Secondary English

TESSI-SE Tess-India Teacher Development UnitsContents

Unit 2:
English in the classroom

1
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
Learning outcomes .......................................................................................... 2
1 Using English in the classroom ..................................................................... 2
2 Speaking as a whole class ............................................................................ 5
3 Speaking in pairs and groups ..................................................................... 10
4 Summary .................................................................................................... 20
What next? ................................................................................................. 20
5 Resources ................................................................................................... 20
Resource 1: Classroom language .............................................................. 20
Resource 2: Managing pair and groupwork ................................................ 24
Resource 3: Develop your own English ...................................................... 25
Resource 4: Further reading ...................................................................... 26
6 Related units ............................................................................................... 26
References .................................................................................................... 26
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 27

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated, the content of this unit is
made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

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Introduction
Being able to understand and speak English well is a skill that will benefit
students in life outside and beyond school. It will help them to:

 access higher education, and will be necessary for studies or research

abroad
 possibly get a better job in India, or to work abroad
 access technology
 be confident when communicating with people from other countries and
carry out international business
 access English media, music and films.

By improving their English speaking and listening skills, students will also
learn to read and write English better, and improve their grammar and
vocabulary.

English is an associate official language in India, and it is likely that your

students will sometimes see and hear some English around them (see TDU 1,
English around us).

However, in some areas, they may listen to very little – or no – English in their
local environment, and will have few – or no – opportunities to speak English.
Many students attend local language medium schools, and in some cases the
home language is used in English classes too. This is a shame, as the
English class may be the only place where many children have the chance to
hear English. It makes sense for teachers to get them listening to and
speaking English as much as possible in their English classes.

Pause for thought

Now think about your English classes.

 How much English do students listen to in your English class?

 How much English do they speak in your English class?

In most English classes, students do not listen to or speak much English.

They may listen to the teacher, or perhaps other students reading texts aloud,
or reciting a poem, but maybe not much more. It is important for students to
practise listening to and speaking in English, as well as reading and writing it.

It is important for students to learn to read and write English, but it is also
important for students to understand spoken English, and to be able to speak
it.

In this unit, you will learn some techniques to help you create opportunities for
students to listen to and speak more English in your classroom. These
techniques are possible in all kinds of schools, including local language

1
medium schools. If you use these techniques in your classroom, your
students will be able to understand and speak English better, and this may
benefit them in both their school studies and future lives.

Learning outcomes
After studying this unit, you should be able to:

 use more English in your English classes

 get your students to speak more English as a whole group
 use pair and groupwork in the classroom.

1 Using English in the classroom

In most English classes, students listen to other languages – Hindi, for
example – much more than they listen to English. But it is a good idea for
students to listen to more English in the classroom, because:

 it may be the only place where they listen to English

 it will help everyone to develop confidence in listening to English, a skill
that will benefit their lives.

The easiest way for students to listen to more English in the classroom is if
the teacher speaks more English. This does not mean that the home
language is not used, as there are many occasions when it is useful to use
the home language in the English class.

In this part of the unit, you will explore how a teacher can increase the amount
of spoken English in the classroom. You will read a case study about a
teacher who wants to use more English in English classes, and then do an
activity that will help you to use more English in your classes.

Case Study 1: Mrs Jhadav uses more English in her English

class
I have been teaching English for a number of years. A few months ago, a
visitor from overseas came to my school and I had some problems
understanding the visitor when he spoke in English. I felt a little embarrassed,
and realised that I needed to improve my listening skills. I also started to think
about my students and realised that they don’t listen to much English in my
classes, and might have problems understanding spoken English in the
future. I tended to speak in Hindi, and the only English that my students heard
was when I read aloud from the textbook or the board.

I decided that I would speak more English in my English classes, but I wasn’t
sure how to do it and, to be honest, I was worried. I was worried about making
mistakes in English, and I was worried that my pronunciation wasn’t very

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good. I was also worried that my students wouldn’t understand me because
they were not used to listening to English.

I spoke to my sister-in-law, who is also an English teacher. She told me about

a colleague at her school who uses quite a lot of English in the classroom.

