IVING EFFACTIVE EXPLANATIONS. Prepare You may feel perfectly clear in your own mind about what needs clarifying, and therefore think that you can improvise a clear explanation. But experience shows that teachers explanations are often not as clear to their pupils as they are to themselves It is worth preparing thinking for a while about the words you will use, the illustrations you will provide, and so on possibly even writing these out. 2. Make sure you have the class s attention One of the implications of this when giving the instructions for a group-working task is that it is advisable to give the instructions before you divide the class into groups or give out materials, not after 3. Present the information more than once A repetition of the necessary information may make all the difference learners attention wanders occasionally, and it is important to give them more than one chance to understand what they have to do. Also, it helps to represent the information in a different mode foe example, say it and also write it up on the board. 4. Be brief Learners-in fact, all of us-have only a limited attention span they cannot listen to you for along time with maximum concentration.
Make your explanation as brief as you can, compatible with clarity.
In some situations it may also mean using the learners mother tongue, as a more accessible and cost-effective alternative to the sometimes lengthy and difficult target- language explanation. 5. Illustrate with examples You may explain, for instance, the meaning of a word, illustrating your explanation with examples of its use in various contexts, relating these as far as possible to the learners own lives and experiences. 6. Get feedback When you have finished explaining, check what they have understood.
It is not just enough to ask Do you understand learners will sometimes say they did even if they did not, out of politeness or unwillingness to lose face, or because they think they know what they have to do, but in fact completely misunderstood It is better to ask them to do something that will show their understanding to paraphrase in their own words, provide further illustration of their own.