Instructional Strategies

Sound instructional strategies provide a systematic framework that breaks language into comprehensible parts. They can include: providing clear and simple directions, ensuring students understand concepts and instructions, pre-teaching grammar and vocabulary, employing individual-pair-group work, and designing cohesive lessons.

From the moment I stepped in front of a classroom, I have employed, and progressed with, many different instructional strategies. Though I struggle with finishing my designed lessons - due to underestimating activity duration, I consistently employ diverse strategies to achieve effective teaching and learning.

I believe classroom management is important for effective teaching. This encompasses providing students with clear directions, modeling activities, and setting time limits. Before students begin activities, I ask information checking questions (ICQs) and model activities. ICQs ensure that students understand directions without asking the question “do you understand?” They give students who misunderstand directions the first time a second chance. I have learned this is imperative for both children and adults because they will say they understand when explicitly asked, but demonstrate otherwise. While teaching intermediate students at the Pacific Grove Adult School I experimented with different ways of asking ICQs. For example, I asked simple yes/no and open-ended questions, as well as having students recount directions back to me.

Modeling activities provides visual task representations. As a pre-activity for my lesson on California State and National Parks students received a park picture and (1) described it, (2) discussed what people were doing and (3) compared it to parks in their own country. Prior to handing out pictures I modeled the activity on PowerPoint using a picture of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. Modeling the activity before handing out park pictures retained students’ attention, but was also an effective way to ensure student understanding.

I provide students a time limit for each activity they engage in. During activities I make sure to notify the class of their remaining time. I mostly make oral announcements but occasionally I write the time on the white-board. Keeping a strict but semi-flexible time limit helps students stay on track and the teacher reach lesson goals. For example, in my staying healthy lesson, I gave students one minute to discuss the question “what does staying healthy mean to you?” As I circulated around the classroom, I noticed students had more to say than I had expected. Instead of cutting conversations short, I allowed students to continue discussing the question beyond one minute. I believe it is important to be flexible in timed situations such as these—giving students more time than planned can sometimes boost their learning.

Pre-teaching grammar and vocabulary can set students up for success. While teaching at the Pacific Grove Adult School, I learned to consistently pre-teach grammar and vocabulary in each lesson. In my lesson on conserving water I used a handout on “10 tips for conserving water” to teach the content. Prior to reading the tips students underlined the targeted vocabulary I wanted to teach, which I displayed on a PowerPoint. Students worked first alone then in pairs to discuss which vocabulary words best matched corresponding pictures posted on a PowerPoint. To check comprehension, volunteer students matched the words-to-pictures on the overhead projector for the class to see.

Individual work has its time and place, but I believe pair, group and class work help develop students’ communicative competencies. In other words, studying grammatical structures alone is not enough for acquiring language, so I engage and motivate my learners through out-of-seat activities that require them to negotiate for meaning. Prior to opening class up for discussion, I like to give students a chance to work alone or in pairs before working as a class - demonstrated in my conserving water lesson. This caters to different learning styles, but also gives students a chance to be autonomous learners.

I believe having cohesive lessons is effective teaching. Students should walk away from a lesson feeling inspired, curious and satisfied with the language and content they learned. I believe the lessons I design are engaging and cohesive, however, executing their entirety is sometimes a struggle for me. I tend to plan more than I can realistically teach in one lesson. This is an area I am consciously developing, as reflected on in both reflection one and two.