Teaching

Plenty of language learners can hold their own in class but falter in real-world conversations. The issue often isn’t their language skills but the way speaking practice is structured. Here’s how to adjust speaking activities to help learners succeed when it counts.

Many learners spend years studying English yet still struggle to communicate effectively in unscripted situations. They may know grammar rules, recognise a wide range of vocabulary and perform well in controlled exercises. Yet, they freeze in meetings, have trouble organising ideas under pressure, or fail to convey their message with clarity and impact.

One reason for this is that speaking activities in language classrooms are often treated as opportunities for language practice rather than as chances to develop communication skills.
Learners are asked to ‘discuss’, ‘share ideas’ or ‘speak freely’ –  but without sufficient support, rehearsal or a clear communicative focus. As a result, they may speak a lot without bettering their communication skills.

A fresh perspective: Language and Communication Coaching

Language and Communication Coaching (LCC) combines principles from language teaching and acquisition, oral communication development and coaching. These principles form part of the broader approach I’ve developed through work with language learners, professionals and teacher training contexts over many years. Rather than seeing grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation as isolated content to study, LCC treats them as tools learners use to achieve communicative outcomes.

The focus shifts from simply producing language to developing communicative competence in real communicative situations.

Here are three practical ways teachers can begin incorporating LCC principles into their lessons immediately.

1. Replace ‘free speaking’ with structured communicative outcomes

Many speaking tasks are too open-ended:

Learners are asked to ‘talk about’ a topic without a clear idea of what successful communication looks like. This often leads to repetitive language, uneven participation and low communicative challenge.

Instead, try designing speaking activities around a specific communicative outcome.

For example, rather than asking learners to ‘discuss stress at work’, ask them to:

• reassure a stressed colleague
• persuade someone to change a habit
• explain a difficult situation diplomatically
• lead a short discussion effectively
• tell a story in an engaging way

This immediately changes the demands of the task and encourages learners to think not only about language, but also about impact, organisation, clarity and delivery.

2. Build rehearsal into speaking work

In many classrooms, learners perform a speaking activity once and then move on.
However, communication development often happens during rehearsal rather than during first performance.

In LCC, rehearsal is central:
After an initial attempt, learners reflect on what was effective and where communication broke down. They then receive focused feedback before repeating the task with a specific communicative goal.

For example, learners might first complete a short simulation in pairs such as explaining a problem to a colleague or persuading someone to change plans.
After the first attempt, the teacher gives focused feedback on areas such as clarity, organisation of ideas or use of persuasive language. Learners then repeat the task with a specific goal, such as sounding more confident, reducing hesitation, or improving their presence during the interaction.

The second performance is often noticeably more effective than the first because learners are not simply ‘practising speaking’, but actively refining communication through rehearsal.

This process helps learners:

• retrieve and organise language more effectively
• develop fluency under pressure
• improve clarity and delivery
• notice communication patterns
• build confidence through repetition with purpose

Rehearsal also helps bridge the gap between ‘knowing’ language and being able to use it effectively in real time.

3. Give feedback on communicative impact, not only language

Teachers are often trained to focus feedback primarily on grammatical accuracy or vocabulary use.
While language accuracy matters, successful communication also depends on factors such as:

• clarity
• pacing
• listener engagement
• organisation of ideas
• tone
• confidence
• ability to respond under pressure

For example, a learner may produce grammatically accurate language while still sounding hesitant, disorganised or difficult to follow.
Communication coaching therefore expands feedback beyond language correction alone.
Instead of focusing exclusively on mistakes, teachers can also help learners reflect on questions such as:

• Was your message clear?
• Did you sound convincing?
• Did the listener remain engaged?
• Did you organise your ideas effectively?
• Which parts had the strongest communicative impact?

This helps learners develop greater awareness of communication as performance rather than simply language production.

Final thoughts

Many learners do not need more exposure to English. They need more guided opportunities to use English purposefully, under conditions that resemble real life.

By incorporating clearer communicative outcomes, rehearsal cycles and communicative impact feedback, teachers can begin helping learners move beyond practising English towards becoming more capable communicators.

That shift may prove increasingly important in a world where communication skills matter more than ever.

