The first year of teaching

For many teachers, the first year is hard (but it gets better later!). If your first year is smooth and easy, you are one of the lucky ones. However, the need to overcome a variety of professional problems as you begin to teach results in a great deal of learning, perhaps the most effective learning there is. What you can learn from courses or books like this one is limited; there are some competencies and aspects of professional knowledge that you learn only from experience.

Pause for thought 21.1

Either a) think about your own first year teaching: how was it, and what did you learn? or b) if you haven't yet started teaching, ask an experienced teacher what their first year was like and what they learnt from it.

Comment

My first year of teaching English in a (non-English-speaking) country to which I had recently moved was in a primary school. I had two classes of 10- and 12-yearolds. I had a fairly hard time. Lessons rarely went smoothly, I had trouble getting the students to do what I wanted, and they were often cheeky. There were, it is true, some positive aspects: an end-of-year play that children and parents enjoyed; the awareness that the students were progressing; the occasional sparkle in the eyes of a child who had succeeded in a task or suddenly become aware how much they knew. However, I also remember investing an enormous amount of time and effort in preparing lessons and materials, much of which was, I felt, wasted; feelings of disappointment and sometimes humiliation. The turning point was an event at the end of that first year. I went to the class teacher of one of the classes I had been teaching and told him I thought I was unsuited to be a teacher and wished to leave. He told me to think less about my own feelings and to look at the students. ‘Ask yourself,’ he advised me, ‘what they have got out of your teaching.

Some basic features of listening comprehension

Learners need to be able to listen to and understand spoken English, as a preliminary to speaking it and, in most situations, to reading and writing it as well. This is not only because in the natural order of things we hear a new language before we speak it and because reading and writing are secondary to speech. It is also because listening is normally the main channel through which learners are exposed to new items, lexical or grammatical, in English, and increase their knowledge.

Listening is not just the mirror image of speaking. Learners can understand spoken English that is at a higher level, and a lot more in quantity, than that which they are capable of producing themselves. Texts used for listening comprehension activities should therefore be longer and more advanced than the kinds of spoken output we would expect from the learners who are expected to cope with them: what Stephen Krashen (1981) calls ‘i+1’. If students talk to one another in spoken fl uency activities, it is true that they are also listening; but the amount of useful listening comprehension practice that they are getting is limited. The speech they are hearing is only at the level they can produce themselves: it is not ‘i+1’.

An additional point to be noted is that comprehension of both spoken and written discourse involves knowledge which derives from at least two different sources. On the one hand, there are the bottom-up processes which are based on the decoding of the text itself: perception of sounds and combinations of sounds, the identification and comprehension of individual words, phrases and patterns. On the other, there are top-down processes deriving from listeners’ real-world knowledge of the subject matter, genre or context, which enable easier perception of meanings or underlying implications. In some cases, top-down processes may precede the bottom-up, as when we come to a text with strong preliminary assumptions as to its content or style.

There is some debate in the literature about which is more important (top-down or bottom-up), and this would clearly depend in any specific case on what the text is and which learner population is using it

Different kinds of content

By content I mean the subject matter that texts or tasks engage with, as distinct from the target language features, such as grammar and vocabulary. Here are some samples:

• Zero or trivial content. Bland, fairly neutral characters and events; superficially interesting topics with no cultural or other information or connection with realworld issues: for example, sentences about a fictional ‘John and Mary’ doing everyday activities; descriptions of conventional families; trivial anecdotes.

• The students themselves. Exploration of students’ own experiences, knowledge, opinions and feelings: for example, activities that ask students to write about someone they know, or compare tastes in food and drink.

• The local environment. Treatment of institutions, people, places, events, etc. from the students’ own town, country or background: for example, Greek students might discuss places they would recommend that tourists should visit in Greece.

• Moral, educational, political or social issues. Presentation of topics showing different points of view, and encouraging students to express opinions: for example, an article describing a social confl ict, or a dilemma to which students suggest a solution.

• An academic subject. Topics based on other subjects on the school or university curriculum, such as science or history. In some cases, an entire school subject, or an entire university course, may be taught in English (for a more detailed discussion, see Section 3).

• Occupation-linked content. Subjects relevant to a particular area of employment: for example, business, tourism or medicine.

