Teaching Handbook for Gama

Teachers:

In the following pages, the recommended processes for both in-person and
online classes have been outlined. This framework should be considered but
a guideline for your everyday teaching practice and not a carved-in-stone
law. You are encouraged, however, to follow these principles. It is wise to
assume that the teachers’ personal touches should be applied in every
classroom. Therefore, feel free to adjust your teaching techniques based on
pedagogical grounds.
The first and foremost reason behind putting together this handbook is to
reach autonomy between teachers and avoid inconsistency in the institute.
Consequently, these processes and knowing the philosophy of teaching in
Gama will be the basis of your future formal evaluation through observations
that will take place. It seems appropriate to point out the fact that going too
far away from these steps and how they are logically organized will be
grounds for penalty.
However, I am confident in each and every one of you, and have no doubt
that you will always assume the professionalism in your classes, and prepare
for each session.
The handbook will be divided into eleven different parts, Vocabulary,
Grammar, Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking, Lesson Planning,
classroom Management, Concept Checking Questions, The Use of L1, and
Classroom Language. The procedures presented are to be applied and
deployed in the Kick-Start and Pre-IELTS courses, though they are
holistically and globally the fundamentals of teaching the Language
components and the Macro-skills.
Vocabulary Instruction
Procedure:
• Present Meaning and form
• Review and Consolidate

Strategies for presenting Meaning and

Form:
• Connecting an L2 item with its equivalent in L1
• Defining the meaning
• Presentation through context
• Directly connecting the meaning to real objects
• Active involvement of learners in presentation
• Oral drill.
• Phonetic transcription and graphic presentation
• Presentation of the graphic form
• Encouraging learners to try and spell the word.

Strategies for reviewing and

consolidating:
• Mechanical repetition* (C-I-C)
• Copying words
• Word manipulations
• Creating mental images
• Personalization
• Tasks for word identification
 • Tasks for recalling words from memory
• Producing use of words
• Multiple encounters with words

Planned Vocabulary Teaching:

• Deliberate, defined, directed
• Present the meaning and form of the lexical item
• Encourage to review and practice
• Monitor and evaluate the level of acquisition

Unplanned Vocabulary Teaching:

• Spontaneous actions to help learners when the need arises
• Three C’s
• Convey the meaning
• Check the meaning
• Consolidate the meaning
Grammar Instruction:
Procedure:
(Context-Build Approach) Presentation:
• Use visuals and word prompts to build up a context that will
generate examples of the target language
• Elicit or give an example sentence of the target language,
perhaps writing it on the board
• Use oral concept checking questions to check the meaning
of the target language
• After checking understanding of the new language, highlight
the form and then erase the example sentence off the board
• Write up key words (prompts) on the board that are clearly
connected to the context. These are used to model and drill
examples of the target language
• Elicit an example of the target language on to the board for a
second time and highlights aspects of pronunciation that
have just been practiced

Drilling: *(Repetition)
• Provide a model of the target language at a natural speed
and beats the main stresses at the same time.
• Demonstrate (but don’t explain) any key phonological
features such as linking or elision by saying these words
slowly
• Repeat the example again at a natural speed
• Ask learners to repeat the example two or three times
• Let learners say the example quietly to themselves (known
as mumble drill) so they
 • Will feel more confident saying an example aloud in front of
the class
• Nominate individual learners to repeat the example aloud in
front of the group and corrects if necessary

❖ Learners practice saying the example to each other in pairs

and the teacher quickly monitors and checks for accurate
use.

Other forms of drilling:

• Substitution Drill. One-slot, double-slot
• Translation Drills
Receptive Skills:
Reading:
Procedure:
• Warm-up
• Text-orientation
• Task-clarification
• Task-completion
• Answer check
• Language Treatment

Warm-Up
• Set a mini-discussion about the topic of the reading, or play
a video about the reading, or engage the students in the
content of the reading in a creative way
• Present meaning-blocking vocabulary

Text-orientation
• Write some general questions on the board
• Ask students to read the text to understand the general
ideas and answer the questions
• Students work in pairs to check the answers
• Get feedback from students
Task Clarification
• Give instructions of the task
• Ask ICQ (Can be asked in L1, but preferably in simple and
brief English)
• Provide a model or a sample of the task, can be one of the
questions in the task or a sample created by yourself

Task Completion
• Give students some time (depending on the amount of time
needed to complete the task) to do the task
• Circulate the class to ensure that students are on task

Answer Check
• Before checking the answers, put students into pairs and
give them about a minute to check their answers together
• Then, ask students to give you the answers, one by one. Do
not confirm or reject answers on the spot. Always ask them
why they have chosen a certain answer for a specific
question.