Description
Image of a teacher saying ‘Oh, let me tell you about Mr Kumar at school. He
uses English to do all sorts of things: give instructions, praise the students,
even sometimes to explain things from the book. He doesn’t worry too much
about making mistakes or his pronunciation – he thinks it is much more
important for students to listen to English so that they get used to it.’

I decided to try using more English in my English classes. I was a little

hesitant at first, so I practised some questions – the kind of questions I often
ask in Hindi, for example: ‘Can you read the next line?’ and ‘What does this
mean?’ Then I started to use them with my students. I was surprised at how
quickly they got used to it. At first I had to repeat the questions a number of
times, but now they understand. Now I use even more English in the
classroom, and I am getting more confident about it. I still worry a little about
making mistakes and about my pronunciation, but my students don’t seem to
notice. Then sometimes I have problems with vocabulary, and I can’t think of
a word I want to use in English. When that happens, I just use Hindi, and
make a note. After class, I look the word up in the dictionary. So it’s helping
me to improve my English too! I felt very proud last week when one of my
students asked me in English: ‘What does this word mean?’

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Description
Image of a teacher with four speech bubbles. 1. ‘Can you read the next line,
please?’ 2. ‘What does “hamper” mean? Can anybody tell me?’ 3. ‘That’s
correct! Well done!’ 4. ‘A “hamper” is a kind of basket. You put food in it and
take it on a picnic.’

Activity 1: Try in the classroom: classroom language

In the case study, the teacher tried to use English as much as possible in her
English class. You can also use more English in your teaching.

Here are some classroom situations where you could use English. Do you
already use English for any of these situations? Read the list and write down
your answer for each question:

 Do you greet your students and say goodbye in English?

 Do you give instructions in English?
 Do you ask questions in English?
 Do you use any English when explaining grammar rules (for example, to
compare structures)?
 Do you explain new words in English?
 Do you explain a passage or a poem from the textbook in English?
 Do you give feedback (for example, telling your students whether they are
right or wrong) in English?
 Do you use English to correct your students?
 Do you use English to praise your students?
 Do you use English to manage classroom administration (for example,
taking the attendance)?
 Do you talk to your students socially in English?

Compare your answers to those of a colleague. Choose one of the situations

where you don’t use English, and try to use it in your classroom the next time
you are teaching. If you don’t feel confident, write down some phrases and
practise them, or read and practise the phrases from Resource 1. Once you
feel confident, try using English for another of the classroom situations.

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Here are some tips:

 Don’t worry too much about making mistakes – your students probably
won’t notice.
 Don’t worry too much about your pronunciation – it is more important for
students to listen to English. You can practise pronunciation of certain
words and sounds if you are concerned.
 If you are not very confident, write down some phrases and practise them.
You will find some useful phrases in Resource 1. You will find more useful
phrases in many of the TESS-India units.
 If your students don’t understand something at first, don’t translate it
immediately. Repeat the phrase and give your students some time to work
out what you are saying.
 Encourage your students to use phrases in English too. You could teach
them orally or write the phrases in English on posters around the room.
Alternatively, you could introduce an ‘English wall’, where you and your
students write new phrases as they are introduced.
 Remember that your classes don’t need to be entirely in English. Of
course, you can use other languages too – just set yourself the target of
using more English each month.
 Don’t give up! Keep using English in your classroom.

2 Speaking as a whole class

You have learned that it is important for teachers to speak in English as much
as they can so that students have more opportunities to listen to English. As
well as listening to English, students need opportunities to practise speaking
in English:

 Speaking English could be a very useful skill for their future lives, and they
need to practise speaking English in order to develop this skill.
 Speaking activities can help students to develop other areas of English,
such as reading and writing.
 Speaking activities can be enjoyable parts of a lesson, making students
feel that they are learning something, and can help make them feel
positive about English as a school subject.

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Description
Photo of children in class.

In many English classes, students don’t speak much English. They may read
passages or poems from the textbook aloud, or they may recite poems or
something that they have written. These are all useful activities and help them
with pronunciation and to develop confidence in speaking English. However,
they need much more speaking practice in order to become confident English
speakers.

