Most teachers wonder how to start their lesson grabbing the attention of the students. Chris Sion in his book Creating conversation in Class has introduced some interesting ways to start a language class. Check whether these methods would work for you.
Most of the time, it is necessary to make up the mind of the students to attract them to the lesson. Therefore, giving them a boost at the beginning is really important. Teacher can always adapt these activities and develop methods by combining one or few methods. It is up to the teacher to use their creativity to select the method according to the level of the student. Let’s see how these beginnings work for you:
Having a Chit-Chat
Greet the students individually, ask them how they are feeling and coax a little small talk from them. This would develop the rapport between you and the students. It lets other students to be ready for the lesson too, starting off right away is often not the best way to start a lesson.
Recap
Though quite ordinary, you can always ask if the students can remember what you did in the last lesson. This can be done as a small quiz or the teacher can ask some questions from the previous lesson as well as you can check whether the students can remember a specific teaching point from a previous lesson. If it is a noisy class, definitely the students will be silent and be ready for the lesson.
Set a Riddle
Setting a riddle most of the time activates the schema of the students, they will be curious and be ready for the lesson. If it is about the lesson you are going to do, it would be great, so the student gets to know that you are going to teach something about this.
Big Bang
Doing something completely unexpected will give an energetic start to the lesson. That does not mean to be absurd in front of the classroom; the teacher can show a surprising thing like magic trick something teacher has not done before; once I can remember a teacher acting as the Piper in one film. Teacher can think of something interesting according to the level of the students and you can use your creativity of course.
Set the Heat
Say something provocative and controversial can always make students start speaking. For example: teacher can tell something provocative like boys have more sense of fashion than girls, a gossip about a famous star, a political movement in the country. Better start an issue which completely up against the emotions of students which will make them heated and start speaking. (but be careful, the classroom can be a bit noisy, teacher should know where to push the stop button.)
Bit of Fun
Teacher can tease somebody about something. You should be careful not to humiliate the student and it should not be harmful for the character. Better know the students before having some laugh.
Throw Up Some Questions
Teacher can make the student engage by setting them some spoken tasks at the beginning. Like: getting the students to report back on their homework, asking each student for an example of something positive and something not so positive from their life, telling some good news and some bad news from your life and ask the students to do the same, taking up some conversation points you recently discussed in class, questioning the students on what they think about some topical issue. Better if the teacher can relate the ice-breaker to the lesson to start a smooth flow to the lesson.
Let the Student Teach
Students like to help the teacher. It makes them feel big therefore teacher can be the student in the class sometimes. (Most of the time this is true because we learn a lot from students.) For example, teacher can ask the students to describe an aspect of their culture, get the students to explain something to you, request advice about something or get the students to each ask you a question or two.
Spiritual Boost
When the class is in a state of turmoil, at times like just after the interval, teacher can make them calm and focused by starting the lesson by making the class tranquil with a short silence, a meditation or a short prayer - for this better if you can use a music which are freely available on YouTube.
Praising
There is always a magic in appreciating. Everybody likes to be praised and recognized of their talents. Teacher can praise individual students or the whole class on their progress. It should not be an exaggeration but should be a genuine praise on their good deeds. This develops the rapport between the teacher and the student too and the students feel a sense of achievement which is the key to their language development.
Do nothing
Do nothing? of course, Sometimes doing nothing and just stand or sit silently in front of the class works perfectly. Students will be calm and they know that teacher expects them to be attentive and be ready to the lesson. Remember, eye contact is very important it allows to ooze the personality of the teacher into the classroom environment.
Hope you get these tips to enhance the teaching learning experience of you. Credit should go to Chris Sion for sharing his experiences with us.
What are your experiences in the beginning of the class or setting the scene? Please do share your experiences with us in the comment section which would be a great platform for newbie teachers to starts lesson in a strong way. Share the post if you find it useful to others.
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