When it´s "Time to teach"

Unfortunately, there´s no one magic formula for putting the form back into the substance of what was spoken about in class. Just as you won´t know exactly what problems with pop up, you might not always know the best way to attack them. Still, there are several techniques you can refer to, which I´ll cover now. In the end though, it´s up to you and what works to decide which to use and when to use it.

• Technique #1: Take notes, teacher!
  A lot depends on the size and composition and level of the class but try this: sit in a central position in the classroom and just listen. As you listen focus on errors not mistakes (errors are generally considered to be due to lack of knowledge, mistakes are also known as "slips"). Take notes of what was said verbatim (the whole sentence). At the end of the activity you can sum up these errors (choose ten of the most egregious) by putting them, without changes, on the board or saving them until another class and making a handout for students to work on correcting. Now all that´s left for you to do is let them discuss together the context of the error, the correction and the reason for the correction. If there are any doubts, your vast knowledge will finally be put to good use here. Waiting until the next class to present the errors will give you time between classes to look up any grammar difficulties so as to be able to explain better--a plus for less experienced teachers.

• Technique #2: The popular choice
  Yes you can correct on the spot but consider that it´s probably going to be a correction that will get lost in the excitement of the activity. Not only that but the other learners in the class will be likely to commit the same error. Instead, wait until you address the class as a whole and when students are "reporting" their results during the feedback stage of the activity (more on that later) you can correct errors then. You can do this by using either of the following:

• Technique #2A: Echo the error and ask the class if that´s correct

• Technique #2B: Rephrase the error correctly (a.k.a. reformulation)

• Technique #2C: Stop the person with a gesture and say "you...what?"

• Technique #3: Don´t correct, Teach!
  So students performed the task but maybe not in the best way they could have. In other words, there were some phrases, some vocabulary or some grammar they could have used and didn´t. Here is an opportunity to show them what they are missing!
  Again, we don´t want to take the approach of, "here are the phrases you should know, use them". Instead, we´re going to direct our students´ attention to the language and hope that by noticing (or being led to notice), they will begin to use it. Think of it like this, if your ambition were to be a filmmaker, you would watch as many films as you could get your hands on. You would watch each one multiple times and you would study them as you would a book, or a piece of art. Of course, we´ve all seen hundreds or thousands of films ourselves. The difference is that the filmmaker would notice how things are done to produce a desired effect. In doing so, he would hopefully acquire those techniques into his own filmmaking reportoire (though perhaps badly at first). What´s effective about doing this is that first, the filmmaker sees how the techniques are being used in context or in use--in other words, he sees how they fit into the whole. Secondly, he sees what he wants or needs, as he needs it. So maybe he´s not technically able or ready to see how a certain special effect is done but he sees how the camera angle causes the actor to appear and the effect of doing so. It wouldn´t really help the budding filmmaker to be taught digital special effects if he doesn´t have the resources or the background to do so, would it? So, just like the filmmaker who sees and studies the masters and little by little notices how techniques are used, the learner of English should study how a native does it first and be directed to notice how and to what effect. From that, we hope the learner will utilize these techniques for speaking. If he or she doesn´t, the language theorist´s response would be that he or she is not ready--and I agree. So, teaching then is really a matter of showing, directing learners´ attention to what´s useful or necessary and giving them an opportunity to use it. There are any number of ways to do this:

• Technique #3A: Be a model
  This is something you can do before, or after any activity or task. It basically means that you provide a model, either written or spoken, of how you would do the task. Then, you can ask learners to find specific phrases, vocabulary or grammar from the model. You can ask them to decide what the structures or the vocabulary are and even what the rules for using them are (with or without a grammar book). Another thing to highlight are "chunks", that is words which commonly occur together. So, for example, from this very paragraph we can see that "This is something", "It basically means that", and "with or without" are chunks because they words which are repeatedly found together and can be used in a variety of contexts with changes to only their complement or subject.

• Technique #3B: Text as model
  This is very similar to the teacher as model technique but instead of hearing from the teacher, we hear from an outside source (recorded or written). This is an extremely common way of doing it--after all, it´s what you find in textbooks, right? And those materials can be used. The problem is when the source seems unauthentic, like they often do in textbooks. I have nothing against material prepared for English learners. However, the problem is when the example is either too easy, dull or not very realistic. Of course, the problem with materials that are 100% authentic is that they are generally too difficult, contain way too much unfamiliar (or unuseful) vocabulary or are too long. So my advice is to edit down authentic materials, rewrite or, in the case of recorded material, create your own using collegues or friends (and any device to record with that you can later connect to speakers). However, don´t script out the conversations. Instead, give the native speakers the same task and a time limit and ask them to speak clearly, but naturally. This will keep the language natural and give even low-level learners valuable authentic listening practice. If you have time, type out a transcript (which would be the ideal thing to do in order to further deepen the noticing process).

• Technique #3C: Learners can be models too!
  So instead of using the natural, expert speaker of English as a model, we can use phrases the learners themselves used. Of course, this should only be used when some of, not all of the class has used the phrases. But what it does is hightlight good language use, effectively rewarding as reinforcing that what they said actually was correct. To do this, write down on the board some of the phrases that were used and ask learners to decide how they´re used, what´s useful about them and what the rules of correct use are (if applicable). Then you can generate more examples with the same structure.
  Another way is to ask a pair/group that did the task well to model their speech for the class and ask the class to note down, for example, "ways they talk about cause and effect" or "ways they make suggestions".
  Yet another way is to just ask the class (i.e. elicit), "How do we talk about cause and effect?" or "How do we make suggestions?" after an activity. This way, students can all give their imput and incorrect use of phrases can be corrected immediately, while positively reinforcing correct phrasings.

The question of which of these to use and when depends entirely on you.