Anna's Teaching Tales #1

Video timeline

00:00 The Problem
02:30 Jo's Tip 1
03:30 Jo's Tip 2
04:20 Jo's Tip 3
04:56 Round up
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Video transcript

It was only her second month in the classroom. Anna had dreamed of being a teacher, but now, staring at her silent group of students, the excitement she once felt was fading fast. She’d planned what she thought was an engaging speaking activity: a conversation about local places to go. But all she got in return were blank stares and whispering side conversations in Spanish. Some students avoided eye contact entirely. Others busied themselves with their notebooks as though the mere idea of speaking stressed them out. Anna sighed. What was she doing wrong?

Have you ever set up a nice activity like this and got... crickets?

That’s exactly where Anna found herself. She was a brand new teacher- fresh off a CELTA course where I’d been her tutor- and she was convinced she was going to get her students chatting away in no time.

Fast forward ten minutes into her first speaking activity… and she’s met with blank stares and one-word answers. You can imagine how she felt. Completely wrong-footed and the lesson, predictably, didn’t go very well after that.

She messaged me later that day and said, ‘Jo, they just won’t talk! I thought they’d love this activity but there’s nothing going on. It’s like I’ve pressed pause on them!’

If you’ve had this problem and you’d like to know the three things that helped Anna turn things around, keep watching.

If this is the first time we’re meeting, I’m Jo Gakonga, I’ve been teaching for 35 years, and training teachers on CELTA and MA TESOL programmes for 25 of those. I’ve also got a website at ELT-Training.com where I make video based material for teachers at all stages of their careers. Check it out and don’t forget to like and subscribe if you want to see more. I make a new video every week.

So first up, Anna realised she was asking questions that had no real purpose. ‘Tell me about local places to go?’ might be a lovely question but it’s a bit random. Learners need more structure: a reason to speak.

So she changed the activity a bit and gave them a task instead. Something with an end point…

We’re going on a class outing. Which of these four places is the best?

Suddenly, they were deciding where to go, arguing about whether to visit the park or the beach, and guess what? They had a reason to talk.

Jo’s Tip: Make it real. Give them a problem to solve or a decision to make and an end goal to work towards.

The second thing. Anna had forgotten they weren’t mind readers. She expected them to just know what to say. So my next tip for her was to model what she wanted them to do.

This could be as quick and simple as going through a quick example with one of the stronger learners… ‘I’d prefer to go to the beach because…’ and off they went.

She also made sure she gave them the language they needed to do the task. In this case, a few sentence starters like ‘Why don’t we…?’ or ‘I think we should…’ can make a huge difference.

Jo’s Tip: Show them what to do. Give them the language. Then let them have a go!

Finally, Anna realised that asking someone to speak up in front of the whole class is terrifying. So she made sure that once they understood what to do, she paired them up to do the task. Less embarrassment, more communication – win win.

Jo’s Tip: Prioritise pair-work and small group work.


 Anna got back in touch a few days later with a much nicer problem. ‘Jo’, she said, ‘they won’t stop talking!’ How nice is that?

So if you want your learners to be the ones using the language, remember…

1. give them a reason
2. model the language
3. increase the pair work to give low-pressure opportunity to speak.

If you’d like more ideas like these check out my website and if you’d like to develop your teaching in a structured, low pressure, supportive environment, have a look at The Next Step programme: CPD that fits your life.

The link’s below. Hope to see you there!