Setting up activities workshop hand out

This workshop handout includes:

A. 8 ways to improve your instructions

B. The Reformulation of Poor Instructions Task
C. Some differences Between Handling Instructions with Adult Groups and
Children’s Groups
D. Activity Set-up Problems and Possible Solutions
E. Summary of reasons for instructions not working
F. Suggested procedure for setting up a productive activity
G. Summary of Elements of Successful Instructions
H.

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A. 8 ways to improve your instructions

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Taken from: Gower, R, Phillips, D and Walters, S, Teaching Practice, 2005, MacMillan

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B. The Reformulation of Poor Instructions Task

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Taken from: Gower, R, Phillips, D and Walters, S, Teaching Practice, 2005, MacMillan

C. Some differences Between Handling Instructions with Adult Groups and

Children’s Groups
 Children like to try to guess the activity before you’ve finished giving and checking instructions.
This can be disorientating for the teacher. They may say: ‘ I know’ when they either don’t or
they have another of their games in mind. It can become a competition between them and you
or you and each other;
 The attention span of adults is generally / supposedly longer than children’s. Children get easily
distracted;
 Children can be impatient and want to understand everything immediately. If they don’t
understand, they may ‘write off’ your instructions with an L1 equivalent of ‘I don’t understand
anything’.
Taken from: IH workshop – Making Instructions Work, written by Diane England, 2004

D.

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 E. Activity Set-up Problems and Possible Solutions
A Elementary Teens
The teacher hands out a passage for the students to read. She then tells them to read it very quickly in order to get
the gist.

Problem:
The students begin to read painstakingly.

 Make sure all the students are looking at you and not the text whilst you are giving instructions. You want
them to take in the instructions, not the text at this point;
 Make sure you are not using unfamiliar terminology – do they understand what ‘gist’ means?;
 Ask students a specific question which will encourage students to read extensively for a global general
understanding of the text eg: ‘Why is A writing to B?’;
 Give students a time limit, so they understand they haven’t got time to ponder every word;
 Show students visually how you expect them to read and how you DON’T expect them to read;
 Ask them: ‘Do you need to understand every word?’ ‘Are you going to read slowly or fast?’;
 Make sure you keep to the time limit you have set.

B Kids 2B
You want your students to listen to a song about animals without singing along or dancing around. The second
listening task will be to play each line and get students to repeat, with the aim of the children learning the song.

Problem:
As soon as the song starts, the children start singing (even though they’ve never heard the song before) and jumping
around and they end up not being able to hear the song at all.

 Give the children a task to do whilst they listen, such as to point to the picture of the animal as they hear it
being described;
 Tell the children NOT to sing along or to dance or wave their arms – all they need is their finger to point and
their ears to listen with;
 Check they know what to do and what NOT to do;
 Make sure you’ve got all the children quiet and ‘serious’ before you start playing the song;
 Stop the cassette or CD as soon as someone starts disobeying the rules you have set down for this stage of
the lesson. Look at this student and wait until she / he / they have calmed down and re-elicit instructions
from them before starting the song again.

C Kids 1B
The teacher wants to students to complete a ‘find someone who’ mingling activity. As preparation, the children
have already practised the questions they will ask other students and the possible answer forms.

Problem:
They ask each other the first couple of questions as the teacher had wished, but then they break into their own
language, both in terms of the questions and the answers.

 Make sure you have pre-taught some useful ‘lubricating’ language for this type of task eg: ‘What did you
say?’, ‘How about you?’;

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  Having prepared them with the question and answer from practice, ask the children: ‘Will you ask and
answer in English or (their L1)?’, and establish that this is an ENGLISH-ONLY activity;
 Demonstrate as if you were a student how to do the activity and what NOT to do eg: speaking their L1,
reading their colleagues’ questions rather than listening to them etc.;
 Re-elicit the procedure from students again ie: ask someone a question; listen to the answer; note down the
answer; reverse the process.

D Kindy 1A
The teacher has drilled the question ‘How long have you been studying English?’ and now wants the children to ask
each other across the class to elicit the appropriate answers.

Problem:
They simply keep repeating the question.

 Use clear verbal prompts, together with hand gestures eg:

‘Samuel, ask Sara.’ ‘Sara, ask Beatrice’ etc
 Do a demo with the TA, then with one student.

