TeachingEnglish
Teaching advanced students
Submitted by waneteacher on 26 September, 2010 - 14:45
Hi, I'm starting my second year teaching English at a private academy in South Korea. I finished my CELTA about a month ago.
I'm now teaching a lot of advanced students. They are all mostly Korean English teachers who want to improve their English. I'm looking for any good advice/info or support/tips and techniques for teaching advanced learners.
Thanks.
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I find advanced students mostly want to talk in class. They can always do other stuff on their own (like reading obv) and use class time to get as much speaking practice done as possible.
Find out what they want to learn, design a syllabus with them. Do it all through discussion. My reference to the dogme approach is there as I believe that for advanced students it's the way forward. You can discuss anything, even methodology they want you to use, and you can pick up on their weaknesses or anything interesting from those discussions.
Writing down some good points as well as mistakes is really good for them. Also getting them to make notes of things they notice makes that part of it more student centred.
Google dogme for lots of information on the techniques used to exploit conversations in class.
It is very productive to use CLIL with them. For instance, it is possible to give them (when they are majoring in EFL and literature) to read on the language of literature, composition, imagery, conflict and character, point-of-view, etc. and ask them to discuss the questions in class using specifically the vocabulary from the (theoretical) reading. Texts for study and discussion may be chosen from tapes for listening comprehension (Interviews in conversation with British authors, or Tapes for Readers (American authors). In this case , the students train their ear and tongue together. Then, to give them a task to analyse poems or prose passages according to a given (or negotiated) outline, again using the theory and the vocabulry they had learnt. This may be extended to students in sociology, psychology, arts and architecture, etc etc while selecting the relevant (theoretical) texts for study and discussion and with subsequent analysis. This practice trains their English language skills, analytical thinking and the knowledge of the field. It has been successful, in my practice, with university undergraduates in EFL both at the intermediate and advanced levels.
One other method is useful. It is based on reading and I have called reading inset with analysis. Not to make this comment too long, I leave it to you to decide if you wish to hear about it. Marija Liudvika
At this level, I have found that students need to really put their English to the test. In your mono-lingual classroom, it seems like your lesson is the only opportunity for your learners to expose themselves to the English language.
Bring in as many authentic materials as possible (text, audio) and don't be afraid if it is lengthy. At advanced level, learners should be working on extensive listening and reading. Think about using literature over a few lesson - this will lead to some discussions for example.
I teach teachers and I found they need to be stimulated more than most students and they thirst after new vocabulary. I have designed a set of 90 minute lesson set at around C2 levels which covers many different themes. The material includes lessons on “Sting”, “Cockney Slang” and “the Channel Tunnel”. Around 40% include listening tasks with native speakers. Most of these I have collected myself but a few have come from other public sources and a few from the British Council.
Theses students need to be pushed on their vocabulary and they will do pre reading but they are the worst students for doing post lesson homework. It is along term investment putting this material together but worth it in the end. I write a new lesson a week and use the material with the teachers and generally with other advanced students who are not interested in exams. Recently however I have started to use it once a week with my CPE and CAE students and they are benefiting from it.
I have round 70 topics completed and tested now. I feel whoever I need around 150 before I can sit back and rest a bit.
As you say you just finished your CELTA so you have a lot of stuff still in your mind that you can use with these students. I rdeally love teaching advanced students because you can expand so much and basically they do the work for you in the class. If you have a text book to follow, remember using the stages of a lesson accordingly. Also keep always in your mind to bring to the class what really will help them acquire the language you want to teach and ommit boring exercises. Also as one of the other people commented, Ss do want to practice speaking so take advantage of the contextualization for the class and warmers as well in order to have them speak as much as possible. Finally take advantage of the feedback stage to make necessary corrections on structures and pronunciation mistakes, use phonemic script to help them with pronunciation.
Thanks for your feedback and advice. Keep it coming.
It's not secret that in S. Korea the students hate to do homework, and almost never will despite the consequences. Well, my adult advanced students (who are all teachers themselves) are no different from the students. I think I'll state their problem as 10% lazy and 90% busy. I teach them for 8 hours a week (2 hours every weekday except for Wednesdays). Needless to say, I think this is overkill, and I'm going to try and convince them to take Fridays off, which will take the pressure off of everyone, especially me, a little bit.
As per some of the comments above, they really need practice and they hate homework. I've been teaching collocatiions was was suggested on this website as a good area to focus on with students. Also, I've been teaching from Conversations A - Z for advanced learners. I'm finding both approaches are working well and, I think, challenging the students enough, but by Friday they are board of the routine of 1 hour conversation and 1 hour collocation study. (BTW, I'm trying to follow CELTA methodology as much as possible.)
To shake things up I've already brought in some youtube clips pertinant to the day's lesson, and I plan to start teaching literature and movies.
My main issue is that I find myself spending a huge amount of time lesson planning for this class, and my other classes with my YLs are suffering. I'm still fresh from my CELTA at IH Bangkok where lesson planning to the T was drilled into me. LOL.
Ok, I'm done complaining for now.
Just a shout out though, IH Bangkok was an amazing learning experience. I'm really glad I spent the time and money to go there. It was the most professional learning experience I've had since finishing grad school.