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Troubleshooting Common problem situations In this unit we will look at some of the most common problem situations that the teachers can encounter in the classroom and also suggest ways of dealing with them. First lessons In each new teaching position a teacher will be faced with meeting a number of new classes for the first time. These classes are vital for the teacher to establish rapport with the students and set the tone for the rest of the course. Such classes can fall into two categories: *New group-in this kind of group the students don't know each other and some work will be needed to establish rapport between the class members. Students may be unfamiliar with EFL methodology. *Existing group-in an existing group the students are already likely to know and be comfortable with each other and familiar with EFL teaching. When faced with a first lesson the experienced teacher will not resort to the course book but will try to use activities that will achieve the following: *Establish rapport between the students (in the case of a new group) and also between the teacher and the class. *Find out about the students. This will allow the teacher to be able to plan future lessons to cater to the students interests. *Find out about the students' needs/aspirations with English. This enables the teacher to tailor the course to meet the needs of the class. *Find out the English level of each individual class member. Areas of difficult with the language can be built into the course syllabus. There are a number of activities that the teacher can use purposes: *Questionnaire/survey-the teacher can let the students interview each other using a pre-set questionnaire and then feed back to the class. this will allow the students to get to know about each other. If the teacher monitors the activity closely, she/he will also learn a lot about the students' level of ability in the English language. *A similar type of activity is 'Tell us about' which is a board game in keep Talking (a very useful communicative activities book by Friederike Klippell). Students roll a dice and move their counter to the corresponding square and tell the class about the topic on that square. *Pass the ball game. The teacher tosses a soft ball to one of the students and asks her/him any question. That students answers the question and tosses the ball to another student and asks that student a question etc. As with the other activities it is a good idea for the teacher to take part too, that way the students find out information about the teacher too, helping to establish rapport. *Needs analysis. This was discussed in the previous unit with relation to individual students and business English. Warmers Imagine you are a language student. It's early on a grey, cold Monday morning as you arrive at class. Your teacher then says "Good morning. Let's do the future continuous tense". It's hardly going to inspire and motivate you, is it? Thats what warmers are for. They are usually short, fun, communicate activities designed to get students motivated and using English. Typical warmer ideas include: *Hangman. Can be used as a revision tool for vocabulary already learnt or to introduce new words. *Pictionary. Usage as above. *Tongue twisters. Good for pronunciation of problem sounds. For example "red lorry, yellow lorry" is useful in Asia where the 'r' and 'i' sound present problems. *Memory games. For example one student starts with "Yesterday, I went swimming", the next student would say "Yesterday, I went swimming and played football" and so on. There are many other such activities that can be used. It's important to make them fun but short. You will find that they really help in getting students warmed up and in the mood for English. They are especially useful if they can be linked in to the Study phase of the lesson. Different levels One of the biggest problems that teachers face is a group where the students are at varying levels. If the school has a competent entrance level testing procedure, the chances of this happening will be reduced but not prevented totally. Some students learn more quickly than others and in classes that started at the same level, gaps can start to appear. There are a number of ways that the teacher can deal with this: *Use different materials. Where the difference in ability is wide, the teacher may wish to split the students into two groups (one with the stronger students and the other with the weaker class members). The teacher can give different materials to each group, appropriate to their level. If the materials are based around the same themes, then the class can be brought back together at other stages. Obviously the teacher needs to be able to be a bit of a 'juggler' with dividing time and attention to both groups equally. *Some material, different tasks. Here the teacher will give the students the same materials but give the stronger students longer, more complicated tasks appropriate to their level. *Don't do anything. Many teachers prefer to let each student find her/his own level within the class. Such an approach means that the students will be studying and learning the same material and, as a result, the gap in level shouldn't increase. The danger, of course, is that the weaker students might feel frustrated or the stronger ones bored. *Pair stronger students with weaker ones. Many teachers prefer the strategy of allowing stronger students to assist weaker students. They can help explain and clarify things. Care must be taken to not let the stronger students dominate them and do all the work, while the weaker students are little more than onlookers. Experienced teachers will adapt a mix of the above techniques to enable classes to progress more smoothly. Large classes Large classes can present the teacher with a number of problems from trying to involve all pupils equally to classroom control. Despite such problems the teacher can employ a number of techniques to create successful classes. *Use worksheets. Rather then going through activities with the whole class, hand out worksheets. This way each student will have participated and gained some benefit. *Pair/group work. Experienced teachers will use a lot of this to maximize student involvement. Clear instructions are vital with large groups. *Clarity. Large groups usually mean large classrooms. Try to ensure that your voice and board work is visible/audible to the whole class. *Choral repet