Teaching Advanced classes - by Guy Edwards

You're feeling comfortable with your elementary group and your upper intermediates and then an advanced class comes your way. Questions fizz round your head "What about all that weird grammar on reduced relative clauses and why is writing suddenly so important?" Don't worry; the upper levels can take a bit of planning but it is definitely an experience to have heated debates and discussions on esoteric subjects of your choosing and those from the students.

Some things to remember:

1) Always do the exercises that you are going to look at yourself before class. This stops you from falling into traps that may be lurking.

2) Bone up on the grammar in:
Swan, M. 1980. Practical English Usage
Parrott, M. 2000. Grammar for English Language Teachers
No matter how much you know there's always some little tit-bit that is hiding away.

3) Don't rely on the teacher's book and student's book to have the correct information. More and more books seem to have typos and mistakes, so check, check, check before giving it to the students.

4) Try to get students to do the work not you. Get them to do project work and task based activities so you have the time to monitor effectively and it also lets them speak and listen more, which is what many of them will indicate as important.
Some books:
Campbell, C and Kryszewska, H. 1992. Learner-based teaching
Cranmer, D. 1996. Motivating High Level Learners

5) Remember that the students have probably been studying English for a while. They have probably talked about subjects like their families and the environment a dozen times. This doesn't mean you shouldn't do it again but try to think of a novel angle. One idea is to use news such as the Kyoto agreement or some other recent article or listening to kick start a discussion. This helps to give topics relevance and keeps the lessons fresh.

6) Use the Internet. This gives you a massive resource of reading and listening material, which is a great deal more authentic than some stuff in the books. If you want to know anything more about downloading listenings to cassette, come to Borovitskaya and ask me, or chat to the computers buffs at your school. Teens are great sources of computer information so kidnap one for an afternoon to give you a crash course in what you need.
A very useful address is the Guardian newspaper at: www.guardian.co.uk
This has links to many other news sights, including: www.bbc.co.uk

7) Find out what the students want and need. If the whole group says that speaking is very important and they hardly ever need to write, think about adapting the materials to deal with this.

Some points for exam classes:

1) Read the handbooks for the exam you're going to teach and make sure the book and your information is up to date. There is nothing worse than relying on old info.

2) Have a rough plan in mind for a week/two week period. This will help you and the students know what to expect from the lessons and make your planning easier.

3) See the Teacher information pack for a basic breakdown of things to think about for FCE classes (pages 20-23).

4) Think of how you give feedback. This is especially true of writing. Think of a marking scheme. e.g.
a) content
b) organisation
c) accuracy
d) appropriacy
e) range
f) task achievement

With the multiple choice answers to grammar questions it is necessary to go through why the answers are wrong as well as right. This allows students to expand their knowledge not only of the correct phrases, words etc. but what is possible or not.