One teacher talking to another
The best two hours of their day
“It’s simple. You’re really excited about something and you want to tell other people about it.”
About twenty-five years ago, before I was a teacher, I met a neighbor from Nigeria. He was a math teacher. I asked him how he felt about teaching. That was his answer.
I’ve always had that idea in my head.
My goal every day is to make my class the best two hours of my students’ day.
I begin with stories
I teach beginning adult English on Zoom. Level 1A means the first level. Some students arrive knowing a few words. Some are still learning the Roman alphabet. New students can arrive in week six.
Nobody has to come. They’ve got children, jobs, appointments, and a hundred other things competing for those two hours.
So I put the burden on myself.
If students don’t come back, I treat that as information about my class. At this level, I think my job is to give them something worth coming back for.
At the beginning of the semester, I teach very little. I tell stories. The pictures do most of the work. I use a few words students can understand. I ask questions they can answer with yes, no, or one familiar word. Then I take that small answer and give it back as complete English.
That’s comprehensible input: English students can understand even though they don’t understand every word. They follow the picture, the question, or the story. The language comes along with the meaning.
Then I get excited with them. About pistachio ice cream. About omelets. About Afghani food. About whatever the person in front of me has just told us.
Students understand that I’m interested in their answers. Then they become interested in one another’s answers. The class starts to feel less dangerous.
Ben is tall. Liz is short.
Here’s what this looks like with almost no English. These are the actual lesson slides.
This is Ben.
Students look and listen. Nothing needs translating.
The picture and the name give everyone the same starting point.
Nobody has memorized a vocabulary list. They’ve watched something change, understood a question, answered it, and heard their answer returned as English.
The repetition doesn’t come from saying a sentence twenty times. Every picture gives me a reason to ask again.
This is sometimes called circling. The word sounds more complicated than the thing. I make a statement, ask a yes-or-no question, offer a wrong alternative, and eventually ask a more open question. I keep moving around the same understandable language.
Watch the full Ben and Liz lesson.
Then there’s Tim
Then Tim looks down. There’s a dollar on the ground. He picks it up, goes back to the store, buys the Coca-Cola, drinks it, and isn’t thirsty anymore.
- New studentIs Tim thirsty?
- A little moreDoes Tim want Pepsi or Coca-Cola?
- Open questionWhat does Tim want?
- PersonalMaria, what do you drink in the morning?
The story creates the need for the repetition.
The same picture can work for students at very different places. I choose the size of the question when I choose the student.
Why fun matters
Stephen Krashen is a linguist who taught at the University of Southern California. Much of his work asked how people actually acquire another language.
He distinguished learning, studying rules and trying to remember them, from acquisition, what happens while you understand messages that matter to you.
Krashen also wrote about the affective filter. In plain English, when students are frightened or embarrassed about being wrong, the language can stop at the ear. Lower the fear and more of it gets through.
His model is debated, and I’m not presenting it as settled science. But the classroom problem it describes is real. Read Krashen’s explanation. A study of 1,746 language learners connected classroom enjoyment with teachers’ professional and emotional skills and a supportive peer group. Read Dewaele and MacIntyre.
That’s why fun isn’t something I add after the serious teaching. It helps make the teaching possible.
I’m not talking about performing jokes for two hours. I’m talking about students knowing they can answer. Knowing I’m glad they came. Knowing that if they get something wrong, the class keeps moving and nobody dies.
The course still has a course
Other teachers ask, “But do you teach the curriculum?”
Of course I do. It’s just not always obvious because I’m wrapping it in something fun and interesting.
My required curriculum is BurlingtonEnglish Core Basics, a beginning-English course organized into lessons called modules. I teach them in order. My students take the same required tests.
At first I use very simple stories so students get comfortable hearing and answering English. Then I connect my stories to BurlingtonEnglish. After that, we move between stories, simple conversations, and the required lessons.
The curriculum tells me what language we need. Comprehensible input is how I help the language get in.
Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, usually shortened to TPRS, helped me see how stories and repeated questions could carry language. In practice, I tell an understandable story, ask many questions about it, and later let students meet the same language in reading.
None of this requires special software. It works with pictures, a teacher, and people talking.
Zoom changes the room
My students often watch on phones. Some have never used Zoom. Some arrive frightened and understand almost nothing I’m saying.
On a small screen, there is no room. There is only the picture.
I use a good microphone, good lighting, and images students can read on a phone. I want them to feel that someone is really there.
Researchers call behaviors that reduce the distance between teachers and students teacher immediacy. Calling students by name, inviting answers, making eye contact, and using humor in a way that fits the teacher are associated with motivation and participation. Read a review.
The conversation starts between me and a student. Then somebody remembers that Maria likes pistachio ice cream. Somebody laughs. Somebody disagrees.
It stops being me and them. It becomes them and each other.
When students apologize for being late, I tell them: “better late than never. You’ve got kids, jobs, real lives. Come whenever you can — I’ll be here.”
Adult-education research treats persistence as more than discipline. Adult students manage complicated lives, and program conditions can help or hinder them. Read the NCSALL report.
I don’t have a controlled study, and I wish someone did.
Try it tomorrow
- Take one clear picture and write three short sentences.
- Introduce one person.
- Ask a question a complete beginner can answer with yes or no.
- Return the answer as a sentence.
- Change one thing or offer a wrong alternative. Ask again.
- Ask one small personal question connected to it.
You don’t have to be funny. You don’t have to teach the way I teach. The obligation is the same, but what each teacher brings will be different.
Watch the classes
Tim Is ThirstyA complete beginner story
Marco Wants to ReadTeacher talk
Her Name Is RosaNice to meet you
Buying CoffeeOpen and closed
Emma Likes PizzaA simple story
What’s Your Phone Number?A lost-dog story
Rosa Is from GuatemalaWhere are you from?
Sofia’s FamilyFamily wordsOne late note about AI
None of this depends on artificial intelligence. I taught this way before the current tools existed.
The difficult part is producing enough pictures, slide decks, readings, games, and follow-up practice for three classes every day. I now use artificial intelligence to help with that production.
It makes materials. I make the teaching decisions. That’s the whole role I want it to have.