• The English-speaking countries. Discussion of institutions, etc. from countries where English is the predominant language. Materials might cover British or American history, culture and customs, famous people, etc.

• General knowledge. Information about any subject in the arts, sciences, history, current affairs and more; celebrities; natural phenomena; social and cultural topics.

• Literature. To some extent a part of culture, but important enough to be listed as a separate section: stories, novels, plays and poetry written in English or translated into it. See Section 4.

• The English language itself. Apart from explanations of the grammar or other features of the language, other topics may be included, such as the history and development of the English language, the etymology or morphology of words, other interesting linguistic phenomena.

Part 4 will help you understand and use formative, classroom-based assessment activities to monitor and assess progress and achievement of learning. You will deepen your knowledge about purposes and focuses of different assessment strategies and think about ways in which teachers and learners may respond to the results of assessment. You will also consider ways in which we can assess learning and look in more detail at feedback given by teachers and learners. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module will support your knowledge and skills in preparation for the fourth part of the TKT: YL module test: Assessing Young Learners. You can find more information in the TKT: YL syllabus in the module handbook, which is available online.

In the first unit of this part of the book, Unit 11, you’ll think about the purposes of different assessment types in teaching and learning. First, you’ll consider the use of the term ‘assessment’ and reflect on your interpretation of this term in response to reading about the formative assessment cycle. You’ll then look at different types of assessment appropriate for use with young learners and then consider how these may serve different purposes in teaching and learning.

Unit 12 turns to the focus of assessment: what to assess. This will consider areas we can assess in addition to language and language skills. The unit then looks at techniques for assessing these different areas and focuses on assessing non-language skills in the young learner context.

In Unit 13, you will look in more detail at the outcomes of assessment and the kinds of actions teachers or learners could take as a result of assessment outcomes. In the first section, we look at different ways teachers might adjust teaching and learning, based on assessment evidence. Then there is a focus on oral and written feedback before a closer look at using peer feedback with young learners.

At the end of each unit, there is a series of activities which will extend your learning, thinking and understanding, and help you explore and relate the unit theme to your own classroom practice or teaching context. These are followed by a set of TKT: YL practice questions based on the unit theme. It is recommended that you use your TKT: YL PD Journal to keep and organise your notes.

You have come to the end of Part 1. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module aimed to deepen your understanding of the characteristics of children aged 6–12 as learners, and guide you in considering the implications of this for teaching English to these learners. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module also aimed to support your knowledge and skills in preparation for the first part of the TKT: YL Module test: Knowledge of young learners and principles of teaching English to young learners.

Look back to the introduction in Part 1. You assessed your level of understanding before beginning the first unit. Re-assess your understanding in each area.

You also wrote two or three questions or identified areas to find out about in each unit. How well do you think you have achieved these? What can you do to better achieve those areas you need to work on? For example:

• Reread a section of the unit(s).

• Re-do or do more exploration activities (Second C of each unit).

• Discuss the unit(s) content with other teachers in your school or network.

• Re-do the TKT: YL practice task(s).

• Look in the TKT glossary or the glossary in this book to check meanings of key terms and concepts you are unsure about. • Reflect on your classroom teaching more closely.

• Look for other readings or resources on the topic(s).

Write yourself two or three objectives for further learning and development in your TKT: YL PD Journal.

■ References and further recommended reading

PART 1 REFERENCES

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press&Assessment.

Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset. Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential. London: Robinson.

Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, N. (2015). Teaching Children How to Learn. Peaslake: DELTA Publishing.

Elsworth, S. and Rose, J. (2017) Academy Stars, Pupil's Book 5, p. 34 Oxford: Macmillan Education.

Fisher, R. (2005). Teaching Children to Learn. (2nd ed.) Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.

Halliwell, S. (1992). Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. Harlow: Longman.

You have come to the end of Part 3. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module aimed to deepen your awareness and skills relating to teaching young learners in the classroom. You explored scaffolding strategies, practice activities and areas of classroom management. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module also supported your knowledge and skills in preparation for the third part of the TKT: YL Module test:

Teaching Young Learners.

Look back to the introduction to Part 3. You assessed your level of understanding before beginning the unit. Re-assess your understanding in each area.

