Going back to teaching –
let alone studying—can be an unsettling or even traumatic (!) experience. As
teachers, we sometimes feel that there is so much we can do to acclimatize our
students to classes again.
No need to despair. We can
still go on in our own familiar way while giving our lessons a fresh edge. Besides
there are things that your students hardly ever get bored with despite the
frequency of their occurrence.
Let me provide an example
of how we can present new material and at the same time sneak in some revision.
I am aware of the fact
that my advanced students are keen on science; therefore, they are prepared to
read up or do their own research online – if asked – on condition that the
topic is science-related.
My point is:
·
Pick a
text your students will appreciate.
·
Select
some lexical items from this text which you have taught but suspect your
students might not remember.
·
Make
three columns next to the one of the selected words.
·
Name the
columns: I remember well, I vaguely
remember, I forget.
·
Ask the
students to indicate how well they know the words by marking the right column.
|
WORD
|
I
remember
|
I
vaguely remember
|
I
forget
|
|
unveil
|
|
+
|
|
|
mould
|
|
|
+
|
|
dub
|
+
|
|
|
|
eliminate
|
+
|
|
|
This is a preliminary
activity which will be supplemented by a follow-up vocabulary exercise to boost
your students’ memory of already taught words.
On a small scale (words
used in the table above) this is how it would go:
Fill the gaps with the right
form of the words provided in the table. You may have to use some words more than
once:
Plans were ……………………….
for a new food store and 13 shopping units in the town.
The media …………………….
anorexia ‘the slimming disease.
Security agents have started a campaign to ………………………….. some of the government's
opponents.
Silicone rubber is easily ……………………………., serving as a replacement for body parts.
If we could …………………………
stress, would we …………………………………. a
lot of disease?
It is also the duty of educational institutions to ………………………….. the personality of students.
Perhaps for the first few
classes of the year it would be wise to focus on practising words which have
been presented once or twice but not anchored,
as I have explained in a previous post.
It is important for
teachers to be flexible and decide at each stage how much to teach, how much to
practise and test and what to earmark for later practice. And this is something
no device can do for you. Being aware of our students’ progress is something we
save in our memory rather than on a device in the form of corrected tests. The
overall performance of each student is, thankfully, resilient to classification.
