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      Typography, adaptation and additions © Oxford University Press 1981

      Material reprinted from Teacher Talk © Glyn S. Hughes and Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, Helsinki 1978

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      Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

      First published 1981

      2013 2012

      30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23

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      ISBN: 978 0 19 4316330

      Printed in China

      Not for sale in Finland

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Illustrations on pages 88, 89, and 172 are from Cartoons for Students of English 2 by Hill and Mallet, published by Oxford University Press

      All other cartoons are produced by kind permission of Punch

      INTRODUCTION

      The aim of this book is to present and practise the language required by the teacher of English in the practical day-to-day management of classes. It is intended for two main groups of readers:

      The rather different needs of these two groups have meant that the format of the book is a compromise between a textbook and a work of reference.

      Teaching is considered primarily in terms of methodological problems and practical solutions to these problems. As a result teachers in training spend considerable time acquiring the basis of sound methodological habits for the presentation, practice and testing of learning items. It is, however, often forgotten that the classroom procedures derived from a particular method almost invariably have to be verbalized. In other words, instructions have to be given, groups formed, time limits set, questions asked, answers confirmed, discipline maintained, and so on. The role of this linguistic interaction is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of teaching, but it is clearly crucial to the success of the teaching/learning event.

      Whatever the subject taught, all teachers require this specialized classroom competence and should be trained in it. Foreign language teachers in particular require linguistic training aimed at the classroom situation since, if they believe in the maximum use of the L2, that is, the language being taught, they are obliged to use it both as the goal of their teaching and as the prime medium of instruction and classroom management. Despite the linguistic demands of the L2 teaching situation, foreign language graduates are seldom adequately prepared for the seemingly simple task of running a class in the L2. The nature of the first-degree study programme may have meant that there was no opportunity to practise the key classroom functions of organization and interrogation, or teacher training units may be unwilling to interfere in what appears to be an aspect of ‘knowledge of subject’. The result is generally that the trainee teacher acquires a very limited repertoire of classroom phrases, or makes as little use of the L2 as possible. In both cases there is likely to be a detrimental effect on learning:

      An extremely important element of overall teaching success is careful advance planning, but equally important is the teacher’s flexibility in the actual classroom situation, i.e., the teacher’s willingness and ability to deviate from a lesson plan, for example in order to make use of the pupils’ own interests and suggestions, or to devote more time to individual learning difficulties. In the case of L2 teaching, such flexibility makes heavy demands on the teacher’s foreign language skills, although the result may provide a learning bonus for the pupils:

      The theoretical starting point of this book is that the classroom situation is a genuine social environment which allows ‘the meaningful situational use of the language’, and that its communicative potential is closer to real interaction than is often assumed. This view probably requires some further explanation: