Class context – Introduction

In this module, we’re going to be looking at ways of adapting lesson plans to fit the specific contexts of your different classes.

When teaching, there’s a number of factors which will impact the type of activities you’ll include, the materials you’ll use, and other aspects. All these will need to be considered if you wish to create an appropriate lesson plan that really engages and motivates your students.

These factors include:

Age | Culture | Purpose | Learning type

By understanding how these factors can impact your class, you’ll be able to plan more effective lessons, and avoid issues in the classroom.

Class context – Age range

The age range of your class will determine how you conduct the lesson, and the types of material and activities you use. When planning your classes, there are three main age ranges which you can tailor activities toward:

Young learners

Children between 5-12 years old can be classed as young learners. They often have a much shorter attention span than other age groups, and can easily become restless.

When creating lesson plans for young learners, it can help to focus on lots of simple, short activities. Young learners are also likely to enjoy watching animation clips, singing songs and playing games which involve lots of movement.

Teenagers

With teenagers, you’ll often find they have a longer attention span, and can grasp more complicated tasks regardless of language ability. This means you can start to include activities which require less repetition and more analysis. So instead of focusing heavily on language drill exercises where students learn by listening and repeating new vocab, you could introduce activities where students learn through experience. Task Based Learning can provide an interesting way for teenagers to pick up new language.

You’ll often find that teenagers have a strong identity and perception of themselves. As such, it can be good to include activities which give teenage students opportunities to express their likes/dislikes or viewpoints.

Adults

Creating lesson plans for adults can often be challenging for new teachers. Similar to teenage learners, adults will often have greater analytical and problem-solving skills which can give you a wider range of activities to use.

They can, however, feel more embarrassed with some of the activities used with teenagers and young learners. So it can be a good idea to avoid songs or games involving running around, and instead focus on exercises which mirror real-life situations. These could include dialogues/role plays, writing emails, using the internet etc.

Class context – Culture

When teaching English around the world, you’ll find yourself in countries with cultures vastly different to your own. As such, there may be certain cultural differences which you’ll need to observe when conducting your classes, and creating your lesson plans.

In certain conservative regions of the middle east, there may be cultural norms regarding how girls and boys should interact with each other. Having an activity where students name clothing items and then as a reward get to dress each other up might work well in Thailand, but could be frowned upon elsewhere.

Some cultures in the far east may struggle with the concept of challenging authority figures such as parents or teachers. This may result in them choosing not to voice their concerns with certain topics. Similarly, the concept of ‘losing face’ or being embarrassed in front of the class could be a big issue for students. This might cause them to avoid answering questions even if they’re relatively sure of the answer, or taking criticism too heavily.

There aren’t any rules which can be learned here and applied in all situations. However, you should do your best to learn about the cultural norms of whichever country (or even region) you visit, and don’t be afraid to ask your school, or other teachers for advice.

Class context – Purpose

Another of the key aspect to consider when planning your lessons is the purpose of the class. This might seem pretty straightforward – to learn English – however, it isn’t always so simple.

The class might have a collective purpose, such as with cram schools which specialize in preparation for specific exams. In this situation, the content and activities included in your plan should help students to do well in these areas. So if the exam contains a speaking element and an essay-style writing element, you’d want to include plenty of practice on these skills. You could even choose to include timed exercises to help students learn how to perform well in exam conditions.

If you’re preparing a lesson for a class of professionals, you’d want to find out their goals and choose your activities and content accordingly. Perhaps the purpose of the class is to provide professional workers with conversational skills for use with foreign clients. In such situations, you’d likely want to choose activities which give plenty of role play practice, and could perhaps include listening activities using accents which they’ll likely encounter.

Aside from having a collective purpose for the class, students will likely have their own individual reasons for attending. As you learn more about your students you can find ways to tailor activities to help them succeed in their personal goals as well.

By considering the purpose of the class in these ways, your students are much more likely to engage with your lessons. This will make your job much easier, and will help them to progress in a direction they want to go in.

Class context – Learning styles

Aside from the age, culture, and purpose of a class, there’s another large aspect which is a little more abstract. When choosing what activities to include in your lesson plans, you should also consider the different ways in which people prefer to learn.

There has been a lot of research in the last few decades examining different ways in which people learn. These types of studies are often applicable across different fields, including language learning, and can have an enormously positive effect on your students’ understanding and retention of class material.

One such approach breaks learners into several different categories, based on the type of activity/stimuli they respond to best. In this part of the module, we’ll look at the four most common learning styles, how you can utilize them in your ESL lesson plans, and the potential benefits of doing so.

What are Learning Styles?

There are a lot of different theories about learning, but a widely recognized belief is that each individual prefers to learn, understand, process and remember new information in a unique way. The ways people prefer to learn are called learning styles, and most people have one preferred learning style, though they can still learn through other styles to lesser degrees. The four learning styles that are considered to be the most common are auditory, visual, verbal, and kinesthetic.

These learning styles refer to more than a personal preference. They refer to the way the brain takes in information, and how it best stores and retrieves that information. Whether learning styles are genetically or biologically coded, there is a lot of debate on that, but what seems certain is that an individual’s learning style will affect how they perform in class. It will also determine their enjoyment of certain classroom activities.

To put it simply, if your activities use a learning style that most of your class prefers, then the students that use that learning style will be more engaged, and will do better. Because learning styles are so varied, this means you need to try to include activities from a number of styles to maximise your impact.

Class context – Visual, auditory, verbal & kinesthetic learning

Here, we’ll look at the different types of learners, and ways in which you can engage them in your lesson plans. Before reading the example activities in each, take a moment to first consider some possible activities of your own.

Visual Learning

A visual learner responds best to imagery. They learn well through graphs, diagrams and charts. When given material in these forms, they’re more likely to absorb the information easier and quicker than through other ways. To help engage a visual learner, here are several tips:

Visual learning activities

• Create charts for difficult grammar points where everything is laid out neatly and succinctly.
• Include videos and animations in lessons.
• Ask students to express understanding by drawing or describing a picture.
• Make your classroom as visually interesting as possible.
• Use different colored chalks or pens to draw attention to important points.

Auditory Learning

Auditory learners learn well by listening. They can often quickly understand lectures and verbal explanations and may enjoy using music in their learning. If you want to engage your auditory learners, you need to include plenty of opportunity for listening activities in your lessons:

Auditory learning activities

• Organize role-plays for your students to practice conversational skills.
• Use audio recordings of different accents or grammar points or just to practice listening skills.
• Set up discussions on subjects that your students find interesting.
• Give instructions verbally.
• Use music to practice vocabulary, or emphasize word or sentence stress.

Verbal Learning

Students who fall under the verbal learning style, sometimes called the reading/writing style, respond well to the written and spoken word. They often like to express themselves, to read what others have written and to write themselves. This style tends to do quite well in classrooms and tests that require strong writting skills. To help these students learn, you could add the following twists to activities in your class:

Verbal learning activities

• Provide opportunities for students to read out loud.
• Hold group discussions about ideas, with one student presenting the group’s ideas to the class.
• Encourage questions, as verbal learners use questions to clarify and confirm their understanding of a topic.
• Divide students into groups for activities and encourage collaboration whenever possible.

Kinesthetic Learning

This is the learning style that is most often neglected in the classroom. Students who fall into this learning style will learn well through physically interacting with what they are learning about, or through involving movement during learning exercises. This is the opposite of the classroom setting where students are expected to sit quietly without moving or speaking unless spoken to. To engage these often restless students, you can try the following strategies:

Kinaesthetic learning activities

• Use realia to give context to new vocabulary.
• When possible, set up simulations to provide context for new grammar points. For example, you could set up a shop in your classroom and have students ask for foods or discuss prices.
• Use Total Physical Response (TPR) whenever possible, whether this means asking your students to do an action whenever you say a certain grammar point or playing a game to form the shape of a letter when learning the alphabet. We’ll cover this in more detail later in the course.
• Ask kinaesthetic learners to perform tasks in the classroom such as handing out paper or writing on the board – by moving around they’ll feel better and should be able to concentrate more.
• Offer a variety of activities of all different types to avoid boredom and wandering attention.

As you gain experience in the classroom you’ll get better at identifying which students fall into which categories. You’ll also learn which activities do or don’t seem to work well in your class, and start to come up with alterations or new ideas of your own. Once you get into the habit of it, it can be quite fascinating to experiment with!

Class context – Summary

Considering all of these factors might seem overwhelming at first, but it will soon become second nature.

The age range, culture, and purpose aspects of your class are likely to stay relatively constant in most school environments, and once you get the hang of it you’ll soon learn how to build better and better lesson plans for these particular students.

Adapting lessons for different learning styles can be a bit more difficult. You’ll need to really take time to observe your individual students and identify which stimuli they respond to, and which they don’t. Then, you’ll need to make sure to cycle through a variety of activities in your classes to target these different learning styles.

Your ability to develop such advanced teaching skills will add to your value as a teacher, and can also be massively beneficial outside of the classroom.

