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Teaching English as second language, is as much about the Teacher explaining and facilitating as it is allowing students the space and time to speak. This in turn greatly effects the learning ability of the student in literacy and engagement. Having studied the 120-hour course and not yet taught a class myself, I can understand the need for an inexperienced teacher to want to control the class tempo and learning speed by constantly talking, yet many of the modules relay the importance of giving each and every student in the class a chance to answer, ask questions, interact with other classmates and in general practice their English speaking. There are a number of ways this can be done, in the Engage part of the lesson, the teacher should briefly explain the topic of the class and then elicit words from the students around this topic which are then written on the board for the students to refer back to later in the class. This is a very informal way of instilling confidence to speak up, the teacher may invite students to tell of their own experience at home, work or school of the topic on the board. Example; what words or phrases would you use when ordering food at a restaurant? Most students (depending on the age of the class) would have some at worst, basic words to contribute. During the Study stage, there a number of interactive games and activities the students can take park in, either in allocated groups or as a classroom based interaction. An example of this may be the students have a questionnaire and need to walk around the room asking the other students questions and reporting their answers to present to the class in the Activate stage of the lesson. If using the example of ordering food in a restaurant, the teacher places students in pairs, one is the customer, the other the waiter and they practice greeting the customer versus ordering. The roles can then be switched. It is important which students are paired together, as you do not want one person to do all the talking, this is no different from the teacher doing so! During such activities and games, the teacher’s role is to merely act as a facilitator, observe and prompt students after an initial explanation or demonstration of the activity. Students can still ask questions to the teacher, but the role of the teacher is very much in the background. A teacher should ensure they ask questions that warrant a response from the student. Merely speaking at the student and not allowing the class to be interactive will not benefit anyone. Students will become disengaged and not learn and teachers will become frustrated with the outcome of the lesson. Changing up the teaching medium will keep the students engaged and interested in the lesson, you could play a recording, have the students read in turns to the class, play games. A great way for Teachers to ensure every student is equally getting a chance to speak is to ask direct questions to a student by using their name, you could use a talking stick, or a ball, whoever has the talking stick, or the ball, has to answer the question. It is important that your lesson plan allows for adequate talking time, you never want to rush a student, particularly a shy student to answer the question or talk over them. They will get to the answer and if not, generally others in the class may also speak up and help them out.
