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Unit 3 covered theories, methods and techniques that a teacher will be able to use during the course of her/his class. the first part of the unit commentated on the common methods and techniques and why it works best or why another would be better. Secondly, the Elicitation phase of a lesson was discussed. The Elicitation phase is to involve the students, with this the teacher can find information on what the students already know and might struggle with. The Elicitation techniques are used in a way for the students to be involved in the understanding and discovery of the language, the students have more talk time. Thirdly the Jeremey Harmer method known as the Engage, Study and Activate method was dealt with. The Engage stage is to get the students interest and get them to involve in the lesson. The aim of this phase is to get the students thinking and speaking in English as much as possible. Example of an Engage phase activity: “Information search” Students stand up and have a mingle conversation to find information about each person in the room and then report back. The Study phase includes activities that allow students to focus on the language ( or information ) and how it is constructed. After the language point has been covered, exercises are given to the students to check their understanding and to reinforce the material. Example of a Study phase activity: Looking at texts/dialogues and analyzing typical constructions. The Activate stage focus more on the fluency than accuracy with no restrictions on language usage, here the students should be using the language as ‘freely’ and communicatively as possible. Example of an Active stage activity: “Role-play” students act out everyday roles in realistic situations. The fourth part of the Unit explained ‘Straight Arrow’ ESA lesson, ‘Boomerang’ ESA lesson and ‘Patchwork’ ESA lesson. The ‘Straight Arrow’ ESA lesson is where a teacher takes the lesson in the ESA order. It allows the students to use the language in a controlled way in the study sequence and then giving them a chance to activate the language in a fun way. The ‘Boomerang’ ESA lesson gives us more possibilities while still incorporating ESA. The ‘Patchwork’ ESA lessons aren’t as straightforward and will require a lot of mini-sequences building to a whole. They allow for a greater deal of flexibility and provide a nice balance between study and activation. The fifth part of the Unit discussed giving feedback and correction techniques. Having stimulating activities isn’t much use to the students unless they are provided with some kind of feedback as to how well they have done, or where they went wrong. The aim of giving feedback is to encourage self-awareness and improvement. By providing ongoing feedback you can help your students to evaluate their success and progress. When it comes to correcting we need to remember that too much correction can be off-putting for students too little is unhelpful, praising the students is equally as important as correcting them. There are three options when it comes to ‘who corrects?’ Firstly is self-correction where the student has the opportunity to reflect upon their work. Secondly, student-student correction allows the other students to correct the mistake. The third option is the teacher-student correction, this must be the last resort. There are three occasions when it is relevant to correct: The mistake is with the language point we are teaching, The mistake is being regularly repeated either by the student or other class members and so risks becoming ingrained and if the mistake seriously impedes understanding. The last topic of the Unit gave various guidance notes for the stages in a lesson. For example: During all stages of the lesson the students’ use of English should be maximized, during the Engage stage ensure that every student speaks some English and have high student talk time, during the Study stage elicit as much as possible from the students’ try to avoid giving them too much or telling them things, during the Activate stage try to encourage your students to be creative with the English language knowledge they already have and combine it with what they have just learned.
