As I mentioned earlier, I believe foreign language teachers are primarily entertainers and as an outcome of our entertainment, students learn the language. I’m not saying we should dress up as a clown, juggle balls and jump through fire blazed hula-hoops. No. Our job is to prepare activities and games which help students learn the language. It’s what activities we prepare to do in class; it’s how we explain the language and those activities; and it’s how we execute these activities that make us entertainers. A teacher is a standup comedian as much as he or she is a clown. The ultimate aim for me as a teacher is to be able to use and get the students to use English to create humor. To be able to joke using a language is a major step to true fluency.
Let’s take this concept one step at a time.
Use of voice
A teacher must be able to use their voice like a tool with several settings. For example, your students have just entered the class, sat down and are speaking to each other. It’s now time to start class, but it’s useless if you quietly and softly whisper, “Hey guys, it´s time for class.”
Like a singer, the teacher must instead reach down into their diaphragm and without shouting, loudly command, “Time for class.”
There are four main tones a teacher must be aware of and more importantly, must be able to distinguish to the class:
- To command – this is not an angry tone but a loud, deep bellow from within. This lets the students know that it’s not the time for talking but for listening. This tone is used at the beginning of a class and at the end of a break. It’s used to quickly snap a daydreaming student to attend and to end an activity or begin an activity.
- To explain – similar to command but with a little less oomph.
Your tone here should be deep but friendly, it’s strict yet humorous. Quiet voices send students to sleep; your voice must be like a theatre actor who can project their voice to the furthest audience member without shouting. The majority of your class should be in this tone.
- To discuss – this is a soft tone. It’s used when discussing a topic with your class such as the News or simply engaging in free talk.
- To discipline – this tone is rarely ever used because each time you use it, its effect becomes less and less as the students will become more familiar with it. This is your loudest voice, found deeper than the command voice. It’s the voice you always feared to hear from your teacher. A single word from this voice should be enough to snap your students into line – refrain from using sentences in this tone. Once you’ve said your single word (such as the name of a student or simply “STOP!”) immediately revert back to your command voice – you don’t want to make the child cry or be scared of you.
Vernacular
A major error new teachers make early on is that they will enter the class with the same dictionary they use outside of class. What I mean by this is that they will use large and unnecessary vocab with students whose English is limited to the basics. Younger foreign language students will often listen out for keywords you say, filtering out words they don’t understand. Let’s say you wish to do a very quick reading exercise where each student reads a sentence and then chooses another student to read the next sentence. A new teacher may explain this in the following manner:
“OK so, can you get your books to please and open to page 38. What we’re going to do next is, Charlie is going to read a sentence from the top of the page, when he is finished reading the sentence, he will choose another person in the class to read the next sentence. Afterwards, he might say Bob, can you read the next sentence, when Bob’s finished, Bob will choose another person etcetera etcetera”.
If this is an advanced level class, then it’s an OK instruction. Similarly, if this is said very slowly with plenty of TPR, again, it’s an acceptable sentence. But for students who are around 7-10 years, who listen out for keywords that they can understand – this is not a great instruction.
Firstly, never ask your students to do anything instead, tell them to do what you want. For instance rather than saying please can you open your books, simply say open your books. Use keywords, shorten your sentences and also know the type of grammar your students are aware of. Many of them won’t know future continuous or expression like so forth or etcetera. Additionally, after every explanation, make sure the students understand what you’re asking them to do. If a student says they do understand, get that student to retell what you said in their native language. Often if the majority of the students say they understand, there’s always one student who doesn’t understand but will still say they do understand because they don’t want to be singled out.
A better instruction may be:
“Open your books to page 40 minus 2 (I like to add math as much as I can), Charlie reads 1 sentence, then he’ll say Bob read! Bob reads 1 sentence. Do you understand?”
As you spend more time with your students you will slowly get a better grasp of their ability and what vocab and grammar they know. Until then, when you enter the class, leave the oxford English dictionary in the staff room and enter the class with basic lexis.
One last note regarding vernacular: the speed in which one speaks to another native is at a horrendously fast pace for a language learner. It´s a pace that simply cannot be used in the classroom. Students need time to hear your words, process them and respond to them. If you find it hard to find the correct speaking speed, then try to imagine you’re Christopher Walken speaking – that has always helped me.
Body Language
Now you’re using different tones, vocab that your students understand and you’re speaking at a speed that they can follow, however, sometimes they still just don’t understand you, but what else can you do? There’s one more ace up your sleeve – TPR, otherwise known as Total Physical Response.
It’s often easy when in public to notice people who are language teachers as they will often talk using actions that correspond to their words. This is from a lifetime of teaching and so has become a natural instinct. Students listen and watch you, it’s your job to make use of their attention. Now your vocab is limited to their knowledge and your speed is at a comfortable listening pace, what about the rest of your body? Again going back to the concept that teachers are entertainers, we must now adopt the style of a pantomime actor. Watch Jerry Lewis or Charlie Chaplin and see how they convey instructions without uttering a single syllable. As an exercise, see if you can do the same with your students.
As you use props and pictures to convey the meaning of nouns, use your body to convey the meaning of verbs. There is no set action for verbs, some are at your own discretion whilst some are just common sense such as:
- Listen – put your hand to your ear
- Open your books – use your hands to convey opening a book)
- Where – put your hand to your forehead
- When – tap your wrist
- Why – shrug your shoulders
- Fly – flap your arms
- Quiet – put your finger to your mouth
Some verbs are harder to create actions for such as cook, but nonetheless doable.
TPR isn’t limited to simply conveying actions, this also includes your body’s position in relation to the class and students. The whiteboard is usually the most common center point in which you then move around the class and return to. If you watch Barack Obama delivering a speech, his body is static but his eyes and head are not. They move around the audience.
You must do the same, the only difference is your body must also move around the classroom. Do this by changing where you’re standing, don’t stand still on a single point. Go to the left side of the class then back to the whiteboard, then move to another area. This keeps the pupils alert as at any point you may dart towards one of them.
Another aspect to keep in mind is your height. Children are small and the last thing you want to do is to hover over them like a vulture. Go down to their level, especially with preschool children. Rarely stand on your feet with very young children, instead go down on your knees, squat, or sit on a small chair. Children can be entertained simply by movement. Keep your movements fresh and constantly vary them.
If you follow this ‘holy trinity’ – tone of voice, use and speed of vernacular, and TPR; your class will flow smoothly, your students will understand you, they will enjoy listening to you and they will enjoy watching you.
