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Understanding1Section

the LINC Classroom

INTRODUCTION: THE LINC CLASSROOM .................................................. 1 – 3

THEORIES & APPROACHES IN SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING .................... 1 – 4

WHAT COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING LOOKS LIKE ...................... 1 – 5

“THE ADULT ESL LEARNER” BY JOANNE MILLARD .................................. 1 – 7

FURTHER RESOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING THE LINC CLASSROOM

3Understanding the LINC Classroom 1PageSection

Introduction: The LINC Classroom

Our expectations about what should be happening in a classroom are largely determinedby our own experiences as students. However, most adults today have not had experiencewith the Communicative Approach to teaching language, which is the approach espoused bythe LINC program. In order to make an informed assessment about whether the classroompractice we observe in our LINC programs is appropriate, we need to understand the under-lying approach, and how it may differ from our own experiences and assumptions, or thoseof the instructor or learners.

It is also important to understand the ’why’ behind the ’what,’ so that we can explain tolearners, who may be initially uncomfortable with a communicative approach, how theclassroom activities which might appear to them to be games, and not serious study, are actu-ally carefully designed to improve their ability to communicate in English.

The Canadian Language Benchmarks, the descriptive framework underlying assessment,placement, and curriculum in the LINC program, is based on a very specific set of theories andprinciples relating to language and language learning*. The LINC Curriculum Guidelines (LINC 1

– 5) for Ontario, published in 2002, translates the theory into a practical guide to classroominstruction. LINC coordinators, and not instructors only, should make themselves familiar withthe Overview, ’How to Use,’ Planning, Evaluation, and Level Outcomes sections of this document,so that they can monitor the extent to which their programs are providing a high quality lan-guage learning experience for their clients. Portions of these sections are reproduced here foryour reference.

At the heart of a successful LINC program, is the clients’ success in learning English. Thismeans that the coordinator must be familiar with what goes on in the classrooms, and be ableto make determinations as to whether it is appropriate. This can be especially difficult for coor-dinators with no formal TESL training. The objective of this section, and the accompanyingvideos and checklist, is to give you the knowledge and tools to effectively observe, understand,and evaluate what is going on in your LINC classrooms.

* These are described in detail in the document: Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000: TheoreticalFramework, (2002), by Grazyna Pawlikowska-Smith. It can be found on the website of the Centre forCanadian Language Benchmarks, at:

http://www. language.ca

1 ... the LINC Classroom UNDERSTANDING LINC1 UNDERSTANDING LINC4SectionPage

Approach Grammar-translation Audio-lingual Communicative

Who ● German academics● structural linguists● behavioural psychologists

(Skinner)

● British sociolinguists● American applied

linguists

When mid-1840’s to present 1950’s - 1970’s 1970’s - 1990’s

Whya) Theory of

language

● historical/comparativelinguistics

● “universal grammar”underlying all languages

● descriptive linguistics● language = system● language is fundamentally

oral

● language = communicativecompetence

● language = interaction

b) Theory of learning

● no coherent theory –related to analysis oflogical principles ofgrammar

● "good mental discipline"

● behaviourism, stimulus-response

● language learning = habitformation through ’over-learning,’ reinforce good &eliminate bad habits

● cognitive psychology● language acquisition research● importance of meaning and of

learning process

c) Goal● translate and understand

literary texts:MASTERY

● understand and produceaccurate oral utterances with-out recourse to translation:

ACCURACY

● negotiate meaning for one’sown purposes:

FLUENCY

How

a)Learner role

● read● translate● listen● repeat

● listen ● repeat● memorize

● listen, acquire● think, form hypotheses● experiment, learn from mis-

takes ● engage in interaction

b) Teacher role● present grammar● correct errors● mark work

● model correct language● present carefully structured

curriculum● prevent errors

● analyze needs, plan curriculum● provide comprehensible input● facilitate learning, givefeedback

c) Class activities

● dictation● memorizing● reading● lecture

● dialogue memorizationand practice

● choral drills● language labs

● interaction in pairs andgroups

● practice with real-life content● cooperative problem-solving● participative decision-making

