Cinch Charles D.

Corres
4th Year/ AB English Language

APPROACHES TO COLLEGE ENGLISH TEACHING

SEMI-FINAL EXAMINATION

Directions: List down examples of kinds of instructional strategies and activities in English
Language Teaching.

Instructional Strategies in English Language Teaching:

1. Vocabulary building. This is an important component of any English class. This strategy
focuses a portion of each classroom session on building a better vocabulary. Teachers can ask
students to point out unfamiliar words and go over the meanings in class or use
interactive vocabulary-building exercises that relate to the class’s reading material.
2. Writer’s workshop. Have students participate in a writer’s workshop several times each
year. The writing workshop model created by Lucy Calkins, founder of the Teachers College
Reading and Writing Project, allows students to learn about and participate in all aspects of the
writing process: drafting, revision, editing and publishing.
3. Peer response and editing. This can be a very valuable teaching strategy for both the
teacher and the student, and there are many peer response strategies to try in class. Students
get a chance to think critically about others’ writing and see the results their classmates got from
a writing assignment. In addition, teachers can observe how different students learn and what
strategies might work better in the future.
4. Cooperative learning. This learning strategy is useful for English teachers who incorporate
literature into their classroom. Cooperative learning requires students to discuss a piece of
literature in small groups. By allowing the students to engage in meaningful discussion, they
begin to learn to analyze literature and participate in an educational process that they will find
more interesting than a general lecture on a chapter in a book.
5. Student-chosen texts. Allowing students to choose their own reading materials is a strategy
that literacy specialists recommend as a way to develop lifelong readers. Students are given a
choice of literature from an age- and reading level-appropriate book collection. After a period of
independent reading, students break into groups and discuss what they’ve read, book club-
style, followed by journaling. When this strategy is successful, students are able to delve deeply
into the meaning of the literature, develop critiquing skills, and have a valuable discussion with
their classmates about the book that they chose. Teachers who use this strategy finds that it can
lead to a classroom that is engaged with literature.
6. Visualization. Bring dull academic concepts to life with visual and practical learning
experiences, helping your students to understand how their schooling applies in the real-world.
Examples include using the interactive whiteboard to display photos, audio clips and videos, as
well as encouraging your students to get out of their seats with classroom experiments and local
field trips.
7. Inquiry-based instruction. Pose thought-provoking questions which inspire your students to
think for themselves and become more independent learners. Encouraging students to ask
questions and investigate their own ideas helps improve their problem-solving skills as well as
gain a deeper understanding of academic concepts. Both of which are important life skills.
Inquiries can be science or math-based such as ‘why does my shadow change size?’ or ‘is the
sum of two odd numbers always an even number?’. However, they can also be subjective and
encourage students to express their unique views, e.g. ‘do poems have to rhyme?’ or ‘should all
students wear uniform?’.
8. Differentiation. Differentiate your teaching by allocating tasks based on students’ abilities, to
ensure no one gets left behind. Assigning classroom activities according to students’ unique
learning needs means individuals with higher academic capabilities are stretched and those
who are struggling get the appropriate support. This can involve handing out worksheets that
vary in complexity to different groups of students, or setting up a range of work stations around
the classroom which contain an assortment of tasks for students to choose from.
9. Technology in the classroom. Incorporating technology into your teaching is a great way to
actively engage your students, especially as digital media surrounds young people in the 21st
century. Interactive whiteboards or mobile devices can be used to display images and videos,
which helps students visualize new academic concepts. Learning can become more interactive
when technology is used as students can physically engage during lessons as well as instantly
research their ideas, which develops autonomy. Mobile devices, such as iPads and/or tablets,
can be used in the classroom for students to record results, take photos/videos or simply as a
behavior management technique.
10. Behavior management. Implementing an effective behavior management strategy is
crucial to gain your students respect and ensure students have an equal chance of reaching
their full potential. Noisy, disruptive classrooms do no encourage a productive learning
environment, therefore developing an atmosphere of mutual respect through a combination of
discipline and reward can be beneficial for both you and your students. Examples include fun
and interactive reward charts for younger students, where individuals move up or down based
on behavior with the top student receiving a prize at the end of the week. ‘Golden time’ can also
work for students of all ages, with a choice of various activities such as games or no homework
in reward for their hard work.
11. Professional development. Engaging in regular professional development programs is a
great way to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom.
12. First and Second Language Acquisition. Second language acquisition are not required as
part of teacher education programs. However, understanding these theories about language
acquisition and the factors that affect language learning will definitely help you reach English
learners effectively.
13. English language proficiency. Social English Proficiency and academic English language
proficiency are different terms. One student may be proficient in one vs. the other. The level of
academic English may be based on a higher level of basic interpersonal communication skills
(BICS). For example, a student may be able to orally recall the main events from their favorite
movie but struggle to recall the main events that led up to the Civil War.
14. Language Assessments. Find out how they assess how student’s English language
proficiency is assessed and what are the results of those assessments. It can provide a wealth
of information that aid in planning lessons that support both language acquisition and content
knowledge.
15. Language proficiency strategies. Know the level of English language proficiency at which
your students are functioning in order to identify strategies to be used. Not all strategies are
appropriate and not all learners can grasp something easily. Knowing which scaffold are most
appropriate will take time but will support language learning more effectively.

Instructional Activities in English Language Teaching:

1. Think, pair and share. Set a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your
students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and
permit the kids to share their conclusion in their voice. This way your students will be engaged,
communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.
2. Brainstorming. Interactive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The
process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn
to work together, and above all, learn from each other.
3. Buzz session. Participants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic.
Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and
collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from each other’s
input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the
conversation.
4. Exit slips. These are best used at the end of the class session. You’ll ask the students to
write for one minute on a specific question. It might be generalized to “what was the most
important thing you learned today”. Then, you can decide if you are going to open up a
conversation about it in your next class. You can ask them if they still remember what they wrote
down.
5. Misconception check. Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what
is the correct answer when given a false fact. It’s useful when going over a previous lesson. It
encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.
6. Circle the questions. Make a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them
specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don’t know the
answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.Create corners concerning different questions that
were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners,
individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each
student a different and personalized order to visit the corners.
7. Ask the winner. Ask students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the
answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised). Then, all
other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and
how to solve it next time.
8. Pair-share-repeat. After a Think-pair-share experience, which I’ve written about in the first
interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the
wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.
9. Teacher and student. Let students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair
up your students and assign them 2 roles. One of them is the teacher, and the other the student.
The teacher’s job is to sketch the main points, while the student’s job is to cross off points on his
list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.
10. Wisdom from another. After an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to
share their results. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner’s work to be interesting or
exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the work of fellow students publicly than
their work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their objectives as well.
11. Forced debate. Let students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of
their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches
them to look through a different colored glass once in a while. Variation: one half of the class
takes one position, the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other.
Each student may only speak once so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.
12. Optimist/Pessimist. In pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study,
statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic and truly “live” the case study. You’ll
discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social
skills.
13. Peer review writing task. To assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to
exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph
response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second paragraph
discusses the essay’s problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner
would focus on in revision if it were her essay.
14. Board rotation. This interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than others!
Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you’ve
set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer, they
rotate to the next board. Here, they write their answer below the first answer of the previous
group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards.
15. Movie Application. In groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a
concept or event discussed in class, trying to identify at least one way the movie makers got it
right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts, geographical
facts, biographies of famous people, etc.