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Focus

focus

Everyone likes to know why they are doing things and where they are going.  So, you need to make this clear and focus people.
The other reason, often neglected, is that learners are not passive receivers of data.  If learners know what the targets of the lesson are and what it leads to, they can use their own resources to help themselves to achieve the aims of the lesson.  They are not, after all, your aims but theirs.

When you did the research for your lesson or teaching slot, you may have come across the terminology for the area and impressed yourself that you understood it and can use it in your lesson plan.  Do not get carried away.  You may know that the focus of the lesson is on transferred negation or deontic modality but your learners need that focus to be expressed in a way that accords with their aims and experience.  So,
Instead of
    This lesson is about ways of expressing obligation
prefer
    This lesson is on how to say what you must do and what you must not do
and instead of
    This lesson is about how we make negative sentences in English
prefer
    This lesson is about agreeing and disagreeing with someone
This way, the learners can see what it is they are trying to communicate and bring their own knowledge and resources to bear.
This is not the place for a mini-lecture – you just need to set the topic of the lesson and say what people will learn to do.

The same considerations apply to activities and tasks.  People need to have some idea why they are being asked to do them.  This should not be a mini-lecture on task purposes but you do need to focus people on what they are doing.  For example:
    This task will ask you to think carefully about the form of the language
    This task is to see if you can remember which preposition goes with which verb
    This task is to practise quickly finding small bits of information in a text
    This task will help you learn how to listen for the general message without understanding all the words you hear
and so on.  That's enough.

Focus also needs to be maintained throughout the teaching slot or lesson so you need to be continually alert to what people are thinking and talking about.  If they go off target, you need to nudge them back gently.

Focus is particularly important for skills work.  When you read, write, listen or speak, you do so for a purpose.  Being asked, therefore, simply to read something or listen to something without knowing why you are doing it is quite disorientating for most people.  Never, ever, therefore, say:
    Please read this text
    Listen to these people talking
    Write three sentences about hobbies
    Talk to your partner about the weekend
but always prefer
    Read this text and write down three new facts you have learned about the USA
    Listen to these people talking and write down what they say when they want to change the subject
    Use the words you learned yesterday to write three sentences that are true for you about holidays and hobbies
    Talk to your partner and find out two things she or he did last weekend

? Here's a little test.
Read the things a teacher may say and ask yourself how useful and helpful it is.  Then click on the eye open for some ideas.

This lesson is on modal auxiliary verbs
eye open
Please read this text and underline the adjectives
eye open
Why?
What's the text about?
Do I want to read this?
Why should I underline adjectives?
Do not do this.  Before learners can start to analyse the language in a text, they need to respond to it personally and understand what it is about.
A better way to put this is something like this (with a gap between the two tasks for you get some feedback and clear up any comprehension problems):
This is story about a haunted house.  There are lots of words in the text which describe the house and the things in it.
First read the text and talk to your partner about what you have understood.
...
Now, go back and re-read the text underlining all the adjectives
The list of verbs here comes with a list of prepositions.  Try to match the correct preposition with the verbs so you can remember which one goes with which.
The first one is an example.
eye open
This is much better because you have made it clear what the learners need to do and why they should try to do it.
Better still, you have provided an example so no-one is in any doubt about what to do.
This will only be successful if the words have already been encountered in the work that went before this task.  You can't ask people to come cold to this kind of activity.
It is reinforcement, not presentation.
Talk to your partner about your earliest memories as a child
eye open
Why?
How is this relevant to what will follow?
What language am I supposed to be using?
Who cares?
This can be an interesting and motivating lead in but the learners need to be told about it.  A better instruction is:
Today we are going to look at the language we use to talk about what we did in the past but do not do now.
Think of three things you did as a child and no longer do.  Things you have stopped doing.
For example, when I was child, I used to like ... but now I don't like ...
(Two minutes)
Now, tell your partner about them.

The purpose of the exercise is twofold:
  1. To activate the learners' memories and experiences of the topic of the lesson.
  2. To show you and the learners how well (or badly) they can talk about past discontinued habits.

The other important thing the example did was to introduce the target of the lesson (the semi-modal auxiliary verb used to for talking about discontinued habits).



mirror

Rehearse

Now is a good time to do as you did for the guide to First impressions and try to visualise exactly how you will focus the learners:

Try practising your focusing language and instructions now and when it comes to the lesson, they'll be second nature so you can think about more important things: the learners.