Applicableadult

learningprinciples

● allows for self-directedlearning

● ’known’ to mostschooled adults; safe,familiar

● suits analytical, visuallearners

● much opportunity for rep-etition and practice

● c lear, incrementalprogress

● suits global, auditorylearners

● taps adults’ motivation, experi-ence

● ensures relevancy of what islearned

● allows for learning at one’sown pace

● balance of activities for allstyles

Theories & Approaches in Second

Language Teaching

What Communicative Language

Teaching Looks Like

Principle What It Looks Like

1. We use language to communicate meaning.

In the ESL class, students and teachers exchange realinformation and opinions in class activities. They useadult materials that reflect the authentic languageuse of native speakers of English.

2. We use language in real contexts, to accomplishcertain functions and tasks.

In the classroom, learners practise using the lan-guage in real-life communication tasks. Their abilityto use the language is assessed in terms of how wellthey can accomplish these tasks (e.g. understandinstructions, invite someone, take a phone message)

3. The goal of language teaching is to developcommunicative competence, which consists of:Linguistic competence: - learners will know thegrammar, vocabulary and pronunciationDiscourse competence: - learners will be able touse the language coherently and logically in dif-ferent contexts (having a conversation, writing aletter, listening to the news)Functional competence: - learners will be ableto understand the intent of a communication (tobuild a relationship, to impart information)Socio-cultural competence: - learners will beable to use the language appropriately for differ-ent social and cultural situationsStrategic competence: - learners will be able touse strategies to understand and to make them-selves understood (gesturing, paraphrasing)

The vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation ofEnglish is taught, in the context of enabling learnersto perform communication tasks. Learners are taught to recognize and use the differ-ent formats and genres within which communicationis structured (informal conversation, formal lecture,formatted text such as schedules, recipes, and forms;prose text such as newspaper articles). Learners are taught the idioms and cultural nuancesthat enable them to discern how and for what pur-pose a given communication is being used.Lesson plans, activities, and materials are based onthe LINC Curriculum Guidelines and the CanadianLanguage Benchmarks, which have been designed tohelp develop all of these aspects of communicativecompetence, at each level.

4. We learn language primarily through a process ofmaking hypotheses, testing them, and revisingthem.

Learners spend a lot of time in the classroom inter-acting with one another, and with the teacher. Theteacher sets up activities that allow learners to exper-iment but to feel ’safe’ while doing so. Learners aretaught to recognize the language learning strategiesthat they and others use, and to develop more.

5Understanding the LINC Classroom 1PageSection

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What Communicative Language Teaching Looks Like

Principle What It Looks Like

5. The purposes for which the students need touse language should drive the curriculum.

Teachers conduct needs analyses to find out whattheir learners need to use the language for, andorganize teaching units around topics / themes thatreflect learner interests and needs. The teacher usesthe students’ experiences and concerns as the basisfor classroom activities.

6. Learners will likely learn the language at differ-ent rates and in somewhat different sequences.

Teachers ’cycle,’ or ’spiral’ their teaching, returningto / reviewing language points in different themesthroughout the course.

7. Accuracy of grammar and pronunciation isimportant, to the extent that the lack of it pre-vents people from making themselves under-stood.

Grammar and pronunciation lessons are taught inthe context of a real-life task, theme, or situation.They are both planned for, and taught ’as theycome up.’ The focus of grammar and pronunciation practiceactivities is on communicating real information, notjust rehearsing forms.

8. Language and culture are inextricably inter-related.

Time in class is spent becoming aware of culturalassumptions, and in learning Canadian culturalnorms, so that learners can make informed deci-sions about how they will communicate.

9. Learners have different cultures, linguistic back-grounds, educational experiences, learningstyles, motivation, aptitude, and personality fac-tors such as confidence, self-esteem, and will-ingness to take risks. All of these influence theirlanguage learning.

