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Interactions 1 Reading, 4e
Elaine Kirn, West Los Angeles College
Pamela Hartmann, Los Angeles Unified School District

Good Teaching Practices

A. Keeping Your Students' Attention

Most of your classes will probably be a combination of a traditional teacher-centered approach, with all eyes on you at the front of the classroom, and pair and group work. Most of your presentations will be done in the traditional mode. Here are some techniques to help you keep your students' attention:


  • Maintain eye contact.

  • Work on the board as much as you can. Put examples on the board, even if you simply rewrite them from the text.

  • If you want to call on students to read as others follow or read aloud yourself, make sure there is a specific objective for the activity.

  • If you want students to read something from the text, give them a question or two, let them read on their own, and then have a class discussion of the answers.

  • Keep the class lively. Students should not be able to anticipate your every move.

  • Call on students who seem inattentive. Ask them short, snappy questions. Don't embarrass them, but let them know that you've noticed that they're drifting.

  • If a large number of students seem bored, change the activity. Even the most motivated students have their off days.



B. Checking Comprehension

Notice students' responses. If they seem confused, check their comprehension, but don't ask, "Do you understand?" It might be uncomfortable for them to answer "No." Instead, ask questions or give commands that make students demonstrate their understanding. Try to have a couple of alternate ways of explaining a point ready so that you can do more than simply repeat what you’ve already said.


C. Using Teacher Talk

Don't talk more than necessary. There are several ways to cut down on unnecessary "teacher talk."


  • Use gestures as much as possible.

  • Ask students to explain to one another.

  • Use the blackboard to illustrate ideas that may be difficult to explain.

  • Demonstrate what you are saying as you are saying it.


However, there are times when teacher talk is essential. Use it to:
  • give encouragement,

  • model language that students are going to use, and

  • ask beginning students to do things around the classroom rather than doing them yourself.


Make sure that you use level-appropriate but natural-sounding language.
  • Teach common phrases as formulas. Would you please… What does _____ mean?

  • Be careful with grammatical terms. Make sure that you use the same terms that the textbook does.

  • Alter your vocabulary and structures, but make sure that you are speaking natural English. Sometimes students will use the word yes? or no? instead of a tag question. Don’t use such unnatural structures.

  • Speak naturally. Don’t speak too slowly. Try to preserve the natural links between words.


Make sure that everyone gets enough practice.
  • Make a mental note of each student as you call on him/her.

  • If there are too many names to remember, write a class list on a piece of paper that you keep in your textbook. Call on every second or third student. Vary the pattern every day.

  • If some students tend to call out answers, make a rule that once a student answers, he/she cannot answer the next three or four questions.

  • After one student answers, ask him/her to call on another student.

  • Use pair and group work when appropriate.



D. Using Your Time Well: When You Have to Move Quickly

There are several strategies that you can use to move more quickly.

  • Look over the textbook before class and estimate how much time each activity will take. Assign exercises for homework. Make sure that everyone understands the objective of each writing exercise before they leave class. In addition, make sure that students will have the resources at home to complete the activity. For example, don’t give them an exercise based on a listening (even if they heard the tape or CD in class) because they won’t be able to listen again if they need to.

  • Start writing exercises in class and have students finish them at home. Check the first sentence or two of each student’s writing assignment to be sure it’s correct.

  • If you are doing group work in which students need to report, increase the number of groups to lessen the reporting time.

  • Skip sections and/or exercises. In general, it is better to skip exercises within a section rather than skip an entire section. You should always feel free to skip optional activities. Before you decide to skip a section, look ahead and make sure that that information is not required later in the chapter or the book. Some students feel “cheated” if they do not cover everything in the textbook. Explain that you are short of time and why. (Perhaps you needed to spend more time on another more important topic.) Assure them that they will not be tested on material that you did not cover. Then keep this promise!



E. Using Your Time Well: When You Have Extra Time

Sometimes you will have a few minutes left at the end of class. You can let students get started on their homework or use one of these short but productive time-fillers.

  1. Language Games
  • Twenty questions
      1. You (or a student) think of an object.
      2. Students ask yes/no questions to guess what it is.
  • Hangman
      1. You think of a word and write a blank for each letter. For example, if your word is teacher, write _ _ _ _ _ _ _ on the board.
      2. Students try to guess the letters in the word. If a student guesses E, write it in each space; for example, _ E _ _ _ E _.
      3. For each wrong letter, you add an element to the hanging man’s body.
      4. On the board, keep track of the letters guessed so that students don’t repeat them.

[ART] (Finished diagram)

  • Spelling Bee

This is a game where students are asked to spell words. It can also be played by giving students a present tense verb and asking them to say and spell the past tense or past participle.

      1. Put students in teams according to rows, so they don’t have to move.
      2. Tell all students to stand up.
      3. Say a word and ask the first person in the first row to spell it. Then say a different word and ask the first person in the next row to spell it.
      4. Students sit down when they get a word wrong.
      5. The team with the most people standing at the end is the winner.
  • Telephone

      1. Whisper a short sentence into a student’s ear.
      2. That student must whisper it to a neighbor.
      3. Continue until all students have heard the sentence. Ask the last person to say what he/she heard.

  2. Songs

Songs are almost always of interest to students, especially if you have a class of adolescents.
  • Sing a song that students have already learned. You can also play a recording of the song.

  • In monolingual classrooms, have students try to translate a few lines from a popular song into English.

  • Have students tell you a few lines from a popular English song and watch the fun as they argue about what the words actually are.

  3. Discussions

Have students talk about:
  • yesterday’s headlines.

  • a school issue.

  • today’s or this week’s lessons,
      1. recalling what they did,
      2. telling you what they liked,
      3. saying what they think they need to work on.








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