You also identified questions or areas to find out about in each unit. How well do you think you have achieved these? What can you do to better achieve those you need to work on? For example:

• • Re-read a section of the unit(s).

• • Re-do or do more exploration activities (Second C of each unit).

• • Discuss the unit(s) content with other teachers in your school or network.

• • Re-do the TKT: YL practice task(s).

• • Look in the TKT glossary or the glossary in this book to check meanings of key terms and concepts you are unsure about.

• • Reflect on your classroom teaching more closely.

• • Look for other readings or resources on the topic(s).

Write yourself two or three objectives for further learning and development in your TKT: YL PD Journal.

■ References and further recommended reading

PART 3 REFERENCES

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press&Assessment.

Harmer, J. (2007). How to Teach English. (New Ed.) Harlow: Pearson Longman.

Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (2021). How Languages are Learned. (5th Ed) [ebook] Oxford University Press

Robinson, A. and Saxby, K. (2015). Fun for Starters: Additional Resources for Teachers Third Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press&Assessment

Pinter, A (2006). Teaching Young Language Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Puchta, H., Lewis-Jones, P., Gerngross, G. and Zgouras, C. (2022). Super Minds 2nd Edition: Level 3 Workbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press&Assessment

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING

Moon, J. (2000). Children Learning English: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers. Oxford: Macmillan. (Chapter 4)

You have come to the end of Part 4. This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module aimed to deepen your awareness and skills relating to assessing young learner learning through classroom-based assessment. You explored purposes of assessing learning, focuses of assessing learning and ways teachers and learners may act on assessment evidence, including feedback.

This part of The TKT Course: Young Learner Module also aimed to support your knowledge and skills in preparation for the fourth part of the TKT: YL module test: Assessing Young Learners.

Look back to the introduction to Part 4. You assessed your level of understandingbefore beginning the unit. Re-assess your understanding in each area.

You also wrote two or three questions or areas to find out about in each unit. How well do you think you have answered these? What can you do to better achieve those you need to work on? For example:

• • Re-read a section of the unit(s)

• • Re-do or do more exploration activities (Second C of each unit).

• • Discuss the unit(s) content with other teachers in your school or network.

• • Re-do the TKT: YL practice task(s)

• • Look in the TKT glossary or the glossary in this book to check meanings of key terms and concepts.

• • Reflect on your classroom teaching more closely.

• • Look for other readings or resources on the topic(s).

Write yourself two or three objectives for further learning and development in your TKT: YL PD Journal.

■ References and further recommended reading

PART 4 REFERENCES

Britton, M. (2021). Assessment for Learning in Primary Language Learning and Teaching. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Hasselgreen, A. and Caudwell, G. (2016). Assessing the Language of Young Learners. London: British Council.

Nixon, C. and Tomlinson, M. (2017). Kid's Box. Level 1. Updated second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press&Assessment.

Papp, S. (2019). Assessment of Young English Language Learners. In The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners. S. Garton&F. Copland (Eds.). Pp. 389-407. London: Routledge.

Petty, G. (2009). Teaching Today. A Practical Guide. (4th edition). Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.

Shin, J. K., Savic´, V. and Machida, T. (2021). The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners. Alexandria: TESOL International Association.

Diversity in groups of learners

In some institutions, classes are supposedly ‘homogeneous’ in that their members have done a test which assigns them to a particular group at a specific level. However, even in such groups – and how much more so in places where no such process takes place – students vary enormously, in a number of different ways. All classes are to some extent heterogeneous: there will always be diversity.

Pause for thought

What is ‘diversity’ in the classroom? In how many ways are students different from each other? Make a list of all the ways that they are different which would have an effect on how they need to be taught. Then compare your list with the one on the next page.

Comment

A lot of the items in your list will be the same as mine, but you may have added more, or omitted ones that I listed. The most obvious ones have to do with language ability or level; but others, such as learning preferences, personality, motivation and expectations, are also significant, and may substantially affect the way we need to teach.

Aspects of learner heterogeneity

Gender. In some mixed-gender classes, you may find differences between students that are gender-linked. This to a large extent depends on the surrounding culture, and how differently boys and girls are educated.