Language Treatment
• Ask students to discuss the reading text, or ask them to find
some grammatical features and ask them to explain why a
certain grammar is used. Or in some cases you can ask
students to find synonyms or antonyms in the text, given a
list of words that you have prepared beforehand
• This is a chance to work on the language (Grammar and
Vocabulary) in a meaningful way.
Listening:
Procedure:
• Warm-up
• Task-Orientation/Clarification
• First Listening
• Task Completion
• Answer Check
• Second Listening
• Language Treatment and analysis
The explanation of the procedure above is pretty much the same
as the Reading.
Speaking (Dialogs):
• Warm-up. Students need to be familiar with the language
and the content of the dialog, which in some cases need a
little cultural background being provided by the teacher.
• Parallel- dialogs: elicit a similar dialog to the dialog the
students are about to encounter
• Write some general questions on the board, or ask them to
answer some basic questions
• Play the audio, while the students are looking at the dialog
and tracing the text
• Check the students answers to the questions you had asked
• Ask some CCQs to ensure your students’ comprehension
• Repetition (C-I-C)
• Pair-work: Put students into pairs and ask them to practice
saying the dialog
• Circulate the class, while students are working in pairs.
• Ask a random pair to reproduce the same dialog
• Ask students to work in pairs again, and make new
conversations by changing some names, places, etc.
Reluctant students:
• Time to prepare: Give them some time to prepare
themselves and get back to them
• The importance of repetition: Ask the whole class to repeat,
and make sure that the reluctant student is saying the
exchange
• Mandatory participation: at the end, and as a last resort, ask
the reluctant student to participate

Corrective feedback in Speaking

activities:
• Fluency-based activities: When the focus of the activity is
on students’ fluency and making sentences, do not interrupt
them. Make notes of their mistakes, and at the end of the
exercise, give the whole class the corrective feedback. By
writing the mistake on the board, and asking globally what
the correct form may be (Peer-Correction). It is, however,
recommended that you not say who made the mistake.
• Accuracy-based activities: When the focus of the activity
is on improving students’ accuracy, like in drills of grammar,
or when you have just taught a grammatical point and ask
the students to make examples, it can be acceptable to
correct the students on the spot.
Other dialog activities: (Optional)
• Understanding: Activities to make sure students have
understood the dialog
• Analyzing: Analyzing the dialog linguistically, meaning
focusing on Grammar and Vocabulary of the dialog
• Reproducing and reconstructing: Making the dialog their
own, i.e. saying the exact same dialog or making small
changes
• Memorizing: This kind of activity may be useful in lower
levels
• Rehearsing and performing: These activities give the
students the sense of achievement and will put them in
situations where they will use the dialog or the like
(situational dialog in particular)
• Co-constructing: Re-making the dialog to talk about their
own lives
• Creating and personalizing: In an upcoming activity, make
sure that students are creating some sort of the dialog, to
make contact with each other
• Communicating: After some sessions, students will use the
dialog chunks to actually and in a very meaningful way,
communicate
Writing:
In lower level classes, you may encounter little chance to work on
your students’ writings. In Pre-IELTS courses, however, there is a
bigger opportunity to improve your students writing skills and
subskills.
When assigning home-works in Kick-Start courses, make sure
that they have some sort of writing, e.g. making examples of the
new grammar, or making examples of the new vocabulary or a
combination of both. In Pre-IELTS courses, the procedure to
teach writing is pretty standard and straight-forward.