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If you enjoyed this article, you may also like these related reads:

Cut the Noise: Turning Clients into Clear Communicators – Connections

Wow Your Audience without Words: Top Tips from a Public Speaking Expert – Connections

Title image by: Volodymyr Hryshchenko, Unsplash

For many non-native English speakers, concerns about their language skills lead to hesitation when speaking up in business meetings. In this article, Kath Robinson offers her insights and practical strategies for mindset shifts that help Business English users thrive.

In 2020, I found myself working with German clients for the first time. The English level of my average client here was higher than what I was used to in Spain, Japan, or Indonesia. However, despite the good level (B2 and above), clients were coming to me because they felt that they couldn’t/shouldn’t speak in meetings, or the worry about speaking and what everybody thought about their English was making them miserable.

The more I got to know my clients, the wider the gap between their actual and their perceived ability came to be. Why did Anna from HelloFresh chat with me happily throughout our 60-minute sessions on all sorts of topics with very few problems, but in her meetings avoided speaking if at all possible?
Why did Stephan from Netflix manage fine in his meetings with other non-native speakers of a similar level, but as soon as someone with near-native or native level was present, he felt his contribution wasn’t as valuable and barely spoke?

‘Confidence’, I hear you say!

While I believe confidence plays a part, over the last few years I’ve come to see ‘mindset’ as a more accurate description of the problem. Here, I’m not referring to a ‘growth mindset’ as coined by Carol Dweck (although there is some overlap). I simply mean, my clients have the wrong aim when using English at work:

They treat their English meetings like an English exam.

I often hear comments like:

• “I don’t speak because I might make a mistake.”
• “I sound so German.”
• “The words I use are so basic.”

This means they are putting all their focus on what others think of their English level, rather than the reason they are actually in the meeting, e.g. to share learnings from a certain project or plan the budget for the next quarter. This then has an extremely negative effect on how people are able to use the English they already have, as one or more of the following happens:

• People speak as little as possible, preferably not at all.
• People don’t listen to others because they are too busy planning what they
  themselves are going to say.
• People are so focussed on using long words and trying to sound professional,
  their natural flow or ability to explain suffers.
• People put so much pressure on themselves that they tense up, they come across as super underconfident or their mind goes completely blank.

How can you help a client develop a better mindset?

There are many, many things you can do depending on what the individual mindset hang-ups are: far too many to include in a short article!

However, here are four suggestions that are relevant in most cases:

1. This article (with slight edits) is one I often share with clients as a first step:
   Mindset Shifts that will Positively Impact Your English Fluency
2. I encourage my clients to take the time to work out exactly what it is that is worrying them about speaking English at work. I then ask them to write this down. Next to each issue, we come up with a more positive statement or a solution:
   Issue: “I might make a grammar mistake.”
   Positive statement: “Everyone knows that English isn’t my first language, so nobody expects my English to be perfect.”
   Issue: “I might not understand a question.”
   Solution: “If this happens, I will calmly ask them to repeat/slow down/rephrase as appropriate. If I don’t make it a big deal, nobody else will see it as a big deal.”
   Issue: “The words I use are so basic.”
   Positive statement: “The other people in the room are interested in my knowledge not how many long English words I use.”
3. Be selective with error correction. It’s very hard for someone to get over their fear of making mistakes if you are constantly pointing out their mistakes.
   Personally, in most cases, I now only mention errors
   -where understanding is affected
   -that come up very often
4. Give clients plenty of speaking practice, particularly task-based activities and roleplays, and make the feedback more about task achievement than language.
   This helps take the focus away from ‘this is all about my English level’ and puts it back on why they are in the meeting in the first place.

Say hello!

If you have any questions or would like to exchange ideas on this topic please do get in touch:
info@kath.robinson.english.com

Also, I’m currently looking for participants for the next season of my Just Talk Club. If you know any business professionals (from anywhere in the world!) with a B1 -B2 level, who find speaking English at work challenging or who are simply looking for a safe space to practice the English they need for work, the Just Talk Club could be just
what they need. I offer a 20€ referral ‘thank you’ if anyone you refer signs up.

