How to get students speaking English in class: An easy and effective method 

It happend in my class too 😢

I know, right? 😁

Great, thanks! Let me know how it goes if you use it.

@@TeachinginHarmony sure 😉

Thanks Paola! Hope it works for you. (Hola Chile! ;)

Hey Katherine. So sorry for not seeing this question earlier! Yes, I agree that things are definitely trickier in an online teaching context. There is a significant challenge getting students to speak at all in an online classroom, and monitoring breakout rooms is much more of a struggle. I have used this system successfully with young adult learners online in breakout room activities. Before they go to the room, I appoint a monitor for each room to tick off the names of the group members who speak English the whole time. Again, there should be no reward or punishment attached to this - just a record at the end of the lesson of what each student did every time there was a breakout room activity. It's awareness-raising for them to monitor their own learning, and if your routine expectation is that each group will self-monitor for English-speaking, it is more likely they will do it. They may lie, but make it clear that they have nothing to gain by lying. You can also get them to record their conversations in breakout rooms for them to listen back to later and check their pronunciation. When working in the main room, I do a lot of vocal exercises - speaking all at once with our microphones on, making animal noises, tongue twisters, cameras off/on roleplays, singing - it helps break down the not-wanting-to-speak barrier in the online space. If all else fails, getting them to type responses in the chat or on the Jamboard, is valid and less stressful. And using vocaroo.com to record themselves speaking helps as well. I hope those are some helpful ideas. Please let me know how you go!

Hi, and thanks for the question. ☺️ Yes, definitely! This strategy could easily be applied to a class of older adults. If you’re worried about how it would be received by them, present it to them in a way that makes it clear it will help with learning. Present it as an awareness-raising exercise, or set it as a class challenge, and see how it goes for one class - or for one portion of your class. Ask them to decide if they are willing to give it a try again next lesson, at least for part of the lesson. Guide THEM to decide how much of the lesson they will self-monitor their English use for. The more they co-operate in decisions about their learning, the more beneficial it will be. Hope that is helpful. ☺️

Thanks for the excellent question! As with most teaching, it depends… on the class, the school, the length of the lesson, the frequency of use, etc. My advice is this: Try it in a small part of a lesson first, like during one group or speaking activity. Then next time, try it in for the last 20 minutes of the lesson (after they’ve warmed up and practised the target language). Then try it for half the lesson, and so on, until they are comfortable trying it for a full lesson. I also suggest being explicit and collaborative about what you are trying to achieve. Brainstorm with them a schedule for working towards the goal of English use in a full lesson. Get them to come up with why and how it will help their language learning. Don’t let them be passive - facilitate their active participation in the whole process. Finally, with younger learners, it’s SUPER important not to attach this to reward or punishment. It’s demotivating for those who can’t do it, and unnecessary for those who can already. I hope that’s helpful. Please let me know how you get on!

In terms of getting their friends not to leave blanks, I mean sure - that can happen. But it doesn't matter. The point is that it's an awareness-raising system. They can "cheat" if they want to, but what's the incentive? It's not attached to a reward, so the only person who loses out is themselves. Even if they have been "cheating", and have a card full of ticks, they KNOW they didn't earn them, so they know they're not putting in the effort.

Hi, thanks for your question. I think you could divide the time however it works for you and your learners. If 20-minute blocks work, then yes of course. If 10 or 15 minutes is better, do that. This may take a little experimentation on your part.

@@TeachinginHarmony thanks a lot for ur answer

I would need to plan my lesson so that students have the opportunity and the need to produce language in order to complete the activities. Communicative language activities should have a genuine need for interaction - like an information gap or a discussion with a goal they have to achieve - so that students cannot successfully do the activity by remaining silent. Silence can also indicate discomfort or a lack of confidence. My classroom needs to be a safe space where my learners know that making mistakes will not be punished or laughed at. Building rapport with my students and helping them build rapport with each other is crucial here.

Well it depends on the level and the lesson topic, I suppose. I would expect them to use the vocabulary, sentence stems, functional language or grammar that we are focusing on in that lesson. This method relies on giving students time and opportunities for language production, so I would need to plan my lesson to include interactive communicative tasks like role plays, discussions and information gaps.

Hi Gigi! Yes, I hear you - large classes add an extra layer of difficulty to everything, don't they? Fortunately, this strategy is designed to be used by the students, in groups, so the teacher does not need an assistant, and it will give students the autonomy to check themselves. For it to work well in your class, I recommend breaking the class into groups of around 6-7 students, and making sure the student monitor in each group is someone who will take the job seriously Apart from reminding the monitors to do the ticks every 10 minutes, you as the teacher don't have to do anything, really. Please let me know if you try it, and how it goes. Good luck.

@@TeachinginHarmony thanks for the excellent tip! 🤗

It can. Like I said - it depends on your class how often or for how much time you use it. You may choose only to use it for 10 minutes every lesson, until that accuracy/fluency starts to build.

Yes, you are quite right - there are always other contextual factors at play in any class. Addressing those behavioural and motivational issues is not a quick and easy fix. This system is one tool I would recommend having in the toolkit, though, as part of a comprehensive approach.