In the rest of this unit, you will learn two simple ways teachers can get their
students to speak more English in the classroom. You will see how a teacher
gets his whole class to speak English by using choral repetition (students
repeating as a whole class or in large groups). After the case study, there is
an activity that you can try in the classroom with your students.

Case Study 2: Mr Balasubramanium does choral repetition

in his English class
I enjoy teaching English, and I’m always trying to improve my teaching
methods. I just read an article about the need for young people to be able to
speak English in today’s world. I thought about my own classroom, and
realised that my students don’t usually speak much English in my English
classes. I thought about the last lesson that I did with my Class VII students:

6
Description
Image of a teacher saying ‘A few of my students gave some answers, and
one or two read some lines from the poem … but most of my students used
no English at all. What can I do?’

I wanted to change this – I wanted my students to speak more English in

class.

In the article that I read, I saw something about ‘choral repetition’, which
means the whole class or groups of students repeating something in English. I
thought that I might try this and decided that it would work well with the poem
that I was about to teach from Chapter 1 of the NCERT Class VI textbook
Honeysuckle:

‘A House, A Home’ by Lorraine M. Halli

What is a house?
It’s brick and stone
And wood that’s hard.
Some window glass
And perhaps a yard.
It’s eaves and chimneys
And tile floors
And stucco and roof
And lots of doors.

What is a home?
It’s loving and family
And doing for others.
It’s brothers and sisters
And fathers and mothers.
It’s unselfish acts
And kindly sharing
And showing your loved ones
You’re always caring.

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Before the class, I practised saying the poem out loud so that I felt confident
reading it, and so that I could read it with rhythm. In the class, I read one or
two lines of the poem aloud, with rhythm, and asked students to repeat them
after me. Then I divided my class into two halves. I told one half of the class to
read the first verse aloud: ‘What is a house?’ I told the other half of the class
to read the second verse aloud: ‘What is a home?’ At first the students didn’t
say the lines together, so I stopped them and asked them to do it again. This
time I used my hands to signal when students should start a new line … I felt
like I was conducting an orchestra! I also walked around the classroom, and
looked around to make sure that all of the students were joining in. I
encouraged any students that were not participating.

Description
Image of a conductor.

The students enjoyed saying the poem with rhythm – and they became quite
competitive. Each group wanted to say their poem better than the other one! I
believe that this will help them to remember it better.

When my students finished saying the poem, I taught the poem as I usually
do. I know that this is a simple activity to do, but it gave every student the
opportunity to speak some English in that class.

Activity 2: Try in the classroom: choral repetition

In the case study, the teacher used choral repetition with a poem from a Class
VII textbook. Some of the benefits of choral repetition are that it:

 gives all students a chance to speak English

 helps students become more confident with speaking English, especially
shyer students who can speak along with other students
 helps students to improve pronunciation (sounds and rhythm).

It is a very simple activity to do in the classroom and works well with short
passages such as dialogues and poetry, and texts with rhythm. You can do

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the activity with any class, and you can use many different texts or parts of
texts. Follow the steps below and try using choral repetition in your classroom.

1. Look through the next part of the textbook that you are going to teach.
2. Choose a short text, or part of a text, that you can use for choral repetition
(for example, a poem or dialogue).
3. Practise saying the text before the class. Say it with as much rhythm as
possible, and until you feel confident.
4. In class, read the text (or some of the text) aloud to your students. Read
line by line (or two lines at a time) and ask your students to repeat.
5. When you have read the text, divide the class into large groups.
6. Give each group a different part of the text to read (or point to different
groups as you read).
7. If students don’t speak together, stop the activity and start again. You can
use signals to keep everybody in time.
8. Walk around the room and make sure that everyone is participating.

Here are some tips for using choral repetition in the classroom:

 Use short texts (poems and dialogues are ideal).