Age or maturity. Adult classes may be composed of students of widely varying ages. Even in schools within an education system where students in any one class are usually all the same age, they may have different levels of maturity, particularly in adolescent classes. This will make a substantial difference to the way they prefer to learn, how motivated they are, and more.

Proficiency in English. Members of a class will vary in their level of proficiency in English. This may be because of the amount of instruction they have received, their success or failure in previous courses or because they have had more, or less, exposure to English in the past outside the classroom.

First language and other known languages. Students may know only the dominant language of their own country, or they may (also) know other languages spoken by a local community, or in the home, or learnt in school.

Differences between younger and older learners

It is commonly assumed that young children learn languages better than older ones. This is largely based on the observation that in immigrant families, young children normally become – apparently effortlessly – highly proficient in the new language. Research on children who did not have the opportunity to acquire language at an early age (‘wolfchildren’, or congenitally deaf children who recovered their hearing at a late age) indicate that they found it very difficult to learn it later. According to the critical period hypothesis (CPH), young children have a natural ability to learn languages which deteriorates when they get older; though when exactly this critical period ends is a subject of debate.

The CPH has been the subject of much controversy and criticism (see, for example, Marinova-Todd et al., 2000). In any case, the evidence summarized above has commonly been used to justify starting foreign-language instruction in schools as early as possible; but this conclusion is not in fact supported by the research. A longitudinal study of children learning English in Barcelona comparing early with late starters in English courses in schools showed that even given the larger number of total hours that younger beginners had studied, their ultimate achievement was no better than that of the older beginners (Muñoz, 2006). This result corresponds to the findings of Swain and her colleagues in extensive studies of students in immersion courses in Canada (Swain, 2000).

Pause for thought

What are your own feelings about starting English lessons early in schools?

Comment

In my country, English lessons are increasingly introduced – usually one or two a week – in the early years of primary school, while all the rest of the curriculum is taught in another language. When I ask the question on the previous page, I get a lot of different answers, depending on who is being asked. Parents, school principals, teachers of other subjects usually assume that starting English early in schools is a good thing. The majority of English teachers and other ELT professionals, on the other hand, are strongly opposed. Their opposition is not only because of the reasons given below, but also because the teachers who are leading these English lessons are usually not English teachers, but the class homeroom teachers. These may or may not be fluent in English and in any case do not have much knowledge of effective language-teaching procedures.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this unit, you will…

KNOWLEDGE: have found out about ways teachers and learners may respond to classroom-based assessment findings

SKILLS: be able to better implement appropriate adjustments and give formative feedback based on the results of assessment

■ Starter Question

Before you begin this unit, read the starter question and make some notes. Then read the commentary and compare it to your notes.

What do/might you do after assessment? Think about how assessment impacts on teaching and learning in your classroom. Note three or four points.

COMMENTARY

In Unit 11, we saw how assessment for learning drives teaching and learning forwards as a result of the information it can give teachers and learners. This information is sometimes known as ‘assessment evidence’, and it can be used to make changes to teaching and learning and to set new learning goals. It might be evidenced in the teacher's notes from observing learners as they work on different activities, learners’ worksheets, coursebook exercises, or written work, and so on.

There are a number of different areas we might consider changing in our classroom, based on what we find in that assessment evidence. For example, we may decide to review learning:

Example: The teacher sees that learners have not achieved the learning they wanted them to (as per the learning objectives), decide that learners need more practice in that particular language area or skill, and then plan to review that area in an upcoming lesson.

Example: The teacher notices from our monitoring and observation that several learners have difficulty with the pronunciation of one or two words in the unit vocabulary, so decides to review or even re-teach the pronunciation by giving extra models and playing a speaking game which focuses on discriminating sounds.

The teacher may decide to change the pace or to skip course content:

Example: The closing stage of the lesson shows the teacher that learners have excelled and have achieved learning outcomes earlier than expected. The teacher decides to skip some upcoming activities or sections in the course plan or coursebook which give more practice in that area.

Goals and problems in teaching speaking

Of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important. People who know a language are referred to as ‘speakers’ of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing. And many, if not most, language learners are mainly interested in learning to communicate orally. Classroom activities that develop students’ ability to express themselves through speech – mainly informal conversation – would therefore seem an important component of a language course.