Lessons contain a variety of activities, allowing workas individuals, in pairs, groups, and with the wholeclass. Instructions are given in a variety of ways(orally, in writing, acted out). Learners are given some choice in the activities theyparticipate in, the materials they use, or languagethat they produce. An atmosphere of mutualrespect and acceptance of differences is cultivatedby the teacher through explicit activities as well asin the general atmosphere.

1 UNDERSTANDING LINCSection

UNDERSTANDING LINC ... the LINC Classroom 1 7Understanding the LINC Classroom 1PageSection

The Adult ESL Teacher

by Joanne Millard

Article reprinted from Understanding the ESL Classroom: Training for LINCProject Officers in Ontario, Ontario Settlement Directorate, CIC, 1994

The BrainOne theory accounts for children’s

seemingly painless mastery of secondlanguages in terms of the maturation ofthe brain. Our capacity for language,along with other cognitive functions suchas linear, sequential processing, are locat-ed on the left side of the brain. Othercapacities, such as spatial relations andthe ability to process information global-ly, are located on the right. The localiza-tion of the processes in either half of thebrain seems to become ’set’ at aroundpuberty. There is greater communicationin processing between the two hemi-spheres before puberty than after. It ispossible that the greater ability of chil-dren to draw on their ’right-brain’ learn-ing capacities contributes to their successin certain aspects of language learning.

Adults, either because of the waythey have been schooled or because ofthe way their brains more naturallyprocess linguistic information, tend notto use, or not be able to use, their ’right-brain’ capacity to the same extent in lan-guage learning. For this reason, the peri-od before puberty has been called a ’crit-ical period’ for language learning.

The application of the ’critical period’theory is reflected in the types of activi-

Adult Second Language LearningIt is often noted that young children

seem to have very little difficulty learn-ing a new language. They seem to just’pick it up,’ almost without trying.Whereas children frequently achievenative-speaker-like pronunciation in theirsecond language, adults very seldom do.Frustrated adult learners can be very jeal-ous of this seemingly age-related gift.There have been a number of theoriesput forward and debated to account forthis. They include theories based on cog-nitive development, learning environ-ments, first language learning, and moti-vation. There are also a number of obvi-ous differences relating to life experi-ence, need, and capacity for self-directed-ness, that have implications for differ-ences in the way that adults and childrenshould be taught.

All learners, as well, whether adultsor children, have individual learningstyles, strategies and personality factorsthat will affect their progress and shouldbe taken into account in planning andactivities. In this section, the special char-acteristics of adults as language learnerswill be discussed, along with implicationsof these for the adult ESL classroom.


1 UNDERSTANDING LINC8SectionPage

ties that occur in children’s, versus adults’classes. In traditional-style adult classes,there tend to be more ’left-brain’ types ofactivities: lecture, memorizing and ana-lyzing, conscious concentrating on whatis to be learned. There tend to be fewer ofthe ’right-brain’ type of activities that maybe observed in good elementary class-rooms: games, music, visual displays, proj-ect work, and personal interaction. Inorder to enable adults to more fully utilizetheir whole capacity for language learning,ESL teachers should be encouraging thelatter type of activity more rather than less.

First Language LearningThe level of competence in vocabu-

lary and grammar that is required for asix-year-old to sound like a native speakerof English, can actually be attained by anadult in a very short period of time. It isnot enough, however, for an adult to goon communicating at the level of a sixyear old; the types of discourse expectedfrom adults are significantly more com-plex. The six-year-old ESL learner hasanother twelve years to learn to managethe language like an adult; most adults areable attain that competence in a muchshorter time. Where adults tend to be lesssuccessful is in the area of accent and pro-nunciation. This can be partly explainedby looking at the order in which we learnaspects of our first language.

The rhythm of the language, its tones,stress patterns, and basic sounds, areinternalized by babies before they beginto comprehend and produce specificsounds. These in turn are acquired beforeitems of vocabulary, which come beforegrammatical accuracy. This early, uncon-

sciously internalized sense of what’sounds right’ in terms of rhythms, tones,and sounds, seems to become more diffi-cult to unlearn and replace at will byanother system, the older a person gets.