Taken from: IH workshop – Making Instructions Work, written by Diane England, 2004

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F. Summary of reasons for instructions not working
1. Why do instructions sometimes not work?
The teacher …

 hasn’t got the attention of the whole class;

 hasn’t thought out to stage and phrase them when planning his/her lesson;
 hasn’t checked instructions or has only checked with stronger students;
 has asked ‘Do you understand?’ and taken their ‘yes’ literally;
 has used instructions that are too wordy and hasn’t graded his/her language;
 has given too many instructions too soon.
 hasn’t set a time limit to keep students on task.
 has handed out materials before they need them.

2. What do you do when something goes wrong?

 If it’s a general problem, stop the class, get all the students’ attention by saying: ‘Look at me!’
 If it’s one or two pairs, go up to them and re-explain what do / check the part they’re getting
wrong.
Taken from: IH workshop – Making Instructions Work, written by Diane England, 2004

G.

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 H. Suggested procedure for setting up a productive activity
The example given is based on setting up a mini-flashcard guessing game with low level kindy classes.

Stage Procedure Aims (why do this?) Procedure

Getting all students attention The teacher claps his/her hands and puts his/her finger to his lips and counts down
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before starting instructions from 5>1 on the other hand.
The teacher shows a picture of a ‘car’ and asks “Is it a car?” “Is it a boat?” “Is it a
Elicit answer form that the
2 train?” The teacher uses fingers to encourage full short answers (Yes, it is/No, it’s
students will use in activity
isn’t). Repeat with other flashcards.
With flashcard facing themselves, the teacher asks “what’s this?” gesturing at the
Elicit question form that the
3 hidden flashcard and elicits the target question (Is it a___?), again using fingers if
students will use in activity
needed.
Model how the game will work Students ask the teacher questions to try to guess the flashcard. When a student
4 with all students involved in open gets it right, they become the teacher, change the flashcard and other students ask
class questions them questions to try to guess the flashcard.
Establish interaction pattern of 1 TA and a student volunteer to come up to the front of the class. Teacher names
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activity themselves A, the TA B and the student C.
Nominate roles of the activity and Teacher says “A sit down. B and C stand up. A has a flashcard. Don’t show (with
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give basic instructions gesture). B and C, ask the question “is it a (beep)?”. A answer “yes, it is/no, it isn’t”
B and C ask the questions in turn. When one student gets it right, they become A
7 Demonstrate the activity with TA
and they repeat 2 or 3 times.
Highlight and reward good
8 Teacher gives the student a point on the classroom management system.
participation

Demonstrate activity with Teacher asks for three volunteers. Nominates them A, B and C. They do the activity
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students in front of the class.

Highlight and reward good

10 Teacher gives the students points on the classroom management system
participation

Nominate for the roles and group

11 Teacher nominates all students A, B and C and gestures the groupings.
all students

Teacher asks an A student: “What letter are you? (A) Do you stand up or sit down?
(sit down) Do you ask the question or answer? (answer) Do you speak English or
Targeted instruction checking
12 Vietnamese? (English) Do you show the flashcard? (no). Teacher asks a student B,
questions
then a student C: “What letter are you? (B, C) Do you stand up or sit down? (stand
up) Do you ask the question or answer? (answer)”

Hand out materials and clearly
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start the activity
Stop the activity while it is still
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going well, before boredom
Highlight and reward good
15 participation and following of the
rules of all students
Teacher asks whole class are you ready? (yes) Hands out mini-flashcards to each
group and says “go”.
After all the students have had sufficient opportunities to practice the language,
but before students start to get bored, the teacher claps his hands to stop the
activity
Teacher asks students “Did you speak English? Did you listen? Did you work hard?”
Congratulates them and gives them all a point on the classroom management
system

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I. Summary of Elements of Successful Instructions

 Become more aware of how you give instructions:

 listen to yourself;
 record yourself;
 ask another teacher to watch you and give feedback.
 write out your instructions so you include only the essential information, in simple clear
language;
 sequence instructions in a sensible order. Use short sentences – one instruction for each piece
of key information;
 only tell students what they need to know;
 separate instructions clearly from other chit-chat by:
 creating silence;
 making eye contact with as many students as possible ('Look at me'); with as many students
as possible ('Look at me');
 adopting an authoritative tone;
 making sure everyone is listening and looking before you start;
 using silence and gestures to pace your instructions / clarify meaning;
 demonstrate rather than explain;
 check understanding by getting concrete evidence:
 asking 'two-option' questions;
 asking them what they DON'T do.

Taken from: IH workshop – Making Instructions Work, written by Diane England, 2004

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