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what they are going to achieve. This especially applies to students
who feel they might be getting into a mess and will never master the
language. The teacher should ask the students what it is their
guarantee states, and how many lessons it tells them they will need
in order to finish the book they are studying. If, for example, it tells
them forty lessons, the teacher should turn to the last page of the
book and say "Right, by this time next month you will be able to
understand and answer this question delivered at top speed - If you
found anything in the street worth a lot of money ... - and that's a
promise, guaranteed by law, so don't worry. The question shows a
good level of English, as it contains the Subjunctive and the
Conditional".
A pep talk
As already pointed out, a great part of the art of teaching lies in the
constant encouraging of students. Every now and then at the end of
a lesson the teacher should give a two-minute pep talk. He should
tell the students not to worry, they are doing fine, even though they
might not think it. Pep talks could even be given each month on a
regular basis.
Work out the student's progress
About every ten lessons the teacher should work out his students'
progress. This is easily done by dividing the number of pages the
students have done by the number of lessons they have studied, or
by dividing the number of pages they have completed in the last 10
lessons by 10: this will give their present speed of learning. The
teacher should tell the students how many pages a lesson they are
covering, how many words they have learnt to date, and how much
longer they will need to reach the end of the book or the level of the
Cambridge certificates. All this is very interesting to the students
and helps spur them on to greater effort, and even to increase their
speed of learning. The teacher should also keep referring the
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students to the Progress Charts in their Student's Books, which
shows them more accurately the progress they can expect to make.
The Callan Method is like a game in which it can be calculated
fairly accurately how long it will take to reach the finishing post -
the prize being constantly shown to the contestants.
Do not use Christian names
The teacher is advised not to call his students by their Christian
names (or forenames). The use of Christian names is certainly nicer
and more friendly, but, as with so many things in teaching, the end
result is infinitely less effective. It is the old problem of familiarity
breeding contempt. It is a well-known fact that a man cannot teach
his wife or son to drive a car, even though he might be a
professional driving-instructor. Students have more respect for a
teacher who behaves as a teacher, i.e. pleasant and friendly, but not
familiar.
The use of a surname when prefaced with Mr or Miss can, in fact,
sound very friendly and slightly humorous to a foreigner's ear. To
understand this the teacher need only imagine what it would sound
like to be called Monsieur or Signore .
The use of Christian names is also very confusing for administrative
purposes. There might be ten different Marios at a school at any one
time or half a dozen Mustafas.
Taking care of the students
The teacher should take great care of each one of his students. If he
sees a student in difficulty because of absenteeism, he should always
arrange for him a lesson of "Ricupero" (i.e. a catching-up lesson)
with the Director. If he sees a student completely out of his depth,
and a lesson or two of "Ricupero" would be an insufficient cure, the
teacher should ask the Director to move the student to another
course. If the student is allowed to stay in the class, the teacher will
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eventually lose him, or perhaps lose two or three other students who
feel they are being held back by the student.
Being pleasant
The teacher is advised to be pleasant at all times to his students, and
not upset in any way the pleasant atmosphere of the school at which
he is working; an atmosphere which is absolutely essential to the
success of the school and to that of the teacher.
Being diplomatic
It is important for the teacher at a private school to treat his students
with great diplomatic delicacy, remembering that they are of a
different country to his own, with different customs, habits, and
ways of thinking. That which might not shock an English person
might horrify or upset a foreigner. The teacher, for example, must
in no way criticise the student's country, or upset his national pride.
He should avoid all mention of politics, religion or sex. The student
is the teacher's customer, and it is a very bad policy to upset one's
customer.
Avoid embarrassing questions
The teacher should, of course, avoid asking certain questions to
certain students. For example, he should not ask a fat student any
question with the word "fat" in it, or a student who perhaps has no
parents, what his father's name is. Such things should be obvious,
but unfortunately some teachers are quite insensitive to a student's
embarrassment, and will even make a class laugh at a student's
expense. At a private school, such a student will disappear, which
means the teacher loses a customer, i.e. a person who helps pay his
wages.
Embarrassing words
Whatever nationality the teacher is teaching, there are almost certain
to be one or two words in English which sound like embarrassing
vulgar words in the students' own language. Any questions in the
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Method which contain such words can be modified by the teacher or
excluded from the question-answer work where possible.
Students do not complain to the teacher
Unfortunately for a school, the students do not complain to the
teacher about anything that upsets them; on the contrary, they are
always very friendly and smiling towards him; after all he is their
teacher. Consequently, they are a little afraid of him. The students [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]