TeachingEnglish
A quiet class is not an active class
Submitted by Amir A. Ravayee on 13 December, 2008 - 07:00
Some teachers think a quiet class is a good class. Such a belief causes serious problems if we are teaching an EFL/ESL class.
We must apply some strategies to maximize the amount of student talking time. Organized pair works or group works give us the best chance to achieve this aim.
In a large class where there are more students, there will be more noise during a pair work or a group work activity, but this noise is not bad. It shows there is more constructive activity going on.
When you let your students speak more than you do in the class, you have used an effective language technique. You are a successful teacher if you manage to organize noise carefully,
- Amir A. Ravayee's blog
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Comments
I share your concern as I see teaching/learning English as a way of developing language communication skills within the students. That is why it will be rather strange if there is no noise or buzzing in the classroom. I always wonder how some teachers organise the work of students that there is always too quiet if not silent in their classrooms. I always wonder what learners are doing there (in a silent way). In any case I do not mean classes while testing.
What I practice widely is pair-, group- and/or team-work while doing pre-task and/or task activities (a lot of discussions, predictions, brainstorming etc.). The output of pair-, group-, team-work is always presented by the representative(s) of group, pair or team in oral or in writing. The students are always encouraged to ask questions and to give feedback to their peers.
There are many modes of work that help to organise 'noise' in appropriate and relevant to students way.
Dear Zira,
Thank you for your nice comment.
In my opinion, there can be another reason why some classes are quiet and that's over-emphasis on correction by the teacher. Over-correction has a de-motivating effect and forces students not to speak. When students don't feel like talking, very automatically the class will be changed into a quiet one.
Amir Abbass Ravayee