Alternatives to Speaking Activities

We have a lot of activities to promote Speaking, like discussions, role play, simulations, information Gap, brainstorming, storytelling, interviews, reporting, etc. In this case I present you two good options:

Role Play: One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. In this case, students pretend they are in different social contexts and have a diversity of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel and then they develop the character.

Reporting: Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.

I consider that is important to have a lot of alternatives to speaking activities because it provides opportunity to students to speak and produce the English. On the other hand, a teacher can recognize problems and help students.

How to deal with Disruptive Behavior?

Disruptive behavior is an inappropriate behavior that interferes with the functioning and flow of the class. It interferes with the learning process for other students, inhibits the ability of instructors to teach most effectively, diverts university energy and resources away from the educational mission, and may indicate a significant level of personal problems or distress on the part of the disrupter. 

In order to undersand correctly the Disruptive behavior, I will show you some examples.

Situation 1: Students who not only come in late, but make an entrance speaking to friends, walking in front of the professor, arranging their belongings. 

The solution is that you say the students that everybody has to arrive on time. You can say that the tolerance is 5 or 10 minutes and explain that avoid that situation. It’s better to say it clearly.

Situation 2: A student is sleeping in class whereas you are explaining the lesson. It sends a message to the other students about the quality of the class or teaching. It's disrespectful to the teacher and the other students.

The solution is that you get close to the student and give him or her a permission in order to go to he bathroom to refresh. It's a good option to talk to him or her then.

As you can see, a disruptive behavior is something that teachers have to deal with because it's common. I consider that it's important to learn how to manage this situation in order to maintain a nice class.