This has implications for the waygoal-setting and the teaching of pronunci-ation are handled in the ESL class. Theteacher must help adult learners to setrealistic goals. It will probably not be pos-sible for them to completely ’lose theiraccent,’ even if they achieve native-speak-er-like mastery of English in every otherrespect. However, adults’ pronunciationcan be helped by early attention, from themost basic level, to teaching English pat-terns of rhythm, intonation, and syllableand sentence stress.

Accurate pronunciation should beincorporated into a whole context of com-municating meaningfully, and the focus ofpronunciation efforts should be in thoseareas where inaccurate pronunciationmight affect a person’s ability to beunderstood.

Acquisition and learningAnother factor that can partly account

for the difference between child and adultlanguage learning is the often differentenvironments in which the learning tendsto take place. Much of children’s learningoccurs on the playground or throughinteraction peers, in an ’informal’ envi-ronment. Adults, however, tend to pursuelanguage learning through ’formal’ learn-ing environments such as classes, self-study tape kits, and heavy reliance onbilingual dictionaries.

There is also a difference between’acquisition’ of a language: ’just picking it



up,’ as we do with our first language, andconscious ’learning’ of a language’svocabulary, rules, and sounds. Informalenvironments tend to be associated withacquisition, and formal environmentswith learning, although every successfullanguage learner ultimately uses bothmodes.

An adult ESL classroom is, by defini-tion, a formal environment. It is possible,however, for a teacher to provide ’acqui-sition-enhancing’ activities that willallow learners to absorb some Englishwithout necessarily being required toproduce it right away. Many teachers dothis by allowing, at the basic level, forlearners to spend a lot of time listeningbefore they are required to begin produc-ing language. Acquisition can also beencouraged by involving learners in infor-mal discussions where accuracy of expres-sion is not the most important thing.

MotivationYet another explanation for children’s

success compared to adults’ is the natureof their motivation to learn a language.One factor in the speed with which chil-dren start to sound like their schoolfriends is that a high priority for them isto be like their school friends; to beaccepted, to integrate. Adults, on theother hand, tend as a rule to be motivat-ed by ’instrumental’ considerations –knowing the language will enable themto do. Far from wanting to integrate andbecome like speakers of English, theymay be ambivalent about English-speak-ing culture, or be concerned about pre-serving their own.

Some sociolinguists believe that the’integrative’ motivation that tends tocharacterize children, is an indicator ofgreater success in language learning thanadults’ ’instrumental’ motivation. Otherspoint out that some adults’ ’instrumental’motivation can be stronger than chil-dren’s ’integrative’ motivation, especiallyin the short term. Once enough languagehas been mastered to meet the immediateneeds, however, many adults will tendnot to progress to a native-speaker com-petence level without the extra ’integra-tive’ motivation.

Adult ESL teachers need to capitalizeon both the type and degree of theirlearners’ motivation. The content,resources, and activities chosen shouldmatch the source of the learners’ motiva-tion, whether it is to understand theirgrandchildren, enter the labour force, orfeel less bewildered by signs and soundsin the community.

Teachers must also keep learners’motivation high by organizing activitiesthat are intrinsically interesting, chal-lenging, and at the right level. Teachersmay also assist adults to overcome anyresistance they may feel toward English-speaking culture by including discussionof culture as part of the curriculum.

Need for relevanceThe immediate and pressing ’instru-

mental’ motivation that makes adults, onthe whole, so much more attentive andcooperative students than children, canbe directly related to their situation inlife. Adults cannot afford to spend a lot oftime building up linguistic knowledge



before it becomes useful and relevant.They need to leave the first class havinglearned something they can use, in orderto feel that it is worth their time to returnto the second class. Because in the nor-mal course of things, adults have so manydemands on their time, and becauseimmigrants face the additional pressuresof culture shock, income change, home-sickness, and family stress, learningEnglish is not their only, or necessarilytheir first, priority. What they learn mustbe immediately relevant, and useful forhelping them with their other problems.

