FIVE THINGS EFL TEACHERS GET WRONG

1 BEING TOO ATTACHED TO THE BOARD

We all too often stay stuck at the front of the classroom, welded to the board. It’s as if we think we aren’t doing any teaching unless we have their pen in their hand making notes. In my view, this establishes a very unhealthy dynamic in the classroom which promotes transmission based teaching. In addition, it increases teacher talking time because teachers will spend more time in presenting mode. I recently worked out how to connect my tablet to the board wirelessly and that just liberated me. I could go where I wanted in a lesson, sit where I wanted and it enabled me to always communicate with students face to face rather than with my back turned or side on. I broke the link with the board and I will never look back. I became free in the classroom.

2 TALKING TOO MUCH

In both my current job and the previous one the only sound I ever heard coming was the sound of a teacher’s voice. It became apparent that teachers were talking a lot. In lessons I’ve observed I would say that the balance between teacher and student talking time was between 70/90 and 30/10 respectively. Part of the reason is down to point 1 with teachers in transmission mode continually explicating language points. I’ve come to the conclusion recently that the optimal balance should be 95-5.

3 BEING LEARNER AND STUDENT-CENTRED NOT PERSON-CENTRED

Of course, the modern, trendy teacher will say they are either learner or student-centred. Who wouldn’t be? However, conceptually speaking this doesn’t go far enough. The people we work with are never just students or learners – they are human beings. When you start saying and thinking you are a person-centred you make a conceptual leap in the right direction to become a more humanistic teacher.

4 FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON FORM RATHER THAN CONTENT

EFL teachers are always far too focused on how things are being said and not enough on what is being said. This results in teachers who are obsessing over form and ignoring content. This is strange because there is very often a connection between the intention and the result. Students often produce malformed sentences as a result of not being clear about what it is they are trying to say. In my view, we need to work on both aspects in a balanced way.

5 NOT DOING ENOUGH WRITING

I believe in writing and I think students should do it regularly possibly in every lesson and also for homework. However, student feedback tells me teachers aren’t doing it enough in lessons. I think we should aim to create a culture of writing in our lessons that aims to overcome the phobia that learners often have about writing.

What do you think? What do you think are the things that EFL teachers get wrong and how did you end up getting it right?