How To Teach Speaking Jeremy Harmer Pdf
Christain Cobb
Popular ELT author and trainer, Jeremy Harmer was educated in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University of East Anglia with a BA Hons in English and American Studies followed by an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Reading and has trained as a Teacher Trainer at International House.
As a musician, Harmer reflects a lot on music practice. There is an aspect of language acquisition and learning where we are essentially training our bodies, like musicians or athletes, to reproduce an action quickly, seamlessly and effectively. As an artist, I rely on years of painting practise to effortlessly pick or mix colour, choose mediums, or produce certain strokes.
In good design, the principle of observation underlies and supports all other principles. Observation leads us to ask the right questions. And as teachers moving deeper into this Online Social Age, we need to be employing the ability to be very present as well.
Farming is a lonely job, but this solitude is a blessing as well as a curse. Solitude forms part of the ecosystem that sustains reflection. And it happens infrequently for many people today, as one of our Perth based teacher trainers Antony Atkinson wrote recently, in response to the words of Professor Tom O'Donoghue at the launch of his 25th book "Understanding Contemporary Education'. We need to provide the right environment for noticing to happen.
Jeremy Harmer: "My argument is that you can take any text, written or audio, at any level, and gradually train students to develop this capturing method. One way of doing it with a text is to say simply 'How many verbs can you find?' or 'What do you notice about this language?' And give them time to do that. You can ask them 'If you had to choose three phrases from the text, which would you choose and why?'. All these techniques are about training students to be their own language capturers."
Jeremy Harmer: "The relationships between teacher/mentor/guide/facilitator/ and student are unchanging. We will still be needed to guide, support, care for and encourage. But if we look at the classic role of the teacher as evaluator, technology is a threat. Testing in public exams is now being done by software, even free speaking and writing. The claim is that software does this better than we do."
Harmer uses this phrase as he contemplates our future as language teachers. Before we find ourselves well behind the 8 ball, we need to brush up our skills, observe and form the right questions to answer. And could these questions be: 'What should a classroom be like?' 'Should people be grouped in a room?' 'How long should a lesson be?' 'Should we be taking notes from CLIL and dragging the language through the content rather than the classic grammar slot fill?' 'Does our pre-service teacher training such as the CELTA reflect the future?'
I remember that a lot of emphasis was placed on reducing our TTT (Teacher Talking Time). We were told our TTT should be moderately used for classroom management procedures, such as introducing topic, giving instructions, setting up tasks and providing feedback. Here are a few reasons why:
For trainees who had a different view of teaching , this was a difficult transition, and for novice teachers, it became the foundation of their approach. Of course, it made sense that if teachers speak all the time in class, when are the students going to get their share of talking time?
While being a student myself and taking a Spanish course, I got a different perspective. I realized how much I enjoyed chatting with the teacher at the beginning and the end of the lesson. He often told jokes or an anecdote every now and then, well, maybe more often than that! He often made comments on the text or engaged in unplanned dialogues with students. Sometimes, it was clear to me that he was talking too much, but maybe not to my classmates, who needless to say were NOT teachers ! ?
Great stuff Rachel . Thanks for sharing . I sometimes do traditional dictation and dictogloss . The latter having less TTT than the former since they have to reconstruct the text in pairs, giving them opportunities for practice too . I think both work well as my students live in a non English speaking environment ( Thailand) . They need tons and tons of input as I am the sole source of English input for most of these learners
Well-thought and well-worded, Rachel. It is about finding the balance and including some, but little, high-quality teacher-talking-time. I really like your reflections and find them spot-on. Keep sharing!
TTT stands for Teacher Talking Time, 'of which teachers can't have too little. Teachers will speak more in class, when present knowledge, manage the classroom, correct students' mistakes, praise students or provide feedback, and set up or demonstrate the classroom activities.Table of ContentsExamples
Here are some inadequacies of too much TTT. Firstly, TTT is opposite to STT (Student Talking Time), and more TTT means less STT. Teachers are already proficient in using English. Jeremy Harmer[1] believes that: Getting students to speak- to use the language they are learning- is a vital part of a teacher's job. Students are the ones who need practice, in other words, not the teacher. Therefore, a good teacher maximizes STT and minimizes TTT.
Thirdly, during teacher talking time, students will easily lose their interest, for just listening instead of talking. It also reduces the amount of time available for students to speak and actively participate in the class. Furthermore, TTT is usually used to explain the target language. When teachers speak, you may hardly hear the students say anything. It is difficult for teachers to know whether the students understand it or not.
It has proven by many types of research that the most effective way for students to learn is to participate in the classroom. To ensure students being taught effectively and efficiently, teachers should minimize their speaking time, and create more opportunities for students to communicate in the classroom using the target language. How to decrease teacher speaking time? We can avoid unnecessary TTT as follows :* Choose a simple language for explanations and instructions. Grading language is very important to avoid unnecessary further explanations, so try to use language that is at or below the level being taught.* Use gestures, mimes, pictures or authentic materials such as books, maps, newspapers, audio and video recordings. You will see different learning types of students in a large class: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Auditory learners like to hear directions aloud, discuss what they are learning, and use word games, puzzles, riddles, and songs. Auditory learners learn through listening to spoken lessons and discussing information [2]. Meanwhile, visual learners prefer to learn through graphs, videos, pictures, and graphical representations instead of. Kinesthetic learners prefer to study and learn using physical practice.[3] They enjoy moving around, tracing, acting out concepts and stories. Based on different learning types, diversified teaching activities and materials can help students easily understand and learn far more than the linguistic codes.* Guide students to find the answer by themselves. Teachers should encourage students to answer questions without worrying about mistakes. If students can't answer the question, try to give some clues, rather than say and explain the answer immediately. It helps students understand the target language better. Meanwhile, instead of giving the only answer to some open questions, guiding methods can also help motivate divergent thinking and creativity.* Set up more group work and interactive activities. When learning in a group, discussing and debating become possible, which usually develop a perfect environment to develop critical thinking skills, and where many problems can even be solved unconsciously. While feedback is needed, try to let students provide feedback to each other.
c80f0f1006