1. Behaviour of a teacher is a very important factor in the classroom, as it effects a students learning seeing how their teacher deals with different situations. If the teacher is confident in the lesson they are teaching and the execution of the lesson it can build a student’s confidence to help them try harder or just feel more relaxed in the classroom.
It is important a teacher can be flexible as lessons can often come across unplanned changes. For example maybe an activity the teacher thought would take fifteen minutes actually takes five minutes leaving an extra ten minutes of class time. The teacher should be prepared enough that they have an extra activity to run through with the class without disrupting the students learning time. I think if a student see’s a teacher can easily adapt to a new situation or easily overcome a problem in class it builds trust in the teacher and creates a good learning space.
For a class to run well it is good to have rapport with the students, it’s good to try learning their names, which students are quiet which are outspoken and the funny members of the class. I think this is useful for many reasons, such as when it is time for group work it makes it easier to split the students into different groups so all the loud people are not together and all the quiet ones are not together. Sometimes if you work with a group that many students speak the same first language it is best to keep them apart to help them not slip into using their own language whilst they should be practicing English.
I think mixing groups is a good way to draw students out of their comfort zones and help them to practice and communicate with someone they may usually not have confidence to speak too or someone they don’t know very well so when they use their language in real life situations such as abroad they will be more confident speaking to strangers or people with a different personality to them.
There is many different ways to set up a classroom for Oral English. I find for whole group discussions or when more participation and focus is needed on the teacher it is good to have a semi circle or horse shoe as everyone can see each other and can communicate freely to the teacher and those around them. For group work I think it is good to set groups of tables around the classroom so there is a space in the middle so the teacher can listen in without putting students off their work and the teacher has a good vantage point to hear pronunciation, which people need help and it easy to get to each group if they have problems.
2. I think it is important to make sure the lesson will maximise STT and minimise TTT as much as possible. It is no good for the teacher to spend all lesson talking since they are not the one who needs to practice English. I think it is important to make any instructions for tasks nice and simple so it does not take a long time to explain to students as this wastes valuable lesson time.
I think help to motivate and encourage the students is good to give them pair work and independent tasks. I feel the independent tasks can help to focus their learning and find out what they want for English. I believe pair work is a great way to practice conversational English as it can be used for any number of real life situations. It means the students are practising very functional English for any situations which may come up later in life.
I think it can be good to reward a students learning maybe if you are teaching kids you can give them lollypops, shiny stickers or maybe a certificate to tell them how much they are improving. I think by rewarding development and involvement in class participation it helps the student to carry on studying hard and practicing as they associate it with being rewarded with something so they are more willing to try hard to prove they can do it. Which in the long run makes them a better student and more confident to speak
