Show Don't Tell

It is a well known in fiction writing circles that showing is better than telling. Tell the reader that Harry is a magician and the reader will raise his eyebrows and move onto the next book. Show Harry turning water into wine and let the reader say, "Is he a magician or the new Messiah?" I want to read on, I want to know more! In short, let the reader figure out for themselves and they have more invested in the story. The same applies in the EFL classroom. Tell the students that you use "going to" to talk about future plans and their eyes might glaze over. Show the students the meaning of "going to" by pretending to be a palm reader who can see their future and the'll no doubt be hooked.

I was recently asked to give a self introduction lesson at a junior high school. Junior high students in Japan can be very unforgiving of a lesson burdened with dry facts about a country that was half way around the world and to which they would very likely never visit. I could not imagine standing in front of 40 kids for 50 minutes saying "I'm from England. In England we drink tea. This is a picture of the Queen…yada, yada, yada…" The students would be asleep within minutes. I had to show them something interesting to draw their attention and then make it interactive to give them something to do.


What do junior high school kids like? What did I like at the age of thirteen? TV. Music. TV. TV, TV, TV and more TV.


"That's it!" I thought. "I'll show the kids some classic British TV and then ask them to show me some classic Japanese TV. Cultural exchange at its very best.

Here was my lesson plan:

And here was the worksheet:

The lesson was generally student centered and focused on fluency rather than accuracy. I taught the natural responses in the box first to make sure the communicative aspect was a two way street from the outset, since it is often a problem in mini speeches like this for the listener to be passive.

For students who had "no idea " about a topic to discuss I added some pictures of famous people on the reverse of the worksheet to give them a helping hand, but students were encouraged to offer their own ideas.

It was a success and I had a large number of students wanting to present their own ideas to the class. I will be using this idea as a model for future lessons.