Ask the Experts

Get help and advice on pedagogical issues, classroom techniques and materials from the EF team of language teaching experts. Each month we’ll post one of your questions with our practical suggestions based on years of language teaching and teacher training experience.

Send your questions to teacher.zone@ef.com

This month's question:

Dear Teacher Zone Team,

I’m currently teaching non-English majors and they are not overly interested in learning the language. It’s a Listening and Speaking class of about 40 to 50 students and the level varies enormously: from virtual bilinguals to some who can hardly say their names. So far, I’ve managed to keep them interested but I’m running out of ideas and would really welcome some input.

Greg,
China

Advice from the Teacher Zone Team:

Dear Greg,

It’s always helpful to involve the students in the topic as much as possible. This can be done by getting them to talk about what they already know about the topic in pairs or in small groups. This can be set as a series of questions or even some pictures related to the topic. This gives the students a chance to warm up their English as well as get to know their classmates.

Working in pairs and small groups helps to develop rapport in your classes. Have them change partners or groups from time to time. This will give them confidence to speak more and give them exposure to different ideas. It also enables you to move around and monitor their language. If you pick up any common mistakes you could write these on the board and elicit corrections.

Monitoring and noting down common mistakes and then giving feedback helps to motivate learners. Even if they are not particularly interested in learning English, giving them constructive feedback encourages them to take more of an interest in their language production.

Using realia where possible is always good too. Try finding audio or written text related to your topic. Use this material to present vocabulary and phrases in context which the students can then practise.

Finally, finish with a freer stage to the lesson where the students can have discussion or debate based on the topic. Monitor and give feedback on everything they do during the lesson. The more confident ones will lead and encourage the weaker ones.

All the best,
The Teacher Zone Team