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Large classrooms pose many challenges for teachers in general. These challenges include classroom management, working with students with different abilities and lacking time or resources to complete the lesson. These challenges are compounded when teaching English as a foreign language. TEFL teachers need to understand the main challenges they face in such large classes and how solve each challenge. The first challenge to be addressed is engaging the students in a large classroom. Having a large classroom means having a lot of diverse students with different backgrounds and interests. It is difficult to find a common theme that would grab the attention and curiosity of all involved students. Furthermore, the topic is being discussed in a language that the student is yet to master. This may easily result in students becoming disinterested and avoiding participation in the class. To overcome this challenge, teachers can take a page out of game shows’ book. By copying shows like jeopardy and “who wants to be a millionaire”, which by now are known shows throughout the world, a TEFL teacher can get students involved without significant additional cost or effort. The teacher can follow the format and change the content to meet the class’ specific needs. Such efforts would be more effective with the use of technology. If clickers are available in the classroom, instructors can use them to engage students and show results on the screen and start a discussion. Similarly, videos could be used to capture student’s attention and engage them. The second challenge to be addressed is practicing the language in a large classroom. Students cannot properly acquire the language if they do not practice it. It is difficult to practice using the language in a large classroom. Teachers usually have a hard time controlling the class and managing the noise levels. If learners work in smaller groups, they might revert to using their native language without the instructor noticing, which defeats the purpose of the practice. Instructors should counter this by providing the learners with plenty of resources such as books, worksheets and equipment. This ensures that the students stick to the task at hand and not deviate from it. Furthermore, teachers should carefully select students in group activities. Choosing students with different abilities can produce wonders: advanced students would explain the concepts to beginners, thereby internalizing the language, while beginners get to be tutored by their colleagues. This last point could make the language more accessible to beginners as people who went through their current struggles help them overcome them. The last major challenge to be addressed is giving feedback to students. Language learners require feedback to learn from their mistakes. In large classes, it is difficult for teachers to provide customized content for each student, let alone customized feedback. Teachers simply do not have the time to provide either written or oral feedback at an individual level inside the classroom. To solve this problem, a TEFL teacher can break the class into small groups and visit each group and provide the required feedback while other groups are busy. Alternatively, a teacher can have a pair activity which follows a speed dating format: each pair spends a limited amount of time together before changing partners. If the teacher is a regular participant in the activity, she gets much needed one-on-one time with each student to interact with a student and provide feedback. This approach is very effective for speaking and listening. Reading comprehension and writing feedback can be achieved through individualized written feedback on submitted work by the students. Large classes generally hinder the education process. It is difficult to provide the necessary customized learning for the learner in such environments. However, these environments are still prominent in many schools, universities and corporate training. A teacher can overcome the challenges faced in such classes by learning how to engage students, helping them practice the language in class, and providing them with feedback.
