Teaching techniques

Asking questions
Asking targeted questions can help learners to pinpoint meaning. Its often a good idea to start with closed questions, which offer a choice, before moving onto more open questions. For example, if you want to check the meaning of I lived in Delhi you could ask:Am I talking about the past, the present or the future? (the past)closed question

Do I live in Delhi now? (no)closed question

Tell me about a place where you lived beforeopen question

Remember that askingWhat does this word mean?can be tricky for lower level learners. Think about howyouwould answer before asking this! Also, if you askDo you understand?it is easy for learners to answer Yes!, but you wontreallyknow unless you check properly. Some learners are reluctant to say when they dont understand something.

Asking learners to demonstrate
Examples: How do you look when you feelinterested?, Point to something which isheavy, Show me what you do when youyawn. Of course, this doesnt work for everything. You could ask individuals or the whole class to demonstrate.

Testing knowledge
Giving learners an exercise to complete is one way of seeing how much they understand. There are lots of options: examples include a matching activity, wordsearch, crossword, writing words for definitions/writing definitions for words. Multiple choice activities probably need to be followed by another way of checking too, as learners may have just guessed! Learners need to be reassured that if they dont know the answers, its OK!

Using images
Displaying an image and asking questions can be a good way to check understanding. For example, you could show a picture of a man in prison and ask What has he done?, to check the present perfect structure. Or simply show a picture of a word you want to check, like ski resort. You could ask younger learners to draw the item you want to check.

Using translation
You could ask learners for a translation, or give a translation and ask for the English word. Of course, not all words or phrases directly translate between languages, so this technique can be problematic. It can be useful for abstract concepts.

If you check understanding and discover that learnersdontunderstand, perhaps you need to think of another way to present meaning, or you need to review something you covered in a previous lesson.