Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Chapter 5: Standing in the Spotlight: Presenting to the Class 73

Whatever you have on the board should be legible and logical. Some good

practices for board work are:

✓ Writing in a straight line.

✓ Using different colours.

✓ Dividing the board into sections if you have slightly different fields to
consider.

✓ Stepping back to check spelling and punctuation.

If you’re a bit poor at spelling, have dictionaries in the classroom and encour-

age students to check words for you as you write.

You can use the board quite a few ways to make meaning clearer through dia-

grams in the Presentation stage. For example, use diagrams like the one in Figure

5-6 to show clearly the relationship between items of vocabulary, including sub-

ordinate groups or categories. You can have students add words to each group to

demonstrate that they understand. It’s a fairly simple diagram to copy down too.

Figure 5-6:

Showing

relation-

ships on the

board.

Fruit

pear

Fish

salmon

Vegetables

carrot

FOOD

GROUPS

Carbohydrates

pasta

Meat

chicken