Click the link below to find out more:

Just Talk Club referral page

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Classroom teaching tends to be structured around syllabi, learning objectives and measurable results. But what if we shifted the focus from these to…learning itself? Rachael Harris explains why and how to teach our students how to learn instead of grammar and vocabulary.

In a world where AI is changing our landscape and future daily, where we hear that over 90 % of present jobs will disappear, what are we supposed to teach our students? Is there any point teaching vocabulary when we have Google Translate?

This famous quote by sociologist Alvin Toffler says it all for me:

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

For example, have you noticed that some students just “get” everything after one quick explanation? They immediately see what needs to be done and get it finished before some have even started. (They’re often the ones that will remember there’s a list of useful words to help easily complete the exercise you’ve just given in the coursebook!)

What if, in fact, these students were simply using learning strategies?

In any case, I believe that teaching our students to effectively use learning strategies is essentially giving them all a key to successful future learning, especially those who are finding it more challenging.

So what do we mean by learning strategies?

There have been hundreds of definitions and taxonomies by the greats in the field, including Rebecca Oxford, Ernesto Macaro, Andrew D. Cohen, Anna Uhl Chamot, etc.

To resume all that simply, learning strategies are conscious actions or thought processes that students choose to undertake in order to improve their language learning and communication. What’s more, learning strategies are teachable.

Strategies can be split into direct and indirect strategies. The former include ways of actually learning language for example, whereas the latter include techniques for putting students in a mood where they’re ready and open to learn.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Indirect strategies

These techniques include goal setting and motivation.

Pave the way: get to know your learners

Many teachers start their courses with a form of needs analysis, often in the form of a questionnaire.
This can be a useful exercise to not only see what your learners really want, but also to ask about past learning experiences and what they find easy or difficult about learning a language. This doesn’t mean to avoid vocabulary acquisition (if they say they find that hard for example).
Rather, encourage them to experiment with different strategies to find the ones they prefer.

Write it down

“What’s written down gets done” goes the saying so be sure to get your students to write things down. Not only their learning objectives but also their schedule: when will they do their learning? We all know a couple of lessons a week isn’t enough, so encourage learners to look at their available time. Why not print out a blank week schedule and have them complete it? This is a good way to practice talking about routines at the same time.

While looking for learning slots, take into account energy levels: is the best time to read a long, complicated text after a hard day’s work? Why not brainstorm some quick wins (crosswords, wordle, etc.) that can also be done on the daily commute?

Motivating and keeping motivation are essential strategies that we need to instill if we want our students to last the course. We’ve all seen how full gym carparks are at the start of January!

Failure stories can be motivating

Stories of famous “failures”, such as J.K.Rowling who was turned away from many editors before finally getting published, or Edison’s infamous hundreds of attempts before finally producing a lightbulb can be interesting reading comprehensions. Also, they instill the idea that success is hard work, and hard work pays off.

Encourage your students to regularly look at how far they’ve come. You can do that by keeping a language profile or redoing a test from the start of the year and comparing the results. We all have a tendency to look at what still needs to be done, rather than what has already been achieved. So be sure to take the time in class to stop for a moment and look behind at the path already covered.

Direct strategies

Once we have our students eager and ready to learn, we must take the time to show them the best ways to do so. This can be done in many ways throughout the course.

For example, when learning vocabulary, remind your learners that they encountered the word “apple” hundreds of times in their own language as a baby before being able to say it, and explain it’s the same when learning a foreign language.  How can you encourage these encounters?

You could make a lesson out of brainstorming various methods such as drawing a picture, gap fills, anagrams, miming to a partner, etc. Make it a routine to practice some of these methods in class when you give new words to learn.

Using visuals in the classroom

Checklists are great ways of ensuring the students take all the steps necessary to complete a task.

Brainstorm a list when doing a reading or listening comprehension (usually my listenings come from a course book with title, photo, etc.). You’ll be surprised how many things there are to do before you even start: look at the title, the image, brainstorm ten words on these subjects, read the questions and guess possible answers, and more.

Mindmaps suit learners who have a more holistic approach, and this can often include neurodiverse students.

So as you go along, or to revise at the end of a unit, encourage the class to complete mindmaps of what you’ve learnt. They can be used to decorate the room too, or you can make a joint one on A3 paper and give out information on post-its for students to add in the correct place. This can be a fun revision activity.

