Implementing Demand-High ELT
Inspired by Jim Scrivener & Adrian Underhill
This session created by Steve Brown
Possible aims of this session
To change the face of
ELT as we know it
Higher Demand
To convince participants
of low demand in current
ELT practice
Lower Demand
To make
participants
reflect on their
own teaching
To stir things up
a bit
To motivate
participants to demand
more highly of students
To expose
participants to
alternative
teaching
techniques
Questions raised by Demand-High ELT
• Are our learners capable of more, much
more?
• Have the tasks and techniques we use in the
class become rituals and ends in themselves?
• How can we stop “covering” material and
focus on the potential for deep learning?
• How can we shift the whole focus of our
teaching towards getting that engine of
learning going?
Good teaching practice?
• The teacher writes a lesson plan.
• The teacher gives equal attention to all students.
• The teacher uses whole class feedback to ensure all
students have achieved the previous task.
• Lessons have a lively pace with lots of studentstudent interaction.
• One of the teacher’s roles is to provide correct
models of the language.
• Teachers are there to provide support to students
when asked.
Good practice or Demand-low?
• The teacher writes a lesson plan.
• The teacher gives equal attention to all students.
• The teacher uses whole class feedback to ensure
all students have achieved the previous task.
• Lessons have a lively pace with lots of studentstudent interaction.
• One of the teacher’s roles is to provide correct
models of the language.
• Teachers are there to provide support to students
when asked.
The teacher focuses on one student
for a period of 2-3 minutes during
open-class.
• “Working one-to-one can be very precise…but
you can harvest that learning yield for all the
others in a group.” (Adrian Underhill)
Students sit in silence, working alone,
for up to 20 minutes.
• The many benefits of silence:
– Pre-task preparation.
– Writing tasks (when do people ever write in
groups?).
– Post-task reflection.
The teacher doesn’t plan a lesson.
• Stops the teacher focusing on a pre-set
agenda.
• Teachers can then focus on responding to
learning moments as they are happening.
• What actually happens is more important that
what the teacher wants to happen.
The teacher deliberately writes the
wrong answer on the whiteboard.
• Stops students merely waiting for the right
answers.
• Students have to convince the teacher,
thereby justifying their answers.
A student provides the correct answer.
The teacher asks the student to
improve on it.
• A “correct” answer is not necessarily the best
answer.
• How much more is that student capable of?
The teacher gets the students to
manage whole class feedback.
• Taking the teacher out of the equation forces
the answers out of the students.
• Students have to justify their answers to each
other.
• Promotes authentic, meaningful interaction.
An activity designed to take 15
minutes lasts for 90 minutes.
• Avoids “skimming the surface”.
• Materials can be fully exploited.
• Activities may have additional aims to those
they were intended for.
The teacher leaves the room.
• Sends out a message of trust.
• Enforces learner autonomy.
• They aren’t going to wreck the place (are your
expectations of them so low?)
Post-task, the teacher only focuses on
wrong answers.
• Mistakes are key to learning.
• Students need to understand why they are
getting something wrong to help them to get
it right.
Students start asking questions
unrelated to the lesson. The teacher
answers them and the lesson goes off
in a completely different direction.
• It’s their lesson, not yours.
• If this is what they are ready to learn, this is what
you need to teach.
• Critical learning moments should be exploited,
not brushed aside.
(Which) Aims Achieved?
To change the face of
ELT as we know it
Higher Demand
To convince participants
of low demand in current
ELT practice
Lower Demand
To make
participants
reflect on their
own teaching
To stir things up
a bit
To motivate
participants to demand
more highly of students
To expose
participants to
alternative
teaching
techniques
Further reading
• http://demandhighelt.wordpress.com
• http://stevebrown70.wordpress.com