English Toolbox Tips

An interesting fictitious debate between two Japanese EFL teachers on the forthcoming requirement to teach all EFL classes in Japan entirely in English. Sample exchange:

Saito: OK, what about classroom management? I'm fine with the target language being demonstrated in English, but what about metalanguage, those explanations of language points, information about homework and projects, tests and grades, arranging an activity, warnings and comments about exceptions or irregular cases in English, common pitfalls, that sort of thing? And imagine you're giving instructions like this:

"Work with your partner. Choose words from the right side if you are the partner on the right, and from the left side if you are on the left, then fill in the blanks verbally, using the correct form of the verbs from the list. After you've finished this do it again but in reverse, but this time change the tense to the continuous form, so keep in mind you'll have the change the other parts of each sentence accordingly."

If I say all that in English, it will take about 20 minutes just to get the activity started and students will be frustrated and demotivated and probably with even less actual comprehension. It just doesn't make sense when the class management or instruction language is more complex than the target language points. So why not say it in Japanese in one or two minutes so that everyone understands what to do and can get right to work on the target language points? Then they'd be spending more time on the actual English task!

Labels: EFL, teaching English, TEFL