportunity for the things they enjoyed doing during the summer. This is likely to make them feel tired and demotivated at the end of the very first day at school.

So are there any positives to being back at school? Well, it’s the friends. They love them. They never have enough of them. So, we should probably cunningly take advantage of this. I know it sounds pretty obvious but I think it pays off if you allow the kids to enjoy the first lessons surrounded by their friends. Ask them to chat about their holidays and summer experiences. Get them to share photos from the places they visited.

Also, take advantage of the resolutions some of your students have made. Look to the future but be positive. Don’t put them off by the prospect of their final exams, for example (this is a mental note to myself!).

     2. How can I help my students reactivate their English?

Well, by letting them talk, you will see what they know and what they might have forgotten. I know that a couple of my students visited English-speaking countries during the summer vacation and some even attended courses where they worked hard on their English. Others, having plenty of time on their hands, played computer games and watched English movies so their English may be better than you expect. They may have forgotten all the grammar and vocabulary you ‘taught’ them from the coursebook but that will soon be reactivated. So, no worries (another mental note to myself!)

     3. Which activities will give my students confidence?

Activities which will allow them to express themselves freely. I don’t think it’s a good idea to correct explicitly on the very first day (even week) of school since it could kill their confidence immediately. So, all sorts of discussions or sharing stuff in pairs/groups will probably do just fine. This, to a great extent, should be voluntary though because not every student is a keen conversationalist.

     4. Which activities will give my students a sense of achievement?

Anything that doesn’t kill their confidence. I believe that the feeling that they can use and share what they learned in the summer will be invigorating for everybody. Don’t expect too much and try to concentrate on the message, not the language (I know how difficult that is for a language teacher but do try). Anyway, there’s no rush – the ‘teaching’ on your agenda can be done later.

     5. What things should I avoid?

Explicit correction, formal assessment, reminding the students of their past failures (‘Oh, I remember this grammar point was a big problem.’), threatening with exams, too much input, complicated activities, and, quite ironically, too much energy and enthusiasm from the teacher. Don’t let things become overwhelming right from the start (the last mental note to myself!).

     6. How do I plan the first class back?

As simple and effective as possible. As I said, it should be about sharing experiences and adjusting to all sorts of upcoming changes. I will definitely ask students to talk about the photos they took with their smartphones during the holidays. I may also get them to write a list of place they visited, people they met, things they learned, etc. As for productive skills, I don’t think I will include a longer piece of writing in the very first lesson because it involves quite a lot of mental effort, especially after such a long break. I mean, although they may have had opportunities to practice listening and speaking on holidays, I don’t think they did a lot of writing. And we don’t want to put them off right at the beginning, right? By the way, I need to adjust as well so don’t expect too much planning from me either.  🙂

 

Presentation skills and my pet peeves

I’ve been thinking about presentation skills a lot recently – not because I’m planning to become a full-time TED talk presenter but because last academic year, I attended quite a few presentations, mainly outside the ELT world.

During that time, I came to several conclusions, some of which will probably sound a bit biased and may be slightly discouraging for anyone considering presenting. So I apologise in advance.

First of all, I strongly believe that presentation skills can be refined (with time, help and experience). However, I’m not sure whether they can be learned from scratch. If you think about it, some people are so natural while others try so painfully hard (and I can always tell they do) but oftentimes, the more they try the more they put their foot in it.

For example, one of my pet peeves is when the presenter starts with a loooong introduction. When you are attending the tenth presentation with the same 20 people in the audience and the presenter wants everybody to introduce themselves (again!), it’s a nightmare. I know, I know… this is good for the presenter in order to settle in, create a rapport with the audience and to get everyone’s attention but is it always good for the listeners?

All in all, my attention needs to be captured by the subject itself, not by information about when the next coffee break will be (well, this can actually be useful if you are a coffee addict, like me). I remember a wonderful presentation where the speaker barely introduced himself (probably because he didn’t want to waste time and because he suspected we all knew him and his work anyway) and dived right in. He didn’t seem to care that people were still entering the room (running late); he just kept on talking about his subject, greeting all the late-comers patiently with a nod and a smile. For the next five hours, oh my, this guy knew exactly what he was talking about and at 5pm, I still didn’t want to go home (in spite of the fact that it was sweltering in the room). By the way, he was wearing a T-shirt and casual shorts (I think) so as far as clothes are concerned, I don’t think they matter too much. 🙂

Another pet hate of mine is all sorts of cliches and the annoying jargon (this applies to Czech, not English) which people from certain fields (e. g. psychology) keep on auto-repeat, such as ‘Am I making sense?’, ‘Is it clear if I put it this way?’. I mean, what do they expect you to say? ‘No, I have no idea what you are talking about here.’ I’m wondering if these redundant phrases are opportunities for questions from the audience. I know that people (the listeners as well as the speaker) need time to breathe in. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t really work for me. It actually gets on my nerves. My problem, you may say. Oh, and it’s quite unfortunate when, at the end of the talk (especially if it has been a boring talk or if people really need to go home), the presenter suddenly says ‘OK, now it’s time for your questions’. Don’t you dare to ask one! That lady in the audience may well kill you. 🙂 I think it’s best when questions are asked spontaneously and answered as they arise.

As for humour and jokes, well, they are obviously important too. However, I’ve experienced a talk with the Trumpish type of humour. So, there’s a fine line between a sense of humour and offence and some people will be better off if they avoid ‘jokes’ completely …

Finally, I hate it when the presenter is dishonest with the audience. If he or she makes a mistake and then tries to cover it with words and little lies. It makes me feel embarrassed. Secondhand embarrassment is an issue indeed. Anyway, I think it requires a lot of professionalism to be able to handle failure in front of an audience. It’s nothing for big egos. Big egos can’t make mistakes. 🙂

I think there’s one thing that can be learned before your very first presentation: every presenter should learn to value the audience’s time. They should start and finish on time. Also, they should give them a break (or breaks, depending on the length of the presentation).

P.S.: Oh, and I think you should read Zhenya’s post. 🙂