HI Laurence - yes, sadly, the trousers knackered at the knees seem to be an occupational hazard. In my case, I'm six foot four, so to be on the same level as my students are when they're sitting down, where I can make eye contact and relate to them without looming over them, kneeling is a necessity. Anyway,, glad to hear the video struck a chord and that you're already operating in similar terrain. If you'd like more on these ideas, check out our book called TEACHING LEXICALLY, published by Delta Publishing last year.

Glad you like them!

Thanks for the comment. Not really sure that getting a twenty-minute snippet of something I've spent most of my adult life doing for a living is really 'brave', but hey . . . I'll take it! It was recorded on my phone, so a totally amateur setup, it's true. Apologies for the sound issues. Turn the volume up would be my advice!

yeah . . . what he said too

Thanks for such a lengthy and thoughtful comment. Not really able to get into the discussion about what CELTA or DELTA trainers I don't know may or ma not say about the lesson, as it wouldn't be fair of me, but I do know there's a big difference between the kind of 20- or 40-minute showcase slots you end up having to do on such courses and the reality of teaching, where things like this twenty-minute extract are just a small part of a much bigger flow of teaching and l;earning that extends across weeks. IN terms of having an intro to a vocab exercise, well . . . before the part of the lesson you see here, we'd done some revision and some talking about personal experiences using language from a previous lesson, so there'd been speaking preceding, just not directly connected to this language. The idea of 'activating schemata' has been pretty much discredited even within so-called skills lessons, so not really sure how it would help here, how it'd be set up or what it'd achieve. My feeling is you want to make it clear what the language we're looking at is connected to, link it somehow to the class, and then get on with seeing how much of what's there they know, so I can teach the gaps, as it were. The 8 words per hour thing is also based on outdated research and is something Keith Folse takes issue with in his excellent book VOCABULARY MYTHS. I think part of the problem lies in thinking of these things as 'presentations' of 'new' vocabulary that then has to be directly 'produced' and 'practised'. In other words, there's a hangover from the PPP approach to grammar. I see this more as some language they'll have met before, but are now learning more about; some they're already more or less OK with; and some that's new and that they'll later meet again in a range of different contexts. Some of it may become active for them, if they feel they have a need for it, some will remain passive, and some will inevitably get forgotten. That's just the reality of learning.

Here's a link to the basics of the Folse book, if you've not read it, by the way: esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/folse.htm

s gall z

'dogmeat', hahaha!!

An old joke, but a good one.

Hopefully!

Your learners, do you mean? Or mine?

Thanks for your comment Zhanna. It certainly wasn't intended as 'a master class' of any kind. It's just part of a normal (three-hour, in this instance) class. The lexical approach side nof it is more to do with the way the language is handled and written up on the board. The students did get homework on top of this, btw, but were also on a two-week study 'holiday' in London and so weren't really up for doing much homework after class every day. Out of inerest, what you have regarded as a 'success' with this kind of class? What would you see as a GOOD use of time at this level?

@@lexicallab9848 a success class is a class where the students hold discussion as a group or they develop their ideas one by one, or produce any other kind of speech incorporating new lexis where possible. You encourage and manage it- you are a teacher; you don't manage, you explain words- you are a vocabulary randomiszer, else you name it.

@@zhannasamartseva6349 What makes you think this section of the class wasn't followed by a bigger pair / group discussion? And re you saying that teachers only encourage and managem, but should not 'explain words'?

@@lexicallab9848 certainly not explain words. This job can easily be done by a dictionary or Google services, android or Apple assistant. What a waste of time presenting vocabulary in London by a native, yet a teacher ! Why go so far and pay so much? Also, If it was followed by a successful discussion, why not record it? Wouldn't it make sense to show the result? In the video I can only see overenthusiastic presentation of vocabulary, which can be done by anybody who bothered to look up the words or by a machine. Where is the approach? What are you selling? What are the students paying for?

@@zhannasamartseva6349 It's good to be clear about what our dividing lines are, I guess. I beleive that teachers can - and should - be better at dealing with vocabulary than dictionaries can be; that we can explain things quickly and clearly in language students understand, root our examples in our students' experiences, and use the students to add some co-text to the examples we come up with. You obviously don't and trust instead to Google or Android or Apple. That's fine. I think teachers offer better value than tech does when it comes to these areas. The reason we didn't record the discussion section was because lots of teachers prefer seeing the teacher doing some actual teaching rather than the stuents sitting talking. There are videos of other longer lessons I've done online, if you want to check them out, though. Finally, what the students were paying for was an intensive two-week course with a lot of language work in the morning classes, lots of new language, lots of recycling, lots of listening and lots of speaking . . . followed by afternoon / evening social and cultural outings. They seemed very happy with the experience, but I ghuess it's not for you. That's fine. Each to their own.

Ha ha. OK. And how does one 'work on the charisma'? What does developing charism involve, then?

Tastes differ! to my mind, Hugh's got charisma more than enough )) I'd be the happiest person to have him as a teacher in my student years!

Thank you for the kind words.

@@lexicallab9848 three years passed but I still believe in what I said)

@@olgamartinez5813 Yeah sorry. Been going back and catching up with comments I never replied to first time around.