How to Teach Complete Beginners

Many of you will agree with me that teaching English to lower levels is much harder than learners with some knowledge of the language. This is because beginner learners have had no prior exposure to the language, they lack the system knowledge, and unlike the elementary or higher-level students, they need attention to be paid to literally all aspects of the language.

By all aspects of the language, we mean discourse management, lexical and grammatical resources, intonation and pronunciation. Some aspects here might seem inappropriate to teach when working with complete beginners, however, if we want to teach them an adequate use of the language, we will need to touch upon all those aspects with a certain degree of depth in each level of learning.

Here we are going to highlight some things that we need to pay attention to when working with complete beginners.

— Preparation

When working with complete beginners, we need to make sure that we have enough material planned for the session. Unlike with higher language learners, where speaking activities, for instance, can go on and develop into a discussion, with beginners, it’s not the case. Be ready that they will be able to use a very limited amount of language, mostly fixed phrases (ones you teach them to respond to certain questions — Hello, I’m fine, thank you, etc.) and if you want your class not to be boring you really should have a variety of tasks to keep them interested and going. Just make sure that you have your learning outcome set clearly, meaning that the learners will be able to use the language you have planned for them to by the end of the session.

— Classroom language

One of the ways to save time when working with complete beginners, is to set the classroom language right during the first class, so that later on students don’t have difficulty with following the flow of the session. Some phrases that should be taught are:

1. Sorry, can you speak more slowly / can you repeat it?
2. Sorry, I don’t / didn’t understand.
3. Can I ask a question?
4. How do you say… in English?
5. What does…mean?
6. Open the books.
7. Go to page…

This will not only help with classroom management but also will implicitly set the structure of questions, word order for further reference.

— Language grading

One of the easy ways to grade our language as teachers is to get to know the course material, look through it once again before starting to work with beginners. Having to shift to teaching different levels we sometimes get lost in what is the appropriate language to use with this or that level, so, looking through the course functional language helps a lot. Read more about grading the language in this article.

Another thing we should do here is to avoid using “extra language”, like adverbs, adjectives, fillers, etc. especially if we are giving instructions. This should gradually change when your students start to acquire some language so that they have exposure to the real language.

Another thing to avoid using is metalanguage. No need to load your students with terms like “past simple, adverbs, adjectives, regular vs. irregular verbs” etc. You can use the abbreviations for visual input, as later on students will need to deal with them (e.g. n. — noun) but no need to have them remember the terminology at this stage of learning.

— Do it yourself first

We should not forget that complete beginners lack the skill to read and pronounce the words correctly, they can’t use the word and sentence stress appropriately. To avoid them using the wrong pronunciation of the words and risking it to become a fossilised mistake, it’s better to pronounce the word/read the sentence first for them and have them repeat it.

One of the easy ways to do this is using the PMF way of word introduction (pronunciation-meaning-form). To do this, you will need to pronounce the word for your students (e.g. window), drill the pronunciation with them until you make sure that everyone feels comfortable with the word, then you will need to elicit, explain the meaning and only after that show the word to the students so they don’t come up with the creative ways of pronouncing the word :).

— Demonstrations

As long as complete beginners don’t have the necessary language background to define, explain and elicit the meaning of the words and phrases for them, the best way to get them to learn new words is to use realia (real objects). From my experience, it works best if you have those objects with you in class (an apple, a board, a magazine, a cup, etc.). It will initiate learning through associating words to real objects and experiences like this help the learners memorize information better and faster. As an alternative, you can use pictures/flashcards, if having the objects with you is not an option.

Another technique is to use your body language as much as you can. Let’s say you want to give the following instruction: “Listen and repeat.” To help your students understand the instruction easier, put your hand on your ear, to indicate listening and then move it to your mouth to indicate repeating. After you try this a couple of times, the students will get used to the gestures and one day won’t need them at all.

Finally, don’t forget to praise your students with their even small achievements. Irrespective of age, learners like to see their progress acknowledged. By doing this you will keep your learners motivated and eager to do more.

So, these were some ideas that could help you structure your sessions in a more effective way. Let us know what challanges you are having while teaching complete beginners and what works well.