The adult ESL teacher must take thisneed for relevance into account whenselecting themes, organizing activities, andchoosing materials. A guiding questionshould be, “What will my learners be ableto go out into the community and do afterthis lesson, that they couldn’t do before?”

Life ExperienceAn advantage that adult learners have

over children is the wealth of life experi-ence that they bring with them to theclassroom. The teacher cannot assumethat the students are there as empty ves-sels, to be ’filled up’ with English.Instead, the teacher must find out about,capitalize on, and plan according to theexperience and knowledge represented inthe class. It is necessary to conduct on-going needs assessments, select themesand topics on this basis, and consult reg-ularly with he learners as to whether thecourse is meeting their needs. The choiceof content should reflect and honourtheir experience. Adults who compari-son-shop between three major grocerychains on a weekly basis, don’t need to

be taught how to shop in a supermarket. Activities should allow adult learners

to express their experience, as in sharingtips on diet and exercise, or telling aboutjob-related skills. The factor of adults’ lifeexperience also affects the teacher / stu-dent relationship. It requires an equaliza-tion of the power base in the classroom.The teacher, while the acknowledgedexpert in English, cannot presume toexercise the same type of authority overstudents as with younger learners.

Self EsteemBoth children and adults need to be

encouraged, feel secure and unthreat-ened, and be given plenty of opportuni-ties for success, in order to learn. Adults,however, often come to the classroomwith solidly ingrained low self esteemwhen it comes to learning, or to languagelearning, particularly if they have had lit-tle schooling, a bad experience, or a longabsence from school.

The learning of another languagerequires that adults go through times inwhich they may feel that they sound fool-ish, or like a child, and this can be veryhard for some adults to take. It is there-fore doubly important that the ESL classbe a non-threatening, friendly environ-ment in which learners can get to knowone another well enough to feel comfort-able making mistakes; this will requireactivities that promote trust-buildinginteraction and allow learners to sharesomething of themselves. It also requiresthe teacher to plan for language growthin small steps in which some measure ofsuccess can be seen at an early stage.

Almost all adult learners underesti-



mate the time and effort that it will taketo become proficient in English. Theyneed to receive frequent feedback thatallows them to see how much progressthey have made. The teacher must there-fore practise ongoing assessment in avariety of non-threatening ways. The goalof such assessment should be to assist thelearner by providing helpful feedback,rather than to rate their progress in com-parison to others or to external criteria.Self-directedness in learning

Another advantage adult learnershave over children is their capacity forself-directedness. Many adults knowwhat they need and want, and theyexpect the teacher to consider this in thecourse delivery. Teachers of ESL to adultsmust, therefore, involve their learners inthe planning of their own learning expe-rience – from choosing or prioritizingthemes, to deciding on coffee break tim-ing, to allowing for options within activi-ties. Of course, some adults will be moreself-directed than others, but all shouldbe encouraged in this direction.

Individual DifferencesThere are important individual differ-

ences that affect children and adults aslearners in much the same way. Teachersneed to be aware of how personality fac-tors, learning styles, and learning strate-gies will be likely to affect individuals’progress, as well as class dynamics.Individual differences can be the sourceof much richness in classroom activities,and to ignore, or fail to accommodatethem, would lead to an impoverishedclassroom environment for both teacherand learners.

Personality FactorsSome individual learning differences

have to do with personality factors.Performance anxiety related to languagelearning, and anxiety resulting fromother life stresses, may be experienced toa greater or lesser degree by all learners.Some learners can tolerate not being ableto understand much of what is going on;others have a much greater need tounderstand or have everything translat-ed. Learners will also vary in terms ofrisk-taking ability. There will be differentdegrees of willingness and ability to par-ticipate in cooperative activities, or incompetitive games.

The most successful language learneris likely to be the one who is highly moti-vated, experiences a low level of anxiety,has a healthy self-esteem in relation tolearning, has a moderate level of toler-ance for not understanding, and is notafraid to take risks. However, the averageclass will not be full of this kind of per-son, and the teacher must set up thelearning situation in such a way as toaccommodate differences in individuallearners, and to enable them to beaddressed, at different times, in bothpresentation style and practice activities.

