Show notes
How can English teachers make lessons more efficient? When should you correct a student’s mistakes? And what do you say when a learner responds, “But you understand me, though?”
In S07E11 of the How to English TEFL Podcast, Gav and Em explore practical questions about lesson efficiency, error correction and those tricky mistakes that learners continue making even after repeated correction.
We discuss how teachers can maximise valuable classroom time, increase student participation and decide how much lesson planning is genuinely useful. Could planning less sometimes make a lesson more responsive and efficient?
We also look at subtle errors that can completely change what a learner means. There is a rather important difference between “I’m not interested” and “I’m not interesting,” even though the grammar differs by only two letters.
Then there are expressions caused by direct translation and first-language interference. What should teachers do when learners say “My neck is stuck,” “I do Home Office,” or call a mobile phone a “handy”? We may understand them perfectly in the classroom, but will everyone outside it?
Gav and Em consider when correction is necessary, how teachers can make corrections memorable and why pretending not to understand can sometimes show learners the real-world consequences of unclear language.
Finally, we compare how we record our teaching hours: Em’s dependable paper system versus Gav’s new digital Google Sheets approach.
In this episode:
• Improving efficiency in English lessons
• Increasing student talking time and participation
• Deciding how much lesson planning is necessary
• Knowing when to correct learner errors
• Responding to “But you understand me, though”
• Teaching interested versus interesting
• Correcting errors caused by direct translation
• Dealing with repeated and fossilised mistakes
• Making error correction memorable
• Tracking teaching hours on paper or digitally
📚 Read the S07E11 articles:
Correcting Subtle Errors: How to Handle “Interested vs Interesting” and Other Tricky Mistakes
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/correcting-subtle-errors-how-to-handle-interested-vs-interesting-and-other-tricky-mistakes/
Error Correction Techniques: Performances, Pretending, and Real-World Consequences
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/error-correction-techniques-performances-pretending-and-real-world-consequences/
L1 Interference: Teaching Students to Stop Saying “My Neck Is Stuck”
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/l1-interference-teaching-students-to-stop-saying-my-neck-is-stuck/
TEFL Lesson Efficiency: How to Maximise Learning Without Rushing
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/tefl-lesson-efficiency-how-to-maximise-learning-without-rushing/
TEFL Time Management: Tracking Teaching Hours (Analog vs Digital)
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/tefl-time-management-tracking-teaching-hours-analog-vs-digital/
“But You Understand Me Though”: Handling Fossilised Errors in TEFL
https://howtoenglishpod.wordpress.com/but-you-understand-me-though-handling-fossilised-errors-in-tefl/
How do you handle repeated mistakes in your English lessons? And teachers, how do you keep track of your teaching hours? Let us know in the comments.
How to English: Teach and Learn with Gav & Em is a podcast about teaching and learning English as a foreign language.
Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome back to How to English
01:59 – Teaching efficiency: quick wins for busy TEFL teachers
05:24 – Em’s practical upgrades for TEFL and ESL classrooms
10:24 – Similar words teachers should highlight
13:55 – How to teach confusing English words clearly
15:53 – “But you understand me, though” and typical learner errors
22:06 – Gav’s translation dilemma
24:24 – More false friends English learners struggle with
26:33 – Tracking teaching hours efficiently
31:11 – Final thoughts and a surprising classroom moment
#TEFL #EnglishTeaching #LearnEnglish #EnglishTeacher #TeachingEnglish #ESL #EFL #TEFLPodcast
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