Giving Instructions
That Land

You explained it. You explained it again, more slowly and rather louder. Half the room still does not know what to do, and you are now three minutes into an activity that was supposed to take eight. Saying it a third time is the natural response, and it is the one thing that reliably makes it worse.

你講解過了。你又講了一次，慢一點、而且大聲了一些。半個班還是不知道要做什麼， 而原本只該花八分鐘的活動已經耗掉三分鐘。再講第三次是最自然的反應，也是唯一一個必然讓情況更糟的做法。

Section 01Your instructions are the hardest English in the lesson

Everything else you say in class is supported. The vocabulary is on the board, the story has pictures, the dialogue is repeated four times. Your instructions have none of that. They are unpredictable, they are said once, they contain words you never pre-taught (fold, swap, underline, in pairs, the person behind you), and they arrive at the exact moment when attention is lowest — during a transition, while people are still turning around.

你在課堂上說的其他每一句話都有支撐。字彙寫在黑板上、故事有圖、對話重複四次。 你的指令什麼支撐都沒有：它無法預測、只說一次、裡面全是你從沒教過的詞 （fold、swap、underline、in pairs、the person behind you）， 而且它出現的時間點正好是注意力最低的時候——在轉換之間，大家還在轉身。

So the honest way to think about an instruction is not "an explanation before the activity". It is a listening comprehension test that the whole activity depends on passing. Design it like one.

所以看待指令最誠實的方式，不是「活動前的說明」，而是 一場整個活動成敗都繫於它的聽力測驗。就照這個方式去設計它。

Section 02Six rules that do almost all the work

1. One instruction at a time. A three-part instruction in a second language becomes a one-part instruction: they do the first part, or the last, and then look up. Give step one, let them do it, then give step two. 一次一個指令。三個步驟的指令，用第二語言講出來就會變成一個步驟：他們做第一個、或做最後一個，然後抬頭看你。先給第一步，讓他們做完，再給第二步。
2. Verb first, and short. "Open your book to page 42." Not "OK everyone, so what I'd like you to do now, if you could, is open up your books…" — by the time the verb arrives, the sentence is already too long to hold. 動詞開頭，句子要短。「Open your book to page 42.」而不是「OK everyone, so what I'd like you to do now, if you could, is…」——等動詞出現的時候，這個句子已經長到記不住了。
3. Get silence before you speak, not during. Talking over noise teaches the class that your voice is background noise. Wait, or use one fixed signal, every single time. 先安靜再開口，不要邊吵邊講。在吵鬧中講話，等於在教全班「你的聲音是背景音」。等，或者用一個固定的信號，每一次都用同一個。
4. Show it instead of saying it again. Do one round with a single student at the front. Thirty seconds of demonstration beats two minutes of explanation, and it works for the children whose English is weakest — which is precisely the group that a third explanation never reaches. 用示範代替再講一次。找一個學生在前面做一輪。示範三十秒勝過講解兩分鐘，而且對英語最弱的孩子有效——那正是「講第三次」永遠救不到的那一群。
5. Put four words on the board. "1. Read. 2. Ask 3 people. 3. Write." A student who lost the thread can rejoin without putting a hand up, and your co-teacher can point at it instead of re-explaining. 在黑板上留四個字。「1. Read　2. Ask 3 people　3. Write」。跟丟的學生可以不用舉手就自己接回來，協同老師也可以用指的，不必重講一次。
6. Check by asking, not by asking. This is the next section, because it is the one everybody gets wrong. 用提問確認，但不是用那一種提問——這是下一節的主題，因為所有人都會弄錯這一點。

Section 03Stop asking "Do you understand?"

It is the most common question in the room and it produces no information whatsoever. Three reasons, and all three are stronger in a Taiwanese classroom than in the one you trained in:

這是教室裡最常出現的問題，而它提供的資訊量是零。三個理由，而且每一個在台灣的教室裡都比你受訓時的教室更強烈：

• Saying "no" in front of the class costs face. Nobody will spend that to save you thirty seconds. 在全班面前說「不懂」是要付面子的。沒有人會為了替你省三十秒而付這個代價。
• They do not know what they do not know. A child who misheard "swap" as "stop" is quite certain they understood. 他們不知道自己不知道。把 swap 聽成 stop 的孩子，非常確定自己聽懂了。
• "Yes" is the polite reflex to any teacher question that ends with a rising tone. 對任何用上揚語調結尾的老師提問，「Yes」是最有禮貌的反射動作。

Replace it with a question that has a wrong answer: "Tell me — what are you going to do first?" Ask one student. If they can say it, the instruction landed. If they cannot, you have found out in five seconds instead of in four minutes, and you have found out before twenty-something children start doing the wrong thing.

換成一個「會有錯誤答案」的問題：「告訴我，你第一步要做什麼？」 點一個學生。他說得出來，指令就到位了；說不出來，你在五秒內就知道了，而不是四分鐘之後—— 而且是在二十幾個孩子開始做錯事之前就知道。

Section 04Use your co-teacher on purpose

Your co-teacher will translate your instructions. That is going to happen whether or not you plan for it, so plan for it — and notice that this is one of the smallest, most concrete proposals available for the conversation chapter 3 of the co-teaching pack asks you to open.

你的協同老師會把你的指令翻成中文。這件事無論你有沒有預先安排都會發生，所以就把它安排進去—— 而且要注意，這正是協同教學第三章 要你開啟的那場對話裡，最小、最具體的一個提案。

Nothing is taken away from your co-teacher in that version — they still translate, and the class still understands. What changes is the order, and the order is the whole point: the English gets a chance to work before the Chinese arrives to rescue it.

這個版本沒有從協同老師身上拿走任何東西——他照樣翻譯，全班照樣聽懂。改變的只是順序， 而順序就是重點：讓英語有機會先發揮作用，中文再進來救援。

Section 05Three sentences to take into next week

1. An instruction is a listening test the activity depends on passing. Give one step at a time, verb first. 指令是一場「整個活動成敗都繫於它」的聽力測驗。一次一步，動詞開頭。
2. Never ask "Do you understand?" Ask one student what they will do first. 絕對不要問「你們懂了嗎？」。點一個學生問他第一步要做什麼。
3. Demonstrate instead of repeating. Thirty seconds of showing reaches the children a third explanation never will. 用示範取代重講。三十秒的示範，能接觸到「講第三次」永遠接觸不到的那些孩子。