134 Part II: Putting Your Lesson Together
✓ Students who bully, shun or mock other students in the class. Employ
a zero tolerance attitude in this case. The thing is, these students may
not be aware of how strangers see them and are used to getting away
with anti-social behaviour. When you show that you just won’t accept it,
they’re forced to analyse what they’re doing. Even if they feel that their
behaviour is normal in their society, they need to know that in the soci-
ety they hope to access, the English-speaking countries by and large, it
won’t wash.
Racial prejudices, sexism and age discrimination may not be law-breaking
offences in every land but the way you handle these issues gives students
valuable knowledge about how to curb their tongues abroad.
Handling a lack of participation
If your classroom is worryingly quiet, you have a problem on your hands, but
fear not, you have ways to increase student participation.
Firstly, it’s easier to change yourself than anyone else, so look at your own
level of enthusiasm. Keep your energy levels high throughout your lesson (I
often have a soft drink on hand, which I can craftily sip to prevent getting dull
and dehydrated) and act as though you have full confidence in the success
of every activity you present. Cheerfulness is infectious so make sure that
you’re not a misery guts in class.
Another thing you can do is to ensure that you put your questions simply and
create tasks at the appropriate level. Your students are likely to clam up if
they don’t understand what they have to do.
A nice trick is to drop the level of an activity you present in class so that the
students can just concentrate on speaking without grappling with new words
and grammar. This may boost their confidence a bit for next time.
Have a look at the pairings and groups you use in class as well. Some com-
binations amongst the students may not work well. Perhaps two very shy
people together don’t participate because neither wants to go first. So, rear-
range the students frequently by asking them to sit in alphabetical order
sometimes, and in order of their birthdays at other times. Just sorting that
out requires communication from the students.
You can do speaking activities in concentric circles: in a class of ten students,
you have five standing in a circle in the middle, all facing outwards and then
five in a circle all around them facing inwards. The inner circle remain still, but
the outer circle rotate every few minutes so that they all speak to a different
person at regular intervals. It’s very helpful for students to do an activity more
than once because they improve each time but it doesn’t seem boring when
they have a different partner for each attempt.
