TEFL Techniques: My friends the stick men Any good language teacher (or so I have been taught!) should be able to make a lesson out of anything, anywhere. I am coming at this article from the perspective of a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, but this technique is universal. The blackboard, flip chart or white board are the teacher’s principal tool – the student needs to see the words he or she is trying out, to understand the shapes and spelling. Obviously it’s useful for writing lists, times, timetables and ideas, but at a more basic level it’s main inhabitant is my friend, the stick-man! Consider the versatility of a small circle, attached to a vertical line, which in turn is crossed not far below the circle, and at the bottom of which are a couple more lines like the top two lines of a triangle. There’s my man! You know the rest – introduce a triangle and you’ve got his wife. You can use this device for language teaching in so many ways. Basic body words are all there (along with indicating your or the student’s own ‘parts’!), so are a variety of verbs (with a little imagination and a few extra short lines: think about the Olympic sports international symbols for a moment), and so are articles of clothing (give your friend a hat, trousers, shoes etc.), relationships (give the family some children), and even pregnancy, death, sickness, marriage…. The possibilities are as broad as the teacher and student’s imaginations. You don’t need to be an artist at all, the ‘sticks’ are the frameworks for the imagination, and the imagination is where then desire to learn comes from: we teachers need that desire in our students in order for our classes to bear fruit.

Andrew is a qualified TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher, with 15 years experience of the global Automotive Industry as a Sales manager with an International component and systems supplier. For more information about learning English with Andrew at his home in the UK, visit the Lets Talk 2 website. http://lets-talk2.com/_wsn/page2.html