Francesca @ PGDE English SCT

Speaking is one of the four skills to be focused on in the English curriculum. As such, speaking lessons are arranged so that students have the chance to practise speaking (and specifically be trained in doing group interaction). However, sometimes I feel quite frustrated when speaking lessons come because it seems to me that I should be teaching them, but not just letting them chatter away. In my F.5 class this year, the students are less motivated. When I ask them to do speaking, even if I have recapped with them some useful expressions for communication and analyse the questions and give them some input, they fail to use them and they are not interested in speaking. Sometimes I have a feeling that they also think I am lazy because I do not have to prepare for speaking class. This has always troubled me. With a class size of 20 (I know it's not a really large class size), how can I make sure everyone is speaking and practising? How can I motivate everyone to speak in Eng...

Students in Hong Kong start learning grammar in primary school. Yet, as a secondary school teacher, it is not surprising that they still make a lot of grammatical mistakes.  One possible reason is that grammar teaching in Hong Kong places emphasis on the accuracy of the language form. It is not uncommon that English teachers start with the grammar rules and the construction of it (i.e. form) when they teach a designated grammar item. Take tenses as an example. Teachers usually ask students to memorise some key time expressions, such as 'every day', 'at the moment', 'this time next year', to help them identify which can possibly help them identify which tense is to be used. However, when it comes to real life conversation, it is absolutely unnatural to include time expressions all the time so as to indicate the tenses to be used. Instead, grammar should be used (and learned) in context. Therefore, one observation is that when students do not know how to put ...

Grammar is one of the key areas of learning for students, especially in junior forms. I do not like teaching grammar because everything is so mechanical. As such, students always feel bored once they have to open the grammar book. Another reason why I dislike teaching grammar using the grammar book is that the book is just way tooooo lengthy and full of rulesssss (that students can't comprehend). I would say students should know, (and internalise hopefully) the grammar rules instead of memorising the rules because at the end of the way, application is more important than memorisation. The benefit of knowing the rule is that when it comes to application, they can have some evidence and ground to use a particular grammar item instead of saying "I use this because I feel that it's right". However, at the same time, rules are rules; in real life context, flexibility is needed. Therefore, I also encourage students to know and understand the rules. Apart from knowing...