A teaching guide detailed resource from university of maryland for approaching large classes, including a set of ideas and suggestions to use. Small tutorial groups, peerassisted learning, workshops, practical. This guide offers tips for utilizing many of the teaching strategies described on the crlt website e. Language teaching methods teachers handbook for the video series by. Discipline is easier, and you can devote more resources and time to giving each student the attention that. There should be some best methods which can be easily implemented. Eslefl teacher at a school or university, there are times when you will have to teach large classes. What are the best methods available to teach large classes.
They can inspire fear in even the most experienced instructor. Large group teaching is a most challenging one for everybody. It is not easy to manage large classes especially when noise levels go out of hand. Teaching large classes introduction to the topic teachers in different countries have different opinions about what a large class is. Teaching large classes can be daunting if youve never stood in front of that many students before. Teaching large class sizes in physical education guidelines and strategies the national association for sport and physical education naspe recommends that the size of physical education class be consistent with those of other subject areas e. Teaching in large classes can minimize many human resources. An excellent overview of assessment techniques and strategies in u. The use of teaching aids in the teaching learning process. Education at university level needs to be seen holistically, where lectures are one part of the whole teaching and learning experience of students. We drew up this list of challenges and possible responses in 2012 as a basis for a questionnaire study we carried out with teachers worldwide later in the same year. How the class culture develops in the first few classes dictates how students will act for the rest of the term.
Effects of large class size on effective teaching and learning 322 quality of teaching and learning, but also affect their stress levels. Approaches takeninonediscipline bymaryellenweimer nowiaskforashowofhandsandi rephrasemyqueryintoseveralquestions,raiseyourhandsifyouthink ourwaterhasahardnessoflessthan two. Cselt, project large class teaching learning 3 how large class teaching could be enriched is discussed by biggs 1999, among others. Most teachers agree that teaching a small group of students is easier, more enjoyable, and less timeconsuming than teaching a large group. Teaching in an overcrowded classroom can be frustrating, overwhelming and stressful. Teaching large classes teachingenglish british council. Teaching large classes center for teaching vanderbilt. Unescoapeid 1988 multiple class teaching in primary schools. On the bright side large classes are fun and exciting. At a recent tesol teachers of english to speakers of other languages c anada and the united states susan renaud, elizabeth tannenbaum, and phillip stantial studentcentered teaching in large cla sses with limited resources we cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
The course began well, with most students polite and attentive. Considering teaching english in large classes as a great problem and a real world issue which is worrying saudi english teachers of all levels in general and secondary teachers in particular, this study aims to investigate the effect of large english classes on the teaching and learning process and suggest some useful strategies to cope. Teaching large classes remotely have you communicated with students about your course. The work presented here on large class teaching and learning is the result. Teaching, learning, and professional development center texas tech university. This article suggests ways to help discipline, to use group work and to cope with limited resources. Rather than thinking, this will never work with a large class, think instead, is there anything worthwhile for me in this technique. Break the class into groups yes, even in a large class you can just ask them to turn to the two or three people around them to investigate a problem or answer a question. However, regardless of what you deem a large class, large. Teaching professor special report large classes faculty. In some schools, large classes may consist of up to 50 or more students.
Problems and difficulties of teaching associated with large classes can also be found in smaller classes. In addition, information on student feelings about large versus small classes and student opinions of the teaching methods was gathered. The effect of large classes on english teaching and. English languagestudy and teaching foreign speakers. It is hoped that the findings from this study will provide actionable directions for faculty charged with teaching large classes. He gives a description of advantages and limitations of the lecture and considers that the lecture is as good as the lecturer, not as a crowdpleaser, but as a scholar. Issues and options this very practical and teacherfriendly publication was produced following a hornby workshop on teaching large classes in ethiopia in 2006. Providing tools to address the difficulty of teaching large classes is thus an. How do you keep students engaged and active without losing. Use a background knowledge probe to get a picture of students prior knowledge and understanding this is a simple questionnaire. Strategies for teaching large undergraduate classes. For instance, for some, a large class could be considered 40 students, if the individual is only used to having classes with a few students.