 Read complete lines, or sections, of the text for students to repeat. Make
sure it is more than single words so that the class can practise speaking
with rhythm.
 Don’t ask students to repeat the same thing too many times or they will get
bored. Two or three times is probably enough.
 Use signals to keep students speaking together.
 Divide the class into groups – groups can say different parts of a dialogue,
or different lines of a poem.
 Ask students to repeat in different ways: slowly, quickly, loudly, quietly, in
a sad way … and so on. This is particularly effective with younger
students.
 Vary who you ask to repeat. Try switching between the whole class,
smaller groups and even individuals. Try to include all of your students.
 Don’t interrupt students when they are repeating, even if they make a
mistake. Let them finish the line or section. You can deal with
pronunciation mistakes later.
 Practise saying the text before the class. If you would like to improve your
own pronunciation, see Resource 3 for some useful tips and links.
 Include choral repetition along with other kinds of speaking activities (see
TDUs 3, Getting your students to speak English, and 9, Speaking to
communicate).
 Remember that this activity can be just a short part of your usual class,
such as when you are teaching a new text. It does not need to take up a
whole class.
 This can be a fun activity, but could become dull if applied to every text.

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Pause for thought
Having tried the previous activity with your students, think about the following
questions:

 Did you feel confident reading the poem or passage aloud in class? If not,
what can you do to become more confident at reading aloud?
 Did all of your students join in? If not, how can you encourage them all to
join in next time?
 How can you vary this activity to keep it interesting for your class?

3 Speaking in pairs and groups

So far in this unit, you have learned about the importance of increasing the
number of opportunities for your students to listen to and speak English in the
classroom. When teachers have large classes, it can be difficult to give all the
students the chance to speak. In Case Study 2, you read about one way that
teachers can do this – by getting students to repeat together as a whole class
or in large groups (also known as choral repetition).

Another way that teachers can give all the students of a large class the
chance to speak is by organising them into pairs or small groups. For
example, once students have repeated the lines of a dialogue or a poem back
to the teacher as a whole class, the teacher could put the students into pairs,
who could read the lines of the dialogue or poem to each other. Note that pair
and groupwork does not mean asking pairs and groups to work in turns. It
means pairs and groups working simultaneously, so that in a class of 40
students, there are 20 pairs reading the lines of a dialogue or a poem at the
same time:

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Description
A photo of two students. One asks ‘What is a house?’ and the other replies
‘It’s brick and stone, and wood that’s hard.’

In this part of the unit, you will explore how teachers can use pair and
groupwork to encourage students to speak and listen to more English in class.
You will:

 do an activity related to some of the questions teachers have about pair

and groupwork
 read a case study about a teacher who has started to use pair and
groupwork to create opportunities for her students to speak more English
in the classroom
 watch a video which shows a teacher using pair work
 conclude with an activity that you can try in your classroom.

Activity 3: Pair and groupwork

Description
Photo of a classroom.

Some teachers worry about using pair and groupwork in the classroom.
Figure 1 shows some questions that one teacher had about using pair and
groupwork. Read the questions and think about some answers that you could
give. If it is possible, do this activity with a colleague.

Now write down your own ideas.

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Figure 1 Questions that one teacher had about using pair and groupwork.

Description
Image of five speech bubbles. 1. ‘It’s not possible to move the tables and
benches in my classroom. How will I organise my students into pairs and
groups?’ 2. ‘How will my students know what to do?’ 3. ‘What if my students
make mistakes?’ 4. ‘What if my students make a lot of noise? Won’t other
teachers complain?’ 5. ‘My students are all working at different levels. How
can they do pair or group work?’

Now look at another teacher’s answers (Figure 2). Has this teacher made the
same suggestions as you?

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Figure 2 Another teacher’s answers.

