Thongsook College BA TESOL Teaching Tips:

Giving students instructions

Looking at activities from three directions.

Timothy Cornwall, PhD

Once students have a clear idea of what to do, based on understanding what they are going to do, what it will look like when finished, and why I want them to do it, I find most are willing to go along with my instructions. Nevertheless, as I know that despite my best efforts, some students will have difficulties completing a task or will refuse to do it as asked, I monitor initial efforts to ensure all individuals, pairs, or groups are on the right track before I settle in to monitor their progress.

Deciding which activities I intend to use in class and the actual instructions I plan to use with students is an important step in planning my classes. Often overlooked in how-to books on teaching, I find that while my students may not realize their success in correctly completing an exercise was due to clear instructions, they certainly know and can become frustrated when my instructions are not clear.

Three questions to ask about instructions

When I review the material I plan to teach, I begin with three questions. First, does the planned exercise have merit in terms of the learning goals set for a particular class or course? If the answer is no, I drop it from my lesson plan.

Second, would I want to do this task if I were in this class? If the answer is no, I drop it from my lesson plan. Having sat on both sides of the desk, I know what I like to do and what I do not like to do in a language class and, as such, find it very difficult to be genuine in asking students to do something I might loathe.

Finally, can I understand and complete the exercise without having to look at the answers in the teacher’s book? If the answer is no, I drop it from my lesson plan. If I cannot understand or answer an exercise, how can I expect my students to do so?

Planning My Instructions

Now that I have selected the material I want to use, I need to prepare three sets of instructions. To do this, I review whether the given instructions or similar instructions have been dealt with earlier in the course. If so, I review the problems students might have had previously and, if possible, make a note of any students who had difficulty in the past.

Two-directional Instructions

I then review my students’ English abilities and determine if the instructions provided in the text need to be edited, simplified, or presented as given. I clearly delineate the steps I want to use in my instructions to make certain students can follow as I explain what I want them to do. This could involve adding to or adapting what is given in the text.

Now that I know how to explain the instructions in chronological order from start to finish, I look at the exercise from the opposite direction. If students complete the exercise planned, what will their answers look like when they have finished?

With this idea established, I prepare a second, often shorter, set of instructions that work backward. This second instruction set, more a description of the completed exercise, lets students know what their work will look like when they have completed it correctly.

Working backward, I repeat my instructions in reverse order and, if possible, use different vocabulary and ideas. If students did not understand my first set of instructions as I went through them in chronological order, I do not see how repeating the same words and expressions will help their comprehension as I work backward.

Explaining ‘why’

Finally, as I work predominantly with adults, I explain why I am asking them to complete a particular exercise and how it fits into the learning objectives for that class and the course in general. At this point, I often explain that while they could probably complete an exercise faster using a different method, it is the process – completing the work as asked, and not the product – the final completed exercise, that will help to improve their English.

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