Large classes, active learning, teaching techniques, teaching methods introduction in vietnam, large classes in universities are very popular. Large class teaching challenges and possible responses. Besides that, they emphasized that large class size makes it hard to deal with behavioral problems and give individual support to those students on the sen register in large classes. The ideas we have collected in these chapters offer. Accessed july 22, 2016 from the center for teaching and learning, university of minnesota website. Below are some strategies which have been proposed for addressing common challenges in large class english teaching. Effects of large class size on effective teaching and. An overcrowded classroom presents challenges that can feel nearly impossible to overcome, even to the most effective teachers. Cambridge handbooks for language teachers includes bibliographical references and index. In fact, careful and thorough planning of a lesson is the first step to the effective teaching in large classes. Ideas for effective largegroup learning and teaching. Although full of practical advice on teaching in multigrade classes, it is probably not intended for use as a primary teachers handbook as such, but rather. Click on insert, file printout and choose your file. Make the best use of the students power saved from large class teaching.
Bring the teacher authority into full play and teach not only knowledge but also learning. Lets start by talking about the advantages of teaching large classes. Behind the scenes veronica brown centre for teaching excellence university of waterloo opportunities and new directions 2015. The collection of tefl teaching suggestions, lessons, and activities in these chapters will give you an opportunity to learn from the experiences and mistakes of others. The author, richard felder, is a chemical engineering professor at north carolina state university, and an active researcher on the topic of how people learn.
Large classes resource tlss teaching and learning support. Tips for teaching large classes jenny lloydstrovas, ph. Need to get their response throughout the whole session. Considerations for large lecture classes center for. This very practical and teacherfriendly publication was produced following a hornby workshop on. Effective teaching in large classes lists in class activities, outof class group exercises, and other ideas for keeping students engaged in large classes.
Unfortunately, due to budgets, space or lack of teachers, many esl schools only offer large classes. Reflective questions for teaching large classes online delivering content how do students access the course content in your inperson class e. Teachers need to view large classes from a different perspective and recognize that despite a lot of disadvantages they can also provide many opportunities for teaching and learning. Just one of many ways students can collaborate during lectures. Tips for teaching large classes texas tech university. However many teachers around the world have over 40 pupils, and some have over 100. A standard reference on large efl classes, focusing primarily on large class activities. Many teachers think that because the class size is so big, they are limited in what they can do. Lessons learned from teaching large classes introduction.
Pdf this paper is discussing the most common teaching and classroom management techniques or strategies that classroom teachers used. C the u s studentcentered teaching in large classes with. There are ways of participating other than speaking in class. Some class participation techniques for larger classes. Teaching large classes strategies and course design. The major hypothesis is that effective teaching and producing learning is critically constrained by the large size of classes and the students perception about large classes being negative.
Even in our university which is one of the top universities in vietnam, many of my classes have more than 100 students. Teaching large classes certificate program20142015, material from various classes. Almost all teachers think that their own classes are too large, even in europe where classes usually have 2040 pupils. The use of teaching aids in the teaching learning process of large classes. The book was put together by the workshop tutors, drawing on the materials and activities generated by the workshop trainers and participants. You can use a spoon at first, but pretty quickly youll be moving on to using your hand to stir it up. Studentcentered teaching in large classes with limited. How can you use group work to help learning in a large class. August, 2015 introduction teaching large classes can be a daunting experience. Accessed july 22, 2016 from the center for teaching and learning, university of minnesota web site. Coming to see an instructor during office hours, or attending an outof class lecture and writing a response paper are some examples. To give teachers suggestions on the use of teaching aids in large. It can be seen that a large class is a relative concept.
This research is to engage in a study of the effectiveness of teaching foundation math for very large classes. To present teachers of the language department the different types of teaching aids that can be used in the teaching learning process of a foreign language. If you have a large file, like a powerpoint with a large amount of slides, the printout may end up on multiple. Here are a few tips to cope with the challenges of teaching a large class. By following the advice below, you will find your large classes a lot more. Increasing class sizes is a sacrifice many schools have to make in order to keep their doors open in an era where schools are underfunded. Whats more, time flies in a large class and you are. Maximizing learning in large classes teachingenglish. Large dish, bowl or tub food coloring optional directions. Teaching and educational development institute 20022006. A large class is hard to define since each individual will have a different idea of what constitutes a large class.