Description
Image of five speech bubbles. 1. ‘Why not ask your students to work with the
students next to them? Or one row of students could turn around on their
benches to work with the students behind them. You could even move your
students each month so that they work with different members of the class
each month. Is there space outside the classroom? Students could move to
an empty room, or sit outside in a shady area.’ 2. ‘You will need to make sure
that students understand what they need to do before they start working in
pairs or groups. Give simple and clear instructions, and check that students
have understood them (for example, you could ask a student to say what they
have to do in their home language). You should also walk around the room to

13
check that students understand, and are doing what you asked.’ 3. ‘Well,
students might make mistakes as they work in pairs or groups, but we can’t
worry too much. Remember the trainer said that students need to practise
speaking in English, and that they learn from their mistakes.’ 4. ‘Let’s talk to
the headteacher and other teachers. We can show them the information we
got at the session. Perhaps we should only do pair or groupwork for short
periods of time, and we could consider doing it at the end of a lesson for
example.’ 5. ‘You’re right. Large classes have children of different abilities,
and sometimes children don’t want to work with a classmate of a different
ability. Make sure that you vary who works together in pairs and groups as
much as you can. Also, make sure that everyone has something to do in
groupwork. Perhaps one child can come up with good ideas, while another
child is better at writing them in English. Yet another might be good at
illustrating the piece of work. Tell your class about the benefits of pair and
groupwork – and how they can help each other.’

Case Study 3: Ms Dutta does pair dictation in her English

class
I recently attended a training session about teaching English to secondary
school students. The session was about the importance of giving students the
opportunity to speak in English, and I learned about using pair and groupwork.

I teach Class IX, and we are working through Chapter 6 of the NCERT
textbook Beehive. We have reached page 78, which has the following
dictation:

To Sir, with Love

1. From Rameswaram to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, it’s been a long

journey. Talking to Nona Walia on the eve of Teacher’s Day, President
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam talks about life’s toughest lessons learnt and his
mission – being a teacher to the Indian youth. ‘A proper education
would help nurture a sense of dignity and self-respect among our
youth,’ says President Kalam. There’s still a child in him though, and
he’s still curious about learning new things. Life’s a mission for
President Kalam.
2. Nonetheless, he remembers his first lesson in life and how it changed
his destiny. ‘I was studying in Standard V, and must have been all of
10. My teacher, Sri Sivasubramania Iyer, was telling us how birds fly.
He drew a diagram of a bird on the blackboard, depicting the wings, tail
and the body with the head and then explained how birds soar to the
sky. At the end of the class, I said I didn’t understand. Then he asked
the other students if they had understood, but nobody had understood
how birds fly,’ he recalls.
3. ‘That evening, the entire class was taken to Rameswarm shore,’ the
President continues. ‘My teacher showed us seabirds. We saw
marvellous formations of them flying and how their wings flapped. Then
my teacher asked us, “Where is the birds’ engine and how is it

14
 powered?” I knew then that birds are powered by their own life and
motivation. I understood all about birds’ dynamics. This was real
teaching – a theoretical lesson coupled with a live practical example.
Sri Siva Subramania Iyer was a great teacher.’

That day, my future was decided. My destiny was changed. I knew my future
had to be about flight and flight systems.

I decided that instead of reading the dictation to my students, they could do

the dictation in pairs – this way, all of them would get the chance to speak
some English.

I told my class that they were going to work in pairs, and told them to make
pairs with the person next to them. There were some students left over at the
end of some benches, who made groups of three instead of pairs. Then I
gave the students instructions for the activity and wrote them on the board
[Figure 3].

Figure 3 Instructions for the activity.

Description

A board reading as follows:

Student A: Close your text book. Write down what your partner reads. Do not
look at the text book!

Student B: Read out the first three lines of the text ‘To Sir, with love’ (on p.78).
Read slowly, and repeat each line twice.

15
When you have finished, exchange roles!

I checked that everyone understood the instructions, then asked the pairs (or
groups of three) to decide who was Student A and who was Student B.
(Groups of three had two students with the same letter.) I gave them a minute
to decide before asking the Student As to raise their hands, and then Student
Bs to raise their hands to check that everyone was clear about who was
Student A and who was Student B.

