Tuesday, September 30, 2025
When you’ve had a break from teaching or even when you’ve been teaching for a long time without any feedback or further training, your key teaching techniques can get a bit rusty. Regardless of how long you’ve been teaching, or what experience you have, it’s always a good idea to brush up on those basic techniques that you need to know in order to be an effective teacher. In this post, our aim is to go through the main ones that we think are absolutely essential for your return to the classroom and that you definitely can’t forget.
A good lesson starts with good instructions. If your students don’t know what they are meant to be doing throughout the lesson, then you are going to be fighting an uphill battle at each stage. Your instructions should be clear and concise and, most importantly, appropriate for the level. Some teachers find it useful to script instructions if they have a tendency to overcomplicate things, and this can be a great strategy to ensure that your instructions are going to be as effective as possible. Avoid giving instructions that are too wordy or repetitive- you should also make sure that you give all of the essential information that the ss need to complete the task correctly. ICQs (Instruction Checking Questions) should be used after having given instructions to check that the ss have understood what they have to do. These questions should focus on what you anticipate ss to get confused about or something that they might misinterpret.
Monitoring is about the teacher being active and engaged in the class when the students are doing an activity, either individually or in pairs/groups. Active monitoring, contrary to popular belief, does not mean that the teacher has to be involved in ss’ conversations or interrupt when they are speaking, it just means that the teacher needs to have a high level of awareness of what is happening in the class during that task. How can we actively monitor when ss are doing a reading task, for example? The teacher will walk around or move around on a chair and see how far through the text ss are and how many questions they have answered. This helps to make decisions on when to end the task and whether ss might be finding the task harder than expected. Can you monitor actively if you are sat behind the desk for the whole lesson? Absolutely not. Do you need to be sitting/standing very close to ss to monitor actively? Also, no. You need to be in a position in which you can see what’s going on, but without distracting the ss.
When ss have done an individual task, be it reading, listening or a grammar/vocabulary task, ss need to have the chance to check their answers with their peers (pairs/groups of three) before going through the answers as a whole group. Why is this beneficial? As a teacher, you are able to listen to the ss comparing their answers and you can anticipate any issues that ss have had with the task or even listen out for correct answers, so you know who to ask you to give answers in feedback. It also gives ss the chance to compare what they have with their partners and it might give them more confidence when it comes to giving this answer in front of the whole group. The act of comparing is also useful as ss have to justify what they have written, especially in the case when the answers aren’t the same.
CCQs (Concept checking questions) are a key part of any language lesson in which you have to check ss have understood key grammar or vocabulary. These questions are asked post-teaching and before ss are asked to practise the language in some way. They check that the ss have understood what was taught, and in case they haven’t fully grasped the concept, it gives the teacher a chance to go back over the language before the ss have to complete a task. CCQs can be in the form of yes/no questions, 50/50 questions or information questions, and the type of question that is asked is based very much on the level of the ss and the language that is being checked. In order to create effective CCQs, teachers need to fully analyse the language they are teaching and anticipate any potential problems ss might have with it, be it in terms of meaning, form or pronunciation.
MFP stands for Meaning, Form and Pronunciation and is the acronym that we use when we talk about the clarification of language (grammar/vocabulary). When teaching a language point/item, we must ensure that we cover all of these three areas fully before getting ss to practise the language. If not, the ss will have issues when it comes to controlling the language and they will make errors due to a lack of teaching, rather than a lack of ability. Whenever you are teaching new grammar or vocabulary, it’s essential to have previously analysed these three areas so that you can competently clarify the language and answer ss’ questions. Don’t expect the coursebook to be able to do this for you!
The board is a teacher’s best friend, whether it be a blackboard, whiteboard or an interactive whiteboard. Whatever resource you have in your classroom, you should be using it in every class. The board should be used at a variety of stages throughout the lesson, amongst others writing up new vocabulary, displaying images, recording the answers, clarifying language, dealing with ss’ errors and taking feedback after a speaking task. The board is an essential visual reference for ss, on which language should be developed that they do not already have in written form (coursebook etc.) If you don’t use it well, then language gets lost and ss can’t write things down and see what the written form is. Lessons should be visually strong, and the board is your best tool to achieve this.
Language grading refers to the teacher using the correct level of language depending on the level/class that they are teaching. It should be challenging enough so that the ss practise listening at their level, but not too hard that they ss can’t follow the lesson and become frustrated. Language grading involves using level-appropriate grammar and vocabulary, as well as speaking at an appropriate speed and using an appropriate level of connected speech features. All of this means that you must be aware of what grammar and vocabulary is required of ss at the level you are teaching and have an awareness of your ss in class and how they react to what you are saying.
Error correction is something that ss expect when they are in class and, as such, we need to deliver as teachers. Of course, it would be impossible to correct every error that ss’ make throughout the lesson, and it wouldn’t be and effective use of your time. Teachers need to consider the type of error that is made, as well as the frequency with which is it made and the stage of the lesson. The decision to correct the error needs to be something that is useful for the student/students and done in a way that is motivating. You wouldn’t correct ss when they are having a meaningful discussion with a partner, but you might write the error down and go back to it once the task has finished. Errors can be corrected either on-the-spot or delayed, and this is something that the teacher has to consider at the stage of the lesson in which the error is made.
Feedback stages are an essential part of any lesson. Once ss have done a task, either individually or in pairs, there needs to be a whole-group feedback stage before moving on to the next task. There are two types of feedback, content and language and the type of feedback very much depends on the task that the ss have done. This could involve asking ss to provide feedback on what they have discussed, provide answers to the task or giving their opinion on a certain topic.
Pace is an important factor of your lesson when it comes to keeping ss challenged and engaged in your lesson. If a lesson is too fast, ss don’t get time to complete activities and assimilate information and can get frustrated or even upset. If a lesson is too slow, then ss might get bored and end up misbehaving or going off topic more. The appropriate pace for your lesson is when the majority of the ss can keep up with what is going on- if you always wait for the slowest to finish, then you will have the whole class waiting. However, if you can see that the majority have been able to complete the tasks then that is the pace to stick with.
Remember, a good teacher is one that constantly reflects on their teaching and thinks about ways to improve and become more effective in the classroom, no matter how many years of experience you may have under your belt. Use the tips above to review how you teach in class and always keep them in mind when you are with your students, regardless of their age or level. Happy teaching!
