I remember my pre-TEFL days when my learning of foreign languages consisted of songs and role-plays in primary school, conversational (!) Latin in the first year of secondary followed by French audio-lingual drills in the language lab and rote learning of French verbs in the classroom. After university, I picked up some German in Austria and learnt some Japanese 1-1 in Japan.
As a teacher, when I started my RSA Prep Cert TEFLA (CELTA today) I learnt about staging lessons, talking time and concept checking. In my first job I was trained to base young learner lessons on questions and answers. Later I worked with teachers who ‘analysed’ and teachers who ‘bonded’. I observed dynamic, impassioned teachers and others who were steady and sure. During my Dip TEFLA (DELTA today) I experimented with negotiated syllabuses and project work and went much deeper into pronunciation.
After attending last November’s English UK Teacher’s Conference and listening to Chia Suan Chong discuss the history of TEFL methodology I have found myself more than once coming back to her excellent blog. I recently read a most interesting article she wrote on the pros and cons of the Callan Method (in a nutshell staged drilling and no analysis).
So what is my answer? I suppose it is to draw on a wide range of techniques and approaches so you can select the most effective ones for your particular student (and yourself). It is a very brave (and perhaps foolhardy) teacher who uses the same techniques whatever the age, background or level of learner, and with no reference to their priorities. If you do find yourself relying on a rather narrow approach, do try to learn new ways to teach. As your teacher’s tool kit gets larger, you are likely to be more responsive to what you student needs and to enjoy your teaching even more.
Finally, do bear in mind how long the student’s course is. If they are here for a week then it would seem reasonable in most cases to focus on confidence, fluency and activating their passive vocabulary. If they are here for 2 weeks, you have more time to spend on new vocabulary grammar and pronunciation. If their stay is longer then you may need to consider more fully how you are going to structure your syllabus and what materials you need.
Homelingua teaching is about the most suitable teaching for your student!
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