Next, I told my students that they had ten minutes for the pair dictation. As
they did the activity, I walked around the classroom, listening and checking
that everyone understood what they needed to do. Some of them made
mistakes with pronunciation, but they were enjoying the activity and working
well. I made a note of the most common pronunciation mistakes and decided
that I could correct these mistakes with the whole class after the activity. I
kept an eye on the time, and told students to finish after ten minutes. Some of
them had not quite finished reading, but I knew that everyone had had a
chance to dictate some sentences. I knew that the students now needed to
check what they had written. It was not possible for me to check all of their
work, so I asked them to check and correct it themselves by comparing it to
the passage in the textbook.

Description
Photo of students in class.

The activity went well on the whole, and I am going to use more pair work in
my classes. I think that the more I use it, the more students will get used to it,
and they will be able to get into pairs and groups quickly. This is also an easy
activity to use with any text and any level.

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Activity 4: Video: Pair and groupwork

Description
Photo of students in class.

Now watch the video below about a teacher using pair work in the English
classroom. If you are unable to watch the video, it shows a teacher using
English to give instructions and to organise an activity. The activity involves
students dictating short passages to each other in pairs. You may also find it
useful to read the video’s transcript. Please note that the video will be
available in early 2014.

As you watch, think about the following questions:

 How much English does the teacher use in the classroom?

 How much English do students speak?
 How does the teacher make sure that everyone understands what they
need to do?
 What does the teacher do when the students are doing the dictation?
 How do students correct their mistakes at the end of the activity?

17
Discussion

Description
Photo of a student writing an answer.

The teacher gives as many instructions as possible in English, and all

students have a chance to speak in English. The teacher gives very clear
instructions before students do the activity. She constantly checks the
instructions, for example, by asking all students who are ‘A’ to raise their
hands; checking that students are looking at the right paragraph and so on.
She also checks that students understand what they need to do by walking
around the classroom during the activity. At the end of the activity, students
compare their work with the textbook and they correct it.

In this part of the unit, you have learned about some of the benefits and
challenges of using pair and groupwork in the classroom, and you have
watched a teacher using it in an English class. One other benefit of using pair
and groupwork is that it can help teachers manage classes with students of
mixed abilities. Teachers can put students of different abilities together so that
higher ability students teach and support lower level students. You can read
an example of this (it is number 18 on the page) by STiR Education in its pilot
programme in Delhi.

Activity 5: Try in the classroom: pair dictation

You could try pair dictation like the teacher in the case study and the video.
Follow these steps:

1. Before the class, find a short text that your students could use for dictation.
The text can be from any textbook.
2. Tell them that they are going to work in pairs and make sure they get into
pairs quickly. Check that everyone is in a pair or in a group of three if there
is an odd number of students in the class.
3. Give students instructions for the pair dictation, and use English if you can.
You could write the instructions on the board. Check that they understand
the instructions (for example, by asking students to repeat them in their
home language).

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4. Give a time limit for the activity.
5. Walk around the room as students work: check they understand, help
where necessary, or make notes of common pronunciation errors, for
example.
6. After the time limit, tell students to stop working.
7. Tell students to check their work with the textbook.

Here are some tips for using pair and groupwork:

 Make sure that students understand what they need to do before they
work in pairs or groups. If you think it will aid their understanding, you can
demonstrate the activity with the whole class first, or get some of them to
practise the activity in front of the whole class.
 Give clear, simple instructions and make sure that students understand
them. You can write the instructions on the board like the teacher in Case
Study 2, or you can ask them to translate the instructions.
 If you have an odd number of students, the extra student can make a
group of three.
 If you have room, you can mix the groups or pairs. If you don’t have a lot
of room, why not change your students around every month so that they
work with different people from time to time? It can be good for people of
different abilities to work together. If you have plenty of outside space,
students could work in pairs and groups outside.
 When students are working in pairs or groups, make sure that you walk
around the room to check that they are doing the activity, like the teacher
does in the case study.
 If you have a large class, you will not be able to listen to every pair. Just
listen to as many as you can, and listen to different students each time you
do pair or groupwork. Don’t worry too much about mistakes – you can
make notes if you like.
 If you like, you can use a simple routine to get students to work in pairs or
groups, so that they quickly understand what they need to do. You can find
some useful phrases for pair and groupwork in Resource 2.
 Students may not understand what they need to do at first, so you should
tell them about the advantages of pair and groupwork.
 Talk with your headteacher and other teachers about what you are doing
and why you are doing it. If noise is a problem, agree time limits, or go
outside to do the activity if you can.
 You will see examples of students working in pairs and groups in many of
the TESS-India videos. Watch how the teachers organise and manage
pair and groupwork, and try it out as much as you can in your classes.

