3674. Can Your Students Follow You in Class or They Are on the Moon?

 You may be a second or foreign language teacher, like me. I would like to tell you today about clear messages in class so your dear students may understand you. 

It’s well-known that you may speak to them in a bit above their level of the target language, for example English in my case. In that way they will understand much of the messages and will likely learn new vocab and new grammar – a drop above their English level, as I said. 

On these new school year first lessons I’m teaching I can observe whether my students can follow me or otherwise not, and I try and speak a little above their level – well, sometimes quite much. The intake language thus must be finely tuned in at more or less certain level. 

Also as I said I have to convey clear messages, for example clear instructions to carry out such and such activities in class. Otherwise the class becomes a pandemonium – a mess, in other words. 

Clear messages I said. As well a temptation I have to fight against is to talk to them in Spanish so they’d understand me better. Right now I make the firm resolution: to speak in English and explain things in that target language – and perhaps some little, very little Spanish so as to clarify some dark point. In English some ninety-something percent of the class. Even all in English maybe … 

The second point today is: Have my students participate a lot in class. It seems okay I would try and speak in English, but it’s THEM the ones who have to also speak in L2. And in principle my groups are not too large, and I’ve seen they can intervene a lot of times per class, a big lot of time, so lessons are kind of a conversation among us. 

Even I might encourage that student that asks me in Spanish to also say that – try it, come on! – in L2. 

I also have seen that fortunately and thank God the students who have been with me for several years – and they’re adults – well, they have some capability of partaking in English, and newcomers and new students notice that, well, their classmates can speak in L2 in a natural way! 

All of this is beautiful, you know: to have lessons in English from me and from them alike. So clear messages, for dark and obscure messages may show a dark mind or the sort. And when I turn into Spanish sometimes … I could say, Well, in English … - so that I correct myself and try to defeat the desire to say things in L1. Have a nice day.