Teaching is best when...

Thank you very much for having me in your classes this week. I had fun observing all the great teaching and learning that goes on in your classes. I still have to visit the Tuesday and Saturday classes, and I will make sure I do that after spring break.

The best part about observing the classes is that you realize it's all worth it! All the headaches, all the problems, all the photocopying, all the e-mails, all the chasing, all the meetings, all the fighting… really it's all worth it when you see the teachers in action, the learners' smiles, and all the wonderful things happening in the classroom. Thank you everyone for being a part of Language Bridges!

Here's some feedback to help you with your teaching in the future. Teaching is best when...

You are well-prepared: This is very crucial for all teachers, but particularly more for new teachers. The materials for this program were designed for volunteers with no experience, so everything that you need to know about how to teach the material, what to say, how to transition from one activity to the other, how to talk to the learners, what questions to ask, everything is there! So please, get together with your teaching partners, review the material, learn it, and teach it well. When observing your teaching, it was very clear to me who had prepared and who had not. Make the best of out of this experience for you and your learners and come very well prepared to your next class.

You follow the materials and lesson plans, but most importantly follow your learners, their needs, their interests, their background, and where they want to go. If the materials are too hard, make them easier. If the materials are too easy, make them harder. If all the examples in the materials are about people from Egypt and all your learners are from Sri Lanka, make some changes so that you make the materials more relevant to your learners. In the applying for a job lesson, the learners could apply to any kind of job they would want, not just the ones listed in the sample job applications. Next time to follow up on this activity, bring newspaper job ads and have them read them, find jobs that interest them, learn new words, etc.

You know your students: Keep using your name tags and call your students by their name. In some classes I saw name tags and it was nice to see the teachers addressing their learners by their names. When there were no name tags, it was hard for the teachers to remember everyone's names. So keep using the name tags throughout the program.

You have fun with your learners: Make class fun, joke with your learners, play games. When you play games, be enthusiastic and try to have prizes. Your learners will love that! We will collect prizes to use in your classes and leave them in the student club's suite for you to give away in your classes. If you have T-shirts, bags, mugs, caps, notebooks, pens at home, bring them to use them in your class as prizes. Also, have the learners lead the games as well. If you play hangman, you can lead the game a couple of times and then call on different learners to the board to lead the game themselves.

You engage in conversation about your learners' lives and experiences: When you start your class, engage your learners in conversation, ask them about their week, their weekend, their families, their jobs. When doing activities, ask follow-up questions to get a conversation going in class. For example, if you are doing abilities and one of them says he can't drive, ask him if he'd like to learn how to drive and why. I'm sure a lot of them would like to drive so they can advance in their jobs.

Encourage participation from all the learners: Of course it's easy to rely on the talkative and more advanced learners in our class, and that's something that it's encouraged to get conversations going and to model some activities. But good teachers involve all learners in the learning process. We don't want to leave anybody behind.

Be responsive to what your learners say: Follow up with questions, ask for elaboration, be sympathetic, engage in conversation.

Encourage a learner-centered environment with more talk from the learners and less talk from the teachers. I observed a great deal of teacher talk. While teachers need to give directions and teach material, the learners should be doing most of the talking in a class.

Use the computer and internet resources in the classroom: Play songs, teach songs, use youtube videos, show them our Facebook page, encourage them to like our Facebook page and write on it.

When teaching vocabulary, write down the words on the white board and encourage the learners to copy them.

Continue to have fun and making a difference in people's lives! I'm very proud of your work!