It is very difficult to design and administer procedures that actually get students to talk: more so, in many ways, than to get them to listen, read or write. So let's start by defining the main goals of classroom activities that are designed to promote oral interaction, and the accompanying problems.

Goals

The students should actually talk a lot. As much time as possible during the activity should be taken up with talk by the students themselves. This may seem obvious, but in many activities, a lot of the time is actually filled with teacher explanations, pauses, reading texts or instructions, or classroom management issues.

The language used should be of an acceptable level. Students should express themselves in language that is relevant, easily understandable and reasonably accurate. This does not mean that everything has to be absolutely correct, only that it is free from pronunciation, lexical and grammatical errors that interfere with the fluent communication of meanings. (For a discussion of the teaching of pronunciation, see the last section of this chapter.)

Pause for thought

What, in your experience as either student or teacher, are some of the problems in getting students to talk in the classroom?

Comment

Some of the main problems I have come across are the following:

• Reluctance to speak in English in the classroom. A very basic problem is students’ lack of willingness to communicate (WTC) in English (Yashima, 2012). This can be rooted in a number of factors, including shyness, lack of confidence, aversion to speaking in front of an audience, fear of making mistakes or of losing face.

Preliminary note. The particular websites and apps mentioned in this chapter may have been renamed or even have disappeared by the time you read this; you may need to find updated ones through a search engine.

Digital literacies

In order to make best use of the learning opportunities that online digital technology offers, students need to possess not just one but a number of digital literacies. In this section, I’ll summarise those that seem to me most important for language learners: for a longer and more detailed list, see the first chapter of Pegrum et al. (2022).

Print literacy

At its most basic level, print literacy is the same literacy as that needed to read books and other kinds of paper-based publications. Research indicates that most students still prefer reading longer texts from paper rather than from a screen (Baron, 2017), and that their comprehension tends to be better when based on reading from a print version (Mangen et al., 2013). My impression is that this applies to the wider population as well. (I myself prefer reading from a screen, but am aware that I am in the minority!) In any case, everyone today needs to know how to cope with online reading, including ease of reading different design formats (infographics, for example) and the use of hyperlinks to move between different texts.

Print production literacy is the ability to use a keyboard fl uently and accurately to produce written English text. Most students develop this skill gradually as they get used to using a keyboard as well as pen and paper for their writing, but it can be improved by learning to touch-type using one of the many available online courses.

Editing literacy means using online tools appropriately for editing; not just the wordprocessing tools of emboldening, italicizing, enlarging, contracting, deleting, cutting-andpasting, inserting and moving text, but also the more sophisticated annotating tools such as inserting margin- or footnotes, or using editing tools such as track changes in Microsoft Word.

Hyperlink literacy involves knowing when it is worth clicking on a hyperlink in order to follow it up, and how to return to the main text later, as well as how to insert your own hyperlinks.

A fun, sociable activity which provides the necessary practice on functions and exponents and generates a lot of laughter.

Instructions

1. Show the trainees the pile of cards. Choose one at random but do not look at it. Hand it to one trainee and ask them to stick/pin it to your back.

2. Explain that the word on the card is a function but that you do not know what it is. Ask the trainees to give you exponents of this function so that you can guess what the function is. Do not guess the function until you have heard several exponents.

3. Explain that the trainees are now going to play the same activity as a whole group. Explain that each trainee will have an unknown function on their back, will stand up and will mingle with the other trainees.

4. Explain that whenever a trainee meets a new partner, they should look at each other's backs, and say an exponent of the function they see. Stress that it is important that trainees should not confirm each other's guesses during the game. Only at the end of the game will they guess their function.

5. Monitor for incorrect language to feed back on after the activity.

6. After 10 minutes, call the trainees back into a circle. Each trainee guesses what their function was, and looks at their card to confirm their guess. Conduct feedback by asking questions such as What was the most formal/ informal exponent you heard for your function? and feeding back on errors.

NB Functional categories end in –ing, e.g. thanking, interrupting, asking for clarification. Make sure the trainees are using this form, and elicit it where necessary.

Variation 1

For groups who may find it difficult to think up exponents on the spot, hand out a copy of the complete worksheet (1.3A) before the mingle. Groups can then practise thinking up exponents in advance. Before proceeding to the main activity, collect all copies of the worksheet.