Sometimes we have to teach large classes. Teaching large classes, however, in some countries are not uncommon. Teaching such a large group of students can be a challenge. Here are some strategies you can use in different stages of the lesson to encourage everyone to participate and make the most out of your time with students.

How to Teach Large Groups

The Perfect Balance Between Pair Work And Group Work

1. Appropriate Activities & Benefits
   Pair work is great for practicing model dialogues, playing games such as battleship, conducting vocabulary checks, and completing worksheets. Working in pairs gives individual students a lot of speaking time. If working together, students will often have more confidence than when completing exercises individually. If students are competing with their partners, they will be more motivated. Students can work in groups or form teams for role plays, races, games such as board games or card games, and discussions. Groups give students the opportunity to create more complex dialogues, explore relationships between characters, pool knowledge together, and have a more social learning environment. Additionally there is a better chance for self correction or peer correction and for a discussion on a wider range of thoughts and opinions with larger group sizes. On the other hand, individual speaking time is limited when working in groups. You can increase the amount of speaking time students have by decreasing the size of groups to three or four people. If you are in a large class and want all the groups to present material at the end of the lesson, larger groups may be necessary but limit group size to about six.

Role-plays give students the opportunity to demonstrate how to use English in real life situations and make them focus more on communication than on grammar. Role-play activities can be a lot of fun however a class full of shy students may be reluctant to participate so it is important to know your students.

How To Proceed

Developing a research question is probably the most difficult thing to do by a teacher, yet it is actually easy. This statement seems to be a paradox. Some teachers find doing it a difficult task to do since they do not know what seems to be the problem in their class or what can be improved. It can also happen when the teachers already feel comfortable with the way they teach or are too familiar with the system of teaching in their institution, or because the teachers are so ignorant about what is happening, especially what is happening wrong, in their class.
A research question can simply originate from the teacher’s reflection. Every time you teach, there must be things that cause you to reflect. When doing so, you might ask yourself:

Action Research is a process of systematic inquiry into a self-identified teaching or learning problem to better understand its complex dynamics and to develop strategies geared towards the problem’s improvement. (Hamilton 1997, 3)

Introduction

Recently, the focus of language learning and teaching which is more learner centered has led to a more demanding role of teachers and learners. One of the most important changes is that teachers are viewed as the source of knowledge, instead as a facilitator or monitor (Richards, 2006:5). Littlewood (2002:91) asserted that teachers might face conflicts with their pedagogical role, which has traditionally required them to evaluate all learners’ performance according to clearly defined criteria. At the same time, this shift calls for greater learner’s participation and responsibility in learning process. From this perspective, the teacher seems to be less “prescriptive” in dominating the class and is less authoritarian as learning is now seen to be an individual activity as well as a socially-shared experience. The learner is no longer a passive recipient but an active participant in the classroom process. In order to fulfill this active role, learners also need to develop an awareness of themselves as learners.

Accurately assessing your students’ developmental state can direct your planning and impel your teaching. For instance, recognizing a 16-year-old’s concern about his appearance and his standing among his peers may promote your rapport with him and eliminate learning barriers.

There is a saying that goes like this: “When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.” From this saying we know how important a plan is. Likewise, in teaching a teacher must be able to make time for herself to plan her lesson.
Planning a lesson is very necessary. A teacher without a plan when teaching will look so funny. Students will respect a teacher who just comes to class without any preparation. The class will be least controlled. The students will not likely learn something from the teacher, they learn like a routine. And finally they will not feel satisfied with the learning.

There are five basic sources of information that teachers can use to evaluate their teaching. All evaluation efforts use one or more of these basic sources. Each of these five sources has a unique value as well as an inherent limitation.
In this post, I will discuss the unique value, recommended frequency, limitation, and appropriate response to that limitation, for each of the five sources of information.

Good teachers are always learning…learning from students, learning from their own trial and error, learning from peers and colleagues, learning from mentors and supervisors, and learning from academic information in their field. Good teachers continue to learn throughout their careers. This is called “life‐long learning” or “ongoing professional development.”

One tool that can help teachers develop professionally is known as “reflective teaching practice.” Reflective teaching is the focus of this final module.

Classroom observation can take different forms. The two most common are:

1. Summative observation, in which another teacher or an administrator observes the class. The purpose for this is evaluative and may result a rating of some kind.
2. And, formative observation, in which two teachers, or “peers,” do a “friendly” observation of each other’s classes. The purpose is to improve teaching practices and to engage in a systematic form of professional development.

The focus in this module is on formative or peer observation. Formative observation can benefit both the observed teacher and the teacher doing the observation. In order to do so, it must be carefully organized. We will follow a teachers through the three phases of a successful observation:

• First, preparing for the observation.
• Then, observing in the classroom.
• And, finally, the post‐observation debriefing.

Younger learners are from 4‐10 years of age, and from kindergarten through 5th grade. Younger learners are active and creative. They learn through doing. They are social, they like to play, and they have the ability to develop the rules of language themselves, as they play with different language content and input. They also have a short attention span, and they need repetition and clear direction.

Introduction

The focus in this topic is on teaching younger learners. In the class you saw at the beginning of this module, the teacher used a song to start the class and get learners to focus. This is an effective management technique for younger learners.

Alternative Assessment

There are various ways a teacher uses to assess her students' capability about a certain material of teaching. Alternative assessment is a way to directly evaluate learners’ language skills. A paper‐pencil test shows knowledge about the language. Alternative assessment shows learners’ ability to use the language.

There are many reasons for using alternative assessment techniques. With alternative assessment:

A teacher can interest students by using authentic materials. Authentic materials are used by native speakers of a language for actual communication. Authentic materials are good tools for language teaching and learning because they are:

• Interesting.
• They use real language.
• They can be chosen for individual
• They illustrate accurate use of language in the target
• And, they help students learn how to get as much information as they can, even if they can’t understand everything, or even very much.

There are things to take into accounts before a teacher uses authentic materials, they are:

Individual Learner Differences

Learners in one classroom are both similar and, at the same time, different. A learner‐centered approach to teaching requires teachers to understand this duality, and to be aware of the different ways in which students learn. Some differences are easy to see or discover, such as…age…gender…socioeconomic conditions…and level of education.

Other differences may be more difficult to identify, including:

Introduction

In this module, we’ll take a look at what one teacher is doing to bring critical and creative thinking into her classes. Her students are learning to take a “think locally and act globally” approach to problem‐solving and new areas of inquiry in their learning as they develop their language skills.

This is the first week in a large class of young adults. The teacher is using a content‐based approach with a Mass Media theme as a basis for the day’s activities. She is assessing students’ skills as they participate in and complete a series of tasks. Observe the sequence of activities that she has students do over the course of the class. Ask yourself, “In what ways are critical and creative thinking involved?’

The followings are examples to illustrate how a teacher can apply this step;

The goal of teaching strategies is to create autonomous learners, learners who can learn by themselves inside and outside the classroom. Research and classroom practices are evolving in many directions to try to better understand and facilitate learning for students of all ages. In general, successful language learners tend to select strategies that work well together, according to the requirements of the language task. These learners can easily explain the strategies they use and why they use them.

Module Focus: Introduction

In this module, we will focus on some key features of two classes of learning strategies:

• Language learning and communication strategies.
• Cognitive and metacognitive strategies.

In recent years, the demand for English has increased. Schools around the world have responded by adding more English classes into the curriculum. Class sizes can be quite large and, in some cases, are growing even larger. Classes of 50‐75 students are not uncommon. Many people in education are asking themselves:

• How do large classes affect an instructor’s ability to teach, and a student’s ability to learn?
• And, how do large classes affect the quality of education?

Teachers may not be able to answer these as research questions, but they can examine pedagogical techniques and classroom management practices that make the best of large classroom situations.

Module Focus: Introduction

In this module we'll look at classroom management from the perspective of:

One important distinction to make when giving learner feedback is that of formative vs. summative evaluation. Formative evaluation is a way of giving students feedback along the way. It is the answer to the questions, “How am I doing so far?” and “How can I improve?” Summative evaluation includes those kinds of evaluation that summarize a student’s overall performance. For example, the final grade for a course.

In this module, we'll look at some:

• General “Dos and Don’ts” for formative learner feedback.
• And, some specific techniques for giving feedback on work that students have produced when the primary focus is on oral skills, and on writing skills.

#1 Viewing Points: General “Dos and Don'ts"

Some general guidelines for feedback are to….

The focus in this module is on Pair and Group Work. Pair and Group Work incorporates principles and themes from the Cooperative Learning and Collaborative Learning theoretical frameworks.

Module Focus: Introduction, Rationale

Some reasons for using pair and group work are…

• To accommodate individual differences and learning styles.
• To provide opportunities for different types of cognitive involvement.
• To allow for unexpected learning.
• And, to motivate learners and increase time‐on‐task by using a variety of engaging and interesting activities.

In observing or teaching a class, there are some questions that help a teacher determine what kind of activity will do done. The questions are…