1. Fun, Interesting, and Useful

Paul’s teaching philosophy is based on the idea that, firstly, the teacher must be both a teacher and an entertainer — i.e. the teacher must do their best to make the classes interesting and enjoyable for the students while at the same time making sure the students are mastering the skills and the content needed to move them forward with the language to the next level. There is nothing worse for the students than a boring and uninteresting teacher.

2. Know Your Students & Their Levels

Secondly, a teacher must not only know their students, but also know precisely where the students are with the language. This is very important — and it is essential to do some initial placement testing in order to pinpoint the students’ levels — based on the CEFR (Common European Framework for Referencing Languages) or some other similar measurement matrix like WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment), which is used in the American school system. (The Oxford Online Placement Test is an easy and efficient test to use and that will give one a quick idea of where the student is with regards to the CEFR.)

Third, once the students’ approximate levels have been determined or pinpointed with reliable and valid testing instruments, instruction must be targeted to within these levels — what is called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Most ESL/EFL textbooks — as well as Graded Readers — are now aligned with the CEFR — or the Common European Framework for Referencing. When the teaching is aligned with the CEFR, the learning will be more efficient.

Fourth, teaching should involve not only the teacher explaining grammar and vocabulary, but the students using the language to communicate as much as possible (via what is called the Communicative Approach) where students focus on (1) meaning, (2) form, and (3) usage. One format many teachers use is what is called “PPP” — or Presentation, Practice, and Production. The teacher presents the material, the students practice it, and then the teacher checks to make sure that the students are able to produce the material. Usually the practice phase will move from highly controlled activities to more free-flow communicative activities.

Fifth, students need to learn the language via what are called the four skills — Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing — as they are intertwined and reinforce each other — together with learning about vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This should not be done via meaningless rote memorization, but rather through meaningful communicative communication with use of all four skills together under a topical syllabus.

Sixth, the teacher needs to make sure that the students are mastering the material — i.e., via Mastery Learning — at each level before moving onto the next level. Often teachers will try to move through the textbook as quickly as possible — only “covering” the material — without letting the students actually learning anything. Teachers need to be constantly aware of what their students can and cannot do at each stage of the learning process, which is why it is essential that they are engaging in both ongoing informal and formal formative assessment together with the act of teaching as well as summative assessment in the form of quizzes at the end of each unit, and tests after textbook sections, and exams in the middle and at the end of semesters.

Seventh, the students must over-practice and over-learn the material in order to master it. This will lead to automaticity with the language, i.e., it becoming automatic like driving a car. Mastery leads to the feeling of self-efficacy, essential to learning a language. Unfortunately, what many teachers do is try to go through and cover as much material as possible in a class which results in the students learning very little and having even less self-efficacy.

Eighth, the teacher needs to focus the students’ attention — as has been outlined by Caleb Gattegno (founder of the Silent Way approach) on developmental aspects of the language that they have not mastered yet, but are ready to master based on an attuned teachers understanding of their developmental second language acquisition levels. Teachers can become aware of these by listening to their students — what they are getting right and what they are getting wrong, and knowing when and how to intervene.

Ninth, students need ample “Comprehensible Input + 1” (CI+1). In other words, they need to constantly be exposed to language that is just slightly above their development levels. This can be provided via Extensive Reading practice using “Graded Readers,” which are books that have been written (similar to “Leveled Readers” for native speaker children) for non-native English speakers — and also via the watching of TV programs at each of their developmental levels.

He also firmly believes that teachers must address what the educational psychologist, James Raffini, has termed students’ “psychoacademic needs” with regards to motivation:

(1) their needs for autonomy,

(2) their needs for competence,

(3) their needs for self-esteem,

(4) their needs for belonging and relatedness, and

(5) their needs for involvement and stimulation.

Moreover, following Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership, he believes that the teacher is a leader who must

(1) inspire,

(2) coach,

(3) create a team spirit,

(4) allow for democracy in the classroom, and

(5) set a proper pace for learning.