mellow-yellow
New member
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2012
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- United States
- Current Location
- United States
Does anyone understand the meaning of the bolded paragraph below? It comes from Jeremy Harmer's How To Teach English book:
What if the class is very big?
In big classes, it is difficult for the teacher to make contact with the students at the back
and it is difficult for the students to ask for and receive individual attention. It may seem
impossible to organise dynamic and creative teaching and learning sessions. Frequendy, big
classes mean that it is not easy to have students walking around or changing pairs, etc. Most
importantly, big classes can be quite intimidating for inexperienced teachers.
Despite the problems of big classes, there are things which teachers can do.
Use worksheets
One solution is for teachers to hand out worksheets for many of the tasks which they
would normally do with the whole class, if the class was smaller. When the feedback stage
is reached, teachers can go through the worksheets with the whole group - and all the
students will get the benefit.
What if the class is very big?
In big classes, it is difficult for the teacher to make contact with the students at the back
and it is difficult for the students to ask for and receive individual attention. It may seem
impossible to organise dynamic and creative teaching and learning sessions. Frequendy, big
classes mean that it is not easy to have students walking around or changing pairs, etc. Most
importantly, big classes can be quite intimidating for inexperienced teachers.
Despite the problems of big classes, there are things which teachers can do.
Use worksheets
One solution is for teachers to hand out worksheets for many of the tasks which they
would normally do with the whole class, if the class was smaller. When the feedback stage
is reached, teachers can go through the worksheets with the whole group - and all the
students will get the benefit.