Flowcharts can be used in a similar way, for teaching grammar for example.

Write an empty chart on the board or give out copies and then ask the students to complete, for example “Is the activity routine or at the moment?” Routine -> present simple. “Is the subject he/she/it?” etc.

Direct strategies can also be taught when revising for evaluations. It’s amazing how many students still think they learn best by simply rereading or highlighting: it’s our job to remind them that what feels easy isn’t necessarily the best method, au contraire!

Final thoughts on learning strategies

There are obviously hundreds more strategies that you are probably already teaching your students:

Revising regularly not just before tests, making intelligent guesses, getting around gaps by using synonyms, and so on. Teaching learning strategies fits perfectly into any course, as we will also be using tons of classroom and everyday language to do so. So we’ll be teaching how to learn while teaching English, and vice-versa. The perfect solution!

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If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in using images to cheat your brain and learn with ease and this article on future-proofing your ELT career.

Seasoned English teachers have a bank of classroom activities that they can use on the spot and as the situation requires. New teachers don’t have this, and besides all the other new things they have to learn, they need to know some reliable and adaptable activities. So if you’re a new teacher, this article is for you.

The activities new teachers learn become the foundation of their activity bank, which will become the linchpin of their future lessons. With this in mind, I have identified three activities that, from my experience in training new teachers, make an excellent starting place for a new activity bank.

I would like to share these activities so that any new teachers might put them straight into use. If you are an experienced teacher, you may not find any new activities here, but you might get some inspiration for your next class.

Activities for you

It was hard to focus on just three activities here. However, I realised that often the most useful activities share the following features:

• an adaptable language focus
• they don’t require extensive knowledge of technology
• they can be used with nearly any level

So here are the activities that have those features and which I feel new teachers have got the most mileage from.

1. A Class Survey

The class survey is a classic EFL activity, chiefly because it is easy to produce and helps students to practise all four skills.
Essentially, the students complete a survey of a set number of students in the class, which helps them to practise a specific language structure in a controlled group speaking and writing activity.

Preparation

Here’s an example of a very simple survey which was designed for lower level younger students. It includes some pre-made questions as models to prompt students to generate their own questions. It also includes space for students to write the names of the people they speak to.

Instructions

Distribute a copy of the survey to each student and demonstrate your example questions.
Then, elicit some examples of questions that students could create for their survey and get them to finish writing their questions on their survey.

Next, students stand up and speak to enough different people to complete their survey. The students mingle around the class and write the name of the person they spoke to and their answers on the survey.

Here’s that example survey again, this time it has been started, with some of the information included.

Potential uses

This group activity works well for a huge variety of language focuses. All you need to do is generate questions to fit your language aim, for example changing the focus from do questions to going to or future perfect or conditionals.

2. Strip Race

A strip race involves adapting a controlled practice exercise, just like you see in many coursebooks, into a competitive and “active” activity.

Preparation

Take your coursebook and either photocopy multiple copies of an exercise with multiple questions –  or write your own questions. I would aim for a maximum of ten questions. Next, cut the questions into strips, while still keeping the paper together as one, with the end result being that the paper somewhat resembles a hula skirt.

Here you can see an example, with the paper cut, so that each question is a removable strip.

Instructions

Produce multiple copies of the paper with the strips cut and spread them out around your classroom.
Next, assign students into pairs, then each pair nominates a writer and a runner.
The runner has to take a single strip and return it to their team. Then, the writer and runner work together to complete the question on the strip. The activity continues like this until all the papers are finished.

Potential Uses

All the activities here are suitable for a variety of language focuses, but the difference with the strip race is that it makes a dry practice exercise active. I often use it for a review activity, for example checking vocabulary or grammar-based homework, by adapting questions from the homework book.

3. A Song Gap Fill

So far, I’ve shown you activities that are more communicative, with a variety of skills being engaged. The next activity, the song gap fill, focuses purely on listening and writing.

Preparation

Find a song that contains enough examples of your target language and which has clear singing and lyrics. Such songs are usually each to find with a search prompt such as: ‘first conditional songs’ and by focusing on well-known acts such as The Beatles. Next, you extract the lyrics of the song and create gaps where the target language should be.

