Tim's Tales

Recently, unbound had the opportunity to chat with Tim Yale, who is said to be great at "learner training" and developing good rapports with teenage groups.

Unbound: Tim, what advise can you give to new teachers on the subject of learner training?

Tim: Well, unfortunately, the truth is really, whatever the type of task it is, or whatever the different stages involved such as note-taking, pair work, or something like that, they really just got to do it a bunch of times, because inevitably they will either screw it up, or can't do it as well as they could on the first few attempts. And outside grammar and linguistic mistakes, they have to be told that it is a mistake - that they have to do it better than that. For any task, they have to mess it up at least once, and be told that and that they have to do it again and try.

Unbound: What is the best way of correcting mistakes in class?

Tim: There are basically two ideas - do you want to correct them immediately, or do you want to save it and present it to the whole class after an activity. For example, in pairs, when the students are discussing something, interviewing each other or practicing a dialogue, you could probably correct them immediately, either by just putting a hand to your ear and saying, WHAT? Or asking a question or maybe repeating what they said, EXCUSE ME, WHAT? And at that moment they may even correct themselves. If they don't get that, there's the classis Dom O'Callahan finger technique, where you hold up five or more fingers and start counting out the words they've said. If the student said I HAD TWO DRINK YESTERDAY, you go I HAD TWO, then put one finger down, YESTERDAY. So they know the gap they have to fill is in that place. And make a voice like mmmmm for the gap. The other method is when they are making a long presentation or a Cutting Edge task, for example, you might want to write the mistakes down on the board and have the class correct them.

Unbound: How do you deal with explaining grammar rules to lower level students?

Tim: I try to explain rules as little as possible. They can read it for themselves and look at the examples. I find that pictures and timelines do it better, or something that gives examples, like a text or listening exercise. In many books like English File, a lot of rules are gapped, so they have to decide for themselves. I try not to flat out say - this is the rule.

Unbound: What is different in explaining grammar for the higher levels?

Tim: Hopefully there would be someone in the class other than you who can explain it (Diane laughs in the background). Really, you should lay back a bit.

Unbound: For teenage classes, how do you manage to keep student motivation levels high for 2h15m lessons?

Tim: Motivation mainly comes from competition. They really want to out do each other, and if you give them something that isn't competitive, they'll often sit on their hands and do nothing. But if they think they are trying to be better than the other kids, they will try anything to do it. Any sort of competition game goes over well. If they think there is no reward for being correct, they are not very motivated. But a grammar rodeo, or auction or something else where they win points - and they love points - they'll fight each other over it and the results.

Unbound: Finally Tim, what do you think about most teenage books?

Tim: Most of them are deadly boring. Students want something gory. They love stories about sharks, aliens, people being dismembered, and ghost and goblin stories, things like that. But the typical TEFL type of stuff like THE MAN WHO TRAVELLED AROUND THE WORLD, they couldn't care less - unless there were piranhas, then its good. Not many books have that stuff, but Lifelines Pre-Int, for example, has a story about a shark attack - about the guy's stitches and scars, they really enjoy that stuff.

Unbound: Thanks for your time, Tim.

Tim: No problem.