Micro or Macro Teaching?

Are you seeing the big picture?

Just as in economics, there seem to be two main approaches to education.

Micro teaching involves discrete items and lesson plans. Macro teaching, on the other hand, deals with skills, motivation, and long-term goals.

Clearly both are necessary, but it is easy for teachers to focus exclusively on micro education: after all, that is what they have control over and what students and administrators are likely to look at.

For the last couple of years, first with extensive reading and then with discussion courtesy of my collaborator Daniel E, I have been focusing on macro approaches. For certain contexts, particularly ones where students have already spent a lot of time focusing on discrete language, a focus on general language skills, independent study, input , and content works really well.

This year I will be making an effort to try something similar with students at Cambridge English.

The rumoured teacher handbook for teaching discussion classes is also becoming more real day by day. I’ll keep you posted.