Pause for thought

After trying this activity with your students, think about the following questions:

 How did you give instructions for this activity? How did you check that your
students understood?

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 How did your students work in pairs? Were there any problems? If so,
what could you do to help to solve them?

4 Summary
In this unit you have learned about the importance of using more English in
the classroom. You have learned about how a teacher can use more English
in English classes, so that students get the chance to hear more English. You
have also learned about two different ways that teachers can get their
students speaking more English: choral repetition and pair/groupwork.

Write down three key things that you have learned in this unit.

You have had the opportunity to try some techniques out in the classroom.

Which techniques worked well with your students?

Which activities did not work so well? What changes could you make so that
they work better?

Which activities will you continue to use?

What next?
Find examples of classroom language in Resource 1 and Resource 2. Learn
how to develop your own pronunciation skills in Resource 3 and find links to
further reading in Resource 4.

5 Resources
Resource 1: Classroom language
Here are some useful phrases for the classroom. You can add other phrases
to this list.

There are more useful classroom phrases available

http://www.pearsonlongman.com/young_learners/pdfs/classroomlanguage.pdf

Greeting students and saying goodbye

Good morning, students.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Are you ready to start?

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Can anyone remember what we did in the last class?

Put your books away.

We still have five minutes left.

That’s all for today.

We’ll read the next part of the passage next lesson.

Goodbye! See you tomorrow.

Giving instructions
Open your books at page 38.

Look at the picture at the top of the page.

Read the first paragraph of the text.

Read the questions.

Read the first verse aloud.

Repeat after me.

Do it again please.

Discuss the questions with your partner.

You have ten minutes.

Okay – start!

Two more minutes.

Okay! Time’s up!

Listen. Now write down what I say.

Asking questions
Can you read the next line, please?

Are there any words that you don’t understand? Which ones?

What does ‘hamper’ mean? Can anybody tell me?

How do you pronounce this word?

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How do you spell this word?

Is this correct?

Can you clean the board please?

Can you open the window?

Explaining grammar rules and new words

A ‘hamper’ is a kind of basket. You put food in it and take it on a picnic.

Can you say it in Hindi?

Tell me in Hindi.

Can anyone say that in English?

I’ll draw it … what is it?

Can you mime this word?

What do we do with a …?

What is the opposite of …?

Can you point to it?

What do we do with a …?

Can you show me?

Who can show me?

Can you give some examples?

Talking about a passage or a poem in the textbook

What’s the title of the passage?

What does that mean?

What do you think happens in this poem?

Can you guess?

What is this passage about?

What happens next?

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Who’s the writer of this poem?

Do you know anything about the writer?

What do you know about this topic?

Giving feedback
Nearly right – try again.

Not exactly.

Not quite. Can you try again?

Does anybody else know?

What do you think?

That’s correct. Well done!

Correcting your students

Look at these phrases on the board.

There are some mistakes.

What are the mistakes?

What’s wrong with this sentence?

What’s wrong with this word?

Does anyone know the correct word?

Can anyone write the correct sentence?

Praising your students

Very good!

Very nice!

Excellent!

Well done!

That’s correct.

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You were very quick!

That was very good, say it again.

You are very good at guessing.

Taking attendance
Let’s take attendance.

Who is absent today?

Listen while I call your names.

Talking to your students socially

How are you today?

Where is Masuma?

Is she ill?

Have you been ill?

Are you okay now?

Did you have a nice weekend?

What did you do?

Is it your birthday?

Did you watch the cricket match at the weekend?

Resource 2: Managing pair and groupwork

Here are some useful phrases for managing pair and groupwork:

We’re going to divide the whole class into pairs.

You are a pair.