Classroom management – Introduction

So far we’ve covered the staple content which goes into your lessons, the different skills which students need to learn, how to fold these into lesson plans, and how to keep students motivated.

Now, in this section of the course we’re going to look at the ways in which you can manage your classroom to help your lessons run smoothly. We’ll do this through the following three modules:

Learning Environment – the ways in which you can manage your classroom to create a positive learning environment.

Testing Students – approaches to testing whether your students are truly learning.

Rules and Problems –  ways to set rules and keep things orderly in your class.

By learning about these three areas you’ll be able to set your classes up for these best possible outcomes, measure students’ progress, and have some structure to fall back on if problems arise.

Positive learning environments – Introduction

The objects and atmosphere in your classroom can have a big impact on how well your lessons go.

If the environment is right, it can help to prepare students to focus on English, remind them of previous language, and make them comfortable enough to participate in the lesson’s exercises.

In this module, we’ll cover a range of things you can do to set up your classroom in a way that creates a positive learning environment for your students.

Positive learning environments – Classroom variables

In this first part we’ll look at some of the different things you should check before your students arrive. Adding these to a pre-class checklist is a good way to ensure your lessons start on the right foot.

Physical comfort

The first area you should consider is the general physical environment within the classroom. Make sure that the temperature is comfortable by using heating or cooling options and if you can, open a window so that the classroom doesn’t get stuffy. It can be a good idea to check with your students from time to time if they’re comfortable – if you think it might be too warm/cold, simply ask them.

The room should also be well lit. Check that all the lights are working and if they’re insufficient for the space, try to bring a desk light or some other type of lighting into the room.

Stuffy, warm or dim environments are almost certain to result in drowsy, lethargic students. While this might sound like a good thing, you’ll have to work twice as hard to get engagement out of them, and they’ll struggle to concentrate on what you’re teaching them. So make sure they step into a classroom that keeps them awake and in a positive frame of mind.

Equipment

There’s nothing more annoying than trying to start an exercise and being unable to work the necessary equipment. Before the class starts and your students arrive, check that televisions, CD players and electronic whiteboards are turned on and working properly.

Your students might find it amusing if you struggle during a class, but watching you fight with the equipment isn’t very good for their learning.

Don’t be afraid to ask your school for extra training on any equipment which you aren’t familiar with. There might be extra functions such as interactive modes for whiteboards, which you might not have been aware about beforehand.

Also, you’ll likely find that control panels or remotes will be marked in the local language. If you have trouble to remember each button’s function, you could take a picture of the equipment, and ask someone at the school to translate it for you. Then you could keep a copy of this in your folder or with lesson plans which are based around the equipment.

Tables and chairs

Another physical aspect of the classroom which can have a big impact on your students’ learning is the arrangement of chairs and tables. Before your students enter the room, you should already have your chairs and tables arranged ready for the lesson to begin.

This doesn’t mean simply having everything neat and tidy – there’s a number of ways which you change the seating layout depending on class objectives, size of the classroom and number of students.

We’ll cover different approaches for seating plans coming up next, but for now just make sure to note this as part of your pre-class preparations.

Positive learning environments – Seating plans

Seating arrangements can often be overlooked, but are a useful tool at your disposal. A good seating plan can help activities run smoothly, and can be used to encourage teamwork, or to focus attention on what you’re saying. Below are examples of commonly used seating arrangements and their different advantages and disadvantages.

Note: S represents where students would sit, while T shows where a teacher would likely position themselves and the free space they would have to roam around.

Rows:

This is probably the most popular seating plan, and is normally used for large classes. In this arrangement, students are seated in rows, all facing the teacher at front of the classroom. There will often be space for the teacher to stand walk around should they wish.

Advantages and disadvantages

If this arrangement is used with a larger classroom, you should make sure to walk around once in a while to check that even students at the back are listening. It can also help to make a conscious effort to engage with students sat at the back of the class, to ensure you don’t only talk with those in the front rows.

Horseshoe or U-shape

Many teachers enjoy to use this seating plan for medium to small sized classes. In this arrangement, the desks/chairs are placed in a U shape facing the teacher.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

-Difficult for students to be distracted because the teacher can easily observe everybody from the front.
-The teacher has more room in which to move around and get closer to the students, especially during class discussions.
-It is easier to conduct an entire class discussion with this arrangement because students can face each other.

Disadvantages

-Can be overwhelming for shy or introverted students, since it’s easier for everyone else to see them.
-Might appear too crowded and cramped if the classroom is small.

If using this seating arrangement, you may want to encourage students to mix up their positions from time to time. Otherwise, when it comes to pair work, you’ll often find the same two neighbors teaming up, and missing out on the benefits of practicing with different peers.

