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ISSUE 3/2003  >  Spoken English Classroom English By Olga Mindrul, Moscow State University Classroom English is the English used by a teacher in a classroom situation. It certainly is a language for special purposes which has to be learned especially. Let's have a look at the most interesting and worth memorising words and sentences a teacher may use during a class. Let's imagine we are students sitting in a classroom and a teacher comes in. The following are the most common and typical classroom situations: Greetings. The teacher usually greets his audience and says a few words to establish contact: Good morning. How are you? I hope you are all feeling well. Introduction. If the teacher is new to the audience he will introduce himself: Let me introduce myself. Transition to work. Greetings are followed by an invitation to start working: It's time to start now. Absence. Lateness. One of the first questions at the beginning of a lesson is about the students absent: Who is absent today? Who is missing? Who isn't here? Who was absent last time? Who was away last Friday? Remarks regarding late arrivals may or may not be made depending on the existing cultural tradition. In Britain and The United States of America, for example, it is considered improper to make such remarks in the presence of the other classmates. If the teacher needs to reprimand the late student, it should be done in private, after the class period. Embarrassing a student in front of his/her peers accomplishes nothing of a positive nature and causes a negative attitude on the part of the student so singled out and the rest of the class. Why are you late? Where have you been? Did you oversleep (miss your bus)? What do you say when you are late? Well, sit down and let's get started. Please hurry up and sit down. We've already started. That's all right. Sit down and we can start. Try not to be late next time. Try to be here on time next time. Don't let it happen again. Let this be the last time. That's the second time this week. I'll have to report you if you're late again. Blackboard activity. One of the most typical classroom situation is blackboard activity: Come to the blackboard, please. Go to the board. Go up to the blackboard. Come and write the word on the board. Write it next to/above/below that word. Take a piece of chalk and write the sentence. Here's a piece of chalk. Write it on the board. Try and keep your writing straight (level). Step aside, please, so that the class can see what you have written. Move to one side, please, so that we can all see. Go and fetch some chalk from the office. I've run out of chalk. Would you please go and see if there's any next door. Go and ask Mr Smith for some (pieces of) chalk. Would you go and look for some chalk for me, please. Does anyone know where the chalk is kept? Do you know if there's any coloured chalk? Controlling a class. To control a class when there is noise or lack of attention a teacher would usually say the following: Could I have your attention, please. Not so much noise, please. Silence, please. Get on with your work quietly. Don't keep turning around. Group work. Quite often a teacher would ask a class to work in groups or individually: Work (in twos, threes, etc) (in groups of two, three, etc.) (together with your friends) (in pairs). Get into groups of three. Find a partner. I'll divide the class into groups. Here are some tasks (exercises) for you to work on in groups (pairs) (threes). If individual work is given, the following instructions may be heard: Work on your own/by yourselves/individually. Try to work independently. There is no need to discuss it with your neighbour. No cheating. To stop the work when the time expires, a teacher can say: That will do, thank you. That's enough for now. All right, you can stop now. You will have to stop (finish) in a minute. Your time is up now, I am afraid. Approval and encouragement in teaching is impossible to underestimate, therefore here are some phrases teacher should always use when in class. Good. That's the way. Excellent. That's perfectly correct. That's correct. You've got the idea. Well done. Very fine. Jolly good (Only in England) You made a very good job of that. That's (much) (a lot) better. You are improving. You have made a lot of progress. Not quite right, try it again. You've almost got it. You're half way there. Have a guess if you don't know. Not to worry, it'll improve. What if I give you a clue? I'll help you if you get stuck. In case you feel like criticising a pupil you can say the following: (IN PRIVATE) That wasn't very good. That was rather disappointing. You can do better than that. Ending a class could be signalled by the following sentences: It's almost time to stop. I'm afraid it's time to finish now. We'll have to stop here. There's the bell, so we must stop working now. All right! That's all for today, thank you. That will do for today. You can go now. However, if the students are about to jump up and run but there is still time , the teacher can say: It isn't time to finish yet. The bell hasn't rung yet. There are still two minutes to go. We still have a couple of minutes left. It seems we have two or three minutes more. The lesson isn't supposed to finish until five. Setting homework. This is your homework for tonight (today/next time). For your homework would you do exercise 10 on page 23. Prepare as far as (down to/up to) page 175. Finish this off at home. Do the rest of the exercise as your homework for tonight. You will have to read the last paragraph at home. Saying goodbye. See you again on Tuesday. See you again tomorrow afternoon. Have a good holiday(Christmas)(Easter). Enjoy your holiday. Don't work too hard! I hope you all have a nice vacation.

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