You are A, and you are B.

All the As, please raise your hands.

You are a group of five.

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Okay, now we’re going to play the game in groups.

Make three groups please.

Three people in each group!

Can you make a group of four?

Is everybody in a group?

Rina, can you work with Ayesah please.

Now the person next to you is your partner.

Anwar, Karim and Arif, you can make a group of three.

Work with your partner and ask and answer these questions.

Turn your chairs around and work with …

Turn to the person next to you.

Turn to the person behind you.

Now check your answers with your partner.

Now discuss in your groups.

Resource 3: Develop your own English

Here are some tips for improving your own pronunciation:

 Listen to English as much as you can, and notice how words are
pronounced.
 Practise saying words or sounds that you find difficult.
 Don’t practise individual sounds only. You need to practise speaking
longer passages too for stress and rhythm.
 If it is possible, record yourself and listen to the recording. Record yourself
again, correcting any mistakes that you have noticed.
 Don’t worry about speaking English with a perfect accent. There are many
different accents and types of English. What is important is that people can
understand you when you speak.

Click on these links to find some useful resources:

 ‘Pronunciation tips’ (BBC Learning English, undated)

 ‘Phonemic chart’ (TeachingEnglish, 2010)

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Resource 4: Further reading
Here are some links to articles and tips for teachers of English:

 ‘Speaking matters: pairwork’ (Tennant, undated)

 ‘Pairwork and groupwork’ (Hill, undated)

6 Related units
 TDU 3, Getting your students to speak English: Choral repetition and
pair dictation help students to develop confidence in speaking. Learn more
about how to help your students to feel more confident in this unit.
 TDU 8, Helping your students to listen to English: Learn more about
how you can help your students to listen to English in this unit.
 TDU 9, Speaking to communicate.

References
BBC Learning English (undated) ‘Pronunciation tips’ (online). Available from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/ (accessed
27 November 2013).

Hill, D.A. (undated) ‘Pairwork and groupwork’ (online), New Ideas in

Language Education. Available from: https://www.nile-
elt.com/sites/default/files/files/1161_S4.pdf (accessed 27 November 2013).

National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006a) Beehive:

Textbook in English for Class XI, National Council of Educational Research
and Training. Available from:
http://www.ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm (accessed 31 July
2013).

National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006b) Honeysuckle:

Textbook in English for Class VI, National Council of Educational Research
and Training. Available from:
http://www.ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/textbook/textbook.htm (accessed 31 July
2013).

Pearson (undated) ‘Classroom language’ (online). Available from:

http://www.pearsonlongman.com/young_learners/pdfs/classroomlanguage.pdf
(accessed 28 November 2013).

STiR Education (undated) ‘2012 STiR micro-innovations’ (online). Available

from: http://www.stireducation.org/ambition/2012-micro-innovations/
(accessed 28 November 2013).

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TeachingEnglish (2010) ‘Phonemic chart’ (online), 15 December. Available
from: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/phonemic-chart (accessed 27
November 2013).

Tennant, A. (undated) ‘Speaking matters: pairwork’ (online), Onestopenglish.

Available from: http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/speaking/speaking-
matters/speaking-matters-pairwork/153708.article (accessed 27 November
2013).

Acknowledgements
The content of this teacher development unit was developed collaboratively
and incrementally by the following educators and academics from India and
The Open University (UK) who discussed various drafts, including the
feedback from Indian and UK critical readers: Kim Ashmore.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated, the content of this unit is
made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary, used under licence and not
subject to any Creative Commons licensing.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following:

Case Studies 1 and 2: clip art used with permission from Microsoft.

Section 2: photographs (two students and class on floor) courtesy of Kim

Ashmore.

Case Study 2: ‘A House, A Home’ by Lorraine M Halli:, from Honeysuckle:

Textbook in English for Class VI (National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT) (2008), New Delhi: India).

Case Study 3: photographs courtesy of Kim Ashmore.

Video clips and stills: Thanks are extended to the Heads and pupils in our
partner schools across India who worked with The Open University in this
production.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been
inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the
necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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