Small discussion groups

In this arrangement, students are placed in small groups of between three to six students per table. The teacher will often be located in the most visible part of the room, but will move more freely throughout the lesson. This can be used in medium to large classes if there is enough space.

Advantages

-Great when giving group tasks. Students can work easily and more effectively with other group members because they are seated close to each other.
-Can encourage each group to work independently.
-Can help individual group members to become better team players.
-Shy or introverted students might feel more comfortable talking in a smaller group than in front of a large class.

Disadvantages

-May be difficult to see if all the members of the group are participating in the discussion/group work.
-Students can easily get distracted (e.g. start chatting about other topics, besides the one assigned to them) if they are grouped with their friends.
-Stronger students have the potential to overpower others in the group, and limit their ability to participate.

If using this arrangement, you should make sure that all the groups are using their time efficiently and all members are participating in the activity. You’ll also need to make an effort to visit each group to offer help, if and when needed.

Of course, there are other arrangements which you can experiment with, and these will depend on aspects such as; space, the number of students in the class, the type of students and the activities that you plan to do.

For example, when teaching kindergarteners, sitting on a mat on the floor might work better than having them sit on chairs. In this way, the students might feel as if you are just telling them a story and not really teaching. Such an arrangement could also be very useful if the lesson requires physical activity on the part of the students. If there are no desks and chairs blocking the way, the children can move freely and have more fun while learning.  

As long as you consider the students’ needs, and the objectives of the class, there’s plenty of ways in which you can experiment with seating plans. Just make sure you to think it through beforehand, and be prepared to return the seats to their original positions after the lesson finishes.

Positive learning environments – Decorations

Aside from the things which you’ll setup or check as part of your pre-class routines, there are also a number of things that you can do over time to create a welcoming and engaging environment for your students.

Classroom labels

When your students are just starting out, they will have very little practical language and a lot to learn.

A good way to help them learn essential vocabulary can be through utilizing their environment. This can done by placing labels on objects in the classroom so that students naturally build up their vocab of classroom objects as they interact with these items. This will help your lessons to run more smoothly as students will soon be able to find and interact with supplies which will be frequently used in classroom exercises.

It also has the extra advantage of getting students accustomed to examining objects for English language, and recognizing the associated words. This can provide a great sense of achievement for students, and help them to practice a skill which can be very useful outside of the classroom.

Bulletin boards

Bulletin boards can be great tools for communicating with students and parents alike.

They can hold everything from remarkable test results to a calendar that shows special days or holidays. You could even ask students to take a photo of themselves, write a few sentences about what they like and who they are, and display these photos. This will make your students feel as if they belong in the classroom, and can also help them get to know each other more quickly. Remember to put up a photograph and short biography of yourself as well.

There are no specific rules for what should go on a bulletin board. It’s down to your creativity. If you do choose to set up a bulletin board – or your school already has one, just make sure to update it regularly. This will help to keep students and parents in the routine of checking it.

Decorations

It’s important to expose your students to the English language as much as possible, and in a number of different ways. Classroom decorations can be used as both a passive and active way to immerse your students in the English language.

If you use the same classroom for each lesson, you could set up bookshelves with English books, magazines or comic books at their level. You could also brighten up the walls with maps which can be used to play games and encourage their understanding of the world.

It can also be helpful to have alphabet decorations, or posters displaying common language points which come up often in your lessons.

However, one thing to note is that you shouldn’t just put material up randomly. You should make sure that you can and eventually will use all of it and upgrade the decorations as your students progress. Before starting your class, take a look around the room and see if there’s anything that could be used in your next lesson plan, or anything that hasn’t been used in a long time and could be replaced with something more useful.

Cultural signals

When teaching English as a second language, it’s likely that you’ll be doing it in a country where the people and culture will be very different to your own.

Images and topics that are normal to you might shock your students, who will be accustomed to a very different atmosphere and surroundings. Bringing some of your home culture into the classroom can be a great way to spark discussions with your students.

Similarly, it can also be good to include some elements of your host country’s native culture into the classroom. These can be great for making students feel at ease, and can also be great props to launch discussions.

Some examples could include pictures of pop-stars, sports teams, actors, cartoon characters, famous locations, foods, games etc.

Final Thoughts

Your students should enjoy coming into your classroom. It should be a safe place where they are happy to try, and comfortable to make mistakes. You can help with this by setting up a colorful and welcoming environment that stimulates their minds and reminds of them of prior language and positive learning experiences.

With the techniques above, and some you design yourself, you can ensure that your classroom reflects both your teaching and your idea of what language learning should be like.