
I had a recurring dream when I was young about standing in front of a crowd of a people. I felt I had something important to say to them, but for some reason I simply couldn’t make them understand a word I said. Everything that came out of my mouth was gibberish. They stared at me, uncomprehendingly, as if I were a mental patient.
That’s essentially what teaching a Level One class is like.
A lot of schools have had so many problems with their inept foreign teachers trying to do Level One classes that they only let local teachers, or foreign teachers who speak the language, do them at all.
Very wise move, in my opinion.
Ah, but, many DON’T, so here are some suggestions should you find yourself doing one.
If you’re a new teacher, you might well think that doing Level Six or Level Seven classes is worse than doing Level One.
Absolutely not.
Why? Because if students don’t understand in Level Six or Seven, they can ask you to explain. They might be able to comprehend an alternate explanation. You might not understand the grammar yourself, in fact, but with a little attitude and experience you can bullshit your way through just about anything.
In Level One, the only thing students can do if they don’t understand is go bitch at your boss about what a shitty teacher you are.
And we don’t want that, do we?
Shit no.
My first bit of advice is to thoroughly read the Oxford “ENGLISH FILE” book for the elementary level, by Paul Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig. There are some thoroughly planned lessons with all the games and such already included, explained or prepared. If you aren’t teaching your class from this book, try hard to find one and look at it. You could probably get one for free from your local British Council. In fact it’s very useful just for beginning teachers in general, as it’s chock-a-block with useful English teaching crap and good advice about both pacing and about how to explain and present grammar concepts.
My personal best suggestion for a Level One class is: as far as possible, keep it quick and lively. Now how do you do that when you can’t explain the rules to most games, or make any kind of small talk, and when the students can’t talk in pairs to each other? A tall order indeed, but it’s possible.
Get a ball. I’ll probably write a whole article sometime on the glories of balls in the classroom, but until then just take my word for it. Get a ball. A soft rubber one, the kind dogs play with is good. To begin with you can use it for stuff like the alphabet and numbers. That is: throw the ball to someone, and they have to say the letter B. That person throws the ball to someone else, who says the letter C. And so on. A great way to start the class, students usually seem to dig it, and if they’re inept at catching they can just pass it down the row or around the circle. Later you can expand that to vocabulary (saying names of countries, verbs, adjectives, etc.)
KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. Like they say in the U.S. army. Any game you can’t explain by gestures or a few simple translations is probably not worth bothering with.
Now here’s a good little trick for presenting grammar. Now of course you probably don’t know the local language. Even if you do, it’s theoretically unsound! God forbid you should translate! Translate went out the window with rote repetition and beating students with rulers!
However, students crave it, and the first few weeks of lessons it is a soothing balm indeed for anxious students.
So it might be useful to find out what the translation is for most of the words in the first few chapters of your level one book. It’s especially useful to learn the translation for basic concepts like “is / are” or “he” versus “his”.
But in reality, you’re probably too lazy and/or drunk to do so. So what should you do?
Learn to translate only one phrase.
All you have to do is make sure your students can understand:
“What’s this in (L1)?” With L1 being your students’ language, French or Mongolian or Swahili or whatever.
So if you doubt whether your students understand a word, and you can’t explain it by mime or drawing a picture you just write the word on the board, point at it and say, “What’s this in Urdu?”
Now, even if you don’t know what the fuck the word means in Urdu, if the students respond confidently and unanimously you pretty much know they understand. If there is dissent, you can always check the dictionary.
It’s a neat trick, and it’s even a good way to learn some words in the new language.
Another extremely important thing is: revise constantly.
I of course lauded the English File One book as the best book for beginners, but it is a bit weak in that department, with only a few minutes of revision of what was done the lesson before in it’s prepared lesson plans.
To drill that shit into their heads in the beginning, you have to be constantly revising what you’ve done before. The alphabet, numbers, basic vocabulary and grammar all have to be pounded into their brains like steel spikes. Ten minutes or so at the beginning of the class, five minutes or so at the end will do it. Have the students dictate numbers and letters to each other in pairs, or use the ball for a class game. Have the students ask each other questions about the words and pictures in the book, or stuff in the classroom. “What’s this?” “It is a pen!” Don’t think just because the top of the lesson is “personal pronouns” you can’t review the numbers one through ten, or whatever.
The point is, don’t do something in class on Monday, revise it on Wednesday, and then not mention it again, and expect them to remember it for the test. Or for it to sink in by osmosis.
Because, let’s face it, a lot of schools test their students not to see how they’re doing, but to see how YOU’RE doing. Don’t be fooled. If all your students tank on their first test, the boss isn’t going to think “Wow, what a bunch of dumb asses.” The boss is going to think “English Teacher P is too fucking hungover to do his job right.”
And we don’t want that, do we?
Shit no.