Marta Tena
PRIMARY & ENGLISH TEACHER
TIPS FOR CLASSROOM LANGUAGE
The purpose of this section is to reflect on the language I used in the teaching unit, its function and some tips that can be helpful for all the English teachers.
Language is the main resource of communication in the English lessons. However, as it is a foreign language for students, it is very important to reflect about it and to take into consideration the possible difficulties they could have, not only when trying to communicate but in terms of understanding.
For that reason, it is very important to help them and provide some language support during the lessons so as to make them feel more comfortable with the language.
Furthermore, there are some situations that require a specific language, such as when opening the lesson, when establishing routines, dealing with classroom management, etc... In this section, you will find some tips for this kind of language.
-
Transports Vocabulary
Trip to London
Specific content language used during the teaching unit
Click on each item to see the materials
Co-teaching
Specific language used during the co-teaching unit
Click on each item to see the materials
-
Good morning kids!
-
How are you?
-
Come on guys, let’s start!
-
Is everyone ready?
-
Let’s get the ball rolling!
-
Let’s get down to business
Opening Session
Facilitates the students’ focus. With these expressions kids will pay attention and will be easier to start the lessons
-
Put the chairs back
​
-
Put your books away/down
​
-
Tie your shoes up
​
-
Blow your nose
​
-
Make a line
​
-
Go on the line
​
-
Hang up your coats
Routines
Important to make students create habits in the classroom and facilitate its management
-
Can you remind me what we did yesterday?
​​​
-
Can you remember what did we talk about?
Recapping
Important to make students show the acquired knowledge in the previous sessions
-
Can you focus on your tasks?
-
Silence, please
-
Can you talk in a low voice?
-
Be quiet, please
-
Just one second of attention
-
Hands up!
Classroom Management
One of the biggest challenges we face in the classrooms, the vocabulary and structures we use should be suitable, effective as well as brief and concise.
-
Could you repeat, please?
-
Can you say that again?
-
Once again, please?
Repetition
Repetition is a common factor that appears in the lessons, if we give these examples to the students, then they will be able to use it when needed.
-
That’s all for today
-
Let’s leave it here
-
Time’s up
-
We’ve run out of time
-
Time flies
-
I’m afraid we leave it here
Closing Lesson
Closing lessons are also a key point. The use of expressions is good to conclude the classroom in an effective way.
-
Can anybody tell me what’s the word for this in English?
-
Can you try to say that in English?
-
What do you call this in English?
Getting students to provide a word in English
It is very important to encourage children to speak in English, or at list to make them try. For that reason we should give them strategies and resources.
FEEDBACK
​
Feedback is an essential part of classroom lessons, it is very important to take care of the type of feedback we give to our students.
There are different types of feedback, in this case, I have proposed three: negative feedback, encouraging feedback, and positive feedback. In any of them is important to keep encouraging children, for that reason in the negative and encouraging feedback, the use of quantitative adverbs such as “quite” are good to soften the idea we want to transmit.