DEMAND HİGH ENGLİSH

LANGUAGE TEACHİNG

Presenter:Tülay Şık Date: 01/03/2021

 WHAT IS DEMAND-HIGH?
 Demand-High is an idea that arose out of many years of reflective
discussion, argument and focused tea-drinking between Adrian
Underhill and Scrivener.

 It is not a new methodology or approach. It is a suggestion for what

might be very small-scale changes in how a teacher approaches their
lessons – a proposal for possible tweaks to what they currently do in
class.

 We believe that the Demand-High ideas may be relevant whatever a

teacher’s method, experience, school, knowledge and whatever the
age or level of their students.
 What Demand-High Teaching is
not
 Demand High Teaching is not a method and it is not anti any method. It is not anti-Communicative
Approach or Teaching unplugged or Task based Learning.

 It simply suggests adjustments to whatever it is we are already doing in class to gain greater depth of
tangible engagement
 and learning by students.

 Demand-High Teaching does not mean making things more difficult in ways that do not help the majority
of students (e.g. setting exercises that are too hard). This is what they call an un-doable demand.

 The proponents suggest instead a demand that comes precisely at the point where the learner is capable
of making their next steps forward – and then helping them to meet that demand, rather than avoiding it.

 This is doable demand. We could say perhaps that this relates to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal
Development or ZPD.
 Jim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill ask some very basic and simple questions about
the nature of learning in ELT- so simple, in fact, that they are often eclipsed by what
appear to be more sophisticated concerns embedded within intricate pedagogical
theories and methodologies.

 Demand High is not a methodology, claims Scrivener, but a meme1.

 Through DH, Scrivener and Underhill are wondering just how much deep learning is
going on in classrooms that function well and where everyone, teacher and students,
seem to be enjoying themselves.
 Demand High is interested in making changes to the learning culture by posing
questions such as:
 Are my students capable of more?
 Could they be challenged more?
 Would demanding more lead to more learning?
 Has the ELT class become too ritualized?
 In place of the constant need to cover more and more material, might more learning
take place if the teacher focused on the potential for a deeper kind of learning?
 What small tweaks or shifts can the teacher make to what she is already doing to
transform the focus of the teaching towards bringing about an upgrade in the
student’s performance?
 It’s not enough that the classroom activities are enjoyable.
 Two techniques that Scrivener and Underhill have proposed to generate a greater challenge to
the students and ultimately some real learning, revolve around the way teachers traditionally
give correction and feedback and how language exercises are usually dealt with in class.

 Instead of the usual teacher response of “good” or maybe even “yes, fantastic,” when going
over answers, we should stop and use the answer given to go deeper into the use and meaning
of the language being learned.
 There are several ways in which the language of the answer can be put to work: repeating
with particular intonations, substituting certain words in the sentence, memorizing,
personalizing.

 The same principles apply to completing the exercises in the first place.

 Apart from the instructions in the course book, there are several other things that can be
done with the language the exercise provides which involve a lot of repetition in
interesting, challenging and meaningful ways. Most teachers spend time drilling anyway;
applying some of the techniques mentioned above requires a tweaking of what most
teachers are already doing
  In a seminar, Jim Scrivener presents an overview of what he and Adrian Underhill call
Demand High teaching.
 Their suggestion is that these days within the communicative method of English language
teaching, teachers tend to facilitate activities and tasks rather than actually teach the
subject, which means the tasks have become an end in themselves.
 Scrivener and Underhill, two very well-known published teacher trainers, believe this
position needs to be challenged.
 In this talk, Jim Scrivener introduces the key concepts of Demand High and several
teaching ideas that can be adapted to teachers’ own experience, whatever their preferred
methodology, or for whichever coursebook they are using.
 He invites teachers to start teaching in a way that ensures students learn more in the
classroom.
 Jim Scrivener (and Adrian Underhill, who appears in a video clip) says that students need
to be stretched to their full potential in order to ensure learning is taking place.
 Imagine the scene in class - the students are working on a
language exercise. You have reached the stage of the lesson where
you are focusing on accuracy.
 The students are completing a grammar exercise in the
coursebook and there are ten questions to answer.
 Typically, when they have finished the exercise, you ask the
whole class or selected individuals for the answers to the
questions.
 Now, rather than simply getting the answers to the questions
and then moving on to the next activity, the objective is to
explore additional ways to extend and consolidate the
learning from this activity.

 Refrain from saying ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ straightaway.

Aim to get more students involved in this feedback stage:
 What will you do?

Other instructions you

can give in this
feedback stage Concept Checking

Ask students extensions Concept Checking

questions
Say the whole sentence
Why is the sentence
01 • Please read the whole 02
(individual drill).
03
wrong?
Do you agree with the
Say the whole sentence
sentence. answer?
(choral drill). Give incorrect example
• Look at me, and tell me the
(is this correct?)
whole sentence again (from Listen to me saying it and

memory, without reading). then you try again.

• Please repeat after me Try saying it faster.
(example word or sentence).
 The main points to remember are:

• It’s okay to teach.

• Find the do-able demand so that each individual takes
away their own learning nugget.
• Believe your students can do more and they will too.
• It’s okay to work one-to-one in a whole class situation
to help one learner improve.
• Think constructive criticism, not pure praise or simple
correction. Your strong learners should still be trying to
do more.
• Break out of your rut so the learners break out of
theirs.
THANK YOU