COOL TEACHING TIPS!

As aulas voltaram e com elas algumas sugestões! / Classes have begun and with them some suggestions!

(I'm a Brazilian teacher teaching English, so some of the tips might be part of my cultural background and work well in this environment only).

Warm up:

• ALWAYS GREET YOUR STUDENTS :)
• As soon as they sit down, say: "Calm down, look at me and listen up"
• Discuss the topic first with books closed or use the art work in the book
• Have students listen to the audio program
• Have dialogs with books closed, encouraging students to act them out

Homework checking:

• Have students go to the board.
• Have volunteers act out dialogs whenever they appear in the book. (some classrooms have very good velunteers, in this case you'd better call students' names, so that everybody will have a chance to participate.

Instructions:

• Use students mother tongue if necessary, especially when instructions are long and complicated.
• Make them clear. It may be easy for us, but not for them.
• Give commands in the target language (open your books, close your books, listen up, raise your hand,)
• Tell students the purpose of things you do! 
• Tap students memory with "Remember class ?"

Listening tasks:

• Teach listening techniques.
• Always tell students they are going to listen to something and tell them what they have to do. Make sure they all know what to do.
• Play as many times as possible, so that students can do the exercises (listening is one of the most difficult skills).
• Repeat and go step by step. Sometimes I play the audio 3 or four times (depending on the objective of the task).
• Whenever you have a listening task in which students have to listen to different conversations, go step by step, then check answers steb by step too.
• If there's audio available, have students repeat after the audio. Use the look up and say technique suggested by jack Richards in the New Interchange series.
• You don't have to ask your students if they want to listen again. JUST DO IT!

Oral Practice:

• Have everybody stand up and pretend they are the characters in the conversation. If it's a party, bring a song and play it as a background music. Have someone knock at the door; someone opens it and shows surprise: "Laura! You're here!" Someone can serve others and offer something to drink or eat.
• Use pair work as much as you can.
• If students are working in pairs, but are sitting far from each other, you can ask them to sit closer.
• Go group by group checking whether they have done the activity, so that when calling the pairs to act out the dialog chances are you will pick the pairs that really finished the task.
• Encourage students to be volunteers, instead of choosing them all the time. You can tell them on the first day of class that the one who volunteers the most in that month will get a reward.
• Have them try long and hard.

Vocabulary:

• Demonstrate it, do it! Mime!
• Save some room on the board for key words.
• Display all the objects or pictures and have them take a look at them for 1 minute; collect everything and then have them say what they remember.
• Use some simple math to help them the see the importance of learning the numbers!
• Always use visual material! This lessens students' anxiety.
• Use similarities, synonyms, antonyms, etc. (I own a car = I have a car).
• Answer all questions students have about vocabulary. If you don't know, make sure you have one or two dictionaries available in class. If you don't, remember to bring the answer the following class.

Homework:

• Assign some homework - make clear what you want them to do. Save some time to explain what you want, but do when all students are listening to you. Do not go on if there's still noise and chatting class.
• Try to end the tasks 5 minutes before the bell rings, so that you have some time to talk about the homework (I usually plan the homework and write it on the board before class starts, and have them copy it at the beginning of the class)

Teacher's movements:

• Use the board wisely.
• Walk around to check students' work, but avoid speaking, explaining something and walking at the same time. This might steal some students' attention.
• Pay attention to your handwriting.
• Whenever you paly a game or use a group activitiy, always walk around to check their work and how much progress they are having and also whether they need any help.
• Give assistance to your students. It's very important.

Praising students:

• Do not simply say 'good' or 'nice' for they mean nothing. Show what or why you liked something. Try something like: "Laura, I really liked your pronunciation"; "Good, you really understood the task!"; "Great sentences!"
• Always praise the good work!

Culture aspects:

• Call students attention to cultural aspects whenever you can.

Saying good-bye:

• Say "Have a nice day"; "Have a nice weekend"; "Thanks for coming"; "It was nice to be with you"; "You were great today"; "You did a great job today";