Learning StylesThere will also be a variety of learn-

ing styles represented in a typical class ofESL adults. Many different typologiesand ways to describe learning styles havebeen developed by educationalresearchers. Examples of learning stylepreferences include: whether a personlearns better by seeing, hearing, or doing;whether they prefer to analyze things or



grasp the whole picture; whether theylike to reflect on their own or others’experience, hear the facts from an expert,learn by experimenting and practising, orchange the rules and dream up their owninterpretations of things. Most peoplehave a tendency toward one particularmode or style, but all people have thecapacity to learn in their less-preferredstyles, as well.

No one learning style is ’better’ forlanguage learning success than any other.The adult ESL teacher must be aware ofhis or her own learning style and how itis likely to influence teaching style. Theteacher must also be careful to plan avariety of activities that will enable alllearners to learn according to their pre-ferred style at least some of the time.

Learning StrategiesLearners will also use a variety of lan-

guage learning strategies. Some may bevery conscious of the strategies they useto learn vocabulary, practise pronuncia-tion, etc. Others will have only a vagueawareness of the strategies that theycould be employing, both in class andoutside it, to improve the quality or thespeed of their language learning. Therenow exist several good resources forteachers to help their learners becomemore aware of the strategies they coulduse, and to integrate the practise and dis-cussion of them into the class, so that alllearners grow in their ability to takeresponsibility for their own learning.

Conflicting ExpectationsIt is precisely this last point that

sometimes poses a problem for ESLteachers. Teachers who have been trained

in adult education principles may expecta class of motivated learners with clearlyarticulated needs, goals, and expecta-tions, who wish to participate in classplanning and decision-making, and whodemand choice, autonomy, and accounta-bility. They often find themselves,instead, faced with a class who expect theteacher to know what they need to learn,who have very vague ways of expressingwhy or for what they need English, whodo not seem happy to participate in col-laborative group work, and who expect atraditional, authority-centered grammarlesson. This is because ESL learners, likemost adults, bring their previous experi-ences and preconceptions about schoolwith them to their adult learning situa-tion. If they learned any English inschool, they will very likely expect theirESL class to bear some similarity to thatexperience.

Few adults, whether their schoolingwas in Canada or elsewhere, have muchexperience with educational settings inwhich the adult education principlesdescribed above are practised. The ESLteacher usually has to spend some initialtime balancing between meeting learners’expectations of what a good teacher is,and gradually exposing them to adult edu-cation practises such as shared decision-making, choice in terms of course content,communicative language practise activi-ties, and increased learning autonomy.

Once adult ESL learners ’learn theropes’ of the new approach, they arequick to see its benefits, and to start tobecome more active directors of theirown language learning.

Understanding the LINCClassroom

Further Resources for

EXCERPTS FROM THE LINC CURRICULUM GUIDELINES, LINC 1-5, SEPT. 2002

OVERVIEW: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

GRAMMAR ITEMS

STRATEGIES FOR LEARNERS

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

PLANNING CHECKLISTS

CLASSROOM RESOURCES

“NIGEL’S LESSON” FROM WORKSHOP 1: TEACHING MULTILEVEL CLASSES:PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SERIES FOR ESL TEACHERS. MCARTHUR,LORI LEE & CLARKE, DEBRA. VANCOUVER: CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION

CANADA

ALPHAPLUS LINC DOCUMENTS WEBPAGE – SAMPLE

ALPHAPLUS INDEX TO RESOURCES ON THE WEB – SAMPLE

LINC CLASSROOM OBSERVATION GUIDE

Understanding LINC: LINC Classroom Observation Guide (Rev’d May, 2003) Page 1

The Environment Materials & Tasks The Lesson The Instructor Physical room is a ‘dedicated’

space the whole facility is

available to be used for teaching/learning safe bright/well lit clean temperature comfortable,

well-ventilated no outside distractions appropriate and

adequate furniture for adults spacious enough for

learners and instructor to move around equipment/audio-visual

aids enough board space resources (books,

dictionaries) visually appealing

displays of: o props/realia

related to theme, multicultural items

o useful information about Canada /community

o learners’ work seating plan conducive to:

o learner/learner interaction

o instructor/learner interaction

o different groupings

evidence of planning: e.g. boards clean, aids prepared, charts written, groups assigned evidence of learner

involvement in planning, e.g. list of themes from needs assessment

Materials A variety of types of materials are available, including: realia (real stuff) authentic texts, e.g.

newspapers, magazines, brochures, forms, TV/radio clips ‘pedagogical,’ i.e.

textbooks instructor-created use of blackboard to

record learner input pictures

Characteristics of materials: related to real-life

experience of adults in Canada use learner experiences address different

learning styles level-appropriate multi-level visually stimulating organized and ready to

go creative easy to follow require use of all skills really includes an

information gap support the task

Stages of the Lesson Introduction relates the language

point to communication needs shares agenda,

objectives, taps into learners’

experiences Presentation presents language

points in a real, communicative, context builds on material

learned in previous lessons uses learner examples

and analyses involves learners:

discussing & asking Practice: Controlled & Communicative instructions provided in

writing and modeled steady building up of

tasks, increasing difficulty and independence involves a task,

assignment, project allows for maximum

‘talk time’ for learners Wrap Up/ Discussion/Debrief confirms learner

understanding, progress allows for error

correction focuses on transition to

contact practice outside classroom

Skilled pays equal attention to

the whole class speaks clearly, naturally

and expressively at a speed appropriate to the level focussed, in control uses gestures/body

language to indicate understanding makes eye contact able to bolster learners’

self esteem, give them confidence to take risks draws from learners’

knowledge corrects mistakes in a

non-threatening way, models correct structures takes notes of mistakes

and addresses them later moves about the room,

monitors learner work in a non-intrusive way anticipates needs of

individual learners open to changes, to

learning from learners

Professional organized, prepared appearance

professional, not distracting to adult learners

Understanding LINC: LINC Classroom Observation Guide (Rev’d May, 2003) Page 2

The Environment Materials & Tasks The Lesson The Instructor

Psycho-social Safe, warm, relaxed,

encouraging, informal; evidenced by: instructor and learners

know each others’ names friendly rapport

between instructor and students people are smiling laughter

Cooperative, supportive, interactive; evidenced as learners: support and show

respect for one another by listening when classmates speak, don’t interrupt or put down are willing to work with

multiple partners/groups interact in a friendly

manner are not isolated/grouped

by gender & nationality no learners are taking

over learners focussed and

interested noisy during activities

Tasks Types of tasks include:

open discussion, brainstorming, jigsaws, dialogues, role-plays, presentations, field trips, guest speakers

Characteristics of tasks: relevant to learners’

lives allow learners to

practice the language focus in an authentic context achievable by learners

at all levels in the class allow for independent &

peer correction transferable: requires

the use of functions applicable in other topics draw upon previous

learning and integrate it require communication everyone in the group

has a job to do address both receptive

and productive skills appropriate to learning

styles learners are aware of

the purpose instructions are clear geared to success require finding or

exchanging information, opinions, ideas can be structured as

individual, pairs, small or large groups seasonally relevant

Characteristics of the Lesson there is a plan clear objectives activities reflect

objectives different learning styles

addressed addresses all the levels

present in the class variety of techniques &

activities & groupings interactive and

interesting equal participation of

learners well-organized handout material

relevant covers all 4 skills

Informed aware of difficulties of

adaptation to Canada, understanding aware of learners’

cultural traditions and norms, respectful aware of world issues

that might be affecting learners has conflict resolution

skills thoroughly understands

the point being taught Congenial friendly encouraging has rapport with

learners shows interest in

learners receptive to feedback

from learners, accessible is approachable:

learners feel free to ask questions maintains eye contact smiles

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