Novice Teachers' Classroom English: Part 1

One of the main goals of an ELT teacher to achieve in his daily routines is to use as much as possible the target language which is in our case English. This routine language that is used by ELT teachers on a regular basis during their teaching process is referred to in the relevant literature as classroom language. It is mainly related to giving instructions such as "Stand up", "take out your books / pencils", "sit down, please", etc. Teachers can exploit this opportunity of these daily routines to minimise the students' use of their mother tongue and to maximise the use of the target language and increase its use by students. This makes the ELT classroom setting more authentic. 

It is novice ELT teachers that usually are not well prepared and trained to handle and deal with this quite sensitive area of English teaching and learning when they start teaching. This post and others to follow describe how classroom language can be used and suggest some tips for novice ELT teachers for employing classroom language. This first blog post presents the appropriate classroom language for starting a lesson.

Teacher: Good morning, Good afternoon, Hello, Hi

Students: Good morning, Good afternoon, (teacher's name), Hello, Hi (teacher's name)

Open your books at page (number)

Close your books, please

Sit down

Take out your books, please

Take out your pencil/pen/homework, please

Write your name, please

Stand up, please

Close the door, please

Open the door, please

Close the window, please

Open the window

Tips for teaching classroom English:

There are several strategies novice ELT teachers can use to facilitate the teaching and learning of classroom English:

• Teachers can rely on scaffolding in this regard. They can probably start teaching students only one-word commands such as "sit". They can then progress to teaching longer commands such as "sit down". In this way, students can hopefully eventually learn alternative synonymous phrases such as "take your seat".
• Beginner ELT teachers should explain to the students the rationale behind learning this classroom English language. They should make sure the learners know what this language is for. They should inform them that the more they use this language the more their communication in English will improve and that this kind of spoken discourse is meant to help use English in the most natural and authentic way possible.
• After introducing this classroom English, novice teachers are required to use them as frequently as possible so that the learners become familiar with them and start using them in their turn.
• They can also use prompts such as visuals, for instance, to help students learn classroom English and remember it. This link suggests several printable posters related to this.

For further information on how to teach classroom English, this website can be very helpful.

Here are a few more expressions depending on various classroom purposes related to starting a lesson:

• Greetings:

                     - How are you today?
                     - How are you getting on?
                     - How's life?
                     - How are things with you?
                     - Do you feel better today, Omar?

• Introductions: 

                     - My name is Mr/Mrs/Ms Kim. I'm your new teacher of English.
                     - I'll be teaching you English this year.
                     - I've got five lessons with you each week.

• Waiting to start

                   - I'm waiting for you to be quiet.
                   - We won't start until everyone is quiet.
                   - Stop talking and be quiet.
                   - Settle down now so we can start.

•  Time to begin

                  - Let's begin our lesson now.
                  - Is everybody ready to start?
                  - I hope you are all ready for your English lesson.
                  - I think we can start now.
                  - Now we can get down to work.

• Checking attendance

                 - Who is absent today?.
                 - Who isn't here today?
                 - What's the matter with Sanaa today?
                 - What's wrong with Meriem today?
                 - Why were you absent last Friday, Ali?

• Late comers

               - Where have you been, Lahcen?
               - We started ten minutes ago. What have you been doing Younes?
               - Did you miss your bus Mustapha?
               - Did you oversleep?
               - Don't let it happen again.