Faculty of Arts: Teaching & Learning

Experience-Sharing Workshop

Presentation topic: What did I do when facing these situations?

Presenter: Allen Ho, English Language Teaching Unit

My teaching context

• Small class teaching

• (Usual) maximum class size: 20

• Teaching venues: (Usually) classrooms & language / computer labs

Situation 1

I find it very difficult to remember students’ names.

What did I do?

- Form (permanent) discussion groups

- Take a class picture

- Practice calling unfamiliar names

- Make use of CUSIS

Situation 2

I find it very annoying to have students joining my class at various

stages of the add-drop period.

What did I do?

- Prepare more spare copies of course outlines and handouts (for the first few lessons)

- NOT to blame the students (explicitly)

-NOT to verbally introduce the course again and again

Situation 3

I am teaching many sessions of the same course (e.g. Class A, Class B & Class C) and I always forget where I stopped in the

previous lesson.

What did I do?

- Keep a record of what you plan to do and what you have done in each class

Situation 4

There are only a few students in the classroom in the first 10 minutes of the

lesson.

What did I do?

- Start with something very serious (e.g. assessment)

- Start with something not that serious (e.g. revision)

- Start the class a bit later

Testing your memory

1) How many focuses are there in ELTU1108?

2) How many drafts are you going to write in ELTU1108 for the academic essay?

3) How many chances of peer review are you going to have in ELTU1108?

Appetizer – Reading & Sharing

Answer the questions related to the recent article entitled “To learn English, get over the fear of

using it”.

Situation 5

Some of my students always fall asleep, send sms or read materials from other

courses in front of me.

What did I do?

- Draw their attention

- Communicate with them (Listen to them)

- Make the class more interactive

Q7: Mr. Johnson is ___ FBI official.

15. a 16. an

Explanations

Some abbreviations are said as individual letters while some are said as words (acronyms).

Compare:

an F (/e/) BI (individual letters) official

a F (/f/) IFA (a word) official

Situation 6

It seems that some of the class activities are not as well-received as expected.

- Keep a little teaching log

- Be willing to make changes

Situation 7

I do not want to wait until the official student evaluation practice to collect feedback from

students.

- Hold informal student evaluation practices

Situation 8

I want to build up friendship with my students.

- Leave them my msn contact

- Leave them my Facebook contact

My mottos

Enthusiasm + Love + Technique =

Unity with students

&

Unlimited possibilities in my teaching career

Be generous to share, be humble to learn!