To generate those gaps you can use an online gap fill generator, which you can find quickly with a search engine. After this, print out the song gap fill exercise and you are ready.

Here’s an example of a gap fill exercise that largely focuses on past simple verbs. I used the gap fill generator at random-idea-english, which includes the missing words.

Instructions

Ensure you have enough copies of the song gap fill exercise for each student and distribute copies to each student.
Students listen and try to fill the gaps. I recommend listening as many times as you feel students need to complete the gaps but generally two or three listenings are enough.

Potential Uses

Like the other activities here, this is easy to adapt, based on your language focus. You can use this activity to add a little novelty to the class. After all, listening to music is a nice break from coursebook audio and with the right songs, you can focus on vocabulary or grammar.

Wrapping up

There are many more activities that I could have included in this article and the activities presented here could be adapted and used in many different ways, but I have kept them to the basics.

There’s a reason for this: if you are a new teacher, I want you to experiment and develop them into activities that work best for you. On the other hand, if you are an experienced teacher, you probably don’t need an explanation of the activities.

I hope these activities will help you in your next classes and beyond that, because they are long term activities that will serve you well.

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If you enjoyed this article, you might also be interested in this post on rethinking gap fill exercises and this insightful article with the best teaching tips for new teachers.

As English teachers, we’re always on the lookout for teaching tools that are effective, easy to implement and fun. In this post, George Arping from HELTA is sharing a method that meets all of the above criteria and has worked very well for her so far.

The Goldilocks Method has morphed from something I learnt at BESIG many years ago. It’s a positive, feel-good reading tool which shows students how much they actually know.

In the fairy tale with the girl and the three bears, Goldilocks prefers porridge that is neither “too hot” nor “too cold” but “just right”. Likewise, students prefer tasks that are neither too easy (boring) nor too hard (demotivating). It’s exercises that are at the same time challenging and manageable that keep learners engaged and motivated.

The Goldilocks Method can be used in both the virtual and on-prem classroom and has never failed so far.
However, I wouldn’t do this online in a large group as it would take too much time. It works well in smallish online classes or any size face-to-face.

How to use the Goldilocks Method online

First off, find an article suitable for your group to read, or ask them to find something they’d like to read. The latter option can be riskier but still works.

Once you have found a suitable text, follow these steps:

• •  1. Ask a participant to screen share the article.
  • 2. Highlight the whole first paragraph in a colour and ask the group to read the paragraph – either as a group or individually, your choice.
  • 3. Then, ask them if there are any words/ phrases which they’re unsure of and “un-highlight” them.

• 4. Ask whether they could understand the paragraph even without this word or phrase, based on the context.
• 5. Continue in this way until you finish the article.
• 6. Go back to the top of the article and now look at the vocab which they were unsure of; there’s lots you can do here, eg, ask if they think they can explain the word.
• 7. Once they know what the word is, you can expand on the word family, add prefixes or suffixes, synonyms or antonyms, etc.
• 8. Finally, check stress and intonation.

I then emphasise to the group how many words and phrases they really know (by the amount of highlighted text!).
After the lesson, I run the words and phrases from the text through ChatGPT and ask for a gap-fill exercise (be careful: you always, always, always have to check what ChatGPT spits out!).
Here’s an example of a Goldilocks-inspired gapfill exercise:

I usually start the following lesson with the worksheet, or send it to them as homework.

How to use the Goldilocks Method face-to-face

The Goldilocks Method can be used face-to-face, and the procedure is almost identical. The main difference is that you’ll have to equip each group with a photocopy of the article and coloured highlighter pens.
Then, simply follow these steps:

• 1. Get each student to highlight each word they know as they go through the first paragraph.
• 2. Ask if there are any words that they are unsure of and then continue as above from point 4 onwards.

This method should be engaging and motivating for your learners, because it allows them to expand on existing knowledge while at the same time appreciating how far they have already come.

So enjoy your warm porridge, knowing that good will breed better!

You can find out more about the Goldilocks principle and how it can be applied in the (online) classroom here.

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If you found this article helpful, you may also like this post on gap-fill exercises.