Procedure:
• Have a mini discussion in the form of a warm-up
• Ask students to brainstorm ideas, and use this chance to
teach some useful language, i.e. vocabulary and grammar
• Ask students to work in pairs and make a draft of the writing
• Circulate the class to ensure students are on task
• Collect their writings and correct them after the class, and
provide written feedback the next session
In correcting their work, you need to focus on four main
categories. Grammar, Vocabulary, Spelling and Punctuation.
Throughout the courses, be it Kick-Start or Pre-IELTS, the level of
the student must be considered when giving feedback on writing.
Lesson Planning
Points to consider:
• Lesson Objectives
• Material
• Procedure
• Assessment
In planning every session, a teacher must always consider the
lesson’s goals and objectives and must be aware of what the
students are supposed to learn at the end of the session. All
coursebooks taught here in Gama, have clear goals written at the
beginning of the unit, which I strongly recommend to be explicit
about and be generous in telling the students what the objectives
are.
After clearly learning about the objectives, it is time to consider
the material to use to reach the objectives, such as the book, the
audio, extra worksheets, etc.
Materials for each session must be prepared, printed and ready to
be used, beforehand.
Regarding the procedure, you ought to write the steps that you
and your students will follow, keeping your objective in mind all
along the way, write down the timing you anticipate for each
activity. In setting the activities and preparing for the Procedure
part, you ought to bear in mind the fundamentals of “I do, We do,
You do”. Another important point to bear in mind is the P.P.P
approach to teaching in general, starting with a Warm up, the
moving on to Presentation, Practice ad Production, and
finishing with a Wrap up.
It is also a good idea to predict some of the problems that the
students might face or the questions they may raise, in order to
be well-prepared and attend the class with more confidence.
The most important step in each session is to check whether you
have reached your objectives or not, which is referred to as
assessment. As it is mentioned before, the goals of each session
should be clearly established and must have the possibility of
being measured. It is worth mentioning that he topics to be
assessed should be clear to the teacher and the students, as well.
Assessment can contain a controlled practice, after presenting the
new subject and a freer practice afterwards to check if the
students can use the new input with less errors and have
understood the usage of it.
It is suggested that you prepare a more personal and interesting
activity for the students at the end of each session and show them
in which cases in their everyday life they can use that new skill.
Classroom Management:
There are many different Interaction Patterns that we can employ
in our classes, each of which has its own purpose and goal
designed to fit different activities. Following is a list of Interaction
Patterns and their suggested activities:
Pair-Work (S-S) = Role-plays (Practicing on dialogs), Checking
answers in pairs
Group-work = Discussing a topic, preparing for a presentation
Mingling = “Find someone who” Activity, choosing the best
definition of a word from the ones hung on the wall
T-Ss (Whole class) = Teacher asks a question and the whole
class answers, repetition (Choral)
Learners working alone = Working on a reading task
T- S = Asking a question from one student
Concept Checking Vocabulary and
Grammar:
As you might have realized by now, it is very important to check
students’ comprehension of some new words, or grammar
constructs through C.C.Qs. Concept Checking Questions are
those that check students understanding of different aspects of
both Vocabulary and Grammar.
Check the following examples of C.C.Q of Grammar and
Vocabulary:

Vocabulary
❖ The actor retired when he was 70 years old after a long and
successful career.
• Did he stop working? (Students: Yes)
• Did he choose to stop working? (Students: Yes)
• Did he stop working because of his age? (Students:
Yes)

Grammar
❖ They’ve been working here for two years.
• When did they start working here?
• Are they still working here?
• Did they stop working here at any time in the past?
The use of L1:
Controversial may be, using L1 in Gama, having considered some
presuppositions, is allowed.
The considerations to use L1 are the answers to the following
questions.
When should we use L1?
How should we use L1?
Who should use L1 in the class, the teacher or the students?

When:
• Giving Instructions
• CCQs
• Grammatical Rules, Terms and Form clarification
• Translation Drills
• Vocabulary- Verbal way
• Error Treatment, delayed or on-the-spot

How:
• Sandwiching
• Bilingual instructions
• Own-language moments
• Grammatical Rules
• Drills
Who:
• Teacher mostly
• Students, only when in need and don’t have the language
repertoire to say what they can’t in English
Classroom Language:
In Kick-Start courses, especially Kick-Start 1, it is imperative to
give the students a list of classroom language that will be
necessary for them to use in the class, both Teacher Language
examples and Student instances.

Procedure:
Use the sandwich technique to teach the items, e.g. Open your
books – -‫کتاباتون رو باز کنید‬Open your books,
After making sure, they have understood what the chunks mean,
ask them to repeat the phrase. (C-I-C)
Throughout the course, reinforce the phrases and make sure they
use them and understand them.
Here’s a list of the Classroom Language that is expected of you to
teach in your Kick-Start courses.
Further Reading:
• Ur, Penny. 100 teaching Tips. Cambridge University Press
2016
• Scrievner, Jim. Classroom Management Techniques
Cambridge University Press 2012
• Chastain, Kenneth. Developing Second-Language Skills:
Theory and Practice Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1988
• Ur, Penny. A course in English Language Teaching
Cambridge University Press 2012
• Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language
Teaching Pearson Education limited 2007