Giving Instructions Effectively

Giving Instructions Effectively

Maggie Healy

After setting your class a task and watching them all get busy doing it, there’s nothing more disheartening than finding out at the feedback stage that one, or perhaps all, gravely misunderstood what they were supposed to do or that someone completed the wrong exercise! The risk of at least one student not being “on task” in any group session is quite likely and this probability seems to grow exponentially with class size. It’s important for us to recognise that, with clear instructions and careful monitoring, we can influence the probability of this occurring and can effectively manage and rectify the situation if it does. After all, one of our most important jobs as teacher is keeping the students on task.

Instructions Analysis – Samples  2011-05-17 – Instructions analysis – worksheet  2011-09-18 – Intructions and ICQs

Instruction giving in the classroom

Instruction giving in the classroom

Rafaela Campo

“I told my students what to do a million times but they all misunderstood my instructions and didn’t do what they were expected to do!” How many times have you said or thought this? How many times have you blamed your students for not getting your instructions instead of thinking if they were clear enough?

The success of many activities depends on good organization and on the students knowing exactly what they have to do. A lot of time can be wasted if the teacher omits to give students vital information and confusing instructions.

This workshop will analyse what makes a good instruction as well as sharing some tried and tested techniques.

 

Giving and Checking Instructions worksheet